It has led to political entanglements and a new sense of culture: 50 years Ago, Beatlemania was at its height.
The young girl’s eyes are closed and fists clenched. The semi-long hair blows around the forehead like a halo, the violent movement of the head is frozen in a fraction of a second snap-action closure of a camera lens. Ring around you are frozen with their peers in similar poses of the rapture, with wide open mouths and derailed the face. One almost seems to hear the screams, but the Medium of the newspaper is silent. The Sound of the photos, the filled in 1964, the sheets and magazines, gellte as a high-pitched Screech through TV and radio broadcasts. Was incorporated he the concerts of a Band, which led in that year on the international charts.
But the Beatles were more than a mere Pop-event: The sudden awareness of the Band triggered a social debate, provoked scientific Controversy and even political implications. Under the slogan of “Beatlemania” is not discussed only about the supposedly enthemmende effect of pop music. Looking at the traces, the phenomenon in the press, academia, and message archives, behind, by the magnifying of the younger approach to the history of emotions, shows that at that time the feeling world and the sexuality of young girls have been re-negotiated.
Reached its peak this debate with the beginning of the first Beatles tour in the US exactly 50 years ago. Had begun in the previous year, in England, As in October 1963, in London’s West End as a consequence of the TV-show Sunday Night at the London Palladium, recorded, gathered spontaneously as many Fans in front of the theatre, that the traffic on Oxford Street temporarily to a Standstill. The majority of the young people was only present because of the Boy-Band from Liverpool, what made the loud chanting, no doubt. As the London police engagement, and filmed television cameras the first images of the collective rapture. On the following day you filled in under the Heading of “Beatlemania” in the newspaper columns of the British tabloids. From the “Beatles fever” was the speech that broke over England in “like a medieval plague”. The “fearsome symptoms,” the Beatles-disease “eye rolling, limb twitching and screaming”.
Women butts in impotence and hair follicles Souvenirs
The concept of creation was not a neologism, but revealed a remarkably long cultural memory. The Beatle-mania played on the “Lisztomanie” from the early 19th century. Century. The young Pianist Franz Liszt had at the time, one of the founders of the virtuoso Concerto, which took off from the conventions of those years: The Newspapers had made a mockery of the unusually long hair and the escalated force style of presentation, but especially those female Fans, mocked, to be forfeited to the Star on the “manic” way. Young women fall into a swoon, from which they had to be awakened with smelling salts, and taking Souvenirs such as the glass of Water and the Stars.
With the concept of mania was already gone at that time, accompanied by a psycho-pathologisation of the Fantums, the revived now and again, also in Germany. The West German General called the “beetle infestation”, to the hyenas in the “brave girl”, and the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger speculated: “will the nerves of Even the Germans and twitching.” Before it came to that, one should fulfill this prophecy, first of all, on the other side of the Atlantic, because the first US tour, the Beatles seemed to surpass the reactions of British Fans.
As John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr in New York, entered American soil, besieged by 5,000 Fans of the airfield, and hundreds of the Hotel. Their television appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, saw some 73 million Americans. The US tour of the Beatles, which was the expression of what American media called soon, the “British invasion”. The subject of the reporting is less the music of the British was but the Sound, the the international audience self-generated: it is Not only concerts, also the movie shows with the music of the films of the Beatles were drowned out by a shrill screech.
The phenomenon was in the United States is not entirely new. As early as 1956, reports on “enthemmte, wine by the end of middle-class girls appeared on the occasion of Elvis concerts”. Earlier still it was in concerts by entertainers like Frank Sinatra or beat singers such as Pat Boone to borderline scenes in which young girls stormed screamed and to the stage. But the young Elvis had stood-Fans often disciplined snake, a silk scarf of your idol. Now, it was believed that by turning young people with a massive security contingent and restrictive police measures in their place.
