Queer As Art issue 2 April-May-June 2017 | Page 23

The common expression of “the
Sixties” and “the Seventies” is widely used
to refer to the times succeeding the
reconstruction of Europe after the Second
world war. They do not refer to a specific
cultural or intellectual movement, but
rather merely to chronological points, from
1960 to 1979. Nevertheless, the context of
this time offers room for the apparition of
a specific culture and counterculture,
based on social changes and liberation of
the voice of minorities, that have
retrospectively been raised as emblematic
of the period.
In 1960, the reconstruction of the
damages of the war has ended and the
economy has gone back from the
predominance of war industries to more
regular activities. The arms race and the
huge increase in transports and
technologies, however, has left the world
with an important amount of
infrastructures that can now be used for
other purposes. This allows for a general
increasing of living standards for the
population and a renewal of cultural and
social norms.
But this is not the only consequence
of the war. In the United States, during the
years following the Nuremberg trials,
emphasis is put on upholding traditional
values against the forces of change, as a
rea c t i o n a g a i n s t t h e i d ea o f c i v i l
disobedience, which has come out
stronger of the revelations brought by the
trials. The national paranoia raises after the
second world war against communists,
anarchists and soon extended to any
community seen as “subversive”, such as
LGBT people. This movement is known as
the Lavender Scare, in reference to the
Second Red Scare targeting communists.
Police and FBI keep lists of known
homosexuals and their relatives, friends, as
well as the places they meet up. This leads
to the closing of a large number of gay
bars, arrestations, and public exposure of
people in newspapers, further leading to
employment and housing discrimination.
Meanwhile, in Europe, fascist governments
had heavily repressed homosexuality, and
the laws they put in place were not always
repealed after 1945 - the french law
against homosexuality, written in 1942,
stayed in place, and homosexuals were
often kept in concentration camps even
after the liberation of Jews. In the 50s and
the 60s, the opposition between the East
and the West blocks creates a climate of
unnatural tensions between opposed
political stances, and social questions
often become symbolic banners to raise
whenever one wants to make a point.
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