Monday, 8. September 2008
Topic: DRUGS - on September 8, 2008 at 10:34:00 AM CEST
Hippies [2007]
This TV documentary on the History Channel has many flaws, the greatest of which is allowing overarching, borderline ridiculous right-wing condemnations of hippie culture to remain unchallenged, but still it fascinates as a glimpse at the drug-fueled, youth-driven counterculture of the late 1960s. Too much time, unfortunately, is wasted on sensationalist, irrelevant side-stories and not enough is spent on the substantive contributions of the hippie aesthetic to the culture at large. There are also a few glaring historical accuracies; for example, one could easily conclude from the film that the Vietnam War ended after 1969 -- which would certainly come as a surprise to the soldiers who served there from 1970-1973. But at least the film, at its end, correctly, if only briefly, touches upon some of the many lasting contributions of the hippie ethos to the culture at large; these include the consciousness movement, the environmental movement, and the computer/technological revolution which led to the democratization of information by the Internet.
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