3.3 - Film and TV contradictions Flashcards
(10 cards)
- How did CBS’ programming reflect the views of Middle America in the 1970s?
· Ridiculed as the ‘Hillbilly network’, CBS cancelled series such as the popular and long running the Beverly hillbillies (about a backwoods family that discovered oil and suddenly found themselves with a great deal of money and a residence in Beverly Hills)
· Instead turned to ‘social consciousness’ programmes such as All in the Family (1971-9). Its central character was Archie Bunk: A WW2 veteran and blue collar worker who ranted at various groups in society such as:
► Black people
► Feminists
► Homosexuals
► Hippies
· Archie’s liberal creators designed him to be a rather ridiculous bigot, many in Middle America agreed with the character’s beliefs demonstrated by the show topping the ratings from 1971-6
· The groundbreaking series covered all tensions prevalent in the 1960s including:
► Abortion
► Sexuality
► The Vietnam War
► Racism
Women’s liberation
- “The Hillbilly Network” By the end of the 1960s, CBS was very successful in television ratings, but many of its shows (including The Beverly Hillbillies, Gunsmoke, Mayberry R.F.D., Petticoat Junction, Hee Haw and Green Acres) were appealing more to older and more rural audiences and less to the young, urban and more affluent audiences that advertisers sought to target.
By mid-1971 - the “Rural Purge”, with Green Acres cast member Pat Buttram remarking that the network cancelled “anything with a tree in it”
Which series reflected the changes in women’s and gay rights?
Women:
► Maude (1972-8): had a feminist main character
► Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-7): centred on a 30 something, single, intelligent, working female heroine who faced invariably less intelligent and sexist males in the workplace
Both series were on independent minded women and were very popular
- All in the Family- sitcom, 1971-79, about a working-class white family living in Queens, New York. Its patriarch is Archie Bunker (O’Connor), an outspoken, narrow-minded man, seemingly prejudiced against everyone who is not like him or his idea of how people should be. The show broke ground in its depiction of issues previously considered unsuitable for a U.S. network television comedy, such as racism, antisemitism, infidelity, homosexuality, women’s liberation, etc.
- Greater attention to women’s rights and gay rights
- One of CBS’s most popular shows during the period was MAS*H – most watched comedy of the 1970s.
Gay rights:
Pressure from organisations such as the gay activist alliance forced TV networks into more sympathetic portrayal of homosexuals
A question of Love (1978): about a lesbian mother’s child custody case
What is ‘Blaxploitation’ and why did some middle-class black critics reject this genre?
- Blaxploitation: the exploitation of black people, especially with regard to stereotyped roles in films.
- Blaxploitation in 1970s cinema:
- How did African Americans respond?
- Roots (1977 TV series) – hugely influential! Most significant TV drama of the decade. Alex Haley’s story of his ancestors. 100 million viewers in the last episode:
- It subsequently was put onto the US history curriculum.
- America coming to terms with its brutal past in slavery due to it mainly having white viewers
- Addressed slavery in quite a brutal, graphic way, first of its kind
- It was popular because black people were being represented in cinema however a certain sector of MC, older Americans did criticize it
· Between 1969 and 1974 independent black film makers and studios made what became known as blaxploitation movies, with black casts, and action-packed adventures in the ghettos.
· Blaxploitation movies were a result of:
► Black dismay about the bland black characters in mainstream movies
► Hollywood’s awareness that as black people contributed 30% of the audience in city cinemas blaxploitation films would make money
► Greater black awareness generated by black power
· Blaxploitation movies were characterised by black heroes overcoming corrupt whites and by the depiction of black and white women as sex objects · This suggests that this genre owed much to feelings of emasculation in the ghettos · These movies aroused tensions within the black community with some middle class black critics rejecting the violence, drug dealing and gangsters of the approximately 60 blaxploitation films They claimed that the smash hit superfly (1972) contributed to a dramatic increase in cocaine use among ghetto youths and that this glamorization of ghetto life distracted blacks from the collective political struggle
How significant is the fact that 100 million Americans watched the final episode of ‘Roots’? in 1977?
The fact that 100 million Americans (nearly half the American population) watch the final episode of roots suggest that opinions on race in the nation were changing, possibly with more becoming open-minded compared to the constrictive views of Middle America as the show explored the origins of racial tensions, with the black American writer Alex Haley telling the story of his enslaved ancestors
Which films depicted the political crises of the 1970s?
