Home of the Slave: The Birth of a Nation and the Persistence of Slavery

Different subgroups in society have diverse motives for remembering or forgetting important events in history. In American history, slavery has had a deep and enduring bad effect on everything that came afterward. There have been attempts to forget or remember this chapter in the national narrative related to the intentions of subcultural groups in the present. The treatment of slavery in American movies has been a powerful factor in these attempts. Recent movies have returned to a focus on slavery at the same time that national opinion has turned away from African American issues and sympathies. The recent movie The Birth of a Nation exemplifies the new emphasis on slavery in the movies and the lack of concern for it in public discourse.     

Cold,Cold Heart: Who's Afraid of No Country for Old Men?

Stories of people killing people are a central part of culture and contain profound statements about important human issues. Senseless killings are particularly problematic. The long history of senseless killings in movies leads up to the 2007 movie, No Country for Old Men, in which senselessness has been raised to a peak. Although it is not a great commercial success, the movie has been recognized as deep, powerful, and important. In particular, the senseless killer has been judged to be one of the most frightening in movie history. The meaning of this fear may be found in examining the social and cultural context of contemporary life.     

Young Campers in Love: Who Are the Grown-ups in Moonrise Kingdom?

Popular culture, especially movie culture, is the arena where the struggles of the diverse cultures belonging to age groups are carried out. Moonrise Kingdom is an unusual movie, different from the usual summer or coming of age movies. In such movies, different theories of youth are displayed, providing tools for constructing the political bases of marginalization of adolescents. These theories limit the character traits that can be awarded to all subcultural groups, in this case to youth.     

Black Like Who?: The Class of 2014 Considers Race in Dear White People

Modern educational institutions were associated with the separation of children from ordinary people and of the schoolhouse from the ordinary world, creating an educational subculture and a minority population of schoolchildren. Passage through this subculture became a universal shared experience. Higher education grew at the same time into an experience that separated those who went to college from those who did not, becoming a basis for the modern class system. Popular culture reflects this split as the college movie, a genre that addresses only part of the movie audience. As in other American institutions, there is also a split between the worlds of Black and White colleges. Only the mainstream White version of college appeared in movies until recently. The African-American-themed college movie was pioneered in School Daze. Dear White People followed that lead. The movie concerns a generation of Black college students whose perspectives rest on a familiarity with more than a half century of ideas about race in America.     

Facilitating Intercultural Communication in Parent–Teacher Conferences: Lessons From Child Translators

In this article Abraham Lincoln is considered as an alternative to the usual type of patriot's hero. He reminds us of our great historical failings. He remains a figure of controversy, a national hero in only some corners of society. He is the heroic President who serves as the first compassionate defender of the downtrodden, and he is a hero in those subcultures as well. Lincoln's treatment in the movies is discussed, focusing particularly on the recent movie Lincoln. Lincoln is seen as a match for the usual movie hero. His famous immunity to casual treatment in popular culture is discussed as well.     

Mrs. Miniver's Girls: Plucky Girls in Hidden Figures,The Zookeeper's Wife,Their Finest,and Colossal

Four recent movies, Hidden Figures, The Zookeeper's Wife, Their Finest, and Colossal exemplify a new cultural version of the movie heroine. This version combines feminism with commitment to solving an overwhelming problem. These heroines, thus, display the character virtues of Wonder Woman and Mrs. Miniver. This new version reflects changing concerns about the cultural understanding of women and a new direction for women moviemakers.     

The Big,Bad Wolf: Resisting Corporate Evil in “Damages” and State of Play

Popular culture requires readily identifiable villains. Subcultural groups often serve this role, creating controversies. Controversies based on religion are especially bitter. As a rule, religion in the movies is inoffensively sentimental, but The Da Vinci Code is both popular and provocative, treading on the dangerous ground of Jesus's mortality. An Inconvenient Truth, another unexpectedly popular recent movie, is not as amusing, but it concerns issues Jesus cared more about.     

Guess Who’s Coming to the Oscars: Multicultural Breakthroughs in Black Panther and Other Recent Movies

The movie awards for 2018 were dominated by works by and about marginalized people who are underrepresented in contemporary movies. The movies use established forms of superficial, sensational, and escapist movie-making. The conventions of these “eye candy” forms contradict and undermine the serious adult significance of the works, in obedience to the commercial demands of the movie industry.     

The Teacher From the Black Lagoon: Revenge of the Bad Teacher

School teachers have been used as heroic characters in movies for a long time. Their heroism compensates for the failures of social life in our society by treating problems in the classroom, not the real world, and by acting as the mediators between diverse sub-cultures and the larger society. They are the agents of rationality, scholarship, and inclusiveness in addressing great social issues. In recent years, many movies about bad workers have appeared, including comedies and melodramas. Bad Teacher is a new kind of movie that treats the usually heroic teacher as a kind of bad worker. The critique of the teacher comes at a time when school teachers are being demonized in political discourse, and it makes use of disparaging stereotypes for dramatic effect.     

Gulliver's Travels: Michael Moore the Explorer in Who to Invade Next

America is identified as a nation of immigrants. These immigrants are thought to be the source of its subcultures. It is also a nation of individual explorers and inventors. Their activities are also a source of diverse subcultures. Many notable movies have made heroes of such innovators in different fields of endeavor. Michael Moore's movie Who to Invade Next is a documentary about his trips to other countries in search of more successful institutions of work, education, health services, and incarceration. The premise of the movie is Moore has come to invade the other countries and steal the secrets of their successes in order to reform similar American institutions. Moore finds only mild amusement rather than amazement from his “victims.” He discovers the advances he attributes to other countries were originally American innovations, adopted in other societies but abandoned in America, which has become strangely timid about progress and reform.     

