One contrast that seemed to jump out at me when comparing the movie of Seabiscuit to class lectures and videos, was the portrayal of hoboes during the Great Depression. There is a short clip in the movie showing several hoboes in a box car on a train (Ross, 25). In this scene, there is melancholy music in the background, and the men’s facial expressions seem to be filled with a look of hopelessness. We have also discussed in class lectures the sad predicaments that men left their families in when they felt like they had to desert them in order to join the several other thousands of hoboes. This portrayal heavily contrasts with a video we watched in class titled “The Great Shake Up.” In this video there are several references that seem to glorify…
The Writers Guild of America strike (WGA) is having a vast effect on the economy. The strike is between the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) and the WGA which is looking for a new contract. Not only are the writers and actors being affected by the strike other people are also being affected. It is a wide spread problem that is having a trickle down effect. The WGA strike is a complex problem including the history, separate sides, the cost of the strike and the effect on the entertainment industry.…
The Hollywood Blacklist came into being in 1947 when the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) began to summon certain Hollywood entertainment professionals on the suspicion that their work was communist-inspired. As the media began extensive coverage of the proceedings, some writers, producers, and directors became known as the "Hollywood Ten." They included; Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner Jr, John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, Adrian Scott, and Dalton Trumbo, eight of those subpoenaed was never called to testify. The congressional commttee was interested in the answers to two questions: “Are you now. Or have you ever been, a member of the Screen Writers Guild?” and “Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?” The Ten…
German-Americans are major influence on movies in Hollywood throughout the years and still until this day. According to Peter Kramar, author of Hollywood in Germany by the “1940’s 10,000 to 15,000 Germans had migrated to Southern California”. 30,000 intellectuals and radicals were exiled from Europe after the rise of Hitler. 80% of these people were Jewish. Many fled from Europe to the United States specifically Hollywood. Many of people had musical, theater and film talents. The first wave of émigrés Germans came in the 1920’s as talent raids happened at UFA in German. The second wave of exiles happened in the late 1930’s as the Nazi regime began and Jewish people faced persecution or racial discrimination. Between the 1930s-1940s, 800 Germans had found employment in Hollywood, in which many were directors, cinematographers, sound technicians, and set designers. This mass migration meant that in American genre the highest German profession was in the horror genre. “It was the greatest transfer of it’s kind ever…
Does Hollywood dehumanize Muslims and Arabs? Many writers and organizations think so. They assert that racial and ethnic stereotyping that has been otherwise abandoned by the cinema continues to apply to these groups. Columnist Jay Stone, for instance, observes that it "appears we're down to one group, the Arabs. When was the last time you saw an Arab character in a movie who was anything but one of the three Bs (billionaire, bomber, belly dancer)?"1 Hala Maksoud, president of the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee, in a complaint to NBC regarding an episode of the television series, The West Wing, asserts that "Arabs remain fair game for the entertainment industry in this…
They needed a distraction from the hardships of war and terror. Advances in the movie industries allowed people to forget the problems with war and have a great time at. 1940’s produced some of the best film in the history of Hollywood(Tim Dirks,1). Advances in lighting, sound recording and special effects greatly impacted the sale of movies tickets. It was masterpieces like Casablanca, Dressed to kill, It’s a wonderful life that will be forever remembered in the film industry. Actors like Ingrid Bergman, Cary Grant, and Jean Arthur had an immense positive feedback from their movies. Following the end of the war Hollywood had its most profitable year of the decade in 1946 along with all-time high attendance record in a theater (Tim Dirks, 1).…
The film industry was able to rush in a golden age of film by capitalizing on the need for Americans to have an escape from the harsh reality of the Great Depression; they were able to provide Americans with this escape from reality by utilizing the best of technological innovation of the time which included sound and color films. The film industry created an environment where Americans could pay a small amount of money to sit down and enjoy a film that took them away from the bleak times of the depression. During the Great Depression countless business and even entire industries went bankrupt and fell into financial ruin, but not the film industry. During the Great Depression the film industry was one of the most profitable industries in America; this high profitability sent the film industry…
