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(2018) Cecil B. Demille, classical Hollywood, and modern American mass culture, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.
This chapter explores the ideological powers of mass culture as expressed through DeMille's late-career politics and films. The chapter takes its title from Ayn Rand's popular libertarian novel Atlas Shrugged, which famously asks, "Who is John Galt?" DeMille's early friendship and correspondence with Rand reveals deep contrasts between their ideological goals. Unlike Rand and those who supported ideological censorship through the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, DeMille never countenanced witch-hunts, black-lists, and clearly differentiated his views on "closed shop" regulations (which he opposed) from collective bargaining (which he supported). A brief comparison of DeMille's film Unconquered to Rand's The Fountainhead segues to the ways that the director's public personality shifted as a result of these ideological pressures. Once hailed as an innovative commercial artist, by the 1940s his role as mass culture's "Mr. Hollywood" politicized his image and caricatured his work with profoundly negative consequences.
Publication details
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-76986-8_6
Full citation:
Blanke, D. (2018). Who is Cecil B. Demille?, in Cecil B. Demille, classical Hollywood, and modern American mass culture, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 211-251.
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