(gentle music)
(birds tweeting)
- If you were to picture life
for kids and teens in the 1970s,
what would you visualize?
Idyllic scenes of little Bobby and Sarah
playing outside and attending school
without the chance of being
shot by a deranged gunman?
Are you picturing teens
like Mike and Wilona
headed out for a slice of pizza
before going to the roller rink
without the weight of
attention-eating cellphones
and social media?
Despite the number of dangers
and questionable influences
facing kids today,
the '70s was a pretty wild place
to navigate as a youth, too.
The '70s are often included
in people's assessment
of America's "Good Years".
There was no internet porn
and women twerking on live,
but there was Playboy and skin magazines
to be found among cherished copies
of 1972's bestselling
manual, The Joy of Sex.
There were no school mass shootings,
but somehow kids and teens of the '70s
were more likely to
experience violent crime
than their modern day counterparts.
There were no e-cigarettes,
but there was lots of
tobacco, booze, and marijuana
available to children of the '70s,
and those kids and teens actually ingested
tobacco and booze at higher
rates than kids and teens today.
Isn't it crazy to know
that some high schools
had smoking lounges or designated areas
for older students to
freely smoke cigarettes?
As my mother recounted to me on the phone,
getting a pack of cigarettes as a child
was as easy as walking into the store
and telling the clerk you
were buying them for a parent.
- I've smoked, I've been smoking
ever since I was 13 years old.
All the guys and girls I
hang around with, they smoke.
- Smoking relaxes me.
- "It was a different time," she said.
Truly, mother, truly!
It was a time where many states
had a legal drinking age under 21.
Mix in the rise in crime,
the rash of killers and cults,
the desolation of the Vietnam
War, and regular old puberty
and you've got an
explosive time to grow up.
(flames hissing)
(groovy '70s music)
(tires screeching)
(engine revving)
(sinister droning music)
A number of movies now considered to be
among the greatest of all
time came out in the '70s,
including the first two "Godfather" films,
"Jaws", "The Exorcist", and "Star Wars".
But a movie that stands
out is "Taxi Driver",
starring Robert De Niro as a
Vietnam vet named Travis Bickle
who takes up taxi-driving
in part to deal with
his taxing insomnia.
"Taxi Driver" depicts a dark,
seedy, and gritty New York
that I've alluded to
earlier in the series.
What kind of gritty New York?
Among many other things, Jodi Foster stars
as a 12-year-old prostitute.
One of the standout lines
apart from the now iconic
"You talking to me?" is Travis
Bickle telling the audience:
- [Travis] All the
animals come out at night.
Whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens,
fairies, dopers, junkies...
Sick, venal.
Someday a real rain will come
and wash all this scum off the streets.
- "Get off the fuckin'
street, I'm walkin' here!"
Bickle becomes that rain
by the end of the film,
murdering tons of people responsible
for the pimping of the
12-year-old Jodi Foster character.
Film critics the world over
have pontificated about
the state of America
if an angry, violent, and
mentally-ill person like Bickle
triumphs as a hero.
But I want to talk about the
dark and dangerous landscape
that inspired the New York
Travis Bickle drove his taxi through.
Whether you were a
slave, free black person,
immigrant, woman, or anything else
other than a well-off
heterosexual white man,
America, and let's face it, the world,
has always been a dangerous place.
But danger in America in the '70s
seemed to be a lot more potent.
Americans worried about their own safety
and that of their children.
Sometimes that safety was physical
and at other times it was spiritual.
Firstly, increasing crime rates
stemmed from deindustrialization,
white flight, stagflation,
and unemployment.
It is at this time
that the number of
prisoners began to grow.
Arrests for drug offenses rose,
driving up statistics about
crime that increased fear.
Nixon declared a war on drugs.
- Public enemy number
one in the United States
is drug abuse.
In order to fight and defeat this enemy,
it is necessary to wage
a new, all-out offensive.
- A move that one of Nixon's top advisors
would later admit as strategic.
"We knew we couldn't make it illegal
"to be either against the war or black,
"but by getting the public to associate
"the hippies with marijuana
and blacks with heroin,
"and then criminalizing both heavily,
"we could disrupt those communities."
The increased criminalization of drug use
would have resounding effects
on the black community
throughout the '80s, '90s, and beyond.
Another response to the reported
increase in violent crime
was the increase in gun ownership
during the mid to late '70s.
