Transcript maltby-9

Ideology
What do we mean by ideology?


It’s a system of ideas, which functions within a given society
to make its institutions, customs, practices, and beliefs
appear “normal” or “natural.”
Because they are constantly reinforced within the society,
members have a great deal of difficulty seeing and analyzing
their own ideologies, much as it must be hard for a fish to
see water.
Ideology
What does ideology have to do with Hollywood movies?


They reinforce the dominant ideology in order to keep the viewer
engaged with the illusion on screen.
In entertaining an audience, the movie may use “the story, the star
or the music” to distract audiences from real social problems.



Sullivan’s Travels
Singin’ in the Rain
Why did Hollywood become so unwilling to take on political
issues?
Ideology


Even “social problem movies,” which often contained a conflict
between the individual and the structures of society, staged
them within “the context of a fundamentally just society which
offered the individual, even under the most extreme
circumstances, the chance to reestablish himself . . . “
Why did Hollywood become so unwilling to take on political
issues?
Why, indeed?

Federal Regulation


Hays Office (MPPDA--1932)


entertainment (a commodity), not speech
“entertainment unadulterated, unsullied by any
infiltration of propaganda”
The Quigley Amendment (1932)

“No motion picture shall be produced which shall
advocate or create sympathy for political theories
alien to, and subversive of American institutions.”
And then there was . . .

The House Committee on Un-American
Activities (HUAC)



Cold War paranoia about Communist messages in
mass entertainment
Congress formed House UnAmerican Activities
Committee (HUAC)
1941 and 1947 HUAC hearings were "witch hunts"
to remove so-called subversives from the industry
(most famously led by Sen. Joseph McCarthy)
Effect of HUAC hearings



The blacklisting of talented members of
the Hollywood community
created a climate of fear and dampened
creativity within the industry, and
the controversies over people’s roles in
the investigation continue even today
(1999 Elia Kazan Oscar controversy)
What got lost in the post-war years?
When you exclude ideological positions as a
source of conflict in movie plots, you reduce
them (as we generally have) to self-interest:
“the bad guys act out of greed or ambition
and the good guys act to stop the bad guys.”
The political/economic system is seen as
essentially good, with an occasional few “bad
apples” whose removal restores the system to
health and smooth operation.
Social Problem Movies


Why are they so hard to get right?
Case Study: Mississippi Burning


“Both by what it includes and by its exclusions,
hesitations and absences, the movie remains
equivocal, not about the rights and wrongs of
racism, so much as about how a movie can make
its discourse about racism entertaining, and what
an entertainment movie can say about racism.”
Case Study: Do the Right Thing