In Joan Didion’s essay “Slouching Towards Bethlehem,” Didion recounts her numerous experiences and observations with people of multiple ideals and personalities within San Francisco, California during the 1960’s. During this time period, San Francisco arose as a renowned counterculture center. It attracted specifically young people from all over the United States who were seeking to detract themselves from the conventional society that took place in households throughout America. Didion decides to take part in this counterculture movement as well, however not as a participant but rather as an observer. The result is an essay documenting a rather harsh, disturbing society contrary to the popular image being portrayed by those in support of the movement taking America by storm. Rather than promoting the movement within San Francisco similar to what other media figures were doing, Didion uses syntax and diction to portray a straightforward view of the events occurring in addition to creating detail through her interpretation of people’s thoughts. Didion uniquely frames tension throughout the essay around instances of people exemplifying hypocrisy to further emphasize her contrary observations of the movement taking place within San Francisco, California.
Joan Didion portrays a stark contrasting view of the counterculture movement through her experiences and interpretation for why things have become the way they are. Didion made the trip to Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco, California looking to motivate her self to start writing again. She intended to explore what was taking place and see what the phenomenon was about. According to Muggli, “many people misread 'Slouching Towards Bethlehem' because they fixed on particulars rather th...
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...ne, allowing for the reader to reflect upon each scene without too much immediate interpretation to follow about the scene itself from Didion. Without interpretation and an appropriate transition, the reader will look to make his or her own interpretation, which is truly what journalism is about, allowing for more of an interaction between the reader and the text. In regards to Muggli, Heilker makes the point that “Slouching Towards Bethlehem” is not your traditional newspaper article of today. It may cause confusion at first and some may not get the point of Didion’s literary techniques. However, this is because Didion challenges the reader to make assumptions of their own instead of simply giving the reader her own assumptions. Her use of “short interpretive statements” give the reader as clear of an image as the one she was able to see through her own eyes.
Didion paints uneasy and somber images when describing the Santa Ana winds. “There is something uneasy in the Los Angeles air… some unnatural stillness, some tension,” starts the essay off with the image of Los Angeles people in a sense of stillness or tense. She further adds, “Blowing up sandstorms out along Route 66… we will see smoke back in the canyons, and hear sirens in the night,” propagating the uneasy and stark image of Los Angeles. “The baby frets. The maid sulks,” she adds, giving a depressing view into the effects of the Santa Ana winds on people. Didion, in an attempt to show the craziness associated with the Santa Ana winds, points out the Indians who throw themselves into the sea when bad winds came. At any rate, Didion attempts to show the negative effects of the Santa Ana winds through images of stillness, uneasiness, and sobriety.
At the beginning of the 1900s, there was a “sexual revolution” in New York City. During this time, sexual acts and desires were not hidden, but instead they were openl...
“California is a story. California is many stories.” But whose story is heard? What stories are forgotten? In the memoir, Bad Indians, Native American writer and poet Deborah A. Miranda constructs meaning about the untold experiences of indigenous people under the colonial period of American history. Her memoir disrupts a “coherent narrative” and takes us on a detour that deviates from the alleged facts presented in our high school history books. Despite her emphasis on the brutalization of the Indigenous people in California during the colonization period, Miranda’s use of the Christian Novena, “Novena to Bad Indians,” illustrates an ‘absurd’ ironic stance amidst cruelty and violence. The elocution of the Novena itself, and the Christian
Inner-city life is filled with glimmers of hope. The children had hopes of leaving the dreadful streets of the ghetto and moving into an innovative and improved place. There are times when Lafayette states, ...
Los Angeles is a place with a dynamic history. It has grown to be one of the most diverse cities in the world as a whole. Despite the diversity for which it is known for, the city has always had a striving conflict due to racial and class tension. The social stratification of its past continues to take its toll as dividing lines persist in contemporary Los Angeles. Furthermore, these dividing lines redefine place in Los Angeles, whether geographically or personally, to be subject to race and class. Fluidity has become evident recently however it is more common for the identity of people to be fixed in society. Through the novel Southland, by Nina Revoyr, and various means of academic sources, one is further able to explore the subject of race, place, and reinvention in Los Angeles.
Considered a cultural phenomenon, these “white negros”, or “hipsters”, as Mailer deems them, distanced themselves from white culture, and adopted black styles of clothing, language, and music. However, this phenomenon seemed to be somewhat isolated, appearing specifically in cities where the “Negro culture” had much to offer, in places such as New York, New Orleans, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. (Mailer) These hipsters represented a fascination or an interest in this type of culture—the American existentialist met the danger and violence that emulate from the Negro lifestyle.
