tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/american-movies-41491/articlesAmerican movies – The Conversation2018-02-15T11:40:02Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/917032018-02-15T11:40:02Z2018-02-15T11:40:02ZHow I marvelled at Black Panther’s reimagining of Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206538/original/file-20180215-131024-1qx38ss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marvel Studios' BLACK PANTHER</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Watching Marvel’s highly anticipated comic-book film adaptation, Black Panther, was no ordinary tried and tested cinematic experience. Much like the unapologetic showmanship, flamboyance and atmospheric idiosyncrasies of Sunday service black congregational worship, the cinema metamorphosised beyond its remnants of unswept popcorn kernels and sticky milkshake residue into an augmented space. It became a “mega-church” sanctuary of spiritual catharsis –with all the impassioned and melodic trimmings of Afro-Pentecostalism. </p>
<p>But, make no mistake, this was not the time nor place for solemn contemplation or confessing past transgressions – but an opportunity for continental Africans and diaspora to offload socially sanctioned climactic expressions of individual and collective excitement and expectations, as well as lip-bitten anxieties about a fictionalised Africa. </p>
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<p>If this was an Afro-baptism in filmic spirit, I sought – and submitted to – full-bodied immersion. </p>
<p>Let’s be clear, the fervour over Black Panther among the Ankra-wearing, close-cropped Afro-crowned cinemagoers is incredibly warranted for several reasons. Not least for its reimagining, its re-presentation of Africa and communities therein – with magical realism – that makes it an intriguing anomaly among the slew of other questionable Western cinematic attempts to deliver “Africa” on screen.</p>
<p>Die-hard Marvel fans and those newly christened have waited with baited breath to secure a one-way ticket to Wakanda – the wondrous Afro-futuristic utopia and homeland of the titular character Black Panther (played by Chadwick Boseman). But this is by no means Hollywood’s first foray into fictionalised African kingdoms. Before Wakanda, there was the similarly named and seemingly “African-sounding” Zumunda in Eddie Murphy’s 1998 blockbuster <a href="http://www.ebony.com/news-views/coming-to-america-offensive-to-africans-981">Coming to America</a>.</p>
<p>But Zumunda presented as nothing more than a visual repository of African clichés and normative assumptions, where wild animals, as domesticated pets, cohabit “as they do” nonchalantly with humans. So too, where royalty enrobe in lion’s fur. As the Nigerian literary darling <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Ihs241zeg">Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie</a> put it: </p>
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<p>If all I knew about Africa were from popular images, I too would think that Africa was a place of beautiful landscapes, animals and incomprehensible people, fighting senseless wars, dying of poverty and Aids, unable to speak for themselves.</p>
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<p>If only I could speculate on what may have informed such a proclamation … dare I venture towards films such as <a href="http://www.filmsite.org/afri.html">The African Queen</a>, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/africa/kenya/articles/Out-of-Africa-The-film-that-made-us-fall-in-love-with-Kenya/">Out of Africa</a>, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2005/04/the-movie-review-hotel-rwanda/69612/">Hotel Rwanda</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/jun/10/last-king-of-scotland-history">The Last King of Scotland</a>, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/08/movies/08diam.html">Blood Diamond</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/sep/02/beasts-of-no-nation-review-brutal-epic-opens-awards-season-in-style">Beasts of No Nation</a> – to name a handful. </p>
<h2>Africa’s burden</h2>
<p>Those cinematic offerings were the colonial-era mythmakers and extenders whose white lensed romanticisms have determined the space within which Africa is defined and knowable. It is also within this space that the complexities and pluralities of African representation have been lost in simplification and concealment. </p>
<p>Surely these films must have affixed the “Afro” in the unmistaken and riotous Afro-futurism of Black Panther. But its the “futurism” aspect that makes Black Panther stand head and shoulders above the rest. Showcasing an iteration of Africa that is more imaginatively radical than merely culturally palatable for audiences who are used to being spoon-fed – better yet, force-fed – microwavable doses of an Africa that is melancholic, benighted and savage, to satisfy their visually myopic cravings.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206544/original/file-20180215-131000-1o4hwsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206544/original/file-20180215-131000-1o4hwsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=317&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206544/original/file-20180215-131000-1o4hwsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=317&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206544/original/file-20180215-131000-1o4hwsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=317&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206544/original/file-20180215-131000-1o4hwsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206544/original/file-20180215-131000-1o4hwsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206544/original/file-20180215-131000-1o4hwsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Afro-futuristic: Winston Duke as M'Baku.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://image.net/xads/actions/layout/preview.do?asset=566930781&fromPage=product">Marvel Studios' BLACK PANTHER</a></span>
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<p>Unlike its predecessors, Black Panther’s Afro-futuristic elements challenge stereotypes by readjusting the barometer of African imagination. Where Africa and black-Africanness is equated with discourses of futurism, cybernetics, sci-fi fantasy and mysticism.</p>
<h2>New African century</h2>
<p>This is a far cry from previous film interpretations of Africa, and especially of Africa’s future – or lack thereof. It has too often been represented as provisional and ephemeral – or arbitrated by the technocratic and philanthropic efforts of white do-gooders. Instead, Black Panther provides a prophetic reimagining of Africa with its postmodern gravity-defying vehicles and supersonic technology that far exceed human comprehension. </p>
<p>This has important implications for how we see Africa, through films which have long anchored it in a “forever-more” state that is seemingly unenlightened, backward-leaning and perceived as a prolongation of the past. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206542/original/file-20180215-131029-1pa40h9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206542/original/file-20180215-131029-1pa40h9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206542/original/file-20180215-131029-1pa40h9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206542/original/file-20180215-131029-1pa40h9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206542/original/file-20180215-131029-1pa40h9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206542/original/file-20180215-131029-1pa40h9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206542/original/file-20180215-131029-1pa40h9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Letitia Wright as Shuri.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://image.net/xads/actions/layout/preview.do?asset=535907517&fromPage=product">Marvel Studios' BLACK PANTHER</a></span>
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<p>So, too, the film speaks volumes about how young and old black African “selves” can infiltrate otherworldly spheres. Its Afro-futurism allows black folk to apply self-iterations and augment alternate realities that transcend the limitations of the “here and now” towards the “what ifs” and “could bes”, through their own melanin-infused, ethno-cultural lens. </p>
<p>Equally, with its vestiges of the past and nods to the future, Black Panther presents a certain “contemporary ordinariness” within Africa that is discernible in all its parts. Where streets of African cities, for example, are littered with mother-tongue speaking, iPhone-clutching youth, dressed in dashiki-patterned bomber jackets, skinny jeans and with basket-woven braided hairstyles. </p>
<p>Moreover, the portrayal of Wakanda as resource-rich, unsoiled by European colonialism and the paraphernalia of international development, challenges cinematic presumptions of an Africa that is deficient, agentless and lacking internal diplomacies for sovereignty.</p>
<h2>Africa upgraded</h2>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206539/original/file-20180215-131006-3syii7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206539/original/file-20180215-131006-3syii7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206539/original/file-20180215-131006-3syii7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206539/original/file-20180215-131006-3syii7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206539/original/file-20180215-131006-3syii7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206539/original/file-20180215-131006-3syii7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206539/original/file-20180215-131006-3syii7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Role models: the women of Wakanda.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://image.net/xads/actions/layout/preview.do?asset=568875306&fromPage=product">Marvel Studios' BLACK PANTHER</a></span>
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<p>This is further reinforced by the central staging and representation of steely-eyed, intelligent African women – as Beyoncé avows in her feminist-imbued record <a href="http://blackyouthproject.com/upgrade-u-what-we-can-learn-from-beyonce/">Upgrade U</a>, if the men are “the block” the women are “the lights that keep the streets on”. We see this in the female Wakandans, the unyielding pillars of the film, who demystify allusions and illusions of Africa – through its female proxies – as infantilised, subordinate and devoid of individual articulation of unique intent. </p>
