History 477

Devine

Spring 2013

Study Questions: Beats, Satire, and “Sick” Comedy

Holton, “Sordid Hipsters of America”

1. During the 1950s, why did modernity seem linked to homogeneity? How had the former seemed to produce the latter?

2. What does Holton mean by the “folds of heterogeneity”? Why is this an apt metaphor to describe the “cultural space” the Beats inhabited?

3. Why did no political movement emerge after the war into which the dissatisfied could channel their alienation, doing so perhaps in a united front? Why had the events of the 1930s and 1940s limited the scope of political dissent?

4. Why was dissent more cultural and individually-based during the 1950s?

5. What is “it”? (p 14) What is “the closed room”? (p 15) How do these impressionistic terms shed light on what dissenters found alienating about mainstream American culture?

6. Why did the Beats come to identify with the “garbage pail” and the “social dregs”? How, in a way, was this their way of “walking away from it” or escaping the “closed room”?

7. What role did Ginsberg’s Howl play in drawing out a new subculture from the “folds of heterogeneity”? Why was hearing the poem a “moment of recognition”? (p 19)

8. Why was escaping the “closed room” seen primarily as a male problem? How did female rebels adjust to the male dominated world of rebellion?

9. What groups became models for men looking to find alternatives to mainstream American society? Why was their admiration of “outsiders” often naïve or even racist?

10. What is an “anomic”? Why did the Beats seek to establish a “sense of community” with them? What possibilities did their presence in society suggest?

Kercher, “Comic Revenge”

1. How was the liberal satire of the 1950s part of a larger American comic tradition that prized “terrible honesty” and loathed hypocrisy and fakery?

2. What distinguished satire from other types of humor? Why was satire so controversial during the 1950s? To what extent was the controversy due to the targets of the satire?

3. Why did “sick” jokes become popular among young people in the 1950s? How have both contemporary and later critics explained their popularity? To what extent did the embrace of “sick” humor reveal a degree of smugness and elitism? To what extent did it mask progressive instincts or moral commitment?

4. How did the lyrics of Tom’s Lehrer’s song parodies express both outrage and social concern? Was Lehrer cynical, misogynistic, or just disappointed with society? Did he fit into the tradition of “terrible honesty”?

5. How did Charles Addams’ cartoons satirize 1950s domesticity? Why did his fans enjoy his cartoons?

6. How did the pages of Mad magazine display founder Harvey Kurtzman’s “moral anger, his devotion to truth and authenticity, and his urban Jewish Ameriucan wit”? (p 106)

7. What did Kurtzman want to convey about the “Great American Way”? How did he use Mad to convey his message? Why did his work draw an appreciative (mostly male) audience?

8. How did Mad help to create a sense of generational non-conformity among young people in the early 1960s? What explained its appeal to teens?

9. Why did some critics claim that Mad was no different than the culture it claimed to disdain?

10. What influence did Mad have on the later generation of rebels and radicals that emerged in the mid-1960s? What aspects of Mad did these young people find most inspiring?