The Look and Meaning of 50s America / May 2008 paper

Here's the better part of my most recent paper, entitled "The Look and Meaning of 50s America". 

My goal as an artist through my recent work is to view American nostalgia through a 21^st century lens and present my images in a way that provoke greater thought and challenge modern perception. In my opinion, images from the 1950s are unique in their ability to elicit a wide range of viewer response. Early on in my exploration of these images I was more concerned with finding a neutral image to paint from and less concerned with the meaning of that image. I’ve since come to understand how deep these images go. They represent an unprecedented place in history that shaped the American identity into what it is today. Through an exploration of 1950s images and films, I am gaining a greater understanding of the artistic possibilities. The goal of this writing is to examine these sources in hopes of further defining my work and answering the question, why use 50s images?

Post-War America in the 1950s was a time of unprecedented economic prosperity. Millions of young families had children and purchased land to build houses, effectively creating suburbia.  The men went to work while the women stayed home to raise the children. America became the richest and most powerful nation the world has ever seen, and people had reason to be optimistic about life. Few visual images capture this sense better than the paintings of Norman Rockwell, which record happy families and safe neighborhoods, and the idealized homespun quality of simple American virtues. “The minutest detail of Rockwell’s charmed vision reaffirms America’s greater purpose. Rockwell himself stated that ‘even if it wasn’t an ideal world, it should be’” (Caputi 6).

In reality, the decade had an equally ugly side. In these early years before the civil rights movement, white America generally pushed aside the growing issues of racism, while black Americans struggled to find equal opportunities as second class citizens. Deep beneath the happy exterior there was a growing paranoia that shaped the decade. America’s fear of communism and an escalating cold war with the Soviet Union led to US involvement in the Korean War, a brutal conflict that resulted in 2 million total deaths, 37,000 of them American. At home, fear of communist influence spread like wildfire. Senator Joseph McCarthy led an all out attack on communism, blacklisting prominent American citizens and further spreading the message that communism was out to destroy all that Americans held near and dear.

This paranoia is reflected in the themes of 50s films. “It has been estimated that no fewer than five hundred science fiction movies were made between 1948 and 1962, many of which fall into the category of “alien invasion film” (Caputi 15). The idea that sinister outside forces were out to infuse and destroy goes much deeper than science fiction. In the classic 1956 sci-fi horror film “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”, alien life forms secretly invade a small town. Growing in mysterious pods, they steal the bodily forms of good-natured Americans, and render them emotionless.  The film has been read as both an allegory for the perceived loss of personal autonomy in the Soviet Union and as an indictment of McCarthyist paranoia about communism during the early stages of the Cold War.

While it’s true that the 50s were by no means a time of national perfection, I do not desire to necessarily address the true 50s in my work. In 2008 a viewer can understand the irony and humor in an image of a seemingly perfect nuclear family, and wouldn’t need a picture addressing racism, the Korean War or the Rosenberg executions to understand the true 50s. Because I see humor as an essential element to working with these images, I try to avoid overt exploration of social and political issues. This is not to say that the paintings do not speak in these ways. They certainly can, but how they are read depends on the viewer.

Even still, images from the 50s cannot help but be political. In her book “A Kinder, Gentler America” Mary Caputi explores the myth of the 1950s and examines the way nostalgia has infused and transformed partisan politics. She argues that the political right advocates for a return to the 50s as a time of wholesome American family values, while the left sees the decade as a time of cultural censorship and ignorance of social justice. It would be hard to argue against her assessment based on historical fact. I think it would be easy to draw comparisons and make strong political statements with images from the 50s, which is the very reason I try hard to avoid it. I personally find those avenues to be dead ends, even if I strongly agree with the political position. 

I’ve come to discover another fine line between irony and kitsch within the subject matter. There are aspects to the 1950s that I abhor. When most people think of the 50s they immediately center on the stereotypical: poodle skirts, saddle shoes, greasers, soda fountains and young Elvis. All these things are the 50s for sure, but I see them as clichéd 50s nostalgia in light of shows like “Happy Days” and movies like “Grease” and “American Grafitti”. Those images speak immediately to a greater 50s collective stereotype, and have a hard time being interpreted in any other way.  To me they are as empty and undesirable as the doo-wop music of the day.

In more candid images of families and people interacting, I am able to explore the issues I am really interested in and have only recently been able to articulate. The first concerns mass consumerism, which began in the 1950s and permeates every aspect of life today. I have yet to explore this strongly in my work, but I see great potential for it. In a pivotal scene from his 1957 film “A Face in the Crowd”, director Elia Kazan points to the con artistry of mass media to sell products. In a time of unprecedented wealth and success for the white middle class, media and advertising changed everything.

“Through television, Americans now led a mediated life, interrupted by the gentle (or not so gentle) urgings of advertisers, helping them see their lives in special ways, requiring special needs” (Jennings 334). Today our world remains dominated by advertisement and product, and we continue to spend our money on stuff to bring us happiness.  I am very concerned with the extent that American’s find their identity in the products they buy, and there is ripe potential in the 50s images to explore these issues.

“We are now confronted with the problem of permitting the average American to feel moral even when he is flirting, even when he is spending, even when he is not saving, even when he is taking two vacations a year and buying a second or third car. One of the basic problems of this prosperity, then, is to give people the sanction and justification to enjoy it and to demonstrate that the hedonistic approach to his life is a moral, not an immoral one. This permission given to the consumer to enjoy his life freely, the demonstration that he is right in surrounding himself with products that enrich his life and give him pleasure must be one of the central themes of every advertising display and sales promotion plan.” –Dr. Ernest Dichter, Motivations, April 1956. (Ewing 36).

The key issues I’ve explored thus far concern gender and domestic roles within the home, an area of 50s life that has changed dramatically. I’ve come to understand through dialogue concerning my subject matter with friends, family and especially my wife, that my interest in 50s imagery is much more personal than I originally thought. I have been married for almost 8 years, and with young children now occupying our house I’m learning as I go what it takes to be a parent. The process had caused me to often consider my own upbringing.

Author Mary Caputi sees the mythical 50s as a veneer for a more ambiguous reality. “Is it possible that the era of the 1950s itself utilized visual culture in order to project the image of wholeness? Was the era so contented, so happily self-contained to those living in it, or do we tend to misread what is simply the look of completion?” (Caputi 113). This idea of false perfection vs. the reality of day-to-day life as a dad and husband lies at the center of my interest in 50s imagery. For me these images are somehow part of my identity as a privileged white American, whether I like it or not. I do not wish to go back to those times in the least. Rather, I see them as a humorous reminder of how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go.