How Did Marriage Evolve during the 1960s and 1970s? By Amy Worcester

ATV Today, ‘Police Wedding’ (ITV, 9/7/1970), Media Archive for Central England

During the twentieth century, marriage developed from being an institution of convenience to one of love and romance. Langhamer has called the twentieth century the time of ‘emotional revolution.’[1] This ‘emotional’ culture was due to post-war reconstruction, when a loving family was seen as important in bringing Britain back from the horrors of war.[2] Therefore, ‘love’ became a dominant requirement when choosing future spouses.[3] The Women’s Liberation Movement had a big impact on the institution of marriage, as many of the legislation passed granted women more rights within marriage.[4] In this atmosphere of equality, marriage evolved into being an equal contract. This promise of equality created a more ‘symmetrical’ family, with wives entering the workforce, and husbands becoming more ‘homebound.’[5] However, although marriage developed culturally with new ideas of equality, in reality it was still very male dominated. Vox pop interviews made for the television programmes Midland Montage and ATV Today reveal how it was the ‘wife’ who was expected to maintain a ‘happy marriage.’ In the vox pops, many of the respondents are women because the questions are directed at women. Therefore, it can be argued that ideas on marriage did evolve during the 1960s and 1970s, but wives were still dependent on their husbands.

In this culture of the ‘emotional revolution,’ love held no bounds.[6] As Lane argues, marriage changed from the Victorian ideal of practical partnerships, to the 1960s culture of love and romance.[7] Langhamer’s research shows how marital experts of the 1960s saw ‘love as an increasingly dominant requirement within spousal selection; the factor to which all consideration should give way.’[8] In this atmosphere of love, there was an increase in mixed-race couples. This increase was due to idea that love ‘knows no colour bar.’[9] The 1970 ATV Today item ‘Police Wedding’ is an example of a mixed-race couple who have married for their love.[10] During the fifties and sixties there was hostility towards interracial relationships. As Clive Webb has investigated, during the 1950s mixed-race marriages ‘generated more heat and roused deeper and fiercer passions than any other aspect of the race/colour situation.’ However, unlike the United States during this time, mixed race-couples could and did marry in Britain. By the early 1970s interracial relationships became more accepted because of the ‘emotional revolution’, which led people to marry for love rather than for practical advantages.[11] In the case of the ‘Police Wedding,’ the couple’s marriage is accepted because of love. This acceptance is seen in the way their police colleagues are there to celebrate the newlyweds. The footage presents the couple positively, seen when the camera films their colleagues joking around with them.[12] The fact that this couple’s wedding was reported in the news, suggests mixed-race couples were rare but were slowly becoming more common and accepted by the early 1970s. Yasmin Brown cites a survey conducted in 1963 that revealed interracial marriages had been recorded in 84 of 1,000 church parishes.[13]

ATV Today, ‘Police Wedding’ (ITV, 9/7/1970), Media Archive for Central England

In this culture of love and romance, marriage was an unavoidable idea. Langhamer argues that romantic love was increasingly positioned as a key resource upon which post-war selfhood was built.[14] In a Spare Rib article in 1972, ‘Family Everafter,’ Michelene Wandor describes this culture of love in Britain: ‘the whole of our upbringing, education and entertainment lead us to believe that love and marriage do indeed go together like a horse in carriage.’[15] From an early age, especially for girls during this period, marriage was the aim in life. A 1956 marriage survey revealed that 94 per cent of 14-year-old girls and 69 per cent of boys anticipated marrying in the future.[16] This education on love and romance saw more young couples getting married in the 1960s. Langhamer has described this period as the ‘golden age’ of marriage.[17] The 1960 Midland Montage vox pop on ‘Marriage Minded Maidens’ explores marriage at a young age.[18] Interestingly, most of the women who are asked by the interviewer when they would get married say they would wait until they were 21 or 25. There are only two women in the film who were already married at the young age of 18. Although most of them say they would want a career first, it is implied that all the women want to get married. This is suggested in how the questions are directed at women and all of the respondents are women.

Midland Montage, ‘Marriage Minded Maidens’ (ITV, 21/1/1960), Media Archive for Central England

Langhamer argues that staying single in this period was widely viewed as a denial of a woman’s destiny of being mother and wife.[19] By 1970 only eight per cent of women aged between 45 and 49 had never been married.[20] The 1977 ATV Today vox pop on a ‘Happy Marriage’ reveals how it was often assumed that women and men in a couple were already married.[21] The interviewer takes a straightforward approach, by asking random people on the streets about their marriage, without knowing if they were married. All of the respondents asked are either in a marriage or have been married. This suggests that during this period marriage was popular due to the culture of ‘love at first sight.’ It also reveals how women were still expected to get married at some point in their lives, although, in the atmosphere of the Women’s Movement, marriage was thought of increasingly in terms of equality.

Equal partnership became the main concept of a modern marriage. As Sandbrook argues, the relationship between spouses began to evolve from living in ‘separate spheres’ to where couples did everything together.[22] Lane’s article ‘Not the Boss of One Another’ argues that this equal partnership developed among all social classes. The working classes developed more middle-class traits due to improvements in housing, shorter working hours and higher wages that contributed to a more home-centred lifestyle.[23] A 1969 ATV Today vox pop item, which asked the question, ‘Does your husband chat you up in the evenings?’, reveals how this equal contract was developing for many people, while for others marriage was still very male dominated.[24] The first respondents, who appear to be upper class, do not expect their husbands to talk to them if they have had a hard day at work, saying, ‘it depends on what sort of day he has had, if he is prepared to talk, I am prepared to listen.’ An older woman has the same response saying that she does not bother anymore, because she does not expect her husband to talk to her after his ‘hard day at work.’ This reveals that for many the wife was still a servant to her husband’s needs. In the 1972 article ‘Family Everafter’ in the feminist magazine Spare Rib, Wandor describes how the new promise of an equal contract in marriage was appealing, but realistically it does not work, ‘because of the woman’s economic and psychological dependence on her husband, she is sexually dependent, continuing to need and want his approval’.[25] The ATV footage and the article reveal that, even by 1972, equality within marriage had not fully developed for all British couples. However, the vox pop does present a woman who has equal status to her husband. This sense of equality is seen in her response, as she says she would be depressed and upset if her husband refused to talk to her, and if he did she would know something was up.[26] Therefore, it can be said that the ideal marriage in the 1960s and 1970s was based on the concept of equal partnership. However, in reality, the husband was still the dominant figure in many families.

By the 1960s, the working wife began to develop within a modern marriage. McCarthy argues that the working wife became part of the culture of equality.[27] This change in marriage has been described by Langhamer as the ‘democratisation of love.’[28] McCarthy has studied how sociologists at the time argued optimistically that the employment of ‘wives strengthened marriage through the material security guaranteed by a second wage and by building a greater commonality of interest between spouses’.[29] In the ATV Today footage of the ‘Police Wedding’ the couple have a shared interest, both being police officers.[30] The 1978 Daily Mail article ‘Happiness is a Working Wife’ looked into the benefits of a married woman working, suggesting that ‘she is more fulfilled, independent and interesting for her husband and children’. The article cites Professor Robert Rapoport in persuading the reader on the benefits of married women working, with the conclusion being that it prevented ‘boredom building up into marital violence and stress and led to a more harmonious married life.’[31]

The 1960 Midland Montage vox pop on ‘Marriage Minded Maidens’ reveals how in the early 1960s the idea of the ‘working wife’ had not yet fully developed.[32] This is presented in how many of the women say they want to have a career first before entering marriage. One woman explains how she has been studying for seven years and does not want to give it up and would rather be in a good position and in a good job before thinking about marriage. As Sandbrook has investigated, in the 1950s and into the early 1960s working wives were said to be selfish and unnatural for putting their own ambitions above the needs of their children and husband.[33] The 1960 vox pop reveals how this idea of working wives being ‘selfish’ was still present, with many of the women choosing to have a career while they remain unmarried.

Midland Montage, ‘Marriage Minded Maidens’ (ITV, 21/1/1960), MACE

In the atmosphere of the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1970s, there was an increase in ‘working wives’. In 1971, 52.6 percent of women worked in Britain; by 1979 this increased to 56.9 percent.[34] However, although more than half of women aged between 16 and 64 were now working by the end of the 1970s, women were still economically dependent on their husbands. The Spare Rib 1972 article ‘Family Everafter’ argues that ‘most women […] are either totally or partially dependent on their husbands. If they work they are either paid at a lower rate, have jobs of a lower status or work part-time, thus earning an income secondary to their husbands.’[35] This article suggests that even if a wife was able to work she would still be dependant on her husband. As Sandbrook and McCarthy have investigated, many men still wanted their wives to stay at home and look after them and the children.[36]

The ‘sexual revolution’ has been iconic in the study of the 1960s. As Brown argues, the 1960s marked an important decade in the ‘long sexual revolution’, manifested in ‘radical sexual behaviour’ amongst the unmarried.[37] The talk of ‘sex’ became central to 1960s culture. This focus on sex is seen in the introduction of the contraceptive pill for married women in 1961.[38] The introduction of the pill, meant married women could enjoy sex without the risk of falling pregnant every time. For marriage experts, the satisfaction of both spouses was equally important in the making of a happy marriage. Akhtar and Humphries argue that sexual expectation was high; a marriage without good sex was not a happy marriage.[39] After the Divorce Reform Act of 1969, there was a huge increase in divorces. By 1978 one in three marriages had ended in divorce.[40] The rise in divorces saw the rise of paranoia around the institution of marriage. The 1977 Daily Mail article ‘I Thee Wed… Till My Next Love Do Us Part’ shocks the reader with claims like, ‘Divorces last year rose by more than 6,000 to a total of 126,700.’[41] Strimpel argues that by 1980 there was a rise of single people, which was due to the rise of divorcees.[42] The paranoia over the institution of marriage that resulted saw an increase in advice within the media on how to save a marriage. Amongst marital experts, good sex was the main component in saving marriages from divorce.

ATV Today, ‘Vox Pops on a Happy Marriage’ (ITV, 16/2/1977), MACE

In the ATV Today vox pop on a ‘Happy Marriage’, the theme of good sex is in question after the publication of the book Total Joy.[43] The interviewer asks the people of Birmingham, ‘should wives phone up their husbands and say that they want their bodies?’ Interestingly, the question insinuates that ‘wives’ should take more of a role in maintaining a good sex life for the benefit of their marriage. This sense in inequality in the question is mentioned by two of the women, one saying, ‘Well, it’s okay if they want to, but it would be good if the man did the same as well.’ The last woman asked, mentions that she is about to get divorced, which changes the subject of the question to, ‘do you think if you rang up your husband at work saying that you wanted his body, would have made a difference.’ The inequality of the question is highlighted as the woman responds, ‘No, definitely not. But if he’d done that to me, that might have done.’ This interview reveals that although the question asked exposes the inequalities in marriage, it does reveal that by 1977 many women expected their husbands to take an equal responsibility in maintaining a happy marriage.

ATV Today, ‘Vox Pops on a Happy Marriage’ (ITV, 16/2/1977), MACE

In conclusion, the ideas of marriage began to evolve during the 1960s and 1970s. For many married couples during these decades, marriage was meant to be founded on love. The footage of the ‘Police Wedding’ reveals how love held no bounds.[44] New ideas on marriage made it unavoidable, especially to women, during the 1960s. Women were now promised that they would have equal status to their husbands.[45] Although it can be said that ideas about marriage evolved during these decades, in practice it was still very male dominated. The vox pops and Spare Rib article reveal how the survival of marriage was down to women. The questions asked are always directed at women, meaning many of the respondents in the vox pops are women. By the time of the 1977 vox pop on a ‘Happy Marriage’, it is possible to see the evolution of equality, especially on the subject of sex. Wives now expected their husbands to take on equal responsibility in maintaining a happy marriage.

 

Notes:

[1] Claire Langhamer, The English in Love: The Intimate Story of an Emotional Revolution’ (Oxford, 2013), 1.

[2] Laura King, Family Men Fatherhood and Masculinity in Britain, c. 1914-1960 (Oxford, 2015), 89.

[3] Langhamer, English in Love, 25

[4] King, Family Men, 123.

[5] Helen McCarthy, ‘Women, Marriage and Paid Work in Post-war Britain,’ Women’s History Review, 26:1 (2017), 45-52 (47).

[6] Clive Webb, ‘Special Relationships: Mixed-race Couples in Post-war Britain and the United States,’ Women’s History Review, 26:1 (2017), 110-129 (111).

[7] Margaret Lane, ‘Not the Boss of One Another: A Reinterpretation of Working-Class Marriage in England, 1900 to 1970,’ Cultural & Social History, 11:3 (2014), 441-459, (442).

[8] Langhamer, English in Love, 25.

[9] Webb, ‘Special Relationships,’ 111.

[10] ATV Today, ‘Police Wedding’ (ITV, 9/7/1970), Media Archive for Central England (hereafter MACE), University of Lincoln, http://www.macearchive.org/films/atv-today-09071970-police-wedding.

[11] Webb, ‘Special Relationships,’ 112-114.

[12] ATV Today, ‘Police Wedding’.

[13] Webb, ‘Special Relationships,’ 114.

[14] Claire Langhamer, ‘Love, Selfhood and Authenticity in Post- War Britain,’ Cultural & Social History, 9:2 (2012), 277-297 (278).

[15] Michelene Wandor, ‘Family Everafter,’ Spare Rib, 5 (1972), 10.

[16] Langhamer, English in Love, 91.

[17] Langhamer, English in Love, 4.

[18] Midland Montage, ‘Marriage Minded Maidens’ (ITV, 21/1/1960), MACE, University of Lincoln, http://www.macearchive.org/films/midland-montage-21011960-marriage-minded-maidens.

[19] Langhamer, English in Love, 4.

[20] Langhamer, English in Love, 4.

[21] ATV Today, ‘Vox Pops on a Happy Marriage’ (ITV, 16/2/1977), MACE, University of Lincoln, http://www.macearchive.org/films/atv-today-16021977-vox-pops-happy-marriage.

[22] Dominic Sandbrook, White Heat: A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties (London, 2006), 688.

[23] Lane, ‘Not the Boss of One Another,’ 441.

[24] ATV Today, ‘Marriage Vox Pops’ (ITV, 20/5/1969), MACE, University of Lincoln, https://vimeo.com/139694716 (log-in required).

[25] Wandor, ‘Family Everafter,’ 10.

[26] ATV Today, ‘Marriage Vox Pops’.

[27] McCarthy, ‘Women, Marriage and Paid Work’, 46.

[28] Langhamer, English in Love, 3.

[29] McCarthy, ‘Women, Marriage and Paid Work’, 47.

[30] ATV Today, ‘Police Wedding.’

[31] Antony Smith, ‘Happiness Is a Working Wife,’ Daily Mail, 16 February 1978, 3.

[32] Midland Montage, ‘Marriage Minded Maidens’.

[33] Sandbrook, White Heat, 694

[34] ‘Female Employment Rate (aged 16 to 64, seasonally adjusted)’, Office of National Statistics, https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/timeseries/lf25/lms.

[35] Wandor, ‘Family Everafter,’ 10.

[36] Sandbrook, White Heat, 695; McCarthy, ‘Women, Marriage and Paid Work’.

[37] Callum Brown, ‘Sex, Religion, and the Single Woman c. 1950-75: The Importance of a “Short” Sexual Revolution to the English Religious Crisis of the Sixties,’ Twentieth Century British History, 22:2 (2011), 189-215 (190).

[38] Miriam Akhtar and Steve Humphries, The Fifties and Sixties: A Lifestyle Revolution (London, 2002), 177.

[39] Akhtar and Humphries, Fifties and Sixties, 174, 186.

[40] John Stevenson, ‘I Thee Wed… Till My Next Love Do Us Part,’ Daily Mail, 7 July 1977, 3.

[41] Stevenson, ‘I Thee Wed’, 3.

[42] Zoe Strimpel, ‘Computer Dating in the 1970s: Dateline and the Making of the Modern British Single’, Contemporary British History, 31:3 (2017), 319-342 (323).

[43] ATV Today, ‘Vox Pops on a Happy Marriage.’

[44] Webb, ‘Special Relationships,’111.

[45] McCarthy, ‘Women, Marriage and Paid Work’, 47.

How Were Page 3 Girls Presented in the Media during the 1980s? By Abigail Roberts

The 1960s witnessed significant changes in society and a wealth of ‘permissive’ legislation. However, historians have contested the concept of the ‘permissive society’ to argue that not all of Britain experienced the effects of ‘permissiveness’ at the same time.[1] During the 1960s, the lived experience of the permissive society was limited during to the central hub of permissiveness, London. Other areas of Britain had yet to witness such changes, with the Midlands particularly remaining conservative when it came to attitudes to sex. However, in the 1970s, popular culture and the media across Britain became increasingly sexualised. This essay will analyse ATV and Central TV footage from the Media Archive for Central England (henceforth MACE). It will argue that the media exploited the idea of permissiveness, forging a general attitude that accepted the idea of the ‘Page 3 girl’, promoted by the producers of ATV and Central in the 1980s and how ‘Page 3’ when criticised was defended on the grounds of a ‘permissive society’.

The range of material on topless modelling and Page 3 available in MACE illustrates that such topics must have been popular with ATV and Central producers as well as audiences. The emergence of the Page 3 girl can be placed in the 1960s, as Rebecca Loncraine states that Page 3 had its origins during the 1960s permissive society.[2] The permissive society allowed for the development of female pin-up culture. However, its origins can be examined as part of a long tradition of newspaper pin-up features.[3] Furthermore, Adrian Bingham argues that Page 3 was an evolution from previous practice rather than a ‘revolutionary new development’.[4] This shows how sex throughout the twentieth century had long been a key selling point for newspapers. The 1960s, however, offered a valuable alibi and justification to the editors to defend Page 3 as the period witnessed an apparent ubiquity of toplessness in British culture.[5] Bingham shows how the Sun consistently defended Page 3, with editors arguing that the newspaper was doing no more than responding to the changes in contemporary culture, stating that ‘the Permissive Society is a fact, not an opinion. We have reflected the fact where others have preferred to turn blind eyes’.[6] Loncraine explores how popular newspapers have always included pin-ups, but the Sun exploited the 1960s fashion for public nudity and fused it with an older tradition of popular newspaper female pin-ups, the pictures of ‘pretty girls’ that was pioneered by the Daily Mirror in the 1940s.[7] The Page 3 girl became a regular feature in the Sun from 1970 as its introduction had resulted in an increased circulation. It was heavily publicised in this period, so much so that it became a central part of the paper’s appeal and a ‘defining symbol of British popular journalism’.[8] The breadth of coverage of Page 3 in ATV and Central programming could therefore be seen as an attempt to capitalise on the popularity of sex in the media. Thus, the idea of the ‘permissive’ society was exploited.

Albert ‘Larry’ Lamb, the editor of The Sun who introduced the ‘Page 3 Girl’.

Although ‘provocative’ and ‘suggestive’ stories had been featured in the newspapers since the 1940s, television news reporting tended to avoid ‘sexually explicit’ content and imagery until the 1980s. Jonathan Bignell’s study illustrates that during the 1980s there was an increase in the number of programmes related to sex and sexuality, partly due to the introduction of Channel 4 in 1982.[9] The 1980 Broadcasting Act presented the statutory public service remit which required Channel 4 to be ‘innovative, distinctive, stimulate public debate on contemporary issues, reflect the cultural diversity of the UK, champion alternative points of view and inspire change in people’s lives’.[10] One of the ways Channel 4 did this was by broadcasting increasingly sexual programmes. This commitment to public service and cultural programmes meant that Channel 4 could promote these ‘sexual’ programmes as cultural whilst remaining safely within the realms of ‘respectability’ and ‘acceptability’. Simon Cottle demonstrates that the 1980s was a period that witnessed technological advance, political deregulation and ‘increased competitive and commercial pressures’.[11] Thus, ATV and Central’s preoccupation with Page 3 and topless models seems to be a result of competition with Channel 4. However, the 1981 Broadcasting Bill illustrates the nature of Channel 4 and its relationship with ITV (that operates all regional television), stating that the channels had to ‘maintain a proper balance and wide range in their subject matter’.[12] Furthermore, Cottle explains how ATV and Central incorporated the mission to report major events and happenings in line with generalized news values in the pursuit of ‘respectable news effort’, yet also sought to work with the ‘entertainers’ predisposition for “populist appeal”’.[13] This involved deliberate measures that sought to engage viewers by purposefully ‘fashioning stories in such way as to heighten their human-interest appeal’.[14] Hence, regional programming attempted during the period to appeal directly to the experiences, interests and emotional sentiments of its imagined audience.[15] Moreover, Cottle illustrates that ATV and Central news programmes were to ‘reflect what is happening in the region, likewise, it is dominated by the region’, with the Midlands region being predominantly of a working-class population.[16] Although ATV and Central did not present their programmes on topless modelling as cultural, they did present them as both ‘acceptable’ stories that appealed to the experiences of the audiences, predominantly a working-class audience in the Midlands.

The style in which the subject of topless modelling and Page 3 was broadcast by ATV and Central highlights an openness in presenting sex in the media by sexualising the female body. Many of the news broadcasts in MACE include samples of the Sun’s Page 3 images or interviews with young aspiring models, some of whom are topless. Thus, the model’s sexualised body becomes central to the interviews. Deborah Cameron argues that public debates, whether or not they be on television, about the representation of gender in popular media have tended to focus on images more than words, and especially images of the female body that are presented as a sexual spectacle.[17] The Labour MP for Birmingham Ladywood, Clare Short, drew on the images of Page 3 in a speech she made in the House of Commons in 1986 to state that they ‘portray women as objects of lust to be sniggered over and grabbed at, and do not portray sex as something that is tender and private’.[18] Certainly, Page 3 girls were presented and described in the media as food – ‘luscious Linda Lusardi, ‘dishy Helen Steed’, ‘scrumptious Sandra Jane’, ‘tasty Tracey Elvik’ – thus showing how these women were presented as objects.[19] By broadcasting such images to a wide audience, producers were illustrating their attitudes towards this notion of female toplessness and women as objects of desire. Furthermore, by presenting these images on television, producers were further exploiting the images to present a permissive society, a society which finds these images to a degree as ‘acceptable’. However, it could also be said that by ‘sensationalising’ topless models, producers, especially on Central Weekend, were pushing the topic as a ‘contemporary issue’, playing on the question of what images are private or public. Loncraine demonstrates that Page 3 during this period participated in wider debates about the nature of obscenity, about what was ‘acceptable’ to show in public and in defining what was in fact ‘public’.[20]

Vox pop footage provides us with an insight into the reactions of the general public. This element of gaining public opinion on the streets captured the reactions of both the middle and working classes on the ‘issue’ of Page 3. In a vox pop feature aired on Central Weekend in 1986, there is a lack of a dissenting voice; it is virtually absent. The tone in which this vox pop is presented highlights how Page 3 was viewed as ‘harmless fun’, as playful music is played in the background suggesting that none of the producers took the issue seriously. This is agreed upon when a model suggests that ‘I think you have to look at Page 3 with a sense of humour’.[21] Three working men when asked what they think about Page 3 and whether they found it offensive reply ‘can’t complain about that’ when showed an image of a Page 3 model.[22] It appears that the dissenting voice is pushed aside to some degree. However, some men and women interviews object to Page 3 being in the media, with two men stating, ‘I don’t think it should be in the newspapers’, going as far as to say that ‘I think it trivialises it’.[23] This shows, however, how consideration needs to be taken over how the voices of vox pops are more than likely to have been carefully selected to represent the attitudes of the producers of Central and not the entirety of the Midlands.

