Social Problem Film Research Articles

금융자본주의 사회의 자본, 프레카리아트의 영화적 재현 연구

Film reflects society and society reflects film. Over the course of 130 years of film history, we have witnessed the evolution of media culture from film to digital to OTT platforms, which have generated extensive discourse in film theory. Despite these significant changes, the essence of film remains unchanged: it is closely intertwined with society, serving as an art form readily accessible to the public. Film actively examines and meticulously represents society on screen, possessing a unique ability to embody imaginary and virtual worlds, while also striving to represent our real world and explore its hidden facets. Recently, there has been a surge in films exploring the economy. However, academic research on these films has been somewhat limited due to the inherent complexity of the subject matter. This paper aims to analyze “Helpless” and “Sorry, we Missed You” with grave concern. These films tackle the issue of ‘financial capitalism and the precariat’, exerting a significant influence on the structure and phenomena of contemporary society. This research delved into the lives of the precariat suffering from debt and rhetorics, which are cunning devices created by financial capitalism. Lastly, this paper proposes that these films can be categorized as “social problem films” that raise awareness about societal issues and spark changes in society. Through this study, this paper aims to demonstrate the profound connection between film(as a cultural medium) and society, thereby affirming the impact of film on society.

Filmmaking as a Medium of Public Communication in Addressing Social Problems

Purpose: This paper is focused on the role of motion pictures as a medium of public communication directed at addressing social problems and evoking a change in behaviour of the masses. From the moment the art of cinema was born in the late 19th century, films have served as an instrument of shifting public consciousness, i.e., inspiring social change, disseminating ideas and values, raising awareness of the acute social, cultural, and political issues etc. The purpose of this research is to consider, study, and analyse film production as: a) a form of reflecting significant socio-political processes and cultural innovations, as well as representing ideologies; and b) a mechanism that creates, forms, and shapes a new social reality. Materials and Methods: The methodology of this research is based on content analysis and focused on the dynamics of cinematic response to the acute global issues, as well as development of social problem films as an instrument of public communication aimed at raising awareness and inspiring a change within society. The theory to be proved through this paper is that motion pictures have a major influencing power over human brain and social consciousness, and that this power can and has been applied to evoke large-scaled shifts in society. Findings: To summarize the key findings, the content analysis of notable social problem film productions, their impact on the dynamics in public attitudes, and consequent changes in behaviour of the masses demonstrate the pattern of filmmakers’ exponential progress in communicating social message to the target audience and, to a greater or lesser extent, managing to affect, shift, or even transform social reality. Implications to Theory, Practice and Policy: In order to support the proposed theory and expand the knowledge on “the formula” of success in influencing public mind through filmmaking, further research is required.

Old imaginaries in a new frame: the politics of Bollywood’s ‘social problem films’ on Kashmir

ABSTRACT Newly emerging ‘social problem films’ on Kashmir appear as a shift from the conventional construction of Kashmir and Kashmiris in Bollywood. This study, through critical narrative analysis (CNA), examines the politics behind the representation of the ‘social problems’ of Kashmir in recent Hindi films. As the narratives of these films are marked by selectivity and arrangement of historical events, this study demonstrates that Orientalist tropes continue to figure in the films in new forms. It is demonstrated that the films, whose narratives are fully dedicated to the ‘inside’ of Kashmir, inflict layered violence against the actual political and historical realities of the region. While engaging with the colonial and post-colonial binary trope of people-versus-land, the films not only obfuscate the historical context, they vindicate an outside intervention by presenting an axiomatic image of the events, cut off from their socio-political and historical roots. The two films under scrutiny in this study are Haider (2014) and Laila Majnu (2018). The subject matter of both is Kashmiri youth, and far from unveiling the ‘youth problems’ of Kashmir, they end up constructing a fresh imagery in which the ‘psychotic’ behaviour and trauma of Kashmir’s ‘misguided’ youth is socially located and explained.

