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Counterculture Movement Of The 1960s Essay

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The Counterculture Movement of the 1960s urged a nation filled with millions of youthful baby-boomers, that were eager to find their own voices, to retaliate against cultural assimilation put in place by previous generations. As Lisa Law stated, “It was an attempt to rebel against the values our parents had pushed on us. We were trying to get back to touching and relating and living” ( “A Visual Journey..”) This time period encapsulated protests against several issues such as the conflict in Vietnam, the Civil Rights Movement, Women’s Suffrage, Nonconformity, and the Sexual Revolution; this contributed to the unity of several causes who could relate to one other through their passion for change. One of the most interesting aspects, in my opinion, …show more content…

I believe she embodies Law’s rejection of mainstream cultural whole-heartedly. For example, in one of Joplin’s songs “Women is Losers”(1967) she condemned the typical norm of how “Men always seem to end up on top”. Her lyrics are important as they remind students “that for many women the much vaunted erotic liberation of the sexual revolution was something they experienced mainly via the news media and popular culture, while patterns of sexism and discrimination against women continued relatively unchecked” and that “traditional gender roles […] continued to be the norm for many American families” (Ward). While gender roles were no longer confined to the outdated previous notions of women’s tasks being within the home devoting themselves solely to motherhood, female submissiveness still remained a widely accepted social norm. Joplin, furthermore, pushed the boundaries of traditional female norms in her songs by expressing her sexual and romantic desires/freedom. This is evident in her songs titles and lyrics such as “One Night Stand”, “Blow my Mind”, “C’mon Baby, Let the Good Times Roll”. Her behavior was sometimes criticized especially by traditionalists, like some promoters in Texas who banned her music on the radio and she even was once arrested for using vulgar language at a

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Her song, “Mississippi Goddam,” (written about the assassination of civil rights leader, Medgar Evers) was her first protest song, soon following with “Four Women,” and “Young, Gifted and Black.” However, she was reluctant to write protest songs at first, as shown in her autobiography, ‘I Put A Spell On You.’ She wrote, “How can you take the memory of a man like Medgar Evers and reduce all that he was to three and a half minutes and a simple tune? That was the musical side of it I shied away from; I didn’t like ‘protest music’ because a lot of it was so simple and unimaginative it stripped the dignity away from the people it was trying to celebrate. But the Alabama church bombing and the murder of Medgar Evers stopped that argument and with ‘Mississippi Goddam,’ I realized there was no turning back.”

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The greatest white female rock singer of the 1960s, Janis Joplin was also a great blues singer, making her material her own with her wailing, raspy, supercharged emotional delivery. First rising to stardom as the frontwoman for San Francisco psychedelic band Big Brother & the Holding Company, she left the group in the late '60s for a brief and uneven (though commercially successful) career as a solo artist. Although she wasn't always supplied with the best material or most sympathetic musicians, her best recordings, with both Big Brother and on her own, are some of the most exciting performances of her era. She also did much to redefine the role of women in rock with her assertive, sexually forthright persona and raunchy, electrifying on-stage

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She was a trailblazer, being a successful woman performer in an industry that had been triumphed by men. She performed with then-mainstream superstars like Cab Calloway. She also gained a lot of creative control as to what she wanted to sing where she didn’t have prior. She sang gospel songs in night clubs in her own upbeat way and had exposed gospel music to secular crowds. Amidst of her performance, scantily-clad women danced along with her songs.

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Women’s Blues music in the 1920s and early 1930s served as liberation for the sexual and cultural politics of female sexuality in black women’s dissertation. Hazel V. Carby explores the ideology of the white feminist theory in her deposition, "It Jus Be 's Dat Way Sometime: The Sexual Politics of Women 's Blues", and critiques its views by focusing on the representation of feminism, sexuality, and power in black women’s blues music. She analyzes the sexual and cultural politics of black women who constructed themselves as sexual subjects through songs in blues music and explains how the representation of black female sexuality in black women’s fiction and in women’s blues differ from one another. Carby claims that these black women

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This main claim of this article is that the sexual legislative issues of women’s blues singers of the 1920s and relates it to African American women’s ' fiction around that same time frame. Carby also claims that great soul vocalists such as Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Ethel Waters had more insight to contest society led by men and uncover the disagreements of African American women’s ' experience than African American essayists. As Hazel V. Carby has illustrated, women blues artists were for the most part disregarded by the black middle classes, particularly women who saw blues as a declaration of the most corrupted or regressive parts of African-American life. With the National Association of Colored Women and the Black Women movement,

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Janis Joplin’s Game Janis Joplin was a music performer who played a vital role in the transformation of American society during the 1960’s. She is recognized for having had a tremendously powerful influence on people of the counterculture. This essay uses the humanistic perspective to explain the significance link between Janis Joplin and the effect that she had on the counterculture. By understand Janis Joplin from a emotional point, one will better understand the reasoning behind her actions and motives.

