Easy Rider 40th Anniversary

Peter Fonda, who played Wyatt in the 1969 cult classic, Easy Rider, was in Glendale, CA on Friday to help promote the Blu-Ray release of the film which marks the 40th anniversary.  The movie was scheduled to be shown at the Love Ride event that was canceled this year, instead the film screened at a local Harley-Davidson dealer.

One of the film’s main objective was to expose violence and racism in the U.S. in a negative light but instead it seems that it was taken the wrong way with most, glorifying the lifestyle that was portrayed in the film.

In the end of the film, Wyatt tells his buddy Billy, “We blew it.”, which has been translated many different ways over the years but Fonda, the co-writer and producer of the film, makes it clear in his phone interview with Reuters.

People often ask me, ‘Do I still feel the movie is relevant?’  And my answer to them is, when … I say, ‘We blew it,’ if you look out the window today and you say we haven’t blown it, (then) I don’t want to take whatever drug you’re on,” states Fonda.

Easy Rider was included in the U.S. National Film Registry in 1998, and was ranked at #84 on the greatest movies of all time list by the American Film Institute.

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By Joe Magro