America in the 1950s
Entertainment
Written by Nelson Teng
In the 1950s, many Americans will always remember that decade as a time of America’s golden era. After the end of World War II, America has the strongest military power in the world, has a booming economy due to a rise in manufacturing American goods, and a high rate of export of goods to foreign countries. America at that time was also going through a time of conflict and fear with their rival nation, the Soviet Union, in a race to spread democracy and regarding full scale nuclear war. America needed an outlet of the daily fear and pressure caused by the Cold War. In order to escape the daily pressures of life during the Cold War Era, Americans turned to entertainments of the 1950s era such as cinema, sport, and music.
First of all, regarding American cinema during the 1950s, the genre that was popular and prevalent during that era was known as “Film Noir.” When we think of Film Noir, the things and names that pop into your head are usually: cigarettes, black and white, shadows, femme fatale, guns , Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Lana Turner, etc. During WWII, America’s cultural values such as shared ideology and importance of family values were intensified. However, after the war came to an end, film makers experimented on different formulas and introduced an unprecedented visual and narrative style. For example, in Film Noir, the genre confronts a lot of status quo in American society such as where the criminal justice system is corrupt, a society of greed and sex, the police force are untrustworthy, dark atmosphere, and the femme fatales who are detrimental to the lives of any man that comes into contact with her.
In addition, Film Noir also portrays the distinction between real life American society in the 50s where the city is the place that’s rotting and full of dark elements while the suburban area is where you can live a rosy happy life, own a home, and experience the traditional American family life.
In addition, Film Noir also portrays the distinction between real life American society in the 50s where the city is the place that’s rotting and full of dark elements while the suburban area is where you can live a rosy happy life, own a home, and experience the traditional American family life.
Next, during the 1950s, the sport that became known as a very dynamic form of entertainment was none other than Western boxing. The sport was electrifying and it showed the prowess, different styles, and masculinity of individual boxers. During the 1950s, the big names that come to mind are: Jake LaMotta, Sugar Ray Robinson, and Rocky Marciano. For example, with Jake LaMotta, he is one of the biggest names in the middle weight division of boxing during the 1950s. He is well known as the “Raging Bull” because of his boxing style known as the “Bully Style” where he is always chasing his opponent in the ring with his guard held low. Boxing commentators of the time regarded him as one of the most deadly and dangerous man to ever step into the boxing ring because he hits like a truck and can endure punishments without backing down. His most famous fight was with his rival, Sugar Ray Robinson. In their boxing history, they met and fought five times. Out of the five bouts they’ve fought, the most popular event was on February 14, 1951, where the boxing event became known as the Saint Valentine’s Day and was regarded as the boxing version of the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre. Even though Sugar Ray Robinson won by TKO, he was never able to knock LaMotta down.
Hence, the quote from Jake LaMotta’s autobiography “Raging Bull: My Story,” it is mentioned he walked up to Ray after the fight and said “You never got me down Ray, you never got me down.” The autobiography was later adapted into the film directed by Martin Scorsese titled “Raging Bull,” starring Robert De Niro. Another interesting factor regarding a big name in the heavy weight division was none other than Rocky Marciano. Rocky Marciano is the only to go undefeated in the heavy weight division and is also the inspiration for the character development of Rocky Balboa who is portrayed by Sylvester Stallone.
Hence, the quote from Jake LaMotta’s autobiography “Raging Bull: My Story,” it is mentioned he walked up to Ray after the fight and said “You never got me down Ray, you never got me down.” The autobiography was later adapted into the film directed by Martin Scorsese titled “Raging Bull,” starring Robert De Niro. Another interesting factor regarding a big name in the heavy weight division was none other than Rocky Marciano. Rocky Marciano is the only to go undefeated in the heavy weight division and is also the inspiration for the character development of Rocky Balboa who is portrayed by Sylvester Stallone.
