Sexplosion: From Andy Warhol to A Clockwork Orange-- How a Generation of Pop Rebels Broke All the Taboos
*Starred Review* The author, senior editor at Variety and former entertainment editor at Penthouse, sets out to show how a number of very talented, risk-taking rebels challenged the world’s prevailing attitudes toward sex and, in the process, changed pop culture forever. Thus, we have a compendium of period sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll, much of it familiar, but which, in aggregate, demonstrates Hofler’s thesis abundantly. Focusing on the brief period of 1968–73, the text presents a deluge of barrier-breaking books, films, and theater that is dizzying in its magnitude and impact. Hofler’s appropriately breezy style allows his journalistic strengths to shine; it all rings true. Arranged chronologically, beginning with Hair and the movies of Andy Warhol and quickly taking in Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint, John Schlesinger’s film Midnight Cowboy, Kenneth Tynan’s Oh! Calcutta! (the title explained), Mart Crowley’s gay-themed The Boys in the Band, and much more, with convincingly detailed context, Hofler describes in often strong language and with considerable wit what was unmistakably a new cultural reality and moral perspective in America and Britain. Although his epilogue seems superfluous, he otherwise makes his case compellingly. This is readable and enjoyable popular history for younger adult readers and deeply resonant nostalgia for the boomers who came of age during this heady half decade. --Mark Levine