title: Sexual revolution

text: The development of the birth control pill in 1960 gave women access to easy and reliable contraception. Another likely cause was a vast improvement in obstetrics, greatly reducing the number of women who died due to childbearing, thus increasing the life expectancy of women. A third, more indirect cause was the large number of children born in the 1940s and early 1950s all over the western world—the "Baby Boom Generation"—many of whom would grow up in relatively prosperous and safe conditions, within a middle class on the rise and with better access to education and entertainment than ever before. By their demographic weight and their social and educational background, they came to trigger a shift in society towards more permissive and informalized attitudes.


title: Sexual revolution

text: The discovery of penicillin led to significant reductions in syphilis mortality, which, in turn, spurred an increase in non-traditional sex during the mid to late 1950s.


title: Sexual revolution

text: There was an increase in sexual encounters between unmarried adults. Divorce rates were dramatically increasing and marriage rates were significantly decreasing in this time period. The number of unmarried Americans aged twenty to twenty-four more than doubled from 4.3 million in 1960 to 9.7 million in 1976. Men and women sought to reshape marriage by instilling new institutions of open marriage, mate swapping, swinging, and communal sex.


title: Sexual revolution

text: Sigmund Freud of Vienna believed human behavior was motivated by unconscious drives, primarily by the libido or "Sexual Energy". Freud proposed to study how these unconscious drives were repressed and found expression through other cultural outlets. He called this therapy "psychoanalysis".


title: Sexual revolution

text: While Freud's ideas were sometimes ignored or provoked resistance within Viennese society, his ideas soon entered the discussions and working methods of anthropologists, artists and writers all over Europe, and from the 1920s in the United States. His conception of a primary sexual drive that would not be ultimately curbed by law, education or standards of decorum spelled a serious challenge to Victorian prudishness, and his theory of psychosexual development proposed a model for the development of sexual orientations and desires; children emerged from the Oedipus complex, a sexual desire towards their parent of the opposite sex. The idea of children having their parents as their early sexual targets were particularly shocking to Victorian and early 20th-century society.


title: Sexual revolution

text: According to Freud's theory, in the earliest stage of a child's psychosexual development, the oral stage, the mother's breast became the formative source of all later erotic sensation. Much of his research remains widely contested by professionals in the field, though it has spurred critical developments in the humanities.


title: Sexual revolution

text: Anarchist and Marxist Freud scholars Otto Gross and Wilhelm Reich (who famously coined the phrase "Sexual Revolution") developed a sociology of sex in the 1910s to 1930s in which the animal-like competitive reproductive behavior was seen as a legacy of ancestral human evolution reflecting in every social relation, as per the Freudian interpretation, and hence the liberation of sexual behavior a mean to social revolution.


title: Sexual revolution

text: The 1928 publication of anthropologist Margaret Mead's "Coming of Age in Samoa" brought the sexual revolution to the public scene, as her thoughts concerning sexual freedom pervaded academia. Mead's ethnography focused on the psychosexual development of adolescents in Samoa. She recorded that their adolescence was not, in fact, a time of "storm and stress" as Erikson's stages of development suggest, but that the sexual freedom experienced by the adolescents actually permitted them an easy transition from childhood to adulthood. Mead called for a change in the suppression of sexuality in America, and her work directly resulted in the advancement of the sexual revolution in the 1930s.


title: Sexual revolution

text: Mead's findings were later criticized by anthropologist Derek Freeman, who investigated her claims of promiscuity and conducted his own ethnography of Samoan society.


title: Sexual revolution

text: In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Alfred C. Kinsey published two surveys of modern sexual behavior. In 1948 Alfred C. Kinsey and his co-workers, responding to a request by female students at Indiana University for more information on human sexual behavior, published the book "Sexual behavior in the Human Male". They followed this five years later with "Sexual behavior in the Human Female". These books began a revolution in social awareness of, and public attention given to, human sexuality.


title: Sexual revolution

text: It is said that public morality severely restricted open discussion of sexuality as a human characteristic, and specific sexual practices, especially sexual behaviors that did not lead to procreation. Kinsey's books contained studies about controversial topics such as the frequency of homosexuality, and the sexuality of minors aged two weeks to fourteen years. Scientists working for Kinsey reported data that led to the conclusion that people are capable of sexual stimulation from birth. Furthermore, Kinsey's method of researching sexuality differs significantly from today's methods. Kinsey would watch his research subjects engage in sexual intercourse, sometimes engaging with his subjects as well. He would also encourage his research team to do the same, and encouraged them to engage in intercourse with him, too.


title: Sexual revolution

text: These books laid the groundwork for Masters and Johnson's life work. A study called "Human Sexual Response" in 1966 revealed the nature and scope of the sexual practices of young Americans.


title: Sexual revolution

text: In 1953, Chicago resident Hugh Hefner founded "Playboy", a magazine which aimed to target males between the ages of 21 and 45. The coverpage and nude centerfold in the first edition featured Marilyn Monroe, then a rising sex symbol. Featuring cartoons, interviews, short fiction, Hefner's "Playboy Philosophy" and unclothed female "Playmates" posing provocatively, the magazine became immensely successful.


title: Sexual revolution

text: In 1960, Hefner expanded Playboy Enterprises, opening the first Playboy Club in Chicago, which grew to a chain of nightclubs and resorts. The private clubs offered relaxation for members, who were waited on by Playboy Bunnies.


title: Sexual revolution

text: While Hefner claimed his company contributed to America's more liberal attitude towards sex, others believe he simply exploited it.


title: Sexual revolution

text: In the United States in the years 1959 through 1966, bans on three books with explicit erotic content were challenged and overturned. This also occurred in the United Kingdom starting with the 1959 Obscene Publications Act and reaching a peak with the LCL court case.


title: Sexual revolution

text: Prior to this time, a patchwork of regulations (as well as local customs and vigilante actions) governed what could and could not be published. For example, the United States Customs Service banned James Joyce's "Ulysses" by refusing to allow it to be imported into the United States. The Roman Catholic Church's "Index Librorum Prohibitorum" carried great weight among Catholics and amounted to an effective and instant boycott of any book appearing on it. Boston's Watch and Ward Society, a largely Protestant creation inspired by Anthony Comstock, made "banned in Boston" a national by-word.


title: Sexual revolution

text: In 1959 Grove Press published an unexpurgated version of the 1928 novel "Lady Chatterley's Lover" by D. H. Lawrence. The U.S.  Post Office confiscated copies sent through the mail. Lawyer Charles Rembar sued the New York City Postmaster, and won in New York and then on federal appeal.


title: Sexual revolution

text: Henry Miller's 1934 novel, "Tropic of Cancer", had explicit sexual passages and could not be published in the United States; an edition was printed by the Obelisk Press in Paris and copies were smuggled into the United States. In 1961 Grove Press issued a copy of the work, and dozens of booksellers were sued for selling it. The issue was ultimately settled by the U.S.  Supreme Court's 1964 decision in "Grove Press, Inc. v. Gerstein".


title: Sexual revolution

text: In 1963 Putnam published John Cleland's 1750 novel "Fanny Hill". Charles Rembar appealed a restraining order against it all the way to the U.S.  Supreme Court and won. In "Memoirs v. Massachusetts", 383  U.S. 413, the court ruled that sex was "a great and mysterious motive force in human life", and that its expression in literature was protected by the First Amendment.


title: Sexual revolution

text: By permitting the publication of "Fanny Hill", the U.S.  Supreme Court set the bar for any ban so high that Rembar himself called the 1966  decision "the end of obscenity". Only books primarily appealing to "prurient interest" could be banned. In a famous phrase, the court said that obscenity is "utterly without redeeming social importance"—meaning that a work with any redeeming social importance or literary merit was arguably not obscene, even if it contained isolated passages that could "deprave and corrupt" some readers.


title: Sexual revolution

text: The court decisions that legalized the publication of "Fanny Hill" had an even more important effect: freed from fears of legal action, nonfiction works about sex and sexuality started to appear more often. These books were factual and in fact, educational, made available in mainstream bookstores and mail-order book clubs to a mainstream readership, and their authors were guests on late-night talk shows. Earlier books such as "What Every Girl Should Know" (Margaret Sanger, 1920) and "A Marriage Manual" (Hannah and Abraham Stone, 1939) had broken the silence and, by the 1950s, in the United States, it had become rare for women to go into their wedding nights not knowing what to expect.


title: Sexual revolution

text: The open discussion of sex as pleasure, and descriptions of sexual practices and techniques, was revolutionary. There were practices that some had heard of, but many adults did not know if they were realities or fantasies found only in pornographic books. The Kinsey report revealed that these practices were, at the very least, surprisingly frequent. These other books asserted, in the words of a 1980 book by Dr. Irene Kassorla, that "Nice Girls Do – And Now You Can Too".


title: Sexual revolution

text: In 1962, Helen Gurley Brown published "Sex and the Single Girl: The Unmarried Woman's Guide to Men, Careers, the Apartment, Diet, Fashion, Money and Men."


title: Sexual revolution

text: In 1969 Joan Garrity, identifying herself only as "J.", published "The Way to Become the Sensuous Woman", with information on exercises to improve the dexterity of one's tongue and how to have anal sex.


title: Sexual revolution

text: The same year saw the appearance of Dr. David Reuben's book "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask)". Despite the dignity of Reuben's medical credentials, this book was light-hearted in tone.


title: Sexual revolution

text: In 1970 the Boston Women's Health Collective published "Women and Their Bodies", reissued a year later as "Our Bodies, Ourselves"). Though not an erotic treatise or sex manual, the book included frank descriptions of sexuality, and contained illustrations that could have caused legal problems just a few years earlier.


