United States, 1960 to Present

The study of American play post-1960 provides a useful means to explore modern American history. The way a nation pursues its recreation unlocks critical aspects of a society's values. From the vantage point of sport and games, one can investigate, in what is supposedly a postindustrial age, how the different forms of recreation function in a modern advanced capitalist country.

Since 1960, the nature of what made up play was critically linked to the rising tide of urbanization and suburbanization in America. An additional offshoot from the study of games and play involved investigating how a society accommodated fun. This process overlapped with other important social areas concerning an era's politics, racial divides, and approaches to gender. These individual aspects of social development also provided cultural insights into national characteristics and the growth and influence of technology and communications. Most importantly, sport and games gave us answers as to how a society defined the structure and meaning of life.

The growth of recreational outlets in the modern era, to a degree, signaled the victory of the Dionysian spirit over a Puritan past of frugality, caution, and restraint. In these years prohibitions against play were universally abandoned. The once-dominant Christian Sabbath was undermined, and instead of being a day dedicated to worship, became one of the most prominent game days for professional football. Play had become part of our array of freedoms. There was an obligation to enjoy life. Such enjoyment fulfilled our cultural destiny and made self-gratification and personal indulgence key ingredients in our pursuit of happiness. Play became a cultural value, and games were the means to express this value, either as participants or as observers on the national stage.

Since 1960, there was also an enormous expansion of American popular culture, and its eminence outshone other alternatives, in terms of absorbing our free time. As games and sport entered the fray, as part of popular culture's entertainment axis, the universal reach expanded into all the nooks and crannies of American life. The entertainment industry was a key spoke in the wheel of the postindustrial American economy, and, as such, joined with the growth of personal computer use and Internet communications to propel economic growth and prosperity.

The Disney Corporation symbolized this new direction beginning in 1955 with the first Disney park in California—Disneyland. Disney promised happiness as well as recreation, and it differed substantially from the amusement parks of old, such as New York's Coney Island and the carnivals, arcades, and vaudeville that preceded its creation. Today, themed amusements have spread across America, promising a good time to all who attend.

Some have argued that these changes of direction have also altered or reinterpreted our society. Life was now seen as something of a game, and every human expression could be viewed as a gamble, offering huge entertainment rewards if done successfully. In quantitative terms, post-1960 America became a world wired and instant with multichanneled 24-hour media connecting individuals to the world in ways previously thought impossible.

Corporate media businesses now created demand for more and more entertainment products and provided more opportunities to explore an everincreasing range of activities. Now, “more” became the major feature that marked our existences. Consumption patterns seemed limitless, as was the allocation of free time.

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