Creativity merges with the Counterculture

The Merry Pranksters and their bus, “Further.”

George Hanson: You know, this used to be a helluva good country. I can't understand what's gone wrong with it.

Billy: Man, everybody got chicken, that's what happened. Hey, we can't even get into like, a second-rate hotel, I mean, a second-rate motel, you dig? They think we're gonna cut their throat or somethin'. They're scared, man.

George Hanson: They're not scared of you. They're scared of what you represent to 'em.

Billy: Hey, man. All we represent to them, man, is somebody who needs a haircut.

George Hanson: Oh, no. What you represent to them is freedom.

Billy: What the hell is wrong with freedom? That's what it's all about.

George Hanson: Oh, yeah, that's right. That's what's it's all about, all right. But talkin' about it and bein' it, that's two different things. I mean, it's real hard to be free when you are bought and sold in the marketplace.

Mass society was now the target of a generalized revolt. . . .The counterculture was, ultimately, just a branch of the same revolution that had swept the critical-creative style to prominence and that many believed was demolishing Theory X hierarchy everywhere, from Vietnam to the boardroom.

(Frank, 118)Vogue, November 1968

“The Now Generation” “desire for

immediate gratification”

“craving for the new”

“intolerance for the slow-moving, the penurious, the thrifty” (Frank, 121)

1964

1959 ad

The Cola Wars

1971 Pepsi commercial:“”You‘ve got a lot to live and Pesi’s got a lot to give.” See Frank, 181.

Coca Cola Company, “I’d Like To Buy the World a Coke” 1971

Volkswagon, Volvo, and the Critique of Planned Obsolescence

“Thus did the consumer revolt against mass society, which had begun with the selling of a sturdy car that defied obsolescence, come into its own as a movement of accelerated obsolescence” (Frank, 123)

Advertising feminism

1969

U.S. Car Companies Change Course: The Dodge Rebellion

Dodge promotional campaign, 1966

Where Volkswagon and Volvo emphasized authenticity and durability, Detroit stressed escape, excitement, carnival, nonconformity, and individualism. (Frank, 157)

The “Youngmobile” by Oldsmobile, 1968

“Madison Avenue was more interested in speaking like the rebel young than speaking to them.” (Frank, 121)

Dodge Challenger commercial, 1970

The Peacock Revolution

**rapid stylistic change

**transgression of established modes (Frank, 204)

Gentlemen’s Quarterly, Feb. 1967

Two members of British Psychedelic band John's Children model kaftans designed by John Stephen in 1967.

After Six Formals Nehru Jacket Fashion Photo (1968)

Our celebrities are not just glamorous, they are insurrectionaries; our police and soldiers are not just good guys, they break the rules for a higher purpose. And through them and our imagined participation in whatever is the latest permutation of the rebel Pepsi Generation, we have not solved, but we have defused the problems of mass society. Impervious to criticism of any kind, and virtually without historical memory, hip has become what Norman Mailer predicted: the public philosophy in the age of flexible accumulation. (Frank, 233)