Easy Rider - Steffon Swenson
I didn’t really like watching Easy Rider; I found the plot extremely slow. Also, it got kind of old watching them ride on their motorcycles through the country. However, this was how the movie needed to be made in order to accurately depict the hippie lifestyle. Miller wrote in his article, The Ethics of Cultural Opposition, “the major themes of the culture of opposition – dope, sex, rock and roll, and community . . .� were all accurately depicted in the film. The goal of Wyatt and Billy was to get to New Orleans in time for Mardi Gras, but along the way they did not really care what happened to them. They just were along for the ride. They met a lot of people and shared a lot of drugs. Miller also identified love, nonviolence, anti-materialism and the yearning to drop out of society as hippie ideals. Most of these principles are portrayed in the film. I think especially the yearning to drop out of society and anti-materialism are highlighted as Wyatt and Billy just leave their old lives and travel. Also, the only money they need is to buy gas. As Miller put it, “the hippies lived in the real world, but their ideal remained a disavowal of the materialism of American society� (p.112)