The 1950s

Television: Isa Gilabert

I Love Lucy - Job Switching.m4v

I Love Lucy

I Love Lucy was an iconic TV show of the 50's. In the show, Desi was portrayed as a hard working, money making man with no cooking skill. Lucy, on the other hand, was portrayed as a money spending, naive, silly woman who's only skill was cooking. This shows how in the 50's, gender roles were very prominent. It also exhibits the fact that American culture valued handiness and dominance in men. On the other hand, it valued cooking skill and submissiveness in women.

The Twilight Zone

In the 50's there was a lot tension from the Cold War. Everyone was very paranoid and had doubts about their safety. The fear and apprehension of these troubled times is seen reflected in this show, both in the music, which portrays suspension, and in the absence of any people, which gives the setting a sort of "ghost town" vibe. The main character, Mike Ferris, has lost his memories, which is shown as a very bad thing. This corresponds to the idea that without your brains, you aren't anything, which shows that smart people were valued in the 50's.

Rocky and Bullwinkle

Rocky and Bullwinkle was a show about a clumsy, rather aloof moose and a quick, clever squirrel. The moose's name is Bullwinkle, with the squirrel as Rocky. In the clip, you can see that Rocky, the smart one, is wearing a pilot's cap. As mentioned above, in the 50's, the U.S. was preparing for war with Russia. Since Russia is halfway across the world, pilots were to be of high value. Therefore, Rocky wearing a pilot's cap is sending the message that pilots have to be clever, a message also supported in the Twilight Zone. As mentioned before, cleverness is also something that was valued in the 50's.

Leave it to Beaver

Leave it to Beaver (1957-63) was a sitcom about a perfect family of four. Beaver, the youngest kid, is portrayed as witty but lovably dumb. All of his jokes are based on his not understanding something or being sarcastic to his family. But by the end of the episode, where Beaver is supposedly intelligent, he stops cracking jokes and gets down to business. This shows that in the 50's, you couldn't get anywhere if you weren't smart. Also, when Beaver's mom and dad are wondering where his intelligence came from, they never once mention the possibility of it being inherited from his mother. This is representative of how women weren't considered as people capable of being intelligent. Finally, going back to the point made about Beaver getting serious, this shows that one value in America in the 50's is serious people, because as shown above, intelligence was valuable and the two were closely linked.

Bonanza

Bonanza is a western TV show that exhibits America's obsession with strong, masculine cowboys with slight anger issues. In this episode, all of the female characters are basically portrayed as ripe for the picking by men. This can be linked to gender inequality in the 50's. Docile women were made for a handsome, strong gentleman lover. Men are the masters of women and can be as respectful or as rude to them as they want. This reinforces the idea presented in I Love Lucy that women should be docile and men should be strong.

New and Politics: Kian Alzindani

President Harry Truman

President Harry Truman became president 1945. And in his first months he dropped an atomic bomb on Japan to end the gruesome war. Also, when he was president, the cold war happened. The cold war was a competition between America and the Soviet Union, to see which technology was better. His presidency ended in 1953. His contribution to the outcome of America was remarkable.

Civil Rights Movement

Blacks were not allowed to do the same things whites can do. Which caused a Blacks Civil Rights movement, started in 1955 campaigned to end racism and inequality for blacks. Blacks couldn't be in the same building entrance as a white person, blacks couldn't eat in the same cafe, blacks couldn't sit in the same taxi or drink from the same water fountain, and blacks were not able to sit in the front of the bus. And the law supported these inequalities. I believe that it was unfair for blacks to deal with the inequalities that were put in America.

Emmett Till's Death

Emmett Till's Death caused the civil rights movement. Fourteen year old Emmett Till was visiting relatives in Mississippi, and was accused of whistling at Carolyn Bryant, a white woman. Four days later, Bryant's husband Roy and his half brother abducted Till. They beat him to death and then shot him in the head. The two men were sent for murder, but the white jury acquitted them. This specific crime scene is what lead to freedom for all blacks. The cruel abuse was very unnecessary and the people who did the crime should have went to jail.

The Korean War

The cause of the Korean war was because of North Korea crossing the 38th parallel, which was South Korea's property. The Korean War was a conflict between North Korea and South Korea, where at least 2.5 million people lost their lives. The United Nations, with the United States joined the war on the side of the South Koreans. And the Republic of China joined the war on the side of the North Koreans. The war resulted in independence for both North and South Korea. The war was a waste of deaths, not much came out of it.

Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks was a civil rights activist born in February 14th, 1913. As a kid she was familiar with the segregation in public. At one time, Rosa's grandfather had to hold a shotgun when the KKK was marching down the street. Her revolt to surrender her seat to a white passenger on a public bus, triggered on a citywide boycott and helped launch nationwide efforts to end segregation of public facilities. Which resulted in jail time for her. Her bravery for her rights were very strong which a lot of people of her race could not do.

Music: Rowan McArthur

Elvis Presley

Elvis Presley was considered by many to have been one of the most significant artists in the 20th century. His music encouraged people to get up and dance, although many thought his dancing was atrocious. This is why fans used his music to escape from the fear and suspense of the Cold War. It shows that they valued happiness and fun in their lives.

