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

Liberal Ambivalence

Not every postwar film was rabidly conservative. Studios still turned out liberal labor-capital productions. But while sympathetic to the plight of individual workers, these films were unsympathetic to the idea of workers organizing collective responses to their problems. The Whistle (1921), starring western movie hero William S. Hart, portrayed the exploitation that occurred inside New England textile mills. The film quickly enlists audience sympathies with poignant scenes of a motherless boy and his loving father (fig. 111).

fig 111:The Whistle (1921)

Viewers soon see Hart's son killed by faulty machinery that he had asked the owner to shut down--precisely because Hart feared someone would be hurt. But the greedy owner refused to fix it. Stopping the machines, he told Hart, would take too much time and cost too much money (fig. 112).

fig 112:The Whistle (1921)

When his son is killed, Hart is devastated (fig. 113). Yet instead of seeking solutions through collective action, he kidnaps the owner's son and heads out West. Sure, the boss deserves to suffer. But workers who are left to labor in unsafe conditions after Hart flees are left with no hint of how to solve the legitimate problems that endanger their lives.

fig 113:The Whistle (1921)

When solutions come in liberal films, they usually come from calm outsiders and not from either labor or capital. In Little Church Around the Corner (1923), a mine explosion plunges the entire community into an uproar. Although the film sympathizes with the workers, the director uses images of mob scenes that are no different from conservative films (fig. 114).

fig 114:In Little Church Around the Corner (1923)

In liberal films, unionists, strikers, and labor leaders are not inherently bad, as they are in conservative films. They are just incapable of offering calm responses to crisis situations. When the rightfully angered miners protest, their protests come in the form of an unorganized, unthinking mob of angry men and women (fig. 115).

fig 115:In Little Church Around the Corner (1923)

Peace is restored through the intervention of the local minister (fig. 116).

fig 116:In Little Church Around the Corner (1923)

Despite its generally liberal sympathies, the film keeps making little digs at the working-class community. In the scene below, blue-collar parents are shown as unable to control their unruly kids (fig. 117). The audience is left with the impression that these violent street urchins could one day turn into violent workers.

fig 117:In Little Church Around the Corner (1923)