Global Sixties: Where were you in ’62? American Graffiti and the loss of innocence in 1960s America

Saturday 19 November 2016

Where were you in ’62? American Graffiti and the loss of innocence in 1960s America

‘American Graffiti is not only a great movie but a brilliant work of historical fiction; no sociological treatise could duplicate the movie’s success in remembering exactly how it was to be alive at that cultural instant.’ – Roger Ebert, August 11, 1973.[1]

Ford Thunderbirds. Rock ‘n’ roll. The high school hop. I’m describing the 1950s right? Wrong. This is 1962 and we’re in Modesto, California.

Given the popular images that come to mind when one thinks of the swinging sixties, you’d be forgiven for thinking that American Graffiti was just another product of misinformed nostalgia. I mean where are the hippies and Cold War overtones? By all means, it has a great soundtrack, probably the best ever put to screen, but where are the Beatles; the Stones; the Doors? This wasn’t the sixties man, Lucas must have gotten the year wrong. I get it. I do. But the sixties did not become ‘The Sixties’ over night; it wasn’t as seamless as that.

People often question when the sixties actually began. Was it as simple as Jan 1, 1960? Was it the Cuban Missile Crisis in October, 1962? Was it the assassination of JFK on 22 November, 1963? For me it’s the latter. JFK’s assassination truly set the tone for what was to come. Popularly, the sixties was the decade of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. It was the era of flower power and free love. If ever there was a time to be alive, this was it.

We know better.

The late, great Robin Williams once said: ‘if you remember the sixties, you weren’t there.’ Ask yourself why. Yes, the 1960s was all of the above. It was also a decade clouded by the Vietnam War, social unrest, and the persistent threat of nuclear annihilation. Given the choice, was it a decade that anyone would have wanted to remember?

American Graffiti takes us back to the beginning of the decade. It’s a world that looks alien to anyone who has a preconceived notion of what the sixties looked like. Here was a self-contained world of innocence. Here were a group of teenagers cruising the streets in their T-Birds and Chevy Impala’s, rocking at the high school hop, and chasing angelic blondes.

Their biggest worry in life was whether to go to college or to get a job. In essence American Graffiti is a snapshot of a simpler time. Is it a romanticised image? Sure. This doesn’t make it an inaccurate image though. In 1962, George Lucas would have been eighteen years of age. The film itself is based on his personal experiences growing up in Modesto. Oftentimes nostalgia exaggerates and clouds the reality of events but I don’t think this applies to American Graffiti and if it does, it shouldn’t matter. Lucas remembers the time for exactly what it was; a simpler time. Like many others his age in 1962, Lucas didn’t have a care in the world. The future looked bright.