Actorhood in Institutional Dynamics: Directors, Social Problem Film Genre, the Korean Film industry

This study examines the social dynamics underlying the institutionalization of a particular movie genre, that is, social problem films (SPFs) in a particular setting, that is, the Korean film industry. We focus on the role of movie directors as social critics who have strategic intentions in institutional dynamics and answer the questions of which directors are more likely to choose SPF genre for their films and how and when they do so. Based on recent developments in institutional theories, such as actorhood, institutional work, and strategic action field, we empirically analyzed the micro-level factors related to movie directors and their actions that may have affected the institutionalization of SPF at the field level in the Korean film industry. The findings of this paper in the Korean film industry between 1994 to 2017 suggest that the irreversible status of directors, such as their educational degrees, the reversible status, such as their achievements in the field, and their experiences in SPF positively affect the odds of choosing SPF genre. In addition, the effect of reversible status reduced as the institutionalization of SPFs had been more fully established, while the effects of the other two were not affected by the different levels of the SPF institutionalization.

Inverting Hollywood from the outside in: the films within Cheryl Dunye’s The Watermelon Woman

A recent essay by Racquel Gates on Melvin Van Peebles’s Watermelon Man (1976) offers a number of lessons to scholars and filmmakers alike on how a studio-produced film, in the right hands, can work against the racial exclusion that continues to be one of Hollywood’s defining characteristics. Among these lessons is the assertion that Van Peebles’s aesthetic choices put his film ‘in conversation with the history of black images on television, a reminder that African-American filmmakers have typically engaged in a wide variety of media production of all types, out of both creative desire and necessity’.1 Most of the subversion with which Gates credits Van Peebles arises from that combination of ‘creative desire and necessity’ to connect his film to an array of media and genres. From the multiple traditions that Van Peebles evokes – the then nascent genre of Blaxploitation and the established one of the social problem film, the avant-garde nouvelle vague and the popular US sitcom – the resulting collision of styles constitutes much of what is radical about Watermelon Man. This collision can simultaneously celebrate and critique a particular convention. The camera movement of the closing shot, for instance – a dramatic zoom-in and subsequent freeze-frame on the protagonist’s face as he trains with a militia group (one reminiscent of the Black Panthers for Self Defense) – recalls the famous conclusion of François Truffaut’s Les quatre cents coups/400 Blows (1959). The allusion seems at once to tally with the outsider perspective espoused by Truffaut and to expose the pattern of disregard for nonwhite perspectives by the nouvelle vague.2

Sociological Film, Reform Publicity, and the Secular Spectator

This essay analyzes how “sociological films,” an early iteration of social problem films during the 1910s, participated in a wider historical formation of social reform, one that was heavily influenced by women. It investigates the category of sociological film as it was discussed in Moving Picture World; the connection between practical Progressive Era reform initiatives and the emerging field of sociology, especially through the figure of Jane Addams and the social settlement movement; and reform publicity methods, which included sociological moving pictures along with photographs, living displays, and interactive exhibits on child labor and civic welfare. Reform exhibits were frequently organized through women's volunteer organizations and relied on women's voluntary labor. Female participant observer sociologists talked about the importance of social imagination. Addams's sympathetic understanding was implicated in a gendered construction of knowledge of the social. The essay develops the notion of a “secular spectator” as a way of characterizing an address in sociological films both to a social subject who was part of a social formation of reform, and to a civic subject who was enjoined to do something about social problems based on knowledge of social facts and social sympathy.

Teetering on the Edge: portraits of innocence, risk and young female sexualities in 1950s’ and 1960s' British cinema

ABSTRACTThis article explores how British social problem films in the late 1950s and early 1960s represented social anxieties around the sexuality of girls in their mid to late teens. Its analytic focus is upon the risks posed by modern social life to the teenage girl's sexual innocence and it argues that attending to this hitherto often-neglected sexual state brings new insights to cultural histories of young female sexualities. Discussion draws upon Beat Girl (1959), Rag Doll (1960), Girl on Approval (1961) and Don't Talk to Strange Men (1962), highlighting how these films situated the figure of the teenage girl in the liminal space of child-adult and girl-woman and how this informed concerns about her sexual vulnerability. By unpicking the films' different approaches to viewing and representing this liminal space—through the lenses of adolescence and young womanhood—the authors demonstrate how at this historical juncture the intersections of gender and age are differently emphasised and given meaning in cinematic portrayals of sexual innocence.

