American Cultural History

There are many transformations that affected American life from 1940s-1970s various changes and developments occurred during these decades that influenced the culture of people in regards with sports, ,movies and the impact of reality TV to the people. First is in terms of sports, World War II has a great impact on sports since it able-bodied met between 18-26 years old who were expected to serve the military. There is a shortage on baseball bats and bowling pins but the professional sports is still encouraged to continue to improve the troops morale.

In 1941, 2 platoon football was allowed and no substitutions are allowed except from injuries until fee subs was allowed in 1942 and the Army Navy game was played in Annapolis. In 1948, football was considered as the game of strategy. Basketball was not affected that much by the war. In 1946 the Basketball Association of America was founded which sooner merged with National Basketball League in 1949 and formed the NBA. Boxing was also in big money during these times because of gambling.

Golf Associations were also founded in 1946 (Womens Professional Golf Association) and 1949 (Ladies Professional Golf Association). Moving to the 1950’s people began to love sports even more and popularity is gained not based on social status but on the athletes capability. Television gave sports more fans and College football was widely followed. Professional golf was also popular and produced golf stars like Ben Hogan and Arnold Palmer. In 1952 and 1956 Olympics is organized and the cold war between countries became very fierce.
In 1960’2 Olympic games was held three times and produced gold medals and world records for Americans Otis David in 400m and Glenn Davis in 400m hurdles and the famous Muhammad Ali who won as light heavyweight boxer gold medalist. Palmers continuous championship in golf was also in 1960s. Television opened major changes to sports since business goes hand in hand with sports and exploits more profits in the sports market. Professional athletes demanded to be bid and the right to market themselves to the highest bidder. This also made way for athletes to be product endorsers and print models.
Movies during the 1940’s were heydays since movie propagandas are more on essential industry for morale. Plots of movies has fairly narrow and predictable sets of morals and where villains are one dimensional like Germans and Japanese. Disney’s animated career was also produced like Dumbo in 1941 and Bambi in 1942. Better role for black actors was also being fought during this decade. In 1952 3D cartoons made debut with Bwana Devil Cinerama and colors are use as special effects to lure audiences. in 1956 people began to realize that movies are too expensive and opt to stay home and just watch television.
by 1960, musicals became movies like Sound of Music and My Fair Lady. the famous Marilyn Monroe died in this year and made her movie fans sad, Movies has themes in politics and comments on racial issues like the Movie Dr. Strangelove. Sex becomes more explicit and occasionally non-traditional and Violence was also promulgated in this time that resulted MPAA to develop a new film code. 1970 is a big comeback for movies after Television’s dominance blockbuster movies were produced in Dolby Sound and win the people’s heart into watching movies again.
Science-fiction films like star wars made top grossing films ever and disaster movies fascinates people as well. As the war ended in 1940, 5,000 black and white TV sets can be found in American homes and made people be entertained and informed at the same time. one popular radio show was broad casted on Tv entitled the Original Amateur Show and the slapstick comedy Texaco Star theater was also launched. Children’s TV kicked off in 1947 in Kukla, Fran & Ollie which was followed by Howdy Doody Show.
In 1950’s television dominated the mass media and captured people’s interest to stay in their homes and watch televisions as past time. More young people opt to stay at home for longer hours and watch TV rather than go out and go to school. People accepts that what they see on TV because it is an eye witness to the events that happens greater reliance on TV news is accepted by viewers as credible sources of information. In 1954 the black and white TV became colored in broadcast and th American family loves soap operas and variety shows.
The second prime time cartoons The Flintstones was offered in 1970 and appealed both to young and adult. The Andy Griffith Show serves as the epitome of prime time family tv while situational comedy like The Beverly Hillbillies arises as Sitcom. humor was revived in Laugh in during the late 1960s. The television leads to social satire issues and other controversial issues like abortion, race and homosexuality. It mirrors reality and how people treats such issues. TV miniseries that shows greater appreciation of whites was shown in Roots.
The American contemporary family was portrayed in The Brady Bunch and gave us a glimpse of reality about American families. News are relatively publicized to feed information to people like the Watergate scandal produced by Corporation for Public Broadcasting and also made Sesame street to cater children’s entertainment. The television set has become one of the common source of knowledge and entertainment nowadays. Since it was made available by the late 1930’s it has become a common household communication device up to the present times.
As innovation continues, this electronic device disseminates information and has strongly influenced the viewers in many aspects. Through continuous innovation in television programming, people learned to appreciate what has been shown in their TV screens and eventually lead to imitation and social influence when dealing with other people. Reality is necessarily manipulated when events and people are relocated into news or prime time stories. The media can impose their own logic or assembled materials in number of ways including emphasizing certain behaviors and people and stereotyping.
Television can distort people visually through camera perspective and other techniques. Rhetorically, people can be portrayed with different labels. One of the most obvious ways in which media content structures a symbolic environment is simply giving greater attention to certain events, people, groups and places than others. The reality television has also attracted criticisms from those who feel that the occurrence of this genre of television has come at the cost of scripted programming.
But whatever many critics and people would say, still, reality television shows impart social values, attitudes and behaviors to its viewers. People cannot avoid the truth. It will come in both positive and negative sides of life. As far as our society is concern, this is the balancing nature to reach progress and continue to evolve along with its people and culture. Reality Television is the visible evidence of progress and a medium of change to any kind of society but it could also bring the negative aspects in the society.
To adapt it or not, it is still the real world that we are living in and the real mind that goes on deciding. People could imitate behaviors that they saw; those behaviors would be reinforced and therefore learned. Real, Whether reality TV ultimately fades into television history or continues to evolve with the medium as a unique genre, for over fifty years it has offered interesting, often controversial entertainment. Reality TV, debates the social, psychological, and ethical impact of reality TV as they explore and gives us fascinating aspects of American entertainment culture.