In fact, by 1980, roughly 50%
of American households owned guns,
a percentage that has not
been topped ever since.
Another thing contributing
to the sense of fear among
Americans in the '70s,
especially those raising children,
was the growing public interest
in child abductions and missing teens.
One 1975 study estimated
that 1.7% of youth,
or 519,000 to 635,000 minors
ran away a year for
varying periods of time.
- Yeah, I know, I know, I'm will...
I'm willing to do what's right, you know,
and that's why I called you.
Do you think...
But like, I can't, I don't
wanna live there anymore,
and I don't wanna go through
what I'm gonna go through
when I get back, you see?
Oh, I see.
- In the late '70s, roughly
1.8 million children a year
were reported missing.
Some disappearances were
bizarre and far-fetched,
like when in 1976, Chowchilla California,
a bus driver and 27
children were kidnapped
by three men who wanted
to hold them for ransom.
This event ended in no fatalities,
but was still wild for the times.
In 1974, the far-left terrorist group
Symbionese Liberation Army
kidnapped publishing
heiress Patricia Hearst,
who then participated in a bank robbery
and later claimed it was
the result of brainwashing.
Between 1976 and 1977, four
Michigan kids aged 10 to 12
were murdered, and the
culprit was never identified.
But the child abduction case
that generated national attention
was that of six-year-old Etan Patz,
who vanished in Manhattan
one spring day in 1979.
His body was never found
and his killer wouldn't
be identified until 2017.
This was the first high
profile child abduction case
and it's significant, because
the National Center for
Missing and Exploited Children
didn't come around until the 1980s.
Investigators had the idea
to plaster Etan's face on milk cartons,
a practice that continued until the 1990s
with the introduction of plastic
bottles and amber alerts.
A few weeks after Etan Patz disappeared,
the Atlanta Child murders began,
which sent chilly and fearful shock waves
through the black community.
- [News Anchor] They
don't know how or where,
or even how many of the black victims
may have been killed by the same person.
One investigator says, "Even if the killer
"walked in the door and confessed,
"there is not enough
evidence now to convict him."
- The murders would continue until 1981,
taking at least 24 children
before 23-year-old Wayne
Williams was arrested.
Wayne was actually only
charged and convicted
with the murders of two adult men
believed to be associated
with the child murders.
Though it's highly likely
he committed several
or most of the child murders,
numerous experts believe
there is more to the story
and potentially more culprits involved.
The growth in reported child
abductions and violence
was due in part to the independence
given to many kids of the '70s.
Said one CNN blogger
about the permissive
atmosphere for children, quote,
"A 6-year-old kid getting
himself to and from school,
"even on public transportation,
"was not unusual back in those days.
"I walked almost two
miles each way to school
"when I was just a couple years
older than him, Etan Patz,
"everyone did."
While kids and teens today
are relatively educated
about stranger danger and predators,
though there is still a
lot of work to be done,
kids and teens of the
'70s were less prepared.
They were even less prepared
for potential predators among
trusted authority figures,
which is why I can't go without addressing
the Boy Scouts of America,
whose membership peaked
around 6.5 million in 1972,
but remained high throughout the decade.
Hundreds of troop leaders
were accused formally
of sexual abuse during this period,
and every year during the decade
an average of at least 21
scout leaders and camp workers
were banned due to sex abuse.
This was not a problem
limited to the Boy Scouts,
which is why in recent years
lawsuits based on abuse in the 1970s
have popped up against
numerous institutions
from the Catholic Church
to private schools.
Abductions and pedophiles
weren't the only things
worrying parents or the general populace.
The national homicide rate was growing
and serial killer culture
exploded in the 1970s.
The Zodiac Killer began his
murder spree in the '60s
but didn't stop taunting
police until 1974.
Dean Corll, along with
two teenage accomplices,
raped, mutilated, and killed at least
28 teens and boys between 1970 and 1973.
- David, this entire story
of sadistic homosexual slayings
would almost appear to be fiction,
scripted with the full intention
of shocking readers over and over again.
It's that hard to believe.
- [Newsreader] Henley and Brooks
said there were more bodies buried
along the Gulf of Mexico.
By now, the scene was
becoming all too familiar.
Shovels digging into
dirt and yielding bodies.
- The kids and teens were often friends
of the teenage accomplices,
and were usually lured with
promises of drugs or a party.
The murdered victims were
often listed as runaways
to the anger of their parents,
and the lack of investigation
into their disappearances
contributed to Corll's high murder rate.
