In 1941, media mogul Henry R. Luce exulted, "American jazz, Hollywood movies, American slang, American machines and patented products are in fact the only things that every community in the world, from Zanzibar to Hamburg, recognizes in common." It is as true today as it was then. From the early days of Hollywood, an insatiable demand for U.S. cultural products—in advertising, fashion, film, popular music, television, and much else—has had a profound and continuing impact across the globe. Media, Popular Culture, and the American Century explores a diverse range of Americana, where the borders between the real and the imaginary, dream and dystopia, America and the world, blur and disappear. Essays move from configurations of U.S. culture in the early 1900s to the age of Google and digital music.
Introduction: Mediated America: Americana As Hollywoodiana Jan Olsson Kingsley Bolton (EDS.) 7
Part 1 Cinema and Americanization
Italian Marionettes Meet Cinematic Modernity Jan Olsson 35
"A Red-Blooded Romance"; Or, Americanizing Early Multi-Reel Feature Cinema: The Case Of The Spoilers Joel Frykholm 62
Song Of The Sonic Body: Noise, The Audience, And Early American Moving Picture Culture Meredith C. Ward 101
Constructing The Global Vernacular: American English And The Media Kingsley Bolton 125
Part 2 Americans At The Margins
You Only Live Once: Repetitions Of Crime As Desire In The Films of Sylvia Sidney, 1930-1937 Esther Sonnet 155
Punks! Topicality And The 1950s Gangster Bio-Pic Cycle Peter Stanfield 185
Importing Evil: The American Gangster, Swedish Cinema, And Anti-American Propaganda Ann-Kristin Wallengren 216
Part 3 American Dreams/American Nightmares
Sun Yu And The Early Americanization Of Chinese Cinema Corrado Neri 227
If America Were Really China Or How Christopher Columbus Discovered Asia Gregory Lee 249
Civil Rights On The Screen Michael Renov 270
Part 4 America Goes Digital
Goodbye Rabbit Ears: Visualizing and Mapping The U.S. Digital TV Transition Lisa Parks 285
Archival Transitions: Some Digital Propositions Pelle Snickars 301
Are Americans Human? Evelyn Ch'ien 330
Afterword: Rethinking The American Century William Uricchio 363
Contributors 376
Bibliography 378
Name And Title Index 405
Overview
In 1941, media mogul Henry R. Luce exulted, "American jazz, Hollywood movies, American slang, American machines and patented products are in fact the only things that every community in the world, from Zanzibar to Hamburg, recognizes in common." It is as true today as it was then. From the early days of Hollywood, an insatiable demand for U.S. cultural products—in advertising, fashion, film, popular music, television, and much else—has had a profound and continuing impact across the globe. Media, Popular Culture,...