“We're the young generation and we've got something to say”: A Gramscian analysis of entertainment television and the youth rebellion of the 1960s

Abstract

Using Grama's theory of hegemony to examine a growing crisis of authority erupting within American culture, this paper focuses on three popular, youth‐based television programs of the 1960s—The Monkees, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, and The Mod Squad—and on how their themes of youthful disaffection, countercultural values, and political rebellion circulated and were made meaningful in the popular press. Although conflicts and struggles manifest themselves within other sectors of the social order, the field of popular culture is particularly valuable in showcasing breakdowns in consensus, the unmasking of coercive power, and the process of incorporating rebellious social formations back into a reconfigured hegemonic structure.