The cool and the crazy: pop fifties cinema

Explosive! Amazing! Terrifying! You won’t believe your eyes! Such movie taglines were common in the 1950s, as Hollywood churned out a variety of low-budget pictures that were sold on the basis of their sensational content and topicality. While a few of these movies have since become canonized by film fans and critics, a number of the era’s biggest fads have now faded into obscurity. The Cool and the Crazy examines seven of these film cycles, including short-lived trends like boxing movies, war pictures, and social problem films detailing the sordid and violent life of teenagers, as well as uniquely 1950s takes on established genres like the gangster picture. Peter Stanfield reveals how Hollywood sought to capitalize upon current events, moral panics, and popular fads, making movies that were “ripped from the headlines” on everything from the Korean War to rock and roll. As he offers careful readings of several key films, he also considers the broader historical and commercial contexts in which these films were produced, marketed, and exhibited. In the process, Stanfield uncovers surprising synergies between Hollywood and other arenas of popular culture, like the ways that the fashion trend for blue jeans influenced the 1950s Western.

Hollywood exiles in Europe: the blacklist and Cold War film culture

Hollywood Exiles in Europe: The Blacklist and Cold War Film Culture Rebecca Prime. Rutgers University Press, 2014. 258 pages, $27.95.The Hollywood blacklist has fostered considerable scholarship, with much of it focusing on the ritual naming of names before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). In Hollywood Exiles in Europe, Rebecca Prime, Libman Professor of the Humanities and an assistant professor of art at Hood College, expands our knowledge about the impact of the blacklist by concentrating on members of the Hollywood film community who refused to compromise their principles and political commitment by cooperating with HUAC. Unable to find employment due to the film industry's boycott of alleged communists and fellow travelers, many in Hollywood elected exile in Europe and hoped to find work within the growing continental film industry. Employing film archives, memoirs, and interviews with blacklisted artists and their family members, Prime argues that despite efforts by Hollywood studios to extend the blacklist beyond the borders of the United States, American filmmakers in exile were able to make significant contributions to the development of post-World War II transnational cinema. Prime focuses primarily on the careers of Carl Foreman, Michael Wilson, Joseph Losey, John Berry, and Jules Dassin, concluding: As Hollywood-trained, European-based professionals, they critically and materially facilitated the transatlantic economic and artistic exchange that had become a fundamental component of American and European film culture by the mid-1960s (180).Prime perceives HUAC interrogations as an attempt to disrupt the radical community that had developed in Hollywood in response to the Great Depression and Second World War. In addition to promoting progressive causes, the Communist Party also provided artists a possible means of rebellion against the materialistic excesses of Hollywood. Thus, Prime acknowledges that communism was appealing to many on the political left in the film capital; she maintains, however, that the studio system limited radical political expression in Hollywood films, and that the Hollywood radicals hardly constituted the type of security threat posed by Soviet spies. Nevertheless, the HUAC investigations succeeded in thwarting the growing production of social problem films that sought to expose the issues of racism and capitalist exploitation in American society.A sense of community developed by the radicals in Hollywood also provided a degree of comfort for the exiles in Europe, who were not necessarily welcomed with open arms by their European comrades. Many on the political left, especially French communists, admired their courageous stand against the oppression of HUAC, and others were excited that the exiles would bring the expertise and prestige of Hollywood to European cinema. On the other hand, advocates of nationalist cinema believed that the Americans represented yet another manifestation of cultural imperialism and a threat to European jobs in the film industry. In addition, the blacklist proved to have a rather extensive reach. European productions featuring blacklisted writers, actors, and directors were threatened with being denied access to the American market. Accordingly, a number of the exiles were forced to work under assumed names on low budget films with little compensation. Thus, the political and economic pressures encountered in America followed the filmmakers into exile.Yet, Prime notes that there were cracks in the blacklist, which was inconsistently enforced. Blacklisted writers such as Howard Koch wrote for independent American television features such as The Adventures of Robin Hood and Foreign Intrigue (albeit, not high prestige productions). Carl Foreman signed a contract with Columbia Pictures to produce four films after seeking a clearance from HUAC in which the screenwriter of High Noon (1952) renounced his communist past but refused to name former associates. …

