August 30, 2011 Check out the course web page at

Questions we will try to answer: What makes a film political? What makes a political film a good film? What is the place of film in society generally? What are the factors that explain the rise of Hollywood as a cultural institution?

What is Politics? Something to do with governments (too vague and too limited). Deals with issues of power and authority (better but still not quite right). Deals with issues of self-definition and collective identity (perhaps too broad but this is where ideology comes in most centrally).

Basic Concepts of Politics and Political Science Power Legitimacy Justice/Fairness Political Regimes Democratic Authoritarian

What is Ideology? A system of more or less coherent beliefs held by individuals but often shared by groups of individuals and even by entire societies. In Marxist thinking, ideology “operates to enlist the oppressed in their own subjugation…without the exercise of force.” [Ryan and Kellner, Camera Politica, p. 14] In Liberal thinking, ideology exists purely as a function of the aggregation of individual belief systems and cannot or should not be imposed from above.

Films are political if they: Contain explicit political content Indirectly refer to political themes even if the film itself appears to be mainly about nonpolitical themes (e.g. satirical films)

Example: Ideology and the Cold War The Cold War (1947 to about 1991) was a struggle between the ideologies of capitalism (or liberal democracy) and communism.

Theories about Films are Themselves Ideological Elitists argue that popular culture is inferior to high culture and that popular culture merely panders to large audiences at the expense of higher values. Marxists argue that films support capitalism by glorifying consumerism & individualism. Post-modernists say that films reflect our post- modern sensibilities and that post-modernism is an essential response to the ideological struggles of the 20 th century.

Conclusion Since theories about film are themselves ideological, then the question of the political content of a specific film is partly a function of what particular film theory you are applying. We will discuss films that are both overtly and covertly political from a variety of theoretical perspectives.