Changing Attitudes in Culture and the Media, 1951-64

Changing Attitudes in Culture and the Media, 1951-64

1. Early 1950s

   • Deference to authority still strong
   • Mass entertainment (mostly cinema and BBC) was cosy and reassuring
   • Huge radio audiences for programmers like The Archers
   • Cinema dominated by war epics (The Cruel Sea) and Ealing comedies (The Lavendir Hill Mob)
     • Reinforced existing attitudes to class
       • However, cinema influence started to decline as TV took over

2. Culture began to reflect current society

   • Gang violence chillingly portrayed in Anthony Burgess's 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange
   • Television
     • Cosy and comforting police series replaced by gritty realism of Z Cars, set in a new town on Merseyside
     • Campaigning programmes designed to raise controversy about social issues
       • Cathy Come Home - powerful drama about homelessness in 1962
   • Films
     • Alienation of young working-class males was theme of several films
       • Saturday Night and Sunday Morning - big hit in 1960
     • Racial tensions was theme of Sapphire
       • 1959 crime thriller, daring portrayal of sex and violence

3. Drive to break down censorship and social taboos

   • Several plays and films pushed out boundaries
     • Portraying sex on screen
     • Dealing more openly with issues like homosexuality or back-street abortions
   • 1962, Penguin Books caused a storm by publishing D. H. Lawrence's sexually explicit novel Lady Chatterley's Lover
     • Resulted in high-profile court case under the Obscenity Act

4. 'Satire boom'

   • Beyond The Fringe
     • Satirical stage show by Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller and Alan Bennett that made big impact
   • Private Eye
     • From 1961 rapidly established a loyal following for its witty disrespect for the great and famous
   • That Was The Week That Was
     • 1962, made its debut on BBC, delighting half the nation and scandalising the other half

5. Middle-class backlash

   • Against the new 'immorality and depravity'
   • Led by Mary Whitehouse and supported by parts of the national press
     • 1964 Clean Up TV campaign

6. In general, majority opinion in Britain was socially conservative and much of Britain's popular culture remained in the same old groove

   • Class system dented by shifts in social sttitudes but certainly not broken