New Zealand Society: the Seventies

 

Learning Intentions; students are learning to…

• Identify how local drama series indicate some typical features of the time in which they were created.
• Compare and contrast New Zealand television drama from the 1970s with that from the present day, both locally and internationally.

Success Criteria; students will know they have achieved the learning intentions when they can…

• Describe some of the features of the 1970s in terms of material aspects, attitudes and social issues of the day.
• Discuss and produce a comparison between the 1970s footage and modern television drama series.

Relevant Footage:

Part One, Mass Media
Television:
Pukemanu and Close to Home

Introduction:

As well as effectively showing the outward features of the time in which it was created - for example the fashion, vehicles, design and architecture – it also hints at many underlying concerns within small town and suburban New Zealand, for example the recently emergent youth culture which mimicked aspects of American society, tensions between small town and city lifestyles and race relations. There are also aspects which we would be less likely to see on a modern day drama series; smoking and motorcycles ridden, albeit somewhat provocatively, without helmets. Close to Home was an attempt to create a home-grown drama in the style of Coronation Street and retains many similarities to this show with some uniquely New Zealand elements.

Lesson Outline

• Watch Pukemanu, note a young Bruno Lawrence and Ginette MacDonald. Students should summarise the different contrasts and tensions within the extract in terms of culture under the following headings:
  Town vs Country
  Youth Culture/ vs Traditional Culture
  Race Relations
  The threat of violence and lawlessness

• Watch the Close to Home extract and have students compare and contrast it to a modern New Zealand drama series such as Shortland Street. What is similar and different in terms of dialogue, sets, themes, social issues, style?
• The class could then break into groups and undertake similar comparison. This time each group can choose, or be given, an overseas series to compare Close to Home with.
  

  Students can present their ideas back to the class perhaps in the form of an illustrated chart, table or Venn diagram.

• For the Close to Home and/or Pukemanu extracts have students write a “what happens next” scenario. They could do this in the form of a role play or storyboard.
• Conclude by discussing why they chose the events which they did for their scenario. For example, did they sense there was something sinister or brooding in what they had seen? Were they following the conventions of setting up or resolving a problem? How different are the stories, styles and moods seen in drama from the 1970s compared to contemporary television?