Corll was overshadowed
by later serial killers
probably because he didn't taunt police
like the Zodiac or later killers,
and because he was murdered
before he was caught.
Son of Sam terrorized New
York City beginning in 1976,
and his perceived predilection for women
with long brown hair caused a frenzy
in haircuts and dye
jobs among young women.
- I'm afraid, I'm afraid
to go out in the car,
I'm afraid to do anything.
Never know where he's gonna be.
- [Reporter] Have you ever
thought of cutting your hair
or wearing it up because of this guy?
- No.
- [Reporter] Did you ever think
of cutting your hair because of him?
- No, I never thought of
going to that extent of it.
I just don't want to be,
I thought of maybe dying it
a little redder or something, really.
- When you get people cutting their hair,
when you get people dying their hair,
when you get people, when you get my wife
who was scared to even walk the street,
when you get me who was scared
to walk the street, for God's sake.
- We used to stay in front of my house
and talk, and yell, and kiss goodnight,
but we can't do that no more.
- [Elexus] The city of
New York was terrified,
and it was major nation-wide news.
To the relief of New Yorkers,
the Son of Sam AKA David
Berkowitz, was caught in 1977
but not before killing six
people and wounding seven others.
- Jane, the man's name is David Berkowitz.
He is an unmarried
24-year-old postal worker.
He's a veteran of Korean service
with the United States Army.
When he was arrested late last night
in his apartment in Yonkers, New York,
he told the officers,
"Okay, you've got me."
- [Elexus] The next year, John Wayne Gacy,
the pedophile who murdered
dozens of teenagers
and donned clown costumes
for children's parties
in his downtime, was arrested.
- Tonight, Jay Levine
continues his close-up look
at the Gacy case, and how
police may have overlooked
evidence that could have
prevented the murder spree.
- A careful examination of police
and other official
documents by Eyewitness News
reveals that John Gacy came
into contact with authorities
more that half a dozen times,
allegedly involved in crimes
ranging from kidnapping
to rape and assault.
- John Gacy, a man who
liked to put on a clown suit
and entertain children.
Now he is charged with one
murder and the police have found,
at last count, 27 bodies buried
under his house and garage
and two more in a nearby river.
- [Elexus] Ted Bundy, one of
the most famous and popular
despite his sick habit of necrophilia
in addition to serial murder,
thrilled newspaper columnists
and attracted crowds
of adoring young women.
- [Newsreader] What is unusual to see
is that many of the onlookers
are women, young women,
contemporaries of the five
Florida State sorority sisters
who were assaulted in their
beds a year and a half ago.
- [Elexus] America and the media itself
was highly titillated by the
wilder and wilder stories
of average looking white men
committing heinous crimes.
- [Newsreader] What
they want to know about
is the January 15th
strangling of two co-eds
and the beatings of three others,
here at the Chi Omega sorority house
on the Florida State University campus.
Bundy is the prime suspect
because of the nature of the murders,
brutal sexual assault.
- [Elexus] Newspapers
like the New York Post
actively participated in
the serial killer frenzy
by publishing threatening notes
or sensationalizing the killer
as "handsome", "charming",
or "intelligent", like with Bundy.
- [Newsreader] Ted Bundy
sat there calmly, silently,
as the guilty verdict was read.
The jury had taken six hours to decide
that the former law student was guilty
of the strangulation murders
of two Florida co-eds
and guilty of the attempted murder
of three other young women.
Minutes before the verdict was returned,
Bundy told ABC News in
a telephone interview
that he was prepared for the worst.
- [Elexus] Who really needed
stories about the Boogeyman
when you could talk about Bundy or Gacy?
These crimes and the way they were
sensationalized and reported
was another sign screaming danger
at many Americans, including parents.
It was many parents' worst nightmare
to click on the TV or unfold the newspaper
and see their child's face
plastered as a murder victim
or worse, the participant
of a heinous murder
like the teens who helped Dean Corll,
or the runaway teens involved
in the Manson family.
I mention the Manson family
because the trial of the cult leader
Charles Manson and his followers
for murdering seven people in 1969
opened up the 1970s and served
as an official severance
from the innocent flower child
Hippie free love movement
of the late '60s.
Charles Manson and his
followers' theatrics
were broadcast daily to an
enraptured American audience.
"Charlie gets letters from
little girls every day.
