History 305

Devine

Spring 2011

Final Exam Study Guide

 

 

Format

 

The Final Exam will consist of three parts.

 

Part I (60 points) You will answer 7 of 10 questions based on material from the second half of the course. All of the questions will be taken verbatim from this study guide.

 

Part II (20 points) You will answer 1 of 3 questions based on material from the second half of the course. All of the questions will be taken verbatim from this study guide. The questions for this section, however, will be broader in scope than those in section one and therefore will require you to write a longer answer. (You should be able to tell simply by reading the questions below which are more likely to appear in Part II.)

 

Part III (20 points) You will answer a question based on EITHER Anne Moody’s Coming of Age in Mississippi or Thomas Hine’s The Great Funk.

 

Study Questions

(The questions are in the order in which the topics were covered in class.)

 

  1. Why does Robin Kelley argue that wearing a zoot suit, though not intended to be a direct political statement, can still be read as politically “subversive” or “oppositional”?  Why was the “conk” hairstyle and dancing at the Roseland Ballroom also a “refusal”?
  2. Why was “dressing up” and going out dancing important to young working class blacks like Malcolm X and his friends?  How did it restore both a sense of individuality and community?
  3. How did young black men like Malcolm X feel about the war and the draft?  Why did white soldiers find the “hipsters” so annoying?
  4. The zoot subculture became a source of resistance for young blacks like Malcolm against three different groups – what were they? What reason did zoot suiters have to rebel against each of these groups?

5.    To what extent did wartime popular culture reflect the gap between civilians’ and soldiers’ experiences of the war?

6.    Why did government-sanctioned attempts to boost soldiers’ morale often fall flat? For example, why did soldiers find a guest appearance by John Wayne in a cowboy outfit to be more ridiculous than inspiring?

7.    What kinds of films were popular with wartime audiences?  What explains their popularity?

8.    What was “libertarian populism”? Why was Davy Crockett the embodiment of a libertarian populist?

9.    In Disney’s 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, why is Ned Land the “hero” and not Nemo?  What keeps Nemo from being heroic in Disney’s eyes?

10. How did Disney’s animated features of the 1950s reflect the new preoccupations and lifestyles of Cold War America?

11. In what ways did Disney films’ female characters in the 1950s and 1960s depart from the ideal women of the Victorian era?

12. Watts notes that the family was at the center of the Disney universe during the Cold War.  In Disney’s eyes, what qualities did a strong, healthy family display?

13. How did Disney’s “Mickey Mouse Club” inculcate Disney’s values into young audiences?

14. For many Americans during the Cold War, why was Disleyland “the happiest place on earth”?  What about the park’s layout, design, and thematic approach made people feel so happy?

15. What factors from World War II and the early post war years contributed to the development of a distinct youth culture in the 1950s?

16. If juvenile crime had actually stabilized or was going down during the 1950s, why was there still a “juvenile delinquency scare”?  What made parents so anxious about their children’s appearance and behavior? What were they really worried about?

17. Parents have always feared that new forms of mass media would seduce or corrupt their children. Why was this fear especially prevalent in the years immediately after World War II?  (Gilbert)

