Topic 1 - C2 - Cultural Conformity and Challenge

Question 1

What led to conformity?

Answer 1

• Believed threat of USSR invasion necessitated national unity
• Economic instability and national insecurity = people wanted economic success and stability (WW2 and GD)
• Advertisements promoted the same goods to everyone
• Big businesses wanted workers not individuals

Question 2

What did critics think that the suburbs represented?

Answer 2

• Levittowns best illustrated blandness and conformity

- Prefabricated homes with prefrabricated food - rise of ready meal and all homes built the same (Little Boxes)

Question 3

What did William Whyte’s Organisation Man (1962) sum up?

Answer 3

Criticisms of suburban life, thought workers bought the ethos of big organisations that promised security and prosperity. Thought it threatened individualism

Question 4

How did salaries for MC workers increase between 1947-1957 and why?

Answer 4

By 61% - fuelled by explosive growth of large corporations that needed specialised workers to market and manage corporate products

Question 5

Why was it thought that conformity was instilled into young children?

Answer 5

Many schools in PW period had courses on socially acceptable behaviour

Question 6

How many US homes had TVs in 1960 and how popular were they?

Answer 6

• 90% had TVs

- Polls in 1960s revealed TV as the favourite leisure activity for more than 50% of Americans

Question 7

What are examples of how TV promoted conformity?

Answer 7

• 1950s family sitcoms ‘Father Knows Best’ (1954-1960)
• ‘The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet’ (1952-1966) portrayed the domestic bliss of white, MC suburban families where mothers stayed at home

Question 8

What are examples of how TV promoted consumerism?

Answer 8

‘I Remember Mama’ (1949-1956), young family members taught their immigrant parents that consumerism was good

Question 9

Why was TV criticised?

Answer 9

• Caused decline in educational test scores and reading newspapers and magazines lost sales, Life magazine ceased publication
• Made viewers physically inactive and mentally passive
• Promoted consumerism and conformity

Question 10

Why did TV promote conformity?

Answer 10

To appeal to the masses

Question 11

Why was TV praised?

Answer 11

• Cheap entertainment for entire family
• Claimed TV created a national unified culture
• Some programmes challenged conformity e.g The Open Mind (1956-present),
• Helped CRM - MLK 1957 spoke of new negro, Little Rock 1957

Question 12

What did popular TV portray?

Answer 12

Submissive women, heroic men and evil Indians

Question 13

When was the first interracial marriage shown on TV?

Answer 13

1957 first interracial movie was shown in ‘Island in the Sun’

Question 14

How did Hollywood’s treatment of sex change?

Answer 14

Baby Doll (1956) Ignored Motion Picture Code because public attitudes were liberalising and 1952 SC ruling had granted freedom of expression in films

Question 15

What showed that Broadway was more conservative on sex than Hollywood?

Answer 15

Blue Denim (1959) 15 year old girl had an abortion in the play version but kept the baby in the movie

Question 16

How did changes in attitudes towards race get shown in film and TV?

Answer 16

• ‘The Defiant Ones’ (1959) - black and white convicts worked together to survive
• ‘South Pacific’ (1958) is about two interracial romances - not well received in the South and nearly caused a race riot in Long Island in New York State

Question 17

How did changes in attitudes towards role of women change in film and TV?

Answer 17

• ‘All That Heaven Allows’ (1955) showed UC widow reject MC materialism and chooses to marry twice
  ‘Crime of Passion’ (1957) successful journalist suffocated by suburban life, wants her husband to be somebody, has an affair with his superior but turned into the police

Question 18

How did film and TV depict teenage culture?

Answer 18

• ‘Rebel Without a Cause’ (1955) shows James Dean struggling with the adult world
• ‘The Blackboard Jungle’ (1955) shows disruptive behaviour in the classroom. People wanted it banned. Classroom teacher did establish control

Question 19

What evidence is there that the rise in TV advertisements caused increased spending?

Answer 19

$5.7 billion was spent in 1950, 1960 $11.9 billion due to the rise of TV - More money spent on advertising in 1950s than on education

Question 20

What is an example of the effect of advertising on sales?

Answer 20

Marlboro cigarettes considered effeminate until ads associated the brand with the Wild West cowboy masculinity = sales rocketed

Question 21

Who were the Beat Generation?

Answer 21

• MC young intellectuals who rejected materialism
• Characterised by spontaneity, drugs, free love, defiance of authority and convention
• First members of the BG were Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac

Question 22

How did Ginsberg become famous from the BG?

Answer 22

1956 after publically reading the poem ‘Howl’ which was written under the influence of drugs: addressed issues like drugs, homosexuality and non conformity

Question 23

How did Kerouac become famous from the BG?

Answer 23

‘On the Road’ (1957) observed empty life in US, Ginsberg thought it was nonpunishable but published with the removal of the description of drugs and homosexual practices - received critical acclaim

Question 24

What influence did the beats have?

Answer 24

• 150 became writers
• Media sensation
• After 1960 media lost interest
• Bob Dylan and Tom Hayden took a beat stance later in time

Question 25

What influence did the beats have on Dr Timothy Leary?

Answer 25

Harvard psychologist experimented on his students with drugs

Question 26

What did genuine beats think of the beatniks?

Answer 26

1958 Beatniks emerged who saw it as fashionable to be anti establishment, genuine beats had little time for them

Question 27

What music did teenagers like prior to 1950?

Answer 27

No teenage music prior to rock n roll in 1950s

Liked Frank Sinatra because their parents liked him

Question 28

What music did teenagers listen to after 1950?

Answer 28

Rock n Roll was young music, combined black race music with country and western
Lyrics frequently focused on sexual activity
e.g Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Elvis Presley

Question 29

How did Rock n Roll become popular?

Answer 29

1953 Alan Freed played black artists on his radio station, white teenage audience loved it

Question 30

Why was rock n roll popular among young people?

Answer 30

Added to their sense of group identity, part time jobs in new fast food places allowed for money to be spent on records

Question 31

How much was spent on records between 1954 and 1960?

Answer 31

$182 million spent on records in 1954 → $521million in 1960

Question 32

What did the older generation think of Rock N Roll?

Answer 32

• Less enthusiastic - described it as a disease because it criticised MC behaviour and full of sexual longing
• Some white parents feared that black culture was infesting their children