What Pop Culture Tells Us About Politics (12 weeks)
W 2022

Today, we are again witnessing a generational cultural divide. Ron Brownstein, the author, shows how the voices resistant to change may win the political battle for a time, but they cannot hold back the future In Rock Me on the Water.   In this SDG we will trace the confluence of movies, music, television, and politics in Los Angeles month by month through that transformative year, 1974.  The early 1970s in Los Angeles was the time and the place where conservatives definitively lost the battle to control popular culture.  We will discuss how 1974 represented a confrontation between a massive younger generation intent on change, and a political order rooted in the status quo.  Has Brownstein made the connection between pop culture and politics?  Can we who lived through the events recounted make it stronger? Or just conclude it did not exist?  

1. Hollywood’s Rise and Fall
2. The Republic of Rock and Roll
3. The Greatest Night in Television History
4. Already Gone
5. The Ballad of Tom and Jane
6. From Chinatown to Jerry Brown
7. Hollywood’s Generational Tipping Point
8. The Icarus of Los Angeles
9. Three Roads to Revolution
10. The (White) Boys’ Club
11. Breakthrough
12. Transitions

Rock Me on the Water: 1974-The Year Los Angeles Transformed Movies, Music, Television, and Politics

by Ronald Brownstein, published by Harper on Mar 23, 2021

To put you in the '74 frame of mind check out Linda Ronstadt performing 'Rock me on the waters'

https://youtu.be/0_KvuFJZebs

or Jackson Browne at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8eo9Q7GHTs