  1. What was the central argument of the psychiatrist Fredric Wertham?  Why did it win popular support during the late 1940s and 1950s? (Gilbert)
  2. How did postwar prosperity fuel the generation gap?  Why couldn’t parents and their children agree on the significance and importance of material things? (“Don’t we buy you everything you want?” asks the father in Rebel Without a Cause. “Yes, you buy me many things.” Jim responds with disdain.)
  3. How do we know that Rebel Without a Cause was made specifically for a teenage audience?  How can one tell by the story line, the way the characters behave, and even the way the movie is filmed?
  4. According to Peter Biskind, Rebel Without a Cause and Blackboard Jungle are not rebel films at all. They largely uphold the status quo. What evidence does he introduce to support this view?
  5. Choose one of the following themes – authority/state power; science and scientists; the military; the “common people” – and explain how corporate-liberal films such as Them! differ from conservative films such as The Thing in their handling of this theme.
  6. In “Pods and Blobs,” why does Peter Biskind consider Them! a “corporate-liberal” film and The Thing a “conservative” or “populist” film?  What evidence does he cite to support his argument?
  7. How did Elvis Presley “negate” accepted beliefs about race, sex, and the Protestant work ethic?
  8. Robert Pielke argues that there was a “real” Elvis and a “symbolic” Elvis.  What was the difference between the two?  Why does Pielke find one more historically significant than the other?
  9. How does taking a closer look at the origins an various performances of the song “Hound Dog” challenge the simplistic tale of “cultural appropriation” recounted Alice Walker’s novel based on the lives of Elvis Presley and “Big Mama” Thornton?
  10. What evidence does Bertrand introduce to discredit the myth that Elvis had no following among African Americans?
  11. What evidence does Bertrand introduce to discredit the myth that Elvis “stole” his act from African Americans?  How does he demonstrate that Elvis’s brand of music was an eclectic amalgam of numerous influences?
  12. How does the assumption that Elvis was out to “copy” black music in order to become a commercial success ignore the historical realties of life in the South during the 1950s?  In 1954, was “acting black” and “crossing the color line” a likely road to success for a white artist?
  13. How did Presley’s experience growing up as a poor, white southerner – similar to the experiences of poor African American southerners – shape his music and his attitude toward his own success?
  14. What evidence does Bertrand introduce to discredit the myth that Elvis never publicly credited the black roots of his music?  Why is it unrealistic to expect Elvis, in 1956, to have called on the music industry to reimburse minority entertainers?
  15. Why did many blacks (especially teenagers) admire Elvis in the mid-1950s?  Why did some other blacks (especially middle class parents) denounce him?
  16. What traits distinguished Anne Moody from other African Americans in the South during the 1950s and 1960s? How did she employ these traits to become an effective advocate for Civil Rights?
  17. Why was it so dangerous to be a Civil Rights activist in Mississippi during the 1960s?  What risks did one take? What sacrifices did one have to make?
  18. How would you describe relations between blacks and whites in Mississippi when Anne was a young girl?  How did whites in rural Mississippi exercise power over blacks?
  19. How did southern whites use terror to undermine the Civil Rights movement?
  20. Why did the Movement put such emphasis on the voter registration campaign? By securing blacks the vote, what were activists hoping to achieve?
  21. Why did the New Left’s philosophy of participatory democracy run into problems when the student rebels tried to implement it?
  22. New Left activists saw mainstream American culture as immoral or even evil; counterculture hippies saw it as absurd. How did their views of the mainstream shape the kind of rebellions they engaged in?
  23. Why does William O’Neill argue that the counterculture increased social hostility and broadened the gap between the privileged and the working class?
  24. O’Neill suggests that rather than introducing a new set of values, we see in the counterculture simply the reappearance of self-indulgent romanticism fueled by the mass media and its propagandizing of the pleasure principle.  What evidence does he cite to make this case?
  25. Why are the1970s considered the beginning of an “Age of Limits”?  What limits – physical, economic, environmental – did Americans encounter during the 1970s?
  26. According to Hine, the 1970s marked a splintering of American society (falling apart) but also saw the emergence of new kinds of communities (coming together). What evidence does he cite to show that the 1970s were about BOTH falling apart AND coming together? (You might use the metaphors of the disco ball and the picture of Earth taken from the moon to frame your answer.)
  27. How could achieving a higher consciousness be accomplished?  In what ways could it be rewarding?  
  28. During the 1970s Life magazine went out of business, but People magazine first appeared. How do these respective titles shed light on how American culture changed in the 1970s?
  29. Why and how did Americans’ living spaces change in the 1970s?
  30. What new significance did the past take on in the 1970s?  How did the past become visible? How do we see that people valued the past simply by looking at the style of decoration in homes and in public spaces?
  31. What new views about sexuality and sexual identity took hold in the 1970s?  What changes in daily life came with the sexual revolution?
  32. Why and how did home furnishings and decor change during the 1970s?  How did the “look” of the ‘70s home match the cultural mood of the decade?
  33. According to Mattson, if a subculture bases its rebellion on “style,” it is easily co-opted by corporate America. Why is this the case?
  34. According to Mattson, why were punks frustrated with the music scene in the late 1970s and early 1980s?
  35. In their attempt to establish their own music scene, how did punks in the 1980s employ the “DIY” (Do it yourself) philosophy?
  36. What is difference between evangelical and fundamentalist Christians? Why were the Christian heavy metal bands more evangelical than fundamentalist?
  37. What elements of cold war America does Peter Sellers’ film Dr. Strangelove satirize most effectively?  Explain why specific scenes or characters might have generated “nervous laughter” from American audiences in 1964.