Not What They Seemed, 1945 To Present Essay, Research Paper
Throughout history the media has played an important role by portraying societies image of what life should be like. The question still stands, did these dominant media images mirror what life was really like for the majority of people living in these time periods, or were they simply to set an example of life for others to live by? The early post war (1945-63), the true sixties (1964-74) and post-Watergate America (1975-present) are three time periods which the media has labeled with a particular image which may or may not hold to fit true.
The media image of the early post war was of a high standard of living in which many practiced a Protestant religion, were getting married and buying brand new houses with their wartime savings. Cars were now the in thing and all families had to have one. Women stayed at home and cared for the children while the men were the breadwinners. Few women had careers outside of the home. Blacks were denied the opportunity to move up in society and the cause of civil rights began to attract some attention. Sex was something that wasn t talked about in public and it was assumed that all marriages were perfect.
In nineteen forty-eight a professor by the name of Alfred Kinsey proved that not everything was what it seemed. He decided to study the sexual behavior of the American male to see if it really followed the media image of this time period. In his findings we learn that eight-five percent of males engage in premarital sex and thirty to forty-five percent of men have cheated on their wives. The overall point of this study was to show that male behavior and the law of society was widely different.
After these findings were published, a debate between admirers and critics of this report began to arise. The admirers felt that the information was surprising but they thought that it was time to end old taboos and face the realities of modern life. On the other hand, the critics questioned how reliable these scientific statistics were and whether or not everyone was doing it. The impact of this report had a large effect on the public because there was more open talk about sex, homosexuality and birth control. Simply put, this report was proof that the media image of the early post war period that the population s married life was perfect wasn t exactly what it seemed.
In July 1955, a fantasy land was created in California by a man named Walt Disney which was intended to portray this same media image of the time period. This imagery society was named Disneyland after its founder. Disney had four goals that he wanted to reach with this fantasy land. The first was to make money but also to let his guests receive an educational experience where they could not only have fun but learn at the same time. He also wanted people to get a patriotic feeling while walking his streets in this family oriented environment of his. Disney made strict rules about who he employed and the jobs they were expected to do. He didn t allow blacks to work there until 1963 and every employee always had to have a smile on their face. The presentation of Disneyland s features was important to Disney because he wanted his guests to get full value out of their trip. If a ride was supposed to last fifteen minutes, the employee would make it last for sixteen so you would feel as if you were getting more for your money.
The main street that ran through the center of Disneyland was a perfect example of what America should look like. There were no working class or colored people, shopping was the main activity there and there was no place to sit which kept everyone moving. The social message was that this fantasy land was a denial of the real world. There was poverty and danger in the real world yet it wasn t portrayed here at all. Disneyland pretty much fit the exact dominant media image of the early post war although people knew that life there was nothing compared to the real world; it seemed too perfect.
The civil rights movement also didn t fit the media image of the early post war. Blacks were allowed little opportunity to move up in social or economic standings within the United States. When the Supreme Court case of Brown vs. the Board of Education developed that whole idea started to fade. The courts ruling based on the 14th amendment was:
in the field of public education the doctrine of separate but equal has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal (Norton,512).
This in turn started the slow process of desegregating schools. For African-Americans there was little change at first and many challenges left to overcome. One incident that stirred up much controversy was the Montgomery bus boycott. A black woman by the name of Rose Parks decided that she was fed up with the segregation of buses in which blacks were made to sit in the back and whites in the front. She refused to leave her seat at the front on the bus.
Her arrest led to a boycott by blacks of the bus company and the rise of black leaders like Martin Luther King. The effect was great because the bus company almost became bankrupt but more importantly, it showed the black people that if they stood up to injustice they could make a difference. This whole idea of blacks becoming more equal with whites was not a part of the dominant media image of the time.
In 1960 John F. Kennedy was elected President even though he didn t exactly fit the media image of a typical President. Before Kennedy, all other Presidents had been Protestant. He became the first Roman Catholic President, which was not part of the current media image. Although this was a change for the United States, Kennedy became hugely popular and was the first President to be able to use television effectively. He created a image which the American citizens fell in love with. He was a young, smart and attractive man who had a positive attitude along with high hopes for the future.
