American Graffiti and Easy Rider: film analysis and cultural significance

American Graffiti and "Easy Rider"

Although, both "American Graffiti" and "Easy Rider" are set in the 1960's, the young people each film reflects are very different. This is due to the fact that perhaps no other decade in the twentieth century changed so much from its beginning until the end than the 1960's.

When the 1960's began, men wore crew cut hairstyles, slacks with casual shirts, usually plaid, and buttoned down the front. Women and girls looked much like the females on the Donna Reed Show, wearing knee-length dresses or skirts and bouffant hairstyles (http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/decade60.html).Elvis, Bobby Darin, Neil Sedaka, Jerry Lee Lewis, Paul Anka, Del Shannon and Frankie Avalon dominated the music charts, along with the new sound of Motown (http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/decade60.html).

There was an innocence to the early 60's culture that is wonderfully portrayed in George Lucas' "American Graffiti," a film about the last night before college for Curt Henderson and Steve Bolander (Lucas 1973). The film accurately portrays the era, including the sexual morals, the obsession with drag racing as a test of manhood, and the female obsession with make-up and marriage (Lucas 1973). In fact, the average age for female to marry was 20 years and younger (Wetzel 1990). And it was perhaps the last era when booze was the only thing to get high on for the average teenager.

By the end of the 1960's, most men had done away with ties, however, when worn, they were about five inches wide and patterned in paisley or stripes and women were wearing peasant skirts and blouses and granny dresses along with chunky shoes called clogs (http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/decade60.html).Both males and females wore bell bottomed jeans, love beads and t-shirts, all of which was most likely purchased at surplus stores rather than boutiques (http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/decade60.html).The Beatles' music had turned to acid rock, and rock groups such Jefferson Airplane and The Grateful Dead topped the charts, and Woodstock had drawn 400,000 hippies searching for peace, love and LSD (http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/decade60.html).