1969-1978
Getting away from it all
The year 1969 marked the end of one era, which reached its
peak with Woodstock, and kicked off another, with Peter Fonda's
iconic film Easy Rider. The advertising campaign for Easy
Rider proclaimed, "A man went looking for America and
couldn't find it anywhere," a sentiment that could be
expanded to embrace the entire decade.
Vietnam, the threat of martial law at home, the OPEC oil
embargo, Watergate, and the CIA's "dirty tricks"
abroad and at home led to growing feelings of insecurity and
powerlessness in the face of crises on the domestic and international
fronts. Escape from life's uncomfortable realities was found
in experimentation with alternative religions and lifestyles;
the search for life's meaning through transcendental meditation,
yoga, mysticism, and Eastern religion; the writings of Carlos
Casteneda; communes; and hallucinatory drugs.
Disco, immortalized in the film Saturday Night Fever (1977),
was arguably the most pervasive symbol of the era. It emerged
initially as the music of a true underground society, whose
denizens danced till morning to frantic nonstop music plied
by "dee-jays.&8221; Feeding on the public's appetite
for fear-induced thrills, Evel Knievel became one of the highest-paid
entertainers of his time, making motorcycle stunt-riding an
industry unto itself. Jaws (1975) and Star Wars (1977) defined
a new genre of moviemaking as interested in release through
spectacle as in story or character development.
Motorcycles have always offered riders escape through speed,
but, in the 1970s, manufacturers learned to apply the technology
of the racetrack to the creation of superspeedy bikes for
the road. Honda, for example, transformed both motorcycle
design and riding habits with its CB750 Four. Harley-Davidson
and Triumph made noble attempts to compete, offering their
own sporty superbikes. While Harley-Davidson's XLCR, a smaller-bodied
cafe racer, tempered classic Harley design components and
took inspiration from Europe, Britain's Triumph made a last-ditch
marketing attempt by crossing the Atlantic with styling that
made direct reference to a classic "American" (i.e.,
Harley-Davidson) look. Both were market failures. Although
nothing could be further away from Captain America's Easy
Rider Chopper, it was the Ducati 750SS, the product of masterful
Italian design, that captured the era's zeitgeist. In the
'70s, this bike was the ultimate escapist vehicle.
Fuente: Museo Guggenheim
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