One of the products of the economic growth in the 50’s, Levittowns would be the beginnings of suburbia in America. The affordable houses made the American Dream of owning a home a reality for millions of Americans.
In the years following World War II, America experienced a boom unparalleled in human history. This period of great economic growth, coupled with the Americans’ seemingly indefatigable sense of morale, produced a generation often labelled as the world’s “best and brightest.” This time of limitless potential and inexhaustible resources had no end in sight. Or so it seemed.
Following the great tragedy that was Vietnam, the United States underwent a rapid descent that all Americans experienced either economically or morally, and, most of the time, it was both. This downward spiral arose from numerous causes, from the war in Vietnam to the failures in American leadership with the Watergate scandal. Even changing views in traditions of race, gender, and sexuality would play a hand in bringing America closer to the edge of breaking. In the midst of such tumultuous and uncertain times, sources such as John Updike’s Rabbit is Rich and Mike Nichol’s 1967 film, The Graduate, relay to us the various mindsets of disillusionment, anger, and changing morals the American people experienced during this time of upheaval. Due to these events, America’s morale and capability would falter and the country itself would slip into a near-depression as it struggled to shed the anchors that came so close to drowning it.
If one is to understand the United States during this time, then I assert that he must begin at the starting point, where America first began to break away from her traditional views of conservatism and move toward a place with a more liberalized set of ideologies and morals that could match the pace of upheaval American culture experienced during this time. This starting point would be the gender and sexual revolution that began with “the sexualization of American culture” as early as the 1920’s.[1] Sexual images and behaviors became more prominent in the news, television, and media; sex became a market for its images and its ability to “offer Americans fulfillment through consumption.”[2] This sexualization, spurred on by the intensity of American consumption, produced a culture that became consumed by sex, its images, its representations, and the waywardness of it. Because of this proclivity towards consumption, America began to see changes that were happening to the traditional views Americans had regarding sex.
This idea of liberalized sexual relations and behaviors were also a shared theme in The Graduate and Updike’s Rabbit is Rich. On one hand, Benjamin finds himself in the throes of an affair with a married woman while the married Rabbit often contemplates having sex with other women besides his wife, Janice.[3] The proliferation of a more liberalized sexual culture in America marks the willingness of the American majority to move away from previous traditions and ideologies that they felt led to some of the problems America was struggling through. The rebelliousness of the American people, especially the youth culture, proved that the previous traditions and morals could not be applied to this generation. This, in effect, shows the anger and mistrust the people had regarding the government and its leaders.
These previous traditions and ideologies are challenged in Rabbit is Rich when Janice, on the controversial topic of Nelson “shacking up” with his new girlfriend, admits that the church is as flawed as any one person and should not judge people when it has had a priest run off with a married woman before and the “one now is so gay that [Janice] wouldn’t let [her] boy go to his Sunday school…”[4] The upkeep of appearances, so often sought by previous generations, became unwanted by the new ones. It would be this expression of not caring what others thought that people began to move away from previously held convictions regarding sex, all in search of something better for themselves. Unhindered by the church or society, people now looked inward for happiness, at what they felt within themselves, instead of looking outward towards society or to others or to even American leadership, as these were so often to fail the people that looked to them for insight.
ERA, or Equal Rights Amendment, was an amendment designed to give more equality to women that would be comparable to the equality and freedoms given to men.
Though the sexual revolution was important in liberating the youth to their counterculture that took place, the beginning breaks away from previous ideologies could not have happened without another major change taking place as well. This change was the evolution of gender roles, from a society that was through-and-through masculine to one that was steadily allowing women to take bigger and much more decisive roles in the workplace, society, and at home.
For one, this swapping of gender roles is notable in Rabbit is Rich with Rabbit having come into his wealth through his marriage with Janice instead of his own accords.[5] Besides that, the changing gender roles can be noted in Rabbit and Janice’s home life, too, where the reader sees Janice and her mother overstepping traditional household roles with their overwhelming Rabbit’s voice (who should be, by society’s rules, the head of the household) in an argument and it ending with Janice interrupting Rabbit and telling him, “Why don’t you go out and pick some lettuce from the garden like we said?”[6] Like a child shushed and sated with candy, Rabbit is not only spurned from a household argument, but he does it gladly so as to get away from the incessant bickering of the women.
For the first time in U.S. history, “struggles in gender roles and expectations” [confronted] the nation with a “future that no longer seemed limitless.”[7] Beth writes that these struggles would play out in a country already divided from the race tensions in the 60’s’ Civil Rights movement, the “crisis of political authority” found lacking following Watergate, and the immense failure of the War in Vietnam.[8] Faced with momentous problems and even more dire consequences of said problems, the opinion and the experiences of the American public at this time can be said as being angry and disillusioned with their government, their morals, and, most importantly, themselves. These evolving gender roles indicate how notions on gender differences and superiority started to change; despite this being a good time for women’s rights, this movement only helped to create more tension in a decade already rife with upheaval, thereby leading to more confusion, skepticism, and disillusionment.
This inner skepticism plagued the nation. It affected all aspects of life and would go on to characterize much of the American public during this time period. Benjamin, in The Graduate, is often noted as being lethargic and lackadaisical, often very unambitious despite being a college graduate which should have meant an automatic ticket to a great job. When asked what he was doing one hot, summer day by his mom, Benjamin replies, “I’m floating…just…floating…” Ben’s attitude captures the very essence of American disillusionment during this time, especially for the youth. With so many things going wrong for them, this nonchalant, almost-hippie-like uncaringness symbolized the cultural attitudes toward the world.
The skepticism was not exclusive to just the youth or the culture of the time. Economically, America drew into an uncertain time with the oil and gas crises plaguing the world. Meant to be attributed to the gas lines, Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom tells the reader that “the fucking world is running out of gas,” but this can be applied to America’s sense of deteriorating morale and economy.[9] With a more globalized workforce, international outsourcing, and lax labor laws, America is all but gutted of her industrial factories. Creating a sharp decline in employment and morale in the American economic machine, this period of deindustrialization made tangible the effects of all this upheaval. Factories were rusting, unemployment rising, and an out-of-control youth counterculture in full swing culminated in what was no less a depression, or at least a depressing period for America.
With all of America feeling the despondency of the last two decades, the sixties and seventies became a period where people really did not know if America could get back on her feet. The anger at American leadership and its failures, the disillusionment of the lies, and, of course, the dying breaths of American morale could be felt by all as they struggled through economic crises and civil movements that all but threw this generation into a confusing state of turmoil and upheaval. With the society so far deteriorated from its previous standings, how was America able to restart itself? Some would argue that once rock bottom has been reached, the only way left to go is up. I agree but I also posit that the trying times of the sixties and seventies reformed the United States. The upheaval only tempered and strengthened American resolve and it would be, undoubtedly, the strength and fortitude of this resolve that would keep this country on its feet to weather many more storms to come.
[1] Beth Bailey, “Sexual Revolution(s),” in A History of Our Time, eds. Chafe, Sitkoff, and Bailey, (2008), 208.
[2] Ibid.
[3] John Updike, Rabbit is Rich (New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 1981), 22-23, 77-78.
[4] Ibid, 51.
[5] Ibid, 4.
[6] Ibid, 52.
[7] Beth Bailey, “She Can Really Bring Home the Bacon,” in America in the 70’s, (2004), 108.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Updike, Rabbit…, 3.
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