The initial onset of color television and more mobile video equipment in the 1960s also served to heighten the downturn in cultural aspirations. Just like today’s reality shows, networks jumping into color TV productions wanted things that were colorful and eye-catching to broadcast, which just happened to coincide with the celebration of the baby boomer generation and things like the Summer of Love and the counterculture in general. Of course, the cameras didn’t stick around to detail the after-effects of such a lifestyle except in generalities, to which the usual solution was throw more tax dollars at the problem
The colors, the clothing and the music all went together and was eye-catching. At the same time, the titular leaders of those rebelling against society’s norms were people who in general believed in the same type of social welfare/anti-U.S. military type of government the folks in the media believed in, and bought into, thinking these types were the wave of the future (which is why in 1972 the media would miss the resentment that had built up and led to Nixon’s landslide win and why 40 years after the fact they’re still shocked the American public hasn’t gotten with Obama’s program).
The romanticizing of the Black Panthers — memorably captured by Wolfe in his recounting of Leonard Bernstein’s fundraiser — also produced a general celebration of the freedom of ghetto culture, with middle and upper class white kids “acting” black, but then being able to run back to their safe houses, while those in the lower class who were being told how free and wonderful this lifestyle was didn’t have that option if things went wrong.
The current problem has been exacerbated by the explosion of new media outlets, from the glut of cable channels seeking to attract eyeballs for their ads to people with cell phone cameras wanting their YouTube video to go viral. And since the people in charge both at the networks and in Washington right now are the spiritual heirs to the ones who glorified the initial alternative lifestyle explosion in the ’60s, you’re not going to see change until the public decides it’s not buying what they’re offering any more.