Fans should sit still and listen
The Beatles concert in Atlantic City 100 uniformed lined up 287 folder and 187 police officers in the ranks of the Convention Hall. Paramedics were ammonia to revive. In New York City riot was offered police against the Fans: Especially with the earplugs equipped officers patrolled through the corridors of Carnegie Hall, to refer to wandering Fans to their seats, because according to current ideas, the concert had to sit in the audience still.
Again and again it came to clashes during the tour, and arrests. In San Francisco, on 9,000 Fans gathered at the airfield. In Denver, several girls were trampled by a crowd of people. In Houston boarded Fans of the wings of the aircraft which should fly out the Beatles, and Milwaukee, 100 Teenagers stormed a land plane out on the tarmac.
In the Midwest, the Beatlemania experienced another highlight is when John Lennon commented that the Beatles themselves with growing discomfort observed Fan-cult with the words that they were now more popular than Jesus. Fundamentalist Christians served the citation as a welcome opportunity to preach once again against the corrupting influence of secular pop music. Christian radio station in Alabama started the “Ban the Beatles”campaign. Before running-in microphone activists plates of the Band broke. In Georgia and Texas, funeral pyres were built, and on which Beatles records, mushroom head, wigs, and pictures of the musicians in the flames erupted. In South Carolina, nailed to the members of the Ku Klux Klan, a Beatles Cover to a cross and set fire to it. In Memphis and Washington, you disturbed stage performances with fireworks.
The Beatles determine British foreign policy
Even on the international scene, the popularity of the British impetus caught. A first diplomatic incident occurred when the Beatles after a gig in Washington at the invitation of the British Embassy followed. A correspondent of the Daily Express gave a colourful account of the Party: You have the musicians with “Yeah! Yeah!”-Call received, and John Lennon had been afflicted in Rugby-style of young members of the diplomatic Corps. While photographer George Harrison had kept in a corner, whether Ringo Starr was the victim of a trophy hunter that got cut off with a nail scissors, a lock of his Pilzkopfs. Lennon took the message to society then undiplomat words. The incident drew a lively correspondence, and reflected in the message files.
Others diplomats have reacted less enthusiastically. As an employee of the British Embassy in Mexico, confidential telegram to the Foreign Office in London reported that he was concerned in the highest degree on the Mexican reactions to the Beatles, which has become a “major topic” and a “big issue” that had developed. On the occasion of the 26. In October 1965, the awarding of the order “The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire” to the Beatles by Queen Elizabeth II, was interpreted by some commentators as a last proof of British decadence. Worldwide, several orders the carrier returned their medal pointedly, and in a number of letters, the Mexicans of their criticism given significant expression. Even her Majesty, the Queen, was not exempt from abuse, reported by British diplomats with audibly, the vibration in the capital of the Empire.
In Israel, the government pulled back even appearance permit because they feared negative effects on the youth. Dramatically a tour of the Beatles went to Japan. The visit of the Band on the Asian island was accompanied by a tropical storm and was regarded by the Japanese press as “the Beatles Typhoon”. Japanese cartoonists let their Prime Minister with a mushroom head wig in front of school girls to build support for the advertise. Particular Protest caught but the decision to leave the Beatles at the Budokan occur.
The 10,000 spectators at the end of the hall, the demonstration of traditional martial arts was reserved for performances, which were considered to be national cultural heritage. Nationalist extremists announced, to protect the hall in front of a desecration by Western pop culture, and were determined, including those of martial arts, their honor meant to you must defend. In a worsening climate with the rise of the Beatles pull traditionalists-storm eventually rescued the honor of a Declaration of a senior Budokan-fighter, the concert in front of the enraged.
I have to report the honor that the Beatles were a Five-days-a miracle and the whole city put in a Beatle mood.