Another difference between him and previous Presidents was that he was the youngest man ever elected into office at the time. This was another reason why he didn t fit into media image of this time. Kennedy wanted his presidency to be similar to Franklin D. Roosevelt s because he was thought to have made a high point of American Imperialism and to create a high public spirit. He even started calling himself JFK in hopes of echoing FDR and make a connection between the two of them. Kennedy also was interested in the Camelot theme which was the golden era of peace, prosperity and national power. For the most part, JFK wanted to show leadership throughout his Presidency, along with an active image. In May 1961, Kennedy pledged to lead the race to the moon. The United States and the United Soviet Socialist Republic had been competing with one another in many areas, from the development of nuclear weapons to trying to be the first country to develop the technology which would get them to the moon.
Some slow changes for women started to develop during JFK s Presidency. Women of the 1950 s had followed the media image of the early post war, which was staying home and taking care of the family and home. In 1961, a Presidential Commission on the Status of Women was created and headed by former first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt. By 1964 the Commission reported the job and pay discrimination of women. A year earlier, a woman by the name of Betty Friedman published a book called The Feminine Mystique , which answered her own question of why well-educated women were unhappy. As she saw it, society was to blame. Society imposed the rule that women should concern themselves only with the care of the home and children. Careers that took them out of the homes and left the care of their children to others were frowned upon. According to the current media image, women were supposed to conform to these ideals and that was that. For Betty Friedman and many other women, to go against this media image was another step forward for women s equality.
The true Sixties (1964-74) was another time period that had its own media image. This image was a change from the conformity of the 1950 s. Change doesn t always have to be for the better, it can also be for the worse. Most of the changes occurred in the younger generation of this time period. Like any generation, they rebelled against the rules of their parents and society, living life they way they wanted. The media image of this time period also had to do with Communism and how the United States tried to be looked upon as the good guys who were fighting against this evil thing, Communism. The US was thought to be this super power and no country could defeat it.
The true Sixties saw the development of a group of young adults that were considered hippies . They followed the media image of change by experiencing life for themselves and contradicting the conformity of the 1950 s. The hippie counterculture was simply going against their parents preferences. The older generation wore ties, high heels, short hair cuts and listened to soft pop while their children wore bell bottoms, sandals, long hair and rock was the music of choice. The parents followed the Judeo or Christian religion, drank alcohol, coffee and smoked cigarettes, while the younger generation experienced the Buddhist and Hindu religion, smoked pot and took LSD. Their lives were very different. Hippies were thought to be drop-outs from society and their parents were known for their material success. For the most part, parents went against the media image of change because they remained the way they always were and stuck with the conformity of the 1950 s.
The hippies were mostly concerned with peace, love and happiness and it seemed as if everyone got along. In August of 1969 a concert was planned by Capital Records which turned out to be a concert no one would forget. They called it Woodstock and more than half a million people showed up in a field in New York. Even with the huge amount of people attending, though it rained and food and bathroom facilities were not sufficient for the large crowd, arrests were few. The was very little violence proving that the saying, love one another right now meant more than just words. There was good planning behind this concert and the majority of people who attended were middle to upper class college students who were well-behaved. So for the most part hippie counterculture went with the media image of the true sixties by not living up to the conformity of the 1950 s.
In 1964, while Lyndon Johnson was President, a conflict that developed during the Kennedy Presidency began to grow in Vietnam. The North Vietnamese were Communists and they divided themselves from the South which was not. Since the United States was against Communism the decision was made to help South Vietnam fight an invasion by the Communist North. It was argued that the domino factor was to be stopped. If Vietnam became Communist, other countries in the area of Southeast Asia would begin to fall, threatening the interests of the United States and other Democratic countries. LBJ had a few options to choose from. They were to either continue aid to South by providing military supplies, advice and equipment; withdrawal; send US ground troops to defend South Vietnam; and last, declare war on North Vietnam. LBJ decided to keep escalating the war and eventually sent in ground troops.
In the Tonkin Gulf, an area of water near Vietnam, a US destroyer was on a routine patrol in international waters when they came under an unprovoked attack. In retaliation, the United States began air raids on North Vietnam to encourage them to give up. In 1965 ground troops were sent into South Vietnam and in 1968 the number of troops rose to half a million. Their mission was to search and destroy; set up free-fire zones in which anything that moved was considered a target. They also began massive bombings which destroyed the foliage in the mountains where the North Vietnam hid.