The footage from MACE reveals how class played a significant role in shaping attitudes towards pin-ups and Page 3 during the period. Teresa Stratford highlights how ‘class is central to the Page 3 issue’.[24] Furthermore, she states that, during the period,

Middle-class people tend not to read the Sun. Middle-class girls tend not to dream about appearing on Page 3. They have no need; most of them have job prospects which promise more interest, more respect and a long career elsewhere. It is no accident that most Page 3 Girls came from working-class homes.[25]

Notions of class are not, at first, evident in the MACE footage. However, close analysis demonstrates that Stratford’s argument can be applied to the evidence in the archival footage. Jill Neville, a young woman who appears in the Central News item ‘Young Model’, appears to have had a hard time convincing her parents that her job was ‘acceptable’.[26] Many found topless modelling ‘acceptable’ if it was presented in a certain way in the media. Neville’s father was accepting of Jill’s choice of career, ‘providing it’s done in good taste’.[27] Another Central Weekend debate in 1986 that discussed the issue of pornography sees another gentleman state, ‘I don’t see anything wrong with girls posing in Page 3. In the Sun that is done tastefully.’[28] This demonstrates editor Larry Lamb’s aim to display sex in the newspapers not in the form of pornography, but in the form of ‘tastefully posed’, ‘ordinary women’.[29] Certainly, sex could be displayed in the period. However, it had to be presented under the disguise of ‘good taste’ and as presenting the experiences of ‘ordinary women’. In the Sun and the ATV and Central footage, the majority of topless models are presented as aspirational working-class figures: attractive women who had been ‘liberated’ by glorying in their sensuality.[30] This is agreed upon by Bingham and Conboy, who state that these models were ‘aspirational figures’, and that the media exploited this image to emphasise how many young women sought to be topless models.[31]

Samantha Fox begins her career as a Page 3 model (image from the Huffington Post)

A Central News East report demonstrates how young models wanted to follow in the footsteps of one of the biggest Page 3 models, Samantha Fox, stating that ‘thousands’ wanted to be a topless model.[32] This illustrates how the younger generation of women were ‘not ashamed to bear all’, highlighting how permissiveness had altered the younger generation.[33] If there was a dissenting voice, then it often came from the older generation, who had more conservative values. Parents and families of models, however, were accepting of the choice of career, as it was a career for working-class women. In an interview, Samantha Fox stated that ‘all of my family is proud of me, we all came from a working-class family, so for one of us to do well has really brightened up the family’.[34] This suggests that there was a lack of opportunities for young women during the period. One model stated that ‘it’s nice to be noticed’, suggesting society’s disregard for working-class women during the period.[35]

The reaction to Page 3 in the 1980s reveals dissent in how women were presented in the media. Bingham demonstrates that Page 3 girls and the debates surrounding them reveal much about the contemporary attitudes to women and to public sexual display.[36] Interestingly, Loncraine highlights how the Sun’s mascot of Page 3 was designed to provoke a response from various groups outside its target readership of the working class. Editors of the Sun clearly wanted a reaction from the middle-class members of society, and they got one.[37] Criticism from establishment figures on moral grounds was welcomed by editors, as it validated the Sun’s aim of being a ‘permissive’ newspaper.[38] However, what was not accepted was feminist criticism, as MP Clare Short found out in the 1986 when she took a bill to Parliament that would ban Page 3 girls from newspapers. Feminists such as Short felt that Page 3 was pornography, emphasising how it ‘institutionalises the sexual subordination of women to a mass market, cheaply and on a daily basis, and should therefore be relegated to pornographic magazines’.[39] The criticisms during the period were not grounded in ‘morality’, but in feminist arguments about women being ‘demeaned’ and ‘stereotyped’.[40] A Central Weekend debate taking place shortly after Clare Short addressed the Commons with her bill reveals how Midlands television wanted to present the attitudes of ‘ordinary’ people, Page 3 models and Clare Short towards the bill the topic of Page 3 in general. The debate draws on how women as Page 3 models were stereotyped as ‘dumb’, ‘topless’ and ‘brainless’.[41]

A protestor objecting to The Sun‘s representation of women.

As a result of these criticisms, the popular press was forced to develop a new language to defend their pin-ups.[42] Stratford shows that the women who criticised the papers for featuring Page 3 girls in contrast were called ‘boring’, ‘dowdy prudes’ and were secretly jealous that they did not possess the girls’ ‘wonderful figures’.[43] Clare Short was the main target of this abuse and was subjected to repeated insults by the tabloid press. Stratford has shown that Short’s objections to Page 3 were described as an ‘overreaction’, and that Short’s bill and the support for the bill by other feminists was treated as a ‘sign of panic’.[44] The tabloid press made many references to Short’s physical appearance, naming her ‘the buxom Ms Short’.[45] The popular press, particularly the Sun went as far as to suggest that she was not quite sane, with its ‘Crazy Clare’ campaign.

The Sun’s campaign suggests how the popular press and Midlands television portrayed the Page 3 girl as part of the ‘fabric of British culture’.[46] Stratford draws on this to illustrate that Page 3 by the 1980s appeared to be firmly entrenched in popular culture, going as far as to state that ‘it seemed an institution’.[47] This can be seen in the footage of Central Weekend, as Page 3 model Lindy states of the bill, ‘I would have thought that it’s a total waste of time. Page 3 has been running very successfully for so many years now.’[48] Moreover, other Midlands television footage demonstrates how Page 3 and topless models were viewed as an institution and a part of Britain’s permissive culture. An ATV Today report from 1976 reveals that pub stripper shows had already ‘been going on for a long time’ in the Midlands, with a father of a topless model interviewed on Central News East suggesting that topless women were the norm by stating ‘that’s life 1986, 1987, in’t it?’.[49] This illustrates how Page 3 during the 1980s was able to withstand the resurgence of the feminist movement, as the female pin-up tradition was firmly entrenched within society and the male-dominated Fleet Street, and their newspapers had enough ‘cultural power’ to deflect the criticisms of Short.[50]

To conclude, the majority of the public accepted Page 3, highlighting that to some degree society had become ‘permissive’ by the 1980s. The Central TV and ATV footage illustrates that there was some level of freedom to display sexualised images on television, suggesting that society had progressed from its conservative views and values during the 1950s and 1960s. This was in part due to the increase of sexualised imagery presented in the media. As a result, the British public became exposed to sex in their everyday lives, whether it was through newspapers or television. Yet, permissiveness did not reach the whole of society and there were still those who objected to Page 3, sexual imagery, and how women were represented in the media. The coverage of Page 3 by ATV and Central by itself cannot suggest a complete timeline of permissiveness. It does, however, demonstrate how the Midlands, particularly working-class people, perceived Page 3. Furthermore, it shows the development of the permissive society by the 1980s. Even though Page 3 faced dissenting voices from both the members of public and feminists such as Clare Short, the institution was able to withstand the backlash. This shows that by the 1980s Page 3 had become so firmly entrenched within society, it had become part of the ‘British way of life’.

 

Notes:

[1] See Dominic Sandbrook, White Heat: A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties (London, 2006) and Arthur Marwick, The Sixties: Cultural Revolution in Britain, France, Italy and the United States, c. 1959-1974 (Oxford, 1999).

[2] Rebecca Loncraine, ‘Bosom of the Nation: Page Three in the 1970s and 1980s’, in Mina Gorji (ed.), Rude Britannia (London, 2007), 96-111 (96).

[3] Adrian Bingham, ‘Pin-Up Culture and Page 3 in the Popular Press’, in Maggie Andrews and Sallie McNamara (eds.), Women and the Media: Feminism and Femininity in Britain, 1900 to the Present (New York, 2014), 184-198 (185).

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Adrian Bingham, Family Newspapers? Sex, Private Life and the British Popular Press 1918-1978 (Oxford, 2009), 222.

[7] Loncraine, ‘Bosom of the Nation’, 97.

[8] Bingham, Family Newspapers, 202.

[9] Jonathan Bignell, An Introduction to Television Studies (London, 2004), 239.

[10] ‘What is Channel 4?’ [online source] https://www.channel4.com/corporate/about-4/who-we-are/what-is-channel-4 accessed on 3 May 2018.

[11] Simon Cottle, TV News, Urban Conflict and the Inner City (London, 1993), 38.

[12] ‘Broadcasting Act 1981’, 1981 [online source] http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1981/68/pdfs/ukpga_19810068_en.pdf, accessed on 3 May 2018.

[13] Cottle, TV News, 64.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Ibid., 65.

[16] Ibid., 67.

[17] Deborah Cameron, On Language and Sexual Politics (London, 2006), 29.

[18] Clare Short, Commons Sitting, 12 March 1986, Parliamentary Debates, Commons, Vol. 93 (1986), c. 937-940.

[19] Teresa Stratford, ‘Page 3- Dream or Nightmare?’, in Kath Davies, Julienne Dickey and Teresa Stratford (eds.), Out of Focus: Writings on Women and the Media (London, 1987), 57-62 (60).

[20] Loncraine, ‘Bosom of the Nation’, 96.

[21] Central Weekend [Programme 11], ‘Page 3 Debate’ (ITV, 18/4/1986), Media Archive for Central England (hereafter MACE), University of Lincoln, https://vimeo.com/240812056 (log-in required).

[22] Central Weekend, ‘Page 3 Debate’.

[23] Central Weekend, ‘Page 3 Debate’.

[24] Teresa Stratford, ‘Women and the Press’, in Andrew Belsey and Ruth Chadwick (eds.), Ethical Issues in Journalism and the Media (London, 1992), 130-136 (131).

[25] Ibid., 131.

[26] Central News East, ‘Young Model’ (ITV, 17/11/1986), MACE, University of Lincoln, https://vimeo.com/152979170 (log-in required).

[27] Ibid.

[28] Central Weekend [Programme 18], ‘Pornography Industry Debate’ (ITV, 20/6/1986), MACE, University of Lincoln, https://vimeo.com/236076287 (log-in required).

[29] Patricia Holland, ‘The Politics of the Smile: “Soft News” and the Sexualisation of the Popular Press’, in Cynthia Carter, Gill Branston and Stuart Allan (eds.), News, Gender and Power (London, 1998), 17-33 (23).

[30] Bingham, ‘Pin Up Culture’, 193.

[31] Adrian Bingham and Martin Conboy, Tabloid Century: The Popular Press in Britain, 1896 to the present (Oxford, 2015), 158.

[32] Central News East, ‘Penthouse Roadshow’ (ITV, 9/5/1986), MACE, University of Lincoln, https://vimeo.com/153085506 (log-in required).

[33] Central News East, ‘Penthouse Roadshow’.

[34] ‘The Story of Page 3 Girls’ (1985), YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aT5HUzz06k.

[35] Central News East, ‘Penthouse Roadshow’.

[36] Bingham, Family Newspapers, 203.

[37] Loncraine, ‘Bosom of the Nation’, 104.

[38] Bingham, ‘Pin-Up Culture’, 194.

[39] Clare Short, Dear Clare… This Is What Women Feel about Page 3 (London, 1991), 43.

[40] Bingham, ‘Pin-Up Culture’, 186.

[41] Central Weekend, ‘Page 3 Debate’.

[42] Bingham, ‘Pin-Up Culture’, 186.

[43] Stratford, ‘Women and the Press’, 131.

[44] Ibid, 132.

[45] Ibid.

[46] Bingham, ‘Pin-Up Culture’, 184.

[47] Ibid.

[48] Central Weekend, ‘Page 3 Debate’, https://vimeo.com/240812056 (log-in required).

[49] ATV Today, ‘Lunchtime Strippers’ (ITV, 11/2/1976), MACE, University of Lincoln, https://vimeo.com/153086574 (log-in required); Central News East, ‘Young Model’.

[50] Bingham, ‘Pin-Up Culture’, 195.

An Analysis of Fatherhood in Mid-Twentieth Century Britain. By Jake Acton

Coles 1941 Compilation. Home movie, Media Archive for Central England, University of Lincoln. http://www.macearchive.org/films/coles-1941-compilation

Through in-depth analysis of how the nature of fatherhood and the role of the male within the family visibly changes across three films from the Media Archive for Central England (MACE), and placing these films into a historical context, this essay will explore how fatherhood and masculinity evolved in mid-twentieth century Britain.

The first film is titled ‘Coles: 1941 Compilation’. The film follows the Coles family during trips to two farms in 1941. The father is almost entirely absent in this film, and it is notable as an example of 1941 fatherhood for this very reason. For the majority of the film the young children of the Coles family are shown being carefully guided around and protected by a group of women. The father has one notable moment within the film. Following a title card that reads ‘John wants to be like Daddy’, young John is shown parading in what appear to be his father’s work clothes, and stumbling towards his father who is presumably operating the camera.[1]

Coles: 1941 Compilation. Home movie, Media Archive for Central England (MACE), University of Lincoln. http://www.macearchive.org/films/coles-1941-compilation

This demonstrates there is a clear separation between motherhood, in which the women in the family carefully tend to the young children and are active and hands-on presences, and fatherhood, in which the male’s involvement is as a breadwinner and a provider, as shown by his most significant presence in the film being reduced down to his work clothes. Martin Francis notes that during the early twentieth century ‘[w]hile it was acceptable for fathers to take time to play with older children […] men took little interest in the rearing of infants.’[2] Laura King supports this statement, asserting that whilst ‘Fatherhood was a crucial aspect of adult masculinity in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries […] [e]conomic provision for dependants formed the central core of fatherhood throughout the second half of the nineteenth century and beyond’.[3] This suggests, as does the film itself, that there were distinct gendered spheres of influence within the 1941 family, with the mother as parent and the father as provider.

There is a notable male presence in the film that requires exploration. About halfway through the film, an elderly man is shown playing with Brenda and John whilst they are ‘bathing and paddling in the pools at Monsal Dale’.[4] However, it is unlikely to be the children’s father for one key reason, and that is his advanced age, making him much more likely to be a grandfather or other relation. Whilst King discusses the limitations within fatherhood during the period this film was produced, there is a large historiography that acknowledges the factors that permitted transgressions of these limitations, one of them being age. King herself notes that whilst men across all social classes were reluctant to be seen pushing a pram or otherwise being visibly involved in the traditionally feminine sphere of domesticity that is child rearing, to do so was ‘permissible for grandfathers, hinting at the differing masculinities understood to be appropriate for different age groups’.[5] Joanna Bourke similarly notes that ‘[p]ushing a pram was often cited as the most humiliating of tasks, although a grandfather could do it’.[6] King posits that this disparity in appropriate masculinity when it comes to fathers and grandfathers could be due to ‘“softening” of masculinity as men got older, perhaps due to a waning desire to assert their manliness, or alternatively because of a security in a masculinity already achieved’.[7] In this context it seems more likely that the man playing with the children is a grandfather, and the father remains at a respectable distance for fear of ridicule and attacks upon his masculinity, and to preserve his role as master and provider.

Coles: 1941 Compilation. Home movie, Media Archive for Central England (MACE), University of Lincoln. http://www.macearchive.org/films/coles-1941-compilation

Finally, the father’s absence is interesting for the time period in that he is likely operating the camera. In the film, when John is wearing his father’s clothing, at several points he is drawn towards the camera and whoever is operating it, demonstrating the authority that the operator has over John.[8] Roger Odin states that, within the family hierarchy inherent in home movies, ‘the father has a particular position; it is he who directs the formation of familial memory […], who takes the photographs; and, obviously, it is he who shoots the films.’[9] By operating the camera, the father of the Coles family is taking control of how the family views itself, as well as the outward image of the family, and is enforcing a certain family hierarchy. The father of the Coles family staged John’s wearing of his clothes, and would no doubt have been the one to include the title card stating how much John wanted to be like his father. The father wanted to distance himself from the more traditionally domestic spheres of child rearing and motherhood, yet also present himself as valuable, expressing his value through his work clothes as symbols of his role as provider. This brand of fatherhood, so dominant from the late Victorian period and through the interwar years in Britain, would be replaced across a period of drastic change in the mid-twentieth century, resulting in something resembling modern fatherhood, more active and with less strict gendered spheres of control and influence.

The second film is titled ‘All in a Day’ and documents a day in the life of the Whitcombe family in Lincolnshire in 1952. Only eleven years separate this film from the film of the Coles family, yet the difference in the visible displays of fatherhood and masculinity are remarkable, though there are also similarities that remain. One key difference is the massively increased presence of the father within the film. The father in this film is shown actually physically interacting and playing with his child, making her dance, carrying her, and helping her to interact with the family dog.[10]

All in a Day (1952). Home movie, Media Archive for Central England, University of Lincoln. http://www.macearchive.org/films/all-day

This more involved fatherhood, as evidenced within the film, was caused by a number of factors. One important factor was the increasing attraction of home life in the post-war period due to improved quality of housing and the surge of household appliances designed to make home-making and maintenance easier and more enjoyable. Evidence of this can be seen in the film as the mother uses a vacuum cleaner.[11] In an article written in the 1950s concerning the popularity of domestic life, British social scientist Mark Abrams stated that ‘the working-class home, as well as the middle-class home, has become a place that is […] in fact, pleasant to live in. The outcome is a working-class way of life which is decreasingly concerned with… values wider than those of the family.’[12] The fatherhood and masculinity displayed by the father from the first film had its source in environments outside of the family such as in the workplace. However, by the 1950s, fatherhood and masculinity were more able to be based on roles within the family, as men were able at times to swap traditional homosocial environments for the now more attractive environment of the family home. Francis notes that the validation from traditionally masculinity began to take place largely in the male imagination, as men could be ‘attracted to the responsibilities (and pleasures) of marriage and fatherhood, but also equally enchanted by fantasies of the energetic life and homosocial camaraderie of the adventure hero.’[13] Thus men felt more able to be active participants within the household and the family.

Another cause of this change in fatherhood that is evident in this film is the effects of World War II. 5,896,000 men served in the Armed Forces of the United Kingdom during World War II, which constituted 7 out of every 10 men born in Britain between 1915 and 1927.[14] By the end of the war 264,443 had been killed, 41,327 were missing, 277,077 were injured, and 172,592 were prisoners of war, amounting to a total 755,439 casualties.[15] The impact this had on men and masculinity in Britain was understandably massive. Having experienced the hardships and ‘adventure’ of war on a first-hand basis and in an environment entirely devoid of femininity, upon their return many men were more willing to be more active within the traditionally feminine environment of the home, and were less likely to shirk these responsibilities in favour of the homosocial environments from which masculinity had traditionally been derived. When Mass Observation asked the public in 1943 what home meant to them, one soldier on leave stated that ‘I never appreciated home before the war so much as I do now.’[16] Clare Langhamer argues that World War II had a significant effect on both male and female attitudes towards the home and family in this way, as its ‘protracted nature’ and ‘the social dislocation effected by large-scale evacuation schemes and the geographical mobility of civilian war-workers, as well as servicemen and women, fostered […] an intensified romance with home life’.[17] King and Angela Davis echo this sentiment, stating that, for men returning from the front, ‘[f]atherhood was a convenient way to help [them] position themselves and be positioned socially within “normal”, peacetime, family life, and away from soldierhood and war’, which gave rise to ‘increasing involvement of men in family life’.[18] This change in perspective after the war could help to explain the differences in the visible displays of fatherhood and masculinity displayed between the two films thus far discussed, as one takes place in the very early stages of the war, whilst the other takes place some years after as the changes alluded to by the Mass Observation respondent and the historiography were taking place.

Whilst there are clear changes in fatherhood apparent between the two films, it is also important to note that these changes were not universal or absolute, and this is evident with the film of the Whitcombe family. Much of daily life for the Whitcombes appears to involve the mother doing all of the housework. She vacuums, she bathes and dresses the baby, she brings her husband drinks and his meals, she takes the dog for walks (along with the child, notably being the one to push the rather expensive-looking pram), bathes the dog, and goes out to buy food and groceries. The only times the father is seen is when he is receiving food or beverages from his wife, is at play with the child and dog, and one instance of housework when he takes a scythe to some overgrown bushes in the garden.[19]

All in a Day (1952). Home movie, Media Archive for Central England, University of Lincoln. http://www.macearchive.org/films/all-day

This demonstrates that there was still clear gendered distinction within marriage and parenthood, between what fell into the male sphere and the feminine sphere of responsibility. Davis and King note that even by this period in 1952 ‘women’s role still remained primarily in the home, and this reinforced the distinction of men’s involvement as “help”’.[20] Langhamer also takes this view of men as playing a subordinate role to mothers in the home, stating that men were limited to more masculine jobs such as yard work (as seen in this film) and mending, as they were ‘time-limited jobs rather than more expansive responsibilities’.[21] This attitude can be seen in Mass Observation responses in 1948 to the question of whether men should help around the house. One male respondent states firmly that ‘I consider all domestic work as secondary to other kinds of work […]. I would postpone [domestic work] should other work appear as more urgent.’[22] This supports Davis and King’s opinion that women were still primary actors within the home and the family whilst men were secondary. Whilst men were willing to be more involved within the home and family than they had been a decade previously, there was still a lingering focus and prioritisation of work outside the home, preserving the image of the father as the provider that was present in the first film, which leads them to become more ‘helpers’ than fully involved modern fathers as might be recognisable today.

The final film is titled ‘Caravan and Boating Holiday, Devon’ (1957) and follows a family caravan holiday to Dartmouth in 1957, thus taking place sixteen years after the first film discussed and five years after the second. This film distinguishes itself from the others in the willingness of the father to more obviously transgress traditional gender boundaries. Whilst in the second film the father was clearly more involved and more present than in the first, his presence was still ultimately rooted in gender specific areas such as the workplace, some appropriate domestic chores, and in play. In this film, however, the father appears less concerned about maintaining a strict traditional masculinity. In the film the father appears at one point to cross-dress, stuffing his top to imitate a woman’s body whilst another woman laughs, and also allows either the women or the children to braid his hair in a feminine fashion that is clearly met with some amusement by those involved.[23] This demonstrates a comfortability and an acceptance of femininity that is not present in the earlier films. This difference could potentially be explained by the differing economic and social circumstances surrounding each home movie. Francis states that, during the depression and the hard years of the inter-war period, ‘unemployment struck at the very heart of the self-respect and independence which had remained so important in the fashioning of working-class masculinities since the nineteenth century.’[24] Even in the years immediately post-war, during a period of full employment, one engineer’s wife remarked to Mass Observation that, regarding the promise of improved housing and household goods and appliances, ‘[i]t’s one thing knowing that “Britain Can Make it” but what I want to know is when Britain can get it.’[25] In comparison, by the late 1950s, Britain was enjoying greater prosperity than ever. It is possible that this rising affluence allowed for a more stable masculinity that was less afraid of appearing feminine or engaging with femininity. Nicky Hart notes that during the 1950s ‘one concomitant of the dimunition [sic] of class consciousness which accompanied the growing affluence of manual workers was a decline in gender inequality’.[26] The masculinity being expressed in this film was a more secure and comfortable one than that in the previous two films.

However, it is also important to note, and it is especially apparent in this film, that class played an important role in how people and families experienced parenthood and fatherhood. In this film the possessions on display suggest the wealth of a middle-class family. The camera lingers over camping equipment, caravans, boats, clothes, cars and other expensive items. The very fact that the family is on a seaside holiday at all suggests a certain degree of wealth. On the effects of class on fatherhood King states that, ‘[w]hilst working-class fathers might be required to take baby out in a pram to allow female family members to undertake other housework, for upper-class fathers such an activity would be optional, as a nurse or nanny would usually care for children.’[27] The experience of a middle- or upper-class family such as this one could also not be used to explore working-class gender identities and role during this period. Langhamer states that the working classes, especially those ‘rooted in areas of heavy industry, identified the maintenance of more rigid gender roles.’[28] However, Langhamer also notes that in general ‘it seems accurate to conclude that there was an increasingly active masculine role within postwar domesticity, albeit within a wider framework of continuity in female responsibility for actually running the home.’[29] So, whilst it is important to note that these films do not exist in individual vacuums, and are each subject to different influences based on locality, social class, age, and numerous others, they do ultimately represent a general movement in fatherhood and masculinity in the mid-twentieth century, a movement away from traditional strict gendered roles of father and mother to create more active and involved fathers.

