The Social Seminar: Tom

Year Published: 1972

Creator: Extension Media Center

Complete Record: "The Social Seminar is a series of educational films for adults produced by the Extension Media Center of the University of California at Los Angeles in the early 1970s. The series was executive produced by Gary Schlosser, an Oscar-nominated producer of short-subject documentaries. The series was produced for the National Institute of Mental Health as a "multi-media training series". Five episodes of The Social Seminar are known to have been produced: "Buddy," "Guy," "Teddy," "Tom," and "Changing." Each depicted, in a cinema-verite style without voiceover or introduction, aspects of the lives of a selected person or family as they dealt with personal, interpersonal and societal change." Tom, 26, grew up in a conservative Catholic household and was introduced to marijuana. Upon the death of his son, an event which he doesn’t mention afterwards, he is given LSD theraputically (which was a common psychiatric practice at the time). He has “dropped out” and taken psychedelic trips dozens of times, yet is trying to drop back into society. His methods for doing this may not be orthodox or well-guided (selling pottery; working somewhere until leaving because they still sell DDT), but he is legitimately trying to adjust to adulthood. That said, he allows the cameras to witness exactly what he goes through during a trip. Tom may be far from a model citizen, but he is miles away from the stereotypical acid junkie, such as the “Blue Boy” from Dragnet 1967.