Sex, Drugs, Rock and Roll, Movies and too Much
Politics
Atlantic magazine editor and political writer Ronald Brownstein has written an ode to the creativity surrounding Los Angeles in 1974. Of a sudden Los Angeles was awash in musical, television and motion picture talent with something to say. He highlights Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty for their roles in “Chinatown” and “Shampoo”, respectively. Both movies were written by Robert Towne. With respect to “Chinatown,” Brownstein, in essence, summarizes Sam Wasson’s “The Long Goodbye.” ( See: Shulmaven: My Amazon Review of Sam Wasson's "The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood") Just like Wasson Brownstein views the end of Los Angles’ creative moment with the arrival of Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws” the following year. He forgets that most people go to the movies to be entertained.
With respect to the music, he highlights the careers
of singer songwriters Linda Ronstadt and Jackson Browne along with Joni
Mitchell, the Eagles, Crosby, Stills and Nash and the music impresario David
Geffen. The way he writes about Ronstadt it seems that he had quite the teenage
crush on her. Brownstein was sixteen at the time and likely was not alone.
Among the musicians and the actors Brownstein writes
of excessive drug use and bed swapping among his leading characters. At times
you needed a scorecard to see who was sleeping with who and as the year
progressed cocaine use grew to the extent that it eroded their creativity in
the years to come.
On television Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin made social
commentary and had big hit with “All in the Family.” Archie Bunker, played by
Carroll O’Connor, became a caricature of Nixon’s silent majority. But what
Brownstein does not understand a good part of the audience was laughing with
Archie, not at him. As an aside, I sat next to O’Connor at a wedding and
he was far funnier than he was on television. It was also the time of “Maude,”
“Mash” and “Mary Tyler Moore.” Brownstein revels in idea that previously
untouchable subjects were brought up on television.
Where Brownstein goes astray is when he writes about
politics of the era. He spends way too much time on Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden.
I knew both of them. By 1974 the antiwar movement was a spent force. The real
activism on the Left was taking place in the nascent environmental movement
which was planting the seeds for today’s housing crisis in California,
feminism, and gay rights.
On the Right activism was on the rise in opposition to
feminism, school busing and rising property taxes. Those movements would flower
later in the decade and bring on the Reagan revolution. In 1974 Jerry Brown was
not the future, Ronald Reagan was, and I say this as someone who knew Brown
then and served on his Housing Task Force. Jerry Brown was a far better
governor 40 years later in his second go around.
Most troubling and not mentioned by Brownstein was
that while all of the actors and musicians were partying on, Los Angeles was
beset by gas lines, a recession, and the collapse of its manufacturing base. For
most people 1974 was a very bad year and what they longed for was escape. It
took a while, but Hollywood finally figured it out, just as it did during the
Great Depression.
I was on the periphery of the events discussed in the
book. To me the book stated out very strong then faded. Brownstein preaches too
much and he forgets that entertainment is a business, and that business will
not succeed if it beats people over the head by telling them how bad all of the
social problems of the country are. As Brownstein notes George Lucas of “Star
Wars” fame wanted people to feel better after they left the theater than when
they first arrived. I go to the movies and listen to music to be entertained.
If I want to look at the flaws in American life, I watch the news and read The
Atlantic, of which I am a subscriber.
For the full Amazon URL see: Sex, Drugs, Rock and Roll and too Much Politics (amazon.com)
