Visions of Freedom in the 1970s

These images represent two drastically different visions of freedom during the early 1970s and show just how fragmented our society had become during this time of counterculture upheaval. These images show that even within the white community there there had been splintering into two ideologically disparate groups and that corporations were banking in on the counter culture iconography to sell products. The first image glorifies a freedom from society that can be purchased with money, the traditional view. The second image cites the freedom (actually better defined as liberation) that comes from engagement with society and the desire to change it into a place where more freedom could be had. The student movements espoused urban, political, and philosophical freedom whereas the yuppie freedom presented here is rural and escapist. It can only be supported by working "within the system" and the resulting free time and money.

Life Magazine. Ford xl sportsroof. 1969 vol 66 #1, pg 13

The Ford ad shows a young upwardly mobile white couple who are enjoying the freedom of the ability to escape from society and go into nature. This is no hippie nature-loving, however. They are being entertained by their toys: an airplane and a hot car, the products of industrial America. It shows how consumer America and industrial America feed into one another. The ad uses visual expansiveness of the field and its golden color to emphasize the peace and contentment that could be purchased from working hard "within the system."

Life, Slipstick Liquid Paper, 1971, vol 70-1, pg 75

The use of the word “Liberation” and the hippie/student-radical costuming in this ad shows that, by 1971, knowledge of the counter-culture was so widespread it could be used to sell products. Here it is used by the giant corporations and bureaucracies the radical movements were against to sell their products. Even though the costuming and wording is radical, this ad doesn't challenge the idea of women's roles as workers and, in fact, cruelly mocks it. The ad makes reference not only to the hippie and student movements but also the idea of the “new woman”- represented by the confident and beautiful secretary. The ad is ironic and cruel, however, when we realize we are seeing an ad for nothing revolutionary at all but, in fact, a comically mundane product: the easy-erase pen for secretaries. Just another thing to make "workin' for the man" a bit easier.