Demographic Angst: Cultural Narratives and American Films of the 1950s
Prolific literature, both popular and scholarly, depicts America  in the period of the High Cold War as being obsessed with normality, implicitly figuring the postwar period as a return to the way of life that had been put on hold, first by the Great Depression and then by Pearl Harbor. 

Demographic Angst argues that mandated normativity—as a political agenda and a social ethic—precluded explicit expression of the anxiety produced by America’s radically reconfigured postwar population.  Alan Nadel explores influential non-fiction books, magazine articles, and public documents in conjunction with films such as Singin’ in the Rain, On the Waterfront, Sunset Boulevard, and Sayonara, to examine how these films worked through fresh anxieties that emerged during the 1950s.  
 
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Demographic Angst: Cultural Narratives and American Films of the 1950s
Prolific literature, both popular and scholarly, depicts America  in the period of the High Cold War as being obsessed with normality, implicitly figuring the postwar period as a return to the way of life that had been put on hold, first by the Great Depression and then by Pearl Harbor. 

Demographic Angst argues that mandated normativity—as a political agenda and a social ethic—precluded explicit expression of the anxiety produced by America’s radically reconfigured postwar population.  Alan Nadel explores influential non-fiction books, magazine articles, and public documents in conjunction with films such as Singin’ in the Rain, On the Waterfront, Sunset Boulevard, and Sayonara, to examine how these films worked through fresh anxieties that emerged during the 1950s.  
 
40.95 In Stock
Demographic Angst: Cultural Narratives and American Films of the 1950s

Demographic Angst: Cultural Narratives and American Films of the 1950s

by Alan Nadel
Demographic Angst: Cultural Narratives and American Films of the 1950s

Demographic Angst: Cultural Narratives and American Films of the 1950s

by Alan Nadel

Paperback

$40.95 
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Overview

Prolific literature, both popular and scholarly, depicts America  in the period of the High Cold War as being obsessed with normality, implicitly figuring the postwar period as a return to the way of life that had been put on hold, first by the Great Depression and then by Pearl Harbor. 

Demographic Angst argues that mandated normativity—as a political agenda and a social ethic—precluded explicit expression of the anxiety produced by America’s radically reconfigured postwar population.  Alan Nadel explores influential non-fiction books, magazine articles, and public documents in conjunction with films such as Singin’ in the Rain, On the Waterfront, Sunset Boulevard, and Sayonara, to examine how these films worked through fresh anxieties that emerged during the 1950s.  
 

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780813565491
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Publication date: 12/26/2017
Pages: 268
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

ALAN NADEL is the William T. Bryan Chair of American Literature and Culture at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. He is the author or editor of several books, including Containment Culture: American Narratives, Postmodernism, and the Atomic Age

Table of Contents

Preface
1. The Character of Post-World War II America
2. Singin’ in the (HUAC) Rain: Job Security, Stardom, and the Abjection of Lena Lamont
3. It’s All about Eve
4. “What Starts Like a Scary Tale . . .”: The Right to Work On the Waterfront
5. “Life Could Not Better Be”: Disorganized Labor, the Little Man, and The Court Jester
6. Citizens of the Free World Unite: International Tourism and Postwar Identity in Roman Holiday, The Teahouse of the August Moon, and Sayonara
7. Expedient Exaggeration and the Scale of Cold War Farce in North by Northwest
8. Defiant Desegregation with No (Liberal) Way Out
9. “I Want to Be in America”: Urban Integration, Pan-American Friendship, and West Side Story
Acknowledgments
Filmography
Notes
Works Cited
Index
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