AMERICAN CULTURE IN THE GREAT DEPRESSION

Summary: Throughout this week, we are focusing on broad cultural themes of the Great Depression, including changes in gender and political culture. Today we will discuss how such themes are reflected in popular films like Meet John Doe.

I. Introduction

A. Impact of the depression is evident in three, interconnected cultural domains: political culture, mass culture, and literature

B. Looking at these cultural domains, we see common themes:

1. shades of social revolution

2. preoccupation with manhood

3. relative inattention to problems of other social groups

II. Political Culture

A. What is political culture?

1. ideas and values that underpin political institutions

2. forms of political culture: rhetoric, images, and rituals of political life

B. The Great Depression challenged many precepts of American political culture

1. challenged emphasis on voluntarism and self-reliance

2. raised the specter of social revolution

3. national politics increasingly mediated by technologies of mass communication in the 1930s

C. An interesting facet of depression-era political culture: its preoccupation with manhood

III. Mass Culture

A. Interpretation of Mass Culture in the 1930s

1. radio and movies typically seen as escapist

2. closer examination reveals considerable engagement with political and social themes of the decade

B. Radio: Soap Operas, Radio Comedy

1. dramatize economic problems, allow for their comic resolution

2. reveal centrality of gender to Depression-era culture

C. Motion Pictures

1. "talkies," drive-ins, and double features enhance movies' popularity

2. engage with pressing themes of depression life:

a. gangster films

b. other films: Grapes of Wrath (1940), The Wizard of Oz(1939), and Gold Diggers of 1933(1933)

c. films about politics and the threat of fascism: Meet John Doe (1941)

IV. Gender, National Politics, and Fascism in "Hollywood's Washington"

A. Levine argues that 1930s films address two important themes:

1. the tension between modern, urban America and a more traditional, small-town American way of life

2. preoccupation with the looming threat of fascism

B. Accordingly, 1930s films about national politics reflect

1. distrust of politicians

2. distrust of the people

3. critique of the forces of modernization in American life (mass media, urbanization, groweth of complex political and economic institutions, etc.)

C. Meet John Doe as an example of this

1. Capra the most respected crator of American film in the 1930s

2. made three films about politics in the late depression years: Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and Meet John Doe

3. In Meet John Doe, a small-town hero battles the forces of cultural and political modernization

a. politicians and media magnates are untrustworthy

b. the people are easily duped

c. two figures for modern, urban America -- the newspaperman and the feisty urban woman -- are recuperated through the hero's wholesome, small-town values

d. Levine on the implausible endings of Capra's films

i. five endings were made

ii. the one chosen did not follow logically from the events of the film

iii. Levine's comments on the sophistication of the movie-going public

V. What Levine's analysis leaves out: the centrality of gender to filmic resolutions of national political turmoil in the Depression

A. Levine notes that "bad women" populated the filmic landscape of the 1930s

B. But he interprets them strictly as figures of urban sophistication, not as women

C. Levine thus fails to see important intersections between gender and politics in 1930s America

1. Many Americans blamed women's changing social and economic roles for the massive unemployment and other social ills of the Great Depression

2. Films reflected the practice of gender scapegoating, as evident in fallen woman films like Baby Face and Black Venus, musical comedies like Gold Diggers of 1933, gangster films like Little Caesar, and political films like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Meet John Doe

a. Anne Mitchell as an unruly presence in economic and political affairs

b. film's resolution of Depression political strife coincides with and depends upon women's restoration to their proper domestic sphere

VI. Conclusion: In this course, we will continue to address a range of conceptual challanges:

A. The impact of modern, mass-media like film and radio on the structure and experience of American cultural life

B. Identifying persisting themes in American culture, such as the tension between modern urban culture and traditional small-town cultural ideals

C. Contemplating intersections between different cultural domains and categories, such as:

a. the relationship between race and American national identity, which we considered in relation to the Harlem Renaissance

b. the relationship between gender, generation, and the popular and literary dimensions of the culture of modernity, which we considered last week

c. and this week, the relationship of gender to politics, and particularly to a range of complex political developments of the 1930s:

i. the twin specters of fascism and communism

ii. the impact of new technologies of mass communication on the American political process