Thoroughly Modern Morals
A long-time commentator on here pointed me in the direction of a Channel 4 programme looking back at TV from the 60s the other week; I was tempted solely by the fact that an ageing Peter Wyngarde apparently made an appearance to briefly comment on his role in a pre-Jason King drama. I watched on catch-up, which meant I could skim through the rest of the programme in the manner of a VCR fast-forward until the old man of Department S made his blink-and-you’ll-miss-him cameo. I wouldn’t have bothered otherwise. I doubted I could be told anything I didn’t already know about the Swinging decade, and I was right. Not that I would’ve learnt anything of any value from this kind of programme, anyway.
The fact is I have relived the decade I arrived at the arse-end of vicariously over the past thirty years, beginning with Channel 4’s excellent early production, ‘The Sixties’, perhaps the first documentary series to seriously analyse the 60s when it was still close enough to feel recent, but far enough away to be treated as history. Covering everything from pop culture and politics to architecture and innovations in technology, this enlightening and comprehensive chronicle of what made the decade so special was light years ahead of the same channel’s piss-poor 2015 excuse, which said a great deal about the diminishing ambitions not just of Channel 4, but British television in general.
I figured footage I’ve seen over and over again would be dusted down once more; you know what I’m talking about – Carnaby Street, Beatlemania, England winning the World Cup etc, etc. It was probably exhumed for the sequences I sped through, though Channel 4 can no longer present the story without a cool, sarcastic smirk anymore, lest the attention span of ‘the kids’ be lost due to all that boring talking, like. They had to intersperse the clips from TV of the era with the kind of talking heads that really should be making a date with Madame Guillotine.
Sticking numerous wrinklies who were there at the time in front of TV sets, ‘Googlebox’-style, was clearly not going to suffice for younger viewers in ignorance of the 60s, so several third division so-called comedians who never say anything funny when they make up the numbers on ‘Mock the Week’ were there to represent this ignorance – and ignorant they certainly were. A female one gasped when exposed to a scene from ‘The Saint’ as Roger Moore chased a young lady around the room. ‘Oh, I hope he’s not going to rape her!’ she exclaimed. ITC adventures were, of course, renowned for their regular rape scenes. Silly cow. These deplorable programmes are merely cheap and nasty vehicles for reinforcing ill-informed prejudices and adopt a sneering approach to the past that smugly celebrates how much more advanced we are now. In their way, however, they reflect a wider wilful ignorance where anything that predates current mores is concerned.
For example, post-Savile, the general consensus is that ‘Top of the Pops’ in the 1970s was a hot-bed of vice and debauchery; but even before that notion was hatched by people who weren’t there, the show was singled out for retrospective critiques, largely based on the presence of Pan’s People. According to the contemporary PC opinion, it was demeaning and patronising that women’s sole regular representation on TOTP was five pretty girls dancing in skimpy outfits to the hits of acts that couldn’t be present to promote them.
Lest we forget, however, Pan’s People and their successors Legs & Co were assembled and choreographed by a woman, Flick Colby, who contributed to the programme for the best part of fifteen years, longer than anyone else involved in its four decades on air. An all-female co-operative was a very 1970s/80s feminist concept, but various ground rules have to be adhered to when judging from the distance of the twenty-first century. Women coming together to deal with serious issues such as gender equality or cruise missiles is fine, but devoting themselves to the frivolity of showbiz? That means women’s bodies might be on display, and also means wicked men must have been at play behind the scenes; only, there were no men involved in the TOTP dance-troupes, not even safe gay ones.
In the brave new world of morality we now inhabit, it’s apparently forgivable that old male rock stars’ attitudes towards women were one notch below Robin Askwith’s ‘Confessions’ character; on-the-road adventures in which the main female role was to service the cock-rockers (or immortalise their assets as plaster-casts) have become part of musical mythology, and things were different then, of course; besides, the guilty parties still generate millions for the beleaguered music industry and are untouchable. Why, then, are women in the 70s who celebrated sexiness without it being a mere appendage to a male rock star now regarded as victims of exploitation or as just plain naive, as though they were oblivious little girls slapping on makeup, unaware of less innocent connotations?
That insulting summary implies they were clueless, infantilised females incapable of knowing what they were doing, when in actual fact they were a highly successful freelance business not beholden to any male Svengali figure, either at the BBC or anywhere else. Curious, though, that the criticisms levelled at the TOTP dancers don’t apply when it comes to contemporary female pop stars. Their outfits can be far skimpier than anything Pan’s People, Legs & Co or even Hot Gossip wore, but they’re perceived as (yes, that awful word again) empowering. It’s seemingly fine for the likes of Miley Cyrus, Katie Perry, Lady GaGa or Rihanna to raid the wardrobes of pole-dancers and writhe about on stage as though they’re desperate to go to the toilet; they can even sing about lurid sexual acts and it’s regarded as perfectly acceptable. These sisters are doing it for themselves – just like Pan’s People were forty years ago.
