The Influence of Cinema on American Political Thought

Ben Burr
Honors Seminar
June 5, 2007
The Question

Ever since the first short film was made in 1894, films and filmmakers

have had a hand in shaping the way that moviegoers see the world that they live

in. And as egotistical as some filmmakers and studio executives are, even they

might not totally understand the extent of the persuasion power that they have

with their craft. Some filmmakers do know this power and they make socially

conscious films that try to teach moviegoers a lesson or at least get them to think

about social issues. But do the movies have an impact on Americans political and

social beliefs?

The Purpose

The purpose of this thesis is to determine whether or not the films that

people watch have any influence on their stances on political issues. The film

industry in America is a multi-billion dollar a year business which reaches almost

every citizen in one way or another; whether it be by viewing films, working on

films or hearing coworkers or friends talking about the film they saw on Friday

night or what they rented on a rainy night. Some movies are throwaways, but

others have very serious messages. Some are made for entertainment while

others are meant to get an agenda across. From this point on, anytime the word

“movie” is mentioned, it is representing something made for entertainment

purposes only, with no real redeeming qualities. On the other hand, when the

word “film” is used, it is representing higher tiered cinema, i.e. art house,

independent cinema, generally films with a meaning.

 Filmmakers have the ability to say whatever they want to. They have the

ability to create entire universes and destroy them within a two hour time span.

Filmmakers such as Michael Moore, Robert Altman and John Sayles have been

making films the either satirize or criticize politicians and their actions. Stanley

Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove; or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the

Bomb gave viewers a darkly humorous look at what would happen if one military

commander lost his mind and started a nuclear war. Fail Safe was an extremely

similar film that came out the same year but without the humor. Modern films

such as Hotel Rwanda and Syriana tackle genocide and the Middle East

respectively. But does seeing these images on the silver screen affect the way

that people formulate their opinions on the subject?

Discussion

The film industry is making more money than ever and some of the films

that they are putting out are relevant to current situations in the world and at

home. The people that see these films might already have an opinion about the

topic in their mind, but being bombarded for two or more hours is certainly going

to have an affect on that opinion. It will either reinforce their preconceived

notions, change their opinion on the subject all together or it will make them at

least see the situation in a different light. But this isn’t a new phenomenon. Some

of the earliest films dealt with social and political issues. When Louis Lumiere

filmed Employees Leaving the Lumiere Factory in 1985, he started a trend of

filming workers that evolved into a great number of films about strikes and
workers rights. “Labor disputes were the subjects of many early films; the best

known, of course, being D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance (1916), with it’s depiction of a

long, drawn-out strike and its effects on the workers of the community. (Crowdus

390)” Films such as The Strikers (1909), The Long Strike (1911), A General

Strike (1911), The Strike at the Mines (1911), and The Right to Labor (1912) and

the actual strikes themselves helped to get most employers to agree to an 8-hour

workday in 1912. The films helped to inform the rest of the public about the

conditions that the workers had to work in, it was almost a type of propaganda.

But early films were about more than strikes. “Thanhouse produced a two-

reeler in 1912 titled The Cry of the Children, which illustrated the horrors of

children working in the mines, while Edison released two major anti-child labor

one reel productions, Suffer Little Children (1909) and Children Who Labor

(1912). Edison also produced two shorts – The Price of Human Lives (1913) and

The Temple of Moloch (1914) – endorsed by the National Association for the

Prevention of Tuberculosis, which vividly demonstrated why the death rate from

TB among unskilled laborers was seven times higher than that among the

professional classes. (Crowdus 391)” These films led to regulations in child labor.

In the silent era, pro-women’s rights films were harder to come by, but they

were there. Films such as The Suffragette and the Senator (1910) showed that

women should be allowed to vote and that there were people in high places that

would let it happen. This was followed by such films as Should a Woman

Divorce? (1914) and Woman’s Work in War Time. A very interesting film from

1921, just one year after women were given the right to vote, is Man-Woman-
Marriage. “Dorothy Phillips runs against her politically corrupt husband for the

U.S. Senate and wins, and, in flashback, dreams of women’s roles through the

ages. (Crowdus 392)” Of course, Jeannette Rankin became the first woman

elected to the House of Representatives in 1917, but no woman had ever gone to

the Senate (Rebecca Felton would become the first woman Senator in 1922).

Some films do have positive messages. One of the biggest films of 1939

was Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. This film was really a double-edged sword.

On one hand, it allowed voters to see that solid, upstanding people were in

Congress. But on the other hand, it showed that a lot of the people in Washington

were greedy and soulless. 1944’s Hollywood Canteen was nothing more than a

propaganda film for Hollywood and the war effort. It featured many movie stars at

the time working in a club that was only available to GIs.

These themes and more have come up throughout the evolution of

cinema. The Cold War was a very popular subject in the late 1940s through the

early 1960s. Two fantastic examples of this are with two films that are extremely

similar. Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove; Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

and Love the Bomb and Fail Safe. Both films deal with a nuclear crisis,

Strangelove in a humorous way, Fail Safe in a serious manner. These films let

the American people play out the doomsday scenario in their heads and get them

thinking about what they would do in that situation. Films such as The Spy Who

Loved Me, The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, The House on 92nd Street, and

Torn Curtain captured the imagination of many Americans and made them get

behind winning the Cold War one hundred percent.

