This musical focuses on the lives of two young men in the Vietnam era against the backdrop of the hippie culture, the most influential counterculture movement already seen. The counterculture movement was characterized by the mobilization and social protest peacefully. It was an alternative culture focused mainly on the transformations of consciousness, values and behavior in search of other spaces and new channels of expression for individuals and small realities of everyday life. In this movement, the hippies were radically opposed cultural values considered important in society as work, patriotism, nationalism, social mobility and even the "aesthetic standard." So they had long hair and wore old clothes with a more libertarian spirit without worrying about people's views.
The great example of what was the counterculture movement is the character George Berger, the leader of the hippies in the film. George Berger is a young man who believes in love, loyalty and equality among all men. Following these principles, he left his home and his family to live according to his beliefs.
Early in the film, we observed how this character cares about other people, he always tries to help everybody and for him all people are friends. That's what we see at the time that George knows Claude, he tries to show him the absurdity of war and the importance of love and equality among people. After all we are all fellow, regardless of social class, ethnicity and beliefs. Berger never stopped believe in these ideals and by accident he goes to the Vietnam War in place of Claude, dying for something he did not believe - the war. The Vietnam War, the greatest shame of the U.S., with the intention to contain the spread of socialism killed thousands of people, leaving wounds unhealed to this day. Therefore the hippies were against this war, making several demonstrations/protests against the Vietnam War. In addition to the hippies, college students, intellectuals and radicals in general (as members of the black movement) were against this war. But the main factor that gave consistency to the Movement for Peace was the lack of a perspective of military victory and the growing number of U.S. casualties.
Sometimes at the film, the Treat’s character seems to be a person alienated from the world, without goals or prospects. However, through his sensitivity George shows his ideals of a better world, making us rethink some values of our society. Unfortunately some values related to proper way to dress and behave persist to this day, where the importance of the person is related to the amount of money s/he has.
Another feature of this movement appears in the film is the issue of drugs. The hippies believed in freedom, in this way, the drugs were a means of achieving freedom - opening mind. Thus we see repeatedly in the film the characters using drugs, a common practice for them.
Moreover, other issues in the film are the “free love” and women's liberation. So hippies – men and women - wanted sex without engagement. Any kind of commitment was seen as a kind of oppression, slavery, which limited the person to live his freedom. We realize this reality with the character Jeannie (Annie Golden), she was pregnant and she did not know who was the father of her child and apparently Jeannie did not care about that. For hippies it was not important, because they believed they were a real family without lies and deceit that characterized the family institution at the time.
The movie hair can hold us from beginning to end, through memorable scenes, such as when Berger and his friends invaded a party and sang on the dinner table, the film makes us rethink some values of our society where only the poor, weak and black are affected. As we see in the film, during the Vietnam War, only these people went to war, while the rich followed the news on television and newspapers. Thus, Berger and his friends try to show others this sad reality and through their music they preach equality and love for building a more just society.
Because of these complex issues, Hair has become one of the best films of recent times, it music and criticism of society at the time is still part of the context in which we live.
Source :
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079261/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair_%28film%29
http://www2.lib.virginia.edu/exhibits/sixties/hippies.html
http://www.spiner.com.br/modules.php?file=article&name=News&sid=1262
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Muito bem colocado.
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