Love and Marriage Across Social Classes in American Cinema

Stephen Sharot (D.Phil. Oxford) is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. His research focuses on representations of class and their relationships to gender in popular cinema. He is the author of five books and numerous articles in the sociology of religion.

“Stephen Sharot, professor of sociology and anthropology at Ben-Gurion University, presents here the first comprehensive and systematic study of cross-class romance films throughout the history of American cinema. … Love and Marriage Across Social Classes is a great journey.” (John A. Dick, Marriage, Families & Spirituality, Vol. 29 (1), 2023)“This book is useful for American cinema scholars for its encyclopedic coverage of these films and for the patterns it observes across the quantity of films it explores. Sharot also provides enough context of both developments in the film industry … . Accomplishing much more than merely a history of a prominent film subgenre, the book joins the complex historical and sociological conversation about class and gender in twentieth-century America.” (Paul Arras, Journal of Popular Culture, 2018)

• Preface.- 1. Love, Marriage and Class.- 2. Before the Movies: The Cross-Class Romance in Fiction.- 3. From Attraction and the One-Reeler to the Feature.- 4. Sexual Exploitation and Class Conflict.- 5. Consumerism and Ethnicity.- 6. The Cross-Class Romance in the Depression.- 7. Male Seducers and Female Gold-Diggers.- 8. The End of the Golden Era and After.