Hippies in the 60s and the Media

flower pot in the 60s and the MediaThe Myth of the SixtiesIt has been said that of totally the artificial concepts of the ordinal century, the mid-sixties have the greatest hold on the imagination. The ten dollar bill has commence to take on allegoryical proportions, a time in the archives of the world where everything changed, and whether for good or for naught depends on which side of the environ you stand on. The hippies, artists and Bohemians, then and now, regard it as a magical time, opus the squ bes, conservatives, members of the mainstream and the like view it as a nightm ar. And whether one was too raw or too old to crashicipate, or, in circumstance, was non even born, holds no relevance the legend of the sixties will never die. However, the truth is that the decade and its participants were nonhing more than the embo blackent of 3 powerful myths the myth of the hippies as dirty scum, as orchestrated by the media and the politicians the myth of the hippies a s world-changing revolutionaries, as created by the hippies themselves and the perpetuation and auxiliary of this closing myth by marketers and advertisers for profit. This paper will examine the sixties with these three myths in mind.Before we can fully decipher the first myth (the role the media played in the creation of the hippy counter farming), it is necessary to go to at the performances precedents. The late 50s and archaeozoic 60s saw the reaching of three subcultures, the overturns, the Teds and the Mods, all of which sure more media attention than they deserved that is, a good deal every aspect of these hosts (the tally of members, the extent of their activities, the duration of the movements, etc.), was exaggerated (Green, 41).For example, the early sixties were presumably host to countless turf wars between ii of these subcultures (the Rockers and the Mods). The first of these took place in Clacton in 1964, and although the actual broadening was low, the rival groups were quickly labe take as gangs by the media (Green, 46). The day later the event, nearly every national newspaper ran frenzied, front-page stories on the incident, urging alkali Secretary Henry Brooke to take action (ibid). A year later, resembling scenes repeated themselves in Brighton, Weston-super-Mare and Great Yarm come forwardh, and media reports were make full with broken deckchairs, fleeing grannies, stern-faced policemen, outraged councilors, etc., which were generally embellished or outright fabricated (Green, 47).The reality was in fact a pale imitation of the myth. It evolved later that in that location were no gangs as such, in that location was teensy evidence of premeditated hostility (most people had come save to watch), and for all the reports of blood and violence in that location was actually very little (Cohen, 1973). But the seeds had been s consume, the damage had been done, and by the time the Rocker and Mod subcultures died down, the re was the need for another public nuisance to take their place, another group defined as a threat to societal values and interests, its disposition presented in a stylised and stereotypical fashion by the spile media, the moral barricades manned by editors, bishops, politicians and other right-thinking people, diagnoses and solutions pronounced by trustworthy experts (ibid). Enter the hippy.The term hippy, on the surface, constitutes a vast array of bohemian and student subcultures, ranging from artistic-intellectuals to dropouts and dope smokers (Brake, 92). There are those who see them as romantic, childly and pagan others who see them as juvenile, hedonistic and offensive. The British hippie vacuum tube grew out of the beatnik literary-artistic scene, the peace movement and the corresponding American faction, spurred on by such pseudo-political groups as The Yippies, the Diggers and the Merry Pranksters, as well as various individuals including Ken Kesey (author of The Elec tric Kool-Aid Acid Test), LSD guru Timothy Leary, and Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, who appeared at the Albert Hall International Poetry Incarnation in 1965 (Brake, 102).However, bandage there were certainly symbolic precedents as mentioned above, and without a doubt base segments of the population were tuned in to a new way of thinking and acting, the fact was that an actual, pervasive, unifying movement didnt really existWeve all at peace(p) a commodious with the illusion that Ginsberg and Dylan and Baez and the Beatles and the Stones were all part of the same thing. Well, they are part of one thing, in the sense that were all human cosmoss and we are all part of the word and each other. So is Lyndon Johnson, so it the mafia headland of pelf, so are the Hells Angels. Weve tended to make the feature between Us and Them. Now if weve got to recognise anything, theres not much difference between the Angles beating that kid over the head with a pool cue, and the Chicago cops beatin g you over the head because youve got long hair (Gleason, 219).It could be argued that if there were any changes taking place, they werent so much cultural as economic and affectionate, which pegged infantile people against their parents, and led to vastly different worldviews and lifestyle choices (Brake, 93). While the hippies were loosely classify around the concept of social and political change (which, in America, largely meant protestation of the Vietnam War), in Britain, there was never any corresponding social impetus. If anything, their behaviour was nothing more than a purposeful attempt to viewing distinctly impedanceal beliefs than those condoned by society, favouring immediacy, spontaneity and hedonism (Weider and Zimmerman, 1977). And it is these tendencies that the media jumped on.British newspapers reported hippies as being dirty, idle, promiscuous and drug-users (Brake, 96). A typical report showed a nude, bearded, long-haired man with the caption The hippy cul t is degrading, decadent and plain roughened (ibid). A story about the London Street Commune who fixed to squat in an abandoned Georgian mansion in receipts Piccadilly described their home as lit exactly by the dim light of their drugged cigarettes, complete with drug takingcouples making recognise while others look ona heavy mob arm with iron bars, filth and stench, foul languagethese are not rumours scarce facts, sordid facts which will shock ordinary decent living people ( immatures of the World, 1969).A similar report appeared in The Daily Mail on 2 August, 1969It makes me ashamed to be British. They the hippies live around in loathsome clothes, mauling in each other in the streets. No wonder our outlandish has gone to the dogs.The hippies acted as convenient scapegoats, and the