Most accurate portrayal of the era you grew up in

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For me it is the movie "Dazed and Confused" about bieng a teenager in the 70's. It was semi autobiographical. The only thing in the movie that was not at all like what it was like in my area was the fraternaties, but they were still big in Texas where Richard Linklater grew up and where the movie was set even though they had fallen out of favor in most other areas. But everything else was dead on.

"The Brady Bunch" which came out at the time did not resemble reality at all. "That 70's Show" was a show about the '70's teens for '00's teens with '00's sensibilities. For example there was a episode about the anti disco backlash. They got the expressions and why disco was disliked but in the end everybody gets along and it is all punch line. The hate of disco by many rock fans was real hate, the disco fans in the real rock and roll high schools got beat up for bieng "queer".

I know last year Linklater came out with a movie about college life in 1980 and it recieved positive reviews. I graduated the year before so this movie is on my to do list.

Utahns voted for Lyndon Johnson in 1964 and for Richard Nixon in 1968. The Viet Nam War and riots weren't the only reasons that the world seemed chaotic. All things Disney were every kid's desire in the summers; erector sets, chemistry sets, telescopes and microscopes were status symbols. I owned a Daniel Boone/Partridge Family suede-leather vest with fringe which I wore religiously to school. The only chain stores around were owned by local families. When I transfered myself to a different high school (one which was academically admired throughout the state) than the one I was destined to attend, I was surprised when a student was given a new black Trans Am by his parents, only to sell it and buy a new red Corvette. Still, most people had a good understanding of working and saving. Right before I went to college, I watched several television-news reports about some new "thing" called autism. I recognized a lot of the descriptions in myself and told a friend that I thought I was autistic. College brought with it the beginnings of my political career when I attended the campus' LGBT student group. It was also a time when my other career (film and video) got its start, too. The world was no longer very Disney-afied.

The 1970s were an era devoid of many things which we take for granted today.

But we didn't "miss" them--because, as kids (unless you were quite scientifically-inclined), we couldn't foresee that we would actually do things like make phone calls in the street using our own phones, or be able to pay bills with them. I still find it amazing that I could check my bank info using my phone!

Back in the 1970s, we had to rent phones from the phone company. The phone repair person had to come over to install the phone. If the phone screwed up, we had to call the repair person.

There were either "desk sets," or "wall sets," and we couldn't take the phone out of the room where it was located (unless we had a 50-foot cord or something).

In the early 70's, touch tone phones were quite expensive; most people still had dial phones, which we now call "rotary phones." In the mid-to-late 70s, touch tone became more common, and answering machines started becoming common, too. We still had to rent the phones, though. "Long-distance calls" were times when us kids had to shut up--because they were so expensive.

There were no VCR's until the late 70s. No video games until the late 70s, either (for all intents and purposes--there were a few, but they were expensive). When we went to an arcade, we played pinball, skee-ball, games of that ilk.

In the 1970's if you saw somebody in the street walking talking into an object in their hands you would stay as far away from them as possible because that meant that they were a crazy dangerous person who should have been in an institution.

If you had "Columbian Gold" marijuana you were the most popular kid in school. Quadrophonic speakers were all the rage.

British Progressive Rock was the dominant music in my high school and we called it "Progressive Rock" not "Prog". Names were not shortened, it was "Heavy Metal Rock" not "Metal". In college during the late 1970's even though I lived and went to school in New York "Southern Rock" predominated and not just Leonard Skynard and the Allman Brothers Band. People dressed in that style, Bandanna's, long hair, beard, Confederate Flag decal on denim jacket. It was not political or racist but about being into the music and the redneck hippie outlook toward life. It was for the most part only the best looking girls that were into disco.

My peers were the complete opposite of the people who just proceeded us, completely apolitical.

"Dazed and Confused" documented this well. The type of informal big gathering in a desolate area of dozens or a hundred teens "mellowing out" drinking and drugging depicted in the film was popular.