<p>As a Marvel trailblazer, Black Panther is stunning in its redefining of Africa’s aesthetic within the cultural zeitgeist of cinematic consciousness. It trades cinema’s historical blueprint for Africa, for its own set of black paws. Suffice to say, representation (in all its shades) matters.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91703/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Edward Ademolu PhD, FHEA does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>This new Afro-celebratory sci-fi trendsetter sets out to unsettle and subvert film stereotypes about Africa – and succeeds brilliantly.Dr Edward Ademolu PhD, FHEA, PhD Researcher at the Global Development Institute, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/908122018-01-29T12:28:29Z2018-01-29T12:28:29ZThe Shape of Water: plagiarism accusations explained<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203753/original/file-20180129-100896-7tork7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.foxpressofficeuk.com/films/the-shape-of-water/images/">Fox Searchlight</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Shape of Water is currently leading the Oscar nominations with no less than <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/oscars-academy-embraces-outsiders-as-shape-water-gets-13-noms-1077349">13 Oscars</a>, including Best Original Screenplay – so accusations that <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/01/shape-of-water-allegations-paul-zindel">its plot was stolen</a> from Pulitzer-winning playwright Paul Zindel could not come at a worse time.</p>
<p>In 1969, Zindel wrote a play, <a href="http://www.paulzindel.com/hisworks/synopsis/plays/letmewhisper.htm">Let Me Hear You Whisper</a>, about a female janitor working in a secret government-owned laboratory in the 1960s who eventually attempts to rescue a sea creature from being killed after the creature’s refusal to cooperate with the researchers. Fast forward to 2017 and Shape of Water also takes place in the 1960s, features an introverted female character working as a janitor in a research lab and revolves around saving a sea creature about to be killed due to lack of cooperation during lab experiments.</p>
<p>According to the film’s director, Guillermo del Toro, <a href="https://www.mydigitalpublication.com/publication/?i=460619&ver=html5&p=38#%7B%22page%22:40,%22issue_id%22:460619%7D">on the website Written By</a>, the idea of creating a movie about a “janitor that kidnaps an amphibian-man from a secret government facility” came from working with associate producer Daniel Kraus, who said he had been toying with the idea for some time.</p>
<p>Zindel died in 2003 and it is not yet clear whether his estate intends to pursue the issue in the courts.</p>
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<h2>Copyright infringement?</h2>
<p>Ideas remain free for all to use as only the expression of ideas can be protected under copyright law. As <a href="http://www.indiewire.com/2018/01/the-shape-of-water-the-space-between-us-1201920378/">reported</a>, there is actually a third short film <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/3973507/guillermo-del-toro-copying-shape-of-water-space-between-us/">based on similar ideas</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZgJCKfEcOU">The Space Between Us</a> made in 2015. Therefore, provided that Zindel’s play is still protected under copyright, there is a need to dissect the two works further to look for all the similarities and establish whether what has been copied amounts to reproducing the same <em>expression</em> of ideas and not just common themes.</p>
<p>Not all works created prior to 1978 are protected under US copyright law. Typically, works published before 1978 receive 95 years of protection if published with a copyright notice. As the US copyright office register features a copyright <a href="http://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v1=14&ti=1,14&Search_Arg=let%20me%20hear%20you%20whisper&Search_Code=TALL&CNT=25&PID=iumHT6nAuRbx3hCYFpi4aRcgMgrC&SEQ=20180126115915&SID=1">notice</a> for Let Me Hear You Whisper, we will assume that copyright subsists in Zindel’s work. Proving Zindel’s valid copyright in the play would be the first step towards establishing infringement.</p>
<p>The second step requires Zindel’s estate to prove that del Toro has copied original elements of Let Me Hear You Whisper in Shape of Water. This is the crux of a copyright infringement dispute, as there are no clear lines separating a protectable expression from a non-protectable idea in a work of fiction. Here, the words of Judge Learned Hand in <a href="https://www.leagle.com/decision/193016445f2d1191129">Nichols v Universal Pictures Corp</a> in November 1930 resonate:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Upon any work, and especially upon a play, a great number of patterns of increasing generality will fit equally well, as more and more of the incident is left out. The last may perhaps be no more than the most general statement of what the play is about, and at time might consist only of its title; but there is a point in this series of abstractions where they are no longer protected, since otherwise the playwright could prevent the use of his ideas, to which, apart from their expression, his property is never extended.</p>
</blockquote>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203754/original/file-20180129-100902-9g4m19.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203754/original/file-20180129-100902-9g4m19.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203754/original/file-20180129-100902-9g4m19.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203754/original/file-20180129-100902-9g4m19.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203754/original/file-20180129-100902-9g4m19.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203754/original/file-20180129-100902-9g4m19.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203754/original/file-20180129-100902-9g4m19.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Elisa Esposito in The Shape of Water.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.foxpressofficeuk.com/films/the-shape-of-water/images/">Fox Searchlight</a></span>
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<p>Some scenes will bear similarities with the earlier copyright-protected work because they derive from a similar idea, in which case they are not protected under copyright. However, the more complex the characters and dialogues become, the more likely these are to be protected under copyright. If this case went to court, judges will undertake a thorough <a href="http://hollywoodnerd.com/did-the-shape-of-water-plagiarize-the-paul-zindel-play-let-me-hear-you-whisper/">comparison</a> between the two works to establish if del Toro copied any elements of the play and, if so, whether he copied more than the unprotected scenes. </p>
<p>On the one hand, Shape of Water arguably appropriates numerous characters (the janitor, scientists and creature), settings (mainly the lab) and plot twists (including fleeing with the creature in a laundry cart) from the original play. But on the other hand, some major differences have been reported – such as the muteness of the main character in the film (the character in the play is not mute) – and the endings of the two works. </p>
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<p>Whether a court would be convinced that the seemingly striking similarities in the characters and their interactions with the similarities in settings and plot will be enough to establish that Shape of Water exploits Zindel’s play as the basis for a new story, is impossible to predict.</p>
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<p>According to Fox Searchlight’s spokesperson: “Guillermo del Toro has never read nor seen Mr Zindel’s play in any form.” Could this help del Toro? The principle of independent creation means that a defendant <a href="http://www.danielkraus.com/">can deny</a> copying elements from the original and maintain that the substantial similarities between the two works are purely coincidental.</p>
<p>But in case of court action, del Toro will have to demonstrate as a defence that he created the Shape of Water independently of the play by Zindel. This defence <a href="http://caselaw.findlaw.com/ca-court-of-appeal/1627541.html">succeeded</a> for ABC in a similar case in relation to the TV show <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0411008/">Lost</a>, in which the plaintiff, Anthony Spinner – a television producer, writer, and former studio executive in Los Angeles – wrote a 121-page script for a pilot which bore striking similarities with the series eventually made without his participation. </p>
<p>The court held that ABC had “negated the plaintiff’s claims by providing sufficient evidence to establish both that it did not have access to plaintiff’s original 1977 script and that the script for Lost was created independently”.</p>
<p>Similarly, del Toro’s argument would eventually hinge upon well-documented records of the creative process behind the script.</p>
<h2>Moral rights</h2>
<p>Zindel’s widow, Bonnie Zindel, has said that the play held a “special place in Paul heart” – and moral rights exist to protect the special bond between an author and his creation. And the US has been <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/01/23/2017-01294/study-on-the-moral-rights-of-attribution-and-integrity">criticised</a> for lacking adequate protection of moral rights. The general approach seems to be that an author has no right to guarantee his association with the work created if he has waived his right or if he has transferred his rights without expressively requiring to be credited in subsequent uses.</p>