The Awful Truth: Unflattering Portraits in A Serious Man,and Precious

Minority groups are often justified in being watchful for the difficulties that negative reputations can bring on them. The necessity for discovery and discussion of serious issues within a minority community is real, but the resistance to such a candid approach is founded in their position of vulnerability and the power of old stereotypes. Two recent movies, A Serious Man and Precious, in spite of their enthusiastic reception by movie critics and audiences, are viewed with uneasiness by some commentators in the Jewish and African-American communities. This negative view is predictable and unavoidable. It reminds us that even hyper-sensitive minorities have real enemies.     

The Last Laugh: Parasite,Joker, Dark Waters and the Outcasts’ Revenge

Subcultures can appear in multicultural societies not only by the contact of existing cultures but also by cultures that remain constant while the larger society changes. A recent movie, Dark Waters, is an example of this process. Parasite and Joker, two other recent movies, both Academy Award winners, differ from the first in the ways they present the process of subcultural development. Dark Waters shows a marginal community getting effective assistance from an established law firm, while Parasite and Joker show marginal subcultures that develop their own illegitimate methods of responding to marginalization, with disastrous results. The people with legal help remain bitter and pessimistic, while the people resorting to deviant resistance become cheerful and amused, untroubled by the mass homicide their comic attitude brings.     

War Games: Ender's Game,The Monuments Men,and Movies for Peace

The popularity of adolescent fantasy movies about cosmic war and the enjoyment of military adventures that we find in World War II movies suggest the unique importance of war-themed culture in fostering solidarity in large, complex, and factionalized societies. War movies offset the power of sub-cultural movements by emphasizing the togetherness to be found in patriotic attachment to the whole society. A review of the history of recent war movies such as Ender's Game and The Monuments Men raises the possibility of a new militarism among young people. However, the persistence of war-weariness indicates that young people may differentiate fantasies of combat from the recognition of the horrors of real war.     

Flight of the Blackbird: Red Tails and Fighting for American Legitimacy

Red Tails, a recent movie about the Tuskegee Airmen in battle, is the latest in a line of movies that seem to petition for admission to the fellowship of the mainstream American society by showing stories of groups overcoming discrimination and proving their strength and their patriotism. As the most excluded and longest-lasting pariah group, African Americans have enacted this scenario in real life and in the popular culture many times. Movies about war and the military are a powerful means of showing minority group worthiness. Those who will risk their lives in battle on behalf of the homeland and will fight with extraordinary skill should be worthy applicants for inclusion.     

After the Fall: Awakening from the Dream in The Rider and Red Sparrow

Two recent movies, The Rider and Red Sparrow, are in contrast to a large number of movies celebrating the triumph of afflicted persons over obstacles that seem insurmountable. Through commitment, hard work, and determination, these characters are able to do the impossible. However, these two movies instead focus on the dire consequences of an inability to overcome obstacles. This change may reflect an increasing pessimism about current challenges and individuals’ ability to meet them.     

Song of the South Side: A Fine Romance in Southside with You

Love stories are important tools for building cultural communities. Paying attention to the culturally established process by which new members are initiated in a group is a way of keeping loyalty to and satisfaction with the group. The recent movie Southside with You depicts the beginning of the love story of Michelle and Barack Obama. It differs from the usual movie biographies of important people. Their future importance is not emphasized, and the usual devices of serious conflict, exciting action, and sentimental love scenes are absent. The happy couple do not even end up together in love. But the themes alluded to and the audience attitudes aroused are cultural achievements that are useful to cultural communities.     

An American Nightmare: Remembered Wrongs in 12 Years a Slave

Sub-cultural groups that depend on a historical account to validate their thoughts and practices may need to revise and repair those accounts as changing circumstances present new issues affecting them. The year 2013 gave us three movies that dealt with racism, mobility, and political action: Lee Daniels’ The Butler, 12 Years a Slave, and Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. All based on autobiographical accounts of the real life experiences of the authors, they present a theme of contrast between brutal oppression and benign inclusion. The pattern differs from the popular version of the American Dream, and the movies are grim, provocative documents during a period of apparent African American progress and achievement.     

Come Into My Parlor: Rendition,Ugly Betty,and Rude Awakening from the American Dream

Although the national ideology emphasizes that the American Dream is available to immigrants, recent events have made public opinion hostile to two groups, Mexicans and Arabs. Popular culture has played a historic role in presenting sympathetic portrayals of immigrants and their assimilation to American culture. Current depictions of Mexican immigrants continue this tradition, as shown by the television show, Ugly Betty. Arabs and Muslims, in contrast, have had a largely negative presentation in popular culture. A few recent movies and television shows have been more sympathetic, especially the movie, Rendition.     

One False Step: Detroit,Step and Movies of Rising and Falling

Detroit and Step are two recent movies in the context of urban riots in protest of police brutality. They refer to time periods separated by half a century, but there are common themes in the two that seem appropriate to both times. The movies are not primarily concerned with the riot events, but the riot is a major motivating force in both; Detroit is pessimistic, while Step is hopeful. Together, they define alternative possibilities of African American community life. One is eternally sought, and the other is always a dreadful possibility.     

Intruders: New Neighbors in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and The Hundred-Foot Journey

Conflicts over territory are about the power to establish dominant cultures in territories and are often accompanied by cultural claims to legitimacy by each side. The cultural claims, or ideologies, are often expressed in terms of “homeland” dwellers versus “intruders.” Two recent movies, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and The Hundred-Foot Journey, depict such conflicts. They refer to novel groups in the depictions, but they follow the pattern of earlier movies, such as Broken Arrow. Novel groups are required because the earlier examples of despised alien cultures no longer convey to modern audiences the extreme hostility felt by the combatants in the earlier movies.