Film & Social Change

• Hollywood


  Often reflected & perpetuated 1950's conservatism & values
• Popular western movies & TV shows

  • Portrayed heroic men
  • Portrayed submissive women
  • Portrayed evil 'Indians'
• Hollywood needed to attract audiences

  Box office receipts were failing due to television
• Hollywood needed to attract audiences

  Sex sold
• More sexually explicit films


  • Baby Doll (1956) drew big crowds
• Hollywood was able to ignore the Motion Picture Code & make such films because public attitudes were liberalising & a 1952 Supreme Court ruling had granted freedom of expression to films
• Until 1956 the Code forbade showing interracial marriages but in 1957 the first interracial movie embrace was shown in Island of the Sun
• Hollywood was more conservative on sex than Broadway