Popular Culture in the 1960s Did More Harm Than Good

"Popular Culture in the 1960s did more harm than good"

I believe the popular culture in the 1960s did more good than harm. The popular culture was all about the teenagers' freedom and protests against establishment. Being free is definitely a good thing but sometimes, doing what you want and eating what you want is not right, such as eating illegal drugs. In this essay, I will talk about the good and bad impacts popular culture had on the teens and adults.

Before the 1950s, the establishment (parents, teachers and government) controlled their children and the children had to obey them. In the 1960s, there were very big changes, such as the freedom of speech for teenagers and the teenagers became very influential people to the establishment and the Entertainment industry. New music was introduced, Rock n Roll, and there were very famous and popular bands like the Beatles, Marianne Faithful and Rolling Stones. Some of their songs protest for peace and women's rights. Everyone were crazy over the Beatles' music and from source B, Joanna Lumley "felt very heaven to be alive". This shows the importance of Beatles' music in her life and how much she liked them.

Furthermore, in source A, "young men and women have always been blessed with energy, but never, until now, with wealth". The teenagers finally get more spending money from their jobs than their elders which meant they had a bit more freedom to buy whatever they want. In addition, there were more rights for women. Women were more independent and the laws provided women with equal rights and opportunities as man. There was less discrimination in the society as well. 1960s changed the youth of the time and gave them new opportunities (music, fashion...etc.) and ideals. There was also a new radio station in Luxembourg which became extremely popular for the teens.

However, increasing their freedom increased drug use, free sex and crime. There were a lot of fights and riots between people like the Mods and Rockers. In the Sunday Times, there was an article about Jimi Hendrix's death from overdose drugs. He got drunk and recklessly grabbed a handful of many different drugs, like Vesparax, Cannabis and LSDs. The next morning, he died. In the 1960s, many people ate drugs mainly because their idols, like the singers from Beatles and Rolling Stones ate it too.

Free sex was also a major problem. Since the pill was introduced to stop women getting pregnant from having sex, pregnancy was no longer a reason to say "no" to sex. It was "yes" to sex for the men. From Virginia's article, she had a few horrible experiences from getting raped in hotel rooms after she got drunk with a stranger. To make it worse, the people were not aware of STDs like HIV and the men had to no idea how to use a condom now that the pill was introduced.

Many people especially from