This book argues that Hollywood melodramas of the Depression era engaged the political ideas underlying the welfare state policies of the New Deal. These ideas expanded the boundaries of the public realm and the purview of the government, such as liberal empathy, consumer citizenship, the refeudalization of the state, and minimal economic redistribution.

Auteur

Anna Siomopoulos is Associate Professor of English and Media Studies at Bentley University.

Résumé
While many critics have analyzed the influence of the FDR administration on Hollywood films of the era, most of these studies have focused either on New Deal imagery or on studio interactions with the federal government. Neither type of study explores the relationship between film and the ideological principles underlying the New Deal. This book argues that the most important connections between the New Deal and Hollywood melodrama lie neither in the New Deal iconography of these films, nor in the politics of any one studio executive. Rather, the New Deal figures prominently in Hollywood melodramas of the Depression era because these films engage the political ideas underlying welfare state policies-ideas that extended the reach of government into the private realm. As the author shows, Hollywood melodramas interrogated New Deal principles of liberal empathy-consumer citizenship, the refeudalization of the state, and minimal economic redistribution-only to support welfare-state ideology in the end.

Contenu

Selected Contents: Introduction: "Public Daydreams" and the New Deal 1. Scarface Over the White House: The New Deal and the Political Gangster Film 2. "With Every Step and Every Breath I Took": Mass Culture, Embodied Citizenship and the Mob Violence Film of the 1930s 3. "I Didn't Know Anyone Could Be So Unselfish": The Welfare State, Consumer Citizenship and King Vidor's Stella Dallas 4. "I Know I Done Wrong: I've Done Repent": Black Nationalism, the New Deal and The Emperor Jones 5. The Doubleness of "Indemnity": The Welfare State and 1940s Insurance Noir Conclusion: Towards a Political Theory of Melodrama