Politics & Power Quote by Lorna Luft

Bel Air is supposed to be an address, not an argument, but Luft turns it into a blunt little audit of status. The line lands because it treats “difference” like a cosmetic swap while quietly alleging something sharper: the neighborhood’s power structure hasn’t evolved, it’s just updated its suppliers. Nannies are still nannies - the intimate labor that makes wealth livable - yet their nationality shifts from “British” (coded as cultured, old-world, safely elite-adjacent) to “Latina” (coded as immigrant, working-class, politically invisible). The social hierarchy remains intact; only the accents change.

The car detail does the same work. European replaces American not because transportation improved, but because taste became globalized and luxury branding migrated. It’s a quick sketch of how prestige operates: the rich don’t just buy objects, they buy signals. Luft’s phrasing is deliberately offhand, the kind of cocktail-party observation that pretends to be neutral while smuggling in indictment. That’s why it stings. She’s not marveling at diversity; she’s noting who gets to “diversify” and who gets diversified.

Context matters: Luft isn’t an outside critic lobbing stones at Beverly Hills. She’s Judy Garland’s daughter, Hollywood royalty with a childhood in the very milieu she’s appraising. That insider vantage gives the remark its particular bite - part nostalgia, part discomfort, part confession. It’s the sound of someone watching an elite enclave modernize just enough to look different, not enough to be different.