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{{Categories by decade}}
{{IndexTrope}}
[[File:thesixties.jpg|frame|350px|There's a good reason they're called the "Stormy Sixties."]]
 
<div class="catbox">''Main article: '''[[{{PAGENAME}}]]'''''</div><div style="clear:left;"></div>
 
{{quote|''"Mmmmm…. turbulent."''|'''Homer Simpson''', '''''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'''''}}
 
[[The Swinging Sixties|The Swingin' Sixties]] hold a special place in popular culture, mostly because the people who came of age in that decade cannot stop talking about how great it was.
 
[[The Theme Park Version]] of the Swingin' Sixties includes: [[Love Freak|"free love"]] and [[Beehive Hairdo|beehive hairdos]], [[New Age Retro Hippie|hippies]] and [[Fat Sweaty Southerner in a White Suit|southern sheriffs]], [[Psychedelic Rock]] and [[Girl Group|girl groups]], marijuana and the pill, [[Tuxedo and Martini|sexy male spies in tuxedos]] and sexy female spies in [[Spy Catsuit|leather catsuits]] ([[Dangerously-Short Skirt|or in miniskirts with go-go boots]], [[Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs|or in leather miniskirt catsuits]]), the [[A Charlie Brown Christmas|Charlie Brown Christmas special]], Peter Fonda [[Easy Rider|dropping acid in a graveyard]], prim newscasters speaking in clipped tones about those wild youngsters having too much fun, and everybody [[Dance Sensation|doing "The Twist"]]. In Britain it includes the rise of Carnaby Street (inevitably accompanied by [[The Kinks]]' "Dedicated Follower of Fashion"), Mary Quant (the [[Alliteration|Mother who Made Miniskirts Mainstream]]), Harold Wilson, the satire boom, and a bunch of [[Buccaneer Broadcaster|Buccaneer Broadcasters]] demolishing [[The BBC]]'s radio monopoly.
It was all about the music: [[The Beatles (band)|Mop-topped mods]] and [[The Rolling Stones|cock-walking rockers]] all the rage, and the British were cool for the first time in recorded history. Except to the British, who were way into India. The Sixties gave us [[Woodstock]], three days of peace and music. And then a little later, Altamont, roughly six hours of skull-cracking brutality set to music.
 
Of course, much of this great music was made in the context of political unrest: Escalation of the [[Vietnam War]] was met with a powerful protest movement, admired to this day for stopping the war dead in its tracks just nine years later. President Kennedy narrowly averted an end-of-the-world nuclear showdown, then was shot dead. Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X gave voice to the [[Civil Rights Movement]], and then were shot dead. Robert F. Kennedy renewed the country's spirits with a message of hope and unity, and then was shot dead. Really, the only important political figure who survived the 60s unscathed was [[Richard Nixon|Tricky Dick]]. This was the era of [[Sinister Surveillance|COINTELPRO]], with [[Flock of Wolves|Government Agents surveilling, infiltrating and discrediting Anti-War and other groups]] to the point of sowing [[Properly Paranoid|distrust and paranoia]] among these groups to [[Philip K. Dick|Philip K Dick]] levels.
 
The Sixties were also the time of [[The Space Race]] - Following the launch of Sputnik in 1957, the first manned launches took place in 1961 (First Russian [[Yuri Gagarin]] in April, followed closely by Alan Shepherd in May.) The idea of people actually entering space for the first time led to a new fascination with Science, and a corresponding boom to [[Science Fiction]]. John F. Kennedy ordered the seemingly impossible - putting men on the Moon. After his death, America's resolve was steeled, and the course was set. The route to the Moon was very nearly derailed by the disastrous Apollo 1 fire, claiming the lives of 3 American astronauts in a test. Over a year of unmanned testing went on, trying to repair the mistakes. A return to space flight in late 1968 led to an epic Christmas flyby of the Moon by Apollo 8, one of the most watched television broadcasts in history. Finally, in 1969, Neil Armstrong and [[Retired Badass|Buzz Aldrin]] set foot on the Moon, fulfilling Kennedy's mission and marking the first time a human being had walked on another celestial body.
 
That's what you learn watching TV and movies ''about'' the Sixties. No Sixties Montage is complete without them. If not set to [[Jimi Hendrix]] playing "All Along the Watchtower," then "Get Together" by the Youngbloods.
 
But if you watch TV and movies ''from'' the Sixties, it's as if half of that stuff never happened. Some of the Sixties' landmark events, such as the Stonewall Riots in 1969 that kicked off the gay rights movement, were barely acknowledged until the 1990s. Our cultural memory has selected [[The Grateful Dead]] and [[Aretha Franklin]] from a musical landscape that had a lot more Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass than seems sonically possible; and the squares of the first half of the decade actually dressed a lot cooler than the hippies of the latter half, who frankly come off as a little grimy. A standout example of this is ''[[The Andy Griffith Show]]'' whose title actor portrays a Southern sheriff and in which not a whisper of the civil rights movement is mentioned.
 
Nonetheless, the sheer volume of memorable songs, shows, books, and movies from the Sixties is testament to the creativity of its artists. The decade did give us ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series|Star Trek the Original Series]]'', ''[[Doctor Who]]'', [[James Bond (film)|James Bond]] (the films, anyway), [[Spider-Man (Comic Book)|Spider-Man]], [[Woody Allen]], ''[[The Graduate]]'', ''[[The Prisoner]]'', [[The Beatles (band)|The Beatles]], [[The Rolling Stones]], [[Motown]] the list goes on. Their continued popularity ensures the Sixties will be around for a long time.
 
 
 
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If you can remember the 60s, you didn't live in them.
 
If you don't remember the 60's, you lived in them.
 
If you didn't live in the 60's, you remember them.
 
Therefore, [[Logic Bomb|only people who weren't alive in the 60's can remember the 60's.]]
 
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Hollywood History]]
[[Category:The Twentieth Century]]
[[Category:Index Index]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sixties, The}}
 
[[Category:The Sixties]]
 
{{related|The Forties}}
{{related|The Fifties}}
{{related|The Seventies}}
{{related|The Eighties}}
{{related|The Nineties}}
{{related|Turn of the Millennium}}
{{related|The New Tens}}
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