The word "stoner" which is synonymous with that era was not a term used in that era. I do not remember hearing "stoner" until the 90's. "Stoned" certainly was used. The heaviest drug users were called "heads".

Where I went to high school, the dominant music was "New Wave" or "Punk." Those terms were somewhat interchangeable. The "Punk" music was rawer and louder than "New Wave," and kids sometimes even came to school with safety pins in heir tee-shirts. They wore their hair in Mohawks or some sort of messy, spiky style.

The "New Wavers" dressed very much like the "Goths" of today, and had short hair. Their attitude, at times, would be what they call "emo" today. Either that, or they were angry.

There were some kids who were into what is called "Classic Rock" today. They called it just "Rock" then. Kids like that would wear tee-shirts, usually black, with their favorite band's name printed on it.

Disco really "sucked." Some kids listened to it, though.

Marijuana was called "pot," not "weed," and kids who were really into it were called "potheads."

There were no "blunts" then--only "joints." Or kids used to smoke it in bong pipes. They would buy rolling paper and bong pipes at "head shops."

Prior to age 13 in 1963, I grew up in a rural setting similar to the television show "Lassie". We lived on a two-lane gravel road that was oiled to reduce the dust in the summer, we played in the large field and small woods behind the house and our school and church were within walking distance. Trying to get a Beatles haircut was the big goal as a 'teen, and my High School Senior Class party -- music by "Captain Electric and the Flying Lapels" from Notre Dame -- was the first time I ever saw anyone stoned.

For the most part "pot" was a pejoritive used by adults and the media. The teens called it "reefer". And it was "joints" not "blunts". Cheech and Chong were popular as was "Monty Python's Flying Circus".

"Punk/New wave" was not really well known in college. The college radio station had a one hour a week show "New Wave Connections". That music was associated with Sid Vicious killing his girlfriend then bieng found dead and preformers and audiences spitting on each other. The whole punk ethos that any amatuer could make great music was an anathema to most American rock fans. I got into "New Wave"after I graduated college in '79 and started listining to WPIX FM.

Speaking of New Wave, a documentary is going to premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival this month called "Dare To Be Different" about WLIR. Many of the top New Wave preformers were interviewed.

Saturday Morning TV Memories 1964 - 1976 ! !!

Most of the kids called it pot; the "hipper," more street-wise kids called it reefer--at least in my small high school.

Some of the kids in my high school hung out in the East Village, in places like CBGB's. They knew the punk scene well.

The Ramones-type music was called Punk. The less cruder, more subtly rebellious music like that done by the Talking Heads was called New Wave.

New wave by '79 was a catch all name that described punk, quirky pop like the Talking Heads, B-52's, power pop band, s two tone ska like Madness and The Specials etc.

In America by the 80's every newer band that was not rap, heavy metal/hard rock, and dance pop was "New Wave" but New wave mainly described synthpop and "Second British Invasion" bands like Duran Duran, Eurythmics, Human League. In the UK "New Wave" was and does describe a much narrower range of music. Synthpop is considered a whole different genre. Nothing much after 1980 or 1981 is considered New Wave.

The Wikipedia New Wave Music article that I edited for a peroid of time goes into detail about all of this.

Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 01 Apr 2017, 2:49 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Let's get back to the intent of this thread.

For those of you who were teenagers in the 1980's do you think the John Hughes "Brat Pack" films realistically portrayed the life of your peers? I assume they probably did not describe your life as an undiagnosed Autistic, or if you and your classmtes if you lived outside of white middle class America.

If you were a teen in the early 1970's your Depression-era parents (and the older of your teachers at school) never tired of serving you guilt about how much stuff that you DID have then that you DID take for granted that THEY had to do without in their day! Lol!

The previous generation had grown up seeing Hollywood movies in theaters, and they had radio (which had audio only sitcoms and soaps in the 1930s). But they didnt have radio and movies combined into this one idiot box thing called "TV" that you kids take for granted that you waste your time watching all day!! !! !

Nope....the Brat Pack movies didn't reflect my experience.