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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social institutions
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The Working Class in American Film - The Creation of Image and Culture by Hollywood in the 1960s and 1970s (Hardcover, New)
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The Working Class in American Film - The Creation of Image and Culture by Hollywood in the 1960s and 1970s (Hardcover, New)
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From the early days of "worker films" that attracted working-class
audiences to tiny, storefront theaters in the first decades of the
twentieth century to the gritty films of social realism that
brought audiences to theaters during the Great Depression and
beyond, Hollywood has played a major role in defining the working
class in America. This power of film to define the working class
was never more apparent than in the Hollywood of the late 1960s and
1970s. Films from that epoch continue to have a profound effect on
America's political and cultural lives decades later. Although the
plight of the working class has been a Hollywood subject for more
than a century, no significant work has explored Hollywood's role
in shaping the modern working class. Most studies of the films of
the late 1960s and 1970s explore the "New Hollywood," or the
"Hollywood Renaissance," a brief period of directorial creativity
in the industry. Some studies analyze the emergence of the
"blockbuster" film and "four-wall" distribution that rejuvenated
Hollywood with films like Jaws and Star Wars, while others examine
the effect of the Vietnam War on the film industry. This study,
however, explains how Hollywood created a false binary of the
counterculture vs. the working class in an effort to appeal to the
largest possible audience and, in doing so, helped to draw the
lines for cultural and political discourse four decades later.
Through narrative repetition, film has the power to create a world
that becomes accepted as "the way things are." This happened in the
mid-1970s when several significant films depicted the white working
class as victim of a system that privileged the broad
"counterculture," creating a world view that still flourishes in
some circles of the white working and middle classes. This study
makes that connection for the reader through close readings of
various films of the era. As the first study to establish a direct
connection between popular films of the 1970s and right-wing
populist movements of today, this book helps to provide context for
the more extreme rhetoric and activities of the Tea Party and other
more fringe groups of the 2010s. By analyzing the depiction of the
working class in films of the late 1960s and 1970s, this study
provides the first look at how films of the era changed how the
working class is viewed by others and by itself. This study also
examines the political climate of the Nixon and Carter eras and
demonstrates how concepts like Richard Nixon's "Silent Majority"
found their way to the big screen and helped to shape the future of
the working class. Finally, this unique study explores how
Hollywood, given a choice of providing an honest rendering of the
era or exploiting its tensions to ensure better box office, made
the latter choice. By breaking down iconic films like Easy Rider,
Dirty Harry, Jaws, and Rocky, character studies like Scarecrow,
Blue Collar, and Hard Times, and cult favorites like Joe, Billy
Jack, and Medium Cool, author Robert A. Marcink provides a
comprehensive look at how Hollywood's choice played a significant
role in shaping the modern working class. By exploring films from
both the Left and the Right, he also demonstrates that in Hollywood
the message rarely strays too far from the ideological center. The
Working Class in American Film is an important volume for all film
collections. It is also an important volume for communications,
sociology, political science, and history collections that explore
the relationship between popular media and the shaping of American
society and political discourse.
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