This post-war era has become known for the massive social changes that occurred through media, pop culture, societal standards, social activism and more. People began to face America's social issues head on, which was reflected in the entertainment of the time. Additionally, the content that entertained Americans changed drastically, and while Broadway kept up easily, Hollywood struggled to adjust.
1950s
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The 50s have become known as the “Golden Age of Broadway” because of the emergence of a style of show known as a “book musical”. A book musical is a show with a developed plot and more serious and dramatic themes which uses music for more than just entertainment - these songs and dances are integrated into the storyline and further the plot. Additionally, these shows were attempting to evoke other emotions beyond just laughter - instead of portraying an idealistic and fun version of society, they began dealing with other emotions and problems the characters could face. Some examples of these kinds of shows include “Oklahoma!”, one of the most successful shows in Broadway history, as well as “My Fair Lady”, “West Side Story”, “The Music Man”, and “The Sound of Music”.
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This movement towards the book musical was pioneered by composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II, who worked together to write some of the most successful musicals of their time. Their first show together was “Oklahoma!”, which was created in 1943 and ran for over 2200 performances, and was hugely popular among wartime audiences. Rodgers and Hammerstein continued this fame with shows such as “Carousel” in 1945 and “The King and I” in 1951. Because of their consistent success, the book musical style became known as the Rodgers and Hammerstein Formula.
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These shows that portrayed a larger range of emotion were the first step to facing social issues. In fact, some smaller shows began fully facing them - for example, “Finian’s Rainbow”(1947) faced political corruption through a light-hearted and fantastical story, and “Lost in the Stars”(1949) focused on racial strife in South Africa.
THE GOLDEN AGE OF BROADWAY
MOVE ME!
Richard Rodgers conducts the pit orchestra of "Oklahoma!" in the 2000th performance of the show on Broadway.
Father Knows Best and Leave it to Beaver were classic sitcoms that told the story of the middle-class American lifestyle. In it, the main female characters, Margaret Anderson and June Weaver, represented the classic expectation of women to be the perfect wives and mothers.
The rise of television
In the 1950s, American culture went through massive change. The popularity of the television set changed how Americans found entertainment, which led to a huge decrease in theater attendance. Because of this, the film industry began producing film for TVs to keep up, which marked the beginning of Hollywood’s takeover of the television industry. Many of these TV shows entertained through perpetuating social standards of the time, which had become a massive part of American culture. For example, many popular shows such as Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best promoted the idea of female domesticity by portraying many of their female characters as loyal mothers and wives. Additionally, they also attempted to pull audiences back through uses of new, exciting technology such as 3-D and special effects.
There was also a huge shift in demographic - where producers had once targeted families and young adults, they now started targeting youth. They did this by focusing on themes revolving around rebellion and the new musical genre of rock ’n’ roll rather than idealized portrayals of characters.
Essentially, what this era of film determined was that people’s ideas of entertainment were changing, and lighthearted and happy content was not what audiences were looking for anymore. However, the industry was struggling to figure out exactly what it was that they were looking for.
60s and 70s
BROADWAY'S SOCIAL COMMENTARY
HOLLYWOOD'S CHANGING CULTURE
The 60s were a time of social activism, especially surrounding civil rights and the Vietnam War. This increased interest in American social issues was reflected through Broadway as well, as book musicals began to decrease in popularity and shows embracing the new counterculture movement began to take over. For example, “Hair” was a show about a rebellious, rock-loving man who is drafted into the army and becomes involved with a group of hippies. This show was packed with social commentary on many important issues such as poverty, race relations, and the Vietnam War, to the point where its plot was underdeveloped because so much attention had been paid to this social commentary. This was actually a common problem of the era - creators of shows were so eager to incorporate social issues into their works that they neglected the plot.
This was a complete shift from the way things had been for the past few centuries - finally, plays were facing all parts of American society head on, not just the idealistic and dreamlike parts, to the point where it was even over the top.
