Counterculture

Counterculture is a term used to describe a cultural group whose values and norms of behavior run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Although distinct countercultural undercurrents exist in all societies, here the term counterculture refers to a more significant, visible phenomenon that reaches critical mass and persists for a period of time. A counterculture movement thus expresses the ethos, aspirations and dreams of a specific population during a certain period of time — a social manifestation of zeitgeist.

Alternative Definitions

In contemporary times, counterculture came to prominence in the news media as it was used to refer to the youth rebellion that swept North America, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand during the 1960s and early 1970s. Earlier countercultural milieux in 19th century Europe included the traditions of Romanticism, Bohemianism and of the Dandy. Another important movement existed in a more fragmentary form in the 1950s, both in Europe and the US, in the form of the Beat generation (Beatniks), who typically sported beards, wore roll-neck sweaters, read the novels of Albert Camus and listened to Jazz music.

Counterculture is generally used to describe a theological, cultural, attitudinal or material position that does not conform to accepted societal norms. Yet, counterculture movements are often co-opted to spearhead commercial campaigns. Thus once taboo ideas (men wearing a woman's color — pink, for example) sometimes become popular trends.

Examples of Counterculture

Sixties and seventies counterculture

Though it also developed in the United Kingdom, the counterculture of the 1960s began in the United States as a reaction against the conservative social norms of the 1950s, the political conservatism (and social repression) of the Cold War period, and the US government's extensive military intervention in Vietnam.

Tensions developed along generational lines during the sixties regarding experimentation with drugs, race relations, sexual mores and women's rights. New cultural forms emerged, including the pop music of Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, and Bob Marley which rapidly evolved to shape and reflect the youth culture's emphasis on change and experimentation.

Media counterculture

File:Freakstalkback.gif

Scholarly text about tabloid talk shows.

While Phil Donahue pioneered the tabloid talk show genre in the 1970s, the warmth, intimacy and personal confession Oprah Winfrey brought to the format in 1986 both popularized and revolutionized it. , Yale sociology professor Joshua Gamson credits the tabloid talk show genre with providing much needed high impact media visibility for gays, bisexuals, transsexuals, and transgender people and doing more to make gays socially acceptable than any other development of the 20th century. With the invention and propagation of tabloid talk shows such as Jerry Springer, Jenny Jones, Oprah, and Geraldo, people outside the sexual mainstream now appear in living rooms across America almost every day of the week. Sociologist Vicki Abt feared that tabloid talk shows were redefining social norms. In her book Coming After Oprah: Cultural Fallout in the Age of the TV talk show, Abt warned that the media revolution that followed Oprah's success was blurring the lines between normal and deviant behavior.

One of Winfrey's most taboo-breaking shows occurred in the 1980s where for the entire hour, members of the studio audience stood up one by one, gave their names and announced that they were gay. Also in the 1980s Winfrey took her show to West Virginia to confront a town gripped by AIDS paranoia because a gay man living in the town had HIV. Winfrey interviewed the man, who had become a social outcast, and the town's mayor, who had drained a public pool where the man had gone swimming, and debated the town's hostile residents.

Following the success of tabloid talk shows, early 21st-century gays were coming out of the closet younger and younger, gay suicide rates had dropped, and gays were embraced on mainstream shows such as Queer as Folk, Will & Grace and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and films such as Brokeback Mountain.

Winfrey's intimate, therapeutic hosting style and the tabloid talk show genre she popularized has been credited or blamed for leading the media counterculture of the 1980s and 1990s, which broke 20th century taboos, led to America's self-help obsession, and created a confession culture. The Wall Street Journal coined the term Oprahfication, which means public confession as a form of therapy.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual & transgender counterculture

The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender community (commonly abbreviated as the “LGBT” community) fits the definition a countercultural movement as "a cultural group whose values and norms of behavior run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day". Aside from breaking away from the traditional accepted sexual mores of American / western culture, it has weathered continual, sometimes intense opposition from the more conservative elements of society.

At the outset of the 20th century, homosexual acts were punishable offenses. The prevailing public attitude was that homosexuality was a moral failing that should be punished, as exemplified by Oscar Wilde’s 1895 trial and imprisonment for "gross indecency." But even then, there were dissenting views. Sigmund Freud publicly expressed his opinion that homosexuality was a perfectly normal condition for some people. According to Charles Kaiser’s “the Gay Metropolis”, there were already semi-public gay-themed gatherings by the mid-1930s (such as the annual drag balls held during the Harlem Renaissance). There were also many bars & bath-houses that catered to gay clientele and adopted warning procedures (similar to those used by prohibition-era speakeasies) to warn customers of police raids. But homosexuality was typically subsumed into bohemian culture, and was not a significant movement in itself.

A genuine gay culture began to take root, albeit very discretely, with its own styles, attitudes and behaviors. And numerous industries began catering to this growing demographic group. For example, publishing houses cranked out pulp novels like “the Well of Loneliness” or “the Velvet Underground” that were targeted directly at gay people. By the early 1960s, openly gay political organizations such as the Mattachine Society were formally protesting abusive treatment toward gay people, challenging the entrenched idea that homosexuality was an aberrant condition, and calling for the decriminalization of homosexuality. Despite very limited sympathy, American society began at least to acknowledge the existence of a sizeable population of gays. The film “The Boys in the Band”, for example, featured negative portrayals of gay men, but at least recognized that they did in fact fraternize with each other (as opposed to being isolated, solitary predators who ‘victimized’ straight men).