‘The Birth of Black Consciousness on the Screen’?: The African American Historical Experience, Blaxploitation, and the Production and Reception of Sounder (1972)

The black historical film Sounder (1972) was a key feature of the heated debate over race representation in Hollywood cinema in the early 1970s. Indeed, while marking a break from the post-Second World War social problem film, this Depression-set family drama also ran counter to the controversial blaxploitation boom of the period, by emphasising universal themes over those of race. Widely acclaimed in the national press, these qualities also focalised the ongoing conflict over values pertaining to the splintering of the Civil Rights movement and the rise of Black Power in the second half of the 1960s. Making use of a range of primary source materials, including letters sent to the film’s producer and director, this analysis examines Sounder’s turbulent social, cultural and ideological contexts. It considers the aims and influence of key personnel, the wider discussion of black filmic representation, and the film’s complex and contradictory contemporary reception.

Passing Films and the Illusion of Racial Equality

This essay considers prominent films, including Imitation of Life (1934, 1959) and Lost Boundaries (1949), that examine the topic of passing. Social problem films dealing with race were often viewed as progressive and thought to tackle the issue of racism. However, I argue that in its focus on passing, Hollywood made an empty gesture toward racial equality. The majority of Blacks cannot pass as White, so examining this issue was superficial. Moreover, passing narratives did not challenge the racial hierarchy in the United States but encouraged those at the bottom to stay in their place. Industry practices such as casting decisions also played an important role in these films. While ostensibly these movies should have provided opportunities for more Black actors and actresses, except for the casting of Fredi Washington in 1934 in Imitation of Life , Hollywood continued to cast White actors exclusively in Black roles. In fact the Production Code Administration (PCA) was so alarmed about Washington’s appearance and real-life ability to pass that I posit subsequent passing films avoided any PCA censorship problems by not casting Blacks. Through an examination of the PCA files on these films, I argue that industry practices of racial exclusion from lead roles as well as the use of passing films continue to shore up the centrality of whiteness in Hollywood cinema.