"They come from New Hampshire,
Minnesota, Los Angeles,"
a 1970 Rolling Stone article declared.
Newspapers swarmed the packed courthouse
overseeing the Manson trial
and described the dead-eyed cult members
mimicking their leader,
shaving their heads,
and carving Xes into their foreheads.
Casual and enthusiastic observers alike
also flocked to the courthouse
for a glimpse of the Manson family.
People were fascinated and terrified
at the reality of once average teens
coming under Manson's violent influence,
and the media was quick
to celebretize Manson
with their extensive coverage of him
and his nonsensical yet
provocative soundbites.
- [Newsreader] Manson is sort of a showman
like when he tried to, as he puts it,
take me to a higher level.
(shouting gibberish)
- The Manson family was
also many Americans'
first exposure to the existence of cults.
Speaking of cults, the '70s
had its fair share of them.
The Unification Church,
which originated in South Korea
and became famous for
holding mass weddings,
broke up several families
and sparked a nationwide
de-programming trend.
Unification members, known as Moonies,
would send members out to
the streets or airports
to meet quotas of $100
or $200 dollars a day
before they could come back to the group.
Then, they'd all give
the money to the leader.
They were sleeping in vans
and not really eating.
They were going through extreme,
intense indoctrination programs.
They were very easily
influenced and controlled.
Concerned parents across the nation
began theorizing that
brainwashing and mind control
were the reasons for sudden religious
or ideological conversions
in their children.
In fact, conservatorship
cases involving young adults
in new religious movements
increased in the mid-'70s,
and not just for cults like
the Unification Church,
but for far-out concepts
like Hare Krishna.
Another cult was Children Of
God, which began in the '60s
but grew in the '70s and attracted youth
on college campuses, often with a method
known as flirty fishing
in which a female member
attracted potential converts
with the promise of sex.
In 1977, the founder, David Berg,
claimed he was God's prophet.
As the years went on, the
cult would come to be accused
of child sex abuse, and membership fell.
Numerous murders and
scandals have been attributed
to Children of God, and
it's no wonder in 1972
that parents had the good
sense to form FREECOG,
or Parents Committee to
Free Our Sons and Daughters
From The Children of God,
which later became the Cult
Awareness Network in 1984.
A prominent de-programmer was Ted Patrick,
who helped hundreds of people kidnap
loved ones suspected of joining a cult
after his own son had been
approached by Children of God.
The man known as "Black Lightning"
would be sued and arrested
for kidnapping several times.
A 1978 article quoted him as saying
"There's nothing religious
about these cults.
"It's a multibillion-dollar con game.
"It's also a movement to turn this country
"into a totalitarian
nation, a controlled society
"ruled by a handful of philosopher kings.
"The cults are growing by the days,
over 5,000 of them now.
"You see them at the schools.
"They are infiltrating organized religion.
"You see them at the parks, beaches,
"on your street, knocking on you door.
"Everywhere you turn,
you see these people.
"We haven't made a dent."
He was being dramatic as fuck,
but there really was a
growing rise in cults.
Sometimes Patrick actually did
rescue young people from cults,
but he also helped parents kidnap adults
who lived lifestyles their
parents didn't agree with.
For instance, in 1982, he
kidnapped a 19-year-old
whose parents said she had been
"led into lesbianism
through mind control."
The most infamous cult of the 1970s
was the People's Temple, led by Jim Jones,
a charismatic
Pentecostal-influenced preacher
who often considered himself black
and adopted black children.
He began his church in
Indiana in the '50s,
but in 1970 he was attracting
hundreds of congregants in San Francisco.
At a time when many
churches were segregated,
he was welcoming to black members
and considered his church
a haven from racism.
He preached socialist
and utopian principles
that sounded good to those
who were down on their luck
or particularly down-trodden,
and he used his growing
influence and coffers
to support progressive
democratic candidates,
run nursing homes and health centers,
and help the needy.
But at the same time, he was
declaring the Bible false,
calling himself God's true prophet,
doing a lot, a lot of drugs,
and by 1973 he was mentioning the term
"revolutionary suicide."
The next year he began building
a planned Utopian community in Guyana.
In 1977, the San Francisco Chronicle
wrote a scathing and
critical piece on Jones,
calling attention to the
numerous former members
who alleged violence or theft
by the influential preacher.
