Steve Mintz comments:
"> Thus in the case of the frontier myth, Slotkin argues that it helped serve
> in complex ways to rationalize the processes of capitalist development.
>
> I'd be interested in your thoughts.  Is Hollywood in some sense the
> custodian of our "collective cultural unconscious"? Can one speak of
> a way that it uses myth to disseminate a distinctive ideology?"
 
There is now a pretty long tradition of this kind of analysis.  Some very
accessible works that deal with these kinds of issues include Robert Sklar's
MOVIE-MADE AMERICA and Peter Biskind's SEEING IS BELIEVING (about 1950s
American film images).
 
For other perpectives on this kind of "myth," you could start with Roland
Barthes' MYTHOLOGIES (especially the essays on "The Romans in Films" and
"The Face of Garbo"; the former especially is a hoot!).  An even more
trenchant and important work is THE DIALECTIC OF ENLIGHTENMENT by Horkheimer
and Adorno.  But I'd suggest also looking at various articles in various
collections, such as FILM THEORY AND CRITICISM by Mast, Cohen and Braudy;
MOVIES AND METHODS by Bill Nichols; and THE FILM GENRE READER, by Barry
Grant.  (Nichols' IDEOLOGY AND THE IMAGE is also of interest.)
 
The real problematic in this issue is not in whether Hollywood (or other media)
promotes or disseminates an "ideology" (or "values" or what have you) but
in how one defines those terms.  To start, is "ideology" an all-encompassing
"false consciousness" imposed on the suckers in the theaters; is it a
an avenue by which capitalism extends its "hegemony"; is it a site of
already-present cultural contradictions; is it one nexus in a wide-flung
net of power relationships; and so on?
 
There are also the questions raised that go beyond the narrative re-construction
of these myths: the specific images of gender, race, class and so on that
interpentrate the narrative itself; the visual representation and signifiers
that accompany and/or embody the myth; the dynamics of representation in
film style (lighting, camerawork, editing, etc.); and the role of the
spectator in relation to all of this.
 
For my own part, I do think it is very important never to take films at face
value alone.  Such myths are certainly present and they do have an impact,
but it is very easy to overgeneralize about their functions and effects.
 
Don Larsson, Mankato State U (MN)
 
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