New Kind Of Public, A: Community, Solidarity, And Political Economy In New Deal Cinema, 1935-1948

Graham Cassano is Associate Professor of Sociology at Oakland University, in Rochester, Michigan. He has published articles on a range of topics, including Thorstein Veblen's social theories, the sociology of American labor, and postmodern Marxian theory. He edited the volume, Class Struggle on the Homefront (Palgrave, 2010) and co-edited the volume,with Richard A. Dello Buono, Crisis, Politics, and Critical Sociology (Haymarket Book, 2010)

"Cassano develops original insights into New Deal cinema -and also into cultural artifacts in general - by applying to them creative interpretations of C. Wright Mills and a self-critical Marxism. As he opens up the complexities of artifact, audience, and their overdetermined and contradictory relationship, a powerful and critical cultural analysis emerges, one with wide implications for understanding social structures and changes."—Richard D. Wolff University of Massachusetts, Amherst (retired), author of Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism"This sophisticated and powerful work shows how stars, directors, studios, writers, and censors responded to the new possibilities of entertaining an audience formed by the labor upsurges of the mid-1930s. In his constant identification of telling detail, his sweeping ability to see the workings of class without losing sight of the impact of race and gender, and his deft use of theory, Cassano more excitingly approximates the wonderful work of the late Michael Rogin than does any other contemporary writer."—David Roediger University of Kansas, and author of Seizing Freedom: Slave Emancipation and Freedom for All

• AcknowledgementsIntroduction: A Sociological Approach to New Deal CinemaThe ProblemSymbols, Experience, and OverdeterminationInterpellative IntentionContextThe Force of Imagined Things“a new kind of public”Working Class CommunityThe Hollywood Cultural ApparatusPlan of the Work1. 1935-1936 Black Fury and RiffRaffRadical Paternalism and Labor’s SolidarityBlack Fury and the Construction of WhitenessBlack Fury’s PaternalismRiffRaffWomen’s Exploitation in the HouseholdWomen’s Exploitation in the CanneryAnti-MarxRace, Wealth, and DesireResponsible UnionismCinematic Contradictions2. 1936 My Man GodfreyCinematic CorporatismForgotten MenTwo CommunitiesResponsibility and RecognitionMastery and Servitude“The only butler we ever had who understood women”Captain of FinanceMask as Mark3. 1936 Swing TimeRecognition and “Schemes of Life”The Power of FashionThe Political Economy of DesireSwing Time’s RealismImmigrants and The Shadows of BlacknessCulture and Barbarism4. 1937 The HurricanePopular Front and Labor AffiliationsColonial Order and Pacific Passions“I’m just the same as a white man”Two Communities“Look at them Dance. There’s the island’s answer to your law”De-Colonized Independence and Enslaved Servility“You’re all guilty”Contradictions and Paradoxes5. Ginger Rogers and the (Hollywood) Proletarian Imaginary, 1939-19415TH Avenue Girl (1939)Bachelor Mother (1939)Kitty Foyle (1940)Tom, Dick, and Harry (1941)6. John Ford, From Radical Critique to the White Garrison State, 1940-1948Radical Traditionalism in The Grapes of WrathSymbolic Domination as Traditional CompensationThe Language of PatriarchyAllegories of RaceNarrating Trauma as Radical CritiqueCapital, Class and the Charmed Circle of the StateWorkers’ ControlThe Paradoxes of Radical RepresentationTwo VoicesFrom Class Conflict (Back) to Corporate Community“all I can see is the flags”“We’ll have no more Grapes of Wrath…”Epilogue: Psycho (1960) and the New Domestic GazeThe GazeInterpellating CommunityThe Loss of the Collective SpectacleReferencesFilms CitedIndex