The documentary "Hollywoodism: Jews, Movies, and the American Dream", explains how a number of Jewish immigrants in the beginning of nineteen century built the most known six movie studios in Hollywood. Despite America 's open-door immigration policy for all immigrants, Jews, perhaps more than other minorities, encountered a new form a discrimination. The documakers say that they were viewed as outsiders and were blacklisted from working in certain fields such as finance, banking, and other higher education careers. Hence, they formed their own communities and their own version of real America, practicing their own religion, opening their own businesses in the garment industry and movie production. Because of the intense discrimination against Jews, especially those involved in the movie-theater industry in New York and Chicago, many of them moved to Hollywood, California building their own studios and working as screenwriters, directors, and producers. Yet, after the World War II, some U.S politicians accused Jews, particularly those in Hollywood industry for being pro-communism and affiliated with …show more content…
By watching this documentary, I depicted the following views. First, Jews, as new immigrants wanted to be fully integrated and assimilated and they did through their own movies by presenting to American people their own perception of American values and virtues. They portrayed American culture by creating dreams whilst they wanted to assimilate, integrate, and acceptance into the American mainstreams culture. Second, while it appeared that Jews immigrants had a particular sense of what a movie-goer liked to watch, they created their own movie productions to please the American popular culture. Overall, my response to this documentary movie is that the interest and involvement of Jews in the Hollywood movie industry is a complex topic that brings a lot of conflicting
Many of the speakers are frustrated at the fact that systemic racism is still very much alive, yet they remain professional. They discuss issues and problems in detail to give the audience a full understanding of the topic. Because of this and their desire to be direct, glossing-over details and censorship does not occur. The documentary has two main points of discussion: the history of oppression in America, and the prison industrial-complex. During the first half of the film, wherein the speakers discuss the discrimination of African-Americans, the tone used is factual and [smth].
Over the course of the film, clips of many western movies play which show parts of Native Americans shown as the enemies of the Americans. The biggest perpetrator of the image upon Natives is Hollywood, which sought out to develop a characteristic on Native Americans. It obviously worked because all of America believes the films show the true character of the Natives. Hollywood’s job was to entertain so they created films that showed the braveness of these savage Natives and eventually moved onto silent films and caricatures to add more entertainment to the industry. They depict the Natives as
The disturbing truth emerges that our history is so filled with racism, that it has caused Disney to have a lack of emphasis on racial issues in films such as
The film 13th directed by Ava DuVernay targets an intended audience of the Media and the three branches of the United States government with an emphasis that mass incarceration is an extension of slavery. It is intended to inform viewers about the criminalization of African Americans and the United States prison boom. 13th uses rhetorical devices in its claim to persuade the viewers by using exemplum in the opening seconds of the film. President Barack Obama presents statistics, saying “the United States is home to 5% of the world’s population but is home to 25% of the world’s prisoners.” Also the film uses a hyperbole in talking about the movie Birth of a Nation produced in 1915 which portrays a black man as a violent savage who will kill white women.
Due to her book "Hollywood: The Dream Factory. An Anthropologist Looks at the Movie Makers" Hortense Powdermaker is regarded as one of the pioneers of ethnography. Published in 1951 by Secker & Warburg in London, Powdermaker here aims to demystify the affect of movies on the audience and establishes the hypothesis "that the social system in which they are made significantly influences their content and meaning" (Powdermaker, 1951, p.3). After living in Hollywood for one year she concludes that the internal structures resemble those of a totalitarian system in which the struggle between business and art is reflected in the meaning of its movies. It suggests that the values of studio bosses and producers dominate while the artistic values of directors and writers are strongly restricted.
