Here is an animated and wonderfully engaging work of cultural history that lays out America’s unruly past by describing the ways in which cutting loose has always been, and still is, an essential part of what it means to be an American.
From the time the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, Americans have defied their stodgy rules and hierarchies with pranks, dances, stunts, and wild parties, shaping the national character in profound and lasting ways. In the nation’s earlier eras, revelers flouted Puritans, Patriots pranked Redcoats, slaves lampooned masters, and forty-niners bucked the saddles of an increasingly uptight middle class. In the twentieth century, fun-loving Americans celebrated this heritage and pushed it even further: flappers “barney-mugged” in “petting pantries,” Yippies showered the New York Stock Exchange with dollar bills, and B-boys invented hip-hop in a war zone in the Bronx.
This is the surprising and revelatory history that John Beckman recounts in American Fun. Tying together captivating stories of Americans’ “pursuit of happiness”—and distinguishing between real, risky fun and the bland amusements that paved the way for Hollywood, Disneyland, and Xbox—Beckman redefines American culture with a delightful and provocative thesis.
(With black-and-white illustrations throughout.)
From the Hardcover edition.
A timely historical look at the roots of American Fun, and the road to American Spectacle 0
Fun for Liberty I always ask my patients what they are doing for fun. It isn’t a good sign to hear the reply “Nothing,” and it’s only slightly better to hear, “Watch TV.” I am much happier to hear that patients are going fishing with friends, or playing basketball or or gardening or going for walks with family members. I am convinced that fun of this sort is healthful for anyone, but it isn’t the sort of fun that professor of English John Beckman writes about in _American Fun: Four Centuries of Joyous Revolt_ (Pantheon Books). The pranks, hoaxes, dances, novel costumes, wild parties, and riots he describes here (James Joyce described such activities as “the shoutmost shoviality”) make an alternate history of America, one that emphasizes that participating in this sort of fun is essential to the American pursuit of happiness. Beckman takes pains to distinguish this sort of endeavor from the more commonplace entertainments and amusements, telling of “outrageous, even life-threatening fun.” This is a history of “a raffish national tradition that flaunted pleasure in the face of authority.” That sort of fun has made America what it is, and it is a pleasure to read a book that explains historically this essential nature of part of the American character.To start it all off, everyone knows the Puritans were no fun. There was, however, a competing colony called Merry Mount, begun by the “Cheerful, curious, horny, and lawless” Thomas Morton. Merry Mount was populated with freed servants and welcomed Indians, whose culture and whose lusty women his followers appreciated. They scandalously celebrated May Day by raucous dancing around the previously forbidden Maypole, and they celebrated harvests and their general success frequently; Merry Mount was prosperous. Their stern Calvinist neighbors couldn’t stand it, and attacked the settlement and forced it to disband. Miles Standish ordered the Maypole chopped down, and Merry Mount was burned to the ground. From Bradford vs Morton, we go to John Adams (elite) vs Sam Adams (populist). John and his fellows, the merchant elite of Boston, approved of the boisterous demonstrations against taxation, but it was Sam and the Sons of Liberty who carried them out. The Boston Tea Party was no dignified protest, but a prank brewed in the taverns, a jolly vandalism with a political point, performed by men and boys in the costumes of Indians. “In this moment,” writes Beckman, “they were experiencing democracy firsthand, perhaps more purely than they ever had or would again.” The slaves didn’t get a chance to experience such democracy, but they scored some fun hits of subversive revelry even in their chains. The storytelling, dancing, and songs were a brand of culture that accepted us and them and celebrated the dichotomy. If you could do the steps, if you could sing the song, if you got the joke, you were part of the community, and if you didn’t, the joke was on you. A boisterous nocturnal start in southern slave quarters was to grow directly into slang, styles of humor, music, and dance that are now appreciated worldwide. There was the bumptiousness for freedom within the mining camps of California and Nevada, the “Wild Wets” who protested Prohibition, the flappers who were ground troops in the New Woman revolution, and the Yippies who had the time of their lives tweaking the noses of their elders and of the police. And sometimes the struggle was not fun; for example, the rebellion at Stonewall was “an act of grim determination; there was nothing lighthearted about it.”The most recent manifestations of this sort of fun include Improv Everywhere, which delights in causing cheerful chaos in public places. They pull lots of funny, anarchic stunts, but are most famous for the annual No Pants! Subway Ride now held on metro lines all over the world. The best political stunts are performed by the Yes Men. When it became known in 2010 that General Electric paid zero in taxes and had even claimed a $3.2 billion benefit from taxes, the public was outraged, but GE originally said it just didn’t legally owe any taxes and was entitled to their boon. They recanted in a press release a few months later, and said they were returning the billions because it was the right thing to do, causing a grateful nation to reflect on their sense of responsibility. It turned out that the press release came from the Yes Men, and was a hoax. GE then had to put out a genuine press release saying they were doing no such thing. There are many funny stories here in a lively look at a jumping and jubilant aspect of American history. Reading the book is no struggle, reading it is no blow for freedom, reading it is not bucking the power brokers; reading it isn’t that sort of fun, but it is fun nonetheless, and informative to…