On the truths behind, but also the limitations of, one of our prominent
national narratives of the 1960s.
Nearly half a century later, the 1960s continue to occupy a central place
in many of our national conversations. Partly that feels particularly true
these days because we’re celebrating the 50th anniversary of events
like the March on
Washington and the “I
Have a Dream” speech; but mostly it’s because of just how defining and yet
how controversial the decade was and remains. One whole subset of narratives of
the 60s has to do with the question of what has happened to the decade’s ideals
in those five decades since, and more exactly with how the baby boomers and
hippies who fought for and tried to embody those ideals have shifted away from,
and in some narratives betrayed, those beliefs. Pop culture has long portrayed
ex-hippies through that lens: from a single moment like the line “Out on the
road today I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac” in Don Henley’s “The
Boys of Summer” (1984); to an entire film like Lawrence Kasdan’s The Big Chill (1983),
which depicts a group of 60s college friends reuniting decades later and
confronting their adult lives after one of their group commits suicide.
It certainly seems fair to say that as the hippies and the baby boom
generation matured, they evolved, as of course any individuals and groups do;
such evolution doesn’t necessarily equate to a betrayal of our earlier selves,
but does require that beliefs and ideals grow and likely shift as well. The
1980s sitcom Family Ties did an
excellent job engaging with those questions, examining a pair of ex-hippie
parents as they navigate adult and family responsibilities (particularly in
relationship to their yuppie, Reagan-idolozing son, famously played by Michael J.
Fox). But it’s also fair to say that in many cases, including Kasdan’s
film, complex political or social questions are largely simplified and
downplayed, reduced to a backdrop of things that these characters once believed
but that are no longer relevant to their contemporary lives. Given that
precisely none of the broad issues with which the hippies engaged—poverty and
inequality, racism and injustice, war and the military industrial complex, corporations
and consumerism, the environment—have gone away in the five decades since, such
reductions don’t seem accurate to how the group has evolved. And in his first
film, The Return of the Secaucus
Seven (1980), John Sayles depicts those questions with far more
complexity and depth.
Like Kasdan’s film (which seems to have been at least somewhat inspired by
Sayles’, although Kasdan has denied having seen it), Secaucus is certainly interested in how its group of ex-hippies
have evolved individually, socially, romantically, professionally, and so on in
the decade and more since their 60s lives. But Sayles’ title refers to a
particular political incident from that earlier decade, one in which the group
were arrested for protesting; and since the film’s reunion marks the first time
the group has been together since that moment, this history of activism and
idealism becomes one of the recurring threads of their conversations and
interactions. They come to no more of a consensus about the legacy of those actions
and beliefs than they do about any aspect of their present identities; but they
also acknowledge how formative those 60s moments and actions have been, and
thus are significantly less dismissive of the value of their activism than many
such ex-hippie characters and voices in our culture. Secaucus is far from a perfect film, but it’s well worth seeing,
not least for this still largely unique complication of a dominant national
narrative.
Next film tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you think? Other films you’d especially AmericanStudy?
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