The Beatles: Image and the Media

FIVE: “Beatlepeople”: Rolling Stone, 1967–70

178 five “Beatlepeople” Rolling Stone, 1967–70 Writing in late 1968, Jann Wenner, theyoungfounderandeditor of Rolling Stone, made no bones about the importance of the Beatles to the youth culture of the 1960s: “In considering the Beatles, . . . we are actually considering several much bigger things: we are, of course, considering the Beatles as individuals; we are considering their impact on the world; we are considering the whole question of ‘rock and roll’; we are considering the world we live in and we are considering ourselves.” Wenner’s concept of the Beatles was, in fact, so inextricably bound to his vision for the counterculture that it is impossible to conceive of one without the other. The Beatles were, in essence, a fount from which the counterculture flowed: “‘The Beatles’ have been an influential part of everyone’s lives. It has been incredible. Think of all the changes in the world that have occurred in the last five years, and so many of them, especially for the young of my age, are attributable directly to the Beatles” (Wenner, Rev. of The Beatles: Authorized Biography 17). The Beatles, central to Wenner’s assault on “straight” society and the mainstream press, emerge in the pages of Rolling Stone as the standard-bearers for countercultural values. Striking back at a mainstream “‘press’ [that had] distorted the picture of being . . . Beatlepeople ,”1 Wenner argued, “What they are doing is putting their responsibilities on us. . . . That is how corrupt the press, magazines, newspapers, television and media in general has become. And every- rolling stone, 1967–70 179 one suspects it. The Beatles know it, and thus are contemptuous of the press and not piously grateful.” And Wenner’s competitors did not escape his critical eye: “This contempt spills over to the pop critics and reviewers. And this has been deserved. So much ineptness, it’s incredible” (Rev. of The Beatles: Authorized Biography 17–18). Wenner time and again called on the Beatles, literally and otherwise , to fortify his countercultural claims and position his magazine as the dominant underground publication of the period. His exploitation of the Beatles ultimately contributed to the success of Rolling Stone beyond its initial audience and facilitated its transformation from the most successful publication catering to the counterculture into a successful commercial publication espousing counterculture values, in essence demonstrating the acceptance of aspects of the counterculture into mainstream culture. By 1969, when the magazine ’s circulation reached 100,000, readership surveys indicated that for many of readers it was the sole source of information on matters of interest to the youth culture (Draper 94). Of particular interest to us is how the Beatles’ image was developed within the pages of the magazine:2 How was the image defined for Wenner’s counterculture audience? How was the image utilized to bolster Wenner’s countercultural program? Wenner relied heavily on the Beatles’ image in promoting his magazine and the counterculture lifestyle. As this chapter will demonstrate, the Beatles’ image clearly provided the counterculture model implicit, and often explicit, in the editorial pieces written by Wenner and Ralph Gleason, Wenner’s mentor. Further, the Beatles were often invoked in explaining the editorial positions of the two. Wenner viewed the Beatles as leaders of the counterculture, and promoted this view within his staff and to his readers. Importantly, as discussed in the previous chapter, this belief also had great currency in the mainstream media. The Beatles were the vehicle by which the counterculture ideal was conveyed not only to committed counterculturalists , but also to the general public. 180 rolling stone, 1967–70 A useful tool for analyzing media messages is the concept of media frames. Todd Gitlin, in his 1980 study of the mainstream media ’s coverage of the New Left during the 1960s, The Whole World is Watching, defines frames as “persistent patterns of cognition, interpretation , and presentation, of selection, emphasis, and exclusion, by which symbol-handlers routinely organize discourse, whether verbal or visual” (Gitlin, Whole World 6). Robert Entman describes the process of framing: “To frame is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation , moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation [Entman’s emphasis] for the item described” (Entman 52). Frames adopted by an underground publication in the period under consideration would be openly biased in advocating...