expand a little on what you mean by "oppositional" please?

I assume by "oppositional" you mean things that 'stick it to the man'? In this case Rage Against the Machine would be a good example from the world of music.

but if I read your intention correctly I would suggest...

Music

Jimi Hendrix - The Star Spangled Banner (Woodstock)

James Brown - Say It Loud - I'm Black and I'm Proud

Curtis Mayfield - Curtis, There's No Place Like America Today

Gill Scott Heron - Pieces Of A Man, Winter In America

Public Enemy - It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back, Fear Of A Black Planet

Neil Young - On The Beach

Film

All The President's Men, Taxi Driver, Richard Pryor Live and Smokin', Easy Rider

Some recent fims that deal with that time period (roughly) The War On Democracy (John Pilger), The Fog Of War (Errol Morris), Why We Fight (Eugene Jarecki)

More as I think of them...

of not knowing exactly what you mean by oppositional:

Zabriskie Point - the Antonioni film. Counts as American I think. Very much about dropping out of the mainstream and into the counter-culture.

Apocaplypse Now? Fight Club? Or how about the many dystopian SF films of the 60s/70s - Logan's Run, Soylent Green?

A lot of rap must qualify but NWA's Straight Outa Compton album (including Fuck the Police) springs to mind.

Books at all? Dice Man?

Can't think of much in the way of TV. I think US TV stations are so dependent on advertisers they can't be too outspoken. Lou Grant was quietly oppositional IMO and look what happened to that.

The Dead Kennedys and Jello Biafra. However you define oppositional California Uber Alles qualifies.

Oppositional could be seen in two separate but linked ways

1. In the overt 'stick it to the man' sense (thanks stardust2!)

2. Perhaps more subtly, things which appear conservative but have a liberalism at their heart. I might cite 'Born in the USA' here.

All the consciousness soul, as documented in the excellent book "A Change Is Gonna Come" by Craig Werner

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Change-Gonna-Craig-Hansen-Werner/dp/1841952966/r...

Curtis Mayfield - There's no place like America today.

James Brown - Say it loud I'm Black & I'm Proud

Fred Wesley & The JBs - "You can have Watergate, just gimme some bucks and I'll be straight"

Muhammad Ali - just by changing his name he crossed over, and he stood in proud opposition to much of America throughout.

Freda Payne - Bring The Boys Home

more later

A recent discovery for me - but the work of this singer-songwriter from the early 70s is subversion itself.

Both American Gothic and Subway to the Country are full of dark masterpieces. None more so than "Candy Man" - the tale of a Vietnam Vet who takes revenge on the society that sent him to war by putting pornography in the bags of sweets he sells to children.

http://open.spotify.com/track/1Ec0SACF4E0NTdSDBbBlAw

" Do the Right Thing "and "Malcolm X" are two fairly good examples at the whole race issue, maybe a little mainstream but valid, nonetheless

I started thinking about The Velvet Underground and whether they might fit your criteria which led me on to the whole Warhol Factory and his art films pushing (sexual) boundaries, ending up with the Disco scene. So in terms of opposing the traditional values of 50's America, how about:

YMCA - the fight for acceptance of GLBT may not start here, but makes a big step forward

I will Survive - and 'Sisters are doing it for themselves'

The fact that the 'Rock' establishment were burning and smashing Disco records shows how subversive it might have been. I think it might make your students think about how to be mainstream and subversive at the same time.

Particularly Cutter and Bone and To Die in California - read like a threnody for the death of the American dream and a symphony to the misfits, outcasts and rebels who find no way of living it. The former was made into a fine film too Cutter's Way.

James Ellroy's American Tabloid leaves the vision of Kennedy's Camelot irredeemeably compromised,fatally wounded.

In film, Taxi Driver brilliantly subverts the notion of heroism and in Travis Bickle creates an indelibly realised anti-hero.

And all the films of Billy Wilder elegantly and wryly dissect the American pursuit of happiness.

Everything that Hunter Thompson wrote until the late 1980s is worth investigating especially when considered as historiography.
His obit of Nixon is superb and a great summation of a decade's politics.
http://www.counterpunch.org/thompson02212005.html
Does rather become self referencing and regarding nonsense.

and it's central premise is the acute sense of paranoia that pervaded political life in the 1970s. His analysis of the Nixon administration's failings (my word) is excellent in my opinion. I know you didn't ask about books, but perhaps it could be of use.

This Is My Country by The Impressions. The greatest protest pop song ever. Not least because it’s not aggressive or snotty. Just logical, progressive, simple, direct, proud, inarguably right and beautiful.

http://open.spotify.com/track/0jQ6JOVJqRb70yo1DFjeUC

The black glove protest on the medal podium by 2 US athletes -- Tommy Smith and John Carlos.

Nashville

In 1975, a team (including David Aaronovitch - thanks Wikipedia) answered all of their questions with the words 'Che Guevara', 'Marx, 'Trotsky' or 'Lenin' (though this could be construed as just being oppositional to the concept of 'not being a dick').

The Graduate
Midnight Cowboy
Little Big Man
Soldier Blue
Five Easy Pieces
Easy Rider
Between the Lines
Electra Glide In Blue
Dog Day Afternoon
All the President's Men

Platoon
Born on The Fourth of July
Heaven and Earth
JFK
Nixon
Wall Street
Natural Born Killers

Had interesting things to say about contemporary issues and institutions in America

- One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

This is fabulous stuff.

Lots of Vietnam stuff and the back end of the civil rights movement in the early part. (Ohio by Neil Young - Fortunate Son by CCR - Volunteers by Jefferson Airplane - War by Edwin Starr)

Watergate - All the Presidents Men - great film that had a massive impact. The first time a President was brought down and the first time the American people as a majority viewed their President as a corrupt figure (Manic Street Preachers song "The Love of Richard Nixon" paints an opposite "what if" version of Nixon's tenure - excellent discussion piece for exploration and idea).

