During the presidential campaign of 1988, candidate George
Bush used the film Easy Rider as an analogy for a passing era of laxness. He
enthusiastically declared that Americans had departed from the easy-going era
of Easy Rider and entered a tougher and grittier, Dirty Harry era[1].
Easy Rider was ‘the’ statement of a generation when it was
released in the summer of 1969. And it was a critical statement about America.
Taking the romantic notion of travel from Jack Kerouac’s novel On the Road, the film is an
awe-inspiring cross-country trip, with two characters from the underbelly of
society coming up for air and rejoicing in the freedoms that is presented to
them by the open highways of the United States. It remains one of the most
significant films of the decade in the fact that it was such a new kind of
American film. Easy Rider legitimized new subject matter which included casual
drugs, sex and the questioning of the American system.
The film’s promotional tag line ‘a man went looking for
America and couldn’t find it anywhere’ suggested that this film was for a wider
demographic than the intended ‘hippie crowd’[2].
The film provided a sense of meaning for any individual who was struggling to
comprehend the ever changing shifts in American society over the past ten years.
The motorcycles in the film serve as their own narratives, transporting us as
the audience across a changing landscape, encountering hippies, violent
rednecks and an alcoholic lawyer, all of whom are embracing the spirit of the 1960’s
or seeking sanctuary from it[3].
Bushes use of the film as a symbol of a discarded American
attitude, however, raises several important questions of the film’s long term
effect on public attitudes[4].
Easy Rider was, and in some regards remains, the political cry of the
counter-culture of the 1960s. However, when viewing this film for myself, I can
agree with the popular view that the film’s effect had dramatically reversed
and that Easy Rider is now antiquated and if anything, reveals the foolishness
and weakness of the 1960’s countercultural movement.
The film itself was aware of those who were critical of the
alternate lifestyle. Those who did not believe in the anarchy of the
counterculture movement could find satisfaction with the nasty end that the
characters meet. The character of Fonda uses the phrase ‘we blew it’[5]
in the film’s final campfire scene, suggesting the potential of the
counterculture movement but also its failings. It is certainly true that myself
and others see the characters of Easy Rider in a different way than we did
then, because we see the youth movement of that time in a different light.
Easy Rider was ultimately a travel poster for a new and
improved America. The film encouraged its audience to hit the open roads for
themselves in search of an ideal, and as this film indicates, troublesome lifestyle.
Easy Rider serves as a glimpse of what could have been and ends as a tragic
vision of the American dream.
Do you believe the film promotes the counterculture of the 1960s or serves to simply highlight its downfall? Feel free to leave your thoughts and comments below
Luke Garcia
[1]
Emmanuel Levy: Easy Rider: Ideology,
Politics and Culture http://emanuellevy.com/comment/easy-rider-ideology-politics-and-culture-6/
[2]
John Berra, Declarations of Independence:
American Cinema and the Partiality of Independent Production, (Chicago:
Intellect Books, 2008), p.44
[3]
Dennis Hopper, Easy Rider (1969)
[4] Emmanuel
Levy: Easy Rider: Ideology, Politics and
Culture http://emanuellevy.com/comment/easy-rider-ideology-politics-and-culture-6/
[5] Ibid
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