From Poodles To Presley
Americans Enter The Atomic Age. Exerpt from the book 'All-American Ads of the 50s' by Jim Heimann
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As an antidote to the conformity portrayed on television and the reality of the blandness of suburban living, some Americans would actively challenge the norm by nonconformist behavior. In a prelude to the turbulent sixties individuals such as author Jack Kerouac would personify the anti-social behavior that became the backbone of Beat culture, providing the straight world with the Beat Generation. James Dean became the cinema version of the lonely, alienated and misunderstood youth. Juvenile delinquents were the polar opposite of the squeaky-clean football players and cheerleaders America liked to think were the backbone of the country. Teenagers meanwhile reveled in the symbolic trappings of rebellion in an affront to their parents middle class values. Hot rods and customized cars represented the free expression of car design disengaged from Detroit's assembly line product. Jazz, which had simmered and evolved into an abstract and free form expression, perfectly matched the mood of this underground swell of new hipsters and was an alternative to the cloying pop music of the masses. These undercurrents of social change paralleled the of magazines and the mainstream press and anticipated the social upheaval the next decade would bring.
The '50s could be distilled into a world of pink and charcoal gray. The blandness of the man in the gray flannel suit versus the pink pouting lips of sex goddess Marilyn Monroe. The black and white McCarthy hearings and pink poodles advertising liquor. The dull conformity of the suburbs versus the wild bongo rhythms of the beatniks. The unabashed consumerism of the 1950s expressed in the advertisements of the decade reflected the extremes of a modern affluent generation and would lead Americans into the turbulent 1960s rejecting and reflecting on the tidal wave of 1950s consumerism.
Page 1 2 3 4 5
Page 1 2 3 4 5
As an antidote to the conformity portrayed on television and the reality of the blandness of suburban living, some Americans would actively challenge the norm by nonconformist behavior. In a prelude to the turbulent sixties individuals such as author Jack Kerouac would personify the anti-social behavior that became the backbone of Beat culture, providing the straight world with the Beat Generation. James Dean became the cinema version of the lonely, alienated and misunderstood youth. Juvenile delinquents were the polar opposite of the squeaky-clean football players and cheerleaders America liked to think were the backbone of the country. Teenagers meanwhile reveled in the symbolic trappings of rebellion in an affront to their parents middle class values. Hot rods and customized cars represented the free expression of car design disengaged from Detroit's assembly line product. Jazz, which had simmered and evolved into an abstract and free form expression, perfectly matched the mood of this underground swell of new hipsters and was an alternative to the cloying pop music of the masses. These undercurrents of social change paralleled the of magazines and the mainstream press and anticipated the social upheaval the next decade would bring.
The '50s could be distilled into a world of pink and charcoal gray. The blandness of the man in the gray flannel suit versus the pink pouting lips of sex goddess Marilyn Monroe. The black and white McCarthy hearings and pink poodles advertising liquor. The dull conformity of the suburbs versus the wild bongo rhythms of the beatniks. The unabashed consumerism of the 1950s expressed in the advertisements of the decade reflected the extremes of a modern affluent generation and would lead Americans into the turbulent 1960s rejecting and reflecting on the tidal wave of 1950s consumerism.
Page 1 2 3 4 5