<p>Should this case make its way in front of US courts – and should del Toro be found to infringe Zindel’s work – del Toro can still rely on the independent creation defence to justify coincidental similarities. Yet, as Zindel’s estate manifest is more concerned about the lack of acknowledgement of inspiration, perhaps this case represents another pledge for a <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/340855743/Moral-Rights-Inquiry">reform of moral rights</a> which would finally bring the US into line with much of the rest of the world – Europe (especially in France), for example – where moral rights are <a href="https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2006/06/12/us-vs-europe-moral-rights/">given greater weight</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90812/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sabine Jacques works as a lecturer at the University of East Anglia.</span></em></p>The leading contender for the Oscars has been hit with claims its theme comes from an unacknowledged 1960s play. What does US copyright law say?Sabine Jacques, Lecturer, School of Law, University of East AngliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/904752018-01-22T12:11:17Z2018-01-22T12:11:17ZSteven Spielberg’s The Post is a timely reminder of the constitutional importance of a free press<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202808/original/file-20180122-46226-1ay440t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.showtimes.com/movies/the-post-128847/photos/3">20th Century Fox</a></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government<br>
Justice Hugo Black, <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/403/713">New York Times v. US</a> (1971).</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Steven Spielberg’s new film, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrXlY6gzTTM">The Post</a>, which explores the events that led up to New York Times v. US, echoes Black’s sentiment. The film tells the little known story of how the Washington Post came to be the second newspaper after the New York Times to publish extracts of the so-called “<a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/a-wars-secret-history-finally-emerges">Pentagon Papers</a>”. The case helped to expose the lies and half-truths told to the American people about the Vietnam War by their own government and standing up to the bullying of the Nixon administration in the process. </p>
<p>The film addresses many themes, including sexism in the workplace, industry competition, journalistic integrity and the problems of an industry facing increasing financial pressures. But at heart The Post is nothing short of a love letter to the press and to the journalistic profession.</p>
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<p>Like the successful TV adaptation of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/may/25/the-handmaids-tale-on-tv-too-disturbing-even-for-margaret-atwood">The Handmaid’s Tale</a> in 2016, The Post comes weighted with relevance to contemporary events in ways not necessarily anticipated by those involved. Donald Trump’s attacks on the press by labelling as “<a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/fake-news-33438">fake news</a>” anything the president doesn’t like have echoes in the diatribes against the “liberal” press from Nixon. </p>
<p>The use of Nixon’s <a href="https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/virtuallibrary/tapeexcerpts/">White House tapes</a> in the film make the parallels to today strikingly clear. If Spielberg’s film is concerned about threats to the press, it is not by those posed by the president – but those from financial pressures, news as entertainment and an increasing tendency to devalue the work of journalists. What The Post seeks to remind us is that the role of investigative journalism is important and that we should not take it for granted.</p>
<h2>Founded on freedoms</h2>
<p>The founding generation believed in the importance of a free press: it is protected alongside freedom of religion, freedom of speech and freedom of assembly in the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment">First Amendment</a> to the Constitution. The US has a mixed history of protecting the rights of those deemed to be outside of the mainstream – but, in the 20th century, the Supreme Court was very clear about the important role played in the life and government of the nation by the members of the Fourth Estate.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>To the press alone, chequered as it is with abuses, the world is indebted for all the triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>With these words, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes in <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/283/697/case.html">Near v. Minnesota</a> (1931), defended the right of the even the most scandalous of newspapers to publish. In 1964, shortly before the events depicted in The Post, the court addressed attempts by southern juries to use hefty libel fines to intimidate reporters into dropping coverage of civil rights protests and provided what remains one of the most sweeping protections offered to the press in US constitutional law. </p>
<p>Justice William Brennan expressed the unanimous opinion of the Court in <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/376/254/case.html"><em>New York Times v. Sullivan</em></a> when he wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… the pall of fear and timidity imposed upon those who would give voice to public criticism is an atmosphere in which the First Amendment freedoms cannot survive.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Justice Black took this one step further in his concurring opinion:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I doubt that a country can live in freedom where its people can be made to suffer physically or financially for criticising their government, its actions, or its officials.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The occasional error by the media is the price to be paid, they asserted, for the existence of an institution which should ensure government accountability and transparency. Limiting the right of the press to explore ideas and expose wrongdoing would only weaken the nation, no matter how unsavoury those ideas might seem at the time.</p>
<h2>Trumping press freedom</h2>
<p>But the press faces a growing threat from which even the broad protections of the First Amendment cannot protect it. “The press was to serve the governed, not the governors,” <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/403/713">wrote Justice Black</a>, a line quoted triumphantly in the closing moments of The Post. The quote reveals the assumption at the heart of the film, the court’s opinions and even the First Amendment itself: that the public are paying attention to what the press is reporting.</p>
<p>But what happens when “the governed” are uninterested in the work of the press, or consider investigative journalism of the kind portrayed in The Post (or in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/oct/10/all-the-presidents-men-watergate-conspiracy-richard-nixon-woodward-bernstein-redford-hoffman">All The President’s Men</a> or, more recently, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/film/spotlight/catholic-church-abuse-true-story-facts/">Spotlight</a>) as being on a par with “news” received from online blogs, or, perhaps worse, consider such reporting as false?</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…The ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas … the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So wrote Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/250/616/case.html">Abrams v. US</a> in 1919. Holmes suggested that “truth” was determined by the operation of the market – if an idea could win over a majority, in a democracy it might as well be truth. And this is where Trump’s accusations of “fake news” are most troubling. If he can convince a majority of Americans that the news offered by CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and others, is fake, then who’s to say it isn’t?</p>
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<p>Ironically, the protections offered the press by the Supreme Court’s reading of the First Amendment may well be the reason Trump has been forced to resort to claims of “fake news”. Denied the ability to ban, abolish, fine, or prosecute the media for publishing and airing stories to which he objects, dismissing their activities as fake, lies, and part of a conspiracy to discredit him is really the only option available. </p>
<p>That for some Americans those claims are gaining traction says more about the American public and the state of US politics than it does about the protections offered by the constitution. It might well prove that Holmes was right – even the strongest constitutional protections may not be enough to protect the American public from themselves and “truth” may be whatever the majority decides. For those fearful of this possibility, using their constitutional protections and continuing to speak out may be the best way to ensure that those rights remain vigorous and real. The Post reminds us, in the best possible way, that it can and should be done.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90475/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Long does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The first amendment protecting press freedom is under unprecedented threat in the Trump era.Emma Long, Lecturer in American Studies, University of East AngliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/881992017-12-13T10:33:51Z2017-12-13T10:33:51ZWhy Hollywood needs more films like Star Wars<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198540/original/file-20171211-27693-1irxv5e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Disney/Lucasfilm</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Try to imagine a world without Star Wars. It’s 40 years since George Lucas unveiled the first in his sci-fi franchise and, with <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-42300989">The Last Jedi now upon us</a>, it’s a question worth asking. A <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/05/star-wars-40th-anniversary">recent Vanity Fair article</a> came to the conclusion that it’s almost impossible – unless, that is, we can imagine the past four decades without Space Invaders, Pixar, or even Photoshop.</p>
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<p>In short, Star Wars is unavoidable. Since 1977, the Star Wars films have been the benchmark – if not the catalyst – for modern Hollywood’s “synergy-driven strategies” – linking big-screen outings with “ancillary products” in the form of action figures and other commercial tie-ins. Now owned by Disney, the Star Wars property extends to theme-park rides, videogames and, more recently, spin-off films and animated TV series. </p>
