Popular Culture Review Vol. 14, No. 1, February 2003 | Page 10

Popular Culture Review

Fifties America was frightened of the perils of economic success, believing
that they would lead to a society of conformist drones. David Riesman’s The Lonely
Crowd and William Whyte’s The Organization Man became best-sellers based on
adult America’s concern that encroaching conformity was stifling individualism
and creative expression.- Adam Wolfson argues that “what most disturbed the fif
ties social critics was the bogy of conformity. They believed that the American
people were becoming ever more alike.” Conformity was intimately tied up with
post-war Americans’ fears regarding economic prosperity. Money and possessions
were seen as contributing to the conformity supposedly creeping upon middleclass American families. As Gaile McGregor argues, Fifties popular culture spoke
to fears and ambivalences relating to economic prosperity: “While it’s true that the
official line of the time stressed the benefits of affluence, it is notable that best
selling novels, especially after mid-decade, were as likely to treat success as a
problem as to propose it as a desirable goal” (7). While works like The Man in the
Gray Flannel Suit addressed the pressures of conformity and economic advance
ment within the society of Fifties’ adults, conformity among American teenagers
also found expression, most strikingly in Hollywood treatments of juvenile delin
quency.
While Fifties adults experienced economic success from a background of
Depression Era deprivation, many Fifties teenagers knew only prosperity as they
came to maturity, or so the media liked to make people believe. In an article pub
lished in Life in January 1954, American teenagers are portrayed as “The Luckiest
Generation.” Focusing on a group of high school students in Carlsbad, New Mexico,
the article highlights the ready money and luxuries that these teenagers possess.
The article comments that “In Carlsbad, as everywhere else, teenagers are not only
driving new cars to school but in many cases buying them out of their own earn
ing. These are the children who at birth were called ‘Depression Babies.’ They
have grown up to become, materially at least, America’s luckiest generation” (27).
Conformity in possessions and dress became a feature of teenage prosperity. As
Ronald J. Oakley notes Fifties’ teenagers’ concern with fitting in in terms of dress,
behavior and ideas produced “in this age of the corporation man” a “corporation
teen” (286-287).
Yet, teenage conformity was not only a product of economic well-being. In
the films that will be discussed below, it will be clear that Hollywood portrayed
both wealthy and poor delinquents. The aspect of conformity is present in both
these representations. One strain of Hollywood JD films from the Fifties indicates
how the internal bugbears of both conformity and delinquency could be inter
twined.
Hollywood’s interest in the issue of delinquency resulted from several fac
tors. On the one hand, the industry felt the pressure to produce moral films regard-