title: Sexual revolution

text: Alex Comfort's "The Joy of Sex: A Gourmet Guide to Love Making" appeared in 1972. In later editions, Comfort's exuberance was tamed in response to AIDS.


title: Sexual revolution

text: In 1975 Will McBride's "Zeig Mal!" (Show Me!), written with psychologist Helga Fleichhauer-Hardt for children and their parents, appeared in bookstores on both sides of the Atlantic. Appreciated by many parents for its frank depiction of pre-adolescent sexual discovery and exploration, it scandalized others and was pulled from circulation in the United States and some other countries. The book was followed in 1989 by "Zeig Mal Mehr!" ("Show Me More!").


title: Sexual revolution

text: In 1969, "Blue Movie", directed by Andy Warhol, was the first adult erotic film depicting explicit sex to receive wide theatrical release in the United States. The film helped inaugurate the "porno chic" phenomenon in modern American culture. According to Warhol, "Blue Movie" was a major influence in the making of "Last Tango in Paris", starring Marlon Brando, and released a few years after "Blue Movie" was made.


title: Sexual revolution

text: In 1970, "Mona the Virgin Nymph" became the second film to gain wide release. The third, "Deep Throat", despite being rudimentary by the standards of mainstream filmmaking, achieved major box office success, following mentions by Johnny Carson on "The Tonight Show", and Bob Hope on television as well. In 1973, the far-more-accomplished (though still low-budget) "The Devil in Miss Jones" was the seventh-most-successful film of the year, and was well received by major media, including a favorable review by film critic Roger Ebert.


title: Sexual revolution

text: In 1976, "The Opening of Misty Beethoven" (based on the play "Pygmalion" by George Bernard Shaw) was released theatrically and is considered by Toni Bentley the "crown jewel" of "the golden age of porn."


title: Sexual revolution

text: By the mid-1970s and through the 1980s, newly won sexual freedoms were being exploited by big businesses looking to capitalize on an increasingly permissive society, with the advent of public and hardcore pornography.


title: Sexual revolution

text: Swedish filmmakers like Ingmar Bergman and Vilgot Sjöman contributed to sexual liberation with sexually themed films that challenged conservative international standards. The 1951 film "Hon dansade en sommar" ("She Danced One Summer AKA One Summer of Happiness") displayed explicit nudity, including bathing in a lake.


title: Sexual revolution

text: This film, as well as Bergman's "Sommaren med Monika" ("The Summer with Monika", 1951) and "Tystnaden (The Silence", 1963), caused an international uproar, not least in the United States, where the films were charged with violating standards of decency. Vilgot Sjöman's film "I Am Curious (Yellow)", also was very popular in the United States. Another of his films, "491", highlighted homosexuality. "Kärlekens språk" ("The Language of Love") was an informative documentary about sex and sexual techniques that featured the first real act of sex in a mainstream film.


title: Sexual revolution

text: From these films, the myth of "Swedish sin" (licentiousness and seductive nudity) arose. The image of "hot love and cold people" emerged, with sexual liberalism seen as part of the modernization process that, by breaking down traditional borders, would lead to the emancipation of natural forces and desires. In Sweden and nearby countries at the time, these films, by virtue of being made by directors who had established themselves as leading names in their generation, helped delegitimize the idea of habitually demanding that films should avoid overtly sexual subject matter. The films eventually progressed the public's attitude toward sex, especially in Sweden and other northern European countries, which today tend to be more sexually liberal than others.


title: Sexual revolution

text: The somewhat more open and commercial circulation of pornography was a new phenomenon. Pornography operated as a form of "cultural critique" insofar as it transgresses societal conventions. Manuel Castells claims that the online communities, which emerged (from the 1980s) around early bulletin-board systems, originated from the ranks of those who had been part of the counterculture movements and alternative way of life emerging out of the sexual revolution.


title: Sexual revolution

text: Lynn Hunt points out that early modern "pornography" (18th century) is marked by a "preponderance of female narrators", that the women were portrayed as independent, determined, financially successful (though not always socially successful and recognized) and scornful of the new ideals of female virtue and domesticity, and not objectification of women's bodies as many view pornography today. The sexual revolution was not unprecedented in identifying sex as a site of political potential and social culture. It was suggested that the interchangeability of bodies within pornography had radical implications for the meaning of gender differences, roles and norms.


title: Sexual revolution

text: In 1971 "Playboy" stopped airbrushing pubic hair out of its centerfold picture spreads; this new addition caused the magazine to hit its all-time peak circulation of more than seven million copies in 1972 and men started having more choices when it came to magazines.


title: Sexual revolution

text: In 1972 "Deep Throat" became a popular movie for heterosexual couples. The movie played all over America and was the first porn movie to earn a gross of a million dollars.


title: Sexual revolution

text: Pornography was less stigmatized by the end of the 1980s, and more mainstream movies depicted sexual intercourse as entertainment. Magazines depicting nudity, such as the popular "Playboy" and "Penthouse" magazines, won some acceptance as mainstream journals, in which public figures felt safe expressing their fantasies.


title: Sexual revolution

text: Some figures in the feminist movement, such as Andrea Dworkin, challenged the depiction of women as objects in these pornographic or "urban men's" magazines. Other feminists such as Betty Dodson went on to found the pro-sex feminist movement in response to anti-pornography campaigns.


title: Sexual revolution

text: In India, an organization named Indians For Sexual Liberties is advocating the legalization of the porn business in India. The organization's founder, Laxman Singh, questioned the reasoning behind deeming as illegal the depiction of legal acts.


title: Sexual revolution

text: The Industrial Revolution during the nineteenth century and the growth of science and technology, medicine and health care, resulted in better contraceptives being manufactured. Advances in the manufacture and production of rubber made possible the design and production of condoms that could be used by hundreds of millions of men and women to prevent pregnancy at little cost. Advances in chemistry, pharmacology, and biology, and human physiology led to the discovery and perfection of the first oral contraceptives, popularly known as "the Pill."


title: Sexual revolution

text: All these developments took place alongside and combined with an increase in the world literacy and a decline in religious observance. Old values such as the biblical notion of "be fruitful and multiply" were cast aside as people continued to feel alienated from the past and adopted the lifestyles of progressive modernizing cultures.


title: Sexual revolution

text: Another contribution that helped bring about this modern revolution of sexual freedom were the writings of Herbert Marcuse and Wilhelm Reich, who took the philosophy of Karl Marx and similar philosophers.


title: Sexual revolution

text: "No-fault" unilateral divorce became legal and easier to obtain in many countries during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.


title: Sexual revolution

text: The women's movement redefined sexuality, not in terms of simply pleasing men but recognizing women's sexual satisfaction and sexual desire. "The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm" (1970) by Anne Koedt illustrates an understanding of a women's sexual anatomy including evidence for the clitoral orgasm, arguing against Freud's "assumptions of women as inferior appendage to man, and her consequent social and psychological role." The women's movement was able to develop lesbian feminism, freedom from heterosexual act, and freedom from reproduction. Feminist Betty Friedan published the "Feminine Mystique" in 1963, concerning the many frustrations women had with their lives and with separate spheres which established a pattern of inequality.


title: Sexual revolution

text: The Gay Rights Movement started when the Stonewall riots of 1969 crystallized a broad grass-roots mobilization. New gay liberationist gave political meaning to "coming out" by extending the psychological-personal process into public life. During the 1950s the most feared thing of the homosexual culture was "coming out", the homosexual culture of the 1950s did everything they could to help keep their sexuality a secret from the public and everyone else in their lives, but Alfred Kinsey's research on homosexuality alleged that 39% of the unmarried male population had had at least one homosexual experience to orgasm between adolescence and old age.


title: Sexual revolution

text: Since the beginning of the sexual liberation movement in the Western world, which coincided with second-wave feminism and the women's liberation movement initiated in the early 1960s, new religious movements and alternative spiritualities such as Modern Paganism and the New Age began to grow and spread across the globe alongside their intersection with the sexual liberation movement and the counterculture of the 1960s, and exhibited characteristic features, such as the embrace of alternative lifestyles, unconventional dress, rejection of Abrahamic religions and their conservative social mores, use of cannabis and other recreational drugs, relaxed attitude, sarcastic humble or self-imposed poverty, and "laissez-faire" sexual behavior. The sexual liberation movement was aided by feminist ideologues in their mutual struggle to challenge traditional ideas regarding female sexuality, male sexuality, and queer sexuality. Elimination of undue favorable bias towards men and objectification of women, as well as support for women's right to choose their sexual partners free of outside interference or societal judgment, were three of the main goals associated with sexual liberation from the feminist perspective. Since during the early stages of feminism, women's liberation was often equated with sexual liberation rather than associated with it. Many feminist thinkers believed that assertion of the primacy of sexuality would be a major step towards the ultimate goal of women's liberation, thus women were urged to initiate sexual advances, enjoy sex and experiment with new forms of sexuality.


title: Sexual revolution

text: The feminist movements insisted and focused on the sexual liberation for women, both physical and psychological. The pursuit of sexual pleasure for women was the core ideology, which subsequently was to set the foundation for female independence. Although whether or not sexual freedom should be a feminist issue is currently a much-debated topic, the feminist movement overtly defines itself as the movement for social, political, and economic equality of men and women. Feminist movements are also involved the fight against sexism and since sexism is a highly complex notion, it is difficult to separate the feminist critique toward sexism from its fight against sexual oppression.


title: Sexual revolution

text: The feminist movement has helped create a social climate in which LGBT people and women are increasingly able to be open and free with their sexuality, which enabled a spiritual liberation of sorts with regards to sex. Rather than being forced to hide their sexual desires or feelings, women and LGBT people have gained and continue to gain increased freedom in this area. Consequently, the feminist movement to end sexual oppression has and continues to directly contribute to the sexual liberation movement.


