Social, Historical, Cultural contexts 1960's and The Avengers

Social, Historical, Cultural contexts- 1960's and The Avengers.

• The Avengers as a distinctive generic identity that is rooted in British popular culture.
• Television drew upon this tradition while at the same time responding to the social and cultural changes of the 1960's.
• Spy thriller-Sub genre.

• Series 4 Episode 1- 'The town of no return'
• Brief summary-

Steed and Emma, are on the trail of several murdered agents. They visit Little Bazeley by the sea, a town that strangers rarely live alive- and discover it is secretly infiltrated (invaded) by enemy agents, coming in from Russia. 

The swinging 60's

• London had transformed from the bleak, conservative city, only just beginning to forget the troubles of the Second world war, into the capital of the world, full of freedom, hope and promise.
• Young people are given a choice.
• Parents of the sixties generation had spent there own teenage years fighting for there lives in the second world war and wanted their own children to enjoy their youth and be able to have more fun and freedom.
• People had fought for and what we take for granted nowadays.
• 1950's historical context.
• 1960's social and cultural context.

Music

The music had drastically changed and was aimed towards teenagers. It was a change that had never been done before. The Beatles experimented with new sounds and developed innovative pieces of music. Their later albums included lyrics encouraging rebellion against the authorities, as seen in 'Revolution'.

Drug culture

In the 1960's music was so open minded due to the fact the majority of people would be influenced by the drugs. Images of Woodstock festival show people high on LSD, dancing in fields with paint on their face and their hair flowing free. It was very difficult for anyone in show business to avoid becoming involved with drugs in some way and as easily influenced young people looking for fun, LSD made people feel happy and optimistic and helped bring out the 'hippie' movement. The effect of these drugs were also reflected in psychedelic art, musicians and films.

• 1960's the feminist movement
• Protests, women's liberations groups
• 1965-Use of contraceptives/safe birth control. This changed the relationships attitudes of many young woman to sex and sexuality.
• Law suit for equal pay.
• fighting for woman abortion rights.
• Woman rights in the workplace-women had lower salaries and worked in 'pink collar' jobs such as secretaries, not professional professional, 'white collar' jobs, duh as lawyers.
• 1960's was still a patriarchal society.

• Inspired by James Bond, inter sexuality. 
• The clothes of peel and fighting ability demonstrated modern liberated femininity. She embodies the new international fashion in woman who like to fight and dress like men. Slightly ahead of fashion at the time.
• Leather outfit added to highly fetishtic dimension, which was far removed from the 'girl next door' image that was presented in tv during the 50's- a social and cultural change in society.
• A spited heroine of the 60's.
• Leather boots was not lost on the audience-'The leather pin-up' of the 60's.
• Still sexualised and still fought like a girl, bitchy and weaker than a man would fight a man.
• Her voice was made to be very seductive.

Sexuality

• In the early 60's it was seen to be an offence or an illness to be a homosexual male. 
• Gay men were sent to either prison or mental institutions. In mental institutions, they endured experimentation, torture, pain-causing drugs and electroshock therapy as a cure for homosexuality. When it came to 1967 they made a law to allow limited sexual content between men , with 3 conditions. 1)The act had to be consensual. 2)The act had to take place in private. 3)The act could only involve people of the age of 21 and above. 
• There was no regulation of female homosexuality.

Heterosexuality was considered a norm. In Avengers there is no homosexuality, but the men have power over the woman, like Mr Bond touching Emma's bum, which was common in the 60's as woman were seen as sexualised objects.

The cold war

• After world war 2, The united states and the soviet union were the worlds strongest nations.
• There was great distrust between the soviet union and the rest of the Allies.
• The avengers links to this due to Emma going to a small town to only explore Russia spies are trying to take over the town swell as the country, this is why both the Us and Russia swell as the avengershad paranoia due tp everything being secretive and unknown. 
• The cold war was an ongoing stand up between Russia and the Us where they competed to be the best country in the world.

Ethnicity 

• There are very limited numbers of ethnic minority , non white people, this doesn't represent society at the time as there was lots of asian and afro Caribbean communities.
•  Even though it was a multicultural society, the media was very white washed, even though it didn't reflect society. A sitcom, love thy neighbour had a black character in it however, he was a victim of racism in the show.

Gender

• Steed was the archetype of a gentleman hero, like James Bond. Peel combined femininity and modernity.
•  Post sexual revolution, woman felt more free and highly sexual.
• More females than ever were entering the paid workforce, and this increased the dissatisfaction among woman regarding huge gender differences in pay and advancement and sexual harassment at the workplace.
• Due to the contraceptive pill being approved by the government, woman felt more free.
• Basic goals of the sixties feminists:equal pay for equal work, an end to domestic violence, restricting severe limits on woman in managerial jobs, an end t sexual harassment, and sharing of responsibility for housework and child upbringing.
• The mini was designed to be free and liberating for woman, allowing them to 'run and jump'.
• In 1968 at a ford factory in Dagenham 850 woman went on strike, arguing for equal pay with their male co-workers. This action resulted in the passing of the equal pay act of 1970. 
• Cigarette advertisements always featured attractive men, most often in suits, from the 1960's on, advertisements also showed rugged men in outdoor settings.