The 1990s and Anything Goes America

Abstract:During the 1990s the nation witnessed the rise of a culture that this essay labels Anything Goes America. The seeds of this era had been planted in the 1970s with the development and expansion of women's, gay, and sexual liberation movements. Over the next generation those seeds slowly germinated until the 1990s when they bloomed with TV sitcoms, reality television, and shock jock radio that presented a barrage of obscenity, sex, and for the first time even the F-word. Added to this mix was the rise of the World Wide Web, internet, dot.com revolution, new networks, rap music, even the pharmaceutical development of Viagra. Anything Goes America was boosted primetime by two events that contributed to the rise of Infotainment--the "Trial of the Century" of football star O.J. Simpson and the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.