Make Way for Youth: The American Jewish Committee and the Social Problem Film

Make Way for Youth: The American Jewish Committee and the Social Problem Film

Editor’s Introduction

Editor’s Introduction Dianne Ashton The four articles in this issue explore a dynamic era for American Jews—the five decades from 1920 to 1970. Each one focuses upon a distinct facet of that time; two explore politics and two assess culture. Taken together, they reveal many of the era’s subtleties. Jess Olson begins our look at that era by examining the complex and surprising “return” to tradition by the famous Zionist Nathan Birnbaum and the impact his change had on the discussions about religion and politics then engaging American Jews, especially in the American Jewish press. Arriving on a visit to America in 1921 with a delegation from Agudath Israel (an organization that furthered the interests of “Torah true” Jews), Birnbaum became a lightning rod for ongoing debates over the future of Judaism and Jewish life. Birnbaum and the Agudah delegates hoped that their American visit would raise funds for the organization and promote Orthodoxy. By comparing the Agudah’s success in Europe with its “failure to comprehend the complexity of the American scene,” Olson helps us to understand Orthodoxy’s weakness in the early twentieth century as it struggled for a larger place amid the many factions dividing immigrant Jewry. The years following World War II are often understood to have been marked by a search for peace and prosperity as an American population weary from a war that had been preceded by the Great Depression now sought security and comfort. Art Simon reminds us that in the decade following the war, American Jews continued their older battle against antisemitism in the United States, expanding that fight to the arena of motion pictures. As part of a “broad campaign on behalf of tolerance” that included Hollywood films, the American Jewish Committee also produced “social problem” films. Simon’s analysis of one successful film made in 1947 explains the subtleties of the AJC’s fight against antisemitism amid broader concerns worrying postwar Americans. By the post-World War II era, so many novels depicted immigrant life at the turn of the twentieth century, and so many literary scholars had assessed those works, that they already constituted a subgenre of American literature and literary studies. Benjamin Pollak explains that one of the most famous authors associated with that genre, Alfred Kazin, opposed both “the representational critiques of naturalist determinism” common among scholars and the “prevailing norms for representing New York’s immigrant quarters” in the novels themselves. More recent scholarly assessments of Kazin’s writing find it “schmaltzy.” Yet, Pollak [End Page vii] shows us that by understanding Kazin’s own ideas about immigrant literature, we can reach a better understanding and a clearer assessment of his life and work. So many different ethnic groups resided in New York City that, by the 1960’s, the city’s mayor could use visits by foreign dignitaries to help him win local elections. Jeffrey Taffet explores the way Mayor John V. Lindsay, a liberal Republican, used a visit by Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir to help him win (largely Democratic) Jewish votes in 1969. But, as Taffet shows, using international diplomacy to achieve local political goals could get tricky. Lindsay could not ignore requests by the U.S. State Department to treat foreign leaders well when they visited his city. But neither could he ignore the political repercussions that might ensue if his local constituents did not want their mayor to appear friendly to a visitor they disliked. Taffet’s discussion of Lindsay’s situation not only reveals the mayor’s response to the desires of his Jewish voters, it also shows us the way “Jewish political power operated in New York City” in an era when Jews were “extraordinarily influential.” The mayor understood that most of his city’s Jews strongly supported Zionism and the State of Israel. This article, then, shows a Jewish community that is willing to openly flex its political muscle in a way far different from the more subtle influence at work in the social-problem films of the postwar years that addressed a national audience. The Jewish community Lindsay faced was a sophisticated one long accustomed to political debate and with clear, distinctive priorities. Together...

The cinema of Steven Soderbergh: indie sex, corporate lies, and digital videotape

AcknowledgementsPreface by Thomas SchatzIntroductionPart One: Author, Brand, Guerrilla1. The Dialectical Signature: Soderbergh as Classical Auteur2. Impresario of Indiewood: Soderbergh as Sellebrity Auteur3. Corporate Revolutionary: Soderbergh as Guerrilla AuteurPart Two: History, Memory, Text4. Searching Low and High: The Limey and the Schizophrenic Detective5. Returning to the Scene of the Crime: Solaris and the Psychoanalytic Detective6. The (Bl)end of History: The Good German and the Intertextual DetectivePart Three: Crime, Capital, Globalisation7. Genre and Capital: New Crime Wave in the 1990s8. The Ethical Heist: Competing Modes of Capital in the Ocean's Trilogy9. Trafficking Social Change: The Global Social Problem Film in the 2000sConclusionFilmographyBibliographyIndex

