citizens from coming together as one country united in our diversity. (Evidence exists that various interests within the United States and from other countries have worked to stoke such division for their own benefit.)
As a result, there is a distrust of media prevalent in today’s culture that did not exist in the same way twenty years ago. Many critics of President Trump accuse him and his supporters of disseminating false statements and doctored media. On the other side, Trump and his supporters attack the free press repeatedly with cries of “Fake News!” The so‐called “cultural elite” – which of course includes Hollywood – is reported to be out of touch with mainstream American values. Education is suspect, and the liberal arts faculty of colleges and universities often find themselves under attack. Given all of that, this book may invite scorn from some sectors of contemporary American culture. It is an academic, scholarly book written for university students, based on previous research, vetted by other scholars, and published by a reputable academic press. The book’s central topics – film and media and the diversity of the American experience – may also be seen as “bad objects” by those people who want to define America and its culture as being solely the purview of white heteronormative people and institutions. To us, however, it is obvious that America means so much more than that. It is diversity that gives America its vibrancy. White, male, and heterosexual viewpoints are part of this diversity, but recognized as not the sole or “normal” viewpoints. In embracing that diversity, the American film and media industries are able to tell new stories from new perspectives, enriching the lives of all Americans. Despite the election of 2016 and the backlash it seems to represent, Hollywood has continued to give us game‐changing blockbusters like Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), Wonder Woman (2017), and Black Panther (2018). It has continued to make and honor smaller and more thoughtful films on race, gender, class, and sexuality like Moonlight (2016), Lady Bird (2017), and Get Out (2017). While political movements and social attitudes continue to ebb and flow, the authors of this book are cautiously optimistic that the American media industries will continue to diversify, allowing new voices and perspectives to arise and challenge the inherent biases and inequities of American culture.
This new edition is dedicated to Jayne Fargnoli.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The origins of this book can be traced back to a class we both taught at Antelope Valley Community College in Lancaster, California, when we were PhD students at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinema–Television. We “inherited” the class from Jaime Bihlmeyer when he took another position. Jaime had created his own set of readings for the course, because, as we quickly discovered, there were very few published texts available that covered “diversity in American film” with the historical and theoretical consistency that we desired. Thus, our colleagues and students at Antelope Valley College are the first people we wish to thank.
Sean Griffin then taught revised versions of this class at California State University at Long Beach, the University of California at Santa Cruz, and Florida Atlantic University, while Harry Benshoff developed individual courses in African American film and lesbian, gay, and queer media. Our colleagues and students throughout those years contributed to this project in myriad ways, and we especially want to thank Shelley Stamp and Michael Cowan at UCSC.
It was while we were living and working in Santa Cruz that Jayne Fargnoli, our soon‐to‐be editor at Blackwell, asked us what kind of textbooks were needed in film and media studies. We both immediately told her there was a need for a text like America on Film, and a few months later Jayne asked us if we wanted to write the book ourselves. Her support and feedback have been immeasurable, as have those of her assistant, Margot Morse. For the second edition our project manager and copy‐editor, Fiona Sewell, was also extremely helpful in the final stages of the project, as was the book’s production manager, Lisa Eaton.
We would like to thank our current colleagues, students, and support staff at the University of North Texas and at Southern Methodist University. Harry Benshoff’s research and teaching assistants at UNT have contributed to the project in different ways. We’d also like to thank our anonymous readers and especially Alexander Doty, Peter Lehman, David Lugowski, Jacqueline Foertsch, and Travis Sutton, all of whom read various chapters and offered constructive feedback. We also wish to thank those readers who wrote or spoke to us after the first and second editions were published. Their feedback (and occasional corrections!) continues to matter to us. Much of the new material in this third edition came directly from their suggestions on how to make the book even better.
For various reasons, this third edition took a little more time to produce, but we hope we have updated its materials in a useful manner. We’d like to thank Lee Stone for her help with the research, and our editors and support staff at Wiley, especially Catriona King and Liz Wingett, and Mary Malin.
This book is dedicated to our families and friends, the people who have taught us and instilled in us the values of diversity, understanding, education, and love – in both our professional and personal lives. Such acts of sharing can lead to greater understanding and compassion across families, across communities, and across the world. We hope this book encourages people to examine and understand the biases and shaping discourses of contemporary American culture, so that the future may not just promise but also deliver the goal of equality for all Americans, regardless of race, class, gender, sexuality, or ability.
HOW TO USE THIS BOOK
America on Film is a textbook designed to introduce undergraduate students to issues of diversity within American film. It is the first synthetic and historical text of its kind, and provides a comprehensive overview of the industrial, sociocultural, and aesthetic factors that have shaped and continue to shape cinematic representations of race, class, gender, sexuality, and physical ability. The book aims to chronicle the cinematic history of various cultural groups, stimulate discussion of human difference, examine forces and institutions of bias, and ultimately provoke thought about the relationship between film and American national culture.
This textbook can be used in a variety of classroom settings and at a variety of educational levels. Primarily, it is suited for a class on media culture and diversity issues, although we have also used it as a supplemental text in basic “Introduction to Film Studies” and “American Film History” classes. The book could also be used for courses in twentieth‐century American history, cultural and American studies, and courses devoted to specific topics surrounding race, class, gender, sexuality, and/or ability. In addition, courses in the sociology and/or psychology of human difference may also find the book useful.
The text was written with first and second year undergraduate students in mind, but would also be appropriate for advanced high school or college‐prep students. The book can also be used in higher‐level undergraduate or graduate student seminars, although such classes would ideally use America on Film in conjunction with more advanced materials and/or other primary readings. Because of its user‐friendly style and general accessibility – everyone loves movies! – it may also be possible to use the text within certain types of corporate or social seminars designed to stimulate discussion of human diversity.
America on Film is divided into six parts. The first outlines the basic terms and issues of cultural theory and cinematic representation. Each of the following parts is devoted to a specific aspect of race, class, gender, sexuality, and ability, and each begins with a helpful “What is …?” introductory essay. Part II examines the cultural construction of whiteness as well as the complex historical lineages of African American, Native American, Asian American, and Latino representations. Part III explores issues of American capitalism and examines the cinematic representation of class struggle before and after the Great Depression. Part IV explores the changing images of both femininity and masculinity within American film, and includes a chapter on how Hollywood film form itself has been