Sadly, the pictures portrayed by Hollywood took place on September 11th, 2001. Several American institution including the Word Trade Center were attacked by hijackers crashing a plan in to the buildings, and killing thousands. The world was shocked and so was Hollywood, there were no terrorist themed movies with Arabs in it for about 4 years. The drastic calamity and destruction of the 9/11 attacks was not digestible and not an event in the past (Elouardaoui 9). After the 9/11 attackes Hollywood remained hesitant to produce a terrorist-themed movie featuring Arabs. The memories and losses of September 11th attacks were still fresh in American minds and anti-Muslim sentiment was at it’s peak (Shaheen “Guilty: Hollywood's Verdict on Arabs after 9/11 16”). It is very clear that the depiction of Arabs in the post 9/11 Hollywood movies change dramatically, the movies were devoid of classical stereotypes and herald a new approach regarding the portrayal of Arabs on the screen (Elouardaoui…
The movie theater industry flourished with the attendance to movie theaters soaring. It was said to be that essentially all the population was attending movie theaters during this decade. The most influential reasoning for this spark of film was the craving for an escape from the people, who needed desperately to get away from their own lives, and experience someone else’s live and feel other emotions besides anguish and sorrow. Although the population’s yearning for an escape pushed the film industry to the top, the government assisted with the Works Progress Administration’s New Deal programs and the film and movie theater companies benefitted the industry by creating unique and intriguing genres and appealing advertisements. Today’s society also reaches to movies to take a break from reality and movie theater companies still continue to advance and innovate advertisements and the theaters themselves to increase the attendance. Even though, the decade of the 1930s was overall filled with misery and discouragement, the film industry was a positive aspect of this time with its new funding by the government it strived with advanced genres and…
Before World War 1 mobilized entire societies to produce and fight, parliamentary regimes had began to democratize granting non-property holders and women to vote, meanwhile authoritarian regimes had already started to mobilize the people into mass organizations. This is when mass cultures had come into factor, which made spanned geographic and class divides. During mass culture there were new technologies such as the radio and filming. During the raring 20’s there was mass production and mass consumption. After ten years of everything going right for America. On October 24, 1929 the American stock market had collapsed putting Americas economy in the dust.…
be a Nickelodeon kid!" the five year old chanted and swayed along with the hyper-colourful cavorting youngsters on the commercial. Even after the TV was off, she hopped around the room proclaiming her desire to belong to the Nickelodeon network.…
I'm black...In no way is racism non-existent in Hollywood but it's starting to become more diverse and not whitewash. Movies with whitewashed characters are becoming taboo.I've many people of all races say that they are not going to see Doctor Strange because of the whitewashing. There is still a long way to go with racism but it's progressive.…
Asia, as the biggest continent on Earth, would statistically, have the largest number of immigrants leaving the country. Many of these immigrants would come to find the United States as their new home. The land of immigrants, as the United States have been known for, is also prominent in entertainment and media throughout the world. Being home to Hollywood, many actors flock here to become famous and do actually reach the big screen. A few examples include Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee. These Asians have found themselves incredibly influential to the masses and have become almost movie legends to many people. This is due to the natural nature of media. The media is able to do so much to influence people but there is one small problem. Many people…
Global Media Industry after Second World War and how it started taking shape? (late 1940’s)…
Several factors, including widespread popularity of radio and television, led to this “strong effects” theory of media influence. Also important were the new “persuasion industries” of advertising and propaganda being utilized by industries and governments alike. In the 1930s, the Payne Fund, developed by the Motion Picture Research Council, studied the impact of motion pictures on children to see if the magic bullet effect was controllable. Even Hitler monopolized the mass media in the belief that he could use it unify the German public behind the Nazis in the 1940s.…