American Experience; 1964; Interview with Susan J. Douglas, Historian, part 2 of 2

It's absolutely reflected sort of changing on a woman at 64. Oh, this is my favorite topic. I think one of the most important shows of the 1960s is Bewitched. And before people dismiss this as the kitchiest, most ridiculous show ever, this show mattered actually a great deal. The show premieres in 1964 on ABC. ABC is in the ratings basement, dying this network. And Bewitched catapults that station, I mean, I'm sorry. Bewitched catapults the network out of the ratings doldrums. It shoots to number two in the ratings. The only show it can't dislodge is Bonanza. So here is a show about a very beautiful, blonde, shirt-wasted suburban wife who happens to be a witch, who has magical powers that her husband begs her not to use. Now, we can think about this in terms

of the special effects and the kitch. Or we can think about this as a very interesting pop culture document of the times. Let's remember that 1964 sees Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique as the number one best-selling paperback in the country. Girls are out on the streets violating police barricades so they can try to get a glimpse of George and Ringo. And it's within this milieu, and you're beginning to see articles in various magazines about pre-feminist rumblings. And it's within this milieu that you get this particular show. Now, what is especially great about Bewitched is she has this mother, Endora, played fabulously by Agnes Morehead, who has no use for Samantha's really humble, kind of dorky, human husband. And as soon as they shove Darren out the door,

they have adventures. They launch ad campaigns. They go to Paris to tell designers how to design clothes that women could really use. They zap themselves into a politician's office, offices, and expose wrongdoing. They are agents in the world. They have fun. They make a difference. At the end of the show, she's always there with her martini for Darren. So it's this incredibly interesting contradictory compromise between, on the one hand, women still needing to be traditional domestic wives and mothers. And on the other hand, women really hungering for something more for power. And there wasn't a woman in the country who did not identify with Samantha being able to twitch her nose and zap her entire house clean. So there was a real metaphorical conveying of power, of women's desire for power, and a real containing

of it at the same time. So this was very much a kind of hinge show around women's power and women's desire for power. Because again, what's being played out, it seems, is pushing an arm alone, but not too far. That's right. That's right. Because I remember, I had a huge crush on Elizabeth Montgomery, right? But at the same time, she's not threatened. All right. Elizabeth Montgomery as Samantha is not threatening. When Darren gets in trouble, which he invariably does, because of something she and her mother have done, or that she's done, Samantha is the one who smooths the cogs of social interaction, who's the diplomat, who explains things to Darren's boss in such a way that he doesn't get into trouble. So she still has all of those conventionally socialized female traits about calming turbulent waters.

She's very attractive. She's very well groomed and well dressed. She still makes dinner. She still does all the domestic chores. But she also has this other side of her when Darren's off at work that is a lot of fun and has a lot of agency in the world. What's in episode, particularly, is interesting for you, for example, how this show took itself to a wonderful extreme? So one of my favorite episodes, and I think one that is incredibly prescient, is its Halloween. And Darren is designing an ad campaign, which, of course, features a witch. And it's a conventional Halloween witch with a hat and a huge nose with the ward on the nose and riding a broomstick and all the rest. And Samantha sees it and gets extremely irate that he is caricaturing and stereotyping witches. And so basically, she's angry with him

for promulgating a particular kind of image of woman in the media that she feels is not representative. Now, nobody ever puts it that way in the show. But that's what the plot is about. So she has various aunties and her mother gets involved. And they are all outraged at the stereotype of the witch. And so I believe the scene is Darren is in his bed. And he wakes up, and they all are picketing him with protest signs that he is stereotyping witches. Now, this is 1964. So this is anticipating with a women's movement by, say, four years. But it's an incredibly funny, kitschy, present show about media stereotypes of women. That's great. I think it was bored with you. What else made Samantha and Darren

kind of a groundbreaking couple? Well, Samantha and Darren were brown, sorry. Samantha and Darren were groundbreaking because they were the first couple to share a double bed, which was pretty revolutionary on television. He did, in fact, look at her with longing and desire, which Ricky was not really allowed to do with Lucy and which certainly you never saw on Leave It To Beaver or Father Knows Best. So there was a sexual energy there. I think it helped that Darren was kind of dorky and not a real sort of macho overly masculine leading man. I think that would have been too threatening. The fact that he was a bit nerdy made it OK. But that was a path-breaking tool on television. And they didn't do that, kid. Yes, they did.