Lastly, the music genre that swept across America in the 50s was Rock and Roll. Elvis Presley, who is also known as the “King of Rock and Roll,” sparked the Rock and Roll era on July 5th, 1954, when he started his career at Sun Records with Sam Phillips. Elvis Presley’s first single, “Heartbreak Hotel,” became a number one hit in America in 1956. His energy in his songs and sexually provocative performance style made him very popular and simultaneously controversial due to his bad boy image. Besides being known to be one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Elvis is also known to be the best selling solo artist in the history of recorded music with about 600 million albums sold worldwide. However, unbeknownst to many who aren’t familiar with the history of the development of Rock and Roll, Elvis wasn’t really the one who created Rock and Roll. The artists who came before Elvis were the true pioneers who helped led to the development of the Rock and Roll Genre. Some of these artists were Big Mama Thornton, known for her hit song “Hound Dog,” Bull Moose Jackson who is known for his hit song “Big Ten Inch,” Billy Ward & The Dominoes known for the song “Sixty Minute Man,” Joe Turner who is known for “Shake, Rattle, & Roll,” and Hank Ballard with the hit song “Work with me Annie.” What all these artists, who came before Elvis, had in common was their songs and lyrics had no hold bars and the lyrics were extremely sexual. If you were to compare, Elvis is considered within the safety zone when it came to sexuality, while the artists who came before him were over the top and let loose in expressing sexuality beyond the restriction line. For example, the song “Hound Dog” by Big Mama Thornton isn’t about a dog, it’s about a woman kicking out a freeloading gigolo out of her home and her life. The part of the lyrics where she sings “you can wag your tail, but I ain’t gonna feed you no more” really meant the woman is turning down sex and will give no more. The lyrics for Hound Dog would later be cleaned up and rewritten for Elvis to sing, and instead of the originally explicitly sexual lyrics from Mama Thornton’s version, the cleaned up version goes “well you never caught a rabbit and you ain’t no friend of mine.” Another great example would be from the song Shake, Rattle, and Roll. This would later be revised and cleaned up as well and the song will go on to become number one when performed by Bill Haley & His Comets. The song “Work with me Annie,” by Hank Ballard, because of its overtly sexual lyrics, the FCC tried to restrict the record from being released, but because the song was listened by a wide number of white teen audience and the record was in high demand, the restriction failed and the song hit the number one spot on the R&B chart. What was considered to be extremely sexually explicit lyrics for that generation was where the lyrics went “Annie, please don’t cheat; give me all my meat; let’s get it while the getting is good.” This song was among the first of the “Annie” songs which later lead to the sequel called “Annie had a Baby.” Work with Me Annie is regarded as one of the songs that shaped Rock and Roll and the song defined what was to later on become Rock and Roll.
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African-American Civil Rights in the 1950s
Race based segregation and discrimination became controversially commonplace in American society after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation and the close of the Civil War. Encompassing the social activism of blacks across the nation, the African American Civil Rights Movement gained traction and flourished through the 1950s and 60s until the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1968. The activism itself was fueled by the desire for equal prosperity of all, regardless of skin tone. A majority of the movement was conducted through nonviolent protests, as advocated by the "leadership" and philosophies of Martin Luther King Jr. However, no single man may lay claim to "leader" of the movement as it was a "coalition of thousands of local efforts nationwide, spanning several decades, hundreds of discrete groups, and all manner of strategies and tactics—legal, illegal, institutional, non-institutional, violent, non-violent." [-Doug McAdam]
Criticisms of government policies were often withheld, in fear of being found to side with communism, a commonality among American citizens during the post World War II “Red Scare”. It took many specific events and people to inspire hope and bring the African-American community together in order to secure federal protection and legal recognition of their constitutionally granted rights. In 1954, a landmark case, Brown vs. Board of Education was brought before the Supreme Court. The unanimous ruling was found in favor of the desegregation of public schools. Segregation itself was found to be unconstitutional, as made clear by its discriminating nature and dissimilarities in educational worth. Thurgood Marshall, the African-American lawyer who brought the case before the Supreme Court, became the first black Supreme Court justice in 1967. In 1955 when Rosa Parks, a prior NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) secretary, refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, a year-long bus boycott ensued amongst the outraged African-American populace. Martin Luther King, minister of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, in Montgomery Alabama formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The SCLC itself was a coalition of black civil rights and religious leaders fighting for integration. While Eisenhower did little to further the civil rights efforts of African-Americans, he did enforce school desegregation. When Orval Faubus, governor of Arkansas, utilized the national guard to prevent the integration of Little Rock Central High School by 9 black students, Eisenhower sent in the 101st airborne division to walk the students to class.. for an entire year. In 1958, after the retraction of troops, Faubus closed the high school. So, while social change came about slow, the 1950s were instrumental in the formation and unification of the African-American civil rights movement.
Early in the twentieth century, affluence was widespread amongst the white populace. As suburbanization occurred, whites poured into suburban neighborhoods by the thousands. By the end of the 1950s, 60 percent of the American populace was found to be in the middle class. However, this was not the case for African Americans. Systemic inequality and poverty in the decade was a clear indicator that we, as Americans, were not all living the ideal “American dream”. The dream that fueled our hatred and rejection of communist ideals. As a period of consensus, in which the public agreed upon what it meant to be an American as far as values and culture, The African American standard of living did not come close to coinciding with those same expectations. Faced with segregation in housing, employment, and public accommodations such as water fountains, blacks yearned for the equality that our nation supposedly harbored. Although it wasn’t until 1968 that the final civil rights act was passed (in regard to African Americans), the 1950s played a key role in igniting the fire that became the entirety of the African American Civil Rights movement and eventually, with time, provided equal opportunity and the possibility of the “American dream”, regardless of skin tone.
