Film

Akulina Kashchei

The movie rebel without a cause shaped the youth of the early 1950’s. This was insanely popular film for teens. The film dealt with the main character, Jim Stark who was a rebellious middle-class teenage boy who got into thuggery and drag racing for women. This was one of the most popular movies for young teenagers as they shaped themselves in that rebellious stereotype not knowing the true consequences, but just trying to be like Jim from the movie. Adding to teenagers trying to fit into that movie, it went from being a stereotype to being the reality as teenager did become more rebellious a couple years after the movie aired.

There were a variety of movies in the 1950’s. Since the time was after the war they tried to spend time out of the the political view and open new types of genres. A large genre in the 50’s was sci-fi. With this came movies such as Forbidden Planet, The thing from Another World, the War of the World’s. But the sci-fi film that was the umbrella of the sci-fi topic of the 50’s was The Day the Earth Stood Still. This movie was insanely popular at the time and it shaped the sci-fi genre for the next decades. The film is about a flying saucer hitting earth and a robot coming out of it, and the civilians feel threatened. With such a simple plot came a whole genre of great sci-fi films.

This is the story that made a mark on Disney. The main protagonist is one of the well-known cartoon character there's are. The movie follows a girl named Cinderella who lives with her step-mother who is the antagonist. Cinderella has a fairy-godmother who gives her a “look” for the ball so she wouldn't be recognized by her stepmother and to fit in. By midnight her look would go to normal. Cinderella forgets about midnight, and when the time strikes she runs out looses one glass slipper and leaves the ball. The prince finds the glass slipper and that leads him to find Cinderella. This is one of the most famous stories in America.

This movie(The Seven Year Itch) was a comedy about marriage, temptation, and sexual repression. It follows a man whose family goes away for the summer. He is a faithful husband to his wife, but since she is gone he is alone. He is then attempted by his next door neighbor. The reason why I picked this scene for an artifact, because of the while it represented Marilyn Monroe, and many, many other actresses. In the scene it shows The Girl (Marilyn Monroe) walking with the protagonist, and she walks under a working vent. Her dress flies up and you see her pulling it down. This was an iconic scene as it represented this type of class to movies and it represented the actress Marilyn Monroe.

The 2nd clip is from a movie about a silent film actress who falls in love with her co-star while shooting a movie. At the very end of the scene the crazy actress says “Alright, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up." Which made this movie an all time classic. Lines such as these can be heard through shows/films such as Mrs.Doubtfire, Gilmore Girls, and The comeback. The line really shifted the audience, as it became extremely popular, and the popularity reached to 90’s culture.

Television (or radio)

Group (Nora, Levi, Akulina and Sidney)

Amos ‘N’ Andy (Nora)

This clip shows how little the public thought of the gay community in the 50’s, in a way it’s more repressive than anti-gay slander because it refuses to acknowledge their existence at all and the permanence of someone’s sexual orientation. Although they weren’t the most open minded, Amos ‘N’ Andy was considered a very progressive show for the era due to its main cast consisting of entirely colored people with the only white actors to appear on the show being recurring or only there for one episode. It was all about the rich culture of Harlem and the lives of average African Americans living in New York City. The 50’s were a time of racial segregation and the beginning of the civil rights movement but Amos ‘N’ Andy, which aired 1951 - 1953, focused on the former and the controversy around black people aspiring to be more than just maids and janitors. Some critics have said that the show portrayed the black community negatively because the characters schemed up means to reach their petty goals and some were so gullible they were on the point of being dim-written. This opinion wasn't all around accepted though, Amos’s actor Alvin Childress defended the show by saying that it was the only show in the time to show black people as business men, wealthy, in positions of power, possessing legal authority, and not cleaning up someone's garbage. The show definitely perpetuated stereotypes with its generic portrayal of the fictional characters but it helped real black people kick start their careers or it may have inspired them to be on TV in the future. It might not have been revolutionary but it was an important step forward.

Dragnet (Nora)

Dragnet was a show about Los Angeles police officer Joe Friday played by emotionless actor, director, and executive producer Jack Webb. He had complete control over the show and used it as a medium for him to voice his anger at liberals and the younger generation. Joe Friday is the stone faced cop who can do anything, everything and still look like an automaton. Every episode is him vs the naive “youngun' ”s who don’t grovel in the presence of authority and think that the Vietnam War might’ve been a bad thing. Dragnet was a conservative crusade into the world of TV and one of the first television shows to not so subtly reference timely political themes. Though this isn't always a good thing, because it got to the point where there was an episode featuring Jack Webb’s, now famous, anti-liberal rant that didn’t even fit in the show. The public and especially this show’s audience were from the GOP but that didn’t stop show from being pulled off the air in 1959 partially because of it controversial nature and partially because many viewers fell asleep in the scenes where(in his effort to be realistic) Joe Friday filled out mountains of paperwork, Somehow it was still popular enough to resurface in 1967, again in 1989 and again in 2003, it’s newer versions were slightly more exciting and hopefully less misogynistic but it didn’t change that much over the years. So it wasn’t your average show, but it still revolves around some very relevant themes in the decade, like the idea that ‘most everything’s fine and dandy in the U. S. of A., or noir LA in this case.

