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The 70's were a depressing decade as it was about stagnation (vietnam, economy, oil etc.) as i imagine that's why Quaaludes were big back then and of course Cheech & Chong's movies portrayed it well
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I enjoyed the hell out of the '70's. Every decade features an array of problems and if your focus is entirely on those, it is at the expense of seeing anything else.
It may have been the individual psycho babble oriented "me decade", but why is that worse than the coprporate greed/I got mine and screw everyone else '80's?
One may even find accomplishment from the '70's, it certainly was the decade where we knocked a huge hole in the concept of censorship. It was the decade where femnism moved from being a joke topic for late night comedians to becoming a force for cultural progress for women.
I enjoyed the hell out of the '70's. Every decade features an array of problems and if your focus is entirely on those, it is at the expense of seeing anything else.
It may have been the individual psycho babble oriented "me decade", but why is that worse than the coprporate greed/I got mine and screw everyone else '80's?
One may even find accomplishment from the '70's, it certainly was the decade where we knocked a huge hole in the concept of censorship. It was the decade where femnism moved from being a joke topic for late night comedians to becoming a force for cultural progress for women.
It was the decade when SNL premiered.
The first half of the 70s was much more interesting than the second half, however...
....The 90's mad and angry as Grunge and militant Rap ruled the day as i assume the younger generation had enough of the opposite polar decades that had preceeded it.
Mad and angry, hmmm. I heard it more as robo-masturbatory boredom. A musical version of the Clinton-Lewinsky cigar tube interlude.
The 70's were a depressing decade as it was about stagnation (vietnam, economy, oil etc.) as i imagine that's why Quaaludes were big back then and of course Cheech & Chong's movies portrayed it well
The 80's all about the G's ... Glam, Glitter and Glitz the days of when MTV and Vanity Fair ruled. By the way who did shoot J.R.??
The 90's mad and angry as Grunge and militant Rap ruled the day as i assume the younger generation had enough of the opposite polar decades that had preceeded it.
What's intersting is how the current era so much like the 1970''s. Economic decline and restructeing, environmental and energy issues, a lack of optimism in the future of the country, and racial tension.
The first half of the 70s was much more interesting than the second half, however...
I agree with you about that. The first half of the '70's was a time which contained an unusually high amount of public theater. There were four events which were very captivating, two very serious ones, and two which fell more into the class of fluff, but were extremely interesting despite this.
The serious ones were Watergate and the Patricia Heast saga. If you did not live through the prolonged agony of Nixon's fall, you cannot appreciate how this business utterly dominated all else. Plus it was full of spectacular moments.... McCord speaking out at the sentencing and revealing that higher ups were involved and orchestrating a cover up....Dean's testimony before the Watergate committee...the revelation that tapes existed....the revelation that one of them had an 18 minute gap, followed by the hilarious Rosemary Wood incredible elastic lady act when Nixon sent her out to take the fall for the gap....the Saturday Night Massacre....Nixon appearing on the tube and lying like a rug over and over and over....the smoking gun tape....and finally the resignation. This was all high drama.
Patty Hearst and the SLA story was another long running soap opera, fascinating because it was so weird, horrifying because the SLA was such a sorry azz set of loopy revolutionaries who nonetheless were killing people. It was all capped by the absurdity of treating Patricia Hearst as an ordinary bank robber at her trial, as though there was a chance she would have wound up doing that had she not been kidnapped, terrorized and brainwashed.
The staged events which captivated the nation were the Billy Jean King/Bobby Riggs battle of the sexes, which at all times was pure hype, but made for compelling theater when placed in the context of the rising femnist movement, and of course Evel Knievel's attempted jump of the Snake River Canyon. As with the the King/Riggs showdown, the jump was all about show biz, and you could reasonably figure that if we could put a man on the moon, we could probably get one across the Snake River. However, what made it extraordinary was Knievel's history of spectacular wrecks. He proved time and again that his daredevil stunts were not safe illusions, they were horribly risky feats with severe consequences for failure. Knievel was carted away from his jumps as often as he walked away. The jump itself turned out to be a fizzle, but the hype leading up to it was terrific.
Oh....I edit this to add the Manson Family trial. Though the murders took place in 1969, the trial was '70-'71 and it was at the trial that we learned the full story of what was behind these murders.
It was a very entertaining time to be in America, we did not experience so rich a theatrical era again until the late '90's when we had the OJ saga along with the whole Clinton/Lewinsky business.
Last edited by Grandstander; 08-15-2010 at 11:39 AM..