They had Tabitha. They had Tabitha. Pretty soon this poor guy was surrounded by witches, right? So his wife is a witch. His mother-in-laws are which. There's an uncle, I believe, played by Paul Lind. He's a witch. And then they have a daughter Tabitha. She's a witch. Poor Darren. He's surrounded. Was that the end of the beginning? No. I forgot about that, but yeah. No, at first, they're just a single, I mean, a childless couple. Right, because Lucy and Desi and Donnery, you know, they can't even, you mentioned, I can't even say word pregnant, but I find it funny. When Lucille Ball was pregnant, they could not use the word pregnant on the television show. Amazing. Yeah. Did your mom read the Feminine Mistique? You know, that's a good question. I can't.

I don't think my mom did read the Feminine Mistique when it first came out. But my mother didn't need to read the Feminine Mistique. She was already really grumpy about a lot of stuff. My mother worked full time outside of the home. She felt that women who worked outside the home got very little respect because they had the whole second shift when they got home. That on the weekends, you know, my dad could go play tennis or put his feet up or whatever. And of course, she had to clean the house. And so my mother had a somewhat jauntyst view already of what was coming across in the media. And the fact that she and so many women like her were completely erased from the media terrain. Make quick touch it. Just a tiny spot. Thank you. What is she watching? Gossip, girl, and... Oh, gossip, girl.

Smash, yeah. And the other ones. I hate them. Of course, I will. I'm the dad. Right. But why did for dance book kids such a court, even if your mom didn't read it? Millions by their moms, and what did it? Oh. OK, here you had women being told over and over again by ladies home journal and all the rest that women never had it so good, that women had great rights in this country that they were so well off and all the rest. And, you know, it was not true. And there were increasing numbers of women who wanted to work outside the home and they were stuck in dead end jobs.

And I think a big reason that the feminine misty hit, even though it was geared to a slightly older audience, is that a younger audience was coming up and was being primed for this. You have to remember, this is a generation of teenage girls and young women who, in one year, are being told, you're going to stay home and have babies and be just like your mother. And in the other year, beginning in 1960 with Kennedy, are being told, no, a torch has been passed to a new generation. And he doesn't say generation of men. And even though that's probably what he meant. And so you have the aspirations of young women activated. More and more young women are going to college than ever before. And they're just supposed to then go have babies. So there's an intergenerational flow here around the impact of the feminine mystique.

And the other thing that had happened is in 1962, Helen Gurley Brown wrote this bestseller, Sex and the Single Girl. Now, this book is filled with a lot of really stupid advice about making drinks out of vodka and ice cream and pleasing men and all the rest. But what Helen Gurley Brown said was that there was no reason to get married when you were 18. You should go have a job. You should travel. You can have sex before marriage. And while it was a very poppy kind of frothy book that wasn't serious the way for dance was, it helped pave the way for the massive success of the feminine mystique. And that book, the feminine mystique, struck a chord with women of multiple ages, particularly middle-class white women. I was just going to say, is there a thread to a lot of the themes and scenes in 1964 that makes me think about the sort of radicalization

of the white middle class. Berkeley, freedom summer volunteers, Beatles fans. Is there something going on with white youth culture in 1964 that's really quite important? You know, we have to remember that a lot of white kids were involved in freedom summer. And there were a lot of white girls involved in freedom summer. And they got down there to organize and they were told to Xerox and make coffee. And that was, for some white girls, that was their first taste of real sexism. And so you're having youth activism on the one hand that is very politically inspired, that has been very inspired by the civil rights movement. There were so many young white kids who thought this was wrong.

And had to be fixed. And they were getting politically involved. And the other thing that's happening is slowly, imperceptibly, but Vietnam is starting to escalate. And people are starting to go. And people are starting to come back in body bags. And that starts to very much radicalize this generation. 64 is just the beginning of it. But it's really beginning to start then. And I remember that because it was just the year later that one of my friends, brothers, came home in a body bag. And that was it for me on Vietnam. But the fact that my father refused to go to Southeast Asia in 1964, because he thought the mission of that war was crazy and unwinnable, that informed my sensibility of what was going on then.

