1964-79 Social Change

• Despite the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967 (under the Sexual Offences Act) it remained a taboo topic
• Due to increased police attention (as men could still be arrested for 'public indecency' eg soliciting homosexual relations) many were arrested
• The Gay Liberation Front was founded in the USA and spread to Britain in 1970
• 'Camp behaviour' became common in sitcoms eg Are You Being Served? (1972-85)
• Leading pop stars Bowie and Elton John came out as bisexual and the first pride was held in London in 1971
• The success of the 1968 strike by female workers in the Ford Dagenham attracted national attention
• The National Women's Liberation Conference first met in Oxford in 1970
• They led to much more progressive legislation despite their ideological fractures
• Most unions remained male-dominated except from figures like Margaret Bondfield and the slight increase in membership from 2.6-3.8 million
• The number of married women who worked rose to ½ in 1970
• The Equal Pay Act, Employment Discrimination Act and Sex Discrimination act all allowed women greater power in the workplace
• Women were also allowed greater social freedoms: it was easier to divorce under the 1969 Divorce Reform Act; the Abortion Act and availability of the pill allowed women sexual freedoms
• Women in the media such as Angela Rippon, Joyce Grenfell, Jill Day, Barabara Mandell and Nan Winton aided changes
• Female written sitcoms such as The Liver Birds and Butterflies written by Cara Lane
• Labour and conservatives tightened immigration restrictions in this time period and outlawed discrimination
• Enoch Powell made his racist 'Rivers of Blood' speech
• The National Front Party was formed in 1967
• Thatcher was outspoken against low standards of public decency 'basic Christian values … are under attack'
• Mary Whitehouse was also concerned and joined the Moral Rearmament group
• In 1963 her focus was on mass media and her clean up TV campaign (1964) which gained 50000 signatures
• She implemented the watershed, attacked pornography, made sex shops implement blackout windows, privately prosecuted Gay News for a poem about a Roman Soldier having sex with Jesus (1977) and a campaign against 'Life of Brian'
• The Nationwide Festival of Light was a protest against mass media and was held in Hyde Park in 1971
• This period was known as the 'Golden Age of Television' which included: Steptoe and Son, Fawlty Towers, Porridge and Are You Being Served?
• They showed attitudes towards race, class, gender and authority
• As they were satirical some sitcoms which were meant to be critical of racism/sexism could have been popular because of racist/sexist sentiments
• Some of these bad sitcoms included Till Death do us Part and On the Buses
• Film versions of sitcoms were used to try and boost the British Film Industry
• In the 70s the Bond films were declining in quality, Hammer horrors became more revised and the Carry on Films became more sexual
• All films became more violent/sexually explicit including many more nude scenes
• Other aspects of cinema were A Clockwork Orange, Confessions of a Window Cleaner (1974) and Emmanuelle
• Some local authorities banned these despite their BBFC Classifications and many cinemas closed