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Why Didn't Mae West Keep Up with the Latest Fashions?
Show title:
American Masters
Video title:
Why Didn't Mae West Keep Up with the Latest Fashions?
Video duration:
3m 13s
Video description:
Mae West didn’t keep up with the latest fashions. Her persona, with the exaggerated hourglass figure and luxurious clothing, was inspired from trends in the 1890’s. It’s perhaps because of this outdated style that she was allowed to get away with saying so many sexually suggestive things.
Reed was always at the forefront of American avant-garde music, beginning with creation of the Velvet Underground in 1965. Gritty and realistic, the brutal honesty in Reed’s lyrics and sound made him a cultural icon of the disenfranchised throughout the ’60s and ’70s. From punk rock to grunge, he has had an unparalleled influence on the American music scene.
Bebop, a style of jazz developed in the 1940's, changed American music but wasn't taken seriously for much of Charlie Parker's life. This mid-century popcorn television commercial shows how the public's perception of bebop was riddled with stereotypes.
Charlie Parker's nickname "Yardbird" came to be while he was on the way to a gig with some fellow musicians and involved a bird in a yard that had an unfortunate fate.