<
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/05/justin-bieber-beatles-one-direction-screaming-fan/629845/>
"When the Beatles visited Dublin for the first time, in 1963, The New York
Times reported that “young limbs snapped like twigs in a tremendous
free-for-all.” When they arrived in New York City in February 1964—a little
more than a month into the U.S.-radio-chart reign of “I Want to Hold Your
Hand”—there were 4,000 fans (and 100 cops) waiting at the airport and reports
of a “wild-eyed mob” in front of the Plaza Hotel.
“All day long, some local disc jockeys [have] been encouraging truancy with
repeated announcements of the Beatles’ travel plans, flight number, and
estimated time of arrival,” the NBC news anchor Chet Huntley reported the
evening the Beatles arrived. “Like a good little news organization, we sent
three camera crews to stand among the shrieking youngsters and record the
sights and sounds for posterity.” Ultimately that footage didn’t air—it was
deemed too frivolous for the nightly news.
At the time, the media couldn’t figure Beatlemania out. They didn’t see a
reason for so many girls to be so obviously disturbed. For The New York Times,
the former war correspondent David Dempsey attempted a “psychological, logical,
anthropological” explanation of the phenomenon. He cited the German cultural
theorist Theodor Adorno’s famous essay on the conformity and brainlessness of
the dancers in Harlem’s jazz clubs. “They call themselves jitterbugs,” Adorno
had written, explaining one of his ideas that has held up least well over time,
“as if they simultaneously wanted to affirm and mock their loss of
individuality, their transformation into beetles whirring around in
fascination.” Dempsey was misquoting this, playing superficially off of the
available beetle pun—and defending the teenage girls by calling their passions
stupid and harmless. He either didn’t know or didn’t remember that Adorno had
found jitterbugs dangerous, and described their movements as resembling “the
reflexes of mutilated animals.”
Nearly all of the writing about the Beatles in mainstream American publications
was done by established white male journalists. Al Aronowitz, the rock critic
best known for introducing the Beatles to Bob Dylan and to marijuana
(simultaneously) in the summer of 1964, reported that 2,000 fans “mobbed the
locked metal gates of Union Station” when the Beatles performed in Washington,
D.C. Then, when the Beatles came to Miami, 7,000 teenagers created a
four-mile-long traffic jam at the airport, and fans “shattered twenty-three
windows and a plate-glass door.” A plate-glass door!"
Via Esther Schindler.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
