newcritics - Latest Comments in Dissing the Fifties

Re: Dissing the Fifties

Wall Exhaust Fan — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 00:48:39 -0000

Thanks for your great content truly amazing writing. Nice to read your blog.

Re: Dissing the Fifties

Wall Exhaust Fan — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 00:46:59 -0000

Re: Dissing the Fifties

dual diagnosis treatment — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:06:59 -0000

What i think about this article is how we make them pay now, when we breathe them back into life. Our cultural representations of them are punishing. We defile the putative purity of the housewives–those doe-eyed, frivolous.

Re: Dissing the Fifties

Swing Trading — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 03:17:45 -0000

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Re: Dissing the Fifties

Social Media Charge | Pricing — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 12:31:10 -0000

Interesting post. I have stumbled and twittered this for my friends. Hope others find it as interesting as I did.

Re: Dissing the Fifties

Virus Protection — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 07:52:19 -0000

Great post.. I really enjoyed reading it! thanks for sharing!

Re: Dissing the Fifties

Free Sms — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 03:07:32 -0000

Most of the bans seem preposterous half a century later, but you have to commend the censors from trying to spare us from the uxorious religious songs. One of them was specifically banned for being "offensive to both Catholic doctrine and Protestant sensibilities". You have to admire someone who nailed it so specifically.

Re: Dissing the Fifties

Miami private investigator — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 11:43:34 -0000

In every aspect fairness and equality must rule over. And I abide by the moral rules of a one man and one woman relationship. Especially in marriage, because extra marital affairs should be prevented in order to save a family and practice equality.

Re: Dissing the Fifties

Designer Sunglasses — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 01:41:44 -0000

Great post.. Our children aren't any good to us now, but in the end, I think they will see us the way we see our parents now, as complex individuals trying to cope with the world they inherited.

Re: Dissing the Fifties

How To Lose Weight — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 11:17:54 -0000

I think the fifties is a really amazing time to be where baby boomers were borned and people are all working towards peace.

Re: Dissing the Fifties

Brutus — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 13:48:52 -0000

This post makes me laugh. There are elements of truth about children rebelling against the values of their parents (not grandparents, as another commenter pointed out). But it's spin, or revisionist history. That it's wholly plausible but somewhat less than accurate makes it pretty appealing, like the reader is privy to a secret no one else knows.

Any era has its themes and ethics, but in a pluralistic society like the U.S., the dominant themes never apply to everyone -- they're just noisier. The Ozzie and Harriet 50s theme held for a long while, even though it probably didn't apply to even a majority of society. Its tarnishing in the hands of a few ungrateful brats may make for good entertainment, but the truth is undoubtedly less desperate and dramatic.

Re: Dissing the Fifties

lolarusa — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 15:17:22 -0000

Disguised patricide? Those are pretty strong words. Who is the father in this metaphor? And I'm not quite sure what it is about Madmen and American Beauty that is threatening this metaphorical father– is it their focus on middle class life and materialism, or their characters' discomfort in their gender roles, or what exactly?

Re: Dissing the Fifties

Duane_Poncy — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 16:33:40 -0000

I am trying to figure out just what Robert Stein's rant is all about. I have read this article over a couple of times, and I have to confess, I don't get it.

First of all, are you implying that Mad Men and Revolutionary Road are written and produced by the grandchildren of the Fifties Generation? I seriously doubt it. More likely my generation, the sixties generation, is responsible for these social critiques of the fifties, because they were the things many of us were rebelling against. I haven't seen Revolutionary Road, but Mad Men is brilliant, and does not trash the fifties as far as I can see. Rather, it is examining a period of history with a very sharp eye. The characters are well rounded, and exhibit the good things about that era, along with the bad.

As for American Beauty, that film is not even about the fifties. Suburbia, yeah. But a contemporary suburbia. And I would also point out that Richard Yates, the author of Revolutionary Road, is a member of the "fifties" generation, and he wrote the novel in 1961. So much for the "Obama generation."

I don't think these films are generational criticisms at all, but about a certain sterility and emptyness in modern American life. That state of being still exists, and I think young and old can identify with it, which is why these films/tv programs are popular. That we often use the fifties and sixties to illustrate is simply because that is when we were growing up. There is plenty of popular culture which also puts the sixties, seventies, eighties and so on under a similar microscope. Our children aren't any kinder to us, but in the end, I think they will see us the way we see our parents now, as complex individuals trying to cope with the world they inherited.