iii Looking at Labor-Capital Films

Conservative Films continued

When radicals speak to crowds or to each other they do so in a frenzied fashion full of wild gesticulations and fists punching the air (fig. 23, 24).

fig 24:Haymarket Riot (1886)

SOCIALISM is depicted as a shallow movement based more on a lust for revenge, violence, and intrigue than on any serious political commitments (fig. 25).

Scenes of meetings focus on the conspiratorial nature of radical movements and offer no insights into radical politics. New recruits perform bizarre initiation rituals, like kissing daggers or fondling sinister skulls, and are inevitably asked to prove their radical commitment or solve some unspecified problem by throwing a bomb (fig. 26).

fig 26:Dangerous Hours (1920) (v)