<p>Much like <a href="http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Multiverse/Universe_Listing">Marvel’s comic-book multiverse</a> or the Harry “<a href="https://potterversecon.com/">Potterverse</a>”, the original Star Wars film – since rebranded as Episode IV: A New Hope – sits now as part of an endlessly proliferating set of episode and merchandising possibilities.</p>
<p>Some commentators on contemporary Hollywood <a href="https://www.wired.com/2015/11/how-disney-is-making-sure-youll-never-be-able-to-escape-star-wars/">bemoan this “conglomerate” logic</a> and the types of movies it supposedly throws up. Star Wars inevitably becomes a whipping boy in this discussion, since the huge success of the 1977 film (<a href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm">only Gone with the Wind</a> has sold more tickets at the box office) <a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/interview-peter-biskind-revisits-easy-riders-raging-bulls">helped turn Hollywood away</a> from films like The Godfather, Chinatown and Taxi Driver and taught it to rely on comic-book superheroes, literary wizards and the new worlds of CGI. </p>
<p>Star Wars’ other lesson is that the “standalone” movie, especially in a modern movie climate where attracting an audience is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/apr/07/blockbusters-assemble-can-the-mega-movie-survive-the-digital-era">never guaranteed</a>, is too risky. Better to rely on established franchises, “spread” across <a href="http://www.deepmediaonline.com/deepmedia/2013/01/henry-jenkins-on-spreadable-media.html">multiple titles and media platforms</a>. A quick glance at <a href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=2017&p=.htm">2017’s US box office top ten</a>, or the more-or-less identical <a href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/intl/uk/yearly/">UK list</a>, illustrates this logic at work on a global scale.</p>
<p>The more positive spin on the franchise is its capacity for extending narrative in diverse and often richer ways; a process often known as “<a href="http://henryjenkins.org/blog/2009/09/the_aesthetics_of_transmedia_i_1.html">world building</a>”. I’m fairly comfortable among Assembled Avengers or other Fantastic Beasts – and the dispersed, interweaving story-worlds they inhabit. But when this becomes the only possibility for large-scale filmmaking, even I find modern Hollywood’s dependency on the sequel constricting. Yet it’s odd if Star Wars (to stick with its original title) takes the rap for this, since it actually has so little in common with many of the franchise films that followed it – not to mention the extended Star Wars series itself.</p>
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<p>Strangely enough, in fact, Star Wars offers positive lessons to filmmakers and producers hoping to change things up in the Hollywood game. Some French critics serendipitously use their word for UFO - “<em>un ovni</em>” (<em>objet volant non identifié</em>) - to describe films that, like Star Wars, seemed to come from nowhere. Given sci-fi’s box-office dominance over the past 40 years, it’s hard to imagine that in 1977 it was not yet a trusted form. Consequently, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vP_1T4ilm8M">no one was sure what to do with Lucas’s film</a>. His friends did not get it. Many of the hired production crew laughed at it. In its place, 20th Century Fox promoted forgotten squibs such as <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/damnation_alley/">Damnation Alley</a>. We eventually learned that Lucas was planning a saga and media empire all along. But in 1977, we just saw an out-of-the-blue epic.</p>
<h2>Breaking the mould</h2>
<p>Since Star Wars, the possibility of Hollywood losing money has been mitigated, paradoxically, by expensive “saturation” releases, with movies marketed intensively and opened simultaneously across thousands of screens. This wasn’t the case with Lucas’s <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=star+wars+original+production+cost&oq=star+wars+original+production+cost&aqs=chrome..69i57j0.10727j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8">cut-price film</a>, which opened on <a href="http://www.in70mm.com/news/2003/star_wars/">just 32 of them</a>. Contemporary Hollywood, critics might say, stifles choice. But in 1977, against the grain, audiences chose Star Wars.</p>
<p>Why? For my six-year-old self, <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/2015/05/death-star-born">Star Wars was both new and exotic</a>. Technologically <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z33-qOXOWS4">it broke new ground</a>, pre-CGI, effectively ushering in the digital effects houses that are the engines of the modern industry. But it was also a film steeped in a cinematic past both strange and familiar: a past of Flash Gordon serials, John Ford Westerns and Kurosawa’s samurai films. It was set in a sumptuously designed galaxy far, far away – yet one that harked back to older war movies, scored to an old-fashioned orchestral soundtrack. Ironically, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx15aXjcDZg">in drawing on so many films</a>, Star Wars was like few other films made before, or even since.</p>
<p>The eventual problem with Lucas’s “prequel” trilogy, starting with 1999’s The Phantom Menace, was that it was no longer engaging with any other reference points beyond its own. Shot almost entirely against a CGI green screen, and loaded down by Lucas’s wordy script, the films felt dutiful but dull: they filled gaps in the saga, but related to nothing but the series itself. </p>
<p>I thrilled to 2015’s The Force Awakens, and its return to the series’ original cinematic values of adventure, pathos and wit, bolstered by the agile performances of its young, relatively unknown cast. Even here, though, as the film’s director and co-writer J J Abrams <a href="http://www.indiewire.com/2016/04/j-j-abrams-explains-why-the-force-awakens-was-like-a-new-hope-says-mark-hamill-was-reluctant-to-return-to-star-wars-292480/">has admitted</a>, the film was in many respects a reprise of everything good about the 1977 movie.</p>
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<p>My point though is that we shouldn’t look to films that imitate Star Wars, but to those which follow its example. Like Lucas’s film, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/la-la-land-review-ryan-gosling-emma-stone-will-leave-tear-eye/">Damien Chazelle’s recent La La Land</a> was a comparatively cheap picture out of step with its time and place – a one-off, non-adapted and (I hope) sequel-proof musical; one that started out screening in a few cinemas and festivals, but eventually turned into a worldwide hit. </p>
<p>The film’s nostalgic heart and look also owed to the cinematic past – to a Hollywood and Europe of the 1950s – yet it too seemed to emerge from its own gorgeously self-crafted world. It was proof that in Hollywood you don’t have to be totally original to be original. But you do need a bit of faith.</p>
<p>And, as in 1977, it felt refreshingly new. But the lesson we might learn from La La Land is an old one: if the Hollywood that Star Wars helped build wants to do something new, it actually needs more films like Star Wars.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88199/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Neil Archer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Star Wars franchise has become so familiar in 40 years that it’s easy to forget it broke new ground in 1977.Neil Archer, Lecturer in Film Studies, Keele UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/852122017-12-11T03:00:56Z2017-12-11T03:00:56ZHow the ‘Greatest Showman’ paved the way for Donald Trump<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198342/original/file-20171208-27714-18s5l2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'I don’t care what they say about me,' P.T. Barnum once said, 'as long as they spell my name correctly.'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/phineas-t-barnum-1810-1891-entertainment-244397026?src=J_Bvx2GUW4CrkguVoL77fA-1-0">Everett Historical/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Historian James Cook, in his 2001 book “<a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674005914&content=reviews">The Arts of Deception</a>,” points to July 1835 as “the birth date of modern American popular culture.” </p>
<p>That month, a frustrated grocer named Phineus Taylor Barnum purchased Joice Heth, a purported 161-year-old slave who had been George Washington’s nanny. </p>
<p>Barnum furiously promoted her as “Absolutely the Greatest Natural and National Curiosity in the World.” It worked: <a href="http://www.nyhistory.org/exhibit/great-attraction-masonic-halljoice-heth">Over 10,000 people</a> saw her at New York City’s Niblo’s Garden during a two-week exhibition.</p>
<p>But while <a href="https://lostmuseum.cuny.edu/archive/pt-barnum-on-joice-heth-1855">patrons gave testimonials</a> assuring her authenticity, Barnum decided to muddy the waters: He wrote anonymous letters <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=swO1ZhYjwG4C&pg=PA2&lpg=PA2&dq=%22a+deception+cleverly+made+of+India+rubber,+whalebone,+and+hidden+springs.%22&source=bl&ots=hfe82QUyYL&sig=dsC6iSTBYxB6QF7yMMKRHxOlpxU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiR2J3L2vvXAhUh5oMKHWpNDmcQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=%22a%20deception%20cleverly%20made%20of%20India%20rubber%2C%20whalebone%2C%20and%20hidden%20springs.%22&f=false">calling her</a> “a deception cleverly made of India rubber, whalebone, and hidden springs.” The ploy challenged people to judge for themselves whether she was real or a hoax. </p>
<p>After Heth died in 1836, an autopsy was arranged to determine her age. A lesser huckster might have shrunk from the spotlight, fearing being exposed. Not Barnum: He charged customers <a href="https://lostmuseum.cuny.edu/archive/the-heth-humbug-new-york-herald-february-29">50 cents</a> to observe the autopsy. (She ended up being around 80 years old.)</p>