title: Sexual revolution

text: Nevertheless, among many feminists, the view soon became widely held that, thus far, the sexual freedoms gained in the sexual revolution of the 1960s, such as the decreasing emphasis on monogamy, had been largely gained by men at women's expense. In "Anticlimax: A Feminist Perspective on the Sexual Revolution", Sheila Jeffreys asserted that the sexual revolution on men's terms contributed less to women's freedom than to their continued oppression, an assertion that has both commanded respect and attracted intense criticism. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, feminist sex wars broke out due to disagreements on pornography , on prostitution, and on BDSM, as well as sexuality in general.


title: Sexual revolution

text: As birth control became widely accessible, men and women began to have more choice in the matter of having children than ever before. The 1916 invention of thin, disposable latex condoms for men led to widespread affordable condoms by the 1930s; the demise of the Comstock laws in 1936 set the stage for the promotion of available effective contraceptives such as the diaphragm and cervical cap; the 1960s introduction of the IUD and oral contraceptives for women gave a sense of freedom from barrier contraception. The Catholic Church under Pope Paul VI (1968) published "Humanae vitae" (Of Human Life), which was a declaration that banned the use of artificial contraception. Churches allowed for the rhythm method, which was a method of regulating fertility that pushed men and women to take advantage of the "natural cycles" of female fertility, during which women were "naturally infertile." The opposition of Churches (e.g. "Humanae vitae") led people who felt alienated from or not represented by religion to form parallel movements of secularization and exile from religion. Women gained much greater access to birth control in the "Griswold" "girls world" decision in 1965.


title: Sexual revolution

text: The 1965 Supreme Court case "Griswold v. Connecticut" ruled that the prohibition of contraception was unconstitutional on the grounds that it violated peoples' rights to marital privacy. In addition, in the 1960s and 1970s, the birth control movement advocated for the legalization of abortion and large scale education campaigns about contraception by governments. The "Griswold v. Connecticut" case and subsequent birth control movements created a precedent for later cases granting rights to birth control for unmarried couples "(Eisenstadt v. Bair), 1972)", rights to abortion for any woman ("Roe v. Wade", 1973), and the right to contraception for juveniles (Carey v. Population Services International, 1977). The Griswold case was also influential in and cited as precedent for landmark cases dealing with the right to homosexual relations ("Lawrence v. Texas," 2003) and the right to same-sex marriage ("Obergefell v. Hodges," 2015).


title: Sexual revolution

text: Free love is a social movement that accepts all forms of love. The movement's initial goal was to separate the state from sexual matters such as marriage, birth control, and adultery. It stated that such issues were the concern of the people involved, and no one else.


title: Sexual revolution

text: Free love continued in different forms throughout the 1970s and into the early 1980s, but its more assertive manifestations faced increased pushback in the mid-1980s, when the public first became aware of AIDS, a deadly sexually-transmitted disease.


title: Sexual revolution

text: Premarital sex, heavily stigmatized for some time, became more widely accepted. The increased availability of birth control (and the legalization of abortion in some places) helped reduce the chance that pre-marital sex would result in unwanted children. By the mid-1970s the majority of newly married American couples had experienced sex before marriage.


title: Sexual revolution

text: Central to the change was the development of relationships between unmarried adults, which resulted in earlier sexual experimentation reinforced by a later age of marriage. On average, Americans were gaining sexual experience before entering into monogamous relationships. The increasing divorce rate and the decreasing stigma attached to divorce during this era also contributed to sexual experimentation. By 1971, more than 75% of Americans thought that premarital sex was acceptable, a threefold increase from the 1950s, and the number of unmarried Americans aged twenty to twenty-four more than doubled from 1960 to 1976. Americans were becoming less and less interested in getting married and settling down and as well less interested in monogamous relationships. In 1971, 35% of the country said they thought marriage was obsolete.


title: Sexual revolution

text: The idea of marriage being outdated came from the development of casual sex between Americans. With the development of the birth control pill and the legalization of abortion in 1973, there was little threat of unwanted children out of wedlock. Also, during this time every known sexually transmitted disease was readily treatable.


title: Sexual revolution

text: Swinger clubs were organizing in places ranging from the informal suburban home to disco-sized emporiums that offered a range of sexual possibilities with multiple partners. In New York City in 1977, Larry Levenson opened Plato's Retreat, which eventually shut down in 1985 under regular close scrutiny by public health authorities.


title: Sexual revolution

text: Fraenkel (1992) believes that the "sexual revolution", which the West supposedly experienced in the late 1960s, is a misconception/misnomer, and that sex is never actually enjoyed freely as such, being rather "observed" in all fields of culture: a stance adopted toward human behavior referable to the concept of "repressive desublimation". According to this concept or interpretation (first evolved by Marxist philosopher Herbert Marcuse), the 'sexual revolution' would be an instance of a conservative force masquerading under the guise of liberation – a force sapping energies (here sexual) which would otherwise be available for a true social critique of a given behavior – and thus an impediment to any real political change which might emancipate the individual from "totalitarian democracy". (See also Bread and circuses, False consciousness and Frankfurt School). Put baldly, the pursuit of "sexual freedom" may be construed as a distraction from the pursuit of "actual" freedom.


title: Sexual revolution

text: Allyn argues that the sexual optimism of the 1960s waned with the economic crises of the 1970s, the massive commercialization of sex, increasing reports of child exploitation, disillusionment with the counter-culture and the New Left, and a combined left-right backlash against sexual liberation as an ideal. The discovery of herpes escalated anxieties rapidly and set the stage for the nation's panicked response to AIDS.


title: Sexual revolution

text: Among radical feminists, the view soon became widely held that, thus far, the sexual freedoms gained in the sexual revolution of the 1960s, such as the decreasing emphasis on monogamy, had been largely gained by men at women's expense. In "Anticlimax: A Feminist Perspective on the Sexual Revolution", Sheila Jeffreys asserted that the sexual revolution on men's terms contributed less to women's freedom than to their continued oppression, an assertion that has both commanded respect and attracted intense criticism. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, feminist sex wars broke out due to disagreements on pornography, on prostitution, and on BDSM, as well as sexuality in general.


title: Sexual revolution

text: Although the rate of teenage sexual activity is hard to record, the prevalence of teenage pregnancy in developed nations such as Canada and the UK have seen a steady decline since the 1990s. For example, in 1991 there were 61.8 children born per 1,000 teenage girls in the United States. By 2013, this number had declined to 26.6 births per 1,000 teenage girls.


title: Sexual revolution

text: Women and men who lived with each other without marriage sought "palimony" equal to the alimony. Teenagers assumed their right to a sexual life with whomever they pleased, and bathers fought to be topless or nude at beaches.


title: Netflix Animation

text: Netflix Animation is an American animation studio and a subsidiary of Netflix. The studio primarily produces and develops animated programs and feature films.


title: Netflix Animation

text: When Netflix began to produce original animated content in 2013, all of them were produced by third-party companies, mostly DreamWorks Animation Television. However, in November 2018, it was announced that Netflix was developing original animated projects in-house including "Klaus" and "Kid Cosmic".


title: Netflix Animation

text: In April 2022, Phil Rynda was laid off from the studio, after a series of corporate struggles and strategic shifts within Netflix, with several projects being canceled as a result. Several people at the studio have left in favor of working at Cartoon Network Studios, Nickelodeon Animation Studio, Disney Television Animation, Amazon, and Apple TV+, among other studios. Mike Moon would later depart to start Moonlight under Illumination.