In conclusion, the films demonstrate a clear progression in the nature of fatherhood in the mid-twentieth century. In the first film, the father is largely absent, and his presence is only felt through his workplace-based masculinity that can be seen in the behaviour of his son. There is clearly a strict separation between a mother as an involved parent and a father as a provider. In the second film, these boundaries are less rigid, and a more involved and present fatherhood is evident. The father plays with his children, and engages in some household chores. However these boundaries are not entirely destroyed, as the father still prioritises work other than household work and garners some masculinity from the workplace, and the extent of his involvement is limited both by limitations to his time and limitations to the number of gender appropriate household chores like yard work. This is representative of changes in Britain due to a shift towards prioritisation of the home and the family, as well as the after effects of World War II and its effects on masculinity. The third film demonstrates the most stable version of fatherhood and masculinity of the three. The line between feminine and masculine is even more blurred, as the father is comfortable not only interacting with his children but in practicing other traditionally feminine behaviours through cross-dressing. Whilst these changes represent a general movement in fatherhood in Britain, it is also important to note that individual cases can be influenced by class, amongst other things, and these films, by virtue of being home movies filmed on family cameras, portray a middle-class fatherhood that may not be representative of other experiences. However the historiography and primary sources would still support the idea of a general changing and loosening of gendered boundaries surrounding fatherhood and masculinity in mid-twentieth century Britain. This is an interesting area of study as the distance in fatherhood explored in this essay inevitably often leads to mothers being the central area of investigation when it comes to the family and child-rearing. It would be interesting to take a look at more modern sources, such as Homer from The Simpsons, and explore whether these modern representations of fatherhood are accurate and what influences they have had on fatherhood in Britain.

All in a Day (1952). Home movie, Media Archive for Central England, University of Lincoln. http://www.macearchive.org/films/all-day

 

Notes

[1] ‘Coles: 1941 Compilation’, Media Archive for Central England (MACE), University of Lincoln, http://www.macearchive.org/films/coles-1941-compilation.

[2] Martin Francis, ‘The Domestication of the Male? Recent Research on Nineteenth and Twentieth-Century British Masculinity’, Historical Journal 45:3 (2002), 637-652 (639)

[3] Laura King, ‘Hidden Fathers? The Significance of Fatherhood in Mid-Twentieth-Century Britain’, Contemporary British History 26:1 (2012), 25-46 (26).

[4] ‘Coles: 1941 Compilation’, MACE, http://www.macearchive.org/films/coles-1941-compilation.

[5] Laura King, ‘Now You See a Great Many Men Pushing Their Pram Proudly’, Cultural and Social History 10:4 (2013), 599-617 (601).

[6] Joanna Burke, Working Class Cultures in Britain, 1890-1960: Gender, Class, and Ethnicity (London, 1994), p. 77.

[7] King, ‘Now You See a Great Many Men’, 608.

[8] ‘Coles: 1941 Compilation’, MACE, http://www.macearchive.org/films/coles-1941-compilation.

[9] Roger Odin, ‘The Home Move and Space of Communication’, in Laura Rascaroli, Gwenda Young and Barry Monahan (eds.), Amateur Filmmaking: The Home Movie, The Archive, The Web (New York, 2014), pp. 15-26 (p. 16).

[10] ‘All in a Day’, MACE, http://www.macearchive.org/films/all-day.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Mark Abrams, ‘The Home-Centred Society’, The Listener (1959), pp. 914–915.

[13] Martin Francis, ‘A Flight from Commitment? Domesticity, Adventure and the Masculine Imaginary in Britain after the Second World War’, Gender & History 19:1 (2007), 163-185 (181).

[14] British Government, Strength and Casualties of the Armed Forces and Auxiliary Services of the United Kingdom 1939 to 1945 (Cambridge, 1946), p.2. UK Parliamentary Papers, Command Papers CMD-6832.

[15] Ibid., p. 7.

[16] Mass-Observation Archive (M-OA), File Report 1616, March 1943, p. 2.

[17] Claire Langhamer, ‘The Meanings of Home in Postwar Britain’, Journal of Contemporary History 40:2 (2005), 341-362 (348).

[18] Angela Davis and Laura King, ‘Gendered Perspectives on Men’s Changing Familial Roles in Postwar England, c.1950–1990’, Gender & History 30:1 (2018), 70-92 (71).

[19] ‘All in a Day’, MACE, http://www.macearchive.org/films/all-day.

[20] Davis and King, ‘Gendered Perspectives’, 83; Angela Davis, Modern Motherhood: Women and Family in England c.1945–2000 (Manchester, 2012) pp. 198-199.

[21] Langhamer, ‘The Meanings of Home’, 356.

[22] M-OA, Directive Respondent (DR) 4815, March 1948.

[23] ‘Caravan and Boating Holiday, Devon’ (1957), MACE, https://vimeo.com/251631665 (log-in required).

[24] Francis, ‘The Domestication of the Male?’, 650.

[25] M-OA, FR 2441, December 1946, p. 15.

[26] Nicky Hart, ‘Gender and the Rise and Fall of Class Politics’, New Left Review 175 (1989), 24.

[27] King, ‘Now You See a Great Many Men’, 603-604.

[28] Langhamer, ‘The Meanings of Home’, 357.

[29] Ibid.

Vox Pop Interviews Concerning Enoch Powell in the 1960s and 1970s. By Willem Lewis-Henderson

Controversial Speech by Enoch Powell, Midlands News (ATV, 27/8/1968), MACE, University of Lincoln. http://www.macearchive.org/films/midlands-news-27081969-controversial-speech-enoch-powell

During the twentieth century, Britain experienced the arrival of thousands of peoples moving into the country from around the world. Most of these people were from the British Commonwealth and a large amount of these people were non-white immigrants after the 1948 British Nationality Act gave commonwealth the right to settle in the country. The West Midlands, in particular, received the greatest number of non-white immigrants from the West Indies.[1] The area was already facing crises in housing and job shortages, but the arrival of a large amount of people into the area caused tensions in local communities. From these tensions, political figures rose to prominence, such as Enoch Powell, who used and sometimes stoked these tensions for political advantage by speaking what others ‘don’t have the nerve to say’, according to some local people.[2] The Media Archive for Central England (MACE) holds a great deal of material related to Powell from vox pop interviews to recordings of his speeches, for which he is best known. This essay will use a selection of clips, including some short interviews, to analyse how Powell and his views on non-white immigration were presented on Midlands television. Alongside this, it will argue how this form of primary source material is both interesting and important for studies of this kind because it provides a unique window onto the views of everyday people. Also, studies of Powell and immigration in this period are of particular relevance today because of the recent Windrush scandal, as well as some people, such as Tomlinson, arguing that the current political climate resembles that of Powell’s day, with parties like UKIP who see ‘themselves to be the victims of a globalisation that has outsourced jobs outside the country and to immigrants inside’.[3] Additionally, with help from scholarship, this essay will contextualise the archive material used. The clips analysed range from 1968 to 1974, which are the years in which Powell was most outspoken in his views on the large amount of immigration facing Britain.

Enoch Powell is an important figure for exploring the effects of non-white immigration into the Midlands and Britain as a whole. He is representative of many of the tensions which emerged in the region, particularly the West Midlands in the Birmingham and Wolverhampton areas where Powell represented in parliament as MP for Wolverhampton.[4] He is most well known for his 1968 speech known as the ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech. Powell argued that further integration of non-white immigrants into Britain would cause violence. Thus, he argued that stricter immigration laws should be introduced and that immigration should actually be reversed to some extent. Although the speech was considered controversial at the time by many, Powell was supported by many people in his local area, as will be seen in interview clips analysed.[5] Joe Street believes Powell was able to ‘tap into the latent fears of dark strangers’ in the West Midlands.[6] As well as this, he was able to build on the views which developed from the MP for Smethwick (near Birmingham), Peter Griffiths, whose campaign during the 1964 general election criticised non-white immigration to gain his seat in Parliament. The criticisms of immigration into the West Midlands targeted issues such as shortages in housing, employment and schools, even though, as Lindsey points out, the region was already facing these shortages before the large amount of immigration and thus the area follows the trend of blame being placed onto non-white minorities.[7] It is interesting to see how these views are expressed by members of the public in some of the clips analysed. Focusing the research on Enoch Powell allows an insightful look into how racial tensions manifested in the West Midlands during the twentieth century. It is clear that Powell was a very recognised person in the area because there is a lot of material in the archive concerning him. Furthermore, there are numerous vox pop interviews on the subject of Powell and none of the interviewees do not know who he is.

The clips used in this essay are mostly vox pop interviews. ATV News, from which the clips are taken, began using vox pops in 1956 and used them very frequently throughout the twentieth century. Kathleen Beckers, Stefaan Walgrave and Hilde Van den Bulck have described a vox pops as ‘an apparently randomly chosen, ordinary individual with no affiliation, expert knowledge or exclusive information, who is interviewed by journalists and gives a personal statement in a news item’.[8] They are simple, quick and easy ways for television journalists to engage with public opinion on news stories and topics. They are somewhat symbolic of ATV’s style of gathering news stories at the time, as they had a limited budget and had to gather local stories for broadcast quickly. The vox pop also allowed journalists to record and present the views of more ordinary people rather than the more elite sources which had been used traditionally. Vox pop interviewees can be replaced by any other member of the public.[9] This makes the interviews useful for historians because the views of ordinary peoples are particularly targeted whereas in many sources that view is left out. Additionally, the television journalist and broadcaster has full control over the balance of the views presented in news clips containing vox pops. This is useful because we can see if the reporter has attempted to make reports balanced or not. This could be through having a balanced number of ‘for or against’ interviewees, or by having a range of different types of people interviewed. This is important for this era of television broadcasting because BBC and ITV were attempting to keep news broadcasting balanced and not present any one point of view too strongly. Therefore, vox pop interviews are useful for presenting the views of ordinary people while also showing us how balanced or unbalanced certain topics were reported on.

Enoch Powell Vox Pops, ATV Today (ATV, 26/7/1965), MACE, University of Lincoln. http://www.macearchive.org/films/atv-today-26071965-enoch-powell-vox-pops

The first of the clips analysed has simply been labelled ‘Enoch Powell Vox Pops’ by the archive. Like many of the clips found in MACE it is not a complete news report. However, the questions and answers from interviewees are as they would have appeared in the broadcast. The questions in this clip are focused on asking residents of Wolverhampton whether or not they think Enoch Powell would make a good leader of the Conservative Party. This video is from 1965 which is three years before Powell’s controversial speech which made him well known, nevertheless it is clear from the clip that Powell is familiar in the area. Of all the eleven people interviewed on the street, only one is not in favour of Powell becoming the party leader. The majority believe him to be ‘strong’, ‘dynamic’ and would be able to show the rest of the Commonwealth that ‘England is wonderful’ if he was to become the leader of the party in 1965.[10] It is interesting to see that Powell was already an established name in the area before his ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech made him well known across the country. It is unclear from this clip if the interviewees were in favour of Powell due to his views on immigration because they only go as far as to mention his characteristics and not his political views. This shows that Powell may have been widely respected by people in the West Midlands before he made his views on immigration explicit in 1968. It is clear from these, however, that the interviewer was not wholly attempting to supply a balanced report with these vox pops. It could be that the reporter was unable to find many people who were against Powell becoming Conservative Party leader, but the overwhelming opinion presented in this clip is supporting Powell, which does not present a balanced account of views. Alongside this, in response to his own question being directed back at him, the reported says that he also has ‘hope’ that Powell will be successful. This without doubt shows an unbalanced report and furthermore implies that Midlands television represented Powell in a positive way, in this occasion supporting him possibly becoming Conservative Party leader. Powell was unsuccessful in his bid for party leadership and Edward Heath became the Conservative leader in 1965.[11]

Vox Pops on Latest Enoch Powell Speech, Midlands News (ATV, 10/6/1969), MACE, University of Lincoln. http://www.macearchive.org/films/midlands-news-10061969-vox-pops-latest-enoch-powell-speech

Powell made many speeches against immigration during the 1960s and 1970s after the ‘Rivers of Blood’. Many were considered just as controversial and were reported upon in Midlands News. The second clip takes place in 1969 in response to suggestions that the government could pay for non-white immigrants to travel back to the countries from which they migrated.[12] Again, this clip is comprised of vox pop interviews, but this time the interviewer has seemingly targeted non-white immigrants to represent their view on the idea. This in some way goes against the idea that a vox pop interviewee can be replaced by any member of the public, however the interviewees are not prepared for the interviews therefore it can still be considered vox pop interviews.[13] There are mixed reactions: some say they will go if they are paid to leave and all of their property is paid for. Others say they would not go home even if the government paid the full amount. They say that there is nothing for them ‘back home’ and some say that they enjoy living in England and so would not leave. A student says he will probably return home after his studies. One woman says that if she wants to go back she will pay her own way so it would be her own choice. This clip is interesting because it shows a great range of different peoples from a shopkeeper to a student. This implies that to some extent the views of non-white immigrants are represented well by ATV in this instance. This could be important for studying racial tensions caused by immigration in the Midlands during the 1960s and 1970s because it shows how not everyone was supportive of Powell’s views. Powell was not supported on the whole nationally either, as newspapers from the time show how even his own political party saw him as tending to ‘stir up’ racial tensions.[14] The Daily Express reported that members of the same Shadow Cabinet Powell was a part of ‘did not agree’ with the way Powell made his arguments.[15] Although not shown in this clip, many people in the Midlands did support Powell. Therefore, it can be said that the Midlands is important for looking at racial tensions in the period because views similar to Powell’s were not reciprocated by politicians from other areas of Britain and thus evidence of particular racial tensions could be missed without the Midlands. The clips analysed, however, do not make reference to how Powell was not supported by his party in regards to his controversial views on immigration. The second clip shows how Midlands television was attempting to represent the views of non-white immigrants during the period. Although, again it can be argued that the clip was not balanced as it only shows the perspective of immigrants.

Resignation of Enoch Powell, ATV Today (ATV, 8/2/1974). MACE, University of Lincoln. http://www.macearchive.org/films/atv-today-08021974-resignation-enoch-powell

The third clip is concerned with Powell’s resignation from the Conservative Party in 1974 and shows how some of the local sentiment remained unchanged from the first clip from 1965. This meant that Powell left his office in Wolverhampton and the clip begins with an interview with Robin Pollard, the Conservative agent for Wolverhampton.[16] This clip was broadcast in colour, which ATV began to do in 1969. Pollard praises Powell for the work he did for his constituency. He is not worried about getting a new candidate to replace Powell but says it is unlikely that there will be someone as individual and successful as Powell. Pollard represents what can be considered an ‘elite’ source for news interview as he is qualified on the subject and cannot be replaced by anyone.[17] The second half of the clip turns to vox pop interviews to find the views of ordinary people on the street. They begin with a lady outside a local shop, who is ‘heartbroken’ and says Powell is a ‘far-seeing man’. A second woman says he spoke his mind on issues and expressed what many people felt, which seems to mirror the views of the man from the first clip. Kassimeris and Jackson explain that Powell was seen by many as the politician that was ‘courageous’ enough to speak the opinions of the ordinary working-class person on the issues of immigration.[18] A man says he has worked hard for Wolverhampton for a very long time, which suggests this man supported Powell before and during his ‘Rivers of Blood’ controversy. Another woman says he was a ‘sick man’ so thought it was coming, which seems to show some balance in a report with mostly positive things to say about Powell. A final man also says that Powell said what a lot of people were thinking and just had the nerve to speak out, which supports Kassimeris and Jackson. Independent television, like the clips found in the MACE archive, quickly became popular after its creation in 1955 and was able to break the BBC’s monopoly on broadcasting.[19] As well as this, television had grown to have more authority than other forms of mass media during this stage of the twentieth century.[20] Therefore, news reports such these are important for the ways they represent views on topics. Especially considering Beckers, Walgrave and Bulck’s argument that views expressed in vox pops by ordinary people are more likely to be agreed with by viewers because they feel their views are supported by others.[21]

To conclude, it has been shown through news clips taken from the MACE archive why the Midlands is important for the study of racial tensions during the 1960s and 1970s caused by non-white immigration. The clips show how controversial views expressed by one of the region’s most prominent and controversial politicians were represented and dealt with on local independent television. Furthermore, it has been considered why vox pop interviews are important as they help to indicate the views of ordinary people as well as indicating how news broadcasters attempted to balance their news reports. Additionally, the clips help to show to what extent ATV was attempting to represent the large amount of non-white people who had immigrated into the region during the twentieth century.

 

Notes

[1] Lydia Lindsey, ‘The Split-Labor Phenomenon: Its Impact on West Indian Workers as a Marginal Working Class in Birmingham, England, 1948-1962’ The Journal of Negro History 78(2) (1993), 83-109, 86.

[2] ‘Enoch Powell Resignation’, ATV Today (ATV, 8/2/1974), Media Archive for Central England (MACE), University of Lincoln, http://www.macearchive.org/films/atv-today-08021974-resignation-enoch-powell.

[3] Sally Tomlinson, ‘Enoch Powell, Empires, Immigrants and Education’, Race Ethnicity and Education 21(1) (2008), 1-14.

[4] Robert Shepherd, Enoch Powell: A Bibliography (London, 1996), 78-103.

[5] Amy Whipple, ‘Revisiting the “Rivers of Blood” Controversy: Letters to Enoch Powell’, Journal of British Studies, 48(3) (2009), 717-735 (717-718).

[6] Joe Street, ‘Malcolm X, Smethwick, and the Influence of the African American Freedom Struggle on British Race Relation in the 1960s’, Journal of Black Studies 38(6) (2008), 932-950 (933).

[7] Lindsey, ‘The Split-Labor Phenomenon’, 86.

[8] Kathleen Beckers, Stefaan Walgrave and Hilde Van den Bulck, ‘Opinion Balance in Vox Pop Television News’, Journalism Studies 19(2) (2018), 284-296 (284).

[9] Beckers, Walgrave and Bulck, ‘Opinion Balance in Vox Pop Television News’, 285.

[10] ‘Enoch Powell Vox Pops’, Midlands News (ATV, 26/7/1965), MACE, University of Lincoln, http://www.macearchive.org/films/atv-today-26071965-enoch-powell-vox-pops.

[11] Chas Early, ‘July 27, 1965: Edward Heath is the surprise new leader of the Conservative Party’ On This Day BT.com 28 April 2017 [Online Resource] http://home.bt.com/news/on-this-day/july-27-1965-edward-heath-is-the-surprise-new-leader-of-the-conservative-party-11363994287360 Accessed 17 March 2018.

[12] ‘Vox Pops on Latest Enoch Powell Speech’, Midlands News (ATV, 10/6/1969), MACE, University of Lincoln, http://www.macearchive.org/films/midlands-news-10061969-vox-pops-latest-enoch-powell-speech.

[13] Beckers, Walgrave, Bulck. ‘Opinion Balance in Vox Pop Television News’, 285.

[14] Arthur Butler, ‘”Curb Immigrants” Powell Sensation’, Daily Express, 10 February 1968.

[15] Arthur Butler, ‘Challenge to Powell’, Daily Express, 4 October 1968.

[16] ‘Enoch Powell Resignation’, http://www.macearchive.org/films/atv-today-08021974-resignation-enoch-powell.

[17] Beckers, Walgrave and Bulck, ‘Opinion Balance in Vox Pop Television News’, 285-288.

[18] George Kassimeris and Leonie Jackson, ‘Negotiating Race and Religion in the West Midlands: Narratives of Inclusion and Exclusion during the 1967-69 Wolverhampton Bus Workers’ Turban Dispute’, Contemporary British History 31(3) (2017), 343-365 (343).

[19] Catherine Johnson and Rob Turnock, ‘Introduction: Approaching The Histories of ITV’, in Catherine Johnson and Rob Turnock (eds.), Independent Television Over Fifty Years (Maidenhead, 2005), 1-13: 1.

[20] Gavin Schaffer, The Vision of a Nation: Making Multiculturalism on British Television, 1960-80 (London, 2014), 67.

[21] Beckers, Walgrave and Bulck, ‘Opinion Balance in Vox Pop Television News’, 285-288.

How Were Post-war Youth Sub-cultures Represented in the Media? By Sarah Bothamley

Cheltenham Mods and Rockers, ATV Today (ATV, 28/9/1965), MACE, University of Lincoln. http://www.macearchive.org/films/atv-today-28091965-cheltenham-mods-and-rockers

Throughout the post-war era, Britain witnessed unquestionable improvements to living standards through full employment and comprehensive welfare provisions, which mainly benefitted the young.[1] Young people in the 1960s were perceived to be iconic figures, not only because of what they achieved but how they personified so many issues of society.[2] To outline what this essay means by ‘young people’, Mark Abrams’s comprehensive definition asserts that youth was limited ‘from the time they leave school until they marry or reach 25’.[3] Throughout this period some young people organised themselves into a succession of youth sub-cultures: the Teddy Boys, Mods and Rockers. In an analysis of three videos from ATV Today and Midlands News from the Media Archive for Central England (MACE), this essay will explore how these youth sub-cultures were presented in the media by news programmes from the 1950s to the 1970s. The first clip is a recording from Midlands News on a Ted’s speech at the Teddy Boys Conference, who wants to form a youth association, first broadcast on 3 November 1958.[4] The second video from ATV Today examines Teddy Boys in Birmingham after the post-war era shown in 17 August 1973.[5] The final footage, also from ATV Today, investigates the tensions between the Mods and Rockers after the recent disturbances, aired on 28 September 1965.[6] All three clips reveal the growth of youth sub-cultures within the post-war era, or at the very least amongst those in the Midlands.

The 1950s and 1960s were both the outcome and personification of the wider cultural as well as social changes. Before the 1960s men were expected to get a job, get married, have children and live a happy life.[7] The departure of this societal expectation enabled young men to have the freedom to experience their youth. Moreover, this notion of new-found youth was motivated by the increase of real earnings unconstrained by the responsibility to contribute to the overall family wage. Certainly, young male manual workers benefited the most from this change.[8] Whilst young men witnessed a transformation in disposable income, young women’s jobs within domestic service were replaced with clerical work, which expanded to employ in 1964 nearly 40 per-cent of girls aged 15 to 17.[9] Despite this expansion, young women continued to earn less than their male peers. Yet, most young people had sufficient spending money, and the newly created ‘teenage girl’ became vital to the success of the consumer market.[10] Evidently, the freedom from the expectation from contributing to the family encouraged young people to spend their money on consumer goods. However, Mike Brown argues that some families still relied on their children wages.[11] This suggests that not all teenagers experienced complete freedom to spend their wages as they pleased. Nevertheless, it did signify a difference from the austerity witnessed during the previous decade, when it would have been considered sheer luxury not to contribute to the family income. Therefore, teenagers had limited freedom to spend their wages on consumer items. Although consumerism was not a new concept in the post-war era, Britain’s position within world trading had declined with the domestic consumer market becoming progressively dominant to the economy.[12] Instead of buying ‘white goods’ (televisions and fridges) which had dominated adult consumerism in the 1950s, teenagers now spent their money on records and clothes.[13] The development of consumerism which propelled an affluent society combined with the emerging youth sub-cultures was vital to the transformation of the teenager. Though, Richard Grayson maintains that the affluent teenager was problematic for several reasons: ‘it made young people less subject to parental control, as they became financially independent at a younger age and it promoted a sense of individualism focused on material acquisition’.[14] Yet Selina Todd discredits this by contending that post-war teenagers were ‘not constructed by the popular or social investigator but by the aspirations of working-class parents’.[15] Evidently, the encouragement from parents demonstrates that they supported the active nature of youth culture. Although both historians disagree over whether teenagers were perceived to have a positive impact on society, they do agree that the concept of the teenager had been firmly established by the post-war era. Ultimately, the framing of young people as consumers in conjunction with being involved in youth culture as a social problem has focused on the moral and cultural disorder.

