Youth culture started to emerge when rock ‘n’ role, blues and jazz music became a big interest in teenagers. This was a major window for the Boomer generation to express themselves whether it is fashion or style of music. There were different clothes for every circumstance in the Boomer generation. There were relaxed, colourful and comfortable and many styles turned out to be short fads but some are still is fashion today such as hot pants and leather. These clothes were soon to be very popular because they were cool, stylish and fun. A lot of money was spent on clothes for girls and boys in the 50’s and still today though in the 50’s they wore their clothes to school and work. In the Boomer generation the girls wore flared, knee length skirts more often than not made from felt decorated with plastic movable eyes and fake fur. These were known as ‘poodle skirts’ even though they had nothing to do with poodles. ‘Short shorts’ or ‘hot pants’ on girls was a very popular attraction for the young men but these were considered ‘indecent exposure’ by the older generation when warn in public because we must remember that the parents wore full body length with little skin showing. The majority of the boys wore blue jeans with T-shirts but for the rebellious look boys wore leather pants or jackets. Casual clothes warn were polo shirts, madras plaid sport shirts, Hawaiian shirts and canvas shoes.
An Australian film, The Delinquents, Directed by Chris Truman clearly illustrates the life of Australians in the 50’s in a small town of Bundaberg. The story revolves around two young adolescents (Lola and Brownie) who fall in love and fight through the battles to keep their relationship together. There is a clear example of the emergence of youth culture where Lola is playing the piano and as soon as her mum leaves the room she turns from playing normal ‘boring’ scales to a fun rock ‘n’ role song. Obviously Lola is demonstration her desire as a youth of the 50’s to seek her own identity and live her own life also brownie expresses to Lola, “I want the travel the world and be free”. Certain musicians have written songs about the emerging generation gap a classic example of this is, “Yakety Yak” written by Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller and sung by the Coasters in 1958. This song focus on how sociological life worked between children and parents. The words second verse “Get all that garbage out of sight or you don’t go out Friday night yakety yack (don’t talk back),” and the last verse “Just tell your hoodlum friend outside you ain’t got time to take a ride yakety yack (don’t talk back)”. This is clear evidence that the parents are trying to influence their children to take care of responsibilities before they can do what they like i.e. express themselves. “Yakety yak (don’t come back)” here is the lack of communication between the parents and children which furthermore lead to the generation gap.
The concept of youth culture set by the teenage generation in the 50’s turned into a way of life for the youth of the 60’s and 70’s. Historical events such as the Vietnam War and the Cuban Missile Crisis helped life the social and political awareness of the youth in America. There was a social that was built in the 50’s that turned into a way of life in the 60’s, this social group was known as ‘Hippies’. The Hippies were a peaceful social group who spent a lot of their social time taking drugs. Marijuana was one of the most common and also the contraceptive pill was very commonly used for birth control among women. The contraceptive pill opened doors for women to explore sex in a more social way and gave them much more sexual freedom. This generation also known as the ‘Flower Children’ and were influenced my popular rock ‘n’ role bands to focus on their own individual freedom. In the 60’s the peace symbol was carried out to embody ‘love not war’. With rock ‘n’ role, Marijuana and the contraceptive pill being so popular this lifestyle of the 60’s became known as ‘Sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ role”. Woodstock in 1969 was the climax for this generation. Over 450 000 Boomers came to see their favourite bands on a farm in New York over four days. Words of freedom, love and no war were spreading on this site. This here is a clear that the generation gab had emerged and the youth have defiantly broken out of their parent’s structure.
After all the Boomer Generation got their way it was now time for them to be parents. The children of the 70’s were looked upon as reckless, irresponsible, violent and uneducated. This was because parents battled to be role models for their children as in them they still possessed the only worry about yourself before anything else attitude. In this Generation after the Boomers was known as the generation ‘X’ or the ’13 ER’. This Generation children had no role models to look up to so in a sense the parents just let them run wild having no idea what they were really up to. This was a world out of control, with nuclear power accidents, (Three Mile Island) the Vietnam War and families were broken up with deforces that created first-time record of single parent homes. This is why when women grew to be more involved in the work force once primarily dominated by men. Because of mums at work kids were left at home along and this is when the experimentation of smoking, alcohol and sex at a young age took place. This generation were forced to grow up fast and in some cases overloaded with information. The movie ‘The Ice-Storm’ clearly portrays how the generation gap has emerged between the children and parents. The father comes home from the business trip and says to his kids “hi I’m back,” One of his kids replies with, “you were gone?” then the father tries to start a conversation about school but he was left with one word answers. There is something wrong with this, the father cant even have a normal conversation with his own son, its like they are both strangers. Also Affairs were more common as sex was turning into be a socially acceptable obsession. As we saw in the movie ‘The Delinquence’ Brownies parents seemed to stay together even though they didn’t like each other where as in ‘The Ice Storm’ the parents just had affairs and the children had no idea of this even though it was quite obvious when the kids saw their father at his ‘friends’ house for no particular reason. I guess it just never crossed the children’s minds that their parents would do such a thing.
The political, sociological and historical events in the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s led to transformations in the youth culture and the generation gap. War in the US is what caused children to become more self-independent in the 50’s. With this attitude it didn’t provide the soon to be children in the 60’s and 70’s a solid platform to be brought up on thus giving us the generation gab.
