If not for Hollywood, many Americans would never know that the Road Warrior won the Revolution, one of the conspirators
against John Kennedy wore a bad hairpiece, or that a helicopter went down in Somalia in the previous century. Working
at a much deeper level than that generally understood by the typical media consumer, McCrisken (American politics
and international studies, U. of Warwick) and Pepper (English and American literature, Queen's U., Belfast) examine
20 mainstream American films to show how they most often reaffirm myths about revolt, slavery, war, politics, racism
and national trauma set by earlier films, and how these more recent films can only be understood in the contexts
of America's preoccupation with its role in the world, the delicacies of identity politics, and the globalization
of the film business.
Table of Contents
1. Lessons from Hollywood's American Revolution : Revolution; The patriot
2. Rattling the chains of history : Steven Spielberg's Amistad and 'telling everyone's story' : Roots; Amistad
3. Hollywood's Civil War dilemma : to imagine or unravel the nation? : Gettysburg; Glory; Ride with the devil;
Cold mountain
4. Saving the good war : Hollywood and World War II in the post-Cold War world : Saving Private Ryan; The thin
red line; U-571; Pearl Harbor
5. Oliver Stone and the decade of trauma : Platoon; Born on the Fourth of July; Heaven the earth; JFK; Nixon
6. From civil rights to black nationalism : Hollywood v. black America? : Panther; Mississippi burning; The Hurricane;
Malcolm X; Ali
7. Hollywood's post-Cold War history : the 'righteousness' of American interventionism : Three kings; Black Hawk
down
