1960 -1969
Popular Culture - Counterculture
In the 1960s, motorcycles met fashion. Co-opted by both suburbanites
and flower children, bikes were as relevant to the cultural
iconography of the '60s as bra-burnings, LSD, and street protests.
Self-fancied rebels cruised in packs on Harleys and nuclear
families puttered on Honda Super Cubs. Motorcycles became
familiar on both the new American superhighways and the old,
middle-American back roads. Their speed, sexiness, utility,
and custom design satisfied a society bent on expending energy.
But as generations, races, and genders grappled with their
desires and differences, cinema and advertising made the motorcycle
motif solipsistic. A rebellious image became more significant
than rebellion itself, and the motorcycle lost some of its
nasty edge.
Night after night the news ran its typical template of the
themes that preoccupied the Great Society: the Vietnam War,
the Cold War, race, women's liberation, sexual revolution,
and rock 'n' roll. The American populace revolted, but the
revolution devolved into theater; in the words of Norman Mailer,
"Conventional politics has so little to do with the real
subterranean life of America that none of us know much about
the real which is to say the potential historic nature of
America." The discrepancy between mediated life and the
elusive "real" of life had become vast.
Whatever history was being made, young people were making
much of it. Whether by dying in Vietnam or deciding what band
would top the now all-important charts, the largest age cohort
in America, "youth, " preoccupied a gamut of "authority
figures" ranging from politicians to ad men to ministers
to suburban moms. The world's youth were out on the road seeking
freedom, and the motorcycle was as sure a vehicle as any to
offer a quick hit of it. The film Easy Rider (1969) turned
upside down the myth of the American Western-cowboy and horse
and a code by which to live-and the gentlemanly John Wayne
yielded to the dazed Dennis Hopper.
The youth of the world managed to make nearly every public
act a political gesture, and tie-dyed shirts and long hair
took their places alongside civil rights marches and draft
cards. Rebellion became fashion, and Hollywood, Madison Avenue,
and the motorcycle industry capitalized as never before.
Fuente: Museo Guggenheim
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