Teddy Boys Conference, Midlands News (ATV, 3/11/1958), MACE, University of Lincoln. http://www.macearchive.org/films/midlands-news-03111958-teddy-boys-conference

Teddy Boys were the first collective youth sub-culture to make their mark with defiance and anger, thus promoting moral panic with society as well as the media.[16] Teddy Boys in the early 1950s wore clothes that were intended for young upper-class men. Nevertheless, Tony Jefferson noted the adoption of the upper-class style as representative of an illogical ideal from the Teddy Boys, ‘who were destined for lower paid jobs and manual labour’ but attempted to raise their status through buying clothes.[17] Hence this suggests that Teddy Boys were predominately from working-class backgrounds and were ambitious to move up social classes. Indeed, Arthur Marwick argues that, despite their intentions for social mobility, it was only (the later) Mod style that spread up the class structure, whereas Teds were excluded.[18] Failure of the Teddy Boys to utilise social mobility demonstrates that not all youth sub-cultures could disguise their class origins. Furthermore, this confirms that Teds could not promote social progress unlike other youth groups, thus this group was not as influential as previously thought. Regardless of this, Teddy Boys began to emerge in the media in the early 1950s, with the first mention within the press being in The Times on 25 June 1954, describing how ‘a 13-year old boy who established a reign of terror and carved the initials T.B (Teddy Boy) with a knife on the arms of four schoolmates’.[19] This concept that a Teddy Boy cut into the flesh of his ‘innocent’ victims conveys a powerful image, which strongly enforced the idea of the delinquent youth in 1950s mainstream culture.[20] The media played a vital role in cultivating this troublesome image through describing the moral and cultural disorder in their reports which focused on Teddy Boys’ actions of criminality, violence and sexual promiscuity. Indeed, the speech by a Ted at the ‘Teddy Boy Conference’ captured by Midlands News on 3 November 1958 revealed how the group would gather on ‘street corners and be moved on by the police’.[21] Though this broadcast provides an insight into how the sub-culture came to be associated with troublemakers, it also highlights how the Teddy Boys wanted to be more organsied into a collective group. The Ted speaker further claims how they want to ‘form an association including our friends at Leamington and other places, we will be as one body’.[22] Midlands News’s coverage of the Teddy Boy Conference is similar to the national press, with both reports revealing how the Teds have been perceived to be a problem within society. Both reports have publicised the disorder created by the Teddy Boys. Yet the Midlands News report does differ from the national news by presenting an alternative stance of the Teds, aspiring to belong to a united youth sub-culture, which indicates the intention for them to be not only considered more influential within society but to also distance themselves from the troublemaker persona that the national and to an extent regional media has created.

Birmingham Teddy Boys, ATV Today (17/8/1973), http://www.macearchive.org/films/atv-today-17081973-birmingham-teddy-boys

However, this call for unity in 1957 came at a time when Teddy Boys were in decline, as tastes in fashion had changed and the popularity of the group was being overshadowed by the emergence of the Mods and Rockers.[23] Despite the decline of Teddy Boys, ATV in January 1973 confirmed that Teddy Boys continued to be a functioning group within Birmingham. Reporter Chris Tarrant exposed how the Teddy Boys, or rather now men, continued to embrace the fashion identity and distanced from modern fashion. By the 1970s the majority of people who partook in youth sub-cultures had got married and settled down ‘like everyone else’.[24] Whilst most of the older Teds in the report are married, they continue to a part of this group. The continual existence of the Teddy Boys even after its heyday confirms that the Ted movement continued to be appealing. Indeed, ATV Today and Midlands News’s coverage of the Teddy Boys confirms that they were a popular topic in both television and newspapers, even after the post-war era. Although ATV presented their pieces on the Teds as cultural, they also confirm how this youth culture continued to be influential despite the growing and eventual surpassing of the Mods and Rockers. Midlands News’s use of revealing a different narrative of the Teds highlights that the group had support from both its members and some of society, at a time when the movement was generally opposed. Moreover, the coverage of the Teds being influential validates the purpose of the Teds of not what they did, but the importance of popularising their youth culture and the ones that followed. Although the media focused on the Teds creating moral and cultural disorder, their actions were not as dramatic as those depicted in the clashes between the Mod and Rockers.

For many people, they find it impossible to talk about the Mods without also discussing their famous rivals, the Rockers. Mod culture developed in the early 1960s and by 1964 the embodiment of what had become associated with continental culture and fashion had been replaced by the more widely known second incarnation. This version of Mod became instantly recognisable within youth sub-cultures. The typical second-wave Mod wore a smart shirt, short boxed-shaped jacket, narrow trousers, gleaming black boots and hair cropped neatly.[25] In comparison, the Rockers took their inspiration from America. They wore leather jackets, often with metal studs, white t-shirts, tight blue jeans, cowboy boots and wore their hair long and greasy.[26] Yet the differences in appearance also extended to geographical and class divisions. Although both groups emerged during the early 1960s from London suburbs, the Mods started from a small group of fashion-conscious teenagers in North London, whereas the Rocker originated predominantly from South London.[27] Therefore, both groups were distinctly opposite in almost every way, apart from their intention to partake in youth sub-cultures. By 1962-3 the Mods and Rockers divisions already existed, but by 1964 this had greatly intensified.[28] The lack of amicability between the two groups, signified partly the typical gang rivalries, but also the genuine class division. To the middle-class Mods, the Rockers were backwards, primitive and uncouth; to the working-class Rockers, the Mods were pretentious, precious and effeminate.[29] This division can readily be found in both newspaper and television reports. Daily Mail reporter Brian Saxton revealed that a Rocker described Mods as ‘lots of sissies. Some of them wear make-up. Right lot of pansies they are! Rockers hate Mods-nothing serious mind you’.[30] Although Saxton highlights the divisions between the groups, the Rockers downplay that it is serious, thus suggesting it is more of a rivalry. Indeed, the ATV report on ‘Cheltenham Mods and Rockers’ shown in September 1965, at the height of the division, also supports this notion with a Rocker stating, ‘Mods put lipstick on their face. They’re pansies’.[31] Both regional and national news confirm that the Rockers belittled the status of Mods within youth sub-culture. The ATV report focuses on the reactions to the recent disputes in the Montpellier district of Cheltenham. Both groups claim that the other started the fight with the Rockers claiming that ‘ten Mods beat up a Rocker’, whilst the Mods maintain that ‘we don’t cause any trouble, but then the greasers started causing trouble, kicking scooters, pushing around smaller people than them’.[32] The ATV report concentrates on sensationalising this incident through capturing the hostility to strengthen the perception that youth sub-cultures were a negative aspect of society. This national and regional youth debate can be viewed as another way of discussing the post-war society.[33] Yet this youth debate intensified with the increased clashes between both groups both on locally and nationally.

Cheltenham Mods and Rockers, ATV Today (ATV, 28/9/1965). http://www.macearchive.org/films/atv-today-28091965-cheltenham-mods-and-rockers

Many of the media reports relating to the clashes in seaside towns were greatly exaggerated. This is supported by Dominic Sandbrook, who argues that most teenagers caught up in the Clacton conflict of April 1964 had not come to fight, but to wander around with ‘the intention of meeting girls’; they were bored and directionless rather than crazed and looking to fight.[34] Evidently, the moral panics generated from the exaggeration of supposed disturbances like Clacton were not so much about the Mods and Rockers dispute, but about the post-war affluence and sexual freedom they represented.[35] Rockers were left behind from this post-war affluence: they were unfashionable and unglamorous because they appeared to be class-bound. Imagery projected by the media conveyed them as thugs which they had inherited from the Teds; in comparison, Mods were seen to the lead youth sub-cultures.[36] Hence Mods were considered by themselves and society to be superior to the Rockers. Regardless of this opposition, both groups were responsible for facilitating thousands of young men and women to mobilise to create the first successful collective geographical youth sub-cultures in Britain.[37] Whilst the expression of Mods was real enough, the commercial exploitation of fashion and television programmes such as Ready Steady Go! enabled them to dominant.[38] The dominance of this youth sub-culture encouraged the Mods to become a wide spread national movement which not only inspired fashion and television programmes but also enabled ordinary people to participate. For many young people like Marilyn who identified a Mod, her involvement was based on the ‘music and fashion’ she enjoyed, and not because she was involved in the disputes with the Rockers.[39] Clearly, this account demonstrates Marilyn enjoying her youth and being on the edge of Mod sub-culture. Hence enjoyment in conjunction with freedom was central to the popular memory of 1960s youth sub-culture. This is supported by Becky Conekin, who contends how this sub-culture offered a ‘more complex subcultural opportunity for girls’ mainly because it was located within working-class teenage consumerism.[40] Most youngsters who linked themselves with these sub-cultures were manufactured by consumerism rather than the rebellion, and their main interests, therefore, reflect those dominant values and are no means are in opposition.[41] Consequently, this dilutes the original ideas of what it was to be either a Mod or Rocker. Teenage cultures were evolving in the post-war era with the consumerism focus of Mods paving the way for the introduction and acceptance of the teenager as a social category.

To conclude, both regional and national media played heavily on the image of the delinquent youths when discussing 1950s and 1960s youth sub-cultures. This diverse range of youth groups in post-war Britain was not limited to class and or gender.[42] By itself, the coverage from ATV Today and Midlands News cannot completely reveal the impact of youth sub-cultures in the Midlands. However, it does determine how all three group were presented within the media, particularly focusing on the division from both the rest of society and other youth sub-cultures. Moreover, Midlands News does differ from national media by presenting a more sympathetic stance, revealing how the Teddy Boys were frustrated with police attention and wanted to unite to form a coherent group. The development of consumerism throughout the post-war era was vital to cultivating the ‘affluent teenager’. Evidently, this focus on the teenage market did not only promote youth sub-cultures but also changed the ideals of these groups as they became more mainstream. However, further study would be required to evaluate the impact youth sub-cultures had on society and how different television programmes aired by the BBC and other regional news programmes depicted these groups.

 

Notes

[1] Stephen Brooke, ‘Gender and Working-class Identity in Britain during the 1950s’, Journal of Social History 34 (2001), 773-795 (773).

[2] Dominic Sandbrook, White Heat: A History of Britain in The Swinging Sixties (London, 2006), 205.

[3] Mark Abrams, The Teenage Consumer (London, 1959), 3.

[4] ‘Teddy Boys Conference’, Midlands News (ATV, 3/11/1958), MACE, University of Lincoln. http://www.macearchive.org/films/midlands-news-03111958-teddy-boys-conference

[5] ‘Birmingham Teddy Boys’, ATV Today (ATV, 17/8/1973), MACE, University of Lincoln. http://www.macearchive.org/films/atv-today-17081973-birmingham-teddy-boys

[6] ‘Cheltenham Mods and Rockers’, Midlands News (ATV, 28/9/1965), MACE, University of Lincoln. http://www.macearchive.org/films/atv-today-28091965-cheltenham-mods-and-rockers

[7] Alright in the 1960s (Channel 4, 5/1/2018), BOB National Archive. https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand/index.php/prog/0AF0DEDE?bcast=125853939#

[8] Bill Osgerby, ‘“Well, It’s Saturday Night an’ I Just Got Paid”: Youth, Consumerism and Hegemony in Post-War Britain’, Contemporary Record 6 (1992), 287-305 (293).

[9] Andrew August, ‘Gender and 1960s Youth Culture: The Rolling Stones and the New Woman’, Contemporary British History 23 (2009), 79-100 (81).

[10] Ibid, 81.

[11] Mike Brown, The 1960s Look: Recreating the Fashions of the Sixties (Sevenoaks, 2016), 58.

[12] Osgerby, ‘Well, It’s Saturday Night an’ I Just Got Paid’, 290.

[13] Jonathon Green, All Dressed Up: The Sixties and the Counterculture (London, 1999), 3.

[14] Richard Grayson, ‘Mods, Rockers and Juvenile Delinquency in 1964: The Government Response’, Contemporary British History 12 (1998), 19-47 (23).

[15] Selina Todd and Hilary Young, ‘Baby-boomers to ‘“Beanstalkers”: Making the Modern Teenager in Post-war Britain’, Cultural and Social History 9 (2012), 451-467 (463).

[16] Stanley Cohen, Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of Mod and Rockers (London, 2002), 204.

[17] Nick Bentley, ‘New Elizabethans: The Representation of Youth Sub-cultures in 1950s British Fiction’, Literature & History 19 (2010), 16-33 (25).

[18] Arthur Marwick, The Sixties: Cultural Revolution in Britain, France, Italy, and the United States 1958-1974 (Oxford, 1998), 77.

[19] ‘Initials Carved on Arms of Schoolmates’, The Times, 25 June 1954, 3.

[20] Bentley, ‘New Elizabethans’, 18.

[21] ‘Teddy Boys Conference’, http://www.macearchive.org/films/midlands-news-03111958-teddy-boys-conference

[22] Ibid.

[23] Grayson, ‘Mods, Rockers and Juvenile Delinquency in 1964’, 25.

[24] Brian Saxton, ‘Down among the Young Ones’, Daily Mail, 6 April 1964, 12.

[25] Sandbrook, White Heat, 206.

[26] Ibid, 207.

[27] David Fowler, ‘From Jukebox Boys to Revolting Students: Richard Hoggart and the Study of British Youth Culture’, International Journal of Cultural Studies 10 (2007), 73-84 (75).

[28] Cohen, Folk Devils and Moral Panics, 210.

[29] Sandbrook, White Heat, 207.

[30] Saxton, ‘Down among the young ones’.

[31] ‘Cheltenham Mods and Rockers’, http://www.macearchive.org/films/atv-today-28091965-cheltenham-mods-and-rockers

[32] ‘Cheltenham Mods and Rockers’, http://www.macearchive.org/films/atv-today-28091965-cheltenham-mods-and-rockers

[33] Osgerby, ‘Well, It’s Saturday Night an’ I Just Got Paid’, 288.

[34] Sandbrook, White Heat, 206.

[35] Arnold Hunt, ‘“Moral Panic” and Moral Language in the Media’, British Journal of Sociology 48 (1997), 629-648 (631).

[36] Cohen, Folk Devils and Moral Panics, 211.

[37] Fowler, ‘From Jukebox Boys to Revolting Students’, 75.

[38] Cohen, Folk Devils and Moral Panics, 211.

[39] Helena Mills, ‘Using the Personal to Critique the Popular: Women’s Memories of 1960s Youth’, Contemporary British History 30 (2016), 463-483 (473).

[40] Becky Conekin, ‘Fashioning Mod: Twiggy and the Moped in “Swinging” London’, History and Technology 28 (2012), 209-215 (211).

[41] Osgerby, ‘Well, It’s Saturday Night an’ I Just Got Paid’, 290.

[42] Bentley, ‘New Elizabethans’, 16.

How did Margaret Thatcher use the Media? By Georgina Ward

1980s regional coverage approached Thatcher through a deliberately comedic style. Aspects of gender and humour were central components to Thatcher-centric programmes, and Thatcher’s image can be seen not only as a construct intended for a mass cultural mainstream but was considerably driven by popular discontent. 1983’s Central Lobby opens with Tony Francis in the studio examining various Margaret Thatcher commemorative pieces.^[1]

https://vimeo.com/117167508

His mocking manner instantly suggests regional programmes operated on an alternative, more familiar level. Nothing is explicit even in later questioning of a clear anti-Thatcherite, so the programme maintains professionalism whilst still provoking a potentially ironic reading for a media literate audience. This is seen again when another programme ends with its reporter remembering his first interview with Thatcher and she is seen walking straight past, ignoring his question.^[2] This framing is introduced as shared humour, in turn suggesting confidence in Thatcher’s decrease in popularity (or at the very least viewer awareness of how controversial a figure she was) for the programme to endorse the subjective position. It also suggests that factual regional programmes were unafraid to place comedy over ideology in order to connect with and represent their audiences.

Gavin Schaffer has considered the significance of the comic form. He suggests that while the ‘culture dimension’ was considered an emerging space for the opposition to send a political message, the ‘mileage gained by Thatcher and her government from jokes that were designed to undermine them’ indicated the unreliability of comedy as a political weapon.[3] This is reflected in the way Thatcher’s gender was targeted by British comedy. Central pitting Thatcher against a female journalist suggests not only the traction and current-ness of women’s issues but that there was production interest in capturing a contrast between the interviewer – a seemingly ordinary, well-spoken woman – and the ‘Iron Lady.’^[4]  ATV Today 1980 shows consecutive clips of Thatcher refusing help from men on visits (either digging or getting into a cockpit), firmly shaking hands, standing within an all-male crowd, and speaking particularly severely with some amusingly disinterested children on a school visit.^[5]

https://vimeo.com/117173900

These selected clips put together within a montage format particularly accentuates her aggressiveness; done through visual style techniques rather than substance allows a perspective to be projected without any of distractions of context. This shows the intent to broadcast a harsher, ‘masculine’ image for Thatcher.

Historians have grappled with how to classify Thatcher’s gender identity. As Britain’s first woman Prime Minster, Thatcher ‘became a conspicuous figure in the world of sexual politics’^[6] and gender therefore became central to how she was seen and understood. ‘Thatcherism,’ Toye states, was ‘also taken to include her militant, aggressive and authoritarian bearing,’ but that debate has considered how far she exploited her status as a ‘political outsider’ as part of her media image.^[7] In John Campbell’s view, the ‘way that Thatcher used her lower-middle-class origins to underline her position as an outsider amid the Tory Party’s upper-class aristocratic majority was rather exaggerated,’ however Hugo Young regards Thatcher’s aggressive leadership style as a way of ‘disguising her insecurity due to her social background and sex.’^[8] Toye considers her to have been an ‘expert gender bender’; that despite not ‘openly cite[ing] her gender as a determining factor in the political game, [it] did not mean she did not exploit her status as a woman,’ confounding her colleagues through iron-ladylike behaviour which she could then switch to a more charming female role.^[9]

Of course, ATV was only utilizing footage of Thatcher, and it can equally be said that the former prime minister was deliberately demonstrating a ‘masculine’ command towards and of the camera by acting with independence and authority in given situations. Thatcher’s own awareness of the media can therefore be seen through her active projection an authoritative ‘masculine’ image in order to compensate for any perceived ‘weakness.’ Thatcher stated that she refused to be defined by gender, however her frequent use of gendered language during press conferences and televised speeches including use of the derogatory ‘wet’ indicate a desire (however manipulated) to set herself above from her male colleagues and, working within eighties sexist politics, maintain control through this unpredictability of gender and gender deviance. Consequently, the media, in attempting to dovetail Thatcher into an ‘understandable’ category, reinforced this stereotype of her masculinity. Political cartoons capture this anxiety; popular cartoonist Gerald Scarfe perpetuated an image of Thatcher as a cutting, scythe-like figure.[10] It can be seen that, even though Thatcher was trying to change her image to suit a male environment, she is still mocked for it by the same male industry; for example, caricatured as ‘top bitch’ at Crufts.[11] In constructing an unfeminine image for Thatcher, it can be argued that on some level the media was doing exactly what Thatcher wanted.

Cartoon depictions frequently called upon her gender to formulate humour.[12] Further assaults on her gender are most visible in Central Television’s puppet-based satirical sketch show Spitting Image, where she was often portrayed as dictatorial amongst other defeminising stereotypes. McSmith argued that the programme, especially with its focus on Thatcher and her cabinet, ‘attacked Britain’s political leaders “with a venom that had never been seen before on television,”[13] leading to the Independent Broadcasting Authority receiving numerous complaints, with ‘one viewer typically claiming that Spitting Image was “a determined socialist attempt to undermine normal standards of patriotism and decency.”[14] However, Schaffer states that, far from damaging Mrs Thatcher, the construction appeared to make her even more popular, again, ‘fuelling her reputation for toughness’ and, as Richard Vinen states, ‘helping to define Thatcherism in the public eye.’[15]

Encouraging gendered stereotypes, Thatcher managed to her benefit from a media-constructed image. Webster, however, counters that far from being in control of her own image, Thatcher’s presentation and performance was ultimately manipulated and re-invented by men and the male media industry.[16] Sexist material was understood as a ‘continuation of ‘mainstream success,’ popular with the ordinary Briton who saw it as a tradition, and therefore this environment created its own problems. For example, Thatcher’s popularity can be tracked across the archive, and 1979 vox pops show general optimism towards her owing to her limited time in power but mainly the repeated assumption that, being a woman, she would naturally understand and champion women’s issues.^[17]

https://vimeo.com/118017422

During her 1979 campaign, the Conservatives produced an election poster with a blatant appeal to women, associating the party with Mrs Pankhurst and giving women the vote, the first women to sit in Parliament being a Conservative and now the Conservatives having elected the first women party leader: ‘It only leaves one thing for a women to do. Vote Conservative.’^[18] This would not be a continued affair. As Thatcher said in a press conference she ‘like[d] people who have ability, who don’t run the feminist ticket too hard, after all I reckon if you get anywhere it’s because of your ability as a person. It’s not because of your sex.’^[19] However, the 1980s opinion polling on gender and party preference by MORI (Market & Opinion Research International) revealed that women were ‘more likely to vote Conservative because of personal support for Margaret Thatcher,’ more likely to share her economic worldview, her importance accorded to education and education policies.^[20] Jackson states that ‘while feminists viewed Thatcher as an enemy of women’s liberation, on average women voters were less likely to view Thatcher as anti-feminist.’^[21] Archival vox pops therefore support the data that a significant percentage of women in the 1980s both ‘admired and agreed with Margaret Thatcher,’^[22] and indicate how much gender was a motivational factor in voting. Thatcher’s image and attitude therefore needed to be appealing to the female electorate as much as the male side of the population.

This is reflected later in 1986 in an interview for Central Lobby, which happens to demonstrate Thatcher’s detachment towards feminist issues.^[23]

https://vimeo.com/album/3218364/video/117254249

Significantly, she makes no attempt to suggest, when questioned about dental capping or having changed the shrillness of her voice, that this was done specifically because of her gender, however, it is clear that she Thatcher did have something of a women’s agenda. In frequently using media traditionally seen as outside the purview of politics, such as Cosmopolitan or Women’s Own, or mid-morning radio programmes (consumed primarily by housewives)^[24], she can be seen not only to be targeting women but promoting domesticity and her own inclusion within that feminine role. Thatcher explicitly stated her ‘appreciation of the central role of women’s magazines in politics at a speech to a group of magazine editors,’ saying that ‘We always read, every week in my home Woman’s Weekly and I must tell you that it upheld excellent standards.’^[25] Jon Lawrence and Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite argue that this rhetoric of the family and appeal to gender solidarity was emphasised by Thatcher in order to ‘counter Labour’s appeals to broader class or social solidarity,’^[26] and in crafting an ‘acceptable’ image as a female role model, these sentiments demonstrate an attempt to express rather than reject traditional femininity.

Thatcher can be considered alongside Princess Diana in this respect. Despite many differences between them, both eighties icons were in the unusual position of being very publically visible in a conventionally masculine environment. Media attention focused on their private lives as wives and mothers, as well as on their public roles, and by traversing both the public and private spheres they visibly transgressed gender norms and expectations on a day-to-day basis. Whilst Thatcher somewhat kept her family in the background of her career, Diana’s visibility as both a wife and mother were less escapable. As a response to this, the media, contrary to Thatcher’s defeminisation, created a ‘hyper-femininity’ around Diana in order to contain her within ‘appropriate’ societal gender roles. Central News demonstrates focus on Diana’s feminine image: immediate scrutiny over what she is wearing and her attitude – evaluating whether or not, as the journalist asks, she is indeed the ‘caring princess’ – takes precedent over specifying the actual details of her charity concern.[27]

https://vimeo.com/142492531

However, Diana can arguably be perceived as a manipulator of the media through her fashion choices and profile in order to command the camera’s attention to the event, even over the visits of her husband. This tactic can be applied to Thatcher in terms of how she took control of a media image, both with direct interaction with the media (impromptu statements, grabbing the microphone[28]) and through gendered remarks during televised broadcasts, defying her male counterparts. Thatcher’s awareness of the camera and the view of public perception can be recognised; both women demonstrate some level of command over the media’s lens and reveal a battle for control between the media and their subject – whether it was Thatcher or the journalists that controlled her ‘unfeminine’ image.