During regularly
scheduled family meetings,
attended by up to 1000 of
the most devoted followers,
as many as 100 people were lined up
to be paddled for such
seemingly minor infractions
as not being attentive
enough during Jones' sermons.
But violence and humiliation
weren't the only things on the menu.
Members found themselves giving up money
and control of their lives for
acceptance in Jones's cult.
One former black member explained why.
"Some blacks gave out of fear,
"fear that they could end
up in concentration camps."
"The money was needed," she was told,
"to build up this other place,
Guyana, the promised land,
"so we could have someplace to go
"whenever the fascists in this country
"were going to destroy us
like they did the Jews.
"Jones said that they
would put black people
"in the concentration
camps and they would do us
"like the Jews in the gas ovens."
Jones convinced the
most loyal of his flock
to move with him to Guyana in 1977,
where things would quickly disintegrate
among Jones's increasing drug use
and an inquiry from a
local politician, Leo Ryan.
In 1978, when over 900 bloated bodies
were found on the Jonestown
compound in Guyana
after Jones had ordered that his followers
commit revolutionary suicide,
America was shocked.
- [Jones] So be patient, be patient,
death is, I tell you,
I don't care how many screams you hear,
I don't care how many anguished cries,
death is a million times preferable
to 10 more days of this life.
If you knew what was ahead of you,
if you knew what was ahead of you,
you'd be glad to be stepping over tonight.
- [Followers] That's right, that's right.
- [Jones] Death, death,
death is common to people,
and the Eskimos, they take
death in their stride.
Let's be dignified.
No more pain, Al.
- That's right.
- [Jones] No more pain, I said, Al.
No more pain.
Jim Cobb is laying on the
airfield dead at this moment.
(followers cheering)
- [Elexus] It was later revealed that
though many drank poisoned
Kool Aid willingly,
a lot of the Jonestown victims
had been forced at gunpoint
to drink the concoction or
feed it to their children.
71% of the victims were black.
Nearly 300 were children.
- [Newsreader] The major movement
over the last two rainy days
has been relatives of Temple
members coming to find out
about the welfare of their family members.
They talk to the press, curse the Temple,
and sometimes attack the
Temple gatesman in frustration.
- [Woman] I show you how aggrieved I am.
- [Elexus] This massive tragedy,
until 9/11 the most fatal loss
of civilian American
lives in a single day,
was terrifying and unbelievable.
It was the rotting
cherry on top of a decade
filled with violence and despair.
The event triggered
senate hearings on cults
and later studies would equip families
with advice on identifying
loved ones in cults.
Also, did you know that Huey Newton,
yes, that Huey Newton
of the Black Panthers,
that one of his cousins was a
member of The People's Temple?
(chilled jazz music)
So "Taxi Driver" was a really big movie,
but "Deep Throat" might have been bigger.
The porno classic debuted in 1973
to rave reviews and high ticket sales.
It was a time when porno was chic,
and going out on a Saturday night
can include leaving the
kids with the babysitter
for a trip to see "Deep Throat"
or another popular film
like "Devil in Miss Jones".
- [Narrator] Pornographic movies, books,
and pictures abound across our land.
Four-letter words that were once relegated
to dirty books are now appearing
with increasing regularity
in news magazines that now reach
millions of American homes.
- An August 1970 issue
of Life Magazine shouted
"In an era of sexuality, growing
concern about pornography."
Back in 1968, Nixon had ordered
a commission to study pornography,
and when they published a report in 1970
saying it was safe and didn't
negatively impact Americans,
Nixon disavowed it.
Censorship cases against porn fell,
and the industry was like the Wild West.
There were few protocols, if any.
Porn moved from movie houses and drive-ins
to VHS in the late '70s,
and the availability of magazines
like Penthouse, Hustler, and Playboy,
along with the hardcore stuff,
meant average kids and teens
had an increased access to such content.
Radical feminists and conservative groups
found an unlikely ally in each other,
for both were anti-pornography
for a number of reasons.
Though I don't and will never agree
that pornography is dangerous
for adult consumption,
I do believe that the
under-regulation of pornography,
like how it was in the
'70s, is not the way to go.
For starters, the star of
Deep Throat, Linda Lovelace,
was forced into her starring role
by her abusive husband-slash-manager.
The popular film she stars in
is essentially an extended rape.
This is emblematic of a key issue
identified by anti-pornography feminists;
women in porn, both
consenting and non-consenting,
had no rights, few advocates,
no job protection or hazard guidelines,
and usually received inadequate pay.