The whole hip hop/rap scene as others have mentioned. The early movement (Afrika Bambaataa/Grandmaster Flash through to polemics of Public Enemy and NWA) and how it completely changed youth culture from top to bottom - from the radical preaching espoused by Malcolm X driven into Spike Lee films to the clothing, jewellery and attitude as brilliantly covered by the Corner boys in 'The Wire'.

Forrest Gump - away from the saccharine side of the movie - the "Jenny" character is an excellent study of how Americans perceived oppositional culture right through the period you're covering.....

As I say - what a fantastic topic to study. I didn't get this when doing my Politics degree (though can bore a room rigid with the inception of the Labour movement 1899 - 1922).

BOOKS

"Soul On Ice" by Eldridge Cleaver
"The Autobiography of Malcolm X" by Malcolm X / Alex Haley.
"Steal This Book" by Abbie Hoffman.
"A Boys Own Story" by Edmund White.
"The Front Runner" by Patricia Nell Warren.
"Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee" by Dee Brown.
"American Psycho" by Bret Easton Ellis

and even:

"The Turner Diaries" by William Luther Pierce.

FILMS

schlock films such as "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", "Dawn Of The Dead", "Driller Killer" or anything by John Waters are as "oppositional" in their own way as the work of any respected auteur.

The film helped shape the public perception of nuclear energy in the United States after the serious accident at Three Mile Island. It would link the discussion to a topic that is very relevant in the United States today -- the role of nuclear reactors in producing electricity.

Book:
"Slaughterhouse-Five" by Kurt Vonnegut

Film:
"The Thin Blue Line" by Errol Morris

Miles Davis - A Tribute to Jack Johnson

Epic inventive jazz about a largely forgotten world champion boxer - ignored by his own country, simply because of his colour.

And anything you can find about the 1968 Olympics, when two black athletes did the black power salute (there was a documentary on BBC4 a while back if you can find someone who has a copy - I have one somewhere, but it may take a while to find amongst my stuff at my mother's house).

Scott Walker - Tilt

Shows how musically progressive people can be. A true American maverick. Plus it'll be hilarious to see what the children think of it.

You could also look at the rise of satirical cartoons in the 90s (South Park, King of the Hill, Beavis and Butthead and the Simpsons, for example). The growth of MTV. The split of urban music towards mainstreaming "gangsta" rap, opposed to the more "socially conscious" musically experimental rappers. The growth and death of mainstream box-office viewing. Napster in its early version - and the impact its had. Much to look into.

continuing on the jazz theme...

Charles Mingus: "Fables of Faubius"
Max Roach: "Freedom Now"
John Carter: Roots and Folklore: "Episodes in the Development of American Folk Music" (five-album suite)

... and almost anything by the Chicago-based AACM (Association of the Advancement of Creative Musicians) collective, i.e. people like Muhal Richard Abrams, Wadada Leo smith, Henry Threadgill and Phil Cohran

Farm Aid - if you can get footage. Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan rail against the withdrawal of farm subsidies by the Reagan administration.

Not strictly US but impacted upon US policies - Artists Against Aparthied (Steve van Zandt and friends) and from the good old UK - Red Wedge. Those two showing a general shift in focus and the ability of "pop stars" to politically engage with mass audiences in opposition to prevailing government and media policies.

by the late John Kennedy Toole. One of the funniest books I've read - He could not get it published in his lifetime. He became disillusioned and committed suicide. His mother worked to get the manuscript accepted by a publisher and succeeded. It won a Pulitzer prize.

The other book I might mention is Jerzy Kosinski's 'Being There'. An interesting take on an innocent abroad (a gardener who has spent nearly all his life working in the garden of a large house, his only other pleasure being watching television). His simple take on life is regarded by American society as canny genius.

seems to catch the cynical tone of the decade (certainly from Watergate onwards) as well as any popular medium. Apart from Alan J Pakula's paranoid triology (all mentioned above) the supreme examples for me of this distrust of authority are:

Night Moves - not political but Gene Hackman is amazing and nearly everyone in the film doublecrosses him
Three Days of the Condor - great glossy spy thriller with Robert Redford and the always brilliant Max von Sydow
Chinatown - reflected the pessimistic view of the times through the prism of the 1930 growth of LA
Executive Action - difficult to find but a very interesting Burt Lancaster film with a theory about who killed JFK

Anyone got any thoughts on TV programmes? Must TV be essentially conservative because of the way that it's funded? Is the Cosby Show essentially conservative - Doctor, Lawyer and several hard working children - or is it radical because that family were Black?

Your thoughts...

presented an anti-establishment/satirical take on American cultural mores.

TV - The X-Files? Introduced a frisson of paranoia around State secrecy, and showed that it may be legitimate to question authority and what we think we know.

both heavily featuring David Cross.

Mr. Show mocked rightwing and leftwing views on issues and satirzed the growing political correctness mindset in the form of a sketch show.

Wondershowzen did the same in the form of a parody of children's programming, especially Sesame Street. Occasionally Wondershowzen pushed an athiest agenda.

... if this has came up.

But The Simpsons?

Broadcasts on the Fox network, not generally noted for its liberal sympathies, and seems to subvert everything? The clips below are prime examples of what I'm on about...

Everything you want to know about the dark heart of America is there.

Corruption, moral decay and pitiless violence behind the suburban sheen

Marvin Gaye - What's Going On. Motown takes a stand

Still I Rise by Maya Angelou for starters:

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.