I agree with you about that. The first half of the '70's was a time which contained an unusually high amount of public theater. There were four events which were very captivating, two very serious ones, and two which fell more into the class of fluff, but were extremely interesting despite this.
The serious ones were Watergate and the Patricia Heast saga. If you did not live through the prolonged agony of Nixon's fall, you cannot appreciate how this business utterly dominated all else. Plus it was full of spectacular moments.... McCord speaking out at the sentencing and revealing that higher ups were involved and orchestrating a cover up....Dean's testimony before the Watergate committee...the revelation that tapes existed....the revelation that one of them had an 18 minute gap, followed by the hilarious Rosemary Wood incredible elastic lady act when Nixon sent her out to take the fall for the gap....the Saturday Night Massacre....Nixon appearing on the tube and lying like a rug over and over and over....the smoking gun tape....and finally the resignation. This was all high drama.
Patty Hearst and the SLA story was another long running soap opera, fascinating because it was so weird, horrifying because the SLA was such a sorry azz set of loopy revolutionaries who nonetheless were killing people. It was all capped by the absurdity of treating Patricia Hearst as an ordinary bank robber at her trial, as though there was a chance she would have wound up doing that had she not been kidnapped, terrorized and brainwashed.
The staged events which captivated the nation were the Billy Jean King/Bobby Riggs battle of the sexes, which at all times was pure hype, but made for compelling theater when placed in the context of the rising femnist movement, and of course Evel Knievel's attempted jump of the Snake River Canyon. As with the the King/Riggs showdown, the jump was all about show biz, and you could reasonably figure that if we could put a man on the moon, we could probably get one across the Snake River. However, what made it extraordinary was Knievel's history of spectacular wrecks. He proved time and again that his daredevil stunts were not safe illusions, they were horribly risky feats with severe consequences for failure. Knievel was carted away from his jumps as often as he walked away. The jump itself turned out to be a fizzle, but the hype leading up to it was terrific.
Oh....I edit this to add the Manson Family trial. Though the murders took place in 1969, the trial was '70-'71 and it was at the trial that we learned the full story of what was behind these murders.
It was a very entertaining time to be in America, we did not experience so rich a theatrical era again until the late '90's when we had the OJ saga along with the whole Clinton/Lewinsky business.
The 1972 Olympics were pretty big. The terrorists, Mark Spitz, Olga, Prefontaine, Borzov, and the "another three seconds, another three seconds, another three seconds" gold medal final basketball game.
The 1972 Olympics were pretty big. The terrorists, Mark Spitz, Olga, Prefontaine, Borzov, and the "another three seconds, another three seconds, another three seconds" gold medal final basketball game.
I accept your addition, the Munich games were high drama, much more so than ordinary Olympics.
All this has put me to thinking about identifying those periods in American history which packed the most national drama into them. The criteria I have in mind is national absorption, those things which gripped the country and became the focus of extraordinary attention and controversy.
We already have '70-'75 with those things we have listed, and '95-'01 would have to rank highly with O.J., Lewinsky, the disputed 2000 election and 9/11.
1968 merits stand alone ranking with the assassinations of Dr. King (and subsequent rioting) and Senator Kennedy, LBJ announcing his retirement, and the riots at the Democratic convention.
The start of the Cold War, '48-'53 featured the Berlin airlift, the Communist triumph in China, the McCarthy hysteria and the Korean War, or Korean Conflict requiring a UN police action as they liked to call it back then. The 1948 election was also a sizzler with Truman pulling off one of the great upsets.
The Great Depression and WW II dominate all else '30-'45, I'm not sure how to treat that era in terms of what I'm doing here.
'17-'23 Had America's participation in WW I, the Palmer Raids, the influenza epidemic, Sacco and Vanzetti, the Black Sox scandal and the Teapot Dome scandal.
It gets fuzzier the further we go back, it was harder to have a national attention grabber in the days before mass communications came into being. The sensational stuff of the latter half of the 19th Century seems spread pretty evenly and I cannot identify a five or six year stand out period.
The Civil War falls into the same class as WW II, as in nothing else was on the radar for four years, but before that, the lead up to the war fits in nicely.
'50-'59 featured the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin, the warm up for the Civil War in "Bleeding Kansas", the Dred Scott decision, the caning of Senator Sumner in the Senate and John Brown's raid.
Going back before that we are sliding into the pre telegraph age and America was characterized much more by regional rather than national interests. The fall of the Alamo may have been a sensation, but there were plenty of people who didn't even hear about it until months after it had happened.
