8entertainment
wingspan • february 19, 2010
Three generations of family reflect on time spent at West do you know
your decades? 1. Leg warmers, boom boxes, scrunchies
2. iPods, Rainbow flip flops, vampire novels
’50s•
’60s•
3. Poodle skirts, cat eye glasses, drive-in movies
’70s• 4. Furbies, Tamagatchi, snap bracelets
’80s•
’90s•
2000s•
5. Pet Rocks, streaking, platform shoes
6. Lava lamps, British Invasion, mood rings
Senior shares views on trends
Senior’s mother remembers 1980s
they had bleached-out jeans and two-tone jeans,” Bryson said. “Now we News Writer have many different views on pop culture. There are lots of different things coming together to make the 2000s t’s senior year for Taylor Bryson. She good.” walks through the front doors of While every decade has someWest, her flip-flops softly clicking thing that represents it, there are behind her, and is immediately bomalways trends that continue to stay barded with the new styles and trends “in style” or come back every 10 to 20 for the fall of 2009. As she and her years. Pop music that developed in the fellow students walk the halls, their ’80s has stayed on iPods throughout eyes fall upon the fads of skinny jeans the years along with the ’60s rock ’n’ with flats and sundresses matched roll CDs that have accumulated in with boots. the cabinets of the typical American “We read our magazines and household. watch TV to see what’s becoming “A lot of the music that was popular, so as the styles change, we popular from earlier years is pretty change with them,” Bryson said. “I much the same as it is think in pop culture now,” Bryson said. “I we’ve really branched I feel that if we personally listen to a out and become lot of alternative stuff, diverse. We’re learncome back 20 but we have groups of ing how to do our own years from now, people that like rock thing and put our own we won’t see just and groups that like spin on trends.” rap.” Pop culture is one thing that Since the 1950s constantly changing. represents our popular television When popular stores show I Love Lucy, telechange their style of pop culture. vision and movies have clothing or celebrities Taylor Bryson changed throughout walk the red carpet current senior the years. The developin new dresses, teens ment of television over instantly change their time has not only strongly influenced style and clothes to fit in with the rest pop culture, but society as well. of the fashion world. “I can sum up the difference in “It doesn’t take but one person television shows now and then in one to influence a trend. When celebrities word. Sex. In the ’50s you’re never gowear something new to the Grammy ing to see innuendoes and now it’s in Awards, the next day everybody goes everything we see,” Bryson said. “Evout and buys it,” Bryson said. “Everything has just kind of turned into eryone in high school wants to fit in, something that’s a little more mature. but there’s always someone doing There are so many more bad things on something new and stepping out to be television now.” bold.” As prior styles are frequently be Pop culture from previous deing brought back, Bryson said West has cades has been very different from gained an eclectic group of students the 2000s. From the disco age that who choose to be unique individuals. characterized the 1970s to the grunge “If we come back 20 years from era that dominated the 1990s, each now, we won’t see just one thing that decade has had a signature focus. represents our pop culture. When you Bryson said that although the miscelthink ’60s, you automatically think laneous 2000s lack a main icon, trends hippies, but we’re so diverse now that and fads from prior years have come we don’t just have one perspective,” together to create an ideal decade. Bryson said. “We have a lot of views “In the ’90s everyone wore giant now and different things we like.” T-shirts and stirrup pants. In the ’80s,
were becoming evident in pop culture and even making their way into the News Writer curriculum at school. In the 1980s, Geraldine Ferraro was the first female vice presidential candidate. Bryson anya Smith Bryson woke every participated in frequent debates and morning at 5 a.m. to the sound of discussions about the election while her buzzing alarm clock. Armed in school. with cans of hairspray to perfectly “It was just a big push that started tease her hair, she dressed in the latest even though it had been going on for styles from Seventeen magazine a while, but it was a push for women Bryson, the mother of current to have a higher position in politics,” senior Taylor Bryson, attended West in Bryson said. “More equality for women the late 1980s. was making a big impact on politics “I was very conscious and aware and the work force.” of what the trends were. I was very Bryson and her friends frequented much a follower,” Bryson said. “It movie theaters in the time they were at was important to me to have a lot of West and thought of movies as cutting friends and know what was going on. edge. Bryson said For me it was maybe today’s movies have more important than Fashion trends come a long way from it should have been.” the films of the ’80s. Bryson graduated weren’t that “My kids love to with honors in 1991 different than watch the old ’80s and had an active sothey are now. movies and laugh cial life. Even though because they are so she enjoyed her high The trends have cheesy, but back then school years, she said kind of come they seemed really having to transfer advanced,” Bryson from Hendersonville full circle. said. “Compared to High School at the Tanya Smith