Attending the 'Art In Today's World' conference in 1976, Marshall McLuhan made the observation, "The press is a popular art." Four years earlier Charles M. Schulz made the comment, "I think the only real definition of art is whether it speaks to more than one generation. It has to speak to future generations...Art should move people, it should express something in its own way. Great art should express an emotion." Marshall described the press as "a Third World art form...The Third World does it with drums. You do it by telegram which is a drum and instantaneous. A news story is structured acoustically in a literary way. It's the pyramid with the first sentence. (Fidel) Catro by using television instead of radio has been able to stabilize politics in Cuba...TV is a cool medium, radio is a hot medium."
For 14 years until 1972, the program 'Bonanza' was regarded "a national viewing institution". Then, Lorne Greene noted, "Our mores have changed...You can see things on TV – abortion, nudity, language – that we didn't talk about 10 years ago." John Fogerty, the lead singer of rock band Creedence Clearwater Revival, made the remark, "We don't beat people over the head with messages. We know how we feel about things but our 'cause' is to make every record, every performance, every note as good as we can get it." Of the song 'Proud Mary', he shared, "I was writing – this was late '67 and early '68...and the first thing I wrote was 'Proud Mary'. I looked at it and said, 'Hmm… what does that mean?'...I began to write some melody. The flow sounded good, but I had no idea what it was about. So I went back to the song-title book and 'Proud Mary' was sittin' there...I began to write the song – the story – of that boat, Proud Mary. It was the central character. That's exactly how it happened; it's no more mythical than that...My Elvis-and-Beatles upbringing came directly into play. And I was able to write songs that would go on Top 40 radio...At the conclusion of 'Proud Mary', I even said to myself, 'Wow, that's my first standard.'"
By 1972 "every program topping the TV ratings relates itself to human needs." In politics, Richard Nixon won the Election of 1972 decisively. Of the 1972 presidential campaign, Marshall observed, "There's something strange about the current campaigns...The parties are meaningless. They have no policy and are looking only for an image." He also took note, "President Nixon occupies a very dramatic spot between the old and new politics, in the drama of the old private ethic and the new corporate imagery. The permissiveness of the 1950s suddenly signaled the decline of private identity and the corresponding increase of corporate awareness, both of which were much enhanced by the advent of TV, for TV brought the outside inside the American home."
"TV politics do not permit very much interest in the policy or the party," Marshall explained. "But the individual candidate must have charisma. Charisma means looking a lot like other people...To look a lot like other people means acceptable people...Jimmy Carter looks like the All-American Southern boy, (Huckleberry) Finn in the White House. He's a big archetype whereas Jack Kennedy looks like the All-American boy of the more Bostonian variety; of the successful, pushy and aggressive boy. Carter, the Southern boy is not aggressive (but) whimsical Huck Finn style." Marshall pointed out, "First time that deep South boy has ever entered the American White House - so the Civil War is over."
Around 1975, T-shirts and jeans became popular. "T-shirts are an extension of painting," one wearer reasoned. Pierre Cardin, Givenchy, Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, Yves Saint Laurent all started producing T-shirts and jeans. Marshall offered, "Nostalgia for the jeans and Levi of the young today are nostalgia for granddad's overalls...The fashionable costumes worn by the young are really very old hat and nostalgic. Someone called costumes worn by the young today kind of 'international motley' or clown costumes. And paradoxically the clown is the person with a grievance. His role in medieval society was to be the voice of grievance. The clown job was to tell the emperor or tell the royalty exactly what was wrong with the society." A spokesperson for Givenchy expressed, "I think we're in a very confused fashion period. And during a confused period, a woman goes into a classic thing, whatever it might be. Jeans and T-shirts are a part of it. Practical they are. Fashionable they ain't."