On Bernardi et al.'s <em>Hollywood's Chosen People</em>

On Bernardi et al.'s Hollywood's Chosen People Hollywood's Chosen People: The Experience in American Cinema. Edited by Daniel Bernardi, Murray Pomerance, and Hava Tirosh-Samuelson. Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press, 2013. 270 pp., ISBN 978-08143-9 (pbk). US $31.95.This collection aims highlight ways in which the experience is essential both to the history of Jews in and to the history of film and media in America (12). The contributors employ a variety of disciplinary approaches to examine the role of prominent actors, directors, producers, and screenwriters in reflecting and shaping American attitudes toward Jews and Judaism. In the introduction the editors decry the small number of significant volumes on these topics and list Lester Friedman's Hollywood's Image of the Jew (1982), Neal Gabler's An Empire of Their Own (1988), and David Desser and Lester Friedman's American Filmmakers (2004) in this select group. They also should have mentioned Patricia Erens's The Jew in American Cinema (1984), Joel Rosenberg's Jewish Experience on Film: An American Overview (American Year Book, 1996), Jon Stratton's Coming Out (2000), Steven Carr's Hollywood and Anti-Semitism (2001), Henry Bial's Acting (2005), and Donald Weber's Haunted in the World (2005).Several articles cover familiar ground in Hollywood's history. Lester Friedman situates Edward Sloman's His People (1925) in the context of the mass immigration of Eastern European Jews to the United States and the transformation of the film industry from a plebian form of entertainment into a mainstream one. Projecting their vision of the American dream onto the screen, most movie moguls celebrated the assimilation, intermarriage, and upward mobility of the children of immigrants. While His People depicts a Jewish-Irish romance and money as the great equalizer, it disapproves of the unbridled quest for social acceptance which severs ethnic and filial bonds. Wheeler Winston Dixon's article on the anti-Semitic, legal, and political pressures that culminated in the reign of Joseph Breen as the strict enforcer of the Motion Picture Production Code cogently and concisely synthesizes material from Gregory Black's Hollywood Censored (1996), Thomas Doherty's Hollywood's Censor (2009), and Gabler's An Empire of Their Own. Catherine Portuges profiles filmmakers who fled Nazi persecution in the 1930s and 1940s and injected a transnational sense of their displacement and vulnerability into Hollywood films. Acknowledging related books by Vincent Brook, John Russell Taylor, and Anthony Heilbut, she also contends that the Austrian and Hungarian origins of many of these emigres influenced the acting, directorial, musical, and writing styles they brought to American films. Sarah Kozloffcites Susan Sontag's concept of Jewish moral seriousness to account for the considerable number of social problem films directed, produced, or written by Jews like Elmer Rice, Robert Rossen, Stanley Kramer, and Sidney Lumet.Another group of articles focuses on actors and directors. William Rothman discerns traces of George Cukor's background in the (ac)cultured civility of his lead characters and the Emersonian moral outlook that enables them to attain dignity by discovering their true selves. That the latter is a product of a sensibility seems strained when applied to Katharine Hepburn's emotional growth as Tracy Lord in The Philadelphia Story (1940), but proves more convincing when accounting for Judy Holliday's evolution as Billie Dawn in Born Yesterday (1950). Cukor nurtured Holliday's New York voice to elicit a performance in which her linguistic inflections and personal mannerisms initially camouflaged the intelligence Billie eventually reveals.Lucy Fischer interprets David Mamet's Homicide (1991) as a stage in the development of his current identity. …