And so you're beginning to get, again, very gradually, very imperceptibly. And sometimes not so, with the political activism around Freedom Summer, a radicalizing of young people that is going to change their lives. And I think one thing that's very crucial for a lot of these young people is whether they're getting involved in the civil rights movement or whether they're starting to have questions about the war or whether young women are asking, why am I? Well, it wasn't even Xeroxing. Was it? It was maybe a graphing and getting coffee. And they're not seeing this on television, except in very metaphorical ways. They begin to think that television, especially fictional television, is a lie. And it's a lie they're going to rebel against. Great, really good. Let's turn on the air and take a couple of minutes. So work, please. Here we go, sir.

Yeah, bye. And what does it tell you that Bob Dylan wrote the times they were in 1964? Huh. You know, there had been a beatnik movement, a folk music movement in the early 1960s. And that had begun to give expression to a different political sensibility, a more oppositional sensibility, something that was against authoritarian power, a little more communal vision of the world, anti-war. And all of that had been bubbling up. And I think by the time Bob Dylan is writing the times they are changing in 1964, he's writing from a couple of years' experience, and also, of course, being an agent of this as well, that he feels has come to a head. Yeah. Are the times changing? Yes. Ha, ha, ha.

Yeah, I mean, I think if you look at 1964, as the hingeier, you do see so many shifts happening. They might not necessarily be on the surface, although some of them very much were. There is an explosion in sensibilities around gender and women's roles. There has been an explosion in the place and role and rights of African-Americans. There is beginning to be some suspicion about the government, particularly around the war. There is an increasing interest in political activism among young people. So a lot is changing during this year, from the beginning of that year to the end. Oh, great. Oh, excuse me. And music is both driving the change and we look at it at the same time. God, I'm trying to remember what I should have written this

down, what else were like, big hits in 1964. I want to talk about the supreme in a second. OK. And I'm just trying to remember. God, 64, I should know all this. Well, you go on, and Meg, or somebody back there, look up the top 10 songs in 1964, and we'll check it out in a minute. What's the secret? Yeah, what are they, what are they, second? The Supremes were really important. Diana Ross was, for me, the first African-American woman I wished I'd look like. She was so beautiful and Barry Gordy made sure that they were very, very glamorous. So there had been girl groups before. They all had to dress very primly and very properly because there was the stereotype that African-American girls were more sexually promiscuous and available than white girls. And this is an age old stereotype in our culture. And so for black girls to be singing about love

and even hinting about sex, they had to have a real sense of decorum. They had to be perfectly groomed and very laced up in terms of their fashion. At the same time, it was a little bit more acceptable because of the stereotype for black girls to be singing about longing and sex than it was for white girls. And so the Supremes walked this line between giving expression to girls' longings and desires, but doing it in a way that was absolutely encased in glamor and propriety, and Barry Gordy was very shrewd about how to develop and market them. And by the summer, they had become superstars. I think, in fact, if you think about 1964, who were the superstars? I think there was only one girl group that was a superstar group, and that was the Supremes.

I think you can find them. I think if you find them on, they were on that at Sullivan. Oh, yeah, we've got great decorum. They sing, they sing, come see about me, don't they? And the kick gloves, the balls, it's almost surreal. Yeah. They're heavy fans. Right. Which couldn't be more of a way. I know, construction. Yeah. What films tell you about 1964? This is a Europe Doctor Strange Love. Oh, God, Doctor Strange Love. You know, there is also beginning to be, and I think this is influenced in part by Europe, by Italian cinema, the French New Wave. There's beginning to be a new kind of edgy sensibility in film, and also in advertising.

So if you think about Doctor Strange Love, and then you think about that infamous Daisy ad that Johnson aired, that has got to be probably the most notorious and possibly most effective political ad ever. And the ad that shows a little girl pulling the pedals off a daisy, and then there's a nuclear war. And this is what's going to happen. If goldwater gets elected president, it was a very spare ad. It was a new aesthetic sensibility in advertising. Not a lot of print, not a lot of copy, very spare in its aesthetics and very powerful in its message. And so you're beginning to see that kind of aesthetic emerge in advertising as well that is kind of modern and hip and self-reflective. Oh, sorry. OK.

