Blue-Collar Hollywood: Liberalism, Democracy, and Working People in American Film

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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 ...
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Blue-Collar Hollywood: Liberalism, Democracy, and Working People in American Film

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Overview

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.
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Editorial Reviews

Library Journal
Bodnar (history, Indiana Univ., Bloomington; Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration, and Patriotism) here describes and analyzes cinematic renderings of individualism, capitalism, and leadership-including women, unions, and minorities-among the working class from the 1930s to the 1990s. Basing his conclusions on viewings of many films (some famous, others hardly remembered or seriously critiqued) and drawing on a wealth of film and culture literature, Bodnar seems to posit that human nature is so unique that the common person's desires cannot be completely controlled, labeled, branded, or pigeonholed-as movie characters have so often demonstrated. "In a political world dominated as much by mass culture as by political parties themselves," he writes, "the biting commentary of the Sixties was sustained, but in a way that served neither the left nor the right. Yet what else could one expect from a liberal discourse preoccupied with surveying the landscape of the human spirit?" Given its scholarly nature, this work is most suitable for strong film collections and academic libraries.-Kim Holston, American Inst. for Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters, Malvern, PA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780801871498
  • Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
  • Publication date: 4/15/2003
  • Edition description: New Edition
  • Pages: 328

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Mass Culture and American Political Traditions
1 Political Cross-dressing in the Thirties 1
2 The People's War 55
3 War and Peace at Home 87
4 Beyond Containment in the Fifties 133
5 The People in Turmoil 177
Liberalism at the Movies: A Conclusion 219
Notes 229
Sources 257
Index 277
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Reading Group Guide

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.
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