Open Access"Rear Window": Polio as a Cultural Ambience
Author(s) -
Taylor Tucker
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
swarthmore undergraduate history journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2693-244X
DOI - 10.24968/2693-244x.2.5
Subject(s) - paragraph , poliomyelitis , narrative , aesthetics , product (mathematics) , sociology , literature , medicine , art , political science , virology , law , geometry , mathematics
Note: In lieu of an abstract, this is the article's first paragraph. "In the 1950’s, the question of polio as a disease that could be eradicated was still unanswered and the struggle to develop a vaccine was the frenetic backdrop for the biomedical field. Culture and daily life was infused with narratives and metaphors that attempted to control and understand the illness. “Rear Window” directed by Alfred Hitchcock was an example of a product of this ambience and though it never explicitly names polio it is infused with concepts and elements of the disease. The themes that course throughout the film reinforces and reflects certain archetypes developed to solidify the flexible and mutable nature of this feared health problem."