LBJ was counting on winning the war by the 1968 election because he wanted to claim that he had beaten Communism in Vietnam. After increasing the bombings, he continued to increase the number of ground troops. It was important to him as a President to hold the line against and defeat Communism because the success of his Administration depended on it. In the Mylai Massacre a United States military unit went out of control and started to shoot innocent civilians resulting in the deaths of 458 innocent people. This went against the media image of the time period because the United States was thought to be the good guys and in this incident they proved to be the opposite. In the end the United States negotiated a withdrawal from the war because they knew no matter how many more men they bring over to fight they would still lose. A cease-fire agreement was issued and the United States officially backed out. This was a shock to the American people because this went against the media image that the United States was this superpower that could not be conquered.
The post-Watergate America (1975-present) media image was now about doubting America s strength and wondering if it was the superpower it was supposed to be. This was quite a change from the early post-war era where affluence and being number one was a main theme. The question was did we have any control at all?
In the late 1970 s there was a malaise which means a great feeling of unease: something was deeply wrong. Two huge problems that affected our country were stagflation and bankruptcy in New York. Stagflation occurs when interest rates go up, prices increase faster than salaries, and unemployment. This was obviously a big problem. After New York declared bankruptcy, the city continued to decay and the crime rate rose. Hard drugs like LSD and crack cocaine started to enter the picture and the quality of people s lives declined. We stopped buying American-made cars and other goods; therefore, more jobs in the United States were lost. The country was headed toward an energy crisis which was a huge blow to consumerism and our national confidence.
It first started with the Arab and Israeli war in which the United States entered on the side of Israel. We won, but the Arabs were in control of most of the world s oil. The price of gas went up from .25 cents per gallon to .85 and sometimes .95 cents. People would wait in long lines for hours and even then they were limited to the amount of gas they could buy. One country that kept shipping to the United States was Iran, but after the Pahlavi family that ruled this country was over thrown we ended up back where we began, with no oil. Americans began to understand that their ability to control the decision and circumstances of other countries was limited. This went with the dominant media image because it questioned the power of the United States. On top of all that a power plant in Pennsylvania, known as Three Mile Island, almost caused a disaster. A nuclear reactor failed and the plant came close to a nuclear meltdown. This was just another example of our doubts on modern technology. President Carter announced that we were going to have to live with limits and that surprised many Americans.
While Nixon was President he had a few regulatory policies that seemed to be a great concern for him. Our country was starting to realize that pollution within our environment was getting out of control. This was just another example of the media image because our country was starting to fall apart environmentally too. In 1970 a Water Quality Act became effective. Tougher regulations against polluters evolved, and the first Earth Day was celebrated on April 22, 1970. Air pollution was another serious problem and in 1970 the Clean Air Act was developed: the first serious effort to deal with air pollution. Cars and industry were the major source of pollution because of emissions and restrictions were needed. Along with both of those Acts the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) was organized in 1972 from a few different agencies that all came together to help ban pesticides. The most deadly was DDT that remained in the environment and brought several species to the brink of extinction due to the birth defects it caused. A woman by the name of Rachel Carson also wrote a book entitled Silent Spring which focused public attention on environmental pollution.
Another topic that Nixon found important was the OSHA (Occupational Safety & Health Act) which guaranteed American workplaces to be free of recognized safety and health hazards. As a result of all this legislation, pollution levels in the United States dropped drastically but there is still a long way to go. There was also the Title IX of Education Act. This helped to increase gender equality in college and opened up many classes to women that were previously unattainable. The media image also seemed to portray the idea that there are unlimited resources out there when that simply isn t true.
In conclusion, every decade has it s own media image which people either try and live by or go against. The United States has gone through great social and economic changes throughout the past three time periods discussed in this paper. We went from a media image of affluence in the early post war period, to the true sixties where changes in civil rights for women and blacks appeared to be the dominant media image. In the post-Watergate America the media image changed drastically from the United States being a superpower, to a feeling of uncertainty about the control America actually had. These media images may show an overall idea of what the time period was like but as you can see, such an image cannot be guaranteed. Personally I have learned that not everything in the past is exactly what it seems to be.
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