Tories eagerly jumped on the bandwagon in portraying them as moral degenerates who needed to be squelched so as to save the world from its baser instincts (Green, 448). The truth is that most of these hippies were not degenerates and criminals notwithstanding students and ex-students, who were able to engage in a lifestyle filled with LSD, rock music and free love because of student grants and welfare payments (Brake, 95). non only did the media paint an inaccurate picture of them, but the hippies believed their own hype and bought into their own myth. For while they railed against materialism, their lifestyle was only supported because of the benefits they received from living in a welfare system while they were anti-technology, they had ingress to hi-tech stereo systems and complex light shows in short, they felt immunity was an individual element yet were controlled by a powerful commonwealth (Brake, 97).The movement was short-lived because a full-time leisure expressive subculture can only develop in an economy with sufficient surplus and role (Brake, 99). When the economy plummeted, so did the membership of the subculture the hippies faded away in the wake of une mployment and economic crisis (ibid).However, even describing the hippies as an actual movement is questionable. One problem is that in looking at subcultures, it needs to be taken into account that they are actually a minority, who, because of their dramatic style, are given vast media coverage (Green, 158). Many hippies were latchers-on at best. Those who conjugated may have been rebellious, they may have adopted specific styles and values, but their rebellion did not embody genuine opposition (Green, 159). For many a(prenominal) involved, it was not about social or political change at all it was merely about fashion. As Angela Carter wrote in her Notes for a theory of sixties styleThe nature of our apparel is very complex. Clothes are so many things at once. Our social shells, the system of signals with which we broadcast our intentions, are often the projections of our fantasy selvesclothes are our weapons, our challenges, our visual insults (Carter, 1967).Murdock and McCron, in a vast-raging counter-cultural study, pitch that most of the people they surveyed were not actually involved in local anaesthetic subcultures, but had adopted the styles because of the teenage entertainment industry (Murdock and McCron, 1976). The respondents were expression and extension of the dominant meaning system, rather than deviation from or in opposition to it (ibid). The truth is that most people are not seduced by subcultures, and only dress or act in similar stylistic slipway when they have become acceptable by the mainstream. Much of the hippie culture was deliberately manufactured for marketing consumption, and much of the art and music of the sixties was commercialized and transformed into a commodity for the larger society (Brake, 99). near of the decades premier acts the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, etc. and rock n roll in general, which had once been so threatening, had become as honest as the blue-chip companies that sponsored and sold it (Green, 446).Wh ile the decade spawned a number of unconventional institutions, such as the underground press, it also launched substantial fortunes for such figures as Richard Branson and Tony Elliot (Green, 445). Smart, alternative capitalists took advantage of the period, and transmogrified the decades slogans into designer labels (Rowbotham, xiv). what is moreThe underground culture, considered so radical and pervasive at the time, shifted scantily as radically. The progressive and loud rock of the 60s turned into the heavy metal of the 80s, with mysticism giving way to pulp science fiction, sexual freedom to braggadocio, pink slip to repression. The nudity of the underground was packaged and mass-marketed by Rupert Murdoch. In the 1960s the young dropped out in the 1980s they are dropped out. Drugs were considered a tool to intensify reality, and became an escape from the present (Fountain, 215).The transformation of the hippie movement from extreme to mainstream, curiously in terms of m erchandising, illustrated how well people had mastered the game, and were able to contain it according to their own agenda hip consumerism had become mass consumerism (Frank, 1997). flowing reactions to the sixties are mixed. While some regard it as a golden age, all dope, revolution and fucking in the streets, others, particularly the younger generation of today, see it as a period smacking of weakness, of airy-fairy wishy-washiness, of an laterality of the cranks (Green, 449). Everyones youth is of course a golden age, and part of the antecedent for the enduring myth of the sixties is that there are so many baby boomers today. Normal Mailer has noted how often the reverberations that follow are out of all proportion to the presumed smallness of the original event (ibid). Perhaps no better description could apply to the sixties.The decade is cloaked in myth, and there are no signs of this changing anytime soon. Today there is a well-situated 1960s nostalgia industry, which is all about the clothes and the music, and has nothing do with political sympathies or cultural change. This sanitized version of the era, safe for mass consumption, is just as much a myth as the sixties being a virtual hell on earth. However, whichever one you choose to guide to, one thing is probably certain it didnt actually authorise that way.BibliographyBrake, Mike. The sociology of youth culture and youth subcultures. Sex and drugs and rock n roll? London Routledge Kegan Paul Ltd, 1980.Carter, A. Notes for a theory of sixties style. new-made Society. 14 December, 1967.Cohen, Stanley. Folk Devils and Moral Panics. Albans Palladin, 1973.Fountain, Nigel. Underground, the London Alternative Press, 1966-74. London Routledge, 1988.Frank, Thomas. The Conquest of simmer down Business Culture, Counter Culture and the Rise of Hip Consumerism. Chicago University of Chicago Press, 1997.Gleason, R. Rock for sale, in Eisen, J. (ed.) The Age of Rock 2. Sights and Sounds of the American C ultural Revolution. New York Vintage Books, 1970.Green, Jonathan. All dressed up The sixties and the counterculture. London hit-or-miss House, 1998.Murdock, G. and McCron, R. Consciousness of class and consciousness of generation in S. Hall and T. Jefferson (eds.) resistance Through Rituals Youth subcultures in post-war Britain. Hutchinson London, 1976.News of the World. Hippies, drugs and the sordid truth. 21 September, 1969.Rowbotham, Sheila. foresee of a dream Remembering the sixties. London Penguin Books, 2000.Weider, L. and Zimmerman, S. Understanding Social Problems. New York Praeger Press, 1977.