roads to freedom performer - culture & literature marina spiazzi, marina tavella, margaret...

Roads to FreedomPerformer - Culture & Literature

Marina Spiazzi, Marina Tavella,Margaret Layton © 2013

The birth of the Nation

Performer - Culture & Literature

1. Turbulent times in Britain

A New World OrderRoads to Freedom

The 1960s were characterised by:

•technological changes which influenced social organisation;

•social reforms which

increased the gap between

the old and the young.





1967 was an annus mirabilis as regards sexual mores:

Abortion Act

National Health Service (Family Planning) Act

Sexual Offences Act

Divorce Act (1969)

Matrimonial Property Act (1970)





A student demonstration.

• The Campaign for Nuclear

Disarmament (CND) and the

pacifist march in Trafalgar

Square led by the philosopher

Bertrand Russell (1961).

• A mood of rebellion

university occupations and

demonstrations.• Race a new source of open

social conflict.

The young were sensitive to the spiritual problemsof the age:





The 1970s were marked by

• a global economic slowdown and industrial strife

• episodes of violence, racial tension and terrorism

• an energy crisis and rising unemployment

• the UK’s joining the European Economic Community (1973) partly to share the new European wealth



2. Margaret ThatcherA New World OrderRoads to Freedom

• 4th May 1979: Margaret

Thatcher (right wing of the

Conservative Party)

became Prime Minister.

• She tried to solve the UK’s

economic decline and to

reduce the role of the state

in the economy.

Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister between 1979 and 1990.



3. Mid-century AmericaA New World OrderRoads to Freedom

A 1950s housewife.

After World War II

• American families had cars, phones, washing machines, refrigerators, their own houses.

• Education higher enrolment in universities and colleges which received government financial support.




• American foreign policy was defined by the Cold War (1947-1991), started between the United States and the Soviet Union.

• The USA controlled the military affairs of Europe through NATO, while the Soviet Union did it through the Warsaw Pact.




John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s funeral in 1963.

In 1961 John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the Democratic candidate, won the elections. He was the first Catholic and the youngest president ever elected.

Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in 1963; his death put an end to the social hopes his election had awakened.




Neil Armstrong on the Moon’s surface, 20 July 1969.

• 1961: the Soviets launched the first manned spaceflight.

• 1962: President Kennedy faced a tense nuclear showdown with Soviet forces in Cuba.

• 1969: the USA succeeded in sending two astronauts onto the Moon.




Martin Luther King, Jr.

• 1964: Civil Rights Act which

prohibited discrimination of all

kinds based on race, colour,

religion or national origin.

• The Civil Rights Movement, led by

the African American Martin

Luther King, Jr., fought against

segregation and discrimination

adopting Gandhi’s philosophy of

non-violent resistance.




University students protested in the hundreds of thousands against the Vietnam War in London, Paris, Berlin and Rome.

• 1959-1975: The Vietnam War

• A widespread countercultural

movement grew, mixing

opposition to war, black

nationalism and feminism.




The Watergate hotel in Washington.

• 1972-1974: The Watergate scandal

the FBI, Congress and the press

discovered a series of crimes and

abuses committed by the president’s

staff.

• Richard Nixon was forced to resign.

• 1970s: Carter’s administration,

marked by stagflation.



4. The cultural revolutionA New World OrderRoads to Freedom

Poster for ‘Rebel Without a Cause’ (1955).

• Great interest in

music, fashion,

drinks and vehicles

• Working-class

adolescents spending

money on pleasure

and free time.




• Leisure activities

dancing and listening to

rock and roll.

• Negative mood of the

‘Angry Young Men’

moral independence,

sexual ethics, public

decency.




Mary Quant, fashion designer credited for inventing the miniskirt and the hot pants.

London became the new centre of fashion,

replacing Paris. Important fashion boutiques were

opened in Carnaby Street.




The cover of Led Zeppelin III

• The Swinging Sixties = the quest for

self-expression and liberation

drugs, discos, progressiveness in

education, pop music and poetry,

one-parent families, the

contraceptive pill, abortion and

homosexuality legalised.

• 1968 the birth of the Women’s

Liberation Movement.



5. The decay of the 1970sA New World OrderRoads to Freedom

EconomyEconomy

SocietySociety

Unemployment spread in the heavy industrial areas

Drugs and juvenile violence

Race riots

The ‘Winter of Discontent’




PollutionPollution

‘Me’ decade‘Me’ decade

Factories with waste material

Individualism, selfishness, punk culture, nihilism, political struggle, radicalism (no pacifism), racism

Oil tankers, chemical fertilizers, noisy aircraft, traffic

5. The decay of the 1970s



6. Street style in BritainA New World OrderRoads to Freedom

Teddy boys

• Reputation for violence, delinquency, racism

• Edwardian-style clothes

A 1962 photo of some Teddy boys.




Typical rocker outfit: black leather and a white scarf.

The rockers

• Battered clothes

• Outsiders

• Aggression towards women

and immigrants




‘This is England’ (2006).

The skinheads

• Tattoos and shaved heads

• Welcome conflict and aggression

• Extreme-right political views =

racism

• No girls




A group of English punks.

The punks

• Nihilistic battle cry ‘no future’

• Nothingness

• Safety pins, coloured hair

• Outcast status

• A tourist attraction




Hippies at a concert.

The hippies

• Status and sex minimised

• No certainties drugs

• Escape from time and modern life

• Natural materials in the style of dress

• Love, not war



7. Anglo-American music from the 1950s to the 1980s

The Great DepressionRoads to Freedom

The Beatles: Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, George Harrison, John Lennon

1950s: Rock‘n’roll, soul.

1960s: Folk revival, rock music.

1970s: Progressive rock, punk rock, fusion, Ddisco music, reggae, funk, electronic.

1980s: Metal, electro-pop, new wave, hip hop.



8. Rock musicThe Great DepressionRoads to Freedom

Elvis Presley.

The Rolling Stones.

Rock as an opportunity of unifying art, music, design, fashion and youth in a single experienceRock as energy for the motor of social changeRock as a necessity to take a social positionRock as an experience of community and togetherness

(Peter Wicke, ‘Rock music’)



9. BeatlemaniaThe Great DepressionRoads to Freedom

Policemen’s struggle to restrain young Beatles fans outside Buckingham Palace as The Beatles receive their MBEs (Member of the British Empire) in 1965.

• The phenomenon originated in the UK in 1963.• ‘Beatles’ + ‘mania’.

• Linked to the intense level of

hysteria demonstrated by

fans both at the concerts

played by the band and

during the band’s arrivals

and journeys to and from

different places.

roads to freedom performer - culture & literature marina spiazzi, marina tavella, margaret...

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