Favorite Films: Easy Rider

By the mid 1960's, a powerful countercultural movement emerged in the post-war baby boomer generation. Inspired by the Civil Rights movement and restless 1950's iconoclasts like Lenny Bruce, Jack Kerouac, and J.D. Salinger, the counterculture challenged a wide array of societal norms and conventions such as the role of women and minorities in society and the use of the military draft for the prosecution of foreign wars.

The counterculture ambitiously championed a number of smaller movements including environmentalism, the Women's Movement, the sexual revolution, desegregation, a push to lower the voting age to 18 (formerly 21), and fierce opposition to military action in Southeast Asia.

These were radical changes, and change always meets opposition. Many people staunchly defended the traditional values of the Establishment. Clashes between the two camps were sometimes violent as was witnessed at 1968's Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

The counterculture rose to prominence in parallel with the popularity of rock music. The 1968 film Easy Rider broke new ground by portraying counterculture idealsm - and the opposition that it meets - against a soundtrack of driving rock music.

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