Review of
Beat,
Beat, Beat, by William F. Brown
Three out of five stars
Like the word “hippie”
or “hippy” in the 1960s, the word “beatnik” was used to characterize a subculture
of America in the 1950s. It was also ill-defined and turned into a stereotype
by mass media that tends to simplify and caricature the serious aspects of the
movement. Lost in the decades that have transpired since the sixties, both
movements began as a traditional youth rejection of what they found as
unacceptable aspects of American society. This book was part of the creation of
the stereotype of the beatnik.
The fifties was
a time of the great communist red scare, extreme racism against all deemed “the
other” and great social pressure to conform to the norms. There was great
social change due to the use of the automobile and the rise of the suburbs. Some
young people rebelled against this, to those that disliked this movement, they
became the crude and socially leprous “beatniks.”
This book pokes
fun of that movement using exaggeration, mischaracterization and occasionally
effective satire. First published in 1959, this book is interesting as a look
back at what was a youthful rebellion against a society that had many flaws,
some of which have been corrected over time. If you are capable of looking at
these cartoons through the proper lenses, they will amuse you and demonstrate
the power of cartoons to misinform.
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