Roy Rosenzweig called the saloon an “alternative” rather than an
“oppositional” culture. Which other
pieces of popular culture would you classify as alternative? Does alternative culture seem to plant the
seeds for eventual opposition to the mainstream, or can it happily coexist with
mainstream culture?
I think that women and the types of relationships and sexual encounters they began having in the 1970's would have been considered alternative culture. I think this was considered alternative because it was shying away from the beliefs and traditions of past generations. For example, people thought that it was not acceptable for women to have pre-marital sex. Women thought they should be able to have intercourse with men at their own free will and felt that they did not need to live life like their parents did. This belief women held became more and more popular and is clearly still a belief people hold today so I do not think that it really existed with mainstream culture. This belief was sort of a counterculture belief and couldn't really have existed at the same time.
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ReplyDeleteI think that a form of alternative culture that arrived during the 1940's and 1950's was the creation of shopping centers and malls. Instead of having to go downtown to do their shopping, people now had the convenience of the strip malls and malls that were popping up around the suburbs. I think that these shopping centers could be considered alternative culture because they were different from the previously established small city shops which was the norm. I think that these shopping centers can could co-exist with the mainstream culture at the time which was the city shops. Even today we still see that these different types of shopping styles can co-exist together. The only difference today is that the malls and strip malls are considered mainstream culture.
ReplyDeleteI feel like between the 60s and the 80s we saw a rise of subcultures that we might be able to consider alternative or oppositional. I think the political movements on the 60s (Students for a Democratic Society, The Free Speech Movement, Feminism) were clearly opposing the mainstream organization of society, from both the top down and the bottom up. These groups wanted to radically change what was happening and could not happily coexist with the mainstream. The disco in the 70s and hip hop of the 80s were also subcultures. I think that whether we call these alternative or oppositional all depends on how we analyze them.
ReplyDeleteI think that music, in itself, began to form as an alternative culture. Whether it was disco that emphasized different lifestyles or Bruce Springsteen who emphasized his beliefs on things such as the war through his music. It was a new theme that was beginning to arise, using music to push for change and push against the mainstream. In this case, alternative culture did seem to oppose mainstream rather than coexist with it. These forms of music were very popular and clearly went against the mainstream as opposed to living happily with it.
ReplyDeleteI think that music during the later half of the twentieth century embodied the idea of alternative culture. Disco and country music were both invented as genres to express ideas other than what was thought of as the "norm". The resulting "disco sucks" movement was oppositional to disco itself, but alternative in general. During this time period, TV shows and films either embodied alternative or oppositional culture. TV shows from the seventies like "Free to be You and Me" were alternative and urged individuality as means of expression and escape from the confining societal demands. On top of this though, there were anti-communist films like "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and "I Married a Communist" in the late forties into the fifties. These films were absolutely oppositional, because they completely opposed a particular way of life.
ReplyDeleteI think that alternative culture most often remains alternative rather than morphing to become oppositional. Alternative culture such as music movements and new forms of dance throughout history never really became disruptive to mainstream culture, but remained as a way for certain individuals to express themselves. I believe that if something starts out as oppositional culture, like anti-communist media forms, then it remains oppositional as it continues to exist. Most forms of pop culture can be classified as either alternative or oppositional.
ReplyDeleteSome things that are alternative: vogueing, "disco sucks", and Woodstock music festivals
Some things that are oppositional: anti-communist films, The Free Speech Movement, and Feminism movements
I think that alternative culture can coexist with mainstream culture in most cases. I think that maybe some forms of alternative culture could seem oppositional at first, but very quickly I think it would happily coexist with the mainstream culture. Music is definitely a form of alternative culture. Music styles and genres are always changing and I think that Disco is a great example of this. It was a movement of liberation and gave people the freedom to express themselves. Anything seemed possible with Disco music and it brought people together. Some people did not completely agree with this form of music at first, but it became popular very quickly and I think that it began coexisting with the mainstraim.
ReplyDeleteI think everyone has made great points. So far it seems as though instead of alternative culture planting the seeds for oppositional, it actually plants the seeds for a transition into the mainstream. With the political movements of the 60s and feminism, we saw people holding radical views that did not happily coexist with mainstream society, but with some time the beliefs became more widespread and women gained more rights. With the new forms of music we have talked about, hip hop is an especially interesting subculture to me to show this phenomenon because hip hop was a purely minority movement in the 80s, and some of the culture like breakdancing and graffiti were so incredibly opposed. However, by now hip hop is very widely accepted by almost everyone. We see women, white people, Asian people, and more in hip hop, and graffiti has become very commercialized, like we saw the beginning of some of the commercializing of the hip hop culture in the 80s / 90s with Keith Haring and the Beastie Boys.
ReplyDeleteReading every one else's comments, it seems as though there could be two ways to answer this question, depending on what part of culture is examined. Alternative cultures can arise and not be oppositional but rather happily co-exist with mainstream. One of the most obvious examples is shopping centers and mall. These started as an alternative option to the already previous small shops people used. They co-existed with these smaller stores until eventually became the norm. However, alternative cultures definitely have the ability to present opposition and clash with the mainstream, like the feminism movement. This was an alternative culture and proved to be very oppositional with the mainstream. This idea was a backlash to the society present and meant to change the mainstream.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading everyone else's comments, I think that its agreed that the question of whether or not alternative culture plants the seed for eventual opposition to mainstream, or if it can happily coexist with mainstream culture, is heavily influenced by the specific situation. We have seen cases in history in which both of these situations have occurred. I think it depends on how the entire society ends up reacting to the alternative culture, and if they are willing to accept the different culture.
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