HISTORY 225g:
Film, Power, and American History

 Course Description:

Few contemporary institutions have had a greater effect on molding popular understandings of the world than film and television. Yet, most citizens lack the critical tools to contextualize, analyze, and critique the images and ideologies conveyed on the screen. This course is designed to join elements of film studies with various schools of historical thought to provide students with the critical skills needed to analyze the images and ideologies they see on the screen and understand how those images effect our views of the past and present.

This course is part of the Social Issues category of GE. During the semester, we will examine many of the fundamental social, political, and economic problems that have shaped the 20th century: industrialization, urbanization, war, poverty, crime, politics, success, race, class, and gender conflict. We will examine these issues from three different perspectives: 

    (a) films made during the period that address those issues; 
    (b) primary documents that shed light on those issues; 
    (c) historical overviews of those issues.
Our films and documents cover the period from 1900 to 1990s. The films we watch (which include fiction films, documentaries, and newsreels) were made during that decade and deal with one or more of the major problems of the time. But movies offer only one perspective on the world. Each week will also read works that offer additional perspectives: readings that discuss the general historical events of the era; readings that discuss what is happening in the motion picture industry; and readings that offer primary documents of the period. In short, we will triangulate our way through American history. It is the student's job to figure out which of these perspectives seems most convincing, why it seems so, and the implications of one form of knowledge being more powerful than another. 

Class Format:

The entire class will meet twice a week for nearly two hours. Students must also enroll in a weekly discussion section. Monday meetings will generally provide students with a broad overview of the era. They will feature a lecture and clips from various newsfilms, documentaries, and feature films of the era. Wednesdays will generally be spent viewing and discussing films (two caveats on films: films listed in syllabus are subject to change depending on availability; my goal is to show repetition of certain kinds of images--consequently we will often see only parts of listed films). Students will learn how to "read" the political ideology embedded in films. Discussion sections will be run as seminars in which students will analyze the week's readings and discuss the similarities and dissimilarities in what historians, primary sources, and filmmakers say about a particular era. We will also try to reach some final synthesis concerning the popular images and realities of the age. What can movies tell us that history books cannot? What can history books can tell us that movies cannot? 

Requirements:

The course will include a midterm (25% of final grade), a final exam (30%), and a research paper (20%); class participation (including written assignments) will constitute an additional 25% of the final grade.
Required Readings:
    Robert Marcus & David Burner, America Firsthand, VOL II (course packet available at bookstore)

    Steven Mintz and Randy Robert, eds., Hollywood's America: U.S. History Through Its Films

    Steven J. Ross, Working-Class Hollywood: Silent Film and the Shaping of Class in America

    John Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath

    Elaine May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era

    William Chafe, Unfinished Journey

    The Student Primer: The USC Guide to Internet Tools & Resources for Students

Recommended Readings
    Robert Sklar, Movie-Made America (1994 revised edtn) 
All books are available at the USC Bookstore 
 

Schedule of Lectures, Films, and Readings:

Jan 13: INTRODUCTION: SEEING AND BELIEVING: FILM, HISTORY, AND POWER

 
General issues of course: socio-political-economic problems in America; class, race, gender as key themes. Triangulation approach to synthesizing and analyzing history, media, and primary documents. What we see is not always what we should believe. The elusive nature of power.
 
Jan 18: MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. DAY (no classes) 
Jan 20: THE PROMISES AND PROBLEMS OF AMERICAN LIFE, 1890-1917

 
America in the late 19th century: big business, class conflict, poverty, immigration, women's sphere, mass protest. Progressivism and the Progressive movement, 1890s-1917; the "invention" of modern leisure; origins of TGIF. 
 
Discussion Section Readings:

Ross, Working-Class Hollywood, xi-xv; 3-33 
M&R, Hollywood's America, ix-x; 1-14, 31-41, 53-63, 74-78
M&B, Am First Hand, 65-73, 83-94, 98-114
Recommended: Sklar, Movie-Made America, 3-74
 

Jan 25: AMERICA, THE LAND OF OPPORTUNITY--BUT NOT NECESSARILY FOR THE POOR: 

 
Movies, immigrants, workers, and the problems of everyday life [NOTE: films listed for each week are subject to change depending on availability].
 