title: Netflix Animation

text: Upon the company's intent of acquiring Australian animation/visual effects studio Animal Logic in July 2022, Melissa Cobb stepped down as vice president of film animation whilst still onboard as producer with Karen Toliver as her replacement.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual and cultural revival of African American music, dance, art, fashion, literature, theater, politics and scholarship centered in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, spanning the 1920s and 1930s. At the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement", named after "", a 1925 anthology edited by Alain Locke. The movement also included the new African American cultural expressions across the urban areas in the Northeast and Midwest United States affected by a renewed militancy in the general struggle for civil rights, combined with the Great Migration of African American workers fleeing the racist conditions of the Jim Crow Deep South, as Harlem was the final destination of the largest number of those who migrated north.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: Though it was centered in the Harlem neighborhood, many francophone black writers from African and Caribbean colonies who lived in Paris were also influenced by the movement, which spanned from about 1918 until the mid-1930s. Many of its ideas lived on much longer. The zenith of this "flowering of Negro literature", as James Weldon Johnson preferred to call the Harlem Renaissance, took place between 1924—when "" hosted a party for black writers where many white publishers were in attendance—and 1929, the year of the stock-market crash and the beginning of the Great Depression. The Harlem Renaissance is considered to have been a rebirth of the African-American arts.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: Until the end of the Civil War, the majority of African Americans had been enslaved and lived in the South. During the Reconstruction Era, the emancipated African Americans began to strive for civic participation, political equality, and economic and cultural self-determination. Soon after the end of the Civil War the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 gave rise to speeches by African-American Congressmen addressing this Bill. By 1875, sixteen African Americans had been elected and served in Congress and gave numerous speeches with their newfound civil empowerment.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: The Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 was followed by the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1875, part of Reconstruction legislation by Republicans. During the mid-to-late 1870s, racist whites organized in the Democratic Party launched a murderous campaign of racist terrorism to regain political power throughout the South. From 1890 to 1908, they proceeded to pass legislation that disenfranchised most African Americans and many poor whites, trapping them without representation. They established white supremacist regimes of Jim Crow segregation in the South and one-party block voting behind southern Democrats.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: Democratic Party politicians (many having been former slaveowners and political and military leaders of the Confederacy) conspired to deny African Americans their exercise of civil and political rights by terrorizing black communities with lynch mobs and other forms of vigilante violence as well as by instituting a convict labor system that forced many thousands of African Americans back into unpaid labor in mines, plantations, and on public works projects such as roads and levees. Convict laborers were typically subject to brutal forms of corporal punishment, overwork, and disease from unsanitary conditions. Death rates were extraordinarily high. While a small number of African Americans were able to acquire land shortly after the Civil War, most were exploited as sharecroppers. Whether sharecropping or on their own acreage, most of the black population was closely financially dependent on agriculture. This added another impetus for the Migration: The arrival of the boll weevil. The beetle eventually came to waste 8% of the country's cotton yield annually and thus disproportionately impacted this part of America's citizenry. As life in the South became increasingly difficult, African Americans began to migrate north in great numbers.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: Most of the future leading lights of what was to become known as the "Harlem Renaissance" movement arose from a generation that had memories of the gains and losses of Reconstruction after the Civil War. Sometimes their parents, grandparents – or they themselves – had been slaves. Their ancestors had sometimes benefited by paternal investment in cultural capital, including better-than-average education.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: Many in the Harlem Renaissance were part of the early 20th century Great Migration out of the South into the African-American neighborhoods of the Northeast and Midwest. African Americans sought a better standard of living and relief from the institutionalized racism in the South. Others were people of African descent from racially stratified communities in the Caribbean who came to the United States hoping for a better life. Uniting most of them was their convergence in Harlem.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: During the early portion of the 20th century, Harlem was the destination for migrants from around the country, attracting both people from the South seeking work and an educated class who made the area a center of culture, as well as a growing "Negro" middle class. These people were looking for a fresh start in life and this was a good place to go. The district had originally been developed in the 19th century as an exclusive suburb for the white middle and upper middle classes; its affluent beginnings led to the development of stately houses, grand avenues, and world-class amenities such as the Polo Grounds and the Harlem Opera House. During the enormous influx of European immigrants in the late 19th century, the once exclusive district was abandoned by the white middle class, who moved farther north.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: Harlem became an African-American neighborhood in the early 1900s. In 1910, a large block along 135th Street and Fifth Avenue was bought by various African-American realtors and a church group. Many more African Americans arrived during the First World War. Due to the war, the migration of laborers from Europe virtually ceased, while the war effort resulted in a massive demand for unskilled industrial labor. The Great Migration brought hundreds of thousands of African Americans to cities such as Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, and New York.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: Despite the increasing popularity of Negro culture, virulent white racism, often by more recent ethnic immigrants, continued to affect African-American communities, even in the North. After the end of World War I, many African-American soldiers—who fought in segregated units such as the Harlem Hellfighters—came home to a nation whose citizens often did not respect their accomplishments. Race riots and other civil uprisings occurred throughout the US during the Red Summer of 1919, reflecting economic competition over jobs and housing in many cities, as well as tensions over social territories.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: The first stage of the Harlem Renaissance started in the late 1910s. In 1917, the premiere of "Granny Maumee, The Rider of Dreams, Simon the Cyrenian: Plays for a Negro Theater" took place. These plays, written by white playwright Ridgely Torrence, featured African-American actors conveying complex human emotions and yearnings. They rejected the stereotypes of the blackface and minstrel show traditions. James Weldon Johnson in 1917 called the premieres of these plays "the most important single event in the entire history of the Negro in the American Theater".


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: Another landmark came in 1919, when the communist poet Claude McKay published his militant sonnet "If We Must Die", which introduced a dramatically political dimension to the themes of African cultural inheritance and modern urban experience featured in his 1917 poems "Invocation" and "Harlem Dancer". Published under the pseudonym Eli Edwards, these were his first appearance in print in the United States after immigrating from Jamaica. Although "If We Must Die" never alluded to race, African-American readers heard its note of defiance in the face of racism and the nationwide race riots and lynchings then taking place. By the end of the First World War, the fiction of James Weldon Johnson and the poetry of Claude McKay were describing the reality of contemporary African-American life in America.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: The Harlem Renaissance grew out of the changes that had taken place in the African-American community since the abolition of slavery, as the expansion of communities in the North. These accelerated as a consequence of World War I and the great social and cultural changes in early 20th-century United States. Industrialization was attracting people to cities from rural areas and gave rise to a new mass culture. Contributing factors leading to the Harlem Renaissance were the Great Migration of African Americans to northern cities, which concentrated ambitious people in places where they could encourage each other, and the First World War, which had created new industrial work opportunities for tens of thousands of people. Factors leading to the decline of this era include the Great Depression.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: In 1917 Hubert Harrison, "The Father of Harlem Radicalism", founded the Liberty League and "The Voice", the first organization and the first newspaper, respectively, of the "New Negro Movement". Harrison's organization and newspaper were political, but also emphasized the arts (his newspaper had "Poetry for the People" and book review sections). In 1927, in the "Pittsburgh Courier", Harrison challenged the notion of the renaissance. He argued that the "Negro Literary Renaissance" notion overlooked "the stream of literary and artistic products which had flowed uninterruptedly from Negro writers from 1850 to the present," and said the so-called "renaissance" was largely a white invention. Alternatively, a writer like the Chicago-based author, Fenton Johnson. who began publishing in the early 1900s, is called a "forerunner" of the renaissance, "one of the first negro revolutionary poets".


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: Nevertheless, with the Harlem Renaissance came a sense of acceptance for African-American writers; as Langston Hughes put it, with Harlem came the courage "to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame." Alain Locke's anthology "The New Negro" was considered the cornerstone of this cultural revolution. The anthology featured several African-American writers and poets, from the well-known, such as Zora Neale Hurston and communists Langston Hughes and Claude McKay, to the lesser-known, like the poet Anne Spencer.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: Many poets of the Harlem Renaissance were inspired to tie in threads of African-American culture into their poems; as a result, jazz poetry was heavily developed during this time. "The Weary Blues" was a notable jazz poem written by Langston Hughes. Through their works of literature, black authors were able to give a voice to the African-American identity, as well as strive for a community of support and acceptance.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: Christianity played a major role in the Harlem Renaissance. Many of the writers and social critics discussed the role of