<p>Now P.T. Barnum is the subject of a new musical biopic starring Hugh Jackman, “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXCTMGYUg9A">The Greatest Showman</a>.” It’s a fitting moment to release a film featuring the country’s most famous impresario, entrepreneur and – some would say – scam artist. </p>
<p>Today, the country is gripped in a populist fervor, just as it was in Barnum’s time. Advertising – then in its infancy – now <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-there-any-way-to-stop-ad-creep-75445">saturates all parts of our lives</a>. And of course there’s the country’s new president, who’s one year into his first term. Barnum’s showmanship pulses through every fiber of Donald Trump’s political style. </p>
<h2>Selling to the masses</h2>
<p>In the 1830s, <a href="http://www.dictionary.com/browse/jacksonian-democracy">Jacksonian democracy</a> was supplanting Jeffersonian elitism. The political movement challenging the existing social order in favor of the social, religious and aesthetic preferences of ordinary people, or, as composer Aaron Copeland <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanfare_for_the_Common_Man">later rhapsodized</a>, “the Common Man.” </p>
<p>Acutely attuned to the times, Barnum wielded an extraordinary sense of what appealed to the masses. He rejected the country’s elitist culture, promoting a more egalitarian “pop” culture. “Nobody ever lost a dollar by underestimating the taste of the American public,” <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/201036.P_T_Barnum">he would later write</a>.</p>
<p>Barnum had a word for his style of showmanship: “Humbug,” the playful gulling of people for money. He claimed his audiences enjoyed being fooled by his ingenious deceptions. Although he never said “There’s a sucker born every minute,” his career (and fortune) hinged on this belief. </p>
<p>“The bigger the humbug,” <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=wisLAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+life+of+PT+barnum&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj-9c2R3frXAhVD1oMKHR4iBrQQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=the%20life%20of%20PT%20barnum&f=false">he boasted in his 1854 autobiography</a>, “the better the people will take it.” Barnum insisted that he limited his trickery to harmless scams solely to amuse people who, in effect, were in on the joke. </p>
<p>In 1841, he built upon the success of the Heth exhibition by opening the American Museum in Lower Manhattan. Displaying thousands of exotic oddities, human and otherwise, the museum would attract <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/09/arts/09expl.html">38 million patrons</a> between 1841 and 1865.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198341/original/file-20171208-27689-1afyloa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198341/original/file-20171208-27689-1afyloa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=881&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198341/original/file-20171208-27689-1afyloa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=881&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198341/original/file-20171208-27689-1afyloa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=881&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198341/original/file-20171208-27689-1afyloa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1107&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198341/original/file-20171208-27689-1afyloa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1107&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198341/original/file-20171208-27689-1afyloa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1107&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Chang Bunker and Eng Bunker, the conjoined twin brothers whose condition and birthplace became the basis for the term ‘Siamese twins.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/brizzlebornandbred/5969545449">Paul Townsend</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
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<p>There was the Feejee Mermaid, a half monkey, half fish sewn together; the “Siamese Twins”; a bearded lady (actually a man); and his most famous oddity, the mysterious “<a href="http://www.ptbarnum.org/egress.html">Egress</a>.” Patrons couldn’t wait to see what lurked behind what was, in the end, simply the exit door. (In today’s museums, the “Egress” leads to the gift shop.)</p>
<p>But Barnum’s most famous enterprise was “The Greatest Show on Earth,” the circus he developed with former rival James Bailey in 1881. To accommodate its hundreds of colorfully dressed performers and animals, he built an enormous tent featuring three giant rings and two stages. </p>
<p>The star of the show was an elephant named Jumbo. Its enormous size (over 13 feet tall, weighing over six tons), gentle disposition (rare in African elephants) and his “love of children” made Jumbo arguably the most popular attraction of Barnum’s 50-year career. </p>
<h2>The art of the ad</h2>
<p>While advertising and promotion existed before Barnum, the showman elevated the art <a href="http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/P-T-Barnum-Master-of-advertising-and-promotion-565330.php#photo-244049">to a new level</a>.</p>
<p>Barnum was keenly aware of advertising’s power, <a href="https://es.scribd.com/document/272726791/Barnum">preaching</a> that “Advertising is to a genuine article what manure is to land – it largely increases the product.”</p>
<p>To promote the Feejee Mermaid, Barnum cited fake testimony from selected “scientists” authenticating its veracity. His flyers included <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/14778926711">drawings of bare-breasted mermaids</a>, introducing sex into marketing.</p>
<p>Most newspaper ads of the time included a simple description of the product. Barnum’s featured brash typography, artwork, exclamation points and – especially – hyperbole and superlatives (“Perhaps there never was before in the world such an instance of extraordinary success as my Museum presents!”).</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198338/original/file-20171208-27680-1ihrs3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198338/original/file-20171208-27680-1ihrs3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198338/original/file-20171208-27680-1ihrs3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198338/original/file-20171208-27680-1ihrs3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198338/original/file-20171208-27680-1ihrs3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198338/original/file-20171208-27680-1ihrs3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198338/original/file-20171208-27680-1ihrs3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198338/original/file-20171208-27680-1ihrs3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An ad for the ‘all-famous and gigantic’ Jumbo the elephant, the ‘mighty lord of all beasts,’ ‘the show of all shows.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Barnum_Courier,_1883.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Barnum invented other advertising techniques. Huge banners covered the façade of his museum, while <a href="https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4077/4743705438_045af6f041_b.jpg">colorful paintings of himself</a> adorned his privately owned circus train (think of the photos today’s politicians paste on <a href="http://mediad.publicbroadcasting.net/p/wshu/files/201410/Foley_campaign_bus_in_Shelton.jpg">campaign buses</a>). He lined the roof of his museum with Drummond lamps as beacons – forerunners of the searchlights later used to bring attention to big events (and seen in the logo for <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/gallery_landscape_1296x730/2013/06/20th_Century_Fox_Logo_1981_1994.jpg">20th Century Fox</a>).</p>
<p>And because they didn’t cost a dime, Barnum preferred promotions to paid advertising. For example, in 1850, he decided to bring star singer Jenny Lind, “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jenny-Lind">the Swedish Nightingale</a>,” to the United States for a concert tour. </p>
<p>Advance men breathlessly promoted it, holding raffles and poetry contests for free seats. They created a mythology for Lind: she was a one-time impoverished woman who became an orphan-supporting philanthropist. </p>
<p>By the time Lind arrived at New York’s harbor, a mass of 40,000 people greeted her, and her 93 concerts ended up netting Barnum <a href="https://www.biography.com/people/pt-barnum-9199751">over US$500,000</a>.</p>
<h2>Glory to his name!</h2>
<p>As Barnum’s renown grew, he didn’t try to recede from the spotlight. Instead, he made his name central to his brand – one of the first self-promoters to explicitly tie his name to his product. </p>
<p>After fire destroyed the museum in 1865, he rebuilt it and placed “BARNUM” in enormous letters atop its five-story apex. <a href="http://nodepression.com/article/blues-circus-tent">Ads for his circus</a> featured a woodcut of Barnum and “BARNUM! I AM HERE!” in large type, with “Greatest Show on Earth” in smaller print. Even Barnum’s personal letterhead <a href="https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0816626316">proclaimed his glory</a>: “The Sun of the Amusement World from which All Lesser Luminaries Borrow Light.” </p>
<p>The media rebuked Barnum’s braggadocio. Ralph Waldo Emerson groused in his journal that “men had rather be deceived than not; witness the secure road to riches of Barnum and the quacks.” </p>
<p>“I don’t care what they say about me,” <a href="https://www.nku.edu/%7Eturney/prclass/readings/3eras1x.html">Barnum countered</a>, “as long as they spell my name correctly.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198337/original/file-20171208-27686-1xz1v50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198337/original/file-20171208-27686-1xz1v50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198337/original/file-20171208-27686-1xz1v50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198337/original/file-20171208-27686-1xz1v50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198337/original/file-20171208-27686-1xz1v50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198337/original/file-20171208-27686-1xz1v50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198337/original/file-20171208-27686-1xz1v50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198337/original/file-20171208-27686-1xz1v50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">It’s all about the name.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/las-vegas-usa-october-28-2016-509410294?src=QwzfdKJi5QxJCx0quUUCJg-1-7">James.Pintar/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