I Love Lucy (Nora)

I love Lucy was a sitcom in the 50’s and is showed a mixed race couple. Lucy is the wacky wife of Cuban bandleader Ricky Ricardo. Living in New York, Ricky tries to succeed in show business while Lucy always tried to help. The shows main cast included their friends Fred and Ethel Mertz who were also their landlords. The show went through 6 seasons. The main characters also ended up having a child, and ended up moving to Hollywood. The show was highly rated even though they showed a mixed race couple which wasn't highly common or accepted sense of racial segregation. But with that in mind they still had sexist stereotypes, with Lucy being a housewife, who did the chores of the home, and Ricky being the breadwinner of the house. The show wasn't really political in a sense but it did show struggles for them. Overall the show was highly rated and viewed by audiences so it was successful.

Father Knows Best (Levi)

“Father Knows Best” was your typical 50’s family sitcom, much like “Leave it to Beaver” and other titles from this decade. By typical I mean that the Andersons were like every other middle class white family of that time. The episode I watched included a family dinner which made the gender roles in this family clear - The woman did the dishes, cooked and wore aprons while the men were sitting on the couch reading (Father) or doing homework (Son). This was a rather boring and slow moving show in my opinion and in 2017 people would only watch it as a last resort or a joke. This show shows how easily entertained people were and how nobody thought anything different would be better although they were obviously proved wrong in the future,

The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet

The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet was a show starring the real life Nelson family and it followed their "adventures" as Ozzie and Harriet(a married couple)'s two sons go through adolescence, find love, and get jobs. The pilot episode depicts Ozzie in a job where he's in charge of advertising women's underwear while Harriet was the more intriguing character.

Music

Levi Grossman

I chose these artifacts to show the difference between traditional music and more bold music as well as to why parents were so fed up with artists like Elvis. The first picture is of Little Richard who is wearing makeup and making peace signs, this is a great example of the laid back and smooth style that these artists possessed. The next artifact is a picture of the Chordettes, a four woman group that was popular in the early 50’s, they are all wearing the same clothing, something very in line. The last three photographs are two of Eddie Cochran and one of Elvis Presley, two artists who are in my opinion very similar. These two very seductive pop/rock vocalists may have very well shaped music in the 50’s, they truly introduced a new edge to music.

Funky and Upbeat rock tunes like Elvis Presley’s “Jailhouse Rock”, Eddie Cochran’s “Summertime Blues”, and Little Richard’s “Tutti Frutti” all shaped the 50’s as well as helped the people distance themselves from the ongoing international tensions and the fight to keep women in the workplace when soldiers returned.

The way that Elvis Presley dressed, sang, and danced, in many parents minds, provoked their tenagers to have an attitude that they found offensive. Little Richard’s questionable sexuality and wild nature also frightened parents. The music was considered by the worried as “Devil’s music” because they believed it might influence juvenile delinquency. In turn, they would make many efforts to ban the music like limit djs from playing it. Most of these parents were actually right. Teenagers started becoming more and more rebellious of authorities, mainly because of the opportunity that the explosive economy of the 1950’s gave them to start a new generation. This showed two almost opposite beliefs about the American value system. Teenagers believed that it was time to revolutionize, and parents wanted everything to stay as it was. As we all know, teenagers did begin to revolutionize, and it was all because of the passion that “Rock n’ Roll” music ignited in them. Although these teenagers did not make so much of an impact in the 50’s, what they did do translated into the 60’s where protest music became very popular for young people.

In and around the early 50’s, conservative values were the most widespread. The music was very conservative as well, take “Mr. Sandman” by the Chordettes for example. Compared to the vibrant work of elvis and Little Richard, this tune is very single toned. As the decade went on music transitioned as daring artists like Cochran, Presley, and Little Richard came onto the scene. eventually this music started to become treated like conservative music was in the 50’s, people respected it and looked at it as something more than inappropriate and annoying.

Little Richard was one of the first “Sexually Questionable” artists in the United States. Throughout his life he had to trick girlfriends about his sexual appetites in some quite clever ways. The main part that stuck out about Little Richard being gay was that he was very proud about it, he was brave especially in a time where being gay or black could get you killed. In one of my artifacts it shows Little Richard wearing lipstick and making peace signs with his hands, this shows the daring nature of artists like himself.

news and politics

Nora Archer

When Joseph Stalin died on 5 March 1953, Cold War tensions were at their worst. Meaningful diplomatic negotiations between the adversaries had long since ceased, and an atmosphere of hysteria and suspicion gripped the world’s two superpowers. Stalin´s stroke and following death through this dangerous dichotomy into disarray because his successor, Georgi Malenkov, believed in peaceful coexistence despite Eisenhower's campaign promises to ¨win the Cold War¨. Of course this wasn't America’s only problem abroad, the Korean War was seen by America as the first step in a hostile international takeover of the Communist party. With the Cold and Korean War going on at the same time America saw itself as the victimized capitalist nation fighting a one man war against the ´Commies´. When the violent, casualty filled, dog fight of a war ended in a strained armistice the US was greatly relieved and sought to make itself the permanent ally of the newly democratic South Korea.

