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The Invisible Hand in Popular Culture
Paul A. Cantor
其他書名
Liberty vs. Authority in American Film and TV
出版
University Press of Kentucky
, 2012-11-30
主題
Social Science / Popular Culture
Political Science / Essays
Political Science / Political Ideologies / Democracy
Political Science / Political Ideologies / Libertarianism
Performing Arts / Television / History & Criticism
Performing Arts / Film / History & Criticism
Social Science / Media Studies
ISBN
0813140838
9780813140834
URL
http://books.google.com.hk/books?id=FTNh3GbdiwsC&hl=&source=gbs_api
EBook
SAMPLE
註釋
“Analyzes how ideas about economics and political philosophy find their way into everything from
Star Trek
to
Malcolm in the Middle
.” —
Wall Street Journal
Popular culture often champions freedom as the fundamentally American way of life and celebrates the virtues of independence and self-reliance. But film and television have also explored the tension between freedom and other core values, such as order and political stability. What may look like healthy, productive, and creative freedom from one point of view may look like chaos, anarchy, and a source of destructive conflict from another. Film and television continually pose the question: Can Americans deal with their problems on their own, or must they rely on political elites to manage their lives?
In this groundbreaking work, Paul A. Cantor—whose previous book,
Gilligan Unbound
, was named one of the best nonfiction books of the year by the
Los Angeles Times
—explores the ways in which television shows such as
Star Trek
,
The X-Files
,
South Park
, and
Deadwood
and films such as
The Aviator
and
Mars Attacks!
have portrayed both top-down and bottom-up models of order. Drawing on the works of John Locke, Adam Smith, Alexis de Tocqueville, and other proponents of freedom, Cantor contrasts the classical liberal vision of America?particularly its emphasis on the virtues of spontaneous order?with the Marxist understanding of the “culture industry” and the Hobbesian model of absolute state control.
The Invisible Hand in Popular Culture
concludes with a discussion of the impact of 9/11 on film and television, and the new anxieties emerging in contemporary alien-invasion narratives: the fear of a global technocracy that seeks to destroy the nuclear family, religious faith, local government, and other traditional bulwarks against the absolute state.