Re: Easy Rider (multiple posts)
Ron Jacobs (RJACOBS@thyme.uvm.edu)
Tue, 25 Jun 1996 12:14:25 -0400
Easy Rider, like Medium Cool, Woodstock, and a myriad others did more
than commercialize the counterculture. They represented it and
spread its message (or parts of it) to the masses who weren't in the
Village, the Haight, Telegraph Ave or some other countercultural
mecca. Part of this dynamic, unfortunately, was that the message
became muddled and, in many cases, depoliticized. Rock music
suffered the same consequence. This phenomenon (at it's worst known
as cooptation) is the curse of alternative cultures in a capitalist
society. Once the moneygrubbers realize there is money to be made,
they will figure out a way to make that money for themselves. The
positive side of such commercialization, however, is the sudden
availability of subversive thought in your local mall. I, for one, am
thankful Bob Dylan made it to my suburban town and that the hippies
appeared on LIfe magazine and the Volunteers album was in my local PX
overseas and Woodstock played on screen at movie thetres all over the
world.
Irwin Silber wrote a pamphlet in 1970 or so regarding this phenomenon
and came to the conclusion that the only solution was to create an
alternative distribution network. The closest the countercultyre.new
left came to this were the underground newspapers and radio stations.
These medium, too, eventually, fell prey to the corporate sharks
(witness Columbia Records' "revolutionary rock" campaign, or RCA's
sponsorship of the Jefferson Airplane). In the '80s and 90sthe indie rock
phenomenon is an attempt to deal with corporate rock but they too,
have become victims of the corporate machine. (Nirvana started at
Subpop and now alternative is a marketing concept).....
-
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