The summer surf is up in Malibu, and that means competing cultures are colliding with more zest than usual: surfers who jealously guard their favorite beaches, locals who want Malibu to remain a West Coast Mayberry and younger celebrities who love to hate their attendant paparazzi.
Case in point: Over the weekend, obscenities, fists and video equipment went flying in two incidents involving paparazzi, celebrities and surfers, capturing the attention of Internet junkies around the world.
The paparazzi -- also fixtures in Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Brentwood and West Hollywood -- say they are just doing their job and insist that some younger celebrities such as Matthew McConaughey, whose surf outing first drew the crush of paparazzi to Malibu on Saturday, welcome the attention. But many Malibu locals resent seeing hordes of photographers, who frequently sell their shots and videos to websites such as tmz.com and X17online.com, stake out their favorite haunts. They say the aggressive shooters pose a safety hazard and are spoiling the sophisticated ambience that has drawn residents and millions of visitors to Malibu.
Can Malibu -- which routinely endures wildfires, mudslides and cellphone dead zones -- survive the age of TMZ and X17?
Malibu Mayor Pamela Conley Ulich is working with Kenneth W. Starr, former White House independent counsel and dean of Pepperdine Law School, to research the possibility of crafting a law to regulate paparazzi.
"The city of Malibu will do all it legally can to protect and preserve the natural beauty and tranquillity of our town," she said in a statement Monday.
Brian Pietro, owner of Malibu General Store in the Trancas area of west Malibu, echoed the opinions of a number of other residents in describing the ubiquitous paparazzi basically as unnecessary evils. Thanks to the nation's insatiable appetite for celebrity nuggets, however mundane, the paparazzi invasion "has exploded" in the last few years, he said.
"The general sentiment around here is that any time a paparazzo gets his camera smashed or gets popped in the face or gets dunked in the water, we're all for it," Pietro said.
Paparazzi have all but driven actor Pierce Brosnan and his wife, Keely Shaye Smith, out of Malibu, Pietro said. Last October, the erstwhile James Bond was briefly under investigation by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department for allegedly hitting a paparazzo in the ribs outside a trendy Malibu eatery.
