Culture of the 1970's

•Though Hollywood was experiencing a financial and artistic depression, the decade became a creative high point for the U.S film industry.

•Restrictions on language, adult content, sexuality, and violence had loosened up, opening new opinions for “movie brats” or new and experimental film makers.

•The counter culture of the time had influenced Hollywood to be freer to take more risks and to experiment with alternative, young film makers. Thus, opening the way for some of the worlds most popular films, music, and much more.

Movies

Movies

•movies had nuances of disco beats to present as western up-beat.

•most movies contained rich cinematography

•popular movies that came out in the 70s were: The Godfather, Rocky, Apocalypse Now

•most were based around WWII

•some westerns were popular too

Music

•Start of "metal" music : Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath (experimental)

•The Beatles broke up

•Popular bands were: Abba, Queen, Kansas, Boston, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Electric Light Orchestra, Lynyrd Skynyrd, AC/DC, KISS, The Eagles, Aerosmith, THE DOORS, THE WHO

•Disco music was popular too: Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor, Dalida, Anita Ward, The Village People, The Bee Gees

•In the mid 70s punk and garage band was popular: The Ramones, Blondie, Sex Pistols, The Clash

Hollywood

•In the 1970’s the films that were a major success were film about the harsh truths of wars. For example, films like Patton, which was about World War II general, M*A*S*H, about a Korean War field hospital.

•Honest, old-fashioned films like Five Easy Pieces, Summer of ‘42 and Love Story, were commercial and critical hits.

•As the years progresses blockbuster movies keep about, bringing abroad 1975’s Jaws and then two years later Stars Wars Episode IV: A New Hope arose in May 1977.

Literature

~Most books publishes in the 1970’s revolved around a man’s alienation from his spiritual roots.

Popular author’s of the time include:
John Updike; wrote about characters trying to find meaning in a society spiritually empty and in a state of moral decay.
Kurt Vonnegut; explored the loneliness of contemporary society and the power hungry materialism that pervaded it.
But of all three author’s Toni Morrison was the most remembered ; he examined the Black American experiences as never before.
Also poetry of Rod McKuen was very popular.

Education

~In schools, two trends that were nonrelated to education impacted school’s during the Seventies.

One being the anti-war movement, was mostly shown on college and university campuses. The Kent State massacre was the most devastating event, where four students were gunned down by Ohio National Guardsmen attempting to stop the anti-war demonstrations.

Second, the mandatory busing to achieve racial school integration, mostly in Boston and other Northeastern cities, this often led to violence and the disruption of schooling.

Radical Movements

• ~1965, Dick Leitsch, the president of the New York Mattachine Society, advocated direct action, and the group staged the first public homosexual demonstrations and picket lines in the 1960s


• ~The summer of 1970, groups in at least eight American cities were sufficiently organized to schedule simultaneous events commemorating the Stonewall riots for the last Sunday in June.


• ~The black panthers were good friends with the gay liberation front in 1969 the Gay Liberation Front voted a cash donation to the Black Panthers, some of whose leaders had expressed the most virulent homophobic sentiments.

President Richard Nixon

President Nixon

•He opened of diplomatic relations with the China
•Watergate Scandal
•The "Deep Throat" Informant
•He was the only U.S. President to resign.
•His nickname by the Press was "Tricky Dick"

Feminists

•1968 was the beginning of the women liberation movement. Cathy Nugent in 'When Women Fought for Liberation'

•In The Essay written by Kelley L. Ross, Ph.D. on 'Feminism' it said, “A woman's role in society was defined by the Feminists on whether they were contributors to society or not. It meant for them to have a job. Being a housewife was the bottom pit of human society. Having children to raise the single mother had to be responsible and self- supporting. Any help from the state was seen as a form of 'sponging'. Any wish to rise one's family staying at home was an impossible dream, and seen as a misplaced emotional weakness by the feminists .”

The Seventies: Under Control?

Environmentalist

•The seventies started a mainstream affirmation of the environmental issues early activists from the '60s.

•The moon landing that had occurred at the end of the previous decade transmitted back concrete images of the earth as an integrated, life-supporting system and shaped a public willingness to preserve nature.

•On April 22, 1970, the United States celebrated its first Earth Day in which over two thousand colleges and universities and roughly ten thousand primary and secondary schools participated.

•More mainstream environmentalism was starting to show force with the signing of the Endangered Species Act in 1973 and the formation of CITES in 1975.