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Not a History Lesson: The Erasure of Politics in A merican Cinema
Author(s) -
Ortner Sherry B.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
visual anthropology review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.346
H-Index - 18
eISSN - 1548-7458
pISSN - 1058-7187
DOI - 10.1111/var.12006
Subject(s) - ideology , politics , entertainment , hegemony , movie theater , erasure , media studies , sociology , aesthetics , history , advertising , visual arts , art , art history , political science , law , computer science , programming language , business
There is a long‐standing distinction in H ollywood between “entertainment” and everything else. The “everything else” includes among other things any direct address of political subjects, which are assumed to turn A merican audiences off. This article presents both an ethnographic account of this H ollywood ideology and an examination of several recent films in terms of their different strategies for erasing politics, both narratively and visually. It also reviews some of the theories of how this ideology became hegemonic in the world of A merican film, and how it plays out at different historical periods.