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<p>Barnum’s shameless self-promotions became not only acceptable but expected. Today no one blinks when a boxer anoints himself “The Greatest,” when a country boy becomes the “King of Rock and Roll” – or when a boastful billionaire <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2015/jun/16/donald-trump-us-president-republicans-video">says</a> he’ll be “the greatest jobs president God ever created.”</p>
<h2>The ghost of Barnum</h2>
<p>In 1956, psychologist Paul Meehl coined a term, “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnum_effect">the Barnum effect</a>,” to explain why people embrace objectively bogus claims. Essentially, if claims are phrased in positive (but vague) ways, they reinforce the predisposition of people to believe what they want to believe. To reduce the Barnum effect <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sideways-view/201411/weve-got-something-everyone-the-barnum-effect">to its simplest premise</a>: “Tell the customer what he wants to hear.” </p>
<p>It’s a talent at which the greatest showmen and admen excel, and Barnum-esque hyperbole now dominates modern advertising. </p>
<p>“Our biggest sale ever!” is a line dutifully deployed, by the same companies, year after year. Taco Bell’s <a href="http://gaia.adage.com/images/bin/image/jumbo/Taco_Bell_-_Super_Bowl_50_-_Bigger_Than_Everything_16.jpg">quesalupa</a> is “Bigger than everything,” while “awesome” is used for all things pleasing (along with “unbelievable” and “amazing”). In a <a href="https://hollandpintarch.wordpress.com/2011/11/15/hyperbole-in-advertising/">trifecta of hyperbole</a>, Brilliant Brunette Shampoo, for example, “adds amazing luster for an infinite, mirror-like shine.” </p>
<p>Jumbo the elephant lives on. His name describes products ranging from <a href="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/85If-PuES8M/maxresdefault.jpg">shrimp</a> to <a href="http://www.hoovers.com/company-information/cs/company-profile.jumbo_foam_mattresses_industries_ltd.3d7a7ac3938f5b9b.html">mattresses</a> to <a href="http://www.lykki.com/media/catalog/product/cache/2/image/800x/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/c/h/cheerios7830_2.jpg">cereal boxes</a>. Sports arenas boast of their massive digital scoreboards, or “Jumbotrons,” while Starbucks’s “regular” cup of coffee – the “Grande” – is a nod to Jumbo’s legacy. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Donald Trump has his own words for humbugging: “truthful hyperbole.” </p>
<p>It’s “an innocent form of exaggeration,” he wrote in his 1987 book “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=Ye6e_VxM00kC&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+art+of+the+deal&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiF_vy56PrXAhUB9IMKHWjJCbMQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q&f=false">The Art of the Deal</a>,” “and a very effective form of promotion.” </p>
<p>It’s impossible to miss the Barnumisms (a popular term in his day) in the Trumpisms deployed during the candidate’s political rise: </p>
<p><em>“I have a Gucci store that’s worth more than [Mitt] Romney.”</em></p>
<p><em>“And we will build a big, beautiful wall!”</em></p>
<p><em>“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.”</em> </p>
<p>Barnum, according to historian Daniel Boorstin, was also “the master of the pseudo-event.” In 1843, the American Museum featured Native Americans that Barnum falsely claimed had killed white men out West. Provoking curiosity and fear in his customers, the exhibit was a hit. </p>
<p>Similarly, Trump has a tendency to create narratives out of thin air – whether it’s his claim that he saw <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/nov/22/donald-trump/fact-checking-trumps-claim-thousands-new-jersey-ch/">American Muslims dancing on rooftops</a> after 9/11 or that <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/nov/28/donald-trump/donald-trumps-pants-fire-claim-millions-illegal-vo/">millions of illegal immigrants</a> voted for Hillary Clinton. Like Barnum, Trump instinctively seems to understand that manufactured outrage, drama and intrigue work better than paid advertising. (After all, Trump famously received <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/16/upshot/measuring-donald-trumps-mammoth-advantage-in-free-media.html?_r=0">billions</a> in free media coverage during the 2016 campaign.)</p>
<p>Looking at Barnum’s “yuge” impact on American culture – on entertainment, on advertising, on commerce – it’s almost surprising that it took so long for a showman to become president. </p>
<p>But alarm bells should have been going off all the way back in 1875. </p>
<p>That year, Barnum was elected mayor of Bridgeport, Connecticut.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85212/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Greenwald does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The new movie about P.T. Barnum couldn’t come at a better time: It’s impossible not to see his ghost in our culture, in our advertisements and in our president.Michael Greenwald, Emeritus Professor of Theater, Texas A&M UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/870272017-11-08T13:49:56Z2017-11-08T13:49:56ZWhy Holocaust jokes can only be told by a Jewish comedian<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193745/original/file-20171108-26962-dpo9cu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of HBO</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When Larry David joked about chatting up women in Nazi concentration camps recently he <a href="http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/larry-david-snl-monologue-holocaust-1202607500/">caused a minor storm of outrage</a>. As part of a monologue on Saturday Night Live, David mused: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’ve always been obsessed with women – and I’ve always wondered: If I’d grown up in Poland when Hitler came to power and was sent to a concentration camp, would I still be checking out women in the camp? I think I would.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>“Of course,” he continued, “the problem is there are no good opening lines in a concentration camp. ‘How’s it going? They treating you OK? You know, if we ever get out of here, I’d love to take you out for some latkes. You like latkes?’”</p>
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<p>David has joked about the Holocaust before. In the comedy show he co-created, Seinfeld, an entire episode is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eD1sYINSH5w">devoted to Schindler’s List</a>. In his own show, Curb Your Enthusiasm, he plays Wagner (a favourite composer of Adolf Hitler) to a co-religionist who accuses him of being a self-hater. He invites a cast member of the reality show Survivor to meet a Holocaust survivor and they proceed to argue over who had it worse off. Many suggested David’s jokes weren’t in good taste, that he had crossed a line this time. But had he?</p>
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<p>David is building upon a tradition of Holocaust humour which is nothing new. In the early 1960s, following the kidnap, trial, and execution of Adolf Eichmann, <a href="https://www.thejc.com/lifestyle/features/lenny-bruce-he-fought-for-the-right-to-offend-1.61910">legendary Jewish comic, Lenny Bruce</a>, had a joke in which he’d say in a redneck used car salesman’s voice: “Here’s a Volkswagen pickup truck that was just used slightly during the war carrying the people back and forth to the furnaces.” Or he held up a newspaper with the headline: “Six Million Jews Found Alive in Argentina.”</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193746/original/file-20171108-26977-9douia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193746/original/file-20171108-26977-9douia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193746/original/file-20171108-26977-9douia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=769&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193746/original/file-20171108-26977-9douia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=769&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193746/original/file-20171108-26977-9douia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=769&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193746/original/file-20171108-26977-9douia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=966&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193746/original/file-20171108-26977-9douia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=966&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193746/original/file-20171108-26977-9douia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=966&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Shock value: Lenny Bruce.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>In 1964, Stanley Kubrick’s movie Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb parodied contemporary fears of nuclear destruction by conflating it with the Holocaust through its title character, a pantomime Nazi played by Peter Sellers. Three years later, in 1967, Mad Magazine’s <a href="https://www.comics.org/issue/93908/">Mein Kamp Humor Dept</a>, produced the parody Hokum’s Heroes. “And here it is … the brand new weekly TV situation comedy featuring that gay, wild, zany, irrepressible bunch of World War II concentration camp prisoners … those happy inmates of ‘Buchenwald’ known as … ‘Hochman’s Heroes’.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193749/original/file-20171108-26965-1i4inhw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193749/original/file-20171108-26965-1i4inhw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193749/original/file-20171108-26965-1i4inhw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193749/original/file-20171108-26965-1i4inhw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193749/original/file-20171108-26965-1i4inhw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=786&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193749/original/file-20171108-26965-1i4inhw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=786&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193749/original/file-20171108-26965-1i4inhw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=786&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Springtime for Hitler: a touch of Mel Brooks’ bad taste genius.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of mptvimages.com</span></span>