The Kleptomaniac (1905) Traffic in Souls (1913)
A Corner in Wheat (1908) Work (1915)
The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) Police (1916)
The Italian (1915)
Jan 27: VISUALIZING IDEOLOGY: CLASS AND CLASS CONFLICT ON AND OFF THE SCREEN 

 
Class as a vital element of early 20th century life, both on and off the screen. Different class movements and different modes of representing those movements in film. Training & demonstration of internet project.

Visualizing Ideology: Labor vs Capital In the Age of Silent Film (internet project with stills and clips; student exercises)

Discussion Section Readings:

Ross, Working-Class Hollywood, 34-111 
M&R, Hollywood's America, 81-82 
M&B, America First Hand, 95-97, 151-60, 170-85

Writing Assignment #1: Exercises from Visualizing Ideology
 

Feb 1:
WAR, REVOLUTION, REDS, AND REPRESSION: SOCIAL AND POLITICAL PROBLEMS IN THE 19teens and 1920s

 
World War I; end of Progressivism; Russian Revolution and Red Scare; Bolshevik Menace; labor militancy; Americanization movement; decline of social problem films. Creating political "others" in America.
 
Feb 3:
SAVING AMERICA: CINEMATIC BATTLES LEFT AND RIGHT

 
Ideological battles on the screen; worker-made films vs Hollywood productions.
 
Dangerous Hours (1920), Labor's Reward (1925)
The Passaic Textile Strike (1926) The Tempest (1928)

Discussion Section Readings:

Ross, Working-Class Hollywood, 115-72 
M&B, Am First Hand, 115-31; 186-209
Recommended: Sklar, Movie-Made America, 86-121

Writing Assignment #2: Exercises from Visualizing Ideology

Feb 8:
REDEFINING AMERICA: CLASS, GENDER, AND THE PROMISES OF CONSUMPTION

 
Mass Production, Mass Consumption, and rise of a Consumer Society in 1920s; women, work, the vote, and changing gender roles; how movies and movie palaces help forge new visions of class in America.
 
Feb 10: SEX AND THE FAST LIFE
Reorientation of film in the 1920s; consumption, gender, class. 
 
Sex (1920) Foolish Wives (1922)
The Blot (1921) Our Dancing Daughters (1928)
The Sheik (1921)
Discussion Section Readings:
Ross, Working-Class Hollywood, 173-257
M&R, Hollywood's America, 14-16, 64-73, 139-42,
M&B, America Firsthand, 214-27
Recommended: Sklar, Movie-Made America, 75-85, 122-57
Feb 15: PRESIDENT'S DAY (no class)
Feb 17: ON THE MARGINS OF POWER: RACE IN AMERICA
What does America look like when add some "color" to the historical mix? The problems faced by racial groups excluded from American society and marginalized in films: African-American, Asians, Mexicans. 

The rise of a black cinema for black audiences: George Johnson, Oscar Micheaux; G.C. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois

Discussion Group Readings:

M&R, Hollywood's America, 42-52, 79-80, 112-23
M&B, America First Hand, 10-41, 210-13, 235-41
 and marginalized in films: African-American, Asians, Mexicans. 

Feb 22: MIDTERM REVIEW: POLITICS AND POWER, 1890-1930

 
Feb 24: MIDTERM EXAM
March 1: THE GREAT DEPRESSION: POVERTY, DESPAIR, AND HOPE
Poverty and the Great Depression; Dust Bowl migration; responses to poverty and despair, labor radicalism; New Deal and rise of welfare state. Censorship, social issues, and the movie industry (now in the sound era). 
March 3: POVERTY AND OKIE LIFE DEPICTED IN LITERATURE AND FILM.
Grapes of Wrath (1940)

Discussion Group Readings:

Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath
Recommended: Sklar, Movie-Made America, 161-94

March 8: FEARS AND SOLUTIONS: POPULISM, FASCISM, AND DEMOCRACY
Challenges to the New Deal and to state power; the fragility of democracy in the 1930s; the repressive nature of American government as it deals with threats like the Bonus March; fascism and rise of Hitler.
March 10: THE MYTH OF THE ORDINARY AMERICAN: YOU CAN BEAT CITY HALL--OR CAN YOU?
Myths of the politics, political heroes, and political manipulation.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
Meet John Doe (1941)
Citizen Kane (1941)

Discussion Group Readings:

M&R, Hollywood's America, 16-18, 85-111, 125-34, 137-39, 142-52
M&B, America First Hand, 132-46, 228-34, 242-50
Recommended: Sklar, Movie-Made America, 195-246

Writing Assignment #3: Critical analysis of differences between novel and film version of Grapes of Wrath.

