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Post-War Paranoia In Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window

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“We’ve become a nation of peeping toms,” states James Stewart’s nurse, played by Thelma Ritter, in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 film Rear Window. Ritter’s comment ironically foreshadows events later in the film, but simultaneously provides a critique of the voyeuristic nature of cinema itself. Rear Window’s marketing campaign and public reception both center on the notion of ‘peeping,’ but present differing standpoints on Hitchcock’s exhibition and apparent promotion of the morbid curiosity at the root of human nature during the era of post-war paranoia. A theme often apparent in Hitchcock films is the idea of lost identity, a concept that can easily contribute to obsessive fear, which was not an unfamiliar sensation for American citizens during

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