Sex. Sex was better way back in the seventies. Not just for me personally, let’s leave me, personally out of it, shall we? I mean the public attitude about sex. Back in the sixties and seventies we were sex-positive. Sex was groovy man, and every time you nailed your old lady, you weren’t just having a stoned groove (especially if you were stoned) you were sticking it to the Man, who didn’t want you to have sex because the Man was a crabby old square who didn’t grok that now that there was the Pill, men and women were free, free to be you and me, you dig?
OK, so we weren’t right about everything, but we had the right attitude.
I’ve lived and bought gas in New Jersey for almost 15 years now. Still waiting for someone to clean my windshield (or, for that matter, to offer to check my oil, which could actually generate additional revenue for them).
I *loved *those old Jimmy Olsen comics! And at least the stories were complete in each issue. I even own the Showcase issues of Superman Family that reprint the old Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane stories. Those bring fond memories of my childhood.
And several times in my youth, I sent in the dime to get the latest Johnson Smith catalog. What a batch of cool stuff there was in that; it was a pleasure to read, even if I never bought anything from it.
Agreed about the letter columns, though some of the independent publishers still offer them. The *Buffy *comics and Groo, as well, feature letter columns, right off the top of my head.
Not just sex, the the acceptance of “light” nudity in everyday publications (but never on TV!) For a while, Time and People magazine seemed to always have one (smallish) picture of a actress (always an actress) who has a short nude scene in a film or a nipple slip, just for titillation purposes I assume. The prime example was Time’s coverage of the 1976 King Kong with Jessica Lange’s breakout role. There’s a split-second scene where King Kong pulls down the top of her blouse. Watching the movie, it goes by quickly, but Time thought it was important enough (for its sales) to include that picture. The same thing with People magazine - it used to have at least one nude picture. Then Reagan: they all stopped. Ah! the 70’s!
My grandfather was a photography nut. He subscribed to some of the magazines and such. He was horrible at it. And he knew it. But he liked it.
I remember that there was an insert ad (like a subscription card, perforated so you can rip it out easy. But the insert showed a woman’s breasts, exposed, with wet sand clinging to her body. Couldn’t see her face or anything. Just a close-up of the breasts.
This is why I only but the trades any more. The monthlies are too expensive. I can get a trade for $20 and get 200 pages for it.
What’s even more ridiculous is the people who take what the talk/opinion shows say for actual news.
For me what’s gotten worse is television. Back when there was only four channels the networks knew it was limited and put out quality shows. Not like today with your million channels and crappy programming. Breaking Bad, Mad Men, GoT? Bah, who needs you. Where’s the Tiny Toons? Where’s the Darkwing Ducks? Now it’s not all bad. There is TBBT, and The Middle and Mike and Molly.
How about The Weather Channel? It used to be weather, all the time. Simple, effective. I used to like to watch it traveling. it was like a touch of home.
But like all sad examples of network decay, it is a shadow of its former self. It can be called the MTV of weather programming.
I mean, they show weather related movies now! Twister! Who cares! Oh the humanity!
A lot of of stuff is worse than it used to be, but I’ll just mention a few.
Most all of the candy now has high fructose corn syrup as a main ingredient. Movie theater refreshments now cost as much or more than the ticket price. Grocery food now commonly costs somewhere around $7-12 per lb. (used to be less than half that). Most radio stations now play oldies that we’ve already heard a million times since most of the new music isn’t worth hearing. TV stations now air a mix consisting mostly of infomercials, “news” and blocks of the same show such as MASH or House Hunters, so you have to buy most everything on DVD to see it (even History Channel shows about … history). Video games used to be on cartridge so their playing surface didn’t become scratched up by idiots. Oh, and music CD jewelcases used to be built like a tank. Now they’re so flimsy they often arrive in the mail already broken.
Weird. My take is that when there were only so many channels you appreciated lower quality shows more, (And we were all younger) and this is certainly backed up by watching reruns of almost any old show. We shouldn’t underestimate the charge that came out of having to be there to see a movie or show on one of 4 stations. It was an event.
TV shows have become art. That’s an improvement to me.
Movies have gotten worse. It can’t be original of me to say that TV and films have switched roles.
Musicals. When was the last good, new musical produced? I saw an ad on tv last night for a new production of Fiddler on the Roof. I loved this - when I first saw it 40 odd years ago. Every couple of years there’s a new production of West Side Story. Ditto. I’m singing I Feel Pretty in my head right now. A great show.
I can’t remember the last time I saw a new, really good stage or screen musical.
Musicals are suffering horribly from expenses. To do one right, you need a live orchestra and a dozen or two singers.
It’s kinda the same reason we don’t see many new operas, nor many new symphonic works. There really are potential Beethovens out here; they just don’t have the financial wherewithal to succeed.
The good news is that “music processing” software is good enough, now, that any old jasper can write a Beethoven-style symphony and hear how it sounds. Much as digital art has made it possible for anyone to “paint” without having to buy canvases, oils, and brushes.
In this sense, perhaps, the arts are better than in the past. More of us have more access to the basic tools of creativity.
Conversely, “oldies” stations play music from the 60’s through the 80’s and stuff like Motown, Elvis, Everly Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis, etc are largely ignored.
I’m not tuning into the oldies station to hear Journey, people!
Yes, the musical seems to be in no real danger. Depending on what you mean by “new,” in addition to Hamilton and Book of Mormon, we’ve also seen things like Spring Awakening and The Drowsy Chaperone, all within the past ten years or so. Push the boundary out a little further and you can also include Wicked, Spamalot, and Hairspray.
What has changed about musicals, I think, is that they seem like a bit more of a niche interest. Back in the Rodgers and Hammerstein days, or even the early days of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Stephen Sondheim, it was fairly common for songs from musicals to become popular hits. There was an awareness of the musical theater among the general public that doesn’t seem to be present nowadays. Part of that may be because it’s become so difficult to see a new show–tickets to Broadway are incredibly expensive these days, and often hard to get for the really big shows. But another part of it seems to be that, for whatever reason, fewer people appear to be interested in musicals than they once were.