The next problem was that
the lack of protocols
meant that often, underage girls and boys
were involved in the
making of pornography.
Some were purported to be older,
either because they lied about their age
or that's how the director wanted it.
But there was a thriving market
for child sex abuse media
featuring youth explicitly
marketed as underage
in the 1970s, largely
originating from Western Europe
but also made in America.
Feminists led the charge
against child sex abuse media
and linked it to the exploitation
of adult women in porn
as a symptom of male patriarchal violence.
The media, known as "chicken stuff"
was so widely available
and easily attainable
that in 1976, a psychiatrist,
lawyer, and mother
named Dr. Judianne Densen-Gerber
held a press conference in Washington D.C
and called for Congress to do something.
Her voice, along with the outrage
and discourse of radical feminists,
led to federal and state legislation
restricting the creation and
sale of child sex abuse media.
Parent activism didn't stop
at child sex abuse media, though.
So back in 1970, weed was
federally criminalized
and juvenile arrest rates skyrocketed.
- Bonnie, what do you think you're doing
carrying marijuana around in your pocket?
- What are you talking about?
- You know what I'm talking about.
These were in your coat pocket
and Jim says they're marijuana.
- Jim says?
What the...
Wait a minute, will you?
Give me a chance to get my eyes open.
- It's no wonder you can't open your eyes!
What do you expect,
doping yourself up with this rotten stuff?
- [Bonnie] Oh, for Pete's sake,
you don't even know what
you're talking about.
- These arrests weren't
just of black youth either,
and this is why by 1974 a senate committee
held hearings on federal
decriminalization,
and heard parents testify
that the punishment for a little weed
shouldn't ruin a kids life.
The committee's findings led
to a drop in harsh sentences
for marijuana possession and use.
Even still, there were dissenting voices.
One Mississippi republican senator
held six days of hearings in 1974
on the, quote, "Marijuana Hashish Epidemic
"and Its Impact on
United States Security".
He said, "If the cannabis
epidemic continues to spread
"at the rate of the post-Berkeley period,
"we may find ourselves saddled
"with a large population of semi-zombies,
"of young people acutely afflicted
"by the amotivational syndrome.
"These adolescents could suffer
"from irreversible brain damage
"and could become partial cripples,
"resulting in a generation of teenagers
"who have never matured,
"either intellectually or physically."
Few pro-weed publications or advocates
discussed the different effects of pot
on kids versus adults.
The science behind the different effects
wouldn't be discussed
publicly for many years.
Headshops selling weed
paraphernalia began popping up
and magazines like High Times flourished.
There was an increase in teen weed use
because it was more easily accessible.
In 1976, a woman named Marsha Schuchard
caught her 13-year-old smoking weed
and she decided to mobilize.
She and fellow parents
she managed to rally
were concerned with the
normalization of pot culture
and pro-drug messages in media.
Pop culture phenoms like Cheech
and Chong were the enemy.
She and other parents
were also angry at experts
who claimed that marijuana use
was just a phase for teens.
She went on to launch PRIDE,
or Parents Recourse
Institute For Drug Education.
Another parent activist
group, Families in Action,
contributed to the rise
of anti-paraphernalia laws
beginning in 1977.
By 1979 there was a bestselling book,
"Parents, Peers, and Pot".
Another concern of parents
was the purported rise
of teenage pregnancy.
An April 1971 issue of Life Magazine
delved into the realities
of being pregnant while in high school,
and fit in with general
sensationalized attitudes that
"teenage pregnancy is just as unwanted
"and undesirable as ever."
Conservative parents insisted
that the rise in teenage pregnancy
was the result of more liberal
sexual education courses,
but this was far from the truth.
In fact, as later experts would point out
and as I explore in episode six
of "Let's Talk About Sex History",
fewer teens were having
children in the '70s
than in previous decades,
but more of them who did were unwed.
The issue many Americans were having
was not with teenage pregnancy,
as it had been condoned
and even encouraged
during the post-war period,
but with unwed teen mothers
and their increasing
demands for full rights
and adequate welfare.
These teenage mothers were symbolic
of a major problem for
American conservatives,
the perceived attack on
nuclear family values.
This goes along with what I mentioned
in episode three of
"Lexual Does The '70s",
when we discussed the
rise in single mothers,
divorce, and alternative families,
and episode two when we discussed
the rise in welfare reform activism.