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<p>Then, in that same year, Mel Brooks directed <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1016819_producers?">The Producers</a> a film which featured a bad taste musical named Springtime for Hitler, complete with Busby Berkeley-style routines of SS troops dancing in swastika formation.</p>
<h2>Knowledge beats outrage</h2>
<p>Such Holocaust humour has grown exponentially in recent decades. This is particularly evident in mainstream American cinema where the Holocaust often appears as an incidental, gratuitous, superfluous throwaway line, or in-joke. Take Woody Allen – who has had a career-long fascination with the Holocaust. When asked in Deconstructing Harry (1997): “Do you care even about the Holocaust or do you think it never happened?” Allen has his protagonist Harry Block respond: “Not only do I know that we lost six million, but the scary thing is records are made to be broken.”</p>
<p>As Holocaust scholar Lawrence Baron has pointed out in his book, <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780742543324/Projecting-the-Holocaust-into-the-Present-The-Changing-Focus-of-Contemporary-Holocaust-Cinema#">Projecting the Holocaust into the present</a>, images and themes from the Holocaust permeate popular culture like particles of dust filling the air. The Holocaust has become the benchmark and paradigm for evil. It is invoked – and, the more the term is used, the less powerful it becomes. This saturation has its consequences: it becomes ripe for humour. It is no longer taboo.</p>
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<p>But it is also generational. For those born towards the end or soon after World War II, the Holocaust was a narrative they heard secondhand. For those born later, it is an historical event. They don’t know anyone who was murdered by the Nazis.</p>
<p>At the same time, Holocaust education has worked. In mainstream politics, it’s considered unacceptable to publicly deny the Holocaust – and is <a href="https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/List_of_countries_where_Holocaust_denial_is_legal">illegal to do so in many countries</a>. For their part, younger Jews have learned that a low profile is useless, given that anti-Semites aren’t so discerning in their discrimination. At the same time, anti-Jewish prejudice has <a href="https://www.adl.org/news/press-releases/anti-semitic-attitudes-continue-decline-in-uk-france-and-germany">been on the decline</a> in many countries – particularly towards the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st. </p>
<p>A generation of Jewish producers, directors, actors, actresses and screenwriters emerged that was less anxious, less afraid of stoking an antisemitic backlash. This is evidenced by the lack of outrage to so many of these jokes over the years, many of which have passed by barely noticed.</p>
<p>Larry David’s shtick on SNL is merely the latest in a 60-year trend. He is locating himself in a venerable tradition of gallows humour at which Jews have historically excelled. We have <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-News/Badkhn-Belt-Jewish-humor-was-born-in-1661-prof-says">joked about pogroms</a> before so why not the worst of them all? It does not mean that we are forgetting the Holocaust – on the contrary, the jokes are a form of remembrance. Having said that, I think that younger Jews are more likely to laugh than older Jewish people or non-Jews – we are more familiar with this humour and hence it’s less shocking.</p>
<p>But the key thing is: who is doing the telling? All the examples noted above are by Jews and that’s the principal point – if someone non-Jewish were to engage in this type of humour, it would have an entirely different connotation. It would not be appropriate.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87027/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nathan Abrams receives funding from The British Academy.</span></em></p>American comedian Larry David has drawn fire for his jokes about the Holocaust. But he draws on a long tradition of Jewish humour.Nathan Abrams, Professor of Film Studies, Bangor UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/820202017-09-08T13:26:17Z2017-09-08T13:26:17ZWhy Spike Lee’s 25th Hour is the most enduring film about 9/11<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184223/original/file-20170831-22597-1s352nx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Melpomene via Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The most enduring cinematic representation of 9/11 was not originally meant to be about the World Trade Centre attacks at all. Spike Lee’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0307901/">25th Hour</a>, released in 2002, was mostly shot during the summer of 2001 and was reworked following 9/11. In fact, while blockbusters such as Spiderman (2002) were hastily re-edited to remove images of the World Trade Centre, Lee made the attacks fundamental to 25th Hour, building in extended shots of Ground Zero and the Tribute in Light to pivotal moments in the film. </p>
<p>Unlike some high-profile releases – such as Oliver Stone’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0469641/">World Trade Center</a> or Paul Greengrass’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0475276/">United 93</a>, both released in 2006 – Spike Lee’s 25th Hour manages to capture the post-9/11 lassitude that was so acutely felt by Americans, while simultaneously delivering a trenchant political critique. </p>
<p>The film’s main character, Monty (Edward Norton), is a convicted drug dealer who has just been sentenced to seven years in jail. The narrative follows his final day of freedom: his world has changed irrevocably and he is suspicious of everyone.</p>
<p>25th Hour is worthy of reappraisal for many reasons but I’d like to focus on how it handles an increasingly vexing aporia - the problem of meaningfully addressing the impact of 9/11 without reinforcing the notion that the attacks came “out of the blue” or “changed everything”. These conceits have proven problematic as they tend to remove the attacks from their contexts, pre-histories and effects and have been used ideologically, to advance unilateral agendas – and a stubborn brand of American exceptionalism. </p>
<p>Cinema, literature, art, commentary and scholarship – even work that critiques such notions – have often inadvertently perpetuated this idea of exceptionalism simply by placing yet more attention on 9/11. This practice of attaching too much singular importance to the attacks is easy to identify in retrospect, but was harder in the earlier aftermath. </p>
<p>Additionally, filmmakers faced more immediate challenges in depicting 9/11. That the attacks were seen as profoundly “cinematic”, for example. Cultural theorist Slavoj Zizek <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/1137-welcome-to-the-desert-of-the-real">famously wrote</a> that the oft-repeated television images were “reminiscent of spectacular shots in catastrophe movies,” or “special effect[s] which outdid all others”. So there was a practical problem of filming something already seen as cinematic, but also an unsettling and traumatic intersection between reality and fiction. </p>
<p>A further challenge for filmmakers has been locating a political position, given the context of the highly divisive War on Terror. The convergence of these issues partially explains the inward approaches of Stone and Greengrass – two of Hollywood’s most political directors. Both World Trade Center and United 93 focused on the immediate emergencies of 9/11 and opted to ignore the associated geopolitics.</p>
<p>Without wider contexts, their “micro” approaches perpetuated this inward drift and chimed with other trends: a need for masculine heroes, commemoration, memorialisation and the need to work through trauma. They also spoke to a burgeoning nationalism and xenophobia, <a href="http://reconstruction.eserver.org/Issues/114/keeble_arin.shtml">as I’ve argued elsewhere</a>. </p>
<h2>25th Hour as national allegory</h2>
<p>In one striking scene in 25th Hour, Monty’s friends Francis (Barry Pepper) and Jacob (Philip Seymour Hoffman) discuss his fate while looking down at the floodlit excavation of Ground Zero. As they outline his grim destiny the camera pans menacingly down to the site of destruction, binding Monty’s story to the story of 9/11. </p>
<p>This depiction of Monty is perhaps most suggestive in one of two stylised set pieces in the film: the “Fuck You” monologue. Monty stares into a bathroom mirror, seeing in the image of himself New York’s diverse multitudes – as well as his friends, father, partner, Osama bin Laden, George Bush and Dick Cheney – and he rants viciously at them all. </p>
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<p>This scene takes on its full significance when Monty finally accepts blame. Staring at his allegorical self in the mirror he concludes: “No, fuck you Montgomery Brogan – you had it all in you threw it away.” </p>
<p>As film scholar Guy Westwell <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=JPjSBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA37&lpg=PA37&dq=guy+westwell+25th+hour+activities+in+the+past+have+played+a+role+in+shaping+the+circumstances+of+the+present&source=bl&ots=fyjGDvMNMS&sig=J_h1wARIo7Ktn4ws6UAg4Ga3g0w&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj73Nv9roHWAhXmAMAKHYLtAYgQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=guy%20westwell%2025th%20hour%20activities%20in%20the%20past%20have%20played%20a%20role%20in%20shaping%20the%20circumstances%20of%20the%20present&f=false">has noted</a>, 25th Hour shows how “activities in the past have played a role in shaping the circumstances of the present”. In other words, as Monty recognises his own culpability in his downfall, there is a bold (particularly for 2002) suggestion that America too, can look to its own actions for answers. </p>
