This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Lale: lol lol lol "Anyone who isn't any of these characters are either greasers, Martians, gas-station attendants, or Elvis." If that's not my favorite line on this entire site, this is at least my favorite entry on this site!
UnknownTroper: Hollywood History generally ignores/simplifies the civil rights part of the 50s
Ununnilium: Mmmmmmm... I'm gonna disagree. Back during the actual 50s, it did, but modern stuff often kicks some of that in there. Re-adding.
Fast Eddie: Crickey. We've picked up a Single-Issue Wonk.
Unknown Troper: My apologies - i did not mean to come across as a single minded nincompoop - it just irritated me to see kchishol fill half the entries with infomation on the civil rights era when that's often not part of the Hollywood shorthand - many think Fonzie and Leave it to Beaver not MLK Jr and Rosa Parks - and Mission Impossible and James Bond not Malcolm X and Betty Friedan.
Just an aside- a lot of the stereotypes of "the fifties" could extend to the entire period between VJ Day and the Kennedy assassination.
Ross N: There are really three versions of The Fifties. The first is the Fifties Fifties, i.e. how the time was portrayed in anything that was actually made then. In this version, The Fifties were a suburban paradise where everyone was always happy and there were no problems except for all those juvenile delinquents running around. Don't expect the civil rights movement to show up. Hell, seeing actual black people is a bit of a crapshoot.
Eh? The age of Sunset Boulevard, A Streetcar Named Desire and Touch of Evil? There was plenty of unhappiness in the Fifties Fifties!
Nornagest: I think there's enough examples to leave a place for the Parody Fifties — Blast From The Past and a variety of other modern but pretty apolitical movies qualify. Pleasantville and debatably The Truman Show overlap with the political Fifties but are definitely parodic. Fallout is what you get when the Parody Fifties meet After the End.
Nate The Great: I'm not sure how to work Sweetheart Sipping into the description. Anyone who wants to take a whack at it is more than welcome.