The revisionist angle when it comes to late twentieth century pop culture is an insidious product of a twenty-first century that doesn’t have a leg to stand on if it’s intent on citing its own vacuous equivalent as superior. That guardian of the nation’s moral conscience, the Daily Mail, never misses a chance to rail against the perceived crimes of the past, yet its online edition oozes with titillation, including such sexually-empowering headlines as ‘Braless Scout Willis exposes her bare bust in sheer jumpsuit’, ‘Leggy Chrissy Teigen goes braless in a sheer lace top and tiny hotpants’, ‘Elizabeth Hurley – 50 – showcases hourglass figure and plenty of cleavage’, ‘Pamela Anderson puts on a VERY leggy display in thigh-skimming tuxedo blazer’ and ‘Leggy Rihanna oozes sex appeal as she displays plenty of cleavage in plunging black number’.
It’s such a relief we’ve come a long way from those nasty, sexist 60s and 70s.
Petunia Winegum
-
October 10, 2015 at 9:20 am -
Should any of us live long enough I’m sure that there will come a time when “the [empowered] likes of Miley Cyrus, Katie Perry, Lady GaGa or Rihanna” will be trashed and criticised in much the same way that Pan’s People et al are nowadays – plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, as they say. By the by, if you’re looking for real “empowerment” search for videos of the all female band Rockbitch.
-
October 10, 2015 at 10:36 am -
I’ve seen footage of Rock Bitch, courtesy of a pal who likes that sort of thing!
-
October 10, 2015 at 12:30 pm -
Delightful harpies aren’t they? Just the sort of girls one dreams of taking home to meet mum.
-
-
-
October 10, 2015 at 9:21 am -
If you have looked through all that, you must have noticed how the ‘1960s/1970s’ have been ‘airbrushed’? No Jimmy Savile, Jonathan King, or Garry Glitter, on ‘Top of the Pops’. And I bet they didn’t mention Peter Wyngarde, taking young lads into London Transport Garages, late at night to have sex either?
-
October 10, 2015 at 10:24 am -
Ah, airbrushing. The last resort of those who, in the present, would deceive us about our past and form the future in their own image.
Always a roaring success….
-
October 10, 2015 at 10:43 am -
Wyngarde’s career was ruined by an encounter with a fully-grown ‘legal’ lorry driver at Gloucester Bus Station in 1976. Like many gay men of his generation, the then-laws of the land led him into situations that changes in social mores have today rendered all-but extinct, bar a few adventurers on Hampstead Heath.
-
October 10, 2015 at 10:46 am -
And Vis-Versa I would suggest, with teenage gays having nowhere to go until they were 21.
-
-
-
October 10, 2015 at 9:43 am -
Gojos (before my time)-Pan’s People-Ruby Flipper(must have missed them)-Legs & Co
Strange but just looking at the names of the TOTP dance troops one can discern , if not the exact era, then the zeitgeist. Pan? Who was he like, Dad? I doubt any child educated after about 1990 was ever exposed to the bones of Ancient Mythology. Pan’s People screams ‘born of the age of Aquarius’ whilst Legs & Co is miami-vicing into the yuppified 80s. Ruby Flipper was the Pin Ball Wizard’s catamite. And ‘Gojos’? Put down the balzac or Kerouac ,don some sunglasses, a beret and play some funky beatnik sounds Daddio….
-
October 10, 2015 at 9:44 am -
Excellent piece Petunia, it’s sad how true nostalgia for the era seems to have become contraband of late.
Don’t forget, though, that bridging the gap between Pan’s People and Legs & Co was RUBY FLIPPER – a male/female dance TOTP dance troupe – though they only lasted a few months before The Powers That Be decided to revert to an all-girl lineup.
-
October 10, 2015 at 9:49 am -
“there were no men involved in the TOTP dance-troupes, not even safe gay ones.”
The only “safe” gay men on TV in the 60s/70s were camp pastiches – Dick Emery characters, John Inman or Larry Grayson for example.
Young, sexy, handsome, half-naked and obviously gay men dancing on TV would NOT have been considered “safe” by any media powers that were.
Shame – it would have enhanced my adolescence no end.
-
October 10, 2015 at 10:11 am -
At least today they’re just sneering at the past. In the Smoking Twenties to come, The Burqa Birds Squad will probably be hanging those responsible for today’s d’Acres of flesh
-
October 10, 2015 at 11:51 am -
It is often said of the 1960s, if you can remember it, you weren’t there. Well I was there, but never quite so far off my head that my recollection is compromised. It was brilliant – probably the best decade in which to ascend to adulthood there has ever been.
