The ‘Wonder Years’ Turn Into Art Gallery Fodder : ‘Give Peace a Chance’ Exhibit Mostly Nostalgia

Down in Laguna Beach, at the L.A. Connection gallery on South Coast Highway, there’s an exhibit going on called “Give Peace a Chance.” It aims to document the relationship between pop music and the peace movement and--as is obvious from the John Lennon-inspired title--it zeroes in on the socially conscious singers and songwriters of the 1960s.

Hanging on various walls are Woodstock posters, Concert for Bangladesh memorabilia, Phil Ochs memorabilia, pictures of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez song manuscripts, artwork for Rolling Stones records, all complemented by a ‘60s rock sound track playing in the background.

I was afraid this would happen. My “Wonder Years” have turned into gallery fodder.

I suppose everyone goes through this sooner or later. Actually, the chronological and psychological distance between the ‘60s and now had hit me a few weeks earlier: Sitting in a favorite Italian restaurant, I noticed a group of seven or eight women at a table. They were dressed in tie-dyed shirts and scruffy jeans adorned with peace symbols; some wore headbands and all were carrying makeshift protest signs.

Yes, it burned me that the complex, deeply felt social and political protest movement though which millions of Americans struggled 20 years ago had been reduced to Halloween costumes.

It was a little unnerving to walk through the exhibit in Laguna Beach (which originated at the Peace Museum in Chicago in 1983 and has been updated only modestly, with references to Live Aid in 1985 and “We Are the World” in 1986). Looking at the static, framed memorabilia, as Lennon’s “Imagine” and Country Joe & the Fish’s “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag” played over loudspeakers, I felt like Twain’s Connecticut Yankee mysteriously thrust into a long-lost past.

Which isn’t to say that the values I picked up in the ‘60s--compassion for the disadvantaged, healthy skepticism about institutions of any kind, fundamental belief in the power of music to effect change--are relegated to yesterday. They remain part of my daily life.

Yet, it’s mostly nostalgia that comes through at “Give Peace a Chance,” just as it did with those women wearing hippie costumes, and as it does in such ‘60s-related movies as “The Big Chill” and “1969.”

One cinematic exception is “Running on Empty,” which follows two political activists into the ‘80s and touches on the ways they combine middle-age and their own family responsibilities with their social consciences.

The message there is that activism isn’t necessarily just a youthful “phase,” though that’s a popular viewpoint these days. Equally as important, the film says that one doesn’t have to abandon or compromise one’s values. One doesn’t have to search for Yuppie Heaven.

That message was confirmed for me recently when I ran into an ex-co-worker I hadn’t seen in 13 or 14 years. Ed was a few years older than I, and, as a vocal opponent of the Vietnam War, the draft and the Nixon Administration, he had been something of a role model in the way he took the fight for justice out of the streets and into the workplace.

I had long wondered what had become of him; whether he was continuing the fight or whether he had gone into corporate banking or real estate--professions that would be anathema to the ‘60s radical I had known.

Reassuringly, I learned that he had received his master’s degree in psychology and was returning to Orange County to work in a clinic helping people conquer eating disorders, after years of work in Ventura County counseling drug addicts and other hard-core social cases.

Like the activists in “Running on Empty,” Ed’s biggest departure from the past was that instead of trying to change the world at large, he now believes that it is just as crucial to improve one’s own neighborhood.

Ironically, one of the biggest attractions of the “Give Peace a Chance” exhibit may be the portion devoted to U2, the massively popular Irish band that is claiming the torch of ‘60s idealism. But, as the show points out, “the music of U2 has no program, no platform, no message per se . Its aims are essentially artistic rather than political.”

U2 is a shining example of how it is the style of the ‘60s, not the substance, that carries so much appeal in the ‘80s. We’ll be committed and passionate about a cause--as long as it doesn’t require too much personal sacrifice.

As far as I’m concerned, the real legacy of the ‘60s is people like Ed, who are still working for change, perhaps unnoticed, unheralded--not some gallery exhibit somewhere.