Reel Power: Hollywood Cinema and American Supremacy
About this book
Hollywood is often characterised as a stronghold of left-liberal ideals. In Reel Power , Matthew Alford shows that it is in fact deeply complicit in serving the interests of the most regressive US corporate and political forces.Films like Transformers , Salvation and Black Hawk Down are constructed with Defence Department assistance as explicit cheerleaders for the US military, but Matthew Alford also emphasises how so-called 'radical' films like Three Kings , Hotel Rwanda and Avatar present watered-down alternative visions of American politics that serve a similar function.Reel Power is the first book to examine the internal workings of contemporary Hollywood as a politicised industry as well as scores of films across all genres. No matter what the progressive impulses of some celebrities and artists, Alford shows how they are part of a system that is hard-wired to encourage American global supremacy and frequently the use of state violence.