-Isaac Loftus
-Isaac Loftus
The Beat Generation
Written by Jessica Olave
“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,” - Allen Ginsberg, Howl (1955)
Elements of the Beat generation
The Beats formed around a rejection of mainstream culture, adopting innovation of style over blind consumerism. They were largely apolitical, bringing renewed interest into philosophy and religion, which they used in their exploration of the human condition. They were known for controversial literature, use of illicit drugs, alternative sexualities, and social deviance (Tamony 279). By celebrating creativity and non-conformity, they were often regarded as hedonistic in their portrayal by the media. Their ideals formed as a result to the stifling conventionality of the 1950’s, which they found both repressive and inauthentic. In short, by “rejecting the work ethic, the 'desperate materialism' of the suburban middle class, and the militarization of American life by the Cold War, the Beats celebrated impulsive action, immediate pleasure (often enhanced by drugs), and sexual experimentation" (Foner 1015). The term for the movement itself is emblematic of a larger theme:
“More than mere weariness, “beat” implies the feeling of having been used, of being raw. It invokes a sort of nakedness of mind, and ultimately of soul; a feeling of being reduced to the bedrock of consciousness. In short, it means un-dramatically pushed up against the wall of oneself. A man is beat when he goes broke, and wagers the sum of his resources on a single number; and the young generation has done that from early youth” - John Clellon Holmes, 1948
The Beats formed around a rejection of mainstream culture, adopting innovation of style over blind consumerism. They were largely apolitical, bringing renewed interest into philosophy and religion, which they used in their exploration of the human condition. They were known for controversial literature, use of illicit drugs, alternative sexualities, and social deviance (Tamony 279). By celebrating creativity and non-conformity, they were often regarded as hedonistic in their portrayal by the media. Their ideals formed as a result to the stifling conventionality of the 1950’s, which they found both repressive and inauthentic. In short, by “rejecting the work ethic, the 'desperate materialism' of the suburban middle class, and the militarization of American life by the Cold War, the Beats celebrated impulsive action, immediate pleasure (often enhanced by drugs), and sexual experimentation" (Foner 1015). The term for the movement itself is emblematic of a larger theme:
“More than mere weariness, “beat” implies the feeling of having been used, of being raw. It invokes a sort of nakedness of mind, and ultimately of soul; a feeling of being reduced to the bedrock of consciousness. In short, it means un-dramatically pushed up against the wall of oneself. A man is beat when he goes broke, and wagers the sum of his resources on a single number; and the young generation has done that from early youth” - John Clellon Holmes, 1948
Significant Figures:
Initially, the Beats consisted of a group of writers and poets gathering mainly in New York. The most prominent of these were Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, and Kenneth Rexroth. It was the novelist Jack Kerouac (author of On the Road) that first coined the term for the movement, which was a play on being "beaten down" or "beatified" (Foner, 1016). The topics of their work ranged from homosexuality to alienation and spirituality. The Beats were often intimately tied into each other’s lives, often drawing inspiration from those around them. Ginsberg’s main inspiration for Howl came from Carl Solomon, a man he met at Bellevue hospital, where he was sentenced to serve out a 90 day sentence.
Women are notably absent from the ranks of influential writers that formed the Beats. In fact, they are hardly mentioned at all. Despite progressive ideas regarding sexuality and race, the Beat generation remained bogged down by the flagrant sexism of the time. Descriptions of women found within the writings of Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs “often portray female characters in flat, traditional gender roles most typical of an ideal 1950s American housewife” (Tamony 276).
Initially, the Beats consisted of a group of writers and poets gathering mainly in New York. The most prominent of these were Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, and Kenneth Rexroth. It was the novelist Jack Kerouac (author of On the Road) that first coined the term for the movement, which was a play on being "beaten down" or "beatified" (Foner, 1016). The topics of their work ranged from homosexuality to alienation and spirituality. The Beats were often intimately tied into each other’s lives, often drawing inspiration from those around them. Ginsberg’s main inspiration for Howl came from Carl Solomon, a man he met at Bellevue hospital, where he was sentenced to serve out a 90 day sentence.