A watershed event was the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City. Following this event, gays and lesbians began adopting the militant street protest tactics used by anti-war and black power radicals to confront anti-gay ideology. Perhaps the zenith of this period was the 1973 decision by the American Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality from the official list of mental disorders. Although gay radicals did use pressure tactics to force the decision, Kaiser notes that this had been an issue of some debate for many years in the psychiatric community, and that one of the chief obstacles to normalizing homosexuality was that therapists were getting rich offering dubious, unproven "cures".

The AIDS epidemic was a massive, unexpected blow to the movement. Many gays feared (and many fundamentalists hoped) that the disease would permanently drive gay life underground. But even AIDS had ironic, positive consequences. Many of the early victims of the disease had been openly gay only within the confines of insular gay ghettos (like NYC’s Greenwich Village and San Francisco’s Castro); they remained closeted in their professional lives and to their families. Many straights who thought they didn't know any gay people were confronted with friends, siblings and loved ones who were dying of ‘the gay plague.’ Gay people were increasingly seen not only as victims of a disease, but as victims of ostracism and hatred. Most importantly, the disease became a rallying point for a previously complacent gay community. Gay people once again became political and fought not only for a medical response to the plague, but also for wider acceptance of homosexuality in mainstream America. Ultimately, coming out in all aspects of one's life became an important step for many gay people.

The word "queer" had once been used as a derogatory term. During the 1980's gay people reclaimed the word as a defiant, pro-gay term. Its use became a broad declaration that gay men, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people would no longer 'apologize' for themselves, or try to placate homophobic elements.

In 2003, the United States Supreme Court officially decriminalized all sodomy laws. Virtually every large city and community in America has its own network of bars, gay-oriented businesses and community centers. Annual gay pride events take place throughout the country and the world. Many of the current debates concerning gay people (such as same-sex marriage and parenting) would have been unthinkable even 20 years ago. As of 2007, the gay community is focusing on marital rights, but sufficient numbers of Americans oppose gay marriage to the point that 27 state constitutional amendments banning gay marriage have been passed. This indicates that despite the wider acceptance and tolerance of gay life, it is still viewed by large segments of American society as divergent.

Russian/Soviet counterculture

Although not exactly equivalent to the English definition, the term "Контркультура" (Kontrkul'tura, "Counterculture") found a constant use in Russian to define a cultural movement that promotes acting outside usual conventions of Russian culture - use of explicit language, graphical description of sex, violence and illicit activities and uncopyrighted use of "safe" characters involved in everything mentioned.

During the early 70's, Russian culture was forced into quite a rigid framework of constant optimistic approach to everything. Even mild topics, such as breaking marriage and alcohol abuse, tended to be viewed as taboo by the media. In response, Russian society grew weary of the gap between real life and the creative world. Thus, the folklore and underground culture tended to be considered forbidden fruit. On the other hand, the general satisfaction with the quality of the existing works promoted parody, often within existing settings. For example, the Russian anecdotal joke tradition turned the settings of War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy into a grotesque world of sexual excess. Another well-known example is a black humor that dealt exclusively with funny deaths and/or other mishaps of small innocent children.

In the mid-80s, the Glasnost policy allowed the production of not-so-optimistic creative works. As a consequence, Russian cinema during the late 80s to the early 90s was dominated by crime-packed action movies with explicit (but not necessarily graphic) scenes of ruthless violence and social dramas on drug abuse, prostitution and failing relations. Although Russian movies of the time would be rated R in the USA due to violence, the use of explicit language was much milder than in American cinema.

Russian counterculture as we know it emerged in the late 90s with the increased popularity of the internet. Several web sites appeared that posted user-written short stories that dealt with sex, drugs and violence. Since stories were actually posted by editors, it's pretty clear what the characteristics of Russian counterculture were. The following features are considered most popular topics for the works:

• Wide use of explicit language
• Deliberately bad spelling
• Drug theme - descriptions of drug use and consequences of substance abuse - at times quite gruesome
• Alcohol use - positive
• Sex and violence - nothing is a taboo. In general, violence is rarely advocated, while sex is considered to be a good thing.
• Parody - media advertising, classic movies, pop culture and children's books are considered to be fair game.
• Nonconformism to daily routine and set nature of things
• Politically incorrect topics - mostly racism, xenophobia and homophobia

Conservative counterculture

In the early 2000s many political writers have coined a new term, "Conservative Counterculture," which describes a growing youth movement in both the Catholic and Evangelical churches in the United States. This is a group of American teens and young people who no longer see themselves as part of the "MTV" establishment and who reject pre-marital sex, illegal drugs, and alcohol. This Conservative Counterculture can be seen as a backlash against the liberal hippie generation of the 1960s, in which sex and drugs were popularized and traditional relationships frowned upon.

Counterculture Today

Currently there is no "definitive" counterculture, however several social scenes are emerging as a counterculture. In recent years such groups as the Punks, Bohemians, and Indies have questioned how the United States conducts the "War on Terror," especially in Iraq. These groups also embrace the ideologies espoused in Communism, Anarchism, Anti-War, and Socialism opposing the more popular Conservative and Liberal political views. These groups also oppose the popular use of technology and embrace Art and more "Independent" views on products and music. They are also more accepting of other races, religions, and sexual orientations. Most of the emerging counterculture groups relate their ideas and views to those of the 1960s counterculture. Such "forgotten" drugs as LSD and heroin are becoming more popular, fueling fear of a new "Drug Epidemic."

Bibliography

• Ken Goffman (2004) Counterculture through the ages Villard Books ISBN 0-375-50758-2
• George McKay (1996) Senseless Acts of Beauty: Cultures of Resistance since the Sixties. London Verso. ISBN 1-85984-028-0.
• Elizabeth Nelson (1989) The British Counterculture 1966-73: A Study of the Underground Press. London: Macmillan.
• Theodor Roszak (1970) The Making of a Counter Culture. University of California Press. ISBN 0520201221

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