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Beverly Seckinger has received a grant from the Arizona State Commission on the Arts for her documentary exploring the historical and contemporary lives of hippies, and their family values.

By La Monica Everett-Haynes, University Communications
March 19, 2008

When thousands of people migrated to San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, bringing the hippie counterculture into the mainstream during the Summer of Love in 1967, Beverly Seckinger was in elementary school.

With the subculture launched into the public spotlight, the ensuing negative media coverage led to images of hippies as dirty, lazy, drug-infested, morally perverse and devoid of values, she said.

Seckinger, associate professor who is interim director of The University of Arizona School of Media Arts, as well as independent film producer, is trying to lay those stereotypes to rest with a documentary film titled “Hippie Family Values,” which answers the question: “Where have all the hippies gone?”

A work in progress, her project has just received funding from the Arizona State Commission on the Arts and is expected to culminate with a 30-minute film that may be expanded into a feature-length documentary. The Jack and Vivian Hanson Arizona Film Institute at the UA also provided funds for the project.

Seckinger, one of only four Tucsonans to receive one of the commission’s Artist Projects grants, is exploring the history and contemporary lives of a culture that questioned the United States’ military and cultural superiority and promoted a more egalitarian way of living.

Focusing on a community of self-identified and self-styled hippies in New Mexico, Seckinger’s film shows how multiple generations of hippies have created their own enclaves, often centered around sustainable living, respect for others, social justice, living off the land, developing creativity from within and avoiding external and socially defined measures of success.

“I’ve always looked up to that generation and always wished I was older so I could be part of that scene,” said Seckinger, who recalled a photo captured of her 8-year-old self waving the peace sign.

“They were the complete contrast to the buttoned-up, '50s-era, Donna Reed scene,” said Seckinger, who is collaborating on the project with New Mexico artist and animator Kate Brown.

“This is the first generation that grew up in the shadow of the bomb,” she said, adding that the civil rights movement also influenced their thinking. “They questioned what that meant. Their argument was that you cannot change the world without changing yourself first.”

For 10 years, Seckinger has been playing bass with The Wayback Machine, a Tucson-based group that plays blues, reggae, New Orleans-style funk, zydeco and hippie rock.
Most recently, she has used the band’s gigs and tour routes as a way to connect with and interview hippies living in California, New Mexico and throughout southern Arizona.

“There has been a total synergy between my music, life and research for this film," she said.

And despite the negative image that became associated with hippies, Seckinger said her film will stand as evidence that the true hippies are rooted in the very values their critics said they lacked.

"The environmental movement, and especially the notion of sustainability, was fueled by the hippie movement," Seckinger said, adding that hippies have been the source or contributed to a number of now popular and sometimes trendy lifestyle choices. They include eating organic food, shopping at food co-op markets, relying on renewable energy and turning to massage therapy, yoga and alternative medicine.

"Hippie culture values the ecstatic and the transcendent – feeling the energy of life and connecting with the trees, the animals, the stars," she said. "Success is not measured by external validation or the acquisition of material things, but about working toward a peaceful and a sustainable existence for the whole human family.