The 60's

            The 60’s were a transition time marked by the diversity of opinions and the strong and transcendental incidents that occurred at that time. As seen in the movie, which carries the name of that time period already named, things started to change forever, and the events molded the rest of the history of the United States and of the World. It was a mix of revolutions and changes in all directions. One of the primary facts watched in this movie is the racism and the anti-segregation movements. The movie is sort of a collage of real footage that reminds to a documentary, and the story of a family suffering different aspects of the social movements, and an iconic event of that time, the Vietnam War.

            The oldest of the three brothers, Brian, was not picked up to study at college, so he joined the Marines; he is the patriotic symbol of the family that risks his life to keep safe the nation. On the other hand, Michael is smart, and is conscious of the changes his generation is confronting. He volunteers in a group of the church to fight in a pacific way the segregation. In this process, he meets a young black man named Emmet that is his age, and they become friends. It is impacting how racism was so marked in the 60’s because, when they got to the march, the police tried to stop them violently, only for protesting, and the only reason they did not hit the black people, was because there were journalists around, and they did not want to get in trouble. Michael gets to study at college, where he goes to meetings of activists that are trying to stop the war and smoke weed (all they can), there he changes his way of seeing the life, primarily because of a young beautiful girl called Sarah, that fall in love for Michael when he defended her in public, from the leader of the meeting, who thought that her ideas were dumb, and did not let her participate. This is a way in which women are mistreated by society, because Sarah could argue and fight all she wanted, but still, the leaders of the groups composed by men would not hear her opinions. It is ironic how they fight to end with prejudices and injustices, but they are not capable of treating all the members the same way just for the gender.

            In another different aspect, there is Katie, the youngest of the three brothers. She is young and beautiful, and also rebel. She is an intention of saying “no” to the gender roles of the moment. One of the first things she does is that at the beginning, at a school dance, she started to dance with a color boy, action which was punished by the principal of the school, because it was considered inappropriate to dace the way she was dancing. This is clearly a point for segregation because in deep, the real fear was that both races, the white and the black, would merge, concept that was not accepted by society back then and is not well seen nowadays. Katie goes to parties hidden from her father, until one night she had sex with a musician and she gets pregnant. The prejudices she had to face were humongous, because her father wanted to beat her and her mother wanted her to give the baby in adoption secretly, so nobody would now that she got pregnant. This behavior of her parents makes me wonder, what would have happened if it happened in a different way, if one of their sons were going to have a baby. The reaction clearly would not be the same. This is an example of gender roles, as same as another important aspect seen in the movie that is kind of hidden and clearly is part of the gender roles, which is the fact that the mother of the house was a housekeeper, while the father brought money to the house. One of the most important moments as seen in the movie in which women began to take control of their lives, was the birth control pill. That pill was purchased by Sarah, who is of a newer generation, and of a far less conservative generation. There is yet much to be seen of this turbulent time period called the 60’s.