Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site decwrl.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!ucbvax!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-nonode!cherson From: cherson@nonode.DEC Newsgroups: net.movies Subject: Back to the '50's? Message-ID: <3113@decwrl.UUCP> Date: Mon, 15-Jul-85 12:53:55 EDT Article-I.D.: decwrl.3113 Posted: Mon Jul 15 12:53:55 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 17-Jul-85 06:40:45 EDT Sender: daemon@decwrl.UUCP Organization: DEC Engineering Network Lines: 35 Judging from most people's reviews of "Back to the Future", it seems to be a decently made movie, etc. But the entire genre of movies dealing with the '50's brings up a disturbing fact, that Hollywood is trying to impart that the fifties was a good era in our history, people really had unlimited fun and today's youth shouldn't be afraid to emulate it in their lifestyles. The truth of the matter is that the fifties was the most blackest periods of American history. Many people's lives were ruined as a result of institutionalized paranoia. Great talents were not allowed to flourish on the stage, screen and in literature. Mutual hate and suspicion was the rule of the day rather than the exception. Sterility in family life was promoted through television shows such as "Father Knows Best" ( what a title! the guy was a jerk!). It was no accident that tv shows such as "The Honeymooners", and "Life of Riley", whose principles held such lowly proletarian jobs as a bus driver and aircraft worker, went off the air in the early fifties only to be replaced by the smiling Jim Anderson/ Ward Cleaver types. If your father didn't have that "respectable" office job than you'd be influenced to be ashamed of him, worse yet if members of your family spoke English with a foreign accent! The only positive product of the '50's was the music. It was great and it provided the only outlet for true emotions. But Rock n' Roll can not alter the image of an era and this is where Hollywood makes it's mistakes. I suppose that living in the electronic '50's (the present), where the general passivity of Americans parelling that of the chronological '50's makes it easy for Hollywood to peddle that grade B garbage (I'm not regarding Back to the Future as garbage). Those of you out in netland should be aware of how a medium such as the movies can be subtly used to impart a social message. David Cherson