What did Doctor Strange Love tap into? Why did it become such a phenomenon in the way? You know, it's an interesting question why Doctor Strange Love became such a phenomenon. I mean, it was a great, crazy film. But I think that, again, with Johnson and poor Johnson, if it hadn't been for the war, Johnson would have been a great president, what he was trying to do with the great society. But he inspired, I think, a lot of suspicion because he was an old Paul. And so I think there was this emerging suspicion of authority figures in the government and emerging anxiety about government figures and governmental authority. And I think that movie tapped into that. And there was also a growing skepticism about the Cold War. That the Cold War really was a Cold War

that we really all had to still duck and cover like we were supposed to in the 1950s. People were starting to get suspicious of that. And Doctor Strange Love, ironically, tapped into that kind of fear of nuclear holocaust as well and both advanced it and absolutely critiqued it. Yeah, that's interesting. I hold your hand. She loves you. Hello, Dolly. I will be honest with you. Oh, my God. Pretty woman by Roy Arverson, around by the Beach Boys. Everybody loves somebody by demon. My guy, Marie Wells, will sing in the sunshine by Gail Garnett. I ask his by Jay Frank Wilson in the Cavaliers and where did our love go by the Supremes. You have a mind on the 9th and the top. Interesting. The Supremes, I think, between 64 and 68 had 12 number one hits. They're just taking off.

Yeah. Yeah. Are the trends and the transformations in 1964 generational? Yeah, the trends in 1964 generational. You're having the first group of baby boomers who were born in 1946. At least that's how demographers mark the baby boom are coming of age. And so there is a shift among young people that is quite pronounced. And I think this is one of the key things. Our parents came of age during the Depression and the Second World War. These were times of privation, of sacrifice. Just when people thought they might be crawling out of the Depression, the war happens. And it was not an easy time to be a young person. Even though we look back at people who fought in World War II

as the quote unquote greatest generation, our generation, we were told we were going to be different. We were going to go to college in record numbers. We were not going to suffer the privations of the Great Depression. We were not going to have to fight in a war against fascism. We were going to move into the suburbs. We were going to have to live in the city. We were told over and over again that we were special, that our lives were going to be different, that our parents were going to make sure that our lives were different, the government was going to make sure our lives would be different because of Sputnik. And they were going to fund higher education through national defense loans so that record numbers of kids could go to college very cheaply. So yeah, we were being told over and over again, certainly by 64, that we mattered economically. They were selling us everything.

And once you start to think that you matter economically and there are political movements beginning to happen, you begin to think that you matter politically. And we did. So you go down south for you, go to Berkeley, and you get involved. Right. What are those, help me understand, that the Berkeley connection, for example? You know, I wish I knew more about the free speech movement. I mean, I know a little bit about it. But it's in the end, it's 600 people are arrested. It's right. Yeah. It's the rest of his period of American education, certainly. Well, you know, you think about these. Oh, and Mara saw him, people like that. Right. I've been in the city. Right. You begin to see these threads, you're going to begin. Well, I think two big strains that come together is let's remember that Kennedy launched a war on poverty, which was a very idealistic war.

And did Johnson launch it? Did Johnson launch it? I thought Kennedy launched it. Kennedy Civil Rights Bill was launched. OK. But Johnson is the one that really is. But Kennedy goes, I mean, Kennedy is the one, we begin to hear, you know, again, you know, how the other half lives, and all the focus on Appalachia. That's Robert Kennedy later. Yeah. OK. So, all right. Yeah, no, but chronology off. Yeah, no, but you're right. And there is talk about poverty in 64 and a huge way. Right. OK. All right. So I'll correct myself. I haven't been corrected. Well, I'm Robert Kennedy this morning, how to make a chronology for this day. Yeah, no. I really do have a memory of Kennedy focusing on the poor. But I do too. No, it's wrong. OK. When he starts running, it's OK. Yeah. OK. So you do have some threads coming together in 1964. Obviously, there's been a pretty active civil rights movement for quite a few years. And by 63, it's being nationally televised. And it begins to go from 15 minutes

