The 1990’s was a time of change in the United States. It was a time for civil rights movements to build momentum, for Immigrants to come to america and for women to find their foothold in everyday culture. The 90's was a pivotal decade between the distress of the 80's and the uncertainty of the 21st century. 1 Yoruba Richen, a documentary film maker and civil rights (LGBTQ) advocate, exposed some important facts around the 1990’s during a march for LGBTQ rights organized in 1993. The author fought against a new bill signed by the president that year. (Richen). The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) passed under the government of Bill Clinton affected same sex marriage approval in other states because the nature of the act “defining” marriage just between the union of a man and a woman. The act was declared unconstitutional in the Unites vs Windsor case in 2013 (Richen). It was easier for the world to see the injustice in the 90''s as the world was a much smaller place.2 Technological revolution changed the life of many from the early 90’s as the World Wide Web (WWW) was accessible to people. Communications, businesses, and entertainment grew at unprecedented scale. Movies like “Thelma and Louis” brought to the screen different perspective of what it means to be a woman. 3 An article from Time magazine appeared after the release of this movie in May, 1991, praising different perspectives about the movie featuring Geena Davis (Thelma) and Susan Sarandon (Louis) from film critics. It was at the end of the film, as the fugitives role given to this characters in the movies had the courage to stand up against cops, rapists, bad boyfriends that brought a national debate on feminism and the state of women’s the movement. (Waxman).4 Another clear example how movies were changing the perspective of American society is the movie “To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything Julie Newmar”. This movie is very interesting approach showing in today’s drag queens going on a pageant to California they suffer harassment from a police officer that stop them. But later in the way they escaping from police their car broke up and then they received help from a small town neighbors and then, the main points of the movie developed when this drag queen bring their happiness, kindness they teach the women in the town how to be themselves and strong women against any men trying to abuse them, and the creativity and glamourous fashion looks to celebrate a “Strawberry” festival. All three drag queens get accepted for the young guys and women living in that town and all understood that they were different but still human beings with feelings.5 Immigration was an important topic for U.S government starting at the end of the 1980’s with some laws related to people escaping civil wars but immigration continued through the 1990’s. Data from the CIS (Center for Immigration Studies) website different statistics show that immigration was an important factor of the growth population of the United States in the 1990’s, followed for different policies and laws decreed by the government (Camarota). In this context the social issue of immigration was approached by the film industry and influenced the pop culture of American society in the 1990’s. 6 Music as well played an important role because many of the famous singers were either declared gay already or just simply important icons supporting LGBTQ rights and feminist rights. Famous singers like Elton John already came out as gay in the 80’s supporting LGBT rights and having great hits in the 1990’s. Another important icon already famous from the 80’s but a supporter of feminism and LGBTQ icon was Madonna or the world wide musical phenomenon the ‘Spice Girls” that were another supporter of women rights and revolutionizing the concept of “ what is to be a women” and “what you want” without fear of other peoples judgement.7 The 1990’s was decade of so many important changes for American society and other parts of the world because the fast development of the internet, cable television booming, sitcoms took big part of life, movies with social approach to different issues happening, the impact of music with new technology having trouble with the mp3 downloaders that increase illegal distribution against copyrights. Many of the kids in the 90’s and teenagers changed forever. 8,9,10 FOOTNOTES: 1)Camarota, Steven A. Center for Immgration Studies Low-immigration, Pro- immigrant. January 2014. April 2017. <http://cis.org/ForeignBornPopulation1998>. 2) IMDb. 1990-2017. April 2017. http://www.imdb.com/ 3) Richen, Yoruba. Ted Talk. Jun 2014. Ted Talk Presentation. 14 April 2017. https://www.ted.com/talks/yoruba_richen_what_the_gay_rights_movement_learned_from_the_civil_rights_movement 4) Waxman, Olivia B. Time. 23 May 2016. 27 March 2017. <http://time.com/4344000/thelma-louise-25th-anniversary-feminism-women-gender/>. 5) Passel, Jefferey. “Rise, Peack and Decline: Trends of U.S. Immigration 1992-2004” Pew Research Center. 2005. Web. 6) Darling, Jenna. “In Praise of 90's Feminism that was before it's time.” Huffington Post. 2015. Web. 7) Justice, Oliver. “Looking Back on 90's Feminism” U.S. Catholic. 2017. Web. 8) Deutch, Claudiuh. “Managing Gay Rights, issues of the 90's” New York Times. Web. 1991 9) Staff, News “90's Reliving a Decade.” CNN. Web 2013. 10) Armstrong, Jennifer. “Spice Girls Wannabe How Girl Power Reinvigorated Mainstream Feminism in the 90's.” Billboard. 2017. 11) Brothman, Andrea. “Gays: 80s, 90s, and 00s.” New York Times. Web. 2007 12) Franke-Ruta, Garance. “How America Got Past the Ani-Gay Politics of the 90s.” The Atlantic. Web. 2013. 13) Editorials. “1990's News, Events, Pop Culture” The Peoples History. 2007. Web. 14) EW Staff. “1990's 101 most influential people in entertainment.” Entertainment Weekly. 1990. Web.
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