Conformity and Challenge
- Created by: tomtom11
- Created on: 24-05-16 09:54
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- Conformity and Challenge
- Suburban conformity
- Irving Howe said this was an 'Age of Conformity' created by the Cold War, and conformity replace American ideals of 'Rugged Individualism'
- Robert Lowell wrote of 'the tranquillised '50s'
- '47-'57 = number of MC workers rose by 61%
- William Whyte's the Organization Man = non-conformist.
- Argued huge corporate enterprises like General Motors had created a new managerial personality- the 'organisation man'
- Nature of suburbia threatened individualism
- Many schools introduced classes on socially acceptable behaviour.
- Businesses used personality tests in order to ensure social conformity.
- Change in American TV
- '60- 90% of US homes had TV.
- '60s = TV favourite leisure activity for more than 50% of Americans.
- Criticisms:
- Promoted conformity through sexist attitudes and the 'nuclear family' in Father Knows Best
- It promoted consumerism (youths teaching immigrant parents consumerism was good) in I Remember Mama
- Caused decline in educational test scores, and made magazines lose sales.
- Made viewers physically inactive and passive.
- BUT= all designed for maximum mass appeal
- Programmes that displeased many people were canclled= Nat King Cole Show (Nat was black)
- Supporters of TV claimed it helped develop a more national culture, decreased social divides as well as educate
- MLK's The Open Mind
- News programmes presented challenged to the status quo.
- Changes in American Film
- Western movies often portrayed heroic men, submissive women and evil 'Indians'
- More sexually explicit films like Baby Doll ('56) drew in big crowds.
- Island In the Sun ('57) had first interracial kiss
- The Defiant Ones ('58) black and white convicts chaimed together needed to co-operate to survive.
- Imitation of Life ('59)- real heroine isn't the white actress, but the black mother who has devoted her life to the actress' neglected daughter and her own ungrateful offspring.
- All That Heaven Allows ('55)- upper-middle widow sleeps with younger WC man.
- Rebel Without a Cause ('55)- charismatic James Dean plays the archetypical teen struggling with the adult world and being a rebel.
- Advertising
- $5.7bn spent on advertising in '50 compared to $11.9bn in '60
- Triggered by television rise.
- Hidden Persuaders ('57)- journalist Vance Packard argued that advertisements psychologically manipulated consumers.
- $5.7bn spent on advertising in '50 compared to $11.9bn in '60
- Counter-culture
- Most adults were afraid of teenagers with 'duck-tail' hairstyles, blue jeans, and cut-off T-shirts, saying they were disrespectful.
- Beats
- Rejected materialism, consumer culture, and conformity
- Wanted a lifestyle of drugs, free-love and spontaneity
- Most well-known = Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac
- Kerouac had a book realised in '57- On the Road- which depicted his time drifting and observing empty America.
- Critical Acclaim
- Ginsber wrong 'Howl'- a poem about drugs, homosexuality, and non-conformity
- Around about 150 of them, who became writers.
- '60s- media lost interest.
- Follow-up version of the Beats, Beatniks, developed in '58.
- Became almost mainstream- Kerouac didn't like them.
- Music
- Rock n' Roll was a widespread challenge to conformity.
- Combined black 'race music' and hillbilly
- Lyrics focussed on sexual activity
- Popular with young people because:
- Added to sense of group identity
- They became valid consumers ($521m in '60)
- Haters alikened them to Hitler's rallies and were worried about the increased African-American influence.
- Suburban conformity
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