Easy Rider and the Phenomenon of the 1960s Counterculture...

In the following essay, I will attempt to highlight the phenomenon in cinema known as the counterculture youth-pic. This trend in production started in the late 1960s as a result of the economic and cultural influences on the film industry of that time. The following essay looks at how those influences helped to shape a new genre in the film industry, sighting Easy Rider as a main example, and suggests some possible reasons for the relatively short popularity of the genre. The standard story of the counterculture begins with an account of the social order against which it rebelled, a social order that was known to just about everyone by 1960 as the mass society. The tale of post-war malaise and youthful liveliness is a†¦show more content†¦And towards the end of the 1960s one of those symbols became the counterculture youthpic film. As for America, the poor boy and rich girl story (or rich boy and poor girl), which was the staple of the popular film before World War II, had disappeared. Money as romance had receded, not because everyone was now rich but because the middle class image has replaced both the poor image and the rich image. There was, for example, little difference in appearance between the clerks car and the bosss. The ascendancy of the middle class had reached the point where it was strong enough to control cultural forms, and to magnify its own image in art. (Frank, Conquest) The movie industry at the time had been filling the screens with spectacular productions, melodramatic love stories, and popular culture. These films, which were very successful early on, soon became clichà ©d, and were no longer profitable. For the first time in its history, Hollywood was having trouble pleasing the audience. The culture of the time had worked so hard to condition American audiences to accept a certain image onscreen, that they had removed their desire for change. Despite its apparent enthusiasm, goes the standard binary narrative, the Establishment was deeply threatened and in mortal conflict with a counterculture that aimed to undermine its cherished ethics of hard work and conformity. Easy Rider concludesShow MoreRelatedCounter-Culture Youth Pic Essay3079 Words   |  13 Pages In the following essay, I will attempt to highlight the phenomenon in cinema known as the â€Å"counterculture youth-pic.† This trend in production started in the late 1960’s as a result of the economic and cultural influences on the film industry of that time. The following essay looks at how those influences helped to shape a new genre in the film industry, sighting Easy Rider as a main example, and suggests some possible reasons for the relatively short popularity of the genre. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;â€Å"The