The YippiesÒ' Role In Media

The Yippies and their role in media exemplified on Do it! by Jerry Rubin

1. Introduction

Reading Jerry RubinÒ's Do it! I questioned myself what is the message he wants to convey to his readership. Jerry Rubin was one of the co-founders of the Yippies that is why the Yippies as a countercultural movement will be regarded in general first.

I was especially curious to do research on the type of media that covers almost every single page of the book. An overview of the different types of media demonstrates that Jerry Rubin cooperated with Quentin Fiore who was responsible for the design of Do it!. The following analysis of a representative photo collage outlines insights into miscellaneous important matters of the Yippies that represent most of the current issues of the 1960s. Politically and socially a motive force of countercultural movements was present in the past who affected significantly the ongoing development of the United States. Due to the lack of space and time only one type of media (a photo collage) can be viewed in detail and from which will be reasoned by analogy.

Next I will highlight what makes the design of Do it! revolutionary to the 1960s/ 1970s and present impulses for interpretations. An important key factor displays the commercialization of television sets in the American households and its impact on the current society.

Which messages Jerry Rubin (and Quentin Fiore) intended to convey in Do it! will be analyzed in great detail and length in the last chapter. My investigations lead also to Marshall McLuhanÒ's media theories which will be briefly discussed.

2. The Yippies

The "Youth International Party" whose adherents named themselves "Yippies" were established around 1966 in the United States. This party represented one sample of countercultural movements back in 1960s - a time of anti-war movements and offshoot of the free speech movement. Other prominent movements were the Students for a Democratic Society and the Black Panther Party for example. The Yippies did not intend political activism at first place rather than to mock the current social status quo with the help of theatrical gestures. There existed neither a formal membership nor a hierarchy within the Youth International Party. The public environment better knew the Yippies for street theatre and politically-themed pranks. Many of the political left party either ignored or denounced them and one Communist newspaper in the USA derisively referred to them as "Comedians". The Yippies focused on promoting an uninhibited lifestyle (Boyer 629f.).

The most famous founders represented protesters and authors respectively writers such as Abbie Hoffman, Nancy Kurshan, Paul Krassner and last but not least Jerry Rubin. Jerry Rubin became popular due to the obscenity shout on The Frost Programme broadcast live on British TV but monumental famous due to the publicity surrounding the five-month Chicago Seven Conspiracy trial of 1969. During the Democratical National Convention in August 1968 massive demonstrations against the Vietnam War politic by using signs, banners, music, dancing, poetry and the dot of the i of provocation or amusement illustrated by a pig that was brought to the city to be "nominated" for president.

The Congress felt compelled to respond to the ever-increasing numbers of anti-war protests around the country and for that reason a grand jury indicted eight defendants (amongst others the Yippies: Hoffman and Rubin) of political conspiracy in September 1969. It lead to the Chicago Seven Trial which ended in 1970 whereby all defendants were found not guilty of conspiracy. This case was especially widely publicized because Hoffman and Rubin turned the trial into entertaining theater that would receive maximum attention in the press. For detailed illustration the Yippies would spice up the days of the trial by, for example, wearing judicial robes, bringing into the courtroom a birthday cake, blowing kisses to the jury, baring their chests, or placing the flag of the National Liberation Front on the defense table.

Whether the Chicago defendants intended to incite a riot in Chicago in 1968 or not, the trial outcome leaves an open answer to this question.

Throughout the 1970s the Yippies became increasingly fragmanted whereas several underground magazines published in New York City managed to keep the YippiesÒ' storied past alive.

In the end Jerry Rubin renounced much of his actions as a radicalized youth and became a legitimate businessman in the 1980s (Linder).

Rubin provides an idea of the Yippies' intention which is described as followed: "All you have to do to be a yippie is to be a yippie. Yippie is just an excuse to rebel." (84).

3. Usage of Media Types

"Media magician Quentin Fiore has designed the book with more than 100 pictures, cartoons and mind-zaps." (Rubin, back of the hardcover) delivers the answer to the question what kind of media types were used in Do it!. Approximately 145 of a total of 254 pages are covered with Quentin FioreÒ's graphic designs.

Jerry Rubin coproduced the book Do it! with the noted graphic designer Quentin Fiore. (McLuhan, "The medium is the massage" paperback cover). Fiore made use of different types of media in order to visualize and illustrate Jerry RubinÒ's textual information. In this connection he operated with symbols, portraits, press photographs, hand drawings, computer animations, comic strips and photo collages in different formats, e.g. big capital letters, increasing letters, letters which are arranged in circles, repetitions and styles such as aggressive, funny, ironic or conservative.

The type of media applied in Do it! covers a range from self-made computer animations or hand drawing comic strips such as the Berkeley Kid Comix (40ff) by Yossarian to copying press photographs of United Press International, Inc., Wide World Photos, Inc., Al Copeland, The Bettmann Archive, Shephan Shames and Culver Pictures in order to mention the most commonly used.

It is noteworthy that Marshall McLuhan already teamed up with Quentin Fiore in order to publish The Medium is the Massage in 1967. Since Jerry Rubin refers to the slogan "the medium is the message" (121) and McLuhanÒ's book "The medium is the massage" was originally ment to be labeled "The medium is the message", I detect additional intentionally reference between Rubin and McLuhan.

In the following