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: Christianity in African-American lives. For example, a famous poem by Langston Hughes, "Madam and the Minister", reflects the temperature and mood towards religion in the Harlem Renaissance.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: The cover story for "The Crisis" magazine's publication in May 1936 explains how important Christianity was regarding the proposed union of the three largest Methodist churches of 1936. This article shows the controversial question of unification for these churches.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: The article "The Catholic Church and the Negro Priest", also published in "The Crisis", January 1920, demonstrates the obstacles African-American priests faced in the Catholic Church. The article confronts what it saw as policies based on race that excluded African Americans from higher positions in the church.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: Various forms of religious worship existed during this time of African-American intellectual reawakening.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: Although there were racist attitudes within the current Abrahamic religious arenas many African Americans continued to push towards the practice of a more inclusive doctrine. For example, George Joseph MacWilliam presents various experiences, during his pursuit towards priesthood, of rejection on the basis of his color and race yet he shares his frustration in attempts to incite action on the part of "The Crisis" magazine community.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: There were other forms of spiritualism practiced among African Americans during the Harlem Renaissance. Some of these religions and philosophies were inherited from African ancestry. For example, the religion of Islam was present in Africa as early as the 8th century through the Trans-Saharan trade. Islam came to Harlem likely through the migration of members of the Moorish Science Temple of America, which was established in 1913 in New Jersey. Various forms of Judaism were practiced, including Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Judaism, but it was Black Hebrew Israelites that founded their religious belief system during the early 20th century in the Harlem Renaissance. Traditional forms of religion acquired from various parts of Africa were inherited and practiced during this era. Some common examples were Voodoo and Santeria.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: Religious critique during this era was found in music, literature, art, theater, and poetry. The Harlem Renaissance encouraged analytic dialogue that included the open critique and the adjustment of current religious ideas.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: One of the major contributors to the discussion of African-American renaissance culture was Aaron Douglas who, with his artwork, also reflected the revisions African Americans were making to the Christian dogma. Douglas uses biblical imagery as inspiration to various pieces of art work but with the rebellious twist of an African influence.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: Countee Cullen's poem "Heritage" expresses the inner struggle of an African American between his past African heritage and the new Christian culture. A more severe criticism of the Christian religion can be found in Langston Hughes' poem "Merry Christmas", where he exposes the irony of religion as a symbol for good and yet a force for oppression and injustice.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: A new way of playing the piano called the Harlem Stride style was created during the Harlem Renaissance helping to blur the lines between the poor African Americans and socially elite African Americans. The traditional jazz band was composed primarily of brass instruments and was considered a symbol of the south, but the piano was considered an instrument of the wealthy. With this instrumental modification to the existing genre, the wealthy African Americans now had more access to jazz music. Its popularity soon spread throughout the country and was consequently at an all-time high.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: Innovation and liveliness were important characteristics of performers in the beginnings of jazz. Jazz performers and composers at the time such as Eubie Blake, Noble Sissle, Jelly Roll Morton, Luckey Roberts, James P. Johnson, Willie "The Lion" Smith, Andy Razaf, Fats Waller, Ethel Waters, Adelaide Hall, Florence Mills and bandleaders Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Fletcher Henderson were extremely talented, skillful, competitive and inspirational. They are still considered as having laid great parts of the foundations for future musicians of their genre.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: Duke Ellington gained popularity during the Harlem Renaissance. According to Charles Garrett, "The resulting portrait of Ellington reveals him to be not only the gifted composer, bandleader, and musician we have come to know, but also an earthly person with basic desires, weaknesses, and eccentricities." Ellington did not let his popularity get to him. He remained calm and focused on his music.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: During this period, the musical style of blacks was becoming more and more attractive to whites. White novelists, dramatists and composers started to exploit the musical tendencies and themes of African Americans in their works. Composers (including William Grant Still, William L. Dawson and Florence Price) used poems written by African-American poets in their songs, and would implement the rhythms, harmonies and melodies of African-American music—such as blues, spirituals, and jazz—into their concert pieces. African Americans began to merge with Whites into the classical world of musical composition. The first African-American male to gain wide recognition as a concert artist in both his region and internationally was Roland Hayes. He trained with Arthur Calhoun in Chattanooga, and at Fisk University in Nashville. Later, he studied with Arthur Hubbard in Boston and with George Henschel and Amanda Ira Aldridge in London, England. He began singing in public as a student, and toured with the Fisk Jubilee Singers in 1911.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: According to James Vernon Hatch and Leo Hamalian, all-Black review "Run, Little Chillun" is considered one of the most successful musical dramas of the Harlem Renaissance.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: During the Harlem Renaissance, the black clothing scene took a dramatic turn from the prim and proper. Many young women preferred- from short skirts and silk stockings to drop-waisted dresses and cloche hats. Woman wore loose-fitted garments and accessorized with long strand pearl bead necklaces, feather boas, and cigarette holders. The fashion of the Harlem Renaissance was used to convey elegance and flamboyancy and needed to be created with the vibrant dance style of the 1920s in mind. Popular by the 1930s was a trendy, egret-trimmed beret.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: Men wore loose suits that led to the later style known as the "Zoot", which consisted of wide-legged, high-waisted, peg-top trousers, and a long coat with padded shoulders and wide lapels. Men also wore wide-brimmed hats, colored socks, white gloves, and velvet-collared Chesterfield coats. During this period, African Americans expressed respect for their heritage through a fad for leopard-skin coats, indicating the power of the African animal.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: The extraordinarily successful black dancer Josephine Baker, though performing in Paris during the height of the Renaissance, was a major fashion trendsetter for black and white women alike. Her gowns from the couturier Jean Patou were much copied, especially her stage costumes, which "Vogue" magazine called "startling". Josephine Baker is also credited for highlighting the "art deco" fashion era after she performed the "Danse Sauvage". During this Paris performance she adorned a skirt made of string and artificial bananas. Ethel Moses was another popular black performer, Moses starred in silent films in the 1920s and 30s and was recognizable by her signature bob hairstyle.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: Characterizing the Harlem Renaissance was an overt racial pride that came to be represented in the idea of the New Negro, who through intellect and production of literature, art, and music could challenge the pervading racism and stereotypes to promote progressive or socialist politics, and racial and social integration. The creation of art and literature would serve to "uplift" the race.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: There would be no uniting form singularly characterizing the art that emerged from the Harlem Renaissance. Rather, it encompassed a wide variety of cultural elements and styles, including a Pan-African perspective, "high-culture" and "low-culture" or "low-life", from the traditional form of music to the blues and jazz, traditional and new experimental forms in literature such as modernism and the new form of jazz poetry. This duality meant that numerous African-American artists came into conflict with conservatives in the black intelligentsia, who took issue with certain depictions of black life.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: Some common themes represented during the Harlem Renaissance were the influence of the experience of slavery and emerging African-American folk traditions on black identity, the effects of institutional racism, the dilemmas inherent in performing and writing for elite white audiences, and the question of how to convey the experience of modern black life in the urban North.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: The Harlem Renaissance was one of primarily African-American involvement. It rested on a support system of black patrons, black-owned businesses and publications. However, it also depended on the patronage of white Americans, such as Carl Van Vechten and Charlotte Osgood Mason, who provided various forms of assistance, opening doors which otherwise might have remained closed to the publication of work outside the black American community. This support often took the form of patronage or publication. Carl Van Vechten was one of the most noteworthy white Americans involved with the Harlem Renaissance. He allowed for assistance to the black American community because he wanted racial sameness.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: There were other whites interested in so-called "primitive" cultures, as many whites viewed black American culture at that time, and wanted to see such "primitivism" in the work coming out of the Harlem Renaissance. As with most fads, some people may have been exploited in the rush for publicity.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: Interest in African-American lives also generated experimental but lasting collaborative work, such as the all-black productions of George Gershwin's opera "Porgy and Bess", and Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein's "Four Saints in Three Acts". In both productions the choral conductor Eva Jessye was part of the creative team. Her choir was featured in "Four Saints". The music world also found white band leaders defying racist attitudes to include the best and the brightest African-American stars of music and song in their productions.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: The African Americans used art to prove their humanity and demand for equality. The Harlem Renaissance led to more opportunities for blacks to be published by mainstream houses. Many authors began to publish novels, magazines and newspapers during this time. The new fiction attracted a great amount of attention from the nation at large. Among authors who became nationally known were Jean Toomer, Jessie Fauset, Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurston, James Weldon Johnson, Alain Locke, Omar Al Amiri, Eric D. Walrond and Langston Hughes.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: Richard Bruce Nugent (1906–1987) who wrote "Smoke, Lilies, and Jade" is an important contribution, especially in relation to experimental form and LGBT themes in the period.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: The Harlem Renaissance helped lay the foundation for the post-World War II protest movement of the Civil Rights movement. Moreover, many black artists who rose to creative maturity afterward were inspired by this literary movement.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: The Renaissance was more than a literary or artistic movement, as it possessed a certain sociological development—particularly through a new racial consciousness—through ethnic pride, as seen in the Back to Africa movement led by Jamaican Marcus Garvey. At the same time, a different expression of ethnic pride, promoted by W. E. B. Du Bois, introduced the notion of the "talented tenth". Du Bois' wrote of the Talented Tenth:


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: The Negro race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men. The problem of education, then, among Negroes must first of all deal with the Talented Tenth; it is the problem of developing the best of this race that they may guide the mass away from the contamination and death of the worst.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: These "talented tenth" were considered the finest examples of the worth of black Americans as a response to the rampant racism of the period. No particular leadership was assigned to the talented tenth, but they were to be emulated. In both literature and popular discussion, complex ideas such as Du Bois's concept of "twoness" (dualism) were introduced (see "The Souls of Black Folk"; 1903). Du Bois explored a divided awareness of one's identity that was a unique critique of the social ramifications of racial consciousness. This exploration was later revived during the Black Pride movement of the early 1970s.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: The Harlem Renaissance was successful in that it brought the Black experience clearly within the corpus of American cultural history. Not only through an explosion of culture, but on a sociological level, the legacy of the Harlem Renaissance redefined how America, and the world, viewed African Americans. The migration of southern Blacks to the north changed the image of the African American from rural, undereducated peasants to one of urban, cosmopolitan sophistication. This new identity led to a greater social consciousness, and African Americans became players on the world stage, expanding intellectual and social contacts internationally.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: The progress—both symbolic and real—during this period became a point of reference from which the African-American community gained a spirit of self-determination that provided a growing sense of both Black urbanity and Black militancy, as well as a foundation for the community to build upon for the Civil Rights struggles in the 1950s and 1960s.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: The urban setting of rapidly developing Harlem provided a venue for African Americans of all backgrounds to appreciate the variety of Black life and culture. Through this expression, the Harlem Renaissance encouraged the new appreciation of folk roots and culture. For instance, folk materials and spirituals provided a rich source for the artistic and intellectual imagination, which freed Blacks from the establishment of past condition. Through sharing in these cultural experiences, a consciousness sprung forth in the form of a united racial identity.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: However, there was some pressure within certain groups of the Harlem Renaissance to adopt sentiments of conservative white America in order to be taken seriously by the mainstream. The result being that queer culture, while far-more accepted in Harlem than most places in the country at the time, was most fully lived out in the smoky dark lights of bars, nightclubs, and cabarets in the city. It was within these venues that the blues music scene boomed, and since it had not yet gained recognition within popular culture, queer artists used it as a way to express themselves honestly.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: Even though there were factions within the Renaissance that were accepting of queer culture/lifestyles, one could still be arrested for engaging in homosexual acts. Many people, including author Alice Dunbar Nelson and "The Mother of Blues" Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, had husbands but were romantically linked to other women as well.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: It is critical that the roles of lesbian and transgender women in history receive more close and critical inquiry. Recognition of the intersectionality of race, gender, and sexuality, and its effects on larger societal perceptions of identity, establishes the greater and fuller historical context of this period. Many leading literary, musical, and theatrical figures of the Harlem Renaissance are believed to have, at some point, engaged in lesbian, gay, or bisexual relations; but that did not mean there was a widespread tolerance.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: Although 1920s and '30s queer blackness is often rendered invisible, the Harlem Renaissance also presented a new space for queer African American artists to showcase their work without fear of social backlash. Many historical Harlem renaissance artists, such as ClaudeMckay, Langston Hughesm and Ethel Waters, engaged in private queer relations, although it was not public knowledge.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: Many integrated communities, and homosexual and heterosexual people gathered in the same recreational spaces. Places such as the cotton club and rockland palace routinely held drag shows in addition to straight performances of art. Lesbian or bisexual performers, such as blues singers Gladys Bently and Bessie Smith were a part of the Harlem music scene. This style of music helped to renew black interest in African American's culture, while also introducing it for the first time to others.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: Women during this time were seen as too blinkered by their middle-class location to identify the 'real' issues of African American life. There are, of course, exceptions to this categorization: legendary blues women like Bessie Smith, Florence Mills Furthermore, there has been considerable effort on the part of black feminist critics in recent years to shift perceptions of women's cultural production during the Harlem years, and authors such as Nella Larsen and Jessie Fauset have gained a renewed degree of critical credence. But overall women were not seen to express genuine issues and were never taken serious.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: Many famous black women of the early 20th century, such as Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Bessie Jackson turned being lesbian into socially acceptable instead of a taboo for not only the black community but for women all over.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: Ma Rainey was known to dress in traditionally male clothing and her blues lyrics often reflected her sexual proclivities for women, which was extremely radical at the time. Ma Rainey was also the first person to introduce blues music into vaudeville. Rainey's protégé, Bessie Smith was another artist who used the blues as a way to express herself with such lines as "When you see two women walking hand in hand, just look em' over and try to understand: They'll go to those parties – have the lights down low – only those parties where women can go."


