MDST 361 - Film and Television in the 1960’s: Popular Culture & Social Change

This course examines the American film and television industries in the 1960s and early 1970s focusing particularly on how these popular culture industries responded to the turbulent social changes of the period, in particular the Civil Rights/Black Power movements; the youth counterculture, and the anti-war movement. How does popular mass-mediated entertainment negotiate with political and social movements that challenge the dominant social order? What role does popular culture plays in the process of social transformation? Along with a focus on the Hollywood film industry and U.S. network television, we will also look briefly at how the advertising industry responded to the era’s youth movement. We will also examine how films and television texts can be studied as historical documents that can tell us something of the complexities of previous eras. We will also examine the politics of nostalgia and the way that the past gets rewritten in particular ways for social and political considerations of the present. Along with course readings, students will screen films and television shows of the era. Students will write regular reading responses to course material, and will sit an essay-oriented final exam.

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