The entertainment estate: Hollywood in American politics,1932--1972.

详细信息   

• 作者：Brownell ; Kathryn Cramer.
• 学历：Ph.D.
• 年：2011
• 导师：Schulman, Bruce,eadvisor
• 毕业院校：Boston University
• ISBN：9781124751160
• CBH：3463114
• Country：USA
• 语种：English
• FileSize：17814280
• Pages：376

文摘

The Entertainment Estate: Hollywood in American Politics, 1932--1972 explores the institutionalization of Hollywood styles, structures, and personalities in the American political process. This study traces the key personal relationships, public institutions, and government policies that, between 1932 and 1972, established the foundation for a celebrity political culture and made entertainment a central feature of American politics. This study seeks to recast conventional narratives of twentieth-century American politics by demonstrating how entertainment opened new arenas of political activity largely overlooked by traditional studies. In so doing, it illuminates how mass media supplanted political parties as the principal intermediaries between politicians and ordinary citizens and the ways both Hollywood and political leaders managed these new interactions. This dissertation examines both the liberal and conservative elements in Hollywood. Despite popular perceptions, neither the Republican nor Democratic Party dominated the political loyalties of the entertainment industry. Investigating philanthropic efforts, such as benefit performances, collaboration with the government on wartime propaganda, advertising strategies, and the financial pressures of a candidate-centered primary campaign, this study demonstrates how Hollywood, as an industry and a mindset, contributed to the rise of a mass-mediated politics. While scholars frequently dismiss Hollywood political activity as superficial, in fact, celebrity activists developed cohesive, well organized networks that paved the way for their entrance into the political arena as candidates, campaigners, or advisors. The business sense and public relations skills of entertainers like Ronald Reagan, Robert Montgomery, George Murphy, Jack Warner, and Eric Johnston made Hollywood connections an asset in the political world quickly being transformed by advances in mass media technology. Rather than employing entertainment to manipulate voters, twentieth-century presidents---in particular Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, and Richard Nixon---used Hollywood to stimulate increasingly apathetic voters to action and to communicate their ideas and policies more effectively. By exploring how those involved in producing and selling motion pictures translated their professional artistic knowledge into a political asset, this dissertation illuminates how Hollywood studio structures have transformed the nature of political organization.