This trend continued in the 70s along with the re-emergence of the emotions of the 50s book musicals. Many shows used little to no dialogue and instead focused on spectacular effects and grand, emotional scores, such as “Phantom of the Opera” and “Les Miserables”. Additionally, many shows were based on movies, connecting the two entertainment industries.
While Broadway took on the social issues-side of things in the 60s, Hollywood continued creating films based on the huge cultural shifts of this time period. Some movies focused on societal changes, but the majority of movies instead continued to focus on new trends in pop culture like rock and roll and rebellion, shifting from the usual focus on idealized portrayals of stories and characters. Films developed darker plotlines and themes, and edgier movie stars such as Marilyn Monroe and James Dean gained popularity.
However, the popularity of movie theaters as a source of entertainment continued to decrease. 1963 was the slowest year for film since the 20s - only about 120 films were released as a result of film studios focusing on more popular forms of entertainment like movies for TV, the new concept of TV series, and music records.
However, Hollywood recovered in the 1970s with a new rush of creativity as films started taking advantage of the recent changes in restrictions on language, sex, violence, and other strong themes in films. The popularity of American counterculture led Hollywood to start taking greater risks, and new alternative filmmakers increased in popularity. The film industry was reborn with the production of high-action, youth-oriented films which became some of the highest-grossing films of the time such as Jaws and Star Wars, which are still incredibly popular today. The film industry had finally managed to capture the interest of Americans through culture, though they still had not fully taken on social issues in the way that Broadway had.
"Hair" was one of the biggest shows to take on the social issues of the 60s, focusing heavily on social commentary throughout the show.
"Les Miserables" focused on drama and emotion, highlighting the 70s trend of creating more dramatic and dark versions of book musicals.
Jaws was one of the most popular movies of the 70s and continues to be popular today, showing Hollywood's success in reviving the film industry.
Marilyn Monroe and James Dean were two pop culture icons of the 50s and 60s who represented the edgier changes in American culture.
the era of hairspray
One of the most iconic films and Broadway shows about this era is Hairspray, which was made in 1988 and takes place in the 60s. The show was written by John Waters, who in 1963 witnessed the cancellation of the Buddy Deane Show, a local dance show in Baltimore. This show only allowed white teens to attend the weekday broadcasts of the show, except for on “Black Mondays” when only black teens could attend. In 1963, the Civic Interest Group, which was a student integrationist group from Morgan State UNiversity, challenged this rule by buying tickets for a Black Monday show for both white and black teens to attend. This unexpected interracial broadcast led the TV station, WJZ-TV, to receive everything from complaints from white parents to bomb and arson threats, leading the station to cancel the show instead of integrating it.
This event caused Waters, a Baltimore native and fan of the show, to create a version of the story with a happy ending where the idea of colorblindness over races prevailed. Thus, Hairspray was born, a movie with the perfect combination of entertainment and social issues for the time. While the movie is very idealistic and light-hearted, which can make it come off as very shallow and overly optimistic, it also forced viewers to face the fact that these seemingly innocent moments in pop culture history were deeply involved in the social issues of that era. The segregation of the Buddy Deane Show was not unique - there were tons of segregated shows just like it all across America. Hairspray was meant to make this difficult part of American history more accessible through entertainment, something that pure documentation can’t do. As Craig Zadan, the executive producer of the movie, put it, “you never feel like we’re on a soap box, or we’re preaching to you, or we’re saying this is a lesson you need to learn ... and yet, hopefully, you come away from it with something serious to talk about afterwards.”
The Buddy Deane Show was a popular dance show in Baltimore which, like many local dance shows of the time, was segregated.
Hairspray the movie was a relatively successful movie, although the popularity of the story didn't truly take off until it was turned into a Broadway show.
Hairspray went on Broadway in 2002, and has since been recreated many times, including a recent live-action production in 2016. The show won 8 Tony awards, including Best Musical in 2003.