In 2015, HBO aired a six-part, true crime documentary series titled, The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst. Writer and director, Andrew Jarecki, examined the details of three crimes associated with Durst, including the disappearance of Durst’s first wife Kathy, the murder of his dear friend, Susan, and the murder and dismemberment of his neighbor, Morris Black. While the mini-series was met with acclaim, many – including myself – criticize The Jinx for its storytelling approach. The series seemingly blurs the lines of storytelling – for entertainment purposes – and journalism; raising many questions regarding ethics. Initially, Durst approached Jarecki regarding an interview after he saw All Good Things, a film Jarecki had released
Josiah Koser 04/10/2017 Robert Sklar, Movie-Made America, Random House inc., New York City, New York, 1994. The argument made by the author Robert Sklar in his book Movie-Made America has to do with the impact that American movies have had on the country's culture and society as a whole. Sklar says this by stating that, “American movies, through much of their span, have altered or challenged many of the values and doctrines of powerful social and cultural forces in American society, providing alternative ways of understanding the world.”
To what extent do Hollywood films reflect social and cultural behavior of America? Outline: History of Hollywood film industry: 1917—1960: the development of Hollywood film industry and characterized most styles to this day: biography, fiction, action, horror, animated, comedy, etc. After the World War One, the America experienced a cultural boom which resulting different forms of culture appears. In order to make films appeal to the audience, various cultural elements were introduced into the production of films.
Damien Chazelle’s American musical film, La La Land (2016), with Director of Photography Linus Sandgren, won about six awards at the Oscars. One of the awards they received is in the Cinematography category. I personally agree with this voting because this beautifully-made film shows, not tells, the story. In the beginning of the film, the viewers see the story from Mia’s point of view, but the story later goes back and switches to Sebastian’s point of view.
One of the most important events was the Civil Rights Movement which responded to a racial discrimination towards African-Americans during the 1950s (Berry, 2009). The growing power of the movement had much influences on American society, including on Hollywood and film industry. It caused a number of the large film productions began to involve more black casts and also shifted the representations and views of African-Americans in films (Siham, 2010). Things slowly changed thanks to actor Sidney Poitier’s arrival on several Hollywood scenes, and his name quickly became synonymous during the 1960s (L. Johnson, 2017). Poitier pushed Hollywood’s boundaries of racial integration in film even further (Siham, 2010).
There is no doubt that Hollywood has many influences on society especially on young age. The term “Hollywood” refers to the film industry where located to the west and northwest of downtown Los Angeles, California (“Where is Hollywood,” n.d.). Not only in Los Angeles that television shows and movies of Hollywood are popular but also all around the country and worldwide. The audiences of Hollywood’s products are in various age starting from little kids to elders. Hollywood has incredible ability to spread believes, cultures, morals and even political influence on society.
Hollywood movies affect national culture in various ways. In one sense, movies could be characterized as America’s storytellers. Hollywood movies „Americanize“ global values and beliefs ,therefore they in a way diminish national culture traits and adapt and reinforce American customs. People tend to copy the ideas,customs and culture of American people or in other words they tend to acculturate. So called „Americanization“ is
The Foundation of stereotypes When you pick a documentary, what’s the first thing you notice: color, the image and the bold letters on the cover? They are usually no more than three words just burning on the cover. But we never consider from where the author or authors came up with them, or what purpose do they hold. In the documentary Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People, the title holds a significant meaning. It represents the movement of how Hollywood has portrayed Arabs through the decades.
Steven Spielberg’s exhilarating film, The Post, is centered around The Washington Post, a family owned newspaper company, which is racing against the New York Times to exploit the wrongdoings of the U.S. government. It tells the story of the Pentagon Papers and how the Government hid these classified documents from the public along with the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War for three decades and four presidencies. This film stars Meryl Streep who takes on the role of Katherine Graham, Chief Publisher of the Washington Post after her husband passed away. Co-star Tom Hanks takes on the role of Ben Bradlee, executive editor of the paper. This film was directed by Steven Spielberg, an extremely talented director/producer for many well
The Hollywood institution has been the dominant force throughout motion picture history due to the studios’ cooperative control of distribution as well as production. During the 1930’s, five major studios that became known as The Big-Five and