EVOLUTION OF AMERICAN CULTURE

1980’s popular culture reflected the conservative politics of the era also known as the “baby boomer” and “yuppie” era, the period’s culture was shaped by the college educated yuppies who had expensive tastes and cared more about what they earn materialistically more than ever the previous generations. However successful this generation, they had deep self-assurance and self-doubt problems. The superficial pleasures didn’t serve for their spirituality.

The Hollywood movies consolidated this superficiality such as “Beverly Hills Cop”, “Raider of the Lost Ark” block busting and earning millions of dollars at the box office. The popular culture on TV also boomed during the era, at home people watched sitcoms and movies and artists like Michael Jackson were turned into megastars indicating the populist consumerist culture was born. MTV marked the era with its launch in 1981, introducing bands such as Duran Duran and Culture Club. It also began the forum for the young artists as a platform to shape the popular culture of America, reflecting the insurgence and also discontent of the yuppie generation towards the conservative society.

The late of 70’s and 80’s also saw the rise of Rock’n’Roll culture and glam rock as well, the groups such as Kiss and Queen, reflected the subculture of the era defying the norms and costumes of the mainstream culture, revealing that the minority as called were refusing the general accepted norms and experimented in different life styles.

With the fall of The Berlin Wall in 1989 and the Soviet Union in 1991, marking the end of Cold War era, the red scare and relentless race for the nuclear weapons ended. The affluent society of USA started to seek for new ways of self-expression and tried to adapt to the changing context of the world.

The 90’s marked itself as the “Me Era” as the journalist Tom Wolfe coined the term. The individualism and self-expression gained importance for the society.

The people thought that “self-expression” was too important to be monopolized just by the artists; before that individualism and self-expression was emphasized in the political area but after 60’s the individualism extended to the personal life, as well. By the 1980’s the ethos of expressive individualism had grown into a national preoccupation. Now, in 1990’s, after more than three decades of radical experimentation, Americans found a new conception of individualism evolving. The shaken importance of family, institutions, sacrifice of the self for the sake of other notions continued to affect the culture in 1980’s. The technology, sexuality, selfness, individuality, expressiveness, the environment, pleasure was replaced with the values such as the concept of duty, social conformity, respectability, social morality, pluralism and sacrifice. It was the era of the self; the puritanist doctrines and other-worldliness was invaded by the emphasis on the self-pleasures, gender equality, this-worldliness. The ideas and culture of the era was moved from one extreme to another; the automatic sacrifice for the family to the view that there’s no need to sacrifice at all; from the conviction that social morality is unnecessarily rigid to the view that “if it isn’t illegal it’s okay”, from Puritanism to casual sexual experimentation and from excessive reliance on government to the conviction that government has no legitimate role to play.

Feminism and environmentalist movements, LGBTT rights activism also gained momentum in this era. The Third Wave of feminism effected the understanding of gender and cultural politics of the society. The researches on the sexuality in 1950’s and 60’s such as “Kinsey Report” by Wardell Pomeroy an Paul H. Gebherhard and “Human Sexual Response” by Bill Masters uprooted the taboo of sexuality finding its resonance in 1970’s and 80’s also effecting the gender theorists.

Sexuality was no longer an issue that needed to be swept under the carpet. It was an issue open to debate and cultural criticism.

As a conclusion, the evolution of American culture from 1950’s until 90’s was a swift and abrupt historical and cultural changes triggered by the social responses and reactions to the generally accepted norms and costumes. Less than four decades, American culture succeeded to become a predominant culture leaving room for self-expression, freedom of thought and speech, sexuality and cultural changes in a short time.