Another key thing to emerge from the '70s
in regards to the youth was
the recognition of child abuse.
The 1960s saw an increase
in government-sponsored
child protective services,
but many states only required reports
about physical child
abuse well into the '70s.
Many advocates were feminists
concerned with family
violence and neglect,
and they became more
vocal during this period.
Congress responded in 1976.
Wrote one analyst, "The
General Assembly responded
"by adding reporting of neglect
"and of children at
risk of abuse or neglect
"to the existing mandate to report abuse."
This change almost
immediately tripled reports.
Fewer than 3,000 abuse
allegations were reported in 1976.
By 1978, 9,000 reports were received
with neglect accounting for
nearly two-thirds of them."
Suddenly, there were higher expectations
for parents to adequately feed, house,
and raise their children.
TV shows like Good Times
explored themes in child abuse
that would not have been
broached in earlier programming.
- Didn't I tell you to come
straight home from school?
- Yes, Momma.
- But you disobeyed me, didn't you?
- Yes, Momma.
- You make me very unhappy, Penny,
and you know what happens to children
that make their mommas unhappy.
(fearful breathing)
I locked it.
I knew that would be the
first place you'd try to hide.
- Please, Momma, I promise, I
won't be a bad girl anymore.
Please, I won't be a bad girl
anymore, please, I promise!
Please!
Oh no, Momma, please!
Please don't do it!
Please!
- Though spanking and other
forms of corporal punishment
were still common and socially acceptable
among white America during this era,
it wouldn't be for much longer.
(arcade game music)
So far this episode has been pretty grim,
but the '70s, of course,
weren't all negative
for kids and teens.
It was during this period that pizzerias
and roller discos were all the rage,
especially in big cities
like New York and Chicago.
Skateboards had been
around since the '40s,
but in the early '70s they
were improved in quality.
By 1972 they were catching
on with the new generation.
With no skateparks in existence,
teens headed to public
locations in major cities,
and eventually an underground
yet professional culture emerged
with cash prizes and rankings.
The first skateparks popped
up in California in 1976,
the same year the state
experienced a drought.
Because of empty swimming pools,
skateboarders began experimenting.
Skateboarding would continue to be popular
for decades to come.
Something that wasn't as
long-lasting were Pet Rocks,
which debuted in 1975
and sold for $4 a piece.
Over 1 million of these rocks were sold,
and they included a 32-pag manual
titled "The Care and
Training of Your Pet Rock".
For teens who desired more stimulation,
there was a major industry
brewing, video games.
Lots of innovative yet low-quality games
popped up in the '70s, but
one stood above the rest.
The Atari-produced Pong debuted
to an enraptured audience in 1972.
Initially available in bars and arcades,
the home version stormed
the market in 1975.
It cost about 100 to 250 dollars,
or nearly 500 to 650
dollars in today's money.
This was a major gift for
a kid or teen to receive,
when you consider the cost of living
and economic crisises of the decade.
In 1977, Mattel put gaming devices
in the hands of more children
with their $30 electronic football game.
That same year, when Star Wars debuted,
numerous Star Wars toys
also became all the rage.
Other popular toys of the decade
include 1974's Connect Four,
1972's Boggle, 1978's Hungry
Hungry Hippos and Simon,
and 1973's Baby Alive Doll,
which shat and vomited
for delighted girls everywhere.
Of course, for some kids and teens
not interested in toys or games,
afternoons and summers were spent
smoking, drinking, and
committing petty crimes
like posting graffiti,
vandalizing, or trespassing.
Also, more teens had cars than ever,
granting them even more freedom.
Inside cars they could hang with friends,
take road trips, and blast punk, rock,
and pop music on the radio.
Teens spent so much
time aimlessly cruising
and making out in parked
cars that, by the late '70s,
some local authorities began
passing laws and ordinances
to ban such behavior.
This was partially rooted in racism,
as the improvement of freeway
systems like in California
and the increase in teen car ownership
meant blacks and Latinos
from poor neighborhoods
heading into the nicer ones.
Oh, and about radio stations:
They were beginning to
cater to youth audiences.
In 1971 it was reported
that radio stations
were moving away from classical music,
AKA good music, to pop music.
Meanwhile, on TV, more networks
were providing content for the youth.
Did you know there was a 1970s version
of "Sabrina the Teenage Witch"?
In November 1969, "Sesame
Street" began airing
and quickly became a
popular staple of the '70s
and decades to come.
