v. Class Battles on Screen:
Reading and Decoding Cinematic Ideology

Worker Counterattacks continued

The producers also used costumes, make up, and body positioning to reverse longstanding conservative depictions of employees and employers. Earlier films like The Absentee (1915) show business leaders as calm, cleancut and well dressed, while worker activists are shown to be frenzied, dirty, and poorly dressed. Whatever their grievances, working-class leaders cannot control their tempers and must be restrained by police (fig. 122, 123).

fig 122 & 123:The Absentee (1915)

The New Disciple offered viewers a very different vision. In this film, we see calm and clean cut workers standing their ground against angry, out of control bosses. Employees, not employers (cast as fat capitalists), are shown as the voices of reason (fig. 124).

fig 124:The New Disciple

The film also attacked liberal and conservative stereotypes--such as those seen in Little Church Around the Corner (1923) -- that depicted worker gatherings as uncontrollable mob actions that ultimately devolved into violence (fig. 125).

fig 125:Little Church Around the Corner (1923)

Entire working-class communities were portrayed as incapable of calm deliberation (fig. 126).

fig 126:Little Church Around the Corner (1923)

Only industrialists remained calm in the face of disaster (fig. 127).

fig 127:Little Church Around the Corner (1923)