Onto domestic crises, though that might not be quite the right word because we’re talking about America’s largest in landmass, most populated, most popular for hedge funds, and first (ignoring the fact that Guam was obtained in the same deal) corporated territory: Puerto Rico! Its sunny, fun, full of tax evaders, and in the 1950’s was primed for a nationalist movement. This chauvinist ideology spread across Puerto Rico persuading 18% of Puerto Ricans who felt that for too long they had no representation in the creation of the legislation nor the enforcement of the administration that ruled them, they wanted independence. The Puerto Rican Nationalist Party perceived their oppression as a continuation of colonialism, thankfully their drastic plans did not come to fruition but that’s not to say they weren’t active. In March of 1954 they shot 5 Congressmen and one was badly wounded; a tiny, minuscule rupture in a time of affluence and relative peace, unveiling the consequences of the division and decisions they ignored but would be fully exposed in the following decade. Onto another at hand, the second wave in the great migration. For those of you who don’t know the great migration in American History was that of African Americans, mostly the grand and great grandchildren of slaves, from the south where they had lived most of their lives, to the north where there lay more manufacturing job opportunities and no Jim Crowe laws. This didn’t go over well with the white residents of Chicago, Detroit, and New York.

1950-1959 was a very restrictive decade and the American people were ready to elect very conservative, experienced government officials. So the Grand Old Party nominated Dwight David “Ike” Eisenhower and he was elected 34th president of the United States, not even a decade after leading Allied troops in the massive invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe on D-Day. He represented discipline, tradition, and solidarity, something the general public desperately wanted after the gender upheaval in the workplace caused by WWII. Eisenhower came to in power in a very complicated time, the Cold War anxiety was high, especially after Stalin’s death and the Korean War had recently started; but the internal turmoil of the country was also a top priority. In his second term the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v Board of Education of Topeka that the segregation of public schools was unconstitutional. Almost the entirety of the nation’s caucasians were not hesitant to riot and whine and complain that it was outrageous, and no where in the constitution did it say that blacks should be treated the same as whites, they were horrified. And Eisenhower didn’t immediately reject their ideas, he was slow to endorse racial integration in the education system, and he probably pushed the civil rights movement back another decade, but that was his purpose. Maintain the peace. Maintain the facade of stability, contentment and overall positivity, even if it was far from the truth.

Although Archie comics started in the 40’s it is a great example of 50’s prosperity and family values. The town of Riverdale (the setting of the iconic series) is in a state of constant joy, briefly interrupted by a occasional melodramatic story line that's resolved in just a matter of pages. It’s a prime example of postwar escapism, with so many global and national tensions people needed perfunctory respites where they could enjoy traditional fun in the lives of Riverdale residents or within their own picket fences.

In the 1950’s the american public valued their reputation as victors of the war, as one of the few countries in possession of a nuclear arsenal, as an economic standard for the international community, and as a newly minted, global superpower. We were living and believing in the American Dream. I could say that not much has changed, since we still spend 54% of our discretionary budget on the military but despite this, our values have changed; immensely. Along with the spread of political awareness many have decided that our real goal, and responsibility, as a superpower is to have the kind of human rights record that other countries will hold up as the ideal. America strives to set a good example, we hold ourselves at a different level even though we have a complicated history with violating global conventions.

Advertising

Sidney Rabeck

Cigarettes and smoking were very popular at the time. This ad is for cigarettes and it portrays a black person smoking it. This shows that America was still showing racist themes in their daily life during the 1950s, such as advertisements. It could have been a representation of black slaves farming tobacco, which is very insensitive. The person is the company’s mascot, and appeared in many Brunette advertisements of the time. During most the 50’s people of color were still segregated so having people of color represented at all in advertising is a step up, and nowadays people of color are just as common as whites in advertising.

Oreo cookies have been around since 1912 and sales keep going up and up still today. This ad shows one of their mottos for how to eat their cookies, which is “open up and take a lick!” Since chocolate cookies were already popular, they advertised the vanilla filling inside of them. The image depicts a young girl licking the filling out of the inside, and then eating the cookies on the outside. Oreo filling is advertised as “luscious and creamy, like no other cookie has” and “that’s what makes them so good!” Compared to today’s oreo ads, this focuses much more on what’s special about the taste, while today most advertisements in general are all about looks.

This ad for “Elliott’s White Veneer” paint shows a black kid painting another one over with white paint, and their facial expression shows that he is now happy that he can blend in with whites. The poster says “see how it covers over black” which shows that since blacks weren’t accepted as “people,” they should paint themselves over with this paint and look white. It reminds me of “blackface” but in a vice-versa way because it would be not only used as white paint, but to be used by blacks to paint over themselves and pretend that they are white. The real purpose of this paint, which is not what is advertised in the cartoon, is for glossing over tiles and other parts of the house, while the actual sign shows a different appeal.

Theme: The 50's fought to maintain the facade of stability, contentment and overall positivity, even if it was far from the truth.