Growing Up In The 70s: The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

Transcribed is an Intelexual Media series that transcribes past Intelexual Media videos with poor audio. Check out the full series here.

This video was originally posted on May 5th, 2020.

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 wild place to navigate as a youth, too.

The 70’s 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 was no e-cigarette smoking, but there were 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. “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.  

Danger, USA

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 twelve-year-old prostitute. One of the standout lines apart from the now iconic “You talking to me?” Is Travis Bickle telling the audience: “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.” 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. 

The 1976 film starred Robert DeNiro and Jodie Foster and was directed by Martin Scorcesse.

Violence and Fear

Whether you were a slave, free black person, immigrant, woman, or anything else other than a well-off heterosexual white man, America, and lets face it, the world, has always been a dangerous place. But danger in America in the 1970s 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, increasing fear. Nixon declared a war on drugs, 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,” John Ehrlichman said. 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 519K to 635K ran away a year for varying periods of time. 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 from 10-12 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 its 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 shockwaves through the black community. 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 people classified as the Atlanta Child Murderer's victims.

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, “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 2 miles each way to school when I was just a couple years older than him. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. America and the media itself was highly titillated by the wilder and wilder stories of average-looking white men committing heinous crimes. 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. Who really needed stories about the boogeyman when you could talk about Bundy or Gacy? 

These crimes and the way they were 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 and his followers for murdering 7 people in 1969 opened up the 1970’s and served as an official severance from the innocent flower child Hippie free love movement of the late 60s. “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 x’s 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. The Manson family was also many Americans' first exposure to the existence of cults. 

Speaking of cults, the 70s had its fair share. 

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 movement 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 its 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 deprogrammer 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.” 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. 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 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 Fransisco Chronicle wrote a scathing and critical piece on Jones, calling attention to the numerous former members who alleged violent 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 wasn’t the only thing 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 discovered in Guyana after Jones ordered they commit revolutionary suicide, America was shocked. 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. 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.

71% of Jonestown victims were black.

The Kids Are Alright?

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 could include leaving the kids with the babysitter for a trip to see Deep Throat or another popular film like Devil in Miss Jones. An August 1970 issue of Life Magazine shouted “In an era of sexuality, growing concern about pornography.” 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, was 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.

Parental activism didn’t stop at child sex abuse media. So back in 1970, weed was federally criminalized and juvenile arrest rates skyrocketed. 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 kid's 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 "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 reports or advocates discussed the different effects of pot on kids versus adults. The science behind the different effects would not 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 Lets 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 emblematic 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.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.

The Joys of Childhood 

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-page  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 $100-250, or nearly $500-650 in todays money. This was a major gift for a kid or teen to receive, when you consider the cost of living and economic crisis 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 War 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 AliveDoll, which shat and vomitted 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. 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 After School Special series began debuting in October 1972. The first Schoolhouse Rock episode premiered in 1973. Other popular shows for teens that weren’t explicitly marketed to them were cause for alarm for some parents, like Charlies Angels. In 1976 one writer declared “softcore porn sneaks into primetime.”  

On Saturday mornings, the nation’s youth was treated to hours of cartoons. 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 12-18 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.” 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. 

Conclusion 

“I grew up in the seventies, 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 seventies, 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 get lost in the dust, 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, etc, the various members of The New Right were coming out to play. 

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