An Attempt To Avoid JOE

To the largest section of Easy Rider’s audience, that film was a declaration of war. While Southern rednecks cheered the film’s ending, and the Berkeley Liberation School published a “Manual of Self-Defense for Easy Riders”, hardhats and Weathermen moved the bike-apocalypse into high gear. And in the cynical minds of America’s predominantly young moviegoers, the film’s moral added up to a simple dictate of prudence (Ah, but Prudence Who?), to wit, if you’re riding through the South on a bike in buckskin,, leather, long hair and American flags, don’t go giving the finger to a Mongoloid cracker pointing a gun at you. Not if you like living.