to a half an hour, really capturing American consciousness. You have the port. But let me ask you questions. I just thought of something just now. Yeah. It ends all over the TV in 63, but in 64, you're asked in a way by the culture. Are you going to go to Mississippi and put your life on? Sure. That's a difference, right? Right. Right. No, you're totally right. And in the wake of Birmingham and the wake of all of the upheavals in 63. And I think, again, as a desire to pick up the legacy of John Kennedy, people are asked and they do go to Mississippi. They do go down south in 1964. They encounter poverty firsthand. They encounter oppressive discrimination and worse down south. There has also been the Port Huron statement in 1962 and a beginning versioning of students for a democratic society, which is very much about going into neighborhoods and trying to fight poverty

and to try and not be arrogant or imperialistic about it. But to really work with community organizers. So a sensibility is emerging about giving back, about doing something that's bigger than yourself. And that does get manifested in the free speech movement and other emerging rebellions. And at the same time, it's happening on the right with young Americans for freedom. God, yes. I love that you're doing all of this in this passionately motivated to tell me I'm sad. So do you remember Barry Goldwater? Oh, yes. I remember Barry Goldwater. And I remember thinking he was scary. And I remember the days he had. I remember watching an on television. And you have to remember, Eisenhower

was dealing with the right and the far right when he was president, but because he was a military hero and there was this veneer, any way of consensus, the right was kind of, the far right was kind of defanged during that period. And then, of course, when Nixon lost, that was a big blow to the Republican party. And so you begin to get this agitation on the right as well to re-activate the far right, which is informed by John Birch politics and a very, very conservative agenda. And there is enormous energy there as well. And you almost see this as kind of an emerging yin and yang in the culture where the left is getting stronger and the right is getting stronger. And you see the beginnings of this heroic now battle between these forces. And this results in the nomination

of Barry Goldwater for president. And it's young people on both sides. It's young people on both sides. People forget that. They think that in the 60s, all of the young people were on the left. That's not true. You mentioned this sort of sense of betrayal for young people. There's an idealism. There's also this profoundly Atlantic city and the MFDP, the Johnson's inability to refusal to see the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and Berkeley, to a degree. Something is being confronted by young people, too. They're getting active, but they're all

still turning cynical in this year, I think. Is that a fact? So you have a generation of young people who grow up as kids in the 1950s. And if they're watching television or watching movies, they're told they live in the greatest country in the world. It's the most generous. It's the most noble. It's the most altruistic. There's equality for all. Anybody can make it to the top. This was the message that we got over and over. It was a very, you know, on the one hand, comforting and, you know, self-flattering message, but it was a lie. But that's what we grew up with. And then when the Civil Rights Movement happens and the war begins to take off and young people begin to see and realize, oh, it wasn't just my family that wasn't like Father Knows Best.

It wasn't just my family that wasn't believe it to beaver. These stories relies. We were told lies about our family. We were told lies about our country that it's a site of equal opportunity, that it's the most noble country. It isn't. And so there was an emerging sense of betrayal in the 1960s that begins to bubble up in 64 that we were raised to believe our country was one thing. And it's not that. And we think we want to fix it. Great. So some final thoughts, Nick. OK. This has been so great. If you have a look back at 1964, what did you do about it in the beginning with that phrase? 1964 was the year that how do you finish that sentence is a bad lips approach to documentary filmmaking. You know, if you have to sum up what all this change may,

what was it? I think you could say quite fairly that 1964 was the year the 60s began. There is so much subterranean seismic activity that is beginning to bubble up that absolutely marks a profound difference between, say, 1963 and 1965. So I think you could say it's when the 60s, as we think of the 60s, begins. I mean, I don't know if you think that's a fair statement. I do. Yeah. My car's so long, thank you. Are the genies led out of the bottle? Is there no going back on all these issues? I think it's 64 that Genie's led out of the bottle.