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Rock and Roll was a very popular cultural aspect of the 50s. It originated from African American culture then the whites interpreted it. One of the first singers to do this was the very king of rock and roll himself, Elvis Presley. Many adults hated this new music and wanted to ban it. A huge part of it was censored, for example on the Ed Sullivan show, Elvis had to wear a tuxedo and wasn’t allowed to dance because his moves were “sexually inappropriate”.

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The sixties was a decade unlike any other. Baby boomers came of age and entered colleges in huge numbers. The Civil Rights movement was gaining speed and many became involved in political activism. By the mid 1960s, some of American youth took a turn in a “far out” direction. It would be the most influential youth movement of any decade - a decade striking a dramatic gap between the youth and the generation before them.

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Others just “dropped out” and separated themselves from the mainstream culture through their appearance and lifestyle. Women began to protest about the traditional roles of housewife roles that society had put on them and viewpoints toward sexuality appeared to loosen as they protested. Members of the counterculture were usually known as hippies, shared some beliefs about materialism, technology, and war with the New Left Movement. Hippies would protest against wars such as the Vietnamese War, or they would choose to protest against society by completely leaving it. Many would drop out of school or college to create their idealistic community of peace, love, and harmony.

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The 1970s could not be more different from the 1960s. The 1960s was dominated by liberalism, which meant social and political movements in civil rights, women’s rights, constitutional rights and revolutions against government actions, like in Vietnam. Social welfare programs were expanded and government continued to involve itself in everyday life. Then, Nixon opened up the 1970s with a “revival of conservatism.” His election set the course for the rest of the decade, a decade of limits.

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On this response paper I will be analyzing, Janelle Monáe's The Electric Lady song and music video. Janelle Monáe is known for creating music that is liberal. Music that is free for all and relatable. She is also known for creating music in the soulful genre. Which means that she creates music that moves an individual both spiritually and physically.

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Rise of the Hippie Counterculture Psychedelics drugs, bell-bottoms, tie-dye, and rock & roll, the hippie counterculture movement was a powerful influence on youth culture in the middle of the 60’s mainly through musical expression and communal values. According to David Dodd’s annotation of the Grateful Dead’s song “That’s it for the Other One,” the counterculture became popularized In San Francisco due to the treks and travels of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. The Merry Pranksters were known for using LSD, magic mushrooms, and cannabis, and often filmed their Volkswagen bus trips across the United States. This filming gave birth to an interactive media experience which would later become presented to the public in the arrangement of festivals and concerts.

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Circumscribed as “‘an island of deviant meanings within the sea of its society’” (Hall 1968: 3), hippies wanted to “challenge the system of values at the focal points of stress and tension” (4) since not having the chance of living a self-regulated life often comes along with dissatisfaction and insurgency (Syme and Ritterman 1). Hippies must therefore “project a confrontation with the core organizing meanings and values […] of the society” (Hall 1968: 4). This is exemplified in the sentence articulated by Berger who argues: “I don’t wanna [sic!] go over there [Vietnam] and kill people [Vietnamese soldiers]”

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Cultural Impact of Rock and Roll Amidst the 1960’s Jimi Hendrix formerly stated, “Music doesn’t lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music.” A generation which was earnestly devoted to peace, protest, and revolution, the counterculture amongst the 1960’s yearned for change. Rock and roll was far beyond just a genre of music; it influenced lifestyles, protests, and attitudes, thus, kindling an awakening in the youth of American culture. The distinction between parental and youth culture was a persistent root of concern, considering that teens throughout the world found a sense of belonging in this style of music.

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The Music Revolution The Sixties were an exciting period with the beginning of a social, economic and Cultural Revolution, influenced by the music industry that was deeply involved into causes. This propensity took place in a turbulent period where some folks called it the "decade of discontent" because of the race riots and the demonstrations against the Vietnam War. However, other individuals called it the decade of "peace, love, and harmony", because of the peace movements and the emergence of Hippies, called “flower children.” This decade was about assassinations, unforgettable fashion, new styles of music, civil rights, gay and women 's liberation, Vietnam, peace marches, sexual freedom, drug usage, Summer of Love and Woodstock Festival. All of these factors caused a revolutionary transformation in the world of well-liked music, establishing melodies as a form of raise voices and express feelings.

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