Hollywood Left and Right: How Movie Stars Shaped American Politics
2012; Oxford University Press; Volume: 99; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1093/jahist/jas194
ISSN1945-2314
Autores Tópico(s)Italian Fascism and Post-war Society
ResumoSteven J. Ross challenges two pieces of conventional wisdom about Hollywood and American politics: that the film industry “has always been a bastion of the political left” and that liberals have had a greater impact on political life than have conservatives (p. 4). Ross maintains that “Hollywood has a longer history of conservatism than liberalism” and that despite liberals' strong support of causes, conservatives have been more successful in capturing power and have “done more to change the American government” (p. 4). Part of the reason for this success is that conservatives have offered a more effective story line. Liberals emphasized “hope of what the United States could be and guilt that we are not doing enough to achieve that vision,” while Hollywood conservatives talked “about a nostalgic Golden Age of America that never was” and appealed to fear and patriotism (p. 412). Ross provides portraits of ten people who reflect a major division in modern American politics. Five—Charlie Chaplin, Edward G. Robinson, Harry Belafonte, Jane Fonda, and Warren Beatty—are liberals who supported the New Deal and/or the Great Society programs. The other five—Louis B. Mayer, George Murphy, Ronald Reagan, Charlton Heston, and Arnold Schwarzenegger—are conservatives who generally opposed or (like Murphy, Reagan, and Schwarzenegger through elected office) worked to roll back many of these programs.
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