And since you mentioned Genie while I dream of Genie doesn't premiere until 1965, I think it'd be which in a way lets the Genie out of the bottle. Once you show women a fantasy of having power that men beg them not to use, they use it anyway. And it's fun. That Genie is out of the bottle. Once you have young people going down south and marching for civil rights and bringing that experience at that knowledge back, and not just white kids, black kids too, that Genie is out of the bottle. So. And Vietnam too, once you cross these lines. And once you begin to slowly and surely and sometimes secretly start to escalate things in Vietnam in a way that's going to profoundly affect this huge generation of young people,

that Genie's out of the bottle too. Yeah, great. I mean, I think the other thing, when you think about the popular music of the time, and obviously the big hit makers are the Beatles and the Supremes, but also Motown, that Genie's out of the bottle too, because this is music and it's radio, and it really signifies that a youth culture, a very important youth culture with very particular and often rebellious sensibilities is going to take hold and take over. And that's why, thinking about the music of this period, is so important. Yeah. Yeah. Why should we care about 1960? Didn't I answer that?

I'm not saying that. But I'm saying, I'm not saying that. You know, trying to put it in context. You know, I think if we look back at 1964, we can initially see those black and white pictures in yearbooks with the girls, with their flipped hair, and the guys with their crew cuts. And we can see these kitschy television shows, and it can look very smooth and placid and really retro. But it's not. And I think the important reason for looking back at 1964 is to peel off all of its layers and see all of the layers that we're interacting together to produce this huge shift in our culture. Thank you for that one. That's great. What are the legacies of 1964? Are we living with the town? Is 64 when the world we live in today first became visible?

Oh, the legacy of 64 is certainly the beginnings of a woman's movement and a woman's movement that is just not manifested in books. We have, for better or for worse, the absolute celebration of youth and youth culture in a way that has been great and in a way that has been pernicious. We had the passage of the Civil Rights Act, which was hugely important, and a new visibility for the rights of African-Americans that has been absolutely crucial. None of these changes have reached complete fruition for us. Have women come really far since 1964? You bet they have. Have African-Americans come really far? You bet. Is there a lot of work still left to do? You bet. Why is it important to care about 64?

I mean, that's the last one. So these are all kind of the same. But I'm curious, but why do we need to care about it? OK. I think it's important to care about 64. Now I was trained as an historian. So those who fail to learn their history are doomed to repeat it. And there was a lot to learn from 1964 about politics, both on the left and the right. What succeeded, what failed, about political activism, what worked, and what didn't, about women's shifting desires and why those mattered. So I think if we don't go back and look at these hinge moments, we fail to appreciate who we are, and how we got to where we are, and what we've accomplished, and what we still need to do.

Great. Just a pot shot sort of thing at the very beginning, which we sort of had bumped over, but well, you touched on Kennedy so well. What if I flipped it around just as a total experiment? OK. Instead of beginning a sentence with 1964 was, what if I asked you to say January 1964 would be the year? Would you change it at all, would it just be the same? Same answer? So it's what start in January 1964 would be the year. Well, I don't know. It sort of feels like it's one of the other. So you don't have to, this is an answer. This is a question you don't have to answer. You don't feel like it. Oh, I, all right. So how's it, again, in January 1964, would be the year?

1964 would be the year. OK. 1964 would be the year that the Civil Rights Act passed very important. 1964 would be the year that the Beatles came to America very important. 1964 would be the year that millions and millions of women read the Feminine Mystique and didn't want to go back. 1964 was the year of the free speech movement and the beginning rumblings of student activism and student protest around authority and social justice. So if you take all those things and you don't talk about them specifically, but you rise up 5,000 feet above that and think, and so 1964 was a year of, what would be a year of life? I mean, is it a year of radicalism?

No. Intersecting with, I don't know quite how to put it. I don't know what the answer is. I'm just curious, when you look at all the ways in which the reverberations, the seismic things happen, how do you step back even one step further and think about what it really is? So I think seismology is a good metaphor. You know, there were tremors, there were earthquakes, but they weren't.7 on the Richter scale. They were exposed fault lines around race, fault lines around gender, fault lines around politics. It wasn't going to all explode until a couple of years later, but this is when the tremors really start to get felt. OK, let's do room town. We need 30 seconds of silence for Susan Douglas, 30 seconds. If you thank you, that would be really, really.