One of the interesting things about being a nontraditional student (I think of myself right now as 52 although I am actually not quite 51 1/2) is that I encounter information that tells me what things were like when I was younger. When I read this information, I do not always know much about the writer, but when it is provided in a class or a presentation, at times, the instructor/presenter is too young to have had any personal experience during the time period in question. So, sometimes, people are telling me what my life was like, or what the world was like 'back in the day' even though they weren't there at the time.This is nothing new - all history instruction is like this. (And who said: "history is written by the victors?") I know that even my actual experience and memories of the same are highly subjective. But I think there are always differences in historical facts and the reality of the experience. What tends to get written up and pass along are the names and dates although the reality is lost. This leads me to one of the real strengths of a qualitative approach - what people described when talking about their individual, subjective experiences may differ greatly from the official history. I suppose some people would argue that subjective interpretation/description is bias and not worth bothering with; on the other hand, in social science, I think it would be argued that subjective experiences are all that matter. By the way, the picture is one of the '1960s hippie check' designs from checkadvantage.com. I chose this because the whole idea of "the 60s" sort of exemplifies what I am taking about. A lot of what people visualize, and a lot of what is presented to represent the "swinging 60s" comes more from the early 70s, such as some of the very short mini skirts (which were around more in '72 than '68). The "X-Men First Class" movie that I saw recently on DVD (Lee, S., Producer; Vaughn, M., Director) took place in the early 60s. In fact I think it was supposed to be 1962, the year of my birth. I would say based on my own memories that the short skirt with tall boots worn by Jennifer Lawrence was a few, if not several years too early. One of my neighbors had white 'go go' boots in about 1967 or '68. 1962 was the time of Jackie O, white gloves, skirts at about the knee, a-line dresses, Chanel suits, etc. In fact, the whole movie sort of mixes fashions from the early 60s (the guys with short hair and dweeby glasses - that looks like early 60s to me) up until 70s (the hair and clothes on some of the young mutants look more like my middle to high school years of 74 - 76). But you not only had to be there, you had to be awake to see these inconsistencies. I am certain that lots of people who lived through the 60s and were less fashion conscious than I tend to be don't notice stuff like this at all.
But, on one hand, after all, it is only a movie but on the other hand, couldn't they find a 60-year-old costume designer? On yet another hand, maybe everyone was aware it was 'wrong,' but they were more concerned with making Jennifer Lawrence, etc. look good.
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AuthorI am Sheryl L. Chatfield, Ph.D, C.T.R.S. I am a member of the faculty in the College of Public Health at Kent State University. I also Co-coordinate the Graduate Certificate in Qualitative Research and I am a member of the Design Innovation Team at Kent State. Archives
February 2024
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