American society and culture experienced an awakening during the 1960s as a result of the diverse civil rights, economic, and political issues it was faced with. At the center of this revolution was the American hippie, the most peculiar and highly influential figure of the time period. Hippies were vital to the American counterculture, fueling a movement to expand awareness and stretch accepted values. The hippies’ solutions to the problems of institutionalized American society were to either participate in mass protests with their alternative lifestyles and radical beliefs or drop out of society completely.
Have you ever gone to Chinatown supposing to find a culture full of African Americans? Probably not, because that is not where they’re expected to be. We live in a world where colonies of different colored people are expected, or otherwise discriminated into populating distinct spaces; African Americans are supposed to be in the ghetto, Chinese belong in Chinatown, and Caucasians reserve more elite communities. For centuries, each race has been striving to belong in a society where people are accepted as equals and certain jobs are not handed out to favored ethnicities. This form of discrimination has somewhat dwindled down, however, it still has an undeniable impact on the lives of every single generation since mankind was created. In Dionne Brand’s What We All Long For (WWALF), we view and contrast the lives of four different but very similar characters in which they negotiate different aspects of their lives in order to find their own unique and comfortable place in the powerful and diverse city of Toronto. The following essay examines the depiction of global spaces and the effects on diasporic identity through characters Tuyen and Carla from WWALF. I will analyze and contrast the adaptation of the characters to the city, the influence from the characters’ homes, and the connection to the emotional spaces; illustrating the effects on identification.
In this essay I will be looking at the topic of the countercultural movement of the 1960’s through counterculture film. The 1960’s were an extremely interesting time in history not only in the United States but all over the western world, as we saw the rise of the counterculture generation. The counter was a group of movements focused on achieving personal and cultural liberation and was embraced in many different ways by the decade’s young people. I have chosen this topic as the 60’s stand out for me as a revolutionary and often misrepresented period in history. The films I have chosen to look at are The Baader Meinhof Complex from director Uli Edel, Woodstock from Michael Wadleigh, Pirate Radio from Richard Curtis, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas from director Terry Gilliam. I chose to analyse these films as I believe they clearly demonstrate the social and political issues of the 1960’s and societies response to them.
Durkheim's concepts of the sacred and the profane has dominated religious and social commentary for decades. While these two, inexorably linked, concepts are most often related with respect to religion, we can apply them to the almost-religion of the “American Dream” for the purpose of analyzing the lives of Lester and Carolyn Burnham, Buddy Kane, and Angela Hayes in the film “American Beauty.” In “American Beauty” the experiences of the characters illustrates the dichotomy between the sacred and profane, the morality associated with the sacred and profane, and the influences the sacred and profane have on the characters.
Hondagneu-Sotelo, Pierrette. "Maid in L.A." California Dreams and Realities: Readings for Critical Thinkers and Writers. Ed. Sonia Maasik, and J F. Solomon. 3rd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's Press, 2001. 116-129. Print.
Dickstein, Morris. Gates of Eden: American Culture in the Sixties. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard UP, 1997. Print.
The 1960s formed one of the most culturally complex periods in America’s history, and the analysis of this era is just as problematic. During this time, American society experienced an outpouring of filmic, literary and musical texts that challenged traditional institutions such as the Christian church, the government and the family unit. It would be naïve to argue that this period witnessed the first or the last instance of subversive propaganda targeted at young people, for the many dissenting voices herein did not emerge by random chance. The formulation of a more politically aware youth culture in America and, to a lesser but still important extent, Great Britain, was a gradual process that had been taking hold for considerable time, not one that exploded into being when Bob Dylan or John Lennon began writing protest songs.
One of the major parts of the counterculture was the Hippies movement which began as early as January 14, 1967 during Human Be-In in San Francisco. Later on in 1967 Scott McKenzie made his own version of the song San Francisco. This e...
Imagination Nation highlights the culture of the 1960’s. Instead of portraying the 60’s as a time of debauchery like much literature, Imagination Nation shows the reality of the time. The sixties were a time of “Conscience objection to the ways of the previous generations”(69). The 14 essays published were to support and explain the reasons behind the movement. Many of these essays directly correlate and support that counter culture was deeper than the drugs, music, and tie-dye.