So...those are my nominees...(with WW II and the Civil War inelligible)
'95-'01
'70-'75
1968
'48-'53
'17-'23 (or we could expand that to '17-'25 to include the Scopes Monkey Trial)
'50-'59
Warning: I was born in 1986, so anything before 1990-95 or so is based on my perceptions formed through what I've read or heard. Also, this reflects my experiences as a white Midwesterner. We all seem to have varying perspectives on "cultural decades", even those which we have lived through; this could be the effect of the filters of our own geographical and socioeconomic positions.
1965 - 1973: "Revolutionary Era". The opposition to the Vietnam War leads to the questioning of authority in general, while the Sexual Revolution (spurred on by the introduction of the Birth Control Pill) causes a rethinking of traditional norms. Several other less visible forces in society were probably responsible too. Clothing becomes far less modest, promiscuity becomes somewhat accepted, returning Vietnam veterans face ostracism and social hardships, etc. What young people want during this era, however, reaches far below the surface of miniskirts and male long hair to radical social change. This era transitions into the next with the pull-outs of most troops from Vietnam and Watergate.
1973 - 1980: "Loose Era". The fall-out from the hippie liberalization, but without the socially transformative undertones. Also resulted from 1) the Vietnam War, 2) the Gulf oil crisis, and 3) the sexual revolution. Cocaine, heroin, disco, discotheques, high-school (and probably general) marijuana / alcohol usage at highest rates ever, more relaxed fashions / styles, leisure suits, porn chic.
1980 - 1984: "Post-Disco Era". AIDS ending free love, rock / new-wave music, less relaxed fashions, Cold War tensions.
1984 - 1990: The "Pure 80's". Glam rock, 80's pop (New Order, Peter Gabriel, Dire Straits, Pet Shop Boys, etc.), voodoo economics, outlandish, colorful fashions, "Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down This Wall!", tail end of the Cold War, big satellite dishes.
1990 - 1994: The "X" era. The tail of Generation X comes of age and this period reflects their nihilistic, cynical outlook. Crime is at an all-time high, with several American cities having murder rates in the 50 - 100 / 100,000 range, the fallout of the crack cocaine epidemic. Public approval of abortion also appears to be at record levels, while same-sex marriage is not yet on the table. Grunge music and gangsta rap music, as well as house-tinged R & B and dance music (Snap, C & C Music Factory, Salt N' Pepa, etc.) dominate at least the second half of this era. Beavis & Butthead lights up TV screens across the nation. From an average consumer standpoint, not much changes technologically during this period.
1994 - 2001: The Clinton era. Mainstream music becomes less grungy (rock) and somewhat less aggressive (rap); bland pop music dominates in the beginning of this period (Lisa Loeb, Paula Cole, Donna Lewis, etc.), with dance music enjoying minor popularity in the U.S. with La Bouche, Real McCoy, and Amber (but not Canada or Mexico, and certainly not Europe, where it was the dominant form during the beginning of this timeframe): the perfect setting for boy bands (first, Hanson, then Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC, and finally a contagious barrage of minor boy groups) and girl groups (Spice Girls, B*witched) to emerge. Initially, the audience of these groups is primarily teenagers, but some of the music they produce becomes popular with older demographics as well (e.g. Backstreet Boys "I Want It That Way"). Solo female teeny bop singers (Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, especially) also gain popularity overnight. They remain popular into the next era, although their music changes, their lyrics especially becoming more explicit (Compare "Hit Me Baby One More Time" or "Genie in a Bottle" to "The Touch of My Hand" or "Dirty"). The "Latin crossover" trend can be said to have began with Macarena in 1995, but really enters the limelight in 1999 with Enrique Iglesias, Ricky Martin, Jennifer Lopez, and Lou Bega. It is a short-lived trend, though at least one of the singers (Jennifer Lopez) sheds her "Latina" image to become "J.Lo" in the next "cultural decade". Sitcoms continue to be very popular (Friends, Home Improvement, Melrose Place, Seinfeld, Will & Grace, The Drew Carey Show, Ellen, etc.), accompanied by hour-long serious dramas (NYPD, Law & Order, E.R.). Technology-wise, this era contains the greatest gains in internet usage in the U.S., rising from almost non-existent in 1994 to ubiquitous in 2001. Many working-class and middle-class families get their first computer during this period. The internet and computers in general also revolutionize business. I could go on and on about technology during this period, but I won't. Economically, productivity is greatly enhanced (largely through advances in technology) and GDP / Dow indices grow almost unabated, at least at the end of this period. The .com trend is in full swing by 1998, and comes to a screeching halt in 2001, part of what ends this era (besides 9/11). Venture capital and "irrational exuberance" mark the second half of this period, although in retrospect you can't blame them. The SUV comes to dominate the new auto market, and McMansions become the standard for new homes.