 Films have also had a great impact in affecting the civil rights movement.

Sidney Poitier’s films in the late 1950s and early 1960s gave African-Americans a

clean, polished, dominant male to present to the other races in a spokesman

role. His films such as Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and A Patch of Blue had

complex stories that involved interracial romance and “they nevertheless fostered

an altogether new stereotype: the Good Negro. (Crowdus 308)” But there were

strong black characters out there. Blaxploitation films such as Dolemite, starring

Rudy Ray Moore, Shaft, starring Richard Roundtree gave us strong male leads

and films starring Pam Grier (Foxy Brown, Coffy, Black Mama/White Mama) gave

a strong female lead. Grier also gave women empowerment because her films

could also be termed “sexploitation.” Other sexploitation films include Women in

Cages, Faster Pussycat Kill Kill and Caged Heat.

Abortion is a hot topic in films and the cinema has seen every side of the

issue. In the 1966 film Alfie, abortion is considered but is decided against. In The

Godfather Part II, Diane Keaton’s character has an abortion. Even today, abortion

is a hot topic in cinema. The Romanian film, 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days,

deals with college students who deal with abortion. In May 2007, the film won the

Palme d’Or, the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival in France.

Modern cinema has dealt with big issues as well. 2004’s Million Dollar

Baby ends with an assisted suicide. At the time of the film’s release, Terry Schivo

was being taken off of life support and left to die. The timing caused a stir among

the religious right and Catholics everywhere. This is thing that this thesis will

really pick up on. The film, which was beautifully shot and acted, received critical
acclaim and got America talking. But it the beauty and class of the film get

anyone talking about living wills and such? And did the film sway anyone any

certain way on the issue? The film went on to win four Academy Awards for Best

Picture of the Year, Best Director (Clint Eastwood), Best Actress and Best

Supporting Actor.

2005’s Syriana dealt with turmoil and big oil in the Middle East. The film is

intense and very socially conscious. This film made the entire situation in the

Middle East seem very shady and seedy. Films like this are the entire reason for

my thesis. It would be interesting to see if the negative images portrayed by this

film and other films of the same nature made an impact on the electorate when

they step to the polls. Hotel Rwanda, a film about genocide, is very important for

two reasons. First it tells the story of what happened and second, it serves to

keep the idea of genocide in our heads, which is an extremely large issue in

Darfur. The 2005 film Lord Of War, similarly dealt with international relations and

the United States role in the world. The Interpreter, which is the only film to ever

be allowed to film the United Nations building, had a positive look at the UN.

Documentaries also play a big role in Hollywood. These are considered

the most political films because they are supposedly the truth. The biggest

documentary in recent years was extremely political, Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit

9/11. The interesting thing about this film is because it was made solely to

disgrace President George W. Bush and affect the 2004 elections. While it did

become the highest grossing documentary of all time, if failed to defeat George

Bush. Moore has a film coming out in 2007 titled Sicko, a documentary about the
health care industry in the United States. Other documentaries came out about

George Bush, the most known being Bush’s Brain, a film about Karl Rove.

Another documentary that may have recently had a large impact on the

political world is former Vice President Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. The film

is basically a slide show that talks about global warming, a hot issue today. Gore

would win an Academy Award for the film, a sign that the Academy of Motion

Picture Arts and Science voters were behind the film one hundred percent.

The death penalty is dealt with often in films also. Monster’s Ball begins

with the execution of the main character’s husband. The Green Mile takes place

almost entirely on death row. I WANT TO LIVE!!! was one of the first films to deal

with the death penalty. It had a young mother who committed a murder on death

row. The film won Susan Hayward an Academy Award and with the interplay

between the soon-to-be executed mother and the infant child, put doubts about

the death penalty into the minds of many of the people who saw it.

Method

There is really only one method when studying something like this.

Throughout the year, I will screen various films in various places, the most

common being at Ohio University. I will screen films that I believe have an

agenda behind them, such as Syriana, Hotel Rwanda, Million Dollar Baby, An

Inconvenient Truth, Lord of War and others. Before the screening, I will give the

audience a small survey to fill out. Questions on the survey will be basic and

simple, things such as “How familiar are you with the subject?” and “On a scale
of one to ten, how would rate your feelings on the subject?” Then after the

screening, I will again give them the same survey and see if any of their thoughts

on the subject were affected. From that, I will gather my data and I will draw my

conclusions.
Works Cited

Crowdus, Gary. A Political Companion to American Film. Lakeview Press, 1994.

Gianos, Phillip L. Politics and Politicians in America Films. Westport, Connecticut:

Praeger, 1994.

Kawin, Bruce F and Mast, Gerald. A Short History of the Movies. New York:

Pearson Longman, 2006.

Wayne, Mike. Political Film: The Dialectics of Third Cinema. London: Pluto Press,

2001.