► The Conversation (1974): was released while Watergate was a national obsession and explored the privacy and responsibility issues facing our surveillance expert
► All the President’s Men (1976): directed by Alan J Pakula detailed the story of the Washington Post reporters who exposed the scandal and was highly popular
► The Parallax View (1974): was also directed by Alan J Pakula and covered the theme of corruption in American National politics
► Chinatown (1974): told of corruption at a local level when big business gained a stranglehold over Los Angeles’ water supply during the 1930s
The China Syndrome (1979): focused on the attempted cover up of the near meltdown of a nuclear plant, which reflected current environmentalist debate on issues such as the issue of public good versus private greed
Why was the The Deer Hunter (1978) a significant change in cinema?
There was little from Hollywood on Vietnam, racism, the rise of feminism, and the gay subculture, but the small number films that were produced were frequently of exceptionally high quality, with The Deer Hunter being a notable example.
The Deer Hunter (1978): began with a moving authentic depiction of Pennsylvania steel workers and then traced the ruin of their lives through service in Vietnam
How far was Hollywood escapist entertainment in the 1970s?
Many films were escapist entertainment:
► American Graffiti (1973)
► Grease (1978)
Both films looked back affectionately to teenage life in the 1950s and were great box office hits.
► Annie Hall (1977) ► Manhattan (1979) Woody Allen's hymns to New York City and his own neuroses
Some science fiction films optimistic in tone and very popular while the message of other sci-fi films was downbeat
► Optimistic: Star Wars (1978) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1978)
► Downbeat: Soylent green (1973) was set in a future world of environmental disaster, mass poverty, and ghettoisation, in which a small privileged male elite reduced women to the status of slaves
► Logan’s run (1976) echoed similar environmentalist themes which led these kinds of films to be popular as they reflected contemporary concerns
· Science fiction was also popular on television with series such as: ► The incredible Hulk (1978-82) ► Fantasy island (1977-84): where once wishes came true was a classic escapist fare which reflected how by the mid 1970s viewers were tired of social consciousness · This is when 'jigglevision' and crime shows (Hawaii Five-0 (1968-80) and Starsky and Hutch (1975-9)) became popular · Particular favourites were two series about idealised families as well: ► The Waltons (1971-81) ► the Little House on the Prairie (1974-83) · Television followed the movies and presenting an idealised view of the 1950s with the long running sitcom happy days (1974-84)
- Inflation, unemployment rising, leading many people wanting to escape
NOSTALGIA: Escapist view of the past: Little House on the Prairie (idealized view of the American West, TV, ran 1974-83), and Grease (idealized view of the 1950s, film, 1978), Happy Days (1974-84)
How far did the 1970s witness a ‘cinematic rebirth’?
· During the 1970s film and TV much like pop music became increasingly fragmented
· Many movies and television programmes were escapist allowing audiences to get away from current political and social tensions
· However movies and television also reflected contemporary anxieties and issues
· A great deal of science fiction played on contemporary concerns about issues such as the environment and the message of many of these films was that there could be no escape from inevitable disaster
· Similarly the popularity of ‘cops-and-robbers’ television programmes surely owed much to fears about rising crime
Sex and violence in TV: a product of the 60s
- 1968: ‘The Code’ (censored ‘adult’ content) was abandoned.
- Resulted in more sexually graphic movies. Deep Throat, a 1972 American porn film that was at the forefront of the Golden Age of Porn (1969–1984). The film grossed $1 million (equivalent to $6.1 million today) in its first seven weeks of release in 1972
- The Godfather (1972, stars Marlon Brando dir. Francis Ford Coppola) – mob movie. Famous ‘dead horse’ scene, act of mob revenge
- Taxi Driver (1976, stars Robert de Niro, dir. Martin Scorsese)
Reflection of change in the 60s, as social beliefs now filter through into cinema
Poltiical issues in film and TV: VW
- 1968: The Green Berets (feat. John Wayne) – anti-communist and pro-South Vietnam
- The Deer Hunter (1978) – won Best Picture in 1978, stars Robert de Niro – trailer
- Apocalypse Now (1979, dir. Francis Ford Coppola)
- Opening scene: peaceful jungle that US comes into dropping napalm, very brutal, violent, willing to bomb civilians
- ‘I love the smell of napalm in the morning’ (napalm: incendiary used in VW on jungle)
- TV: MAS*H (an acronym for Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) is an American war comedy-drama television series that aired on CBS from 1972 to 1983. The most watched comedy show of the 1970s!
- The 1983 finale of the long-running sitcom about a medical unit near the front lines of the Korean war was the highest-rated single television episode in history, with 125m viewers tuning in.
- Based on the Korean War, but strong anti-Vietnam message.
- America being unsure about military power after Vietnam War, the insecurity in the US army seen on TV
- Before VW: perceived military as an indomitable force but Vietnam War changed American psyche as they began to question themselves