ABC's "Afterschool Special" series
began debuting in October 1972.
The first "Schoolhouse Rock"
episode premiered in 1973.
♪ As your body grows bigger ♪
♪ Your mind must flower ♪
♪ It's great to learn ♪
♪ 'Cause knowledge is power ♪
♪ It's Schoolhouse Rocky ♪
♪ A chip off the block ♪
♪ Of your favorite schoolhouse ♪
♪ Schoolhouse Rock ♪
- [Elexus] Other popular shows for teens
that weren't explicitly marketed to them
were cause for alarm for some parents,
like "Charlie's Angels".
In 1976 one writer declared,
"Softcore porn sneaks into primetime."
On Saturday mornings, the nation's youth
was treated to hours of cartoons.
("Super Friends")
Unfortunately for kids of
the '70s on summer vacation,
many TV stations didn't air 24/7,
meaning bored teens got the colored bars
when channels signed off after midnight.
As for movies, teens were
able to hit up theaters
for some of the most iconic slasher films,
like 1974's "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre"
and 1978's "Halloween".
Speaking of movies, the rating system
was a lot different.
There was no such thing
as PG-13 until 1984.
Before then, a lot of PG
movies contained content
that would now be seen as
unsuitable for pre-teens.
The R rating caused a lot of trouble too,
notedly when 1973's "The
Exorcist" hit theaters.
It featured a possessed
12-year-old masturbating,
so it should have been rated X.
But it was also a big budget film
that needed to attract major crowds,
so it was given an R rating.
People were outraged that
many of the movies patrons
were unaccompanied minors.
Something that blossomed during the decade
was young adult fiction.
Prior to the late '60s publications
of "The Outsiders" and "The Contender",
most fiction geared
towards 12 to 18-year-olds
was unrealistic and square.
These two books brought an
interest to YA literature,
revving up the market we have today.
Magazine publishers also
saw a lucrative audience
in the youth, and "Right
On!" and "Tiger Beat"
became popular sources of celebrity gossip
for tweens and teens.
There were also a lot more
choices for kids and teens
to express themselves through fashion,
when compared to their parents.
For example, in 1977 a New
York Times article read,
"Sneaker selection a few years
ago rarely troubled anyone.
"Girls got white sneakers, boys got black,
"and both usually bought
the cheapest in the store.
"These days, the sneaker
seeker is confronted
"with nearly 40 styles in many stores
"and you can spend up to $40
"on one pair."
$40!
T-shirts, which until around
1974 were seen as underwear
and not often socially
accepted, became popular
and suddenly available
with slogans and designs.
Jeans were all the rage.
Farrah Fawcett, whose famous poster
hung on the bedroom walls of
many a teenage boy and girl,
popularized the one piece swimsuit.
She was also the source of
the feathered hair trend!
Another fad kids and teens
enjoyed were Mood Rings,
which stormed the market in 1975.
The earliest rings cost
anywhere from $45 to $300,
and some were even made with real gold.
(chilled electronic jazz music)
"I grew up in the '70s,
"when Caucasian children were dressed
"as Native Americans come Halloween,
"put on Greyhound buses, alone, for hours,
"and learned about sex by scoping
"their fathers' dirty magazines."
wrote journalist Patrick Coleman in 2017.
This quote perfectly
encapsulates how in the '70s,
America was less racially
sensitive, a lot more anti-women,
and kids were given a relatively
absurd amount of freedom
that modern parents would never allow.
Like my mother said, it
was a different time,
but it wasn't all pizzerias and nostalgia.
Growing up is hard, no matter
what decade you're living in.
For children of the '70s, who had to watch
TV shows when they aired
or didn't have shit to talk
about the next day at school,
who had to write essays and reports
without the internet or Wikipedia,
who lived through
Watergate, the Vietnam war,
non-criminal child sex abuse media,
cults, and serial killers,
their realities would
become a rallying cry.
For who?
For conservative Americans who
wanted to take America back
a few decades after the
depression and World War II,
but before the Civil Rights Movement
and those damned Women's Libbers.
Everything we've discussed in
this episode and previous ones
allude to a perceived
breakdown in American values
that would lead to the
debutante ball of the New Right.
Whether they would come to
rally around anti-bussing,
anti-pornography, anti-drugs, anti-crime,
anti-sex ed, et cetera,
the various members of The New Right
were coming out to play.
(chilled electronic music)