2001 - 2007: American society becomes militaristic after the events of 9/11, with the vast majority supporting the U.S.'s mission in Afghanistan and a healthy majority (initially) behind our invasion of Iraq. The patriotic, belligerent spirit continues up until 2006 or so when the majority of society questions "Bush's wars" and disapproves of him as a president, paving the way for the next cultural decade. Musically, almost every #1 chart slot holder in the U.S. from 2002 to 2006 is a rap or R & B song, especially by "Southern" artists. This music is rhythm-driven and often features very minimalistic melodies. Coming under its spell are the few non-hip-hop or rap pop hits, which tend to be almost atonal ("Hollaback Girl" and "SexyBack" are two examples). Because rap and contemporary R & B rather narrowly appeal to the youth, country-rock music (Montgomery Gentry, Toby Keith, Big & Rich) becomes popular with all age groups in the rural and suburban areas. Interestingly, country music, besides incorporating rock music (as it had for a long time), expands to have hip-hop elements (ex. Cowboy Troy). Popular TV shows are mainly sitcoms and hour-long drama serials at the beginning of the era; however, "Survivor" begins the reality TV fad, and this is accelerated by the screenwriter strike that took place sometime within the period (2005, I think it was), leading the major networks to release all kinds of reality shows (the specialty cable channels don't really pick up on the reality trend until 2006 or 2007 or so). In technology, this era is characterized by increasing broadband penetration, first at work, and later at home (the majority of residential internet connections were broadband starting in 2005), leading to higher-bandwidth content (and website design); ubiquitous cell phone usage, texting, and ringtones (but not the Smartphone-style usage; even though possible in many areas, it doesn't really pick up until about 2008 or 2009); the switch from bulky CRT displays to thin LCD and other flat-screen displays; point-to-point filesharing; and several other trends. This period also represents a transition in home computing paradigms, with laptops at the end of the period replacing traditional desktop dominance. In clothing (at least that of younger people, i.e. Gen Y), retailers A & F and Hollister (later on) set the mainstream trends, with polo shirts and "surfer shirts" very popular for boys, and cleavage-bearing tops and shorts with slogans printed over the buttocks being popular for girls. To some extent, Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears, among others, introduce trashy styles for girls, with "whale tails" (cleavage of the buttocks) and "tramp stamps" (back waist tattoos) being very popular. In drugs, meth labs proliferate around this time. Economically, this is another age of growth, although there was a recession around 2002. SUVs and McMansions continue to be popular.
2007 -: Mainstream (especially "Southern") hip-hop and R & B both lose their hold on the charts as more melodic electro-pop, which has a somewhat wider age appeal, dominates the charts. Even rap is influenced by electropop, and becomes much more melody-driven. Support for gay marriage in the polls rises as "Generation Y" or the "Millenials" come of age, while opposition to abortion still slightly increases. Extreme disillusionment with the Bush administration leads to the election of a "messiah" figure as president, though he fails to deliver relief (which probably no man could). In television, reality shows dominate, with reality TV expanding from the Survivor/BBUSA and American Idol/dance show cachet to the History Channel ("Pawn Stars"), Discovery Channel, Food Network, etc. as well as ridiculous obstacle-course shows. In technology, do-it-all smartphones become a popular reality, Wikipedia and other sources call into question "authoritative" knowledge, and social networking, especially through Facebook (in the U.S.) penetrates all age groups except 65+. The internet truly becomes a two-way communications medium, with the opportunity to post pretty much anything you think, hear, or see (though this was true to an extent earlier). In clothing, "skinny jeans" are in for both males and females and emo styles to an extent influence mainstream fashion, while "tramp stamps", "whale tails" (bottom cleavage), and baggy goes out. The surfer / skater look of unkempt hair is especially popular with young men and boys. The green movement reaches its peak at the beginning of this period, with growing skepticism marking the era up to now, though whether this skepticism will grow is called into question by the BP spill. Recreational, non-prescribed usage of prescription drugs becomes very popular, hooking those both at the low (high-school dropouts) and high (doctors) ends of society. Economically, this period identifies itself with the end of the housing bubble and subsequent recession. Jobs are scarce, especially for new college graduates and unemployment benefits extended. Many people lose their homes or stay with their parents. The oil price rise leads to a decrease in SUV sales and even SUVs and large pick-up trucks on the road.
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