Chuck Berry

Chuck Berry is one of the pioneers of rock and roll and regarded as one of the best. His music includes many guitar solos and lively beats. It also related to the lives of many American teenagers, very important for music in the 1950's. Berry's music portrayed the carefree lives of youth, showing that fun and relaxing was valued by Americans.

Johnny Cash

In the 1950's, Johnny Cash was one of the most popular country singers. Many of his songs were sad and poignant to the audience. Cash's music reflected the tense and frightened mood of the Cold War that was going on. The passion in his music was what fans loved most, as emotion and expression of emotion was valued in the 50's.

Little Richard

Little Richard is one of the influential R&B artists of the 50's. His music was popular with both white and black teenagers. It encouraged people to accept who they were, no matter their race or sexuality, which connects to the civil rights movement and the emergence of idea of different sexual orientations. This shows that individuality and loving yourself was valued in the 1950's.

Patti Page

Although rock and roll music was very popular in the 50's, classic pop musicians such as Patti Page were very successful in the earlier years. She started off the decade with her hit recording of "Tennessee Waltz," and her other most popular recordings were also slow love songs. In the 50's, African Americans were becoming more recognized in society, so race and class were not something everyone could relate to. Love was, and finding love and happiness were highly valued.

Advertising: Miles Danielski

Start Cola Earlier!

This ad shows how little corporations cared about the information they were feeding people. Thanks to ads like this, people might actually have thought that giving babies cola would make them less awkward. Big businesses obviously didn't value presenting actual information in their ads so that they could teach their audience rather than deceive it.

Pears Soap

You can tell just by looking at this ad how wrong it is. An African American child is shown getting in a bath filled with the soap being advertised(Pears Soap), and gets out having apparently washed off his skin color. The ad treats skin color as if it is something that can or should be washed off. The whites of this time obviously considered colored skin something with no value, something that should just have been washed off.

The Harder She Works, the Cuter She Gets!

This ad is just kind of wrong, because it makes wives look like housemaids who thrive on cleaning. It didn't even acknowledge that women could be getting jobs and working, and yet made a huge generalization and assumes that all women thrived off housework. This ad seems to embody how little women were valued for all the work they did.

See How it Covers over the Black!

Making a statement saying that white paint covers well over black is okay, but showing African Americans painting themselves white with this paint is going way too far. The ad doesn't even seem to acknowledge that they are normal human beings, showing them as strange cartoons. It completely devalues this race in the eyes of people who might have seen this ad, which is completely unfair to them.

Cream of Wheat

This ad, while not racist itself, follows a racist trend present in 50s advertising, by having a majority of African Americans present in advertisements be chefs or house workers. This is wrong because it makes the assumption that all colored adults only work jobs such as these. And above all, even African Americans who did work these jobs were not at all valued for the work they did.

Film: Sammy Hauser

Cinderella (1950)

Disney released Cinderella in 1950, and since then it has been made into both a broadway musical and a live-action movie, which shows that a story's morals be relevant years later (67 years) The timeless tale is one of 29 Disney films from the 1950s. Cinderella shows an ideal world of dreams and happiness, which could distract people from the real world, just like how Elvis's music helped people distract themselves from the tensions of the cold war. It shows how people valued compassion more than fierceness in women. Today, we value both equally.

Singin' in the Rain (1952)

Musicals were very popular in the 1950s. People who couldn't afford to see plays could see singing and dancing in the movies. Singin' in the Rain is about Hollywood in the 1920s (when sound in movies was invented) and actors who are trying to make their first "talkie" picture. Because it is set in the 1920s, it doesn't really connect to politics at the time, but it does show how people in the 1950s loved fun, and I think people today still value the same things.

Sabrina (1954)

In Sabrina, the daughter of the chauffeur to a extremely rich family falls in love with one of the sons of the rich family. The movie shows how we valued love over class and money. I think American Culture today still prioritizes love over profit. And one of the sons is a very successful businessman, which was valued in men, while Sabrina didn't understand the business and why he still did it when he was already rich.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a science-fiction film about humans being replaced by emotionless "pod people" from another planet. It shows how people valued individuality and emotion over perfection, and I think we still value these qualities today. Invasion of the Body Snatchers is also thought to symbolize what would happen if America ignored communism, and seems to be promoting McCarthyism, which is when people make unfair accusations about other people, usually because of communism.

Vertigo (1958)

A man meets a woman who looks surprisingly like his old love, who committed suicide. He asks her out to dinner, and soon, he is buying her clothes that look like his girlfriend's old clothes, and making her change her hair and makeup to look more like her. He seems to think that "it can't matter to her" what she looks like. This is promoting the stereotype that women only want to look good for men, and not for themselves. Also, Scottie only liked Judy because she looked like Madeline, not because of the person she was, which shows that women were valued more because of their bodies than their brains, especially women in films at the time. Although this is changing, we still have a long way to go.

And, out of all these films, none show characters of color, which did not help integration or civil rights.

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