Bryson what we have now, it’s start of her junior year 1991 graduate not even close.” wasn’t easy. It was Fashion from difficult for Bryson at Bryson’s high school years in the late first, but she made lasting friendships ’80s is beginning to make a comeback during her time at West. among teens today with skinny jeans, “There were parts that I enjoyed; flats and leggings. The styles of the ’80s there were parts I’m glad I don’t have and the 2000s have many similarities. to do over again, but overall I would The major difference is the lack of “big say I enjoyed high school,” Bryson hair” today. said. “My best friend from high school “Fashion trends weren’t that difis still my best friend now. We had a lot ferent than they are now,” Bryson said. of good memories and a lot of fun.” “The skinny leg jeans and tunic-style Music from Bryson’s high school days was dominated by the rock genre, shirts have come back around. The trends have kind of come full circle.” full of ’80s bands such as Def Leppard, Pop culture from Bryson’s high Metallica and Guns ’n’ Roses. Besides school days shares a lot with the fads the prevailing rock bands of the time, of today. “Things have progressed in country music began making its way a lot of ways. In the last 20 or so years, into the mainstream. we’ve gone through many fads and “The big country music movenow a lot have come back again,” ment was more popular towards the Bryson said. “A lot of the styles are like end of high school when I graduated,” what we wore in the ’80s, so it is not Bryson said. “I went to concerts for that much different. It’s funny how Skid Row, Van Halen and such.” pop culture in the 2000s has so many The political events taking place elements from when I was in school.” while Bryson attended high school
Hailey Johns
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Amy Taylor
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Answers: 1.‘80s; 2. 2000s; 3.‘50s; 4.‘90s; 5.‘70s; 6.‘60s
Bryson’s grandfather reflects on 1960s Mariah Case News Writer
O
n a Saturday night in 1967, the majority of West students, including Ray Bryson, grandfather of current senior Taylor Bryson, could be found eating a hamburger at Brock’s or watching the latest box office hit at the Joy Drive-In Theater in their 1963 Chevrolets. “Dr. Zhivago, The Graduate, Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte — a lot of the girls liked that movie. I guess The Graduate was the most popular movie at the time it came out,” Bryson said. “It was one of the few movies I actually saw twice. I took one of my girlfriends to see it, and I liked it so much I took another one of my girlfriends to see it the next time.” In spite of the widely held notion that1960s fashion consisted entirely of hippies’ style, Bryson said the psychedelic fad didn’t reach the small town of Hendersonville until the early 1970s, with few exceptions. “People were starting to show anti-war sentiment and anything that had to do with the Vietnam War; you were either for it or against it. People wore American flags, some of the other people wore the flags upside down; they had the peace symbols, the long hair, stuff like that was kind of trendy,” Bryson said. “It wasn’t really popular at West when I was here; I think in the early ’70s it became popular.” There have been some trends that have lost their original meaning throughout the years, such as having long hair. Now long hair is more of a fashion statement than the anti-war statement it represented in the ’60s, Bryson said. “A lot of guys were starting to let their hair grow long,
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but it wasn’t that popular. We were still a bunch of rednecks around here and had a lot of patriotism,” Bryson said. “Most of the guys were really patriotic and they looked down on people with long hair; they were considered to be hippies, anti-war. It wasn’t really popular to have long hair, but that changed really fast. I think a lot of the war sentiment had to do with Peter, Paul and Mary and the groups that were singing songs about the war.” The acceptance of context in the music listened to today is completely different from the acceptance in the ’60s. Many songs in the ’60s with suggestive lyrics were looked down upon. Now, according to Bryson, many people tolerate lyrics that may even go beyond suggesting and actually state an inappropriate message. “I think the moral standard of this country has really been lowered by the music. The songs that I hear today, like rap music, some of that stuff just turns your stomach,” Bryson said. “If you think about the music today, it’s really sad that our country is going down the drain really fast. I don’t like the way we’re headed with music; it’s just sad that we have to stoop that low.” Of all impacts on pop culture and life in general during the ’60s, the Vietnam War ruled, Bryson said. Most Americans knew someone in the war, and most wanted to do something about it. Some protested; others supported. Some fought; some burned draft cards. Some made it back home; some didn’t. “The Vietnam War definitely had a lot of impact on pop culture. I was so patriotic that I didn’t want anything to do with the groups that were anti-war,” Bryson said. “I did not like the anti-war groups, even though I loved Peter, Paul and Mary, but I could not like their songs that criticized the war. After I got involved in the military and saw the politics involved in it, I turned 180 degrees on my thinking about the war because it was such a waste.”
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