Gender portrayals and language can been seen as staple subject material for news segments and broadcasts. Mass Observation reveals public perceptions beyond vox pops – often quickly compiled and carelessly answered – or MORI figures which obscure the variation of individual responses towards Thatcher; additionally, many survey participants included information regarding their media consumption. One news-watching responder to the Spring Directive 1983 stated Thatcher to be ‘very masculine in thought and deed…no different to a male prime-minister,’^[29] conveying a similar attitude to the films. Mass Observation similarly states Diana repeatedly as being ‘feminine’[30] – an ‘all-rounder’ that could ‘swim, dance, cook and talk well with children’^[31] – reflecting how the focus and language of media-communicated images were adopted by its audience and how, to some extent, media representation could influence cultural organisation. Arguably, the limits to the ‘progressiveness’ of comedic portrayals led to struggles to galvanise any truly radical opposition.[32]

Arguably, focus on ‘working-class’ comedy only offered a ‘“culture of consolation” amid the onslaught of Thatcherism and in fact acted as a ‘force of conservatism’ – ‘allowing for the release of tension [but] ultimately…preserving the status quo.’[33] Bruce Carson describes how, despite contrasting televisual representations of Thatcher and Princess Diana, both accounts emphasised the ‘centrality of the subject, the narrativisation of the material towards resolution and the privileging of the personal over political issues.’^[34] Reports also tended to focus on the centrality of emotional response (such as vox pops, children and humour) in order to attract the majority, which, as John Wallace states, also covered the regional media’s commitment to ‘establish themselves by expressing a genuine interest in the people of the Midlands,’ and their various values and interests.[35] Thatcher’s efforts to embody tropes of Britishness, such as valorising housewives,[36] deploying moralistic arguments about the decline of British society, particularly within debates over education reform,^[37] and particularly her actions surrounding the Falklands crisis indicate not just bids for support, but specific tailoring of her image for mass public consumption. Emphasising British values can be linked to fears of internationalisation; the CND anti-bomb campaign gained large followings due to the perceived threat of America’s influence, along with fears that deregulation would lead to ‘wall-to-wall Dallas,’ seen by Worpole and Herdige as eroding and undermining British culture and identity.^[38] ATV equally responded to these ‘foreign cultural objects’ by reinforcing celebrations of our ‘national culture’; the Royals and Thatcher during the Falkland’s victory were presented, particularly towards and in association with the working-classes, as positive cultural icons. Local patriotism was also depicted in news segments, with light reporting and ‘British’ comedy a ‘rallying point for resisting globalisation’ and a way of ‘recognising and placing themselves.’[39] but media focus and attitude often changed with regional support. In this way, the media’s catering to mass audience appeal superseded any political position. It is also seen how local cultures and values can be produced or encouraged through articulation of, or by means of consumption of, global forms and media. Positive international perspectives further demonstrate this portrayal: ‘at last she seems to be showing the British like we like to see them.’[40]

David Morley has analysed the structure of factual television programmes through a ‘concern with the wider field of popular programing towards the multifaceted processes of consumption and decoding in which media audiences are involved.’[41] His work tracks a series of shifts in the historiographical focus of interest from interdiscursive connections of new technologies towards concerns regarding an emphasis on gendered viewing practises within the context of the family,[42] overall suggesting that engaging with the fundamental role of the media in articulating both public and private spheres can lead to a broader, more contextualised discussion around how various information and communication technologies can function in constructing and/or reinforcing cultural identities, gender stereotypes and the social organisation of the community.[43] It therefore becomes clear how media depictions of Thatcher were intimately interconnected with not just a political campaign image, but a dimension both inside and outside of media production, heavily dependent upon viewership and the cultural climate.

Spitting Image again fed into public consciousness. Including a clip within a segment[44] not only serves to demonstrate Central’s relevance through an understanding of popular culture and perceptions surrounding Thatcher, but also highlights how important the satire was in feeding back into the creation or substantiation of such humorous perceptions through its inclusion, framed within a factual context and medium. Understanding Thatcher through more culturalist terms such as through political stereotypes can help to explain certain media choices and go some way to defining how particular presentations were defined or redefined. In addition, whilst consumption of political cartoons to some extent were limited by newspaper selection and party preference, the show Spitting Image was notoriously enjoyed by all ages and large, cross-class sections of society. In this way, Central not only taps into a nationalist as well as regional popularity but capitalises upon this mass appeal.

The ‘deregulation’ of broadcasting, with its increased reliance on advertising revenue, created arguments that it would force the medium ‘down market’ in terms of both reduced opportunities for ‘genuine viewer choice’ and the greater influence of advertisers in controlling programming for mass audiences.[45] However, Connell’s 1983 argument that ITV was ‘progressive’ in terms ‘of both its own programming and the extent to which the BBC was then forced to compete with it, ITV having a built-in drive to “connect with the structure of taste” which no public-service institution had’ contradicts this view of public-service broadcasting, in so far as the ‘“public sphere” created by such traditional broadcasting was heavily structured by class and region.’[46] In essence, ITV, in trying to fight competition and cater to the mass market, gave greater power to the ‘average viewer’ in pursuing individuals and their stories. Furthermore, the importance of the ‘authenticity’ of cultural products[47] and pressures for regional broadcasting to represent their regions, as opposed to national programmes, actually afforded ATV greater freedom, such as implicitly supporting particular political values or modelling their shows more like a popular newspaper. Therefore, a regional, British ‘hegemony’ of the popular and commercial rather than any dominant ideology arguably drove ATV towards making certain professional choices in terms of content and character.

Television news coverage and current affairs programming show an erosion of difference between ‘documentary objectivity and melodramatic sentiment’[48] due to production pressures to connect with whole regional communities and comedy being seen as rooted in class bonds and political values. Discourses of current affairs and popular comedic personality reportage therefore played into the extent to which the media facilitated a gender stereotype for Thatcher.

 

[1] Central Lobby [Programme 015] ‘Extract’, 10 February 1983, Media Archive for Central England, University of Lincoln (hereafter MACE) https://vimeo.com/album/3218364/video/117167508

[2] Central News East, ‘Thatcher Special,’ 11 October 1985, MACE https://vimeo.com/album/3218364/video/118018520

[3] Gavin Schaffer, ‘Fighting Thatcher with Comedy: What to Do When There Is No Alternative,’ Journal of British Studies, Vol. 55, Issue 2, 2016, 13

[4] Central Lobby [Programme 116], 26 June 1986, MACE https://vimeo.com/album/3218364/video/117254249

[4] Ben Jackson, Robert Saunders, Making Thatcher’s Britain, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 346

[5] ATV Today ‘Mrs Thatcher’, 27 June 1980, MACE https://vimeo.com/album/3218364/video/117173900

[6] Wendy Webster, Not a Man to Match Her: Feminist View of Britain’s First Woman Prime Minister, (UK: The Women’s Press Ltd, 1990), 1

[7] Richard Toye, Julie Gottlieb, Making Reputations: Power, Persuasion and the Individual in Modern British Politics, (London: I B Taurus, 2005), 176

[8] Toye, Gottlieb, Making Reputations

[9] Ibid, 177

[10] Kristie Kinghorn, ‘Gerald Scarfe’s controversial Margaret Thatcher cartoons on show,’ BBC News, 14 March 2015, accessed 20/04/16

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tees-31711778

[11] Kinghorn, ‘Gerald Scarfe’s…,’ BBC News

[12] ‘Margaret Thatcher Cartoons,’ PUNCH Magazine Cartoon Archive, 2016, accessed 21/04/16 http://punch.photoshelter.com/gallery/Margaret-Thatcher-Cartoons/G0000iZrJGN2t3dg/

[13] Schaffer, ‘Fighting Thatcher with Comedy,’ 13

[14] Ibid

[15] Ibid

[16] Webster, Not a Man to Match Her

[17] ATV Today, ‘Thatcher Vox Pop’, 27 July 1979, MACE https://vimeo.com/album/3218364/video/118017422

[18] Jackson, Saunders, Making Thatcher’s Britain, 343

[19] Margaret Thatcher, ‘General Election Press Conference (“Scottish Press Conference”)’, April 26, 1979, Margaret Thatcher Foundation, 2016, accessed 20/04/2016 http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104045

[20] Jackson, Saunders, Making Thatcher’s Britain, 333

[21] Jackson, Saunders, Making Thatcher’s Britain, 333

[22] Ibid

[23] Central Lobby [Programme 116], 26 June 1986, MACE https://vimeo.com/album/3218364/video/117254249

[24] Jackson, Saunders, Making Thatcher’s Britain, 346

[25] Ibid

[26] Ibid, 348

[27] Central News East, ‘Royal Visit,’ 30 May 1986, MACE https://vimeo.com/album/3610129/video/142492531

[28] Central News East, ‘Thatcher Special,’ 11 October 1985, MACE https://vimeo.com/album/3218364/video/118018520

[29] ‘Spring Directive General Election 1983 – G218,’ Mass Observation, Observing the 80s, accessed 21/04/16 https://docs.google.com/folderview?id=0Bz-9hs_TdzGPM056U0tVYUtPeHM&tid=0Bz-9hs_TdzGPeXpzcC1WczFjVFU

[30] ‘Responses to Special Royal Wedding 1981,’ Observing the 80s, accessed 21/04/16 https://docs.google.com/folderview?id=0Bz-9hs_TdzGPUkYzYlFMMG9Hak0

[31] ATV Today, ‘Royal Engagement,’ 24 February, 1981, MACE https://vimeo.com/album/3610129/video/144485085

[32] Schaffer, ‘Fighting Thatcher with Comedy,’ 11

[33] Ibid, 3

[34] Bruce Carson, Margaret Llewellyn-Jones, Frames and Fictions on Television: The Politics of Identity, (London: Intellect Books, 2000),

[35] John Wallace, ‘“A Sense of Region”? Independent Television in the Midlands, 1950-2000,’ Centre for Mass Communication Research, University of Leicester, Feb 2004, 303

[36] Jackson, Saunders, Making Thatcher’s Britain, 333, 341

[37] Jackson, Saunders, Making Thatcher’s Britain, 341

[38] David Morley, Television, Audiences and Cultural Studies, (London: Routledge, 1992), 219

[39] Schaffer, ‘Fighting Thatcher with Comedy,’ 23

[40] Central Lobby [Programme 015], ‘Extract,’ 10 February 1983, MACE https://vimeo.com/album/3218364/video/117167508

[41] Morley, Television, 1

[42] Ibid

[43] Ibid

[44] Central Lobby [Programme 116], 26 June 1986, MACE

[45] Morley, Television, 219

[46] Ibid

[47] James Curran, Jean Seaton, Power Without Responsibility: Press, Broadcasting and the Internet in Britain, (London: Routledge, 1997), 165

[48] Carson, Llewellyn-Jones, Frames and Fictions, 25

 

 

Bibliography:

ATV Today. ‘Mrs Thatcher.’ Broadcast 27 June 1980. Media Archive for Central England. University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3218364/video/117173900

ATV Today. ‘Thatcher Vox Pop.’ Broadcast 27 July 1979. Media Archive for Central England. University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3218364/video/118017422

Carson, Bruce. Margaret Llewellyn-Jones. Frames and Fictions on Television: The Politics of Identity. London: Intellect Books. 2000.

Central Lobby [Programme 116]. Broadcast 26 June 1986. Media Archive for Central England. University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3218364/video/117254249

Central Lobby [Programme 015]. ‘Extract.’ Broadcast 10 February 1983. Media Archive for Central England. University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3218364/video/117167508

Central News East. ‘Royal Visit.’ Broadcast 30 May 1986. Media Archive for Central England. University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3610129/video/142492531

Central News East. ‘Thatcher Special.’ Broadcast 11 October 1985. Media Archive for Central England. University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3218364/video/118018520

Curran, James. Jean Seaton. Power Without Responsibility: Press, Broadcasting and the Internet in Britain. London: Routledge. 1997.

Jackson, Ben. Robert Saunders. Making Thatcher’s Britain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2012.

Kent, Susan Kingsley. Gender and Power in Britain 1640-1990. London: Routledge. 1999.

Kinghorn, Kristie. ‘Gerald Scarfe’s controversial Margaret Thatcher cartoons on show.’ BBC News. 14 March 2015. Accessed 20/04/16. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tees-31711778

‘Margaret Thatcher Cartoons.’ PUNCH Magazine Cartoon Archive. 2016. Accessed 21/04/16. http://punch.photoshelter.com/gallery/Margaret-Thatcher-Cartoons/G0000iZrJGN2t3dg/

Moore, Suzanne. Head Over Heels. New York: Viking. 1996.

Morley, David. Television, Audiences and Cultural Studies. London: Routledge. 1992.

Nunn, Heather. Thatcher, Politics and Fantasy: The Political Culture of Gender and Nation. London: Lawrence & Wishart. 2002.

Ribberink, Anneke. ‘Gender Politics with Margaret Thatcher: Vulnerability and Toughness.’ Gender Forum. Issue 30. 2010.

Robinson, Lucy. ‘“Sometimes I like to stay in and watch TV …” Kinnock’s Labour Party and Media Culture.’ Twentieth Century British History. Vol. 22. No. 3. Jan 2011.

Schaffer, Gavin. ‘Fighting Thatcher with Comedy: What to Do When There Is No Alternative.’ Journal of British Studies. Vol. 55. Issue 2. April 2016.

‘Spring Directive General Election 1983 – G218.’ Mass Observation. Observing the 80s. Accessed 21/04/16. https://docs.google.com/folderview?id=0Bz-9hs_TdzGPM056U0tVYUtPeHM&tid=0Bz-9hs_TdzGPeXpzcC1WczFjVFU

Thatcher, Margaret. ‘General Election Press Conference (“Scottish Press Conference”)’, April 26, 1979, Margaret Thatcher Foundation, 2016, Accessed 20/04/2016 http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104045

Thompson, Juliet S. Margaret Thatcher: Prime Minister Indomitable. US: Westview Press. 1994.

Toye, Richard. Julie Gottlieb. Making Reputations: Power, Persuasion and the Individual in Modern British Politics. London: I B Taurus. 2005. 177

Wallace, John. ‘“A Sense of Region”? Independent Television in the Midlands, 1950-2000.’ Centre for Mass Communication Research. University of Leicester. Feb 2004.

Webster, Wendy. Not a Man to Match Her: Feminist View of Britain’s First Woman Prime Minister. UK: The Women’s Press Ltd. 1990.

 

 

The housewife and advertising in the 1950s and 1960s. By Eleanor Melbourne.

When analysing the role of women throughout advertising in the 1950’s and 1960’s, it is undeniable that the housewife contributed to a great extent. Throughout the post war period, the notion of work was largely intertwined with gender. To escape the trauma of the War, gender roles encompassed a nostalgic view of pre-war Britain and thus relied on the notion of the strong male breadwinner and as a counterpart, the housewife.[1] This essay will explore the ways in which the image of the housewife was utilised throughout the advertising industry in the 1950’s and 1960’s. With particular reference to two videos from The Media Archive for Central England (MACE) and the BOB National archive, this essay will engage with clips from the period in order to understand how women were portrayed. The first is a promotional video for the Esiclene kitchen range.[2] The date of the video is not recorded on the archive, however on further investigation it is thought that the video is from the 1950’s.[3] The second is a promotional video for the Mercury oven released in 1958. The third is a clip taken from the Chanel 4 television show ‘It was Alright in the 60’s’ that discusses Terry Scott’s television show, ‘Scott on Birds’ from BBC2 in 1964.[4] By analysing each video this essay will aim to uncover the housewife in both advertising and entertainment. With the help of historians such as Gillain Murray, Stephen Brooke and Sean Nixon, and primary sources from the Daily Mail from the period, this essay will contextualise each video and argue that the role of the housewife was used heavily throughout advertising to appeal to an audience striving to realise the nostalgia of pre-war Britain.

Throughout the period of war in the early twentieth century, a confusion of gender roles has been identified by ample historians such as Helen Smith[5] and Stephen Brooke[6] and Joanna Bourke.[7] This was largely owed to a change in the industrial structure of Britain noted in Sally Alexanders article ‘Becoming a Woman in London in the 1920s and 1930s’ and argues that opportunities for women’s economic freedom were apparent throughout the war period.[8] An industrial transformation had been witnessed from the dependency on traditionally masculine industries such as ship building, coal mining and steel works that flourished during industrialisation, to a new reliance on plastic, glass and motor manufacturing, all of which offered women employment opportunities since they were a source of cheap labour.[9] The effects of this confusion of gender roles are undeniable throughout the 1950s and 1960s. After the trauma of the war and the unemployment experienced throughout the interwar period, nostalgia for Victorian Britain was integral in the reconstruction of family and gender roles. [10] The videos taken from both MACE and the BOB National archive demonstrate the male ‘Breadwinner’ and female ‘Housewife’ used throughout the advertising industry that tapped into a more general consensus. The Esiclene promotional video counters the image of the housewife using the domestic range with the male manufacturer reinforcing the nostalgia of Victorian gender identity.[11] Similarly, Terry Scott’s television show mocks women showing the housewife to be the perfect women that every man should end up with.[12] Thus, it is obvious from this that both regional and national television clung to this idea of ‘Housewife’ and ‘Breadwinner’.

One common aspect of each video is the appearance of the housewife. A consistency in the way the housewife is represented can be seen throughout each clip. The Esiclene promotional video opens with a cartoon image of multiple women holding hands wearing dresses and aprons.[13]

https://vimeo.com/137369102

Thus this instantly establishes the tone of the video, suggesting that the image of the housewife will take precedent throughout the promotional video. The video then uses a traditional housewife well dressed, with neat hair, wearing an apron using the Esiclene kitchen range.[14] Thus, the introduction to the promotional video works to establish the Esiclene domestic range as a product that will be used by women. Similarly, the Mercury Oven promotional advert also introduces the video with images of housewives, again neatly presented and wearing an apron.[15]

https://vimeo.com/137372575

Each of these representations of women work to support Sean Nixon’s argument of the consistency of housewife image:

‘Typically they were associated with the emblem of the housewifery role: an apron. The apron was always pristine and the presentation of the housewife usually saw her looking neat and well groomed, often wearing court shoes, occasionally heels, and sometimes a sting of pearls.’[16]

Thus, this seems to be true for each of the video’s analysed in this essay. The final video that represents Terry Scott’s television programme ‘Scott on Birds’, was not an advert for a particular product, however was a satirical sketch on women in general. Scott works his way through three types of women, the first a glamorous woman who he compares to a ‘Lamborghini’.[17] The second is a women wearing just a bikini, and the third woman that ‘most men end up with’ is a traditional housewife, again clad in an apron and neat dress.[18] Again, this is consistent with the appearance of each housewife in the regional promotional videos and also support Sean Nixon’s notions.

The consistency of appearance of the housewife in each video shows the aspirations of housewifery established by the media. From these three video’s, we can gage an understanding of what constitutes the perfect housewife in the eyes of both regional advertising and national television. One important aspect to the representation of the perfect housewife was class. When analysing the representation of the housewife in each video, it is clear that the aspirational housewife has been represented by middle class women from their dress and the household facilities they are able to afford. The Esiclene clip illustrates a number of women, all of which make use of the image of middle –class, well dressed and economically affluent female unbound by need to work in industry.[19] The Mercury oven promotional video also utilises this image throughout. This chimes with Gillian Murray’s contention that the ideal housewife throughout advertising was represented by middle class women.[20] Thus, the expectations imposed upon on working-class women who could not necessarily afford these commodities had an undeniable effect. Working-class women filled their houses with ‘televisions, washing machines and fridges’ and sacrificed provisions such as ‘hot running water and an indoor toilet.’[21] Thus, there is a clear gap between the representation of housewives in advertising and the lived experience of women during the 1950s and 1960s.

A gap in the expectation of women and the lived experience of women can also be noted when turning to newspaper advertising. The Daily Mail for example makes use throughout its advertising in the 1950s and 1960s of the housewife image discussed previously. For example, an advert for ‘Quaker’ macaroni was published in the Daily Mail addressing housewives in 1950.[22] Again, the image of a housewife donning an apron, a dress and neatly presented is situated next to the advertising text showing a consistency with the videos analysed hitherto. When looking through the Daily Mail archives there is ample evidence of these types of advertising, reaching out to the housewife and utilising the stereotypes that have been discussed. However, this did not necessarily match up with the content of the paper and a gap can be seen regarding the experience of women in the fictional stories, and the expectations of women in the advertising section. One article entitles ‘Surely they’re the husband and wife of the year’ depicts the story of a husband and wife.[23] The story is of a mother whose husband supported and took on the domestic duties whilst she studied for her degree, and were thus being praised for the both the education of the wife and the domesticity of the husband it is clear from this article that the gender roles of the domestic mother and breadwinning father was not necessarily a reality.

Furthermore, Gillian Murray argues that the image of ‘Mrs Consumer’ was used throughout advertising and television to represent the peak of housewifery.[24] The economic independence of women was affected by the affluence in the post war boom as British exports rose by 77 per cent between the years 1946 and 1950.[25] Affluence in the post war period stretched over a period of 20 years, from 1950s to the 1970s and living standards dramatically increased during this period.[26] Due to the economic stability, the unemployment rate stayed at 2 percent throughout the period, allowing wages to rise and a mass improvement in the living standards of both the working and middle classes.[27] This resulted in a long boom in consumerism and ‘people were weary of hardship and deprivation, which for many families had lasted since 1919, and they were eager to take advantage of consumer pleasure’.[28] The desire to own consumer products, from domestic products such as washing machines, ovens, refrigerators and hoovers, to both male and female clothing.[29] New industries such as motor, class and plastic, all of which employed women, replaced old industries such as ship building, coal mining and steelworks.[30] Thus, as women now had the opportunity to engage in employment, this resulted in a new female economic independence. Shopping and consumerism was largely associated with women, and therefore the advertising industry relied on the image of ‘Mrs. Consumer’ to appeal to this stereotype.

Throughout advertising, an emphasis was put on the freedom that these consumer products would grant women. Adverts represented domestic products as a as tool of female emancipation, a break from the ties of domestic duties and the provider of an easier lifestyle. `In 1950 the Daily Mail published an article titled ‘Electricity makes life Easier.’[31] The advert uses an image of a woman’s leg next to an oven clad in heals, a dress and an apron.[32] The advert states:

‘Lashings of really hot water always available whenever you want it- what more could a housewife ask? Lots of things: a spotless electric cooker or any of the other labour saving appliances which make life worth living.’[33]

This advert demonstrates the pressure put on women to purchase these new consumer items and shows the expectation that women will perform domestic duties. Furthermore, this shows the appeal of female emancipation used by advertisers during this time period.
Similarly, both promotional videos for the Esiclene Domestic Range and the Mercury oven both use this idea of domestic freedom to sell their products. The Easiclene promotional video pitches their new domestic range as a conversion from ‘dingy Edwardian kitchens into Jewels of brightness and labour conservation.’[34] In addition, simply the name of the company, Easiclene, denotes the importance put on the ease and emancipation of domestic labour. Similarly, the Mercury oven promotional video also stresses the importance of ease of use their new product provides. A demonstration is shown to depict the ease of cleaning the hob. The male presenter spills sauce on the hob, and hands the woman a cloth who cleans the sauce with ease and says ‘just like a man’. [35] Thus, not only does this advert show the ease and convenience of the oven, it also displays traditional gender roles and places the woman in the kitchen cleaning the male presenters mess. Therefore, it is clear that both videos tap into the idea of labour saving devices to entice the female consumer, while preserving the essential elements of female subservience and their domestic role. However, Claire Langhamer offers a contrary views and argues that the labour saving domestic consumer products advertised, instead worked to achieve the opposite and raised the standards of household aesthetics.[36] Each domestic product became so desirable and had the effect of community competition for the best looking and cleanest house. Consequently, the advertising industry, instead of meeting the expectations they enforced, had the reverse effect to female emancipation.

From the sources analysed throughout this essay, it is clear that both regional advertising, and the national media relied on the image of the housewife during the 1950s and 1960s. By conforming to the perception of women’s work and creating a specific aesthetic appearance of the housewife, the advertising industry reinforced the nostalgia of Victorian gender roles. Three important themes have been picked out and were all consistent elements throughout regional advertising and were also recognised on a more national level: 1) the middle class representation of the housewife, 2) the association of women and domesticity, 3) the gap between public and media expectations and the lived experience of women in the 1950s and 1960s. The consumer culture that has been noted throughout this essay played a large role in the perception of women throughout advertising and this was facilitated by the economic structure of post war Britain. As women were engaged in work, they became economically independent and spending power allowed them to consume luxury items. However, the advertising industry did work to polarise those who could not afford these commodities. As shown in this study, the power of television and advertising in this period must not be underestimated as working class women often sacrificed necessities for what would be considered luxuries, showing the strength that the housewife image held. Therefore, overall, the image of the housewife contributed to advertising vastly throughout the 1950s and 1960s and was consistent from regional promotional advertising, to national satirical entertainment and finally, national newspaper advertising.

 

[1]Stephen Brooke, ‘Gender and working class identity in Britain during the 1950s.’ Journal of Social History 34, no. 4 (2001), 776.