Hollywood film, 1963-1976: years of revolution and reaction

Acknowledgments. List of Illustrations. Foreword. Part I: Cultural Overview: The Years of Revolution and Reaction, 1963 76: 1. Major Historical Events. Civil Rights Legislation and Protests. The Vietnam War. Law and Order. Realpolitik. 2. Economic Situation. Expanse and Contraction. Downturn. 3. Societal Issues. The New Left, the Counterculture, Neo-Conservatism, and the Silent Majority. Ecology, Good Health, and Fitness. Scientific/Technological Advances. Conglomerate Ascendancy. Media Society. Crime. Religion. A Sense of Confusion, Impotence, and Cynicism, and a Wave of Nostalgia. Part II: Business: 4. Production Distribution. Showmen, Caretakers, and Conglomerates. The Practices of the Seven Major Studios: Lesser Movies, Higher Costs, Independent/Runaway Production, Sources, Stars, Sequels/Series, Mainstreaming Exploitation, The Big Kill, The Youth Movie, A Film By, Diversification. Competition: Minor and New Studios. The Financial Bloodbath. Additional Practices: Downsizing, Negative Pickup, Co-Production/Distribution, Tax Breaks/Shelters. Still Other Gambits: The Nostalgic Wave and The Special Event Movie. Distribution. Black Groundswell. Academy Awards. 5. Exhibition and the New Audience. Exhibition. The New Audience. Part III: Technology: 6. Color, Screen Shapes, Sound, Special Effects, and Production Refinements. Color. Screen Shapes. Sound. Special Effects. Production Refinements. Part IV: Style:. 7. Documentary and Documentary Realism. 8. TV and TV Theatrical. 9. Modernism, TV Programming/Commercials, the Avant-Garde, and Expressive Stylization. Literary Design. Performance. Visual Design. Composition. Temporal Design. Sound Design. Part V: Censorship:. 10. Issues, Solutions, and Problems. Subsidiary Syndrome. Two-Version Ploy. Dilemma: The Pawnbroker (AA, 1965). Turning Point: Who s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (WB, 1966). The 1966 Production Code Guidelines and the SMA Category. Ratings System. Enlightenment of the Legion of Decency. Divorce: Hollywood and the Church. City/State Censorship and the Liberalization of the Supreme Court. City/State Censorship vs. Hollywood. Part VI: Genre:. 11. Adventure. 12. Biography. 13. Historical Spectacle. 14. Comedy. Black Comedy. Farce. Parody. Social Satire. Romantic Comedy. Family Comedy. Fantasy Comedy. 15. Horror and Science Fiction. Horror. Science Fiction. 16. Melodrama. Family Melodrama. Road Film and Biker Film. Female Melodrama. Male Melodrama. Romance Melodrama. Buddy Film. 17. Musical. Musical Comedy and Musical Drama. Musical Biography. 18. Social Problem Film and Courtroom Drama. Social Problem Film. Courtroom Drama 19. Suspense Thriller. Spy Thriller: WWII/Cold War. Crime. Vigilante. Caper. Conspiracy. 20. War 21. Western. Coda: Postmodern Hollywood, 1977. Appendix: Hierarchical Order of Ten Box-Office Stars, 1963 76. Bibliography. Index.

Global Trauma and the Cinematic Network Society

Are we really more connected interpersonally in the age of accelerated globalization? Do global social networks principally empower connected agents, or are “powerless places” further marginalized by “placeless power”? This article examines how twenty-first century US cinema maps social networks, both international and interpersonal. Whereas communication and technology scholars often characterize the network society as a social formation promising more “symmetrical” and “co-ordinated” global relations, the past decade's most-discussed “global network” films (Traffic, 2000; Crash, 2004; Syriana, 2005; Babel, 2006 etc.) envision the network society as a complex landscape of enduring inequality. In the cinematic network society, empowered agents fail to co-ordinate or even comprehend the networks that surround them. Borrowing from social problem films, economic guilt films, and city films of the past, these network narratives illustrate how networks can link us in unwanted ways. In the 11 films examined here, privileged Westerners are often forced to confront their networked relationships with suffering others. In a neoliberal fashion, these protagonists routinely opt to privatize their affective and political responses: they act alone, even as vigilantes, despite their connections. Their portrayals by humanitarian celebrities further entwine on-screen conduct and actors' private charity work, powerfully articulating a questionable vision of what global citizenship should look like in an age when everyone is connected.

The World, the Flesh, and the Devil: The Politics of Race, Gender, and Power in Post-Apocalyptic Hollywood Cinema

Ranald MacDougall's The World, the Flesh, and the Devil (1959) is a complex and ambitious film that combines the post-apocalyptic science fiction film, and the social problem or message film, to su...

The Dual Representation of the Social Problem Film: Commercial Apartheid Movies of the 1980s

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Toward a Middle-Class Cinema: Thomas Ince and the Social Problem Film, 1914–1920

Thomas H. Ince (1882–1924) was a popular motion-picture producer and director in the 1910s. He built his reputation and fortune by making feature films that appealed to middle-class tastes. In addition to his westerns and the epics for which he is best known, Ince made a number of social-problem films. Three of his films—The Italian(1914),Dangerous Hours(1920), andThe Dark Mirror(1920)—are particularly interesting for how they illuminate the relationship between the American cinema and Progressive Era reform. A close analysis of these three films suggests ways that popular culture reflected the concerns of mainstream progressives and how these concerns shifted during the course of the decade.