Youth and consumption during the 1950s: imagination and practices

di Enrica Capussotti
in Memoria e Ricerca n.s. 23 (2006), p. 73

This article examines the way in which, over the course of the 1950s, Italian youth incorporated mass consumer products into a set of cultural practices that subverted those of older generations. The author examines these via an exposition of the tensions of generational attitudes towards consumption explored in the film I vinti (1952), the renegotiation of the lifestyles of young women in the popular press during the mid-1950s, and the apparent subversion of class difference amongst the fans of popular music towards the end of the decade, while recognising that while these changes may have lead to cultural emancipation, they also cemented the entry of youth into consumer capitalism