60's Paragraph

During the 60's Youth was targeted and labelled as being social deviants and were generally looked down upon in society because of they "disruptive traits". There were three distinct subcultures during this time, Mods, Rockers and the Hippies. The invention of contraception revolutionised the 60's, any woman at the time could get a contraceptive pill, breaking the stereotype of getting married before sex and settling down with a family. The introduction of the contraceptive pill is a good representation of Stanley Halls theory of 1904 which in part stated that youth are constantly thinking about sex. Films in the 60's also portrayed Youth as troublesome and rather negatively, an example of this is the Beatles film, A Hard Day's Night made in 1964 by Richard Lester, throughout the film the Beatles are depicted as being quite devious and troublesome. In one part they also try to chat up some girls on the train another representation of Stanley Halls theory as youth thinking about sex. "Don't take that tone with me young man, I fought the war for your kind" A quote from the film from an old man directed at the 4 boys, an example of Medhursts "Awful because they are not like us" theory. Osgerby 1998 and Hedbridge's 1988 theories would also apply to this film as there is a dual stereotype depending on your perspective, on one hand youth is depicted as trouble whereas on the other hand youth is depicted as fun. The Newspaper also followed in portraying youth as trouble. "Wild Ones invade seaside, 97 arrests" and "Wild Ones "beat up" Margate, 47 arrests". Media was being seen by a wider audience at this time due to the introduction of the television, it can be argued that the reason youth was seen as rebellious during the 60's is because more people simply paid more attention to the media. The middle aged white men who controlled the media created the stereotype by using the media to depict the youth as social deviants and nothing more.