British Diplomat from Tokyo
An unprecedented action to guarantee the Internal security accompanied the tour. The Japanese “Operation Beatles” consisted of less than 35,000 police officers, the use of which came to the Japanese taxpayers dearly and forced the Japanese Teenager in a cordon of security forces and fire brigade. At the end of an overwhelming success. Until well into the post-war period, the British Empire was regarded in Japan mainly as a former opponent in the war, and a terrible Image had cabled a Diplomat – this time with a barely suppressed excitement – to London. The Beatles have changed. The tour was to be regarded as a resounding success for British culture abroad: “I have to report the honor that the Beatles were a Five-days-a miracle and the whole city in Beatle-put mood”, said enthusiastically in a dispatch from Tokyo to the foreign Ministry.
In the West, the excesses of female Fans excited, meanwhile, is still the minds. The public exhibition of feelings, the half-closed eyelids, the “animal screams”, and the distorted facial features of the young girl suggested the suspicion of being an expression of not only präsexueller confusion, but even overt sexuality. A on a concert and on-duty nurse said the media against what many suspected to be a spectator anyway: The female Fans are triggered by lived, and in Public, real orgasms by sexually stimulating Interaction of the music with the physical stage presence of the male musicians.
The Beatles mania is reminiscent of a curse by medicine men.
New York Times Magazine
Some of the comments were just a little shrill as the shriek of the Teenage self. An article in the New York Times Magazine described Beatlemania as an atavistic disease, remember the “curse of the medicine man” and Teens in “stomping natives” turn. Other reports said that the Beatles ‘ concerts, the seats on which a young girl had been sitting, were wet from urine, rails, fears of more drastic physical inspection to confirm the losses, and called experts on the Plan, above all, psychologists. Although she had to admit that there are no adequate studies, however, had a psychologist in February 1964 with the statement, quote, the music will offer “a reduction of sexual tensions”. Girls especially are vulnerable, because they have, in contrast to their male peers and less access to a valve that offsets the sexual pressure: the Sport. The result is a “feeling of congestion”, and the lead on concerts to physically and emotional eruptions.
Empirical studies could not corroborate these findings. And the first sociological studies in the autumn of 1966 that the music was sex – and layer across, the Beatles Fans were not a deviant minority, but the cross-section of the young Generation represented. According to reports, many Fans had also started to screech, as the cameras were on them. The loss of Control seemed to be not quite so uncontrollably, as the experts had feared. In the case of organizers and the police recognized that it was not a good idea to force on concerts with dance music, the sitting still broke meanwhile, and that these restrictions are also a reason for the incontinence of some of the Fans had been situated.
At the end of the Band fails at to great success
Gradually a more relaxed dealing with the Fans was so. The Beatles themselves reacted, however, always irritated on the defiant behavior of their followers. You had creates a dedicated 60-Watt amplifier and played in the USA with a volume of 112 decibels, which the noise level of a starting jet plane approached. Nevertheless, the combined vocal power of the Fans was greater. Concerts lasted hardly longer than half an hour, many had to be aborted prematurely. In addition, the Fans began to pelt the Band with jelly beans, after a Beatle had expressed in an Interview lightly, he may such sweets. Incidents in which Fans invaded the hotel room, the hotel, outputs blocked or in the Lockers accumulated hidden. And after they had to escape to the Philippines just a raging Mob, the gifts of your Images as a Teenage Sensation room for his overwhelming (and, increasingly, via your royalties divided) Beatles on 29. August 1966 in San Francisco, their last public concert. To date the most successful British Band of all time was a failure as a Live Act on one’s own success.
The media phenomenon of Beatlemania is due to the insight that young girls were allowed to Express their emotions physically in Public, and open enthusiasm for the musicians of the opposite sex to show, even if there is no prospect of engagement or marriage. The Beatlemania was not a “female mass hysteria”. The same year, the course should bear a few years later, a mini skirt, for the first time, take the pill and not in the role of the serving wife. What have criticised contemporary cultural conservative, as well as feminist Critics as a collective admiration of masculinity and idolatry of consumer culture, was something else entirely: the start of a pop-cultural emancipation movement of the feelings
