their shared foes. Marvel’s Captain America and the Avengers descended into a Civil War (2016), for example, and Batman v. Superman (2016) pitted possibly the two most iconic American superheroes in comic book history against each other. On the other hand, the formation of heroic groups such as The Avengers (2012), Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), or the Justice League (2017) reflect the concurrent desire to find strength in unity. Towards the end of the 2010s, such inclusive tendencies even resulted in the huge box office success of films centered on female superheroes (Wonder Woman [2017], Captain Marvel [2019]) and a black superhero (Black Panther [2018]). These films were groundbreaking in that they allowed fantasy blockbusters to speak to previously marginalized and/or under‐represented communities, and invited viewers from across the identity spectrum to identify with and admire them.
Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa in the popular and high‐grossing Black Panther (2018), the first African American comic book superhero to have a film devoted solely to him in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Nonetheless, in corporate Hollywood today, billions of dollars are at stake and while the industry may be on the cutting edge of technology, the vast majority of Hollywood films rarely seek to make radical aesthetic innovations or challenge pre‐existing ideas. They adhere to decades‐old formulas and genres that for the most part uphold the centrality of white patriarchal capitalism. Despite CGI (computer generated imagery) and the assorted spectacular visuals it can deliver, Hollywood narrative form and the invisible style remain similar to what they were during the classical years. Although Hollywood’s distribution and exhibition venues have changed a great deal, the basic economic goals of the Hollywood industry are still in place: to maintain tight control on the ever‐diversifying market in order to minimize risk and maximize profit.
Questions for Discussion
1 What types of movies do you prefer to watch? Are there art‐house or independent theaters close to you, or many miles away? Do you use streaming services to watch big blockbuster films or to find edgier, quirkier pictures? Or both?
2 Pick a few current Hollywood releases and see if they fit into the structure of classical Hollywood narrative form. How are concepts of race, class, gender, sexuality, and ability positioned by your chosen films?
3 Can you name some examples of synergy (cross‐marketing) associated with recent nostalgic Hollywood blockbusters?
Further Reading
1 Balio, Tino, ed. The American Film Industry. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985.
2 Bordwell, David, Janet Staiger, and Kristin Thompson. The Classical Hollywood Cinema. New York: Columbia University Press, 1985.
3 Kramer, Peter. The New Hollywood: From Bonnie and Clyde to Star Wars. London and New York: Wallflower Press, 2005.
4 Lewis, Jon, ed. The New American Cinema. Durham: Duke University Press, 1998.
5 McSweeney, Terence, ed. American Cinema in the Shadow of 9/11. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017.
6 Neale, Steve and Murray Smith. Contemporary Hollywood Cinema. New York: Routledge, 1998.
7 Ray, Robert. A Certain Tendency of the Hollywood Cinema, 1930–1980. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985.
8 Schatz, Thomas. The Genius of the System. New York: Henry Holt, 1996.
9 Sklar, Robert. Movie‐Made America. New York: Vintage Books, 1994.
10 Wasko, Janet. Hollywood in the Information Age. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995.
11 Wood, Robin. Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986.
12 Wyatt, Justin. High Concept: Movies and Marketing in Hollywood. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994.
Further Screening
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
Since You Went Away (1943)
Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
Independence Day (1996)
Pleasantville (1998)
Gladiator (2000)
An Inconvenient Truth (2006)
Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
Part II
RACE AND ETHNICITY AND AMERICAN FILM
INTRODUCTION TO PART II:
What is Race?
This part of the book examines how different racial and/or ethnic groups have been represented in American film. Although most Americans would probably say they have a fairly good understanding of race, American ideas about race often vary a great deal. Sometimes it is confused with ethnicity, or nationality, or religion, or some other marker of cultural difference. What one person regards as a “racial” issue may be regarded as something else by another. What this means from the outset is that ideas about race are heavily dependent upon social, ideological, and historical concepts. (These multifarious and intersectional ideas about race are being increasingly theorized by scholars across many academic fields, and are sometimes referred to collectively as critical race theory.) Although historically race was “invented” by scientists to categorize human beings based upon perceived biological evidence, today we approach race as a set of social and cultural understandings about human difference – understandings that are malleable and ever‐changing. As with all labels, the terms we use to discuss race tend to reduce the complex nature of human beings and their differences into separate and often simple‐minded categories. Sadly, the historical cost of dividing human beings into such broadly labeled racial groups has been enormous. Wars, genocide, slavery, bigotry, and prejudice have all resulted from understanding people not as individualized human beings, but rather as members of a racially designated grouping.
For generations of Western culture, textbooks defined race as a division of humankind based upon a set of identifiable traits that are transmitted generationally, that is, through sexual reproduction. Scholars and scientists of earlier eras spent considerable time and energy examining people of the world according to their external features: hair texture, head shape, nose and lip size, and most notably skin color. These studies were done to classify people into one of three main racial groupings: Caucasoid, or the “white race” (people descended from European heritage); Negroid, or the “black race” (people descended from African heritage); and Mongoloid, or the “yellow race” (people with Asian and/or Native American roots). Although people of previous centuries felt that skin color was a significant marker of human difference, today we recognize that even though human beings come in all shapes, sizes, and colors, all of us are basically
