Quentin Tarantino, Hippies, Boomers, and the Generational Strawmen of 1969

When I first considered watching Once Upon A Time in Hollywood in a movie theater, the 2 hours and 45 minutes running time was almost a deal breaker. That’s at least two intruding bio-breaks and a large swath of the day. However, since I’ve written and edited a book about 1969 with seven coauthors, it also seemed incumbent upon me to see the movie soon after release given relevant historical context.

This movie is quintessential Quentin Tarantino with A-list actors, gratuitous violence, suspenseful plot twists, a virtuoso classic rock soundtrack, and memorable cultural touchstones. For those who enjoy this director’s idiosyncratic film innovations, the movie is a work of time compression: the actual 165 minutes of film running time can feel like 60 minutes. I was so entertained by the acting artfulness of Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie, with the movie’s rapid-fire pacing and short vignettes, that I felt a twinge of regret when the credits finally appeared onscreen. It’s over so soon?!

There, I’ve given the movie due tribute. Now I will address what’s wrong with this larger-than-life film, entertainment value notwithstanding.

If moviegoers assume they will be experiencing a vicarious and instructive trip back to 1969, they are destined to be disappointed, especially those of us who lived through 1969 as young adults. Given the 50^th anniversary of 1969 in 2019, Tarantino has wisely hooked 1969 into the movie’s framework, perhaps because of promotional possibilities. This movie taps into the half-century look-back and nostalgic zeitgeist many are experiencing now.

However, 56-year-old Tarantino did not experience 1969 through the lens of adolescence or young adulthood. As a six-year-old, he was still playing with Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots and G.I. Joe. Nor did his lead actor, 44-year-old DiCaprio, who was born in 1976, or 55-year-old Pitt born in 1964. These Hollywood giants understand 1969 second-hand through a mishmash of media reports or their own imaginations. Their conceptions of 1969 have been appropriated from public memories rather than acquired through personal experiences.

Since Tarantino wrote the screenplay, I’ll focus my critique on him. His movie ignores huge swaths of essential hallmarks of the last year of the 1960’s: Apollo 11, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, and the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam on October 15th, to name four monumental examples.

The single smidgen of important history covered about that year is the Manson Family murders, but the screenwriter/director re-configures history as is his practice. His macho protagonists, portrayed by DiCaprio and Pitt, kill the invading family members rather than playing out actual history, when Manson’s messengers murdered actress Sharon Tate, four other adults, and Tate’s unborn child.

My other criticism is Tarantino’s portrayal of hippies. He has an inglorious attitude about them. They first appear in the movie as scavengers invading trash receptacles in an alleyway. Charlie Manson’s minions are also hippies, thus drug-addled, unwashed slobs — sociopaths capable of mercilessly murdering random luminaries.

For noncritical moviegoers who harbor the same prejudices as Tarantino, Hollywood’s hippies represent strawmen for Baby Boomers, a generation that came of age during the late sixties and early seventies. The protagonists are middle-aged characters and sympathetic representations of hard-working and well-meaning Americans of that time. Not perfect. But respectable. The younger hippies represent all that’s wrong with a nation unraveling at the seams during an era of extreme upheaval. The director fails to communicate essential context for youth rebellion, which was Vietnam, a disastrous war that claimed 58,000 American lives and killed more than 2 million Vietnamese.

Many people who reached adulthood during that time will admit to some “hippie sensibilities” such as longer hair for men, tribal and mod fashions for both sexes, opposition to disingenuous politicians, and experimentation with psychoactive substances. But the vast majority were not unwashed, sociopathic, directionless narcissists. Yours truly grew his hair longer, protested the Vietnam War, sampled a few psychoactive substances, served as a student leader, worked at part-time jobs, and continued accumulating academic achievements that placed me on the Dean’s List at Kansas University. I partied and played and protested, but I maintained focus on my academic and vocational future. Most of my peers did the same.

In 1968, the late social scientist Lewis Yablonsky published The Hippie Trip: A Firsthand Account of the Beliefs and Behaviors of Hippies in America By A Noted Sociologist. This is an academic discourse by an expert researcher that describes and estimates the size of the American hippie sub-segment of young people. Yablonsky concluded that there were about 200,000 full-time hippies in the United States—those identifiable as dropouts from mainstream or straight society. Yablonsky also estimated that there were another 200,000 teenyboppers, part-time hippies, and weekend iconoclasts who might attend high school, college, or work in conventional jobs, but who also dabbled in hippie culture. This leads to an estimate of about 400,000 total hippies in 1968.

Hippies as a cultural sub-segment came largely from Boomers born between 1946 and 1955, which I have labeled as Leading-Edge Boomers. The oldest would have been 22 in 1968, and the youngest would have turned 13. Based on data from Births in the United States 1930 to 2007, the size of the 1946-1955 Baby Boomer cohort was 37.63 million. Using Yablonsky’s estimate of 400,000 hippies as the numerator and all Leading-Edge Boomers as the denominator, the percentage of Boomers who participated in the 1960s’ counterculture at the most extreme edges of engagement or withdrawal would be 1.06% (400,000 / 37.63 million = .0106).

Yet, those who harbor negative attitudes about Boomers and wish to perpetuate stereotypes about this generation, prefer to equate the hippie cultural construct with all Boomers. 1969 Boomers = Hippies. 2019 Boomers = Made Over Hippies. On the contrary, most members of the generation were going about the serious business of attending college, training for trades, serving as social and political activists, and beginning careers. Many superficial hippies then grew up and proceeded to revolutionize our lives. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates come to mind.

Tarantino is another example of a long line-up of cultural critics who portray the Boomer Generation’s coming-of-age period as societal and cultural miasma, underscored by nihilist narratives promulgated by rebellious youth. This is an interesting thematic approach from a screenwriter/director who has undertaken extraordinary steps through his movies to improve the cultural and social standing of groups that have been typecast and mercilessly maligned during the 19^th and 20^th centuries, from African Americans (via Django Unchained) to members of the Jewish faith (via Inglorious Bastards).

Visit a theater near you and watch Hollywood if you want to enjoy another fictitious Tarantino blockbuster with its cinematic grandeur and superior acting.

Do not see the movie if you are looking for an accurate and comprehensive portrayal of 1969, including the young people who helped define the year through their social justice passions and personal sacrifices. Tarantino doesn’t understand one of the most chaotic, challenging, and compelling years of the 20^th century. He's not a reliable historian.

Alternatively, I offer our book as one historical resource that does get it.