Women are notably absent from the ranks of influential writers that formed the Beats. In fact, they are hardly mentioned at all. Despite progressive ideas regarding sexuality and race, the Beat generation remained bogged down by the flagrant sexism of the time. Descriptions of women found within the writings of Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs “often portray female characters in flat, traditional gender roles most typical of an ideal 1950s American housewife” (Tamony 276).
Societal Impact:
The Beat generation influenced art, literature, politics, and the social norms regarding sexuality for generations to come. In a highly publicized trial, City Lights Books was charged with obscenity for the publication of Howl, Ginsberg’s collection of poems. When judge Clayton Horn decided that the poem was of "redeeming social importance”, it paved the path for liberalization of literary publishing. Kerouac played a key role in the popularization of Buddhism in Western society, romanticizing its tenants in is book Dharma Bums. Further, the Beats were the predecessors to the “Hippies”, as “many aspects of the Beat movement metamorphosed into the counterculture of the 1960s” (Tamony 271). |
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Consumer Culture
- By Joshua William Chan
Consumerism in the 1950’s was about the prosperity gained after an era of war and poverty, buying products that re-enforced gender roles, and proving capitalism was superior compared to communism.
Consumerism in the 1950’s was about the prosperity gained after an era of war and poverty, buying products that re-enforced gender roles, and proving capitalism was superior compared to communism.
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Sex Culture
By: Joshua Razon
In the 1950s men and especially women faced increasing pressure to conform to the nation’s image of the ideal family. The typical household consisted of a husband, a wife, and children. Divorce during the time was unheard of. The idea of a middle-aged man or woman being single was absurd. Regardless of the nature of the marriage, men and women stayed together because it was simply the social norm. The man’s role was to go to work in the morning and come home in the evening to financially support the family while the woman played the ever-so classic role as domesticated housewife. The family was traditional in every sense of the word.
From these conditions came the general attitude about sex. On paper, it was something that you simply would not talk about, almost as if sexual intercourse was only performed for the sole purpose of procreation. Why? The domesticated family unit was supposed to be a critical part of national security during the Cold War. However, as tame as families seemed on paper actual examination reveals that sex culture during the 50s was very counter-cultural to the national ideology at the time. During the 50s people such Alfred Kinsey, William Masters, Virginia Johnson, Hugh Hefner, Margaret Sangers and Gregory Pincus would work towards revealing the true nature of sex culture. |
Alfred Kinsey is known for his publication of Sexual Behavior in the Human Male in 1947 and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female later in 1953. Kinsey’s methods consisted of “in-depth, face-to-face interviews by highly trained interviewers”. Kinsey searched for various sexual behaviors in both men and women from simply being naked to intercourse to homoeroticism and sadomasochism.
Although William Masters and Virginia Johnson didn’t obtain their “fame” until the 60s with the publication of their book Human Sexual Response in 1966 their work began later in the 1950s. Unlike Kinsey, Masters and Johnson directly observed their subjects to record both psychological and physiological responses in both males and females. Masters and Johnson even used prostitutes as research subjects. Both Kinsey’s and Masters and Johnson’s work received criticism and were controversial at the time. Understandably, their work painted men and women in new light; females (wives and daughters) were supposed to be faithful and tame or virgins and the publications said otherwise. |
However, the discourse of sex in the 1950s wasn’t strictly in a scientific manner. Hugh Hefner publicized American sexuality through mass media with Playboy Magazine. It brought the topic of sex out into the open by integrating sex into the mainstream media. Issues of the magazine, not only contained beautiful women that personified the decade’s youthful rebellion, but also advertisements, short stories, cartoons, and interviews. This gave credibility to the magazine as it wasn’t just viewed as smut or strictly pornographic but something more sophisticated; a men’s magazine.
Women also gained a boost in the sex culture of the 50s with the work of Margaret Sanger and Gregory Pincus. During the decade Margaret Sanger would co-invent the first human birth control pill with Gregory Pincus. Sanger would then later make great contributions into legalizing it. With the invention of the birth control pill women could have sex with a greatly reduced risk of pregnancy. Sex was less frightening for women.
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But what does it add up to? All these contributions to the sex culture in the 1950s would pave the way for the Sex Revolution/Free Love Movement of the 60s. More importantly, though, in a time where there was a constant pressure and fear to conform to social standard this vitalization of sex in America helped people of that nation rebel much like other forms of entertainment did at the time. Although the 50s culture is associated with being docile and domesticated in reality the people of the time were quite restless. Not everyone was so prudish and wholesome as believed to be. The sex culture of the 1950s was an exception to America’s conformist convictions.