British Low Culture : From Safari Suits to Sexploitation

Identifying 'permissive populism', the trickle down of permissiveness into mass consumption, as a key feature of the 1970s, Leon Hunt considers the values of an ostensibly 'bad' decade and analyses the implications of the 1970s for issues of taste and cultural capital. Hunt explores how the British cultural landscape of the 1970s coincided with moral panics, the troubled Heath government, the three day week and the fragmentation of British society by nationalism, class conflict, race, gender and sexuality. Flares, lava lamps, safari suits and a national cinema dominated by smutty comedy and cheap softcore have all made 1970s British popular culture appear too gruesome to recycle as nostalgia and too offensive for academic study. But the generic artifacts of the 1970s have become important reference points in contemporary popular culture.

British Low Culture revisits the 1970s through some of its least respectable films and television programs, from Benny Hill to Confessions of a Windowcleaner. Identifying the trickle down of permissiveness into mass consumption as a key feature of the 1970s, Leon Hunt considers the values of an ostensibly "bad" decade and analyzes its implications for issues of taste and cultural capital. Offering insights into the complexities of popular culture and popular memory, British Low Culture fills an important gap in the study of British cultural history.

Flares, lava lamps, safari suits and a national cinema dominated by smutty comedy and cheap softcore have all made 1970s British popular culture appear too gruesome to recycle as nostalgia and too offensive for academic study. But the generic artifacts of the 1970s have become important reference points in contemporary popular culture.

British Low Culture revisits the 1970s through some of its least respectable films and television programs, from Benny Hill to Confessions of a Windowcleaner. Identifying the trickle down of permissiveness into mass consumption as a key feature of the 1970s, Leon Hunt considers the values of an ostensibly bad decade and analyzes its implications for issues of taste and cultural capital. Offering insights into the complexities of popular culture and popular memory, British Low Culture fills an important gap in the study of British cultural history.

Cover 1 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Table of Contents 6 List of illustrations 8 Acknowledgements 10 1 'The decade that taste forgot'?: Revisiting the 1970s 12 2 Permissive populism: Low cultural production in the 1970s 27 3 From carnival to crumpet: Low comedy in the 1970s 45 4 Lads and loungers: Some 1970s masculinities 67 5 'Knuckle crazy': 'Youthsploitation' fiction 85 6 Can you keep it up for a decade?: British sexploitation 102 7 Coming clean ... From Robin Askwith to Mary Millington 125 8 Grim flarey tales: British horror in the 1970s 153 Postscript: Academics behaving badly? 171 Notes 173 Select filmography 181 Bibliography 187 Index 196 The trickle down of permissiveness into mass consumption is viewed as a key feature of the 1970s. Hunt considers the values of an ostensibly "bad" decade and analyses the implications of the 1970s for issues of taste and cultural capital Like a 'return of the repressed', the 1970s have in recent years to exert a grip on the popular imagination.