[2] Easiclene of Wolverhampton, ‘Something to Sing about’, unknown date, Media Archrive for Central England, University of Lincoln, https://vimeo.com/album/3537349/video/137369102

[3] Creda Promotional Video, ‘Mercury’, first broadcast 1958, Media Archive for Central England, University of Lincoln, https://vimeo.com/album/3537349/video/137372575

[4] Channel 4, ‘Alright in the 1960’s’, first broadcast 21 September 2015, BOB National Archive, http://bobnational.net/record/314280

[5] Helen Smith, ‘Love, Sex, Work and Friendship: Northern, Working-Class Men and Sexuality in the First Half of the Twentieth Century.’ In Love and Romance in Britain, 1918–1970, pp. 61-80. Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2015.

[6]Joanna Bourke, Working class cultures in Britain, 1890-1960: gender, class, and ethnicity. (Psychology Press, 1994) 776.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Sally Alexander, ‘Becoming a Woman in London in the 1920s and 1930s.’ Metropolis—London. Histories and Representations since (1800), 203.

[9] Ina Zweigiger-Bargielowska, Women in Twentieth-Century Britain: Social, Cultural and Political Change (Routledge, 2014) 168.

[10] Stephen Brooke, ‘Gender and t Working Class Identity in Britian’ , 775

[11] Easiclene of Wolverhampton, ‘Something to Sing about’, unknown date, Media Archrive for Central England, University of Lincoln, https://vimeo.com/album/3537349/video/137369102

[12] Channel 4, ‘Alright in the 1960’s’, first broadcast 21 September 2015, BOB National Archive, http://bobnational.net/record/314280

[13] Esicle Easiclene of Wolverhampton, ‘Something to Sing about’, unknown date, Media Archrive for Central England, University of Lincoln, https://vimeo.com/album/3537349/video/137369102 ne video, 00.1 – 00.25.

[14]Easiclene of Wolverhampton, ‘Something to Sing about’, unknown date, Media Archrive for Central England, University of Lincoln, https://vimeo.com/album/3537349/video/137369102.

[15] Creda Promotional Video, ‘Mercury’, first broadcast 1958, Media Archive for Central England, University of Lincoln, https://vimeo.com/album/3537349/video/137372575

[16] Sean Nixon, Hard sell : advertising, affluence and transatlantic relations, find page number, 130.

[17] Channel 4, ‘Alright in the 1960’s’, first broadcast 21 September 2015, BOB National Archive, http://bobnational.net/record/314280

[18] Channel 4, ‘Alright in the 1960’s’, first broadcast 21 September 2015, BOB National Archive, http://bobnational.net/record/314280

[19] Easiclene of Wolverhampton, ‘Something to Sing about’, unknown date, Media Archrive for Central England, University of Lincoln, https://vimeo.com/album/3537349/video/137369102

[20] Gillian Murray, ‘Regional News and the Mid-Twentieth-Century ‘Housewife’: Exploring the Legacy of Afternoon Television in Midlands News Programmes in the 1950s and 1960s.’ Critical Studies in Television: The International Journal of Television Studies 9, no. 2 (2014)

[21] Murray, ‘Regional News’, 60.

[22] “Multiple Display Advertising Items.” Daily Mail [London, England] 15 Feb. 1950: 2. Daily Mail Historical Archive. Web. 6 May 2016. http://find.galegroup.com.proxy.library.lincoln.ac.uk/dmha/newspaperRetrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&sort=DateAscend&tabID=T003&prodId=DMHA&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchId=R2&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm&currentPosition=5&qrySerId=Locale%28en%2C%2C%29%3AFQE%3D%28tx%2CNone%2C10%29Housewife+%3AAnd%3ALQE%3D%28gs%2CNone%2C13%29%22Advertising%22%3AAnd%3ALQE%3D%28da%2CNone%2C23%2901%2F01%2F1950+-+12%2F21%2F1970%24&retrieveFormat=MULTIPAGE_DOCUMENT&userGroupName=ulh&inPS=true&contentSet=LTO&&docId=&docLevel=FASCIMILE&workId=&relevancePageBatch=EE1864620553&contentSet=DMHA&callistoContentSet=DMHA&docPage=article&hilite=y

[23] Rhona Churchill, ‘Surely they’re the husband and wife of the year?’ Daily Mail (London, England), Saturday, June 26, 1965

[24] Murray, ‘Regional News’.

[25]Stanford E Lehmberg, Thomas William Heyck. The Peoples of the British Isles: A New History. (Wadsworth Pub. Co, 1992) 224.

[26] Ibid, 225.

[27] Ibid, 225.

[28] Ibid, 225.

[29] Ibid, 225.

[30] Ina Zweigiger-Bargielowska, Women in Twentieth-Century Britain: Social, Cultural and Political Change (Routledge, 2014) 168.

[31] Unknown Author, ‘Electricity makes life Easier’, Daily Mail (London, England), Saturday, August 12, 1950; pg. 2; Issue 16921.

[32] Ibid.

[33] Ibid.

[34] Easiclene of Wolverhampton, ‘Something to Sing about’, unknown date, Media Archrive for Central England, University of Lincoln, https://vimeo.com/album/3537349/video/137369102

[35] Creda Promotional Video, ‘Mercury’, first broadcast 1958, Media Archive for Central England, University of Lincoln, https://vimeo.com/album/3537349/video/137372575

[36] Claire Langhamer, ‘The meanings of home in postwar Britain.’ Journal of Contemporary History 40, no. 2 (2005), 358.

 

 

Bibliography

Brooke, Stephen. ‘Gender and working class identity in Britain during the 1950s.’ Journal of Social History 34, no. 4 (2001): 773-795.

Bourke, Joanna. Working class cultures in Britain, 1890-1960: gender, class, and ethnicity. Psychology Press, 1994

Smith, Helen. ‘Love, Sex, Work and Friendship: Northern, Working-Class Men and Sexuality in the First Half of the Twentieth Century.’ In Love and Romance in Britain, 1918–1970, pp. 61-80. Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2015.

Ina Zweigiger-Bargielowska, Women in Twentieth-Century Britain: Social, Cultural and Political Change (Routledge, 2014) 168.

Sean Nixon, Hard sell : advertising, affluence and transatlantic relations, find page number, 130.

Murray, Gillian. ‘Regional News and the Mid-Twentieth-Century ‘Housewife’: Exploring the Legacy of Afternoon Television in Midlands News Programmes in the 1950s and 1960s.’ Critical Studies in Television: The International Journal of Television Studies 9, no. 2 (2014): 54-73.

Lehmberg, Stanford E, and Thomas William Heyck. The Peoples of the British Isles: A New History. Wadsworth Pub. Co., 1992.

Langhamer, Claire. ‘The meanings of home in postwar Britain.’ Journal of Contemporary History 40, no. 2 (2005): 341-362.

Primary Sources

Unknown Author, ‘Electricity makes life Easier’, Daily Mail (London, England), Saturday, August 12, 1950; pg. 2; Issue 16921.

Rhona Churchill, ‘Surely they’re the husband and wife of the year?’ Daily Mail (London, England), Saturday, June 26, 1965

“Multiple Display Advertising Items.” Daily Mail [London, England] 15 Feb. 1950: 2. Daily Mail Historical Archive. Web. 6 May 2016. http://find.galegroup.com.proxy.library.lincoln.ac.uk/dmha/newspaperRetrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&sort=DateAscend&tabID=T003&prodId=DMHA&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchId=R2&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm&currentPosition=5&qrySerId=Locale%28en%2C%2C%29%3AFQE%3D%28tx%2CNone%2C10%29Housewife+%3AAnd%3ALQE%3D%28gs%2CNone%2C13%29%22Advertising%22%3AAnd%3ALQE%3D%28da%2CNone%2C23%2901%2F01%2F1950+-+12%2F21%2F1970%24&retrieveFormat=MULTIPAGE_DOCUMENT&userGroupName=ulh&inPS=true&contentSet=LTO&&docId=&docLevel=FASCIMILE&workId=&relevancePageBatch=EE1864620553&contentSet=DMHA&callistoContentSet=DMHA&docPage=article&hilite=y

Easiclene of Wolverhampton, ‘Something to Sing about’, unknown date, Media Archrive for Central England, University of Lincoln, https://vimeo.com/album/3537349/video/137369102

Creda Promotional Video, ‘Mercury’, first broadcast 1958, Media Archive for Central England, University of Lincoln, https://vimeo.com/album/3537349/video/137372575

Channel 4, ‘Alright in the 1960’s’, first broadcast 21 September 2015, BOB National Archive, http://bobnational.net/record/314280

 

Page Three and 1980s ATV programming. By Lauren Wells

The 1960s saw an abundance of permissive legislation, however many Britons did not truly experience the effects of ‘permissive Britain.’ The lived experience of the so called ‘permissive society’ was limited and attitudes towards sex remained fairly conservative, particularly in areas outside of London. [1] So when did Britain become ‘permissive’? Popular culture has become increasingly sexualised since the 1970s and it seems likely that it was the growing presence of sex and sexually explicit content in all aspects of the media which truly created a ‘permissive Britain’[2]. In an analysis of ATV footage from the Media Archive for Central England (hereafter MACE), this essay will argue that the general attitude of acceptance towards Page Three, promoted by ATV in the 1980s, is indicative of a growth in permissiveness amongst some members of the British public in this period, or at the very least amongst those in the Midlands.

The breadth of material on topless modelling available in MACE demonstrates that such stories must have been popular with ATV producers as well as with audiences. The introduction of Page Three had already significantly increased the circulation of The Sun in the 1970s,[3] and it could be argued that ATV was attempting to capitalise on the popularity of the feature. In his discussion of the British popular press, Adrian Bingham argues that British journalism was intensely preoccupied with sex throughout the twentieth century, and sex had long been a key selling point for newspapers.[4] The wide coverage of Page Three in ATV programming could thus be seen as a continuation of this preoccupation with sex in the media as a whole, suggesting that sex was not only a popular topic in newspapers but also on television. Although risqué stories had been permeating newspapers since the interwar period, television news reporting tended to steer clear of ‘sexually explicit’ content until the 1980s. Jonathan Bignell’s work suggests that the increasing number of programmes relating to sex and sexuality on television in the 1980s and 1990s was a result of the 1980 Broadcasting Act, and the subsequent introduction of Channel 4.[5] The Broadcasting Act required Channel 4 to ‘encourage innovation and experiment in the form and content of programmes’, and they did this through broadcasting increasingly sexual programmes. The producers promoted these programmes as cultural, meaning that Channel 4 was able to remain within the realms of acceptability.[6] Thus ATV’s preoccupation with topless modelling seems likely to have been a result of competition with Channel 4. Although ATV did not present their pieces on topless modelling as cultural, they did present them as acceptable, and it is this supposed acceptance of topless modelling, influenced by the increasingly sexualised media, which I believe presents the 1980s as a period of increasing permissiveness.

The prevalence of topless modelling features and other sexual content on television cannot suggest a new era for permissiveness by itself, yet the MACE footage provides us with insight into reactions of the general public to such material. A considerable number of the features make a point of ‘taking to the streets’ to carry out vox-pops with the general public. In all of the public interviews in the MACE material the positive reactions to Page Three outweigh the negative reactions. For example in a report aired on Central News East in 1986; of the five men and five women interviewed, only one woman disapproved of the feature, not because of its overt sexuality but because of the media in which it was presented.[7]

https://vimeo.com/album/3760338/video/152985840

Another report, aired on ATV Today in 1980 interviews a smaller pool; an older gentleman who claims he never looks at Page Three and a builder and his colleagues who shout down to the reporter “They’re beautiful! Absolutely beautiful!”[8]

https://vimeo.com/155951046

Thus in these interviews the dissenting voice is either absent or simply brushed aside. However, it must be considered that these replies are likely to have been carefully selected in order to construct the view of Page Three that the producers of ATV chose to represent, and are therefore not entirely representative of attitudes towards Page Three in the Midlands overall. Nonetheless ATV seem desperate to suggest that these pieces were reflecting public attitudes. In a similar vein, vox-pops were carried out with nine men and eight women of varying ages in programme eleven of Central Weekend, a late night discussion programme, which was aired shortly after labour MP for Birmingham Ladywood, Clare Short, took a bill to parliament attempting to ban Page Three girls from newspapers in 1986.[9]

https://vimeo.com/153766640

The majority of those interviewed had nothing to say against the feature yet the dissenting voice was more apparent in this programme than in others. Still only four of the seventeen members of the public interviewed, were against the feature; one man felt it trivialised news and two elderly women found it distasteful.[10] In the same programme the results of a poll carried out by the programme makers again revealed a positive reaction to Page Three, as 67% of people polled were against “any move to cover up the page three girls” with people responding that “the topless girls were either just good fun or sometimes even brightened up the newspapers”. Thus the material in these broadcasts does suggest that there was a general attitude of acceptance towards Page Three from the public and, to an extent, growing permissive attitudes. However it is also clear that ATV appears to have been working hard to dismiss the disapproving voices in order to promote the feature, and thus these examples must be read with caution.

The acceptance of Page Three is also emphasised through interviews with the parents of the Page Three girls or by asking the models how their families reacted. For example, Topless Model Gerri Perry was asked how her parents reacted to her job, and she replied; “No they weren’t shocked at all, they were quite pleased for me. Topless is accepted nowadays, so if it had of upset them I wouldn’t have gone ahead with it. I think they were quite pleased really.”[11]

https://vimeo.com/153766635

Not only is the acceptance of her parents (the generation prior to the advent of Page Three Girls) important in registering the notion of increased permissiveness in the period, but also the statement that the feature is accepted, suggests she witnessed very little criticism of topless modelling. Again, this reinforces the idea that Britain was becoming more accepting of topless modelling, and perhaps the promotion of female sexuality on television and in newspapers. It is important to note that this piece was filmed two years before Clare Short’s parliamentary bill, when the coverage of the topic in both the national press and on ATV increased substantially, and as a result, Geri would have been more likely to have heard the voices of dissent after the Bill was introduced. Another model, Jill Nevile, interviewed in 1980 said that her mother was not particularly impressed with her career choice but goes on to say;

I think the rest of my family backed me up quite a lot so she [her mother] succumbed to it in the end, and I think she’s not proud exactly but I don’t think she was quite as disgusted with me as I thought she might be.[12]

Again these interviews suggest a general attitude of acceptance, and none of the interviews with parents reveal a strong disagreement with topless modelling, or Page Three. Although this is indicative of permissiveness in the Midlands, although carefully chosen by producers, the people interviewed are in fact real people discussing what appears to be their true views. However, that Jill’s mother needed convincing that her daughter’s job was acceptable, highlights the fact that not everyone was as open and accepting of page three as ATV sometimes suggested. This reinforces the point that there will always be members of the population who will not adapt to or accept modernised values, thus terms such as ‘permissiveness’ cannot be applied to the entire population.[13]

The acceptance or rejection of Page Three, whether from the parents of Page Three Girls or from the general public, seems to correlate with class. Teresa Stratford has argued that;

Class is central to the Page 3 issue. Middle-class people tend not to read the Sun or the Star. Middle-class girls tend not to dream about appearing on Page 3. They have no need; most of them have job prospects which promise more interest, more respect and a longer career elsewhere. It is no accident that most Page 3 Girls come from working-class homes.[14]

Notions of class are not, at first, overt in this footage, however a close analysis reveals that Stratford’s argument can also be applied to the evidence in the ATV footage. Of the two women mentioned above Jill Nevile appears to be the more middle-class of the two and it seems that she had the most difficulty in convincing her parents that her job was ‘acceptable’. In both The Sun and ATV footage, the majority of topless models are presented as the working-class girl-next-door.[15] This is emphasised by a constant reminder to the viewers that these girls are ‘ordinary’ and live just a few miles away. For example: “the down to earth girl from Belpher in Derbyshire, who’s too shy to even take off her bikini top on holiday wants to become a topless model”,[16]

https://vimeo.com/152979170

“Jaunty Julie Bootes, seventeen, hales from Halesowen, just a step from Brum”.[17] Locality seems to have been a key feature in forming the identity of the Page Three Girl, perhaps because it made them recognisable to the viewers, or because it linked them to the readers via class. The vox-pops also reveal that the dissenting voice tended to come from the more middle-class members of society, though some distinctly working-class interviewees were also against the feature, the voice of apprehension was formed largely by middle-class men and young women. Perhaps unsurprisingly, working-class men seemed to be the most avid supporters of the feature, after all the highest proportion of The Sun readers also fit into this profile.[18] This could suggest that Page Three only demonstrates notions of permissiveness amongst the working-classes, as the ATV footage does present Page Three as a working-class issue. However this area requires further analysis as it is difficult to decipher a person’s class simply from a brief television interview. Generation also seems to play an important role in acceptance of Page Three, the parents of most of the topless models appear to be of a similar age to the majority of those who supported Page Three in the vox-pops, perhaps hinting that permissiveness had taken effect a generation before, as Central Weekend’s poll revealed “One in Three women under 40… said that Page Three pictures were degrading to women.”[19] This suggests that the ‘permissive society’ had begun to affect lived experience earlier, likely in the 1970s, as a result of second wave feminism and the gay liberation movement in the 1970s which not only promoted ‘sexual pleasure for its own sake,’[20] but also forced matters of sexuality into the public eye. Adding to this idea there is also the matter that the dissenting voice become more prominent in footage after Clare Short’s bill, which could suggest that post 1986 Page Three was becoming less of a signifier of Permissiveness, or possibly even that permissiveness itself was changing.

The way in which the topic of topless modelling was broadcast by ATV suggests an openness in terms of the sexualisation of the female body. Most of the pieces in MACE include samples of Page Three images or interviews with models, some of whom are topless during their interviews, and the bare breasts of these women quickly become the focus of the reports. It is particularly notable that the majority of the footage concerning Page Three comes from Central News East, usually broadcast as early as 6.00pm, and ATV Today broadcast just an hour later.[21] This early broadcast time meant that these images were not reserved for adult viewing but would have been viewed by people of all ages. This could be read as demonstrative of an acceptance of the proliferation of sexualised images of women on television, thus hinting at a growth in permissiveness. However, this is more representative of the attitudes held by ATV producers rather than those of the audience. By broadcasting images of bare breasted women to such a wide audience, the producers were demonstrating their attitude towards the feature. Clearly they felt that Page Three was not sexually explicit enough to be reserved until after the watershed, to their eyes perhaps it was ‘harmless’ and ‘just good fun’. However, it has been argued that ‘the media create as much as reflect reality, and their process of “selection and interpretation” is historically significant,’[22] thus there must have been at least some level of permissiveness in society for the producers to deem the topic ‘acceptable’ to broadcast, and by broadcasting the feature and promoting it as acceptable, ATV may even have been increasing notions of permissiveness amongst its viewers. Alongside this, Carolyn Kitch has demonstrated that until the 1960s, society was being conditioned to view female sexuality as monstrous,[23] yet in the 1980s it is possible to read Page Three as a promotion of female sexuality, though still in terms of male dominated heterosexuality. In these broadcasts, female sexuality is no longer monstrous but ‘a bit of fun’ and something to enjoy in your morning paper. The promotion of female sexuality to such a wide audience demonstrates that, although not in a particularly liberated form, there was an increase in freedom of expression in terms of female sexuality. Thus permissiveness in this particular form, was in fact becoming lived experience, at least for the women who appeared in Page Three, or found the images liberating as opposed to offensive.

Despite this supposed sexual liberation of Page Three, many of the models interviewed deny that their job is particularly ‘sexy’,[24] though the sexuality of the resulting images is hard to dispute. But it appears that the way in which the features were presented may have made them seem more ‘acceptable’. The producers at ATV worked hard to promote the idea that the feature was in fact ‘harmless’, the pieces were often presented in a playful tone, and with the exception of the Central Weekend programme mentioned above, none of the pieces appear to take the issue seriously. By presenting the issue as something to joke about rather than something to be offended by, which Patricia Holland argues is the way in which The Sun presented the feature, ATV could be understood to be promoting Page Three and encouraging support for it.[25] ATV could also be perceived as responsible for the supposed acceptance of Page Three amongst its viewers. That a news channel was broadcasting images of topless models, is likely to have made the issue seem less threatening, indeed the media creates reality as much as reflects it, and ATV’s instance that Page Three was harmless may have convinced the viewers that Page Three was acceptable . So perhaps it was the supposed lack of ‘sexiness’, emphasised by both the models, and it some ways by ATV, which made Page Three seem acceptable. Yet despite ATV’s insistence that most people were perfectly happy with the feature, five thousand letters were sent to Clare Short after the introduction of her Bill in 1986, and the ‘overwhelming message of the letters was one of support for what Clare Short was trying to do.’[26] With the knowledge that there were still a number of people who disagreed with the feature, reactions to Page Three cannot reflect an entirely permissive society, but they do demonstrate that to some extent, Britain, or at least the Midlands, was more permissive in the 1980s than it was in the 1960s. However Page Three is a clear indicator of the complexity of sexuality in the media as well as the complexity of notions of permissiveness.

The public majority who accepted Page Three suggests that society had become ‘permissive’ in some ways by the 1980s. The ATV footage makes it evident that there was some level of freedom to express female sexuality on television and in newspapers, which suggests a move away from the Conservative values of the 1950s and 1960s. I believe that this is due to the increased sexualisation of the media, and that as a result, Britons were becoming increasingly exposed to matters of sex and sexuality in their everyday lives. Yet permissiveness did not and could not reach everyone and thus perhaps it is the term ‘permissive society’ itself is what makes this issue so complex. By itself the coverage of Page Three in ATV programming cannot suggest a completely new timeline for notions of permissiveness. However it does demonstrate that some people, particularly the working-classes, had become more permissive by the 1980s. Siân Nichols has recommended that historians move away from single media histories and instead focus on the wider media landscape,[27] and if further research would allow, this topic would benefit from an analysis of the sexualisation of the media as whole, perhaps from the late 1960s until the early 1990s in order to discern when or how the sexualisation of the media affected notions of permissiveness.

 

[1] Jonathan Green, ‘The Permissive society: Do your own thing’, in All Dressed Up; The sixties and the counter-culture (London: Jonathan Cape, 1998).

[2] Feona Attwood, ‘Introduction’ to Mainstreaming Sex (London: I.B. Tauris, 2009), xix.

[3] Vic Giles, ‘The bare facts about the origins of Page 3’, The Guardian, 21^st January 2015, 3.

[4] Adrian Bingham, Family Newspapers? Sex, Private Life & The British Popular Press 1918-1878, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 1 & 263.

[5] Jonathan Bignell, An Introduction to Television Studies (London: Routledge, 2004), 239.

[6] Bignell, An Introduction, 45.

[7] Central News East, ‘Topless Models’, first broadcast 14 March 1986, MACE, University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3760338/video/152985840.

[8] ATV Today, ‘Page 3 Girl,’ first broadcast 8 February 1980, Media Archive for Central England (hereafter MACE), University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3760338/video/155951046.

[9] Teresa Stratford, ‘Women and the Press’, in Ethical Issues in Journalism and the Media, eds Andrew Belsey, Ruth F. Chadwick (London: Routledge, 1992), 132.

[10] Central Weekend [Programme 011], ‘Page Three,’ first broadcast 18 April 1986, MACE, University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3760338/video/153766640.

[11] Citizen 84 [Programme 01], ‘Page Three,’ first broadcast 16 January 1984, MACE, University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3760338/video/153766635

[12] ATV Today, ‘Page 3 Girls’.

[13] Christian Adam, Christoph Knill and Steffen Hurka, On The Road To Permissiveness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 51.

[14] Stratford, ‘Women and the Press’, 133.

[15] Patricia Holland, ‘The Page Three Girl Speaks to Women, Too’, Screen 24 (1983), 97.

[16] Central News East, ‘Young Model’, first broadcast 17 November 1986, MACE, University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3760338/video/152979170

[17] ATV Today, ‘Page 3 Girls’.

[18] Bobby Duffy and Laura Rowden, ‘You are what you read?’, MORI Social Research Institute (2005), 21.

[19] Central Weekend, ‘Page Three’.

[20] Nickie Charles, Gender in Modern Britain (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 113.

[21] Peter Dear and Peter Davalle, ‘Today’s television and radio programmes’, The Times , March 14, 1986, 31, Peter Lee and Peter Dear, ‘Television and radio’ The Times, September 21, 1982, 23 and Peter Dear, ‘Today’s television and radio programmes’, The Times, December 30, 1981, 17.