March 15-17: NO CLASS: SPRING BREAK
March 22: WORLD WAR II AND THE PROMISES OF AMERICAN LIFE
Impact of war and return of prosperity and seeming harmony; effects of war on class, race, and gender.
Mar 24: OPPORTUNITY AND DISILLUSIONMENT
Myths and realities of postwar life. 

The Best Years of Our Life (1946)
Gentleman's Agreement (1947)

Discussion Group Readings:

May, Homeward Bound, 3-91 
M&R, Hollywood's America, 18-22, 155-79, 181-90
M&B, America First Hand, 251-72
Recommended: Chafe, Unfinished Journey, 3-30

Mar 29: PROSPERITY & POVERTY, CONFORMITY & REBELLION IN THE 1950s
Postwar prosperity; rise of suburbia; new middle class. Corporate world and corporate workers; beatniks, rebels, and youth culture.
Mar 31: YOUTH CULTURE BEFORE MTV
 
Rebel Without a Cause (1955) Blackboard Jungle (1955)
rock and roll flicks

Discussion Group Readings:

May, Homeward Bound, 92-226 
M&R, Hollywood's America, 22-24, 193-94, 203-09
M&B, America Firsthand, 277-91 
Recommended: Chafe, Unfinished Journey, 111-45

Writing Assignment #4: Critical Summary of May, Homeward Bound

Apr 5: THE COLD WAR HEATS UP: WHO IS THE ENEMY?
Cold War at home & abroad: 1940s-60s; Communist menace and American liberties; Hollywood blacklist; labor, ethnics, minorities under assault. 
Apr 7: CLASS, ETHNICITY, RACE, GENDER AND AMERICAN POLITICS
Left, right, and center views of key problems. 
Salt of the Earth (1953) Dr. Strangelove (1964)
On the Waterfront (1954) 

Discussion Group Readings

Chafe, Unfinished Journey, 31-110 
M&R, Hollywood's America, 195-202, 211-41, 243-48
Recommended: Sklar, Movie-Made America, 249-85

Apr 12: RACE, RACE RELATIONS & CIVIL RIGHTS: EXERCISING POWER FROM BELOW
The rise of the Civil Rights movement; power being exercised at grass roots level; JFK-LBJ War on poverty; rise of Black Power movement. 
Apr 14: CIVIL RIGHTS ON THE SCREEN
Hollywood liberal views of race and the Blaxploitation film movement. 
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)
Shaft (1971) or Superfly (1972)

Discussion Group Readings:

Chafe, Unfinished Journey, 146-246; 302-20
M&R, Hollywood's America, 24-26
M&B, America Firsthand, 292-95, 302-11

Apr 19: VIETNAM AND THE CRISIS OF AMERICAN POWER
Viet Nam and challenges to national power; war's impact on all aspects of American life; student revolts; countercultures.
Apr 21: AMERICA: LOVE IT, LEAVE IT, OR CHANGE IT!
Debate over Viet Nam splits a nation. Who is responsible? What to do?
The Green Berets (1968) Apocalypse Now (1979)
Deer Hunter (1978) Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985)

Discussion Group Readings:

Chafe, Unfinished Journey, 247-301, 320-28, 343-429 
M&R, Hollywood's America, 251-97, 320-22 
M&B, America Firsthand, 296-301, 312-26
Recommended: Sklar, Movie-Made America, 286-338

Apr 26: FEMINISM, SEXUALITY, & SOCIAL CHANGE: HOPE & FEAR IN THE 1980s-90s
Women's movement; feminism; gender roles questioned; backlash. Why are men--and women--afraid of changing gender roles?
Apr 28: BEING A "WOMEN" IN THE '80s and 90s
What does it mean to be a woman in the modern world?
 
Nine to Five (1980) Pretty Woman (1990)
Tootsie (1982) Thelma and Louise (1991)

Discussion Group Readings:

Chafe, Unfinished Journey, 328-42, 430-517
M&R, Hollywood's America, 26-27, 298-319
M&B, America Firsthand, 327-64
Recommended: Sklar, Movie-Made America, 339-82

May 3: PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER: FILM, POWER & AMERICAN HISTORY
FINAL EXAM: FRIDAY, MAY 7, 1998 11am-1pm