<p>25th Hour’s allegory is strengthened in its second set piece, a fantasy sequence where Monty imagines going on the run rather than reporting to Otisville Prison. In his imagination he heads west in his father’s Jeep Grand Wagoneer, American flag flying. His father (Brian Cox) provides the voiceover narration, evoking national origin myths: “We drive west, keep driving until we find a nice little town. These towns out in the desert – you know how they got there? People wanted to get away from something else.” </p>
<p>In his vision of an alternate future, Monty gets a job, marries his Puerto Rican partner Naturalle (Rosario Dawson) and has a large inter-ethnic family – who are all shown dressed in immaculate (and symbolic) white. This nostalgic evocation of national origin myths, a prevalent post-9/11 trope, is then exposed as the fantasy collapses.</p>
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<h2>National trauma</h2>
<p>25th Hour critiques a culture of suspicion, urges self-reflection, challenges the nostalgic turn and recourse to crassly gendered national origin myths. But it also affectingly captures the melancholic and traumatised national mood after the attacks.</p>
<p>There are other valuable 9/11 films that sensitively deal with national trauma while offering political insight. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2002/dec/13/artsfeatures">Alain Brigand</a>’s assemblage of short films titled 11.09.01 (2002), is designed to look at 9/11 from a global perspective. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/sep/18/september11.usa">Ken Loach’s contribution</a>, which tells the story of the “other 9/11” – the Chilean coup d'état of September 11, 1973 – is exemplary. </p>
<p>Bryan Appleyard has <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/is-man-on-wire-the-most-poignant-911-film-fj35t5552l2">argued compellingly</a> for <a href="http://www.magpictures.com/manonwire/">Man on Wire</a> (2008) as the “most important” 9/11 film. For Appleyard, James Marsh’s documentary account of Philippe Petit’s tightrope walk between the towers in 1974 – precisely by not mentioning the towers – affects an “anticipatory sadness and nostalgia for a pre-9/11 world”.</p>
<p>For me, though, 25th Hour deals with the loss and trauma of 9/11 while also examining, unflinchingly, the inwardness and isolationism of post-9/11 America.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82020/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Arin Keeble does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Lee’s film about a drug dealer facing jail started shooting before the World Trade Centre attacks – and it captures New York through its period of trauma.Arin Keeble, Lecturer in Contemporary Literature and Culture, Edinburgh Napier UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/819112017-08-02T12:51:42Z2017-08-02T12:51:42Z‘Like a desert junkyard at high noon’: Sam Shepard’s vision of America<p>“I hate endings,” Sam Shepard declared to Carol Rosen in an <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/499518/summary">interview in 1991</a>. “Endings are just a pain in the ass”. Shepard’s own ending, with <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-40799713">his death</a> from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis – also known as <a href="http://fortune.com/2017/07/31/sam-shepard-als-facts/">Lou Gehrig’s Disease</a> – at the age of 73, is especially hard to take, given his prodigious and ongoing effect upon American theatre, literature and film.</p>
<p>The archive of work left by Shepard is extraordinary in its formal range and its creative experimentation. In addition to writing some 44 plays, numerous film screenplays and several collections of short fiction, he accrued almost 70 credits as a screen actor. The stage works themselves are multitudinous rather than singular in design, frequently having more in common with artistic collage or jazz improvisation than with the tradition of the well-made play – taking one example only, <a href="http://www.theatredatabase.com/20th_century/tongues.html">Tongues, in 1978</a>, is subtitled: “A piece for voice and percussion”.</p>
<p>How to make sense of this vast, eclectic corpus? Here we may resemble Shelly, a character in Shepard’s play <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/dec/01/buried-child-review-ed-harris-sam-shepard-trafalgar-studios-london">Buried Child (1978)</a>, who struggles to sift all the information given her: “I’m just trying to put all this together.” It is also important to reckon with US critic <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=7iQba4J0sCMC&pg=PA75&lpg=PA75&dq=Richard+Gilman+sam+shepard+thematic+exegesis&source=bl&ots=rhE_4IrHMh&sig=L7gd3DKb0AubyFCW7c8sREbY1dI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj854SRpLjVAhVdGsAKHVM-D0wQ6AEIMzAC#v=onepage&q=Richard%20Gilman%20sam%20shepard%20thematic%20exegesis&f=false">Richard Gilman’s</a> claim that Shepard’s work is “extraordinarily resistant to thematic exegesis”. Nevertheless, the plays, stories, screenplays and performances can be put together tactfully and assessed as a sustained meditation on American masculinity, the mythology of the American West and the destiny of the United States. </p>
<h2>‘Marlboro Men?’</h2>
<p>“No man I’ve ever met compares to Sam in terms of maleness,” <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/actor-playwright-sam-shepard-dead-/3966620.html">his long-term partner, Jessica Lange, famously said</a>. And Shepard’s career often recycled imagery of the traditional American frontiersman: consider such screen roles as the heroic test pilot Chuck Yeager in <a href="http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-the-right-stuff-1983">The Right Stuff (1983)</a> or the taciturn FBI agent in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9E0CE3D9103AF930A35757C0A964958260">Thunderheart (1992)</a>.</p>
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<p>Or recall Annie Leibowitz’s 1984 photograph in which, fully equipped with cowboy paraphernalia of Stetson, denims, chaps and lasso, Shepard looks down upon the humbled spectator.</p>
<p>Shepard’s writing, however, engages in complex fashion with the condition of American masculinity. Interviewed by The New York Times, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1984/01/29/theater/myths-dreams-realities-sam-shepard-s-america.html?pagewanted=all">he observed</a> that in the wake of the closing of the frontier, “the American male is on a very bad trip”. His plays and film scripts are most absorbed by these damaged or depleted patriarchs. And it is a moot point whether the decay of pioneer masculinity – evidenced, for instance, by Eddie’s “peculiar broken-down quality” in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1983/05/27/theater/stage-fool-for-love-sam-shepard-western.html">Fool for Love (1983)</a> – is cause for celebration or occasion for lament.</p>
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<p>Nevertheless, Shepard’s self-consciousness is such that traditional US masculinity is often scrutinised – even satirised – in his drama. Frontier ruggedness appears risible and parodic when shown still circulating in an America of suburbia, television and plastic; there is something ridiculous about Ellis’s declaration in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2011/aug/31/curse-starving-class-review">Curse of the Starving Class (1976)</a> that: “I’m a steak man. ‘Meat and blood’, that’s my motto.” If women are sometimes impoverished presences in Shepard’s writing, they still have moments in which they pierce through such masculine nostalgia. As May demands in Fool for Love, on hearing Eddie’s proposal that they decamp to Wyoming: “What’s up there? Marlboro Men?”</p>
<h2>Afloat on a ‘sea of junk’</h2>
<p>Not for nothing was Shepard’s first stage play, written in 1964, called <a href="http://www.sam-shepard.com/cowboys.html">Cowboys</a>. The figure of the cowboy recurs across his work, but like Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven (1992) or Richard Avedon in the photographs comprising <a href="http://www.americansuburbx.com/2011/01/richard-avedon-richard-avedons-in.html">In the American West (1985)</a>, Shepard submits it to interrogation rather than simple celebration. Lee in <a href="http://www.sam-shepard.com/truewest.html">True West (1980)</a>, for example, lives like a cowboy in the desert not as existential choice but as a consequence of social failure.</p>
<p>For Austin, Lee’s brother, the region they inhabit can no longer play its traditional role as source of American redemption: the West is “a dead issue! It’s dried up”. In much of his writing, Shepard reflects in moods ranging from elegiac to sardonic upon the West’s exhaustion. Typical would be his screenplay for Wim Wenders’s film, Paris, Texas (1984): if the desert with its promise persists here, it is increasingly hemmed in by Houston’s soulless spaces that range in opulence from skyscrapers to peepshow booths.</p>
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<p>Junk in Shepard’s work is cultural as much as it is material. For every rusting car or mouldering avocado, there is a decaying image or narrative. Time and again, his characters have as imaginative resources only sedimented clichés and pre-existing scripts, whether derived from formula westerns (True West) or Gothic potboilers (Buried Child). Cultural detritus is layered so thickly as to make improbable any arrival at what a character in Buried Child sardonically calls “bedrock”.</p>
<p>But if Shepard’s version of America tends towards the pessimistic, several counter-impulses suggest his attachment still to utopia. One reason for cautious optimism lies in the very openness of those endings with which he struggled as a writer. Travis’s destination as he drives away from Houston at the end of Paris, Texas is unscripted and unmapped – termination is, if only for a while, deferred.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81911/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Dix does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Playwright, screenwriter, actor: Shepard’s body of work gave new form to American masculinity.Andrew Dix, Lecturer in American Studies, Loughborough UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.