[22] Carolyn Kitch, The Girl on the Magazine Cover (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 3.

[23] Kitch, The Girl, 187.

[24] Citizen 84 [Programme 01], ‘Page Three’, Central Weekend, ‘Page Three,’ and Central News East, ‘Topless Models’.

[25] Holland, ‘The Page Three Girl’, 94.

[26] Kiri Tunks and Diane Hutchinson, comp., Dear Clare…this is what women feel about Page 3 (London: Hutchinson Radius, 1991), x.

[27] Siân Nicholas, ‘Media History or Media Histories?: Readdressing the history of the mass media in inter-war Britain’, Media History 18 (2012): 379-394.

 

 

Bibliography.

Adam, Christian, Christoph Knill and Steffen Hurka. On The Road To Permissiveness. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.

Attwood, Feona. ‘Introduction’ to Mainstreaming Sex, xiii-xxiv. London: I.B. Tauris, 2009.

Bignell, Jonathan. An Introduction to Television Studies. London: Routledge, 2004.

Bingham, Adrian. Family Newspapers? Sex, Private Life & The British Popular Press 1918-1978. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Charles, Nickie. Gender in Modern Britain. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Duffy, Bobby and Laura Rowden. ‘You are what you read?’. MORI Social Research Institute (2005): 1-30.

Giles, Vic. ‘The bare facts about the origins of Page 3’. The Guardian. 21^st January 2015: 3.

Green, Jonathan. ‘The Permissive society: Do your own thing’. In All Dressed Up; The sixties and the counter-culture. London: Jonathan Cape, 1998.

Holland, Patricia. ‘The Page Three Girl Speaks to Women, Too’. Screen 24 (1983): 84-102.

Kitch, Carolyn. The Girl on the Magazine Cover. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.

Nicholas, Siân. ‘Media History or Media Histories?: Readdressing the history of the mass media in inter-war Britain’. Media History 18 (2012): 379-394.

Stratford, Teresa. ‘Women and the Press’. In Ethical Issues in Journalism and the Media, eds Andrew Belsey, Ruth F. Chadwick, 130-136. London: Routledge, 1992.

Tunks, Kiri and Diane Hutchinson, comp. Dear Clare… this is what women feel about Page 3. London: Hutchinson Radius, 1991.

Primary Sources

ATV Today. ‘Page 3 Girls.’ First broadcast 8 February 1980. MACE, University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3760338/video/155951046.

Central News East. ‘Topless Models’. First broadcast 14 March 1986. MACE, University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3760338/video/152985840.

Central News East. ‘Young Model’. First broadcast 17 November 1986. MACE, University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3760338/video/152979170

Central Weekend [Programme 011]. ‘Page Three’. First broadcast 18 April 1986. MACE, University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3760338/video/153766640.

Citizen 84 [Programme 01]. ‘Page Three’. First broadcast 16 January 1984. Media Archive for Central England (hereafter MACE), University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3760338/video/153766635.

Dear, Peter. ‘Today’s television and radio programmes’. The Times. December 30, 1981, 17.

Dear, Peter and Peter Davalle. ‘Today’s television and radio programmes’. The Times. March 14, 1986: 31.

Lee, Peter and Peter Dear. ‘Television and radio’. The Times. September 21, 1982: 23.

 

 

Permissiveness on television in 1960s Britain. By Elizabeth Moran

In the post-war period, Britain experienced an age of affluence; full employment, an economic boom and the welfare state, all contributed to a rise in overall living standards.[1] The 1960s witnessed significant changes in society such as housing re-development, shopping centres, the arrival of television and the change in attitudes and behaviour.[2] The permissive society in the 1960s became shorthand for the change in attitudes towards taking recreational drugs, pre-marital sex, venereal disease and illegitimate pregnancies. However, the concept of a permissive society has been disputed by prominent historians such as Dominic Sandbrook and Arthur Marwick.[3] In this essay I will argue that attitudes and behaviours towards sexuality began to change slowly by the end of the 1950s. However, the concern in the 1960s for the permissive society came as a result of the change in television. I will highlight how ATV and BBC became more open and frank about discussing sexuality which intensified the debate surrounding permissiveness. I will also demonstrate how youth culture was portrayed on television, which appeared to threaten the moral codes in society, whereas in reality attitudes remained conservative. Finally, I will examine how television engaged with the controversial debate surrounding the Labour reforms. I will examine archive footage from ATV news reel (1962-1969) and the BBC’s Up the Junction (1965) to highlight how television engaged with the wider debate on sexual behaviour.

During the 1960s, television became more open when discussing sexuality due to a relaxation of moral censorship by producers.[4] This caused concern over the influence that television could have on society by critics such as Mary Whitehouse. Furthermore, television ownership increased after post-war austerity had created ‘a hunger for all things new’.[5] Therefore, television was consumed on a massive scale. The new cultural medium helped project the idea that permissive behaviour was widespread, although the experience was limited outside London.[6] In this section I will highlight examples from Up the Junction and ATV news to argue that discussions on sexuality became less restricted on television.

Callum Brown described that television was ‘ambiguous’ for it straddled the ‘traditional discursive world of the establishment’ whilst trying to convey the new, modern world.[7] The BBC’s The Wednesday Play, first aired in 1964, was a documentary-drama programme that presented the challenges of Modern Britain.[8] Nell Dunn’s Up the Junction, a novella of the same name, was directed by Ken Loach and first aired on the BBC in 1965. Up the Junction followed three young women Rube, Sylvie and Eileen living and working in Battersea, London. It was watched by an audience of nearly 10 million people but received 464 complaints for bad language and promiscuity.[9] The programme also hosted discussion of sexual relationships outside of marriage which was shared by the older female characters. It was also well remembered for Rube’s back-street abortion scene, as well as covering pre-marital sex and broken marriages.

The change in television caused controversy amongst critics. Mary Whitehouse was critical of Up the Junction as she believed that it portrayed promiscuity as normal.[10] She formed the ‘Clean-Up TV’ campaign in 1963, later known as the National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association (NVALA). The organisation argued that television was responsible for promoting and spreading permissive values.[11] In a telegram to Harold Wilson, Whitehouse declared that ‘someone somewhere has to take responsibility for standards of BBC programmes’.[12] Whitehouse argued that standards at the BBC had lowered, raising concerns for the impact that this would have on society. Similarly, The Daily Telegraph argued that the BBC were ‘scraping the bottom of the barrel’ with Up the Junction and called for tougher censorship.[13] Furthermore, the BBC’s audience research found that some viewers found it ‘disgusting, degrading and unnecessarily sordid’,[14] demonstrating that permissive behaviour was not widespread in society.

Stephen Brooke argues that Up the Junction was ‘taken as a marker of social and sexual change’.[15] The documentary elements of the programme added to its authenticity and caused alarm amongst critics. Loach was conscious that the plays should be not be ‘considered dramas but as continuations of the news’.[16] Therefore, Up the Junction was filmed on location over four days rather than being captured in an electronic studio, [17] which improved its credibility by using real venues across London. The unpolished style of filming adds to the impression that the events might be taking place.[18] These techniques allow the audience to engage with the story as they gain a sense of listening in on people’s stories. Therefore, it was considered to reflect the challenges of modern Britain through its real depiction of promiscuity and abortion.

ATV news reel footage taken between 1962 and 1969 was also responsible for covering a range of issues that were deemed as permissive for the time. The footage provides a middle-class perspective on pre-marital sex, illegitimate births, venereal disease, family planning clinics, contraception, sex education and divorce. In 1962 Look Around, a monthly current affairs programme covered the issue of sex education. The programme featured a Moral Welfare Officer who highlighted the rise in venereal disease, pre-marital sex and illegitimate births.[19] It also featured an interview with Mary, who became pregnant aged 15, who is an example of the consequences of permissive behaviour. Similarly, The Midlands News in 1963 interviewed sixth-form girls after seeing the sex education film, The Yellow Teddy Bears, to highlight young people’s attitudes towards sex.[20] In 1965, Midlands News interviewed Mavis Walker regarding the growth of family planning clinics and she subtly suggested that unmarried women were utilising the service.[21] A Vox Pop from ATV Today in 1967 highlighted the mixed public opinion on the new divorce proposals that made the process easier.[22] The ATV news reel footage highlights how the relaxation on censorship, along with the rise in television ownership, allowed certain topics to be aired publicly and therefore influence opinion that society was becoming more permissive. The ATV news will be discussed in more detail in Sections 2 and 3 in relation to youth culture and the Labour reforms.

The emergence of youth culture in the 1960s had a dramatic impact on society. For the first time young people emerged as a separate group from adults; rebelling against traditional music, fashion and leisure pursuits. Jeffrey Weeks has argued that the anxiety towards the emergence of youth culture was ‘displaced onto the concern of sexuality’.[23] In effect, the physical changes in young people became associated with a lowering in moral standards which was seized upon by media forms such as television. In this section I will highlight how youth culture was portrayed in Up the Junction and ATV news coverage on sex education.

The young female characters in Up the Junction represent a new, modern form of female sexuality that challenges the traditional male authority.[24] Callum Brown argues that in the 1960s the female identity was re-constructed around work, sexual relations and recreational opportunities.[25] This is evident in the film as the women are independent to an extent as they work and seek out men for pleasure. They are perceived as promiscuous as in the opening scene they meet three ‘cheeky’ men in the pub.[26] They enjoy drinking and dancing to the latest music, which features throughout. The film is fun and lively as the approach of editing to music is utilised, employing lyrics to depict the mood at different points. Songs from ‘The Kinks’ and ‘The Searchers’ featuring lyrics such as ‘I’m so hungry for someone to love’ and ‘she said yes’, demonstrate the sexual appetite of the characters.[27] After leaving the pub, the group break in to a swimming pool late at night. The swimming scenes are intimate, as the three couples wrestle in the water in their underwear and passionately kiss one another.[28] The criminal aspect of the scene and the promiscuity of the teenagers, supports the concern over the lowering of young people’s standards.

The concern over young people’s attitudes towards sexuality was incorporated into the debate surrounding appropriate sex education. Government reports reaffirmed the need for suitable instruction in schools.[29] However, these recommendations were ignored, due to the influence of moral conservatives who sought to reaffirm the values of a traditional family life.[30] The debate reached a significant height by the 1960s as contemporaries feared that sex education would exacerbate permissive behaviour in young people.

In November 1963, Reg Harcourt interviewed several sixth-form girls, as part of the Midlands News, after they had seen the sex education film, ‘The Yellow Teddy Bears’, at the Cinephone in Birmingham.

https://vimeo.com/album/3218377/video/117165892

The film focuses on a group of girls at an English school who place a yellow teddy bear on their uniform to symbolise that they have had pre-marital sex.[31] The camera is positioned behind the girls, to protect their identities whilst they discuss the film. This suggests that the nature of the conversation was deemed unsuitable for respectable girls to discuss on camera. All of the girls agreed that the film portrayed sexual issues accurately, but insisted that the film should be shown to younger girls, aged 14-15.[32] This suggests that the sixth-form aged girls had some knowledge regarding sexual intercourse. One girl in particular undermines the stereotype of permissive young people as Harcourt questions, ‘Do you know girls like this at your school?’[33] She replied that, ‘no, I myself do not know…but I think it does go on in some schools’.[34]

Look Around, the monthly current affairs programme, broadcast on ATV in 1962 a segment to highlight the inadequacies of sex education.

https://vimeo.com/album/3218377/video/117165893

The last section of the programme features Stella Hunt, a Moral Welfare Officer, and Mary who conceived aged 15. Stella cites statistics that demonstrate the lowering of young people’s standards. She explains that a report in 1959 found that 31% more girls conceived than the year before.[35] Similarly, there were 65% more cases in girls and 67.3% more cases in boys of venereal disease.[36] However Stella points out that ‘even that does not give a true picture of the promiscuous intercourse which is carried on by our young people’.[37] Such alarmist language promoted pre-marital sex as widespread amongst young people.

Mary is used as an example of the consequences of receiving inadequate sex education. During her interview her identity is obscured by filming from behind using the same technique as the Midlands News in 1963. Stella questions whether ‘other girls…have intercourse with boys and behave in the same way’, which Mary replies ‘I know they do’.[38] This admission challenges the traditional perspective that placed marriage and the family at the heart of society.[39] Stella concludes by stating that ‘it is often said that the standards in young people today are much lower…than when I was young’.[40]

Newspaper headlines also added to people’s concerns such as ‘teenage morals and the corruption of the times’ from the Evening Standard in October 1961.[41] Similarly, The Sunday Times published an enquiry entitled ‘Your Teenage Daughter’ aimed at the parents of Middle Class sixth-form parents.[42] They expressed a concern for the working class teenage culture corrupting the respectable sixth-form girls. This can be seen when comparing Up the Junction’s depiction of youth culture with the ATV interviews of young people. The newspaper declared permissiveness as widespread and stated that ‘none can afford to ignore it’.[43]

In reality, the concern over the lowering of young people’s standards was exaggerated. Michael Schofield’s 1965 study, The Sexual Behaviour of Young People, disputed the idea that the permissive society had arrived and argued that promiscuity and pre-marital sex were still considered to be exceptional.[44] The majority wanted to marry and expected faithfulness, whilst over 2/3 of boys and ¾ of girls in the study had not experienced sexual intercourse.[45] Furthermore, Eustace Chesser’s 1956 study uncovered that 43% of married women and 30% of unmarried women had experienced sex before marriage in the 1940s and 1950s.[46] This suggests that pre-marital sex existed before the so called ‘sexual revolution’ in the 1960s, and supports Hera Cook’s theory of a long sexual revolution between 1800 and 1975.[47] However, James Hampshire and Jane Lewis have argued that Schofield was in the minority, and that ‘the belief that British society…was undergoing radical change in its sexual attitudes and behaviour was widespread’.[48] As my research has demonstrated, this belief was heightened by the portrayal of permissive behaviour amongst young people on television.

The 1960s witnessed the most ‘significant package of legislative changes on morality for over half a century’.[49] The debate surrounding the Labour reforms focuses on whether the legislation cemented the progressive society or whether it allowed permissive behaviour to develop. In Up the Junction, the backstreet abortion and Sylvie’s separation from her husband demonstrate that attitudes had already changed in Working Class London before the legislation took place. Whereas ATV news reel challenges this assessment but draws on a Middle Class perspective. The Midlands News in 1965 argues that change occurred after the pill was introduced in 1961 which is similar to ATV Today in 1967 that argues that the plans for a Divorce Reform act were contradictory to its respondents’ views.

The Labour reforms can be traced back to the preceding decade, suggesting that attitudes were already changing before the 1960s. The Labour Party Leader, Hugh Gaitskell, argued that everyone should have an ‘equal opportunity for the pursuit of happiness however people decide they can best achieve this’.[50] Similarly, Roy Jenkins (who would become Home Secretary 1965-1967) called for extensions in personal freedoms to overhaul laws on homosexuality, abortion, divorce and censorship.[51]

Lesley Hall argues that the legislation ‘reflected change which has already taken place in social mores and attitudes’.[52] Similarly, Jeffrey Weeks argues that the reforms were an ‘attempt to come to grips with the problems posed by a legal framework that was no longer fit for purpose in the light of changing social realities’.[53] However, Stephen Brooke argues that the legislation served as ‘both symbols and causes of the permissive society’ by transforming Britain from ‘a drab and repressed society’ into ‘swinging London’.[54]

The growth of family planning clinics in the 1960s came partly as a result of the availability of the pill to married women in 1961 and to single women in 1967. The number of family planning clinics in 1938 was only 61, but by 1963 this had risen to 400.[55] On the Midlands News in 1965, Tim Downes interviewed Mavis Walker of the Family Planning Clinic in Birmingham.

https://vimeo.com/album/3218377/video/117263581

She encourages all kinds of people to use the service without providing a judgement on contraception. Therefore, Walker challenges the claim that there was a generational divide regarding attitudes on family planning. However, Downes’ negative perspective is evident through his language. He states that ‘these clinics are increasing at a pretty terrific rate’ and questions ‘what…problems does it bring with expansion’.[56] He suggests that the growth in family planning clinics is linked to the changing sexual attitudes. Downes also questions ‘what kind of people come along?’ suggesting that only a certain type of individual uses the service.[57] Walker responds, ‘almost everybody’ and subtly hints that unmarried women were using family planning clinics as she claims that they also see ‘girls who are getting married’.[58]

The Abortion Reform act 1967 embodies the social changes of the 1960s. Up the Junction was timed to coincide with the Parliamentary debate on the reform in 1965. The BBC was criticised for going against its pledge of impartiality by trying to influence public opinion. The topic of abortion was not new to television but it was portrayed in a frightening manner. Close up footage is taken of Rube’s sweat-drenched face to highlight her pain and distress.[59] She screams and struggles on the bed as several shots have been edited to create maximum impact.[60] The scene lasts for approximately 1 minute and 40 seconds and was designed to draw attention to the pain and suffering of back street abortions. Furthermore, an interview with a doctor is conducted in which he argues that the abortion law should be reformed. He states that there are ’35 deaths per year’ due to the backstreet abortions, whereas an abortion is safer in hospital than removing the tonsils.[61] The scene serves to highlight to the audience that backstreet abortions were taking place in Britain regardless of the law, although to what extent is unclear.

Whilst the number of legal abortions almost quadrupled between 1968 and 1970,[62] there can be no comparison of statistics prior to the reform in legislation. However, the number of recorded abortions in 1968 was 35,000 which can be taken as indicative of women’s willingness to terminate their pregnancies.[63] It is also evident that illegitimate births were increasing among young people; between 1961 and 1971 extra-marital births increased from 5.8% to 8.4% of all births,[64] but these statistics do not take into account the increase in the teenagers who were part of the baby boom generation.

The Divorce Reform act 1969 ensured couples could separate by mutual agreement without proving fault. In 1965 Up the Junction depicted the marriage of Sylvie and her husband who had separated. Two-thirds of the way through the programme they insult each other and physically fight in the street outside the pub.[65] He accuses Sylvie of being promiscuous and she accuses him of abandoning their son.[66] The scene highlights the reality for Working Class families when marriages breakdown without the ability to get a divorce.

The topic of divorce was also covered by ATV Today in 1967. The Reporter, Rosemary Dunnage interviews 8 Middle Class respondents in the high street, 5 males and 3 females.

https://vimeo.com/118014157

There was mixed responses by all genders and ages to the question, ‘do you favour divorce by mutual agreement?’.[67] More people were in favour of divorce but stated that it should only be allowed ‘under certain circumstances’.[68] The Vox Pop opposes the Working Class view put forward by the BBC’s Up the Junction of people’s willingness to be divorced. The Middle Class views in the Vox Pop contradict the belief that permissive behaviour was widespread and impacting on marriages, when many people’s views remained fairly conservative. However, what is evident is that after 1969, the divorce rate trebled from 2.1 to 6 per 1,000,[69] which suggests that many unhappy couples had been waiting for the new legislation.

This research piece has contended that the portrayal of permissive behaviour on television influenced the debate surrounding the permissive society in 1960s Britain. I have utilised material from the BBC’s Up the Junction and ATV news reel to highlight how the topics covered by television, such as pre-marital sex, abortion, illegitimate births and sex education, changed in the 1960s. I have also demonstrated how anxieties surrounding youth culture were displaced onto concerns over young people’s changing attitudes towards sexuality. Facilitating these changes were the Labour reforms at the end of the decade, which were seen on television to be as a result of the change in attitudes. I have tried to present the reality of the situation in the 1960s which has challenged the misconception that Britain was permissive. Although, it is evident that attitudes had begun to change slowly, and certainly before the 1960s, but not at the rapid rate that has been argued. However, in order to fully assess how television engaged with the concept of a permissive society, further research is needed on other television programmes aired by the BBC and ATV.

 

 

[1] Iain Chambers, Popular Culture: The Metropolitan Experience 4^th edn, (London: Routledge, 1993), 41.

[2] Ibid, 42.

[3] See: Dominic Sandbrook, White Heat: A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties, (London: Abacus, 2006) and Arthur Marwick, The Sixties: Cultural Revolution in Britain, France, Italy and the United States, c. 1959-1974 2^nd edn, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).

[4] Callum G. Brown, The Death of Christian Britain, (London: Routledge, 2001), 175.

[5] See page 161 for television viewing figures and television ownership in the 1960s. Tim O’Sullivan, ‘Television Memories and Cultures of Viewing, 1859-1965’, In Popular Television in Britain: Studies in Cultural History, ed John Corner, (London: British Film Institute, 1991).

[6] Stephen Brooke, Sexual Politics: Sexuality, Family Planning, and the British Left from the 1880s to the Present Day, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 146.

[7] Brown, The Death of Christian Britain, 178.

[8] Oliver Wake, ‘The Wednesday Play (1964-1970)’, BFI: Screenonline. Accessed 16 March 2016 [http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/454700/, accessed 16 March 2016].

[9] John Hill, Ken Loach: The Politics of Film and Television, (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 47.

[10] Ibid, 45.

[11] Ibid, 26.

[12] Unknown, ‘Letters from Mary Whitehouse’, The National Archives [http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/sixties-britain/letters-mary-whitehouse accessed 8 April 2016].

[13] Hill, Ken Loach, 47.

[14] Ibid, 47.

[15] Stephen Brooke, ‘Slumming in Swinging London? Class, Gender and the Post-War City in Nell Dunn’s Up The Junction (1963)’, Cultural and Social History 9 (2012), 432.

[16] Ros Cranston, ‘Up the Junction (1965)’, BFI: Screenonline [http://www.screenonline.org.uk.proxy.library.lincoln.ac.uk/tv/id/440997/index.html, accessed 16 March 2016].

[17] Richard I. Kelly, ‘Ken Loach Interview’, Sight & Sound 17 (2007), 31.

[18] Hill, Ken Loach, 39.

[19] Look Around, ‘Sex Education’, first Broadcast 13 July 1962, Media Archive for Central England, University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3218377/video/117165893

[20] Midlands News, ‘Sex Film at the Cinephone’, first Broadcast 15 November 1963, MACE University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3218377/video/117165892

[21] Midlands News, ‘Family Planning Clinic’, first Broadcast 21 October 1965, MACE, University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3218377/video/117263581

[22] ATV Today, ‘Divorce’, first Broadcast 13 November 1967, MACE, University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3218371/video/118014157

[23] Jeffrey Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society: The Regulation of Sexuality since 1800 3^rd edn, (Harlow: Pearson, 2012), 329.

[24] Brooke, ‘Slumming in Swinging London?’ 433.

[25] Brown, The Death of Christian Britain, 179.

[26] The Wednesday Plays: Up the Junction, DVD, dir Ken Loach (UK, 1965).

[27] Ibid.

[28] Up the Junction.

[29] See: Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society: 329.

[30] Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society: 329.

[31] Unknown, ‘The Yellow Teddy Bears (1963)’, IMDb [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058169/, accessed 16 March 2016].

[32] Midlands News, ‘Sex Film at the Cinephone’.

[33] Ibid.

[34] Ibid.

[35] Look Around, ‘Sex Education’.

[36] Ibid.

[37] Ibid.

[38] Ibid.

[39] James Hampshire and Jane Lewis, ‘The Ravages of Permissiveness’: Sex Education and the Permissive Society’, Twentieth Century British History 15 (2004), 297.

[40] Look Around, ‘Sex Education’.

[41] Arthur Marwick, The Sixties: Cultural Revolution in Britain, France, Italy and the United States, c. 1959-1974 2^nd edn. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 76.

[42] Unknown, ‘Your Teenage Daughter’, Sunday Times, 9 December 1961, accessed 8 April 2016, http://find.galegroup.com.proxy.library.lincoln.ac.uk/dmha/newspaperRetrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&sort=DateAscend&tabID=T003&prodId=DMHA&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchId=R1&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm&currentPosition=1&qrySerId=Locale%28en%2C%2C%29%3AFQE%3D%28tx%2CNone%2C8%29teenager%3AAnd%3AFQE%3D%28tx%2CNone%2C5%29moral%3AAnd%3ALQE%3D%28da%2CNone%2C23%2901%2F01%2F1960+-+12%2F31%2F1969%24&retrieveFormat=MULTIPAGE_DOCUMENT&userGroupName=ulh&inPS=true&contentSet=LTO&&docId=&docLevel=FASCIMILE&workId=&relevancePageBatch=EE1865927160&contentSet=DMHA&callistoContentSet=DMHA&docPage=article&hilite=y

[43] Ibid.

