"The '60s" TV miniseries would have you believe that between the years 1962 and 1969, the United States of America - the last conservative stronghold of the Western world - did an abrupt about-face and sped off to the left, never to return. Not only is this a gross generalization, but it is also based on naive assumptions and faulty logic that anyone with a high school diploma can readily refute.
Take the issue of race, for example. This movie argues that Negroes were relentlessly persecuted all the way up to 1965, so what choice did they have but to rebel? Well, maybe America's racist chickens DID come home to roost in the Sixties - but it wasn't because white Americans were just sitting idly by. Full equality for African-Americans had already been provided for by the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and '64 and by the Voting Rights Act of '65, so there was absolutely no reason for young black men to go hog wild during the latter part of the decade. They may have looked smart in their snappy berets, but in reality most - if not all - advocates of Black Power succeeded only in making a mockery of the civil rights movement with their penchant for violence and their irrational fear of all whites.
"The '60s" likewise tries to prove that prior to 1962 and the dancing of The Twist, exuberant sexuality in America simply didn't exist. What nonsense. The so-called sexual revolution wasn't really so radical when one considers that the forces behind it had been fermenting for decades (Margaret Sanger's crusade for birth control, for instance). The people who put this miniseries together apparently also consider the Fifties to be a time of cardboard, puritanical sexlessness. But that belief simply doesn't hold water. Was it not during the '50s that Elvis Presley provocatively swiveled his hips and Marilyn Monroe had her dress blown up past her waist? Not to mention Playboy magazine, Bettie Page pinups, and the word "rock 'n' roll" itself, which was originally a euphemism for sex. When you get right down to it, the revolution wouldn't have come as quickly as it did had it not been for the introduction of the birth control pill in 1960, which made sex more common only because it made it less hazardous.
And what about Vietnam? This movie simply shows that conflict blowing up in our faces in 1964. What it doesn't show is that the war in Indochina had been raging since 1954 - ten years earlier. The top brass in Washington - if not the American public at large - had been keeping abreast of the events in Southeast Asia since day one. In fact, Dwight D. Eisenhower had the opportunity to nip the entire Vietnam conflict in the bud during his first term, when he refused to give aid to the French at the siege of Dienbienphu. Yes, LBJ must bear the brunt of the blame for what happened to our boys; but we wouldn't have gotten into such a pickle in the first place if Ike hadn't sat on the teakettle a decade earlier. The movie also focuses almost exclusively on the activities of war protesters, failing to note that most Americans actually supported the war to the bitter end.
One final note: the movie opens with an ironic presentation of that bland, insipid, happy-go-lucky Fifties sitcom "Ozzie and Harriet." Good point, but it's not as if we were all watching blood-soaked shoot-'em-ups and kinky S&M on TV by 1969. As a matter of fact, by the end of the decade Americans were watching bland, insipid, happy-go-lucky Seventies sitcoms like "The Brady Bunch."
I may be only 20 years old, but I know my American history. And "The '60s" gets a lot of it wrong.
Take the issue of race, for example. This movie argues that Negroes were relentlessly persecuted all the way up to 1965, so what choice did they have but to rebel? Well, maybe America's racist chickens DID come home to roost in the Sixties - but it wasn't because white Americans were just sitting idly by. Full equality for African-Americans had already been provided for by the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and '64 and by the Voting Rights Act of '65, so there was absolutely no reason for young black men to go hog wild during the latter part of the decade. They may have looked smart in their snappy berets, but in reality most - if not all - advocates of Black Power succeeded only in making a mockery of the civil rights movement with their penchant for violence and their irrational fear of all whites.
"The '60s" likewise tries to prove that prior to 1962 and the dancing of The Twist, exuberant sexuality in America simply didn't exist. What nonsense. The so-called sexual revolution wasn't really so radical when one considers that the forces behind it had been fermenting for decades (Margaret Sanger's crusade for birth control, for instance). The people who put this miniseries together apparently also consider the Fifties to be a time of cardboard, puritanical sexlessness. But that belief simply doesn't hold water. Was it not during the '50s that Elvis Presley provocatively swiveled his hips and Marilyn Monroe had her dress blown up past her waist? Not to mention Playboy magazine, Bettie Page pinups, and the word "rock 'n' roll" itself, which was originally a euphemism for sex. When you get right down to it, the revolution wouldn't have come as quickly as it did had it not been for the introduction of the birth control pill in 1960, which made sex more common only because it made it less hazardous.
And what about Vietnam? This movie simply shows that conflict blowing up in our faces in 1964. What it doesn't show is that the war in Indochina had been raging since 1954 - ten years earlier. The top brass in Washington - if not the American public at large - had been keeping abreast of the events in Southeast Asia since day one. In fact, Dwight D. Eisenhower had the opportunity to nip the entire Vietnam conflict in the bud during his first term, when he refused to give aid to the French at the siege of Dienbienphu. Yes, LBJ must bear the brunt of the blame for what happened to our boys; but we wouldn't have gotten into such a pickle in the first place if Ike hadn't sat on the teakettle a decade earlier. The movie also focuses almost exclusively on the activities of war protesters, failing to note that most Americans actually supported the war to the bitter end.
One final note: the movie opens with an ironic presentation of that bland, insipid, happy-go-lucky Fifties sitcom "Ozzie and Harriet." Good point, but it's not as if we were all watching blood-soaked shoot-'em-ups and kinky S&M on TV by 1969. As a matter of fact, by the end of the decade Americans were watching bland, insipid, happy-go-lucky Seventies sitcoms like "The Brady Bunch."
I may be only 20 years old, but I know my American history. And "The '60s" gets a lot of it wrong.