We’d missed the war, escaped from its rationing and following austerity, had good education, diet and free healthcare, guaranteed jobs-for life etc., emerging into a place which had discovered colour, sound and a whole new mindset. Young people were becoming free to enjoy life in ways previous generations could not: we had more free cash than our parents had enjoyed, we had the Pill but we didn’t have HIV risks – bliss. We had rapidly developing technology, the sort which was available to all, you lived with the positive feeling that now anything was possible and that you’d be able to get it.
I’d love to go back and do it all again: some things I’d do the same, many things differently – it was a decade which changed the world. We can argue about whether it all turned out better or not, but it was amazing to be there and experience that 1960s ‘happening’ happening. Thanks for the reminder.
-
October 10, 2015 at 12:36 pm -
Lovely image Mudplugger. I only just entered my teens by the time the decade ended, so missed out on a more mature experience of the 60’s. Things seemed to go rather “pear shaped” by the mid 70’s, although for me that was the happiest period I’ve lived through – lots of fond memories.
-
-
October 10, 2015 at 11:52 am -
There was a fantastic example of The Mail’s hypocrisy recently, the outraged headline read:
“Proof that fashion never learns – the Dior model aged FOURTEEN: What happened to all the vows to end child exploitation…?”
(Managing to feign outrage whilst engaging in a bit of brand-building for the ‘child exploiters’, who are no doubt regular advertisers in Mail Group publications.) The article pantingly begins…“As she glided down the catwalk, the dewy skinned model was clearly meant to be the epitome of everything a Dior customer should aspire to be.
In a floating white gown, see-through enough to show her slight body and breasts beneath…”And for those Mail readers without an imagination they helpfully provided a picture of the dewy skinned 14-year old exposing her slight body & breasts courtesy of the see-through floating white gown! Clear cache! Erase history!
As for those history-trashing talking-heads of the compilation clips programmes, one can only hope that they are similarly ravaged by future generations of spiteful wiseacres, in the event that anyone remembers who the hell they were, of course. Nice piece, Pet.
-
October 10, 2015 at 12:40 pm -
Yes, even at a fairly early age it occured to me that the TNOW simply advertised all the available debauchery whilst claiming to denounce it. As far as the media goes, hypocrisy has no limits.
-
October 10, 2015 at 1:25 pm -
It wasn’t nicknamed the News of the Screws for nothing. People bought it for salacious entertainment of he most knuckle-dragging type – usually about which z-lister was bonking which other z-lister – while outwardly condemning it. British hypocrisy at its finest.
-
October 10, 2015 at 5:00 pm -
As they used to write in TNOW- I started to read one once, but then I made my excuses and left.
-
-
-
-
October 10, 2015 at 1:03 pm -
Re: “Why, then, are women in the 70s who celebrated sexiness without it being a mere appendage to a male rock star now regarded as victims of exploitation or as just plain naive, as though they were oblivious little girls slapping on makeup, unaware of less innocent connotations?”
Victims of exploitation? If it was males shamelessly throwing themselves at female musicians or performers the males would likely be described as animals or creeps. Do men go about throwing themselves at female singers like this? The whole point was to try and get sex off their idols, these girls were obsessed with these guys and offered themselves to them on a plate. If they didn’t want sex off these guys they more than likely would not have got it, they had to go to great lengths to grab the attention of these guys and the whole point was to have sex with them, and them brag about it later probably….
If they are victims they’re victims of their own naivety, obsessive behaviour or societies obsession with sex, the rock stars they managed to sleep with were more often than not the victims of stalking and sexual harassment.
On the other hand they might have had a great time and look back on these times as ‘the good old days’….
-
October 10, 2015 at 4:03 pm -
“Victims of exploitation? If it was males shamelessly throwing themselves at female musicians or performers the males would likely be described as animals or creeps. Do men go about throwing themselves at female singers like this? The whole point was to try and get sex off their idols, these girls were obsessed with these guys and offered themselves to them on a plate. If they didn’t want sex off these guys they more than likely would not have got it, they had to go to great lengths to grab the attention of these guys and the whole point was to have sex with them, and them brag about it later probably….”
Ain’t that the truth! The only point I would disagree about is that rather than bragging about it they are now more likely to claim they were abused by those awful male rock and pop stars.
-
October 10, 2015 at 4:36 pm -
I’m not disagreeing with you, I’m merely filtering the past through the prism of the present as seen by the idiots I’m having a dig at.
-
October 10, 2015 at 4:40 pm -
A friends sister, who worked at the BBC 1970s/1980s said that the building was always full of seemingly unaccompanied minors.
-
-
-
October 10, 2015 at 3:51 pm -
“the 1970s was a hot-bed of vice and debauchery…..”
Really? As someone who passed through adolescence during that decade I’d say no more than now. Possibly even less so.
-
October 10, 2015 at 4:36 pm -
Again, the view of the revisionists, not me.
-
October 10, 2015 at 6:07 pm -
Well, Pet. They have to sell their content, and as we all know sex and moral outrage are great bedfellows, sales wise. The Wail being a case in point.
-
-
{ 27 comments… read them below or add one }