Blue-Collar Hollywood: Liberalism, Democracy, and Working People in American Film / Edition 1 available in Paperback
Blue-Collar Hollywood: Liberalism, Democracy, and Working People in American Film / Edition 1
- ISBN-10:
- 080188537X
- ISBN-13:
- 9780801885372
- Pub. Date:
- 09/26/2006
- Publisher:
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- ISBN-10:
- 080188537X
- ISBN-13:
- 9780801885372
- Pub. Date:
- 09/26/2006
- Publisher:
- Johns Hopkins University Press
Blue-Collar Hollywood: Liberalism, Democracy, and Working People in American Film / Edition 1
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Overview
From Tom Joad to Norma Rae to Spike Lee's Mookie in Do the Right Thing, Hollywood has regularly dramatized the lives and struggles of working people in America. Ranging from idealistic to hopeless, from sympathetic to condescending, these portrayals confronted audiences with the vital economic, social, and political issues of their times while providing a diversion—sometimes entertaining, sometimes provocative—from the realities of their own lives.
In Blue-Collar Hollywood, John Bodnar examines the ways in which popular American films made between the 1930s and the 1980s depicted working-class characters, comparing these cinematic representations with the aspirations of ordinary Americans and the promises made to them by the country's political elites. Based on close and imaginative viewings of dozens of films from every genre—among them Public Enemy, Black Fury, Baby Face, The Grapes of Wrath, It's a Wonderful Life, I Married a Communist, A Streetcar Named Desire, Peyton Place, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Coal Miner's Daughter, and Boyz N the Hood—this book explores such topics as the role of censorship, attitudes toward labor unions and worker militancy, racism, the place of women in the workforce and society, communism and the Hollywood blacklist, and faith in liberal democracy.
Whether made during the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, or the Vietnam era, the majority of films about ordinary working Americans, Bodnar finds, avoided endorsing specific political programs, radical economic reform, or overtly reactionary positions. Instead, these movies were infused with the same current of liberalism and popular notion of democracy that flow through the American imagination.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780801885372 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Johns Hopkins University Press |
| Publication date: | 09/26/2006 |
| Edition description: | New Edition |
| Pages: | 328 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.85(d) |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Table of Contents
List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction. Mass Culture and American Political TraditionsChapter 1. Political Cross-dressing in the ThirtiesChapter 2. The People's WarChapter 3. War and Peace at HomeFOUR: Beyond Containment in the FiftiesChapter 4. The People in TurmoilLiberalism at the Movies: A ConclusionNotesSourcesIndexFilms Mentioned in Blue-Collar Hollywood Adventure (1945)Air Force (1943)Alamo Bay (1985)Alice Adams (1935)Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1975)All My Sons (1948)All the Right Moves (1983)America, America (1963)American Madness (1932)An American Romance (1944)Angels With Dirty Faces (1938)Anna Lucasta (1949)Baby Face (1933)Bataan (1943)Battle Cry (1955)The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)Black Fury (1935)Black Legion (1937)The Blackboard Jungle (1955)Blue Collar (1978)The Blue Dahlia (1946)Body and Soul (1947)Bonnie and Clyde (1967)Born on the Fourth of July (1989)The Boston Strangler (1968)Boyz N the Hood (1991)Breaking Away (1997)Cabin in the Cotton (1932)Casablanca (1942)The Catered Affair (1956)The Champ (1931)Champion (1949)City Across the River (1949)City for Conquest (1940)Clash By Night (1952)Coal Miner's Daughter (1980)Coming Home (1987)Cool Hand Luke (1967)Crooklyn (1994)Crossfire (1947)Cry of the City (1948)Dead End (1937)Dead Reckoning (1947)Death of a Salesman (1951)Death Wish (1974)The Deer Hunter (1978)Desperate (1947)Dirty Harry (1971)Do the Right Thing (1988)Double Indemnity (1944)Dr. Strangelove (1963)Duck Soup (1933)Duffy's Tavern (1954)Edge of the City (1957)F.I.S.T. (1978)A Face in the Crowd (1957)Fallen Angel (1945)Falling Down (1993)The Farmer's Daughter (1947)The Fighting Sullivans (1944)Five Easy Pieces (1970)Force of Evil (1948)From Here to Eternity (1953)From This Day Forward (1946)Fury (1936)Gabriel Over the White House (1933)The Garment Jungle (1957)Gentlemen's Agreement (1947)The Godfather (1972)The Godfather Part II (1974)Going My Way (1944)Gold Diggers (1933)Golden Boy (1993)The Grapes of Wrath (1940)Guadalcanal Diary (1943)Hail the Conquering Hero (1944)Hangin' with the Homeboys (1991)Happy Land (1943)The Harder They Fall (1965)Heroes for Sale (1933)Home of the Brave (1949)Hoosier Schoolboy (1937)How Green Was My Valley (1941)Human Desire (1954)I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)I Married a Communist (1950)I Remember Mama (1948)I'm No Angel (1938)In the Heat of the Night (1967)Inside Detroit (1955)It Happened One Night (1934)It's a Wonderful Life (1946)Jailhouse Rock (1957)The Jazz Singer (1927)Joe (1970)Joe Smith, American (1942)Johnny Dark (1954)The Jolson Story (1946)Judge Priest (1934)Juke Girl (1942)Jungle Fever (1991)Kid Galahad (1937)The Killers (1946)King's Row (1942)Knock on Any Door (1949)Knute Rockne, All American (1940)The Last American Hero (1973)The Last Exit to Brooklyn (1990)The Last Picture Show (1971)Lifeboat (1944)Little Caesar (1931)Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977)M*A*S*H (1970)Mannequin (1937)Marked Woman (1937)Marty (1955)Matewan (1987)Mean Streets (1973)Meet John Doe (1941)The Men (1950)Metropolis (1926)Midnight Cowboy (1969)Mildred Pierce (1945)Modern Times (1936)The Molly Maguires (1970)Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)The Naked City (1948)Nashville (1975)Native Land (1942)The Negro Soldier (1944)No Down Payment (1957)No Way Out (1950)Norma Rae (1979)On the Waterfront (1954)Our Daily Bread (1934)Our Town (1940)Our Vines Have Tender Grapes (1945)Paris Blues (1961)The Pawnbroker (1965)Peyton Place (1957)Pin Up Girl (1944)Pinky (1949)Pittsburgh (1942)A Place in the Sun (1951)Places in the Heart (1984)Platoon (1986)The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)The Power and the Glory (1933)Pride of the Marines (1945)The Prowler (1951)The Public Enemy (1931)Raging Bull (1980)A Raisin in the Sun (1961)Rambo: First Blood Part Two (1985)Rebel Without a Cause (1955)Riff Raff (1963)The River (1984)Rocky (1976)The Rose Tattoo (1955)Rosie the Riveter (1944)Ruggles of Red Gap (1935)Saboteur (1942)Salt of the Earth (1954)The Sands of Iwo Jima (1949)Saturday Night Fever (1977)Saturday's Hero (1951)Scarface (1932)Sergeant York (1941)Shaft (1971)Silkwood (1983)Since You Went Away (1944)So Proudly We Hail (1943)Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956)Sounder (1972)The Southerner (1945)Stagecoach (1939)Stanley and Iris (1989)The State of the Union (1948)Steel Against the Sky (1941)Stella Dallas (1937)Street Scene (1931)A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)Sullivan's Travels (1941)Sunset Boulevard (1950)Superfly (1972)Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971)Talk of the Town (1942)Taxi Driver (1976)Tender Comrade (1943)Tender Mercies (1982)They Drive by Night (1940)They Were Expendable (1945)Three on a Match (1932)Thunder Road (1958)Till the End of Time (1946)The Time of Your Life (1948)To Hell and Back (1958)To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)Tobacco Road (1941)Tortilla Flat (1942)A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945)Two Seconds (1932)Valley of Decision (1945)A View from the Bridge (1961)Wake Island (1942)West Side Story (1961)The Whistle at Eaton Falls (1951)White Heat (1949)Who's That Knocking at My Door (1968)Wild Boy's on the Road (1933)Wings of the Eagle (1942)A Woman Under the Influence (1974)You Can't Take It With You (1938)Young Mr. Lincoln (1939)What People are Saying About This
John Bodnar's Blue Collar Hollywood makes a vital contribution to our understanding of the interaction of film, politics, and American society from the 1930s through the 1950s. Bodnar shows how working people—the numerical heart of the nation's population—were increasingly portrayed as troubled individuals with emotional problems, antisocial tendencies, and an inability to contribute to the collective political good. He argues that Hollywood films undermined ideas about democracy by advancing a dominant vision of working people as folk who do not participate in any meaningful way in American institutional and political life. Blue Collar Hollywood is a perceptive and important study of the impact of film on the evolving—or more appropriately, devolving—nature of American democracy.
— Steven J. Ross, author of Working-Class Hollywood: Silent Film and the Shaping of Class in America
By examining how movies handled the tension between the two ideals of individualism and democracy from the Depression era to the present, John Bodnar provides us with a refreshing antidote to the general tendency of film and cultural historians to only look at one era or decade. Bodnar gives us a new twist on the old theme of mass culture as a locale that promotes individual freedom and expression and erodes ideas of collectivity by arguing the experience of mass art has an inherent, stable essence that promotes liberalism over community, providing an alternative perspective on the conservative paradigm that has dominated previous scholarship on the subject.
— Lary May, author of The Big Tomorrow: Hollywood and the American Way
By examining how movies handled the tension between the two ideals of individualism and democracy from the Depression era to the present, John Bodnar provides us with a refreshing antidote to the general tendency of film and cultural historians to only look at one era or decade. Bodnar gives us a new twist on the old theme of mass culture as a locale that promotes individual freedom and expression and erodes ideas of collectivity by arguing the experience of mass art has an inherent, stable essence that promotes liberalism over community, providing an alternative perspective on the conservative paradigm that has dominated previous scholarship on the subject.—Lary May, author of The Big Tomorrow: Hollywood and the American Way
John Bodnar's Blue Collar Hollywood makes a vital contribution to our understanding of the interaction of film, politics, and American society from the 1930s through the 1950s. Bodnar shows how working people—the numerical heart of the nation's population—were increasingly portrayed as troubled individuals with emotional problems, antisocial tendencies, and an inability to contribute to the collective political good. He argues that Hollywood films undermined ideas about democracy by advancing a dominant vision of working people as folk who do not participate in any meaningful way in American institutional and political life. Blue Collar Hollywood is a perceptive and important study of the impact of film on the evolving—or more appropriately, devolving—nature of American democracy.—Steven J. Ross, author of Working-Class Hollywood: Silent Film and the Shaping of Class in America
Reading Group Guide
John Bodnar's Blue Collar Hollywood makes a vital contribution to our understanding of the interaction of film, politics, and American society from the 1930s through the 1950s. Bodnar shows how working people the numerical heart of the nation's population were increasingly portrayed as troubled individuals with emotional problems, antisocial tendencies, and an inability to contribute to the collective political good. He argues that Hollywood films undermined ideas about democracy by advancing a dominant vision of working people as folk who do not participate in any meaningful way in American institutional and political life. Blue Collar Hollywood is a perceptive and important study of the impact of film on the evolving or more appropriately, devolving nature of American democracy.