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: Another prominent blues singer was Gladys Bentley, who was known to cross-dress. Bentley was the club owner of Clam House on 133rd Street in Harlem, which was a hub for queer patrons. The Hamilton Lodge in Harlem hosted an annual drag ball that attracted thousands to watch as a couple hundred young men came to dance the night away in drag. Though there were safe havens within Harlem, there were prominent voices such as that of Abyssinian Baptist Church's minister Adam Clayton who actively campaigned against homosexuality.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: The Harlem Renaissance gave birth to the idea of The New Negro. The New Negro movement was an effort to define what it meant to be African-American by African Americans rather than let the degrading stereotypes and caricatures found in black face minstrelsy practices to do so. There was also The Neo-New Negro movement, which not only challenged racial definitions and stereotypes, but also sought to challenge gender roles, normative sexuality, and sexism in America in general. In this respect, the Harlem Renaissance was far ahead of the rest of America in terms of embracing feminism and queer culture.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: These ideals received some push back as freedom of sexuality, particularly pertaining to women (which during the time in Harlem was known as women-loving women), was seen as confirming the stereotype that black women were loose and lacked sexual discernment. The black bourgeoisie saw this as hampering the cause of black people in America and giving fuel to the fire of racist sentiments around the country. Yet for all of the efforts by both sectors of white and conservative black America, queer culture and artists defined major portions of not only the Harlem Renaissance, but also define so much of our culture today. Author of "The Black Man's Burden", Henry Louis Gates Jr. wrote that the Harlem Renaissance "was surely as gay as it was black".


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: Many critics point out that the Harlem Renaissance could not escape its history and culture in its attempt to create a new one, or sufficiently separate from the foundational elements of White, European culture. Often Harlem intellectuals, while proclaiming a new racial consciousness, resorted to mimicry of their white counterparts by adopting their clothing, sophisticated manners and etiquette. This "mimicry" may also be called assimilation, as that is typically what minority members of any social construct must do in order to fit social norms created by that construct's majority. This could be seen as a reason that the artistic and cultural products of the Harlem Renaissance did not overcome the presence of White-American values, and did not reject these values. In this regard, the creation of the "New Negro" as the Harlem intellectuals sought, was considered a success.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: The Harlem Renaissance appealed to a mixed audience. The literature appealed to the African-American middle class and to whites. Magazines such as "The Crisis", a monthly journal of the NAACP, and "Opportunity", an official publication of the National Urban League, employed Harlem Renaissance writers on their editorial staffs; published poetry and short stories by black writers; and promoted African-American literature through articles, reviews, and annual literary prizes. As important as these literary outlets were, however, the Renaissance relied heavily on white publishing houses and white-owned magazines.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: A major accomplishment of the Renaissance was to open the door to mainstream white periodicals and publishing houses, although the relationship between the Renaissance writers and white publishers and audiences created some controversy. W. E. B. Du Bois did not oppose the relationship between black writers and white publishers, but he was critical of works such as Claude McKay's bestselling novel "Home to Harlem" (1928) for appealing to the "prurient demand[s]" of white readers and publishers for portrayals of black "licentiousness".


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: Langston Hughes spoke for most of the writers and artists when he wrote in his essay "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" (1926) that black artists intended to express themselves freely, no matter what the black public or white public thought. Hughes in his writings also returned to the theme of racial passing, but during the Harlem Renaissance, he began to explore the topic of homosexuality and homophobia. He began to use disruptive language in his writings. He explored this topic because it was a theme that during this time period was not discussed.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: African-American musicians and writers were among mixed audiences as well, having experienced positive and negative outcomes throughout the New Negro Movement. For musicians, Harlem, New York's cabarets and nightclubs shined a light on black performers and allowed for black residents to enjoy music and dancing. However, some of the most popular clubs (that showcased black musicians) were "exclusively" for white audiences; one of the most famous white-only nightclubs in Harlem was the Cotton Club, where popular black musicians like Duke Ellington frequently performed. Ultimately, the black musicians who appeared at these white-only clubs became far more successful and became a part of the mainstream music scene.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: Similarly, black writers were given the opportunity to shine once the New Negro Movement gained traction as short stories, novels, and poems by black authors began taking form and getting into various print publications in the 1910s and 1920s. Although a seemingly good way to establish their identities and culture, many authors note how hard it was for any of their work to actually go anywhere. Writer Charles Chesnutt in 1877, for example, notes that there was no indication of his race alongside his publication in "Atlantic Monthly" (at the publisher's request).


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: A prominent factor in the New Negro's struggle was that their work had been made out to be "different" or "exotic" to white audiences, making a necessity for black writers to appeal to them and compete with each other to get their work out. Famous black author and poet Langston Hughes explained that black-authored works were placed in a similar fashion to those of oriental or foreign origin, only being used occasionally in comparison to their white-made counterparts: once a spot for a black work was "taken", black authors had to look elsewhere to publish.


title: Harlem Renaissance

text: Certain aspects of the Harlem Renaissance were accepted without debate, and without scrutiny. One of these was the future of the "New Negro". Artists and intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance echoed American progressivism in its faith in democratic reform, in its belief in art and literature as agents of change, and in its almost uncritical belief in itself and its future. This progressivist worldview rendered Black intellectuals—just like their White counterparts—unprepared for the rude shock of the Great Depression, and the Harlem Renaissance ended abruptly because of naive assumptions about the centrality of culture, unrelated to economic and social realities.


title: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

text: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is a 1963 American comedy film produced and directed by Stanley Kramer with a story and screenplay by William Rose and Tania Rose. The film, starring Spencer Tracy with an all-star cast of comedians, is about the madcap pursuit of $350,000 in stolen cash by a diverse and colorful group of strangers. It premiered on November 7, 1963. The principal cast features Edie Adams, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Buddy Hackett, Ethel Merman, Dorothy Provine, Mickey Rooney, Dick Shawn, Phil Silvers, Terry-Thomas, and Jonathan Winters.


title: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

text: The film marked the first time Kramer directed a comedy, though he had produced the comedy "So This Is New York" in 1948. He is best known for producing and directing, in his own words, "heavy drama" about social problems, such as "The Defiant Ones", "Inherit the Wind", "Judgment at Nuremberg", and "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner". His first attempt at directing a comedy film paid off immensely as "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" became a critical and commercial success in 1963 and was nominated for six Academy Awards, winning for Best Sound Editing, and two Golden Globe Awards.


title: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

text: Against Kramer's wishes, the film suffered severe cuts by its distributor United Artists in order to give the film a shorter running time for its general release. On October 15, 2013, it was announced that the Criterion Collection had collaborated with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, United Artists, and film restoration expert Robert A. Harris to reconstruct and restore "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" to be as close as possible to the original 202-minute version envisioned by Kramer. It was released in a five-disc "Dual Format" Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack on January 21, 2014.


title: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

text: "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" featured at number 40 in the American Film Institute's list 100 Years...100 Laughs.


title: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

text: "Smiler" Grogan, a just-released convict jailed for robbery 15 years earlier, escapes police surveillance but crashes his car on California State Route 74. Five motorists stop to help him: Melville Crump, a dentist on a second honeymoon with his wife Monica; Lennie Pike, a furniture mover; Ding Bell and Benjy Benjamin, two friends on their way to Las Vegas; and J. Russell Finch, a seaweed-business owner, traveling with his wife Emmeline and his loud, obnoxious mother-in-law Mrs. Marcus. Just before he dies, Grogan tells them about $350,000 ($3.2 million, today) buried in Santa Rosita State Park under “a big W”. After the group fails to come up with a satisfactory way to split the money, they decide to race to find it. Unbeknownst to all, Captain Culpeper, chief of detectives of the Santa Rosita Police Department, who had been working the Grogan case for years and hoped to solve it and retire, has everyone tracked.


title: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

text: All the motorists experience setbacks on the way to the park. The Crumps charter a rickety biplane to Santa Rosita. When they stop in a hardware store for supplies, they are inadvertently locked in the store's basement. After several failed attempts to break out, they blow out the wall of the basement with dynamite and hire a cab to get to the park. Bell and Benjamin charter a modern plane, but, when their alcoholic pilot knocks himself out, they have to land the plane themselves, causing chaos among the air traffic controllers as the plane flies wildly out of control. After bringing the plane to the ground, they also hire a cab to drive them to the park. The Finches' car collides with Pike's furniture van, and Russell persuades British Army Lieutenant Colonel J. Algernon Hawthorne to drive them to Santa Rosita. After a nasty argument, Mrs. Marcus and Emeline leave to hitch their own ride.


title: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

text: Pike stops motorist Otto Meyer for a ride; however, after Pike tells Meyer about the money, Meyer abandons him and convinces two service station employees to detain Pike. Pike destroys the station, steals a tow truck, and picks up Mrs. Marcus and Emmeline. Mrs. Marcus calls her dimwitted son Sylvester, who lives near the park; however, she claims Russell "assaulted" her, causing Sylvester to panic and drive towards her instead of getting the money for her. Meyer, meanwhile, picks up a stranded motorist and helps him get back home. Trying to get back to the highway, Meyer fails at crossing a deep river and his car is swept away, forcing him to steal another motorist's car.