[44] Hampshire and Lewis, ‘The Ravages of Permissiveness’, 296.

[45] Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society: 326.

[46] Stephen Brooke, ‘Gender and Working Class Identity in Britain During the 1950s’, Journal of Social History (2001), 783.

[47] Callum Brown, ‘Sex, Religion, and the Single Woman c1950-1975: The Importance of a ‘Short’ Sexual Revolution to the English Religious Crisis of the Sixties’, Twentieth Century British History 22 (2011), 191.

[48] Hampshire and Lewis, ‘The Ravages of Permissiveness’, 297.

[49] Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society: 325.

[50] Brooke, Sexual Politics, 149.

[51] Hill, Ken Loach, 25.

[52] Lesley A. Hall, Sex, Gender and Social Change in Britain since 1800, (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000), 176.

[53] Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society: 324-5.

[54] Brooke, Sexual Politics, 146.

[55] Brooke, ‘Gender and Working Class Identity in Britain During the 1950s’, 782.

[56] Midlands News, ‘Family Planning Clinic’.

[57] Ibid.

[58] Ibid.

[59] Up the Junction.

[60] Ibid.

[61] Ibid.

[62] Lesley A. Hall, Sex, Gender and Social Change in Britain since 1800, (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000), 178.

[63] Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society: 346.

[64] Hampshire and Lewis, ‘The Ravages of Permissiveness’, 297.

[65] Up the Junction.

[66] Ibid.

[67] ATV Today, ‘Divorce’.

[68] Ibid.

[69] Hampshire and Lewis, ‘The Ravages of Permissiveness’, 297.

 

 

Bibliography

Primary Sources –

ATV Videos

Around, Look. ‘Sex Education’. First Broadcast 13 July 1962. Media Archive for Central England, University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3218377/video/117165893

News, Midlands. ‘Family Planning Clinic’. First Broadcast 21 October 1965. Media Archive for Central England, University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3218377/video/117263581

News, Midlands. ‘Sex Film at the Cinephone’. First Broadcast 15 November 1963. Media Archive for Central England, University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3218377/video/117165892

Today, ATV. ‘Divorce’. First Broadcast 13 November 1967. Media Archive for Central England, University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3218371/video/118014157

Other sources

4, Channel. ‘It was Alright in the 1960s: Episode 3’. First Broadcast 21 September 2015. Bob National: Box of Broadcasts. Accessed 20 April 2016; http://bobnational.net/record/314280

Loach, Ken. The Wednesday Plays: Up the Junction. UK, 1965. DVD.

Unknown. ‘Letters from Mary Whitehouse’. The National Archives. Accessed 8 April 2016; http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/sixties-britain/letters-mary-whitehouse/

Unknown. ‘Your Teenage Daughter’. Sunday Times. 9 December 1961. Accessed 8 April 2016. http://find.galegroup.com.proxy.library.lincoln.ac.uk/dmha/newspaperRetrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&sort=DateAscend&tabID=T003&prodId=DMHA&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchId=R1&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm&currentPosition=1&qrySerId=Locale%28en%2C%2C%29%3AFQE%3D%28tx%2CNone%2C8%29teenager%3AAnd%3AFQE%3D%28tx%2CNone%2C5%29moral%3AAnd%3ALQE%3D%28da%2CNone%2C23%2901%2F01%2F1960+-+12%2F31%2F1969%24&retrieveFormat=MULTIPAGE_DOCUMENT&userGroupName=ulh&inPS=true&contentSet=LTO&&docId=&docLevel=FASCIMILE&workId=&relevancePageBatch=EE1865927160&contentSet=DMHA&callistoContentSet=DMHA&docPage=article&hilite=y

Secondary Sources –

Aitken, Ian. The Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film. Oxford: Routledge, 2012.

Barker, Dennis. ‘Mary Whitehouse’. The Guardian. 24 November 2001. Accessed 1 April 2016; http://www.theguardian.com/media/2001/nov/24/guardianobituaries.obituaries

Black, Lawrence. ‘Whose finger on the button? British Television and the Politics of Cultural Control’. Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 25 (2005): 547-575.

Briggs, Asa. The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom: Volume V Competition 2^nd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Brooke, Stephen. ‘Gender and Working Class Identity in Britain During the 1950s’. Journal of Social History (2001): 773-795.

Brooke, Stephen. Sexual Politics: Sexuality, Family Planning, and the British Left from the 1880s to the Present Day. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Brooke, Stephen. ‘Slumming in Swinging London? Class, Gender and the Post-War City in Nell Dunn’s Up The Junction (1963)’. Cultural and Social History 9 (2012): 429-449.

Brown, Callum. ‘Sex, Religion, and the Single Woman c1950-1975: The Importance of a ‘Short’ Sexual Revolution to the English Religious Crisis of the Sixties’. Twentieth Century British History 22 (2011): 189-215.

Brown, Callum G. The Death of Christian Britain. London: Routledge, 2001.

Chambers. Iain. Popular Culture: The Metropolitan Experience 4^th edn. London: Routledge, 1993.

Collins, Marcus. The Permissive Society and Its Enemies: Sixties British Culture. London: Rivers Oram Press, 2007.

Cranston, Ros. ‘Up the Junction (1965)’. BFI: Screenonline. Accessed 16 March 2016; http://www.screenonline.org.uk.proxy.library.lincoln.ac.uk/tv/id/440997/index.html

Davis, Christie. Permissive Britain: Social Change in the Sixties and Seventies. London: Pitman Publishing, 1975.

Hall, Lesley A. Sex, Gender and Social Change in Britain since 1800. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000.

Hampshire, James and Jane Lewis. ‘The Ravages of Permissiveness’: Sex Education and the Permissive Society’. Twentieth Century British History 15 (2004): 290-312.

Hill, John. ‘Blurring the Lines Between Fact and Fiction: Ken Russel, the BBC and Television Biography’. Journal of British Cinema and Television 12 (2015): 452-478.

Hill, John. Ken Loach: The Politics of Film and Television. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

Kelly, Richard I. ‘Ken Loach Interview’. Sight & Sound 17 (2007): 30-33.

Marwick, Arthur. British Society since 1945 4^th edn. London: Penguin Books, 2003.

Marwick, Arthur. The Sixties: Cultural Revolution in Britain, France, Italy and the United States, c. 1959-1974 2^nd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.

O’Sullivan, Tim. ‘Television Memories and Cultures of Viewing, 1859-1965’. In Popular Television in Britain: Studies in Cultural History, ed John Corner, 159-181. London: British Film Institute, 1991.

Sandbrook, Dominic. White Heat: A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties. London: Abacus, 2006.

Vahimagi, Tise. ‘TV in the 1960s’. BFI: Screenonline. Accessed 16 March 2016; http://www.screenonline.org.uk.proxy.library.lincoln.ac.uk/tv/id/1209631/index.html

Wake, Oliver. ‘The Wednesday Play (1964-1970)’. BFI: Screenonline. Accessed 16 March 2016; http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/454700/

Weeks, Jeffrey. Sex, Politics and Society: The Regulation of Sexuality since 1800 3^rd edn. Harlow: Pearson, 2012.

Unknown. ‘The Yellow Teddy Bears (1963)’. IMDb. Accessed 16 March 2016; http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058169/

 

Sex education in 1970s Britain. By Paige Chapman

In 1971, Dr Martin Cole released the sex education film Growing Up, which was the first non-pornographic film to be released in Britain that featured actual sexual intercourse and scenes of men and women masturbating. The explicitness of this film sent shockwaves across Britain and divided public opinion on the whether the themes explored in this film should be shown to school children. During these debates, the woman who took part in the masturbation sequence, Jennifer Muscutt, was dismissed from her position as a teacher by the Birmingham Education Authority. She was later reinstated due to the fact that when the film was made in 1969, Mrs Muscutt had recently left a career in public relations and was not a teacher.[1] This essay will focus on the debates surrounding Growing Up and more specifically, it shall look at how the media portrayed Jennifer Muscutt. By using Siân Nicholas’ method of examining how mass media’s connected and interacted, this essay will explore a number of different mediums such as film, documentaries and news broadcasts, in order to deduce what debates surrounding sex education in 1970s Britain were.[2]

This paper begins by comparing how sex education changed between the 1960s and 1970s, and it does this by focusing on 1960s sex education films and coverage, and the film Growing Up. Within this section, the essay will discuss how people reacted to these changes. Then the argument will go onto exploring ATV’s coverage of the Jennifer Muscutt controversy and whether this reflected people’s reactions to the changes in sex education. Ultimately, this piece supports James Hampshire’s argument that sex education changed dramatically during the late 1960s and early 1970s, and Martin Cole’s film was an exaggerated example of the new direction which sex education gradually moved towards. In turn, this sparked conflicting debates throughout Britain, as some moralist groups interpreted the film as pornographic, whereas others saw the film as enlightening and a necessity.[3] It can be seen that these debates surrounding sex education then translated into the coverage of the Jennifer Muscutt case, as ATV had conflicting and confusing portrayals of Mrs Muscutt and it can be seen that they were reluctant to portray her as entirely guilty or innocent.

Sex Education from the 1960s to the 1970s

During the 1960s, as Jeffrey Weeks has established, society appeared to be becoming more erotic due to a greater social acceptance of sexual expression and an increase in the explicitness of advertisement.[4] In turn, this led to an increasing anxiety surrounding youth’s sexual practises, and there was a fear that young women in particular were defying social respectability by being promiscuous and no longer waiting until marriage to have sex. Sex education in the early 1960s was relatively accepted across Britain, as many advocates for this teaching believed that it would be a solution to the ‘permissiveness’ of young people’s sexual practises, which they believed were immoral and damaging. Furthermore, in order to combat this, the sex education curriculum would shame young women who were curious about sex, or who fell pregnant before marriage. This is demonstrated in the 1963 Midlands News programme where Reg Harcourt asked a group of sixth form girls about their view of a sex film called The Yellow Teddybears.[5]

https://vimeo.com/117165892

All of the girls are positioned with their faces away from the camera, thus showing how shameful it for young women to be even discussing sex and pregnancy at this time. Harcourt asks questions such as ‘Do you think the problem [of teenage pregnancy] was put fairly?’, thus showing that teenage pregnancy was seen as an issue in the early 1960s, and the response of the young girls was that they believed that sex education films – like the one they saw – would fix this problem of teenage pregnancy. Therefore, sex education films during this period were used as a way to shame young people’s sexual practises and establish traditional gender roles.

Additionally, sex education was very clinical and scientific during the 1960s, with the focus on only informing young people about the biological facts of life. This is clearly visible in the sex education film Learning to Live (1964), as the voiceover discusses the bodily differences between males and females and reinforces the gender roles by saying all women will look forward to one day having babies.[6] Therefore, there was very little discussion about pleasure and emotions surrounding sexual activity. There was also an emphasis in sex education films and broadcasts that it is down to the parents to tell students ‘the full details’[7] of what sex is like, and sex education in schools should only supplement parents teaching of sex, as it is their role to teach the ‘right attitudes and right behaviour’.[8] This explains why sex education in the 1960s was very scientific and focused on how puberty changes the body, as it was the role of the parents to inform young people on the non-biological details of sex.

However, during the late 1960s and early 1970s sex education began to adopt a completely different direction than that outlined above. Due to the influence of the Women’s Liberation Movement and the emergence of the ideology that the private is political, sex education advocates were inspired to begin to discuss sex education more liberally, with a new focus on emotions and issues surrounding relationships.[9] Roger Davidson has argued that sex education was not completely different than that in the 1960s, as the general discourse surrounding sex education was still promoting the sexual purity of women, and sexual urges were still depicted negatively.[10] However, one film that completely undermines Davidson’s argument was Cole’s 1971 film, Growing Up. As mentioned before, the film was very explicit, with scenes of male and female masturbation, naked bodies showing how the genitals transform with age, and a couple having intercourse. Rather than trying to deter teenagers from having sex until they are married, in the voiceover Cole says that ‘by knowing more about yourselves, it is hoped you can enjoy making love when you are ready’.[11] Therefore, the film was seen to be promoting sex between young people, which was a radical concept in comparison to the earlier sex education films. Additionally, in an interview for Muther Grumble, Cole stated that the reason for such an explicit approach was ‘important, [it] was this function of trying to normalise all forms of sexual activity’.[12] Consequently, the film portrays young people’s sexual practices as normal and that sex can even be pleasurable, which is an idea unheard of in sex education previously and was a very radical concept for this period.

It can be argued therefore, that Cole’s film should be seen as acceptable due to the progressive attitudes towards sex that emerged during the late 1960s by the different liberation groups. However, as Weeks has explained, that there was a revival of evangelicalism moralism in the 1970s, and these moralist groups began to condemn sex education as causing the ‘permissive’ society. [13] Many moral traditionalist groups feared the new developments in sex education, and were worried about the content of sex education programmes such as those created by the BBC and ITV, which were released throughout the 1970s.[14] These groups especially targeted the content of Cole’s film. The most prolific group who condemned the film was Mary Whitehouse’s National Viewers and Listeners Association (NVLA), as they believed that this new type of sex education was a part of the moral degradation of British youth and Cole’s film was used as a prime example for this moral pollution.[15] This is evident within Whitehouse’s book Whatever Happened to Sex? (1977), as she states that ‘Whether this plant geneticist has ever considered that to face a child with a live, visual presentation of the adult sex act, and explicitly to demonstrate masturbation, is to run the risk of inhibiting normal emotional growth’.[16] Moreover, these negative reactions can be seen to stem from the idea of sex education possibly corrupting children.

Furthermore, with the increasing controversy surrounding the film, members of the public began to write to Dr Cole voicing their disgust. Some of these anonymous letters said that Cole should ‘be committed to a mental institution for treatment’, whereas others said he had ‘taken something beautiful and pure and belonging to marriage and love and emotions, and turned it into pornography’.[17] Pornography throughout the 1960s was more openly sold and became increasingly explicit.[18] Arguably, there was an influx of pornographic material which disguised itself as educational, for example Alex Comfort’s bestselling guide The Joy of Sex (1972) sold hundreds of thousands of copies in Britain.[19] Within the book, it is regularly emphasised that the guide was written by a medical professional, however the illustrations that accompanied the text were very graphic and not medical at all due to the lack of scientific annotations of the drawings.[20] Therefore, the letters written to Dr Cole show that negative reactions towards Growing Up partially originated from the belief that pornography was being disguised as sex education, which would then result in the corruption of school children.

On the other hand, the reaction to the film was not just negative, but as Dominic Sandbrook has stated ‘the audience of school teachers, educationalists, moral campaigners and wide-eyed teenagers watched [the film] with a reaction of fascination, horror and indifference.’[21] Margaret Thatcher, the Secretary of State for Education and Science, was very passive towards the film and did not condemn or praise the film. Instead, she stated that publicity surrounding Growing Up should not deter the public from the entire subject of sex education as ‘some very excellent work on sex education is being done in the schools in a way of which the parents approve and which is tasteful and satisfactory to all concerned’.[22] There were even positive reactions to the film which mostly originated from younger audiences. David Limond has shown that after a showing of the film at the University of Oxford, the student newspaper would joke that the couple engaging in intercourse were very athletic and caused every male audience member to doubt themselves.[23] This therefore shows their positive amusement towards the film. As well as this, Jane Caunt – a sixteen year old girl from Hertfordshire – said the film was ‘good’ and it was reported that teenage audiences were ‘unanimously supportive of [Cole’s] efforts’.[24] Thus, it has been argued that sex education took a new direction at the beginning of the 1970s, which can be clearly demonstrated with Cole’s film. As a result, there was a variety of conflicting and contradictory reactions to these films, and Growing Up was an excellent example of this.

ATV Today and Jennifer Muscutt

This essay shall now focus on the media portrayals of Jennifer Muscutt, the teacher who took part in the masturbation sequence within the film and was shortly dismissed – and then reinstated – from her position, and it shall assess whether these portrayals corresponded with the diverse reactions towards sex education that are outlined above. Hampshire has argued that the changes in sex education during the 1970s meant that some interpreted this as a new era of freedom, whereas others saw a nation in moral decline.[25] However, the media did not wholly support either of these views towards the Jennifer Muscutt scandal; instead it constantly changed its opinion on the matter, and would often contradict itself.

ATV Today particularly portrayed Jennifer Muscutt in such a way, which is especially evident during an interview with Mrs Muscutt’s husband when she was suspended. David McQueen has stated that during 1970s, current affair programmes would often explore controversial issues and exposed hidden scandals.[26]

https://vimeo.com/117168205

This is shown during the interview with Mrs Muscutt’s husband, as ATV was trying to make this scandal more controversial by demonstrating that her husband was supporting her, which is apparent in the final interview question ‘[The film] certainly doesn’t embarrass you or it won’t affect your marital relationship?’.[27] This shows that ATV presumed that her husband would not be supportive, and by her taking part in the film, she was ruining their relationship, thus they were portraying Mrs Muscutt’s actions negatively.

On the other hand, by not interviewing Mrs Muscutt’s for her own testimony and only her husband, ATV is ultimately portraying Mrs Muscutt first and foremost as a wife. Additionally, the opening shots in the interview are of the school which she works in and there are pupils waving out of windows. The interviewer asks questions such as ‘Don’t you feel that this will affect the relations between her and her pupils at school?’[28] and the result of these techniques emphasises Mrs Muscutt’s role as a teacher. Furthermore, by showing Jennifer Muscutt as not being a sex icon means that her actions are presented as not intentionally pornographic, which undermines the argument put forward by the NVLA that Growing Up was pornography in disguise. Additionally, when ATV did interview Jennifer Muscutt after she was reinstated into her teaching position, the interview portrays her as ditzy and dumb, by not cutting out unflattering shots of her pulling exasperated faces.[29]

https://vimeo.com/album/3218377/video/117168207

By portraying her as naïve and dim, ATV is not condoning her actions, but instead they are making the statement that she did not understand that what she was doing was wrong, thus they appear to be disagreeing with the idea of her being dismissed, but simultaneously reproving the film.

To add to the further confusion of how ATV perceived Mrs Muscutt, a final interview with a spokesman from Aston University appears to depict her presence in the film in a positive light.

https://vimeo.com/117168206

The shots of the protestors who were outside of Jennifer Muscutt’s hearing are depicted as peaceful and orderly, as there is no rioting and little shouting occurring.[30] Additionally, the student who was interviewed was very well-spoken and the questions asked by the interviewer, unlike those in the previous two interviews, are not leading and show little bias on behalf of the interviewer, which makes the student’s point about Muscutt being reinstated seem more legitimate. In the interview, it is acknowledged that there was a petition calling for the appeal the dismissal of Jennifer Muscutt which had 3500 signatures. Therefore, ATV gave the opportunity for the protestors to voice their opinion, and interestingly, there was no opposing interviews of any parties who wanted Jennifer Muscutt dismissed permanently. This suggests that ATV was not opposed to her actions at all, but seem to support Jennifer Muscutt and want to see her reinstated. Moreover, D.L. LeMahieu has argued that mass media would regularly modify their outputs in response to changing public demands or opinions, and these three separate interviews supports this argument.[31] The interviews show that ATV was influenced by the general public consensus towards Growing Up and Jennifer Muscutt’s role in the film, as ATV had mixed portrayals of whether Muscutt’s actions in the film were appropriate.

Conclusion

To conclude, it can be argued that sex education during the 1970s took a completely new direction from the documentaries and films produced in the 1960s. In films such as Growing Up, there was a focus on the emotional aspects of sex and how to make it pleasurable, rather than the films produced in the 1960s which usually tried to persuade younger viewers to abstain from sex. However, due to this new type of sex education, this polarised public opinion into two groups, the traditional moralists who saw sex education, and Dr Cole’s film, as pornographic and damaging to schoolchildren, and the other groups who took either a passive, positive or amused view of the film. These public reactions influenced the coverage of the Jennifer Muscutt case in particular, as platforms such as ATV did not know how to portray her and the situation in its coverage, which is why there were often mixed messages within the footage.

 

[1] David Limond, ‘”I never imaged that the time would come”: Martin Cole, the Growing Up Controversy and the Limits of School Sex Education in 1970s England’, History of Education 37:3 (2008), 418.

[2] Siân Nicholas, ‘Media History or Media Histories?: Readdressing the history of the mass media in inter-war Britain’, Media History 18 (2012), 376.

[3] James Hampshire, ‘’The Ravages of Permissiveness’: Sex Education and the Permissive Society’, Twentieth Century British History 15:3 (2004), 292-3.

[4] Jeffrey Weeks, Sex, Politics & Society (Harlow: Pearson Education, 2012), 251.

[5] Midlands News, ‘Sex Film at the Cinephone’, first broadcast 15 November 1963, Media Archive for Central England (hereafter MACE), University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3218377/video/117165892.

[6] Learning to Live, DVD, dir. Guy Fergusson and Phillip Sattin (UK, 2011) at 03:15.

[7] Look Around, ‘Sex Education,’ first broadcast 13 July 1962, MACE, University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3218377/video/117165893, at 04:08.

[8] Look Around, ‘Sex Education’, at 08:11.

[9] Callum Brown, ‘Sex, Religion, and the Single Woman c. 1950-75: The Importance of a ‘Short’ Sexual Revolution to the English Religious crisis of the Sixties’, Twentieth Century British History 22:2 (2011), 41.

[10] Roger Davidson, Shaping Sexual Knowledge: A Cultural History of Sex Education in Twentieth Century Europe (New York: Routledge, 2009), 104.

[11] Growing Up, DVD, dir. Martin Cole (UK, 2011) at 03:01.

[12] Unknown author, ‘Sex Education: An Interview with Dr Martin Cole’, Muther Grumble, Issue 6, June 1972, accessed 20 April 2016, http://www.muthergrumble.co.uk/issue06/mg0625.htm.

[13] Weeks, Sex, 273.

[14] Miriam Corrinne Morehart, ‘’Children Need Protection Not Perversion’: The Rise of the New Right and the Politicization of Morality in Sex Education in Great Britain, 1968-1989’ (Masters Diss., Portland State University, 2015), 66.

[15] Hampshire, ‘Ravages’, 292, and David Limond, ‘I hope someone castrates you, you perverted bastard’: Martin Cole’s Sex Education Film, Growing Up’, Sex Education 9:4 (2009), 411.

[16] Mary Whitehouse, Whatever Happened to Sex? (Hove: Wayland, 1977), 29.

[17] Katy McGahan, ‘Growing Up’, in The Birds and the Bees DVD information booklet, 31.

[18] Weeks, Sex, 280.

[19] Dominic Sandbrook, State of Emergency: The Way We Were: Britain, 1970-1974 (London: Allen Lane, 2010), 428.

[20] Alex Comfort, The Joy of Sex (London: Octopus Publishing Group, 1972).

[21] Sandbrook, Emergency, 420.

[22] Governmental debate about Sex Film ‘Growing Up’, 6 May 1971, available at http://goo.gl/zZ263v.

[23] Limond, ‘time would come’, 420.

[24] Sandbrook, Emergency, 421, and Limond, ‘castrates’, 413.

[25] Hampshire, ‘Ravages’, 296.

[26] David McQueen,’1970s Current Affairs – A Golden Age?’, in British Culture and Society in the 1970s: The Lost Decade, eds Laurel Foster and Sue Harper (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2010), 76.

[27] ATV Today, ‘Jennifer Muscutt Suspended,’ first broadcast 19 April 1971, MACE, University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3218377/video/117168205, at 02:05.

[28] ATV Today, ‘Suspended’, at 00:43.

[29] ATV Today, ‘Jennifer Muscutt Interview,’ first broadcast 5 May 1971, MACE, University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3218377/video/117168207, at 01:09.

[30] ATV Today, ‘Jennifer Muscutt Reinstated,’ first broadcast 5 May 1971, MACE, University of Lincoln. https://vimeo.com/album/3218377/video/117168206, at 00:28-00:38.

[31] D. L. LeMahieu, A Culture for Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 18.

 

 

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