Jim Morrison as a Cultural Hero

Morrison was born in 1943, and his father was a career naval officer who eventually became an admiral. The family moved around a great deal, but Morrison led the life of a "product of a Southern upper-middle-class family" (Curtis 178). Like most middle-class American teenagers in the 1960s, Morrison attended college. He dropped out of Florida State University, and then dropped out of the University of California at Los Angeles, where he had studied film-making. In the summer of 1966, Morrison spent his time writing poetry and taking psychedelic drugs. He met a fellow film-school student, keyboard player Ray Manzarek, and sang some of his poetry to him. Manzarek suggested that they form a band, and Morrison chose the name "The Doors" from The Doors of Perception, Aldous Huxley's book about his "mystical experiences" with drugs (Jones 40). The band slowly developed its unique sound, and were spotted by a record company at the Whiskey-A-Go-Go club in Los Angeles. They recorded an album which was released in the summer of 1967. It contained the song "Light My Fire," and, when the song went to number 1 on the sales charts, "the Doors were on their way" (Hopkins 118).

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life fit for heroes" (Reynolds and Press 3). Then, in the 1960s, the civil rights movement, the war in Vietnam, and the sexual revolution began to show what was wrong with this prosperous society. The reaction to the events centered around teenagers and young adults. Because of the rise in the birth rate following World War II, a huge new Baby Boom generation existed. Between the years 1964 and 1970, more than 20 million young Americans joined the 18-24 age group. This resulted in a rapid expansion of college enrollments as prosperous middle-class parents saw this as the means for their children to get ahead in society. Between 1963 and 1973 the number of college students doubled. There were 5 times as many students in college than there were in 1940, before the war (Curtis 173). When this generation reacted against the problems of the society, the number of teenagers, and the amount of money they had, combined to create a powerful new kind of youth culture. At first, folk musicians and their fans protested the evils of discrimination and the war in Vietnam (Szatmary 118). But, gradually, protest was expanded to include all forms of social hypocrisy. The leading voices in this culture were the rebellious stars of Roc
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Approximate Word count = 1377
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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