title: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

text: Meanwhile, Culpepper has a furious argument with his wife and daughter, then is told his pension will be a pittance, and has a mental breakdown. He instructs all the law enforcement following the motorists to back off on his signal – because none of the motorists know him – and heads for the park. After many mishaps, everyone reaches the Park and begins searching for the "big W". Culpeper gives the pre-arranged signal and goes in alone. Emmeline finds the "big W" first, quickly followed by Pike, who tells the others. After the money is dug up, Culpeper identifies himself, but does not arrest them. He persuades the motorists to turn themselves in.


title: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

text: Chief Aloysius successfully blackmails the mayor into tripling Culpeper’s pension. He tries to get word of this to Culpeper, but fails because Culpeper has already gone after the stolen money. Figuring out Culpeper’s real motivation, the police chief sadly orders his friend’s arrest. Suspicious about why Culpeper let them go, the motorists follow him and notice he is not returning to the police station. They chase him to a condemned building, where the men corner him on a rickety fire escape which breaks because of their combined weight. In the struggle, Culpeper drops the briefcase containing the money, scattering the cash to a crowd of people in the street below. When they all pile onto a fire department ladder sent to rescue them, their combined weight causes it to spin uncontrollably and toss them wildly in different directions, leaving most of them heavily injured.


title: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

text: In the prison hospital, the men bemoan the loss of the money and blame their injuries on Culpeper. Culpeper responds that because of his lost pension, the ruined relationship with his family and the likelihood that the judge will probably be lenient with them but throw the book at him, it will be a long time before he laughs again. Mrs. Marcus, flanked by Emmeline and Monica (all in prison attire) enters and begins loudly berating the men, only to slip on Benjamin's dropped banana peel. All the men except Sylvester roar with laughter, and, after a brief hesitation, Culpeper joins in.


title: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

text: According to Robert Davidson, the role of Irwin originally was offered to Joe Besser, who was unable to participate when Sheldon Leonard and Danny Thomas could not give him time off from his co-starring role in "The Joey Bishop Show".


title: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

text: Actress Eve Bruce filmed a scene as a showgirl who asks Benjy Benjamin and Ding Bell to help her apply suntan lotion. The scene was cut, and she is uncredited. Cliff Norton is listed in the opening credits but is not found in the film; Norton had a role as a detective who appears at the Rancho Conejo airport. King Donovan, playing an airport official, appeared in the Rancho Conejo scenes but was cut from the film. Don Knotts originally shot a second scene in which he tries to use a telephone in a diner. Also featured in the scene was Barbara Pepper.


title: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

text: The first of the credited cast to die was ZaSu Pitts, who died on 7 June 1963, five months to the day before the film's release. With the death of Carl Reiner on 29 June 2020 and Nicholas Georgiade on 19 December 2021, Barrie Chase is the film's last surviving cast member, credited or otherwise. Mickey Rooney was the last living member of the main cast at the time of his death on April 6, 2014.


title: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

text: In the early 1960s, screenwriter William Rose, then living in the United Kingdom, conceived the idea for a film (provisionally titled "So Many Thieves", and later "Something a Little Less Serious") about a comedic chase through Scotland. He sent an outline to Kramer, who agreed to produce and direct the film. The setting was shifted to America, and the working title changed to "Where, but in America?" then "One Damn Thing After Another" and then "It's a Mad World", with Rose and Kramer adding additional "Mad"s to the title as time progressed. Kramer considered adding a fifth "mad" to the title before deciding it was redundant but noted in interviews that he later regretted it.


title: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

text: Although well known for serious films such as "Inherit the Wind" and "Judgment at Nuremberg" (both starring Tracy), Kramer set out to make the ultimate comedy film. Filmed in Ultra Panavision 70 and presented in Cinerama (becoming one of the early single-camera Cinerama features produced), "Mad World" had an all-star cast, with dozens of major comedy stars from all eras of cinema appearing in it. The film followed a Hollywood trend in the 1960s of producing "epic" films as a way of wooing audiences away from television and back to movie theaters. The film's theme music was written by Ernest Gold with lyrics by Mack David. Kramer hosted a roundtable (including extensive clips) on the film with stars Caesar, Hackett and Winters as part of a special "The Comedians, Stanley Kramer's Reunion with the Great Comedy Artists of Our Time" broadcast in 1974 as part of "ABC's Wide World of Entertainment". The last reported showing of the film on major network television in America was on ABC on July 16, 1979, and before that, on CBS on May 16, 1978.


title: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

text: The airport terminal scenes were filmed at the now-defunct Rancho Conejo Airport in Newbury Park, California, though the control tower shown was constructed only for filming. Other airplane sequences were filmed at the Sonoma County Airport north of Santa Rosa, California; at the Palm Springs International Airport; and in the skies above Thousand Oaks, California; Camarillo, California; and Orange County, California. In the Orange County scene, stuntman Frank Tallman flew a Beech model C-18S through a highway billboard advertising Coca-Cola. A communications mix-up resulted in the use of linen graphic sheets on the sign rather than paper, as planned. Linen, much tougher than paper, damaged the plane on impact. Tallman managed to fly it back to the airstrip, discovering that the leading edges of the wings had been smashed all the way back to the wing spars. Tallman considered that incident the closest he ever came to dying on film. (Both Tallman and Paul Mantz, Tallman's business partner and fellow flier on "Mad World", eventually died in separate air crashes over a decade apart.)


title: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

text: In another scene, Tallman flew the plane through an airplane hangar at the Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport in Santa Rosa. Some scenes were filmed in San Diego.


title: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

text: The fire escape and ladder miniature used in the final chase sequence is on display at the Hollywood Museum in Hollywood. Also, the Santa Rosita Fire Department's ladder truck was a 1960s Seagrave Fire Apparatus open-cab Mid-Mount Aerial Ladder.


title: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

text: Production began on April 26, 1962 and expected to end by December 7, 1962 but took longer, apparently conflicting with the notion that Tracy's trip down the zip line into the pet store on December 6, 1962, was the last scene filmed. Veteran stuntman Carey Loftin was featured in the documentary, explaining some of the complexity as well as simplicity of stunts, such as the day he "kicked the bucket" as a stand-in for Durante.


title: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

text: The film was promoted as the first film made in "one-projector" Cinerama. (The original Cinerama process filmed scenes with three separate cameras. The three processed reels were projected by three electronically synchronized projectors onto a huge curved screen.) It originally was planned for three-camera Cinerama, and some reports state that initial filming was done using three cameras but was abandoned. One-camera Cinerama could be Super Panavision 70 or Ultra Panavision 70, which was essentially the Super Panavision 70 process with anamorphic compression at the edges of the image to give a much wider aspect ratio. When projected by one projector, the expanded 70mm image filled the wide Cinerama screen. Ultra Panavision 70 was used to film "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World". Other films shot in Ultra Panavision 70 and released in Cinerama include "The Greatest Story Ever Told", "The Hallelujah Trail", "Battle of the Bulge", and "Khartoum". Super Panavision 70 films released in Cinerama include "Grand Prix", "", and "Ice Station Zebra".


title: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

text: Kramer's comedy was accentuated by many things, including the opening animated credits designed by Saul Bass. The film begins with mention of Spencer Tracy, then the "in alphabetical order" mention of nine of the main cast (Berle, Caesar, Hackett, Merman, Rooney, Shawn, Silvers, Terry-Thomas, Winters), followed by hands switching these nine names two to three times over. Animation continues with paper dolls and a windup toy world spinning with several men hanging on to it and finishing with a man opening a door to the globe and getting trampled by a mad crowd. One of the animators who helped with the sequence was future "Peanuts" animator Bill Melendez.


title: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

text: The film opened at the newly built Cinerama Dome in Los Angeles on November 7, 1963. The UK premiere was on December 2, 1963 at the Coliseum Cinerama Theatre in London's West End. Distinguished by the largest number of stars to appear in a film comedy, "Mad World" opened to acclaim from many critics and tremendous box office receipts, becoming the 3rd highest-grossing film of 1963, quickly establishing itself as one of the top 100 highest-grossing films of all time when adjusted for inflation, earning an estimated theatrical rental figure of $26 million. It grossed $46,332,858 domestically and $60,000,000 worldwide, on a budget of $9.4 million. However, because costs were so high it earned a profit of only $1.25 million.


title: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

text: Bosley Crowther of "The New York Times" wrote that the film "is everything, down to redundant, that its extravagant title suggests. It's a wonderfully crazy and colorful collection of 'chase' comedy, so crowded with plot and people that it almost splits the seams of its huge cinerama packing and its 3-hour-and-12-minute length." "Variety" stated "There are a number of truly spectacular action sequences, and the stunts that have been performed seem incredible. The automobile capers are some of the most thrilling and daring on record, Mack Sennett notwithstanding." However, the review continued, "Certain pratfalls and sequences are unnecessarily overdone to the point where they begin to grow tedious... but the plusses outweigh by far the minuses."


title: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

text: Philip K. Scheuer of the "Los Angeles Times" wrote that the film "really bugged me... the first few pratfalls have, perhaps their comic shock values. Thereafter the chase—and the homicidal mania—simply go on and on – countless cars are wrecked, a plane or two, an entire service station, the basement of a hardware store, fire escapes, a fire-engine tower. The only new idea, occurring well into the third hour, hinges on a surprise development in the character of a proud, plodding chief of detectives, played by Spencer Tracy – and even this proves disillusionment."


