The pop culture progression

Historically Speaking



 

 

Tomorrow is Cinco de Mayo and I seriously contemplated covering that topic this week. However, I assume everyone knows about the holiday and that Cinco de Mayo is NOT Mexican Independence Day. If it’s Mexican independence you want, this isn’t it and if you can’t speak, read and write Mexican Spanish, you missed the point.

This week I will cover a topic that came to me while trying to expand my grandson’s musical listening. We were discussing boots and I decided to let him hear the old Nancy Sinatra song ‘These boots were made for walking.” I figured, “Hey, it’s a fun song with a good tempo and brass features.” So, I turned it on and he liked it. He also enjoyed the animations that my music platform provides for playing music. I then thought, “Let me bring up the music video so he could have something more to watch.” Yeah, big mistake! The video started and Ms.Sinatra was garbed in very little besides high boots, and her dancers were all dressed in the “Go-Go” style. This was 1966 and America was in a tumultuous place with politics, race and the beginning of the Vietnam War. I am very certain that this exhibit of dancing and going about was met with resistance from folks that were not accustomed to seeing things of the sort. To top it off, Barbara Eden’s wardrobe in ‘I Dream of Jeannie’ was stirring up controversy with the exposure of Ms. Eden’s navel on television. This was not the first time the good ‘ol US of A TV screens saw a controversial figure doing things that were deemed inappropriate. Bill Haley started it when he played that “devil music” for all 1950s teenagers to catch the bug. This would be the first time rock ‘n’ roll music was played. Elvis then came along and pushed the envelope even further. As an example of the rebellious 1950s, look no further than the rivalry between Buddy Holly and Ed Sullivan. Sullivan did not want Holly’s song ‘Oh Boy’ played on his show due to the lyrics. Holly played the song anyway and Sullivan had his guitar amplifier turned off during the performance, but not before he mispronounced Holly’s name during the introduction.

It seemed that as the time went on, things became more risqué and people wanted to watch! The 1960s blew the doors off of pop culture in America. Not only that, but the cars got faster and the 1965 Shelby Mustang flew off the show floors. To this day, any muscle car from the 1960s will bring in a pretty penny on any auction or sale.

Today, celebrities come along that try to push the envelope and it just seems redundant. Social media and reality television have taken over, creating more self-proclaimed role models, to include bad ones. Is my age at the level of those “old people” that hated on Bill Haley and Elvis? Or are today’s artists and celebrities just that ridiculous? I guess it’s a matter of opinion.

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed this week’s column, until next time.

MARTIN GONZALES is the Atascosa County Commission Chairman. If you have history of Atascosa County you’d like to share, you may contact him at 830-480-2741.

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