title: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

text: Richard L. Coe of "The Washington Post" was mixed, writing "Yes, it is furious, fast and funny and it is also vast, vulgar and vexatious because Kramer has not given us one sympathetic character and because it is shown in Cinerama." Paul Nelson wrote in "Film Quarterly": "The film manages to stay on its feet for a little while and trundle self-importantly along, but it soon becomes painfully clear that its feet are flat and its wheels are square. Kramer lacks all the essentials of good comedy; he has few ideas, no cinematic or comic technique (the huge screen certainly didn't help him here: just one more technical burden), no sense of comic structure, and above all, no sense of pace."


title: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

text: The film's great success inspired Kramer to direct and produce "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" (also starring Tracy and also written by William Rose) and "The Secret of Santa Vittoria" (also scored by Ernest Gold and co-written by Rose). The movie was re-released in 1970 and earned an additional $2 million in rentals.


title: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

text: The film holds a 71% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 38 reviews, with an average score of 6.9/10. The consensus states: "It's long, frantic, and stuffed to the gills with comic actors and set pieces—and that's exactly its charm." According to Paul Scrabo, Kramer began thinking about his success with "Mad World" during the 1970s, and considered bringing back many former cast members for a proposed film titled "The Sheiks of Araby". William Rose was set to write the screenplay. Years later, Kramer announced a possible "Mad World" sequel, which was to be titled "It's a Funny, Funny World".


title: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

text: Existing footage is in the form of original 70 mm elements of the general release version (recent restored versions shown in revival screenings are derived from these elements). A 1991 VHS and LaserDisc from MGM/UA was an extended 183-minute version of the film, with most of the reinserted footage derived from elements stored in a Los Angeles warehouse about to be demolished. According to a 2002 interview with master preservationist Robert A. Harris, this extended version is not a true representation of the original roadshow cut and included footage that was not meant to be shown in any existing version.


title: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

text: A restoration effort was made by Harris in an attempt to bring the film back as close as possible to the original roadshow release. The project to go ahead with the massive restoration project would gain approval from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (parent company of UA), although it did require a necessary budget for it to proceed.


title: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

text: Released on January 21, 2014 originally as a two Blu-ray and three DVD set, the Criterion Collection release contains two versions of the film, a restored 4K digital film transfer of the 159-minute general release version and a new 197-minute high-definition digital transfer, reconstructed and restored by Robert A. Harris using visual and audio material from the longer original "road-show" version not seen in over 50 years. Some scenes have been returned to the film for the first time, and the Blu-ray features a 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack. It also features a new audio commentary from "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" aficionados Mark Evanier, Michael Schlesinger, and Paul Scrabo, a new documentary on the film's visual and sound effects, an excerpt from a 1974 talk show hosted by Stanley Kramer featuring Sid Caesar, Buddy Hackett, and Jonathan Winters, a press interview from 1963 featuring Kramer and cast members, excerpts about the film's influence taken from the 2000 American Film Institute program "100 Years...100 Laughs", a two-part 1963 episode of Canadian TV program "Telescope" that follows the film's press junket and premiere, a segment from the 2012 special "The Last 70mm Film Festival" featuring surviving "Mad World" cast and crew members hosted by Billy Crystal, a selection of Stan Freberg's original TV and radio ads for the film with a new introduction by Freberg, trailers and radio spots from the 1960s/70s, and a booklet featuring an essay by film critic Lou Lumenick with new illustrations by cartoonist Jack Davis, along with a map of the shooting locations by artist Dave Woodman.


title: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

text: Films having a comedic search for money with an ensemble cast modeled after "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" include "Scavenger Hunt" (1979), "Million Dollar Mystery" (1987) and "Rat Race" (2001). There are similar Indian movies like "Journey Bombay to Goa: Laughter Unlimited" (2007), "Dhamaal" (2007), "Mast Maja Maadi" (2008) and "Total Dhamaal" (2019).


title: The Royals (TV series)

text: The Royals is an American primetime television soap opera that premiered on E! on March 15, 2015. Created by Mark Schwahn and starring Elizabeth Hurley, it is the network's first scripted series. The show began as a loose adaptation of the 2011 Michelle Ray novel "Falling for Hamlet". E! renewed "The Royals" for a second season two months before its debut, and picked up a third season on January 5, 2016. E! renewed the series for a fourth season on February 16, 2017; the fourth season premiered on March 11, 2018. E! cancelled the series after four seasons in August 2018. Additionally, Lionsgate Television was shopping the series to other networks with discussions for a pick-up by sister network Pop, but on September 24, Lionsgate Television failed to find a new home for the series and was officially cancelled.


title: The Royals (TV series)

text: Hurley starred as Queen Helena, a fictional contemporary queen consort of England, along with William Moseley and Alexandra Park as her twin children, Prince Liam and Princess Eleanor; Jake Maskall as Helena's brother-in-law and nemesis, the new King Cyrus; Tom Austen as Eleanor's bodyguard and blackmailer, Jasper Frost; and Oliver Milburn as Ted Pryce, the Royal Family's head of security. Season 1 also starred Vincent Regan as Helena's husband, King Simon, and Merritt Patterson as Liam's love interest, Ophelia Pryce.


title: The Royals (TV series)

text: Helena is the matriarch of a fictional contemporary British royal family who must struggle with both common and atypical family dramas while in the public eye. Twins Prince Liam and Princess Eleanor enjoy the hedonistic pleasures available to them as royals, knowing that their older brother Robert bears the responsibility of being heir to the throne of England. But when Robert is killed, the family is thrown into disarray and a grieving King Simon fears for the future of the monarchy. Unexpectedly next in line for the throne, Liam must adjust to his new role while navigating his attraction to Ophelia, the American daughter of the royal head of security. His self-destructive sister Eleanor finds rock-bottom when her bodyguard turns out to be a conman. Trying to preserve the status quo and keep the royal family under her control, Queen Helena allies herself with Simon's brother Cyrus to preserve their way of life at any cost.


title: The Royals (TV series)

text: In April 2013, E! announced several scripted projects it had in development, including "The Royals", a "contemporary family ensemble is steeped in all of the regal opulence of the British Monarchy and framed by Shakespeare's "Hamlet"." "Deadline Hollywood" reported in June 2013 that E! would be producing pilots for "The Royals" and another series named "Songbyrd", which would be the network's first scripted pilots to date. "The Royals" was picked up for series in March 2014, to be shot in the United Kingdom and scheduled to debut in 2015. Shooting for the first season began in London in June 2014. In August 2014, E! released its first promotional trailer for "The Royals". The first season consisted of ten episodes.


title: The Royals (TV series)

text: In December 2014, E! announced that the series would premiere on March 15, 2015. The network later announced at the Television Critics Association press tour on January 15, 2015, that the series had been renewed for a second season, two months before its debut. E!'s Executive Vice President of Original Programming & Development Jeff Olde noted that production for season two would begin in London in spring 2015. Shooting officially resumed on June 15, 2015, with season two premiering on November 15, 2015. On January 5, 2016, E! renewed "The Royals" for a third season, which premiered on December 4, 2016. Several days before the season three finale, the series was renewed for a fourth season on February 16, 2017, which premiered on March 11, 2018.


title: The Royals (TV series)

text: Schwahn was suspended from the series after the completion of season four filming on November 15, 2017, following sexual harassment allegations against him by female casts and crew of both "The Royals" and his previous series "One Tree Hill" came to light. He was subsequently fired from the series on December 22, 2017. On August 16, 2018, it was announced that E! had canceled the series after four seasons. Additionally, it was reported that Lionsgate Television was shopping the series to other networks with discussions already underway for a pick-up by sister network Pop. However on September 24, 2018, it was announced that Lionsgate Television had failed to find a new home for the series and that it was now considered officially ended.


title: The Royals (TV series)

text: The production uses Blenheim Palace as its fictional royal palace. In season two, the production also filmed at Allington Castle and Boughton Monchelsea Place in Kent. Various scenes were filmed at The Historic Dockyard Chatham in Kent in June 2017 for episode 4, season four of "The Royals". The locations filmed at the dockyard included The Tarred Yarn Store, "HMS Cavalier", Commissioner's House garden and the Ropery Tunnels. Chapel Place in Tunbridge Wells also featured as part of a royal wedding.


title: The Royals (TV series)

text: In September 2013, Hurley was cast in the leading role of Queen Helena. Soon after, Moseley was cast as Helena's son Liam, followed by Park as Liam's twin sister Eleanor and Haley Lu Richardson as his love interest, Ophelia. The rest of the pilot's cast included Regan, Austen, Maskall, Roach and Milburn. After the series pickup, Merritt Patterson replaced Richardson as Ophelia in June 2014, as shooting for the first season began in London. Additional recurring roles included Bewley and Preston as Cyrus' eccentric daughters Penelope and Maribel, and Colquhoun as Gemma, Liam's heiress ex-girlfriend. In August 2014, "People" reported that Joan Collins would guest star as the Grand Duchess of Oxford, Helena's mother.


title: The Royals (TV series)

text: In June 2015, Laila Rouass was cast as Rani, the Deputy Prime Minister whom the actress calls "Elizabeth Hurley's arch-enemy". For season 2, Hatty Preston was replaced as Princess Maribel with Jerry-Jane Pears, the difference in their appearance explained by plastic surgery.


title: The Royals (TV series)

text: In June 2016, Max Brown was cast as Prince Robert, the presumed-dead eldest son of Simon and Helena, and Jules Knight was cast as Spencer Koenigsberg, Helena's new Lord Chamberlain. Genevieve Gaunt, who played Liam's potential love interest Willow in season 2, was also promoted from recurring to series regular for season 3. Hurley's son Damian Hurley was cast in a guest star role in July 2016.