NUTR 214 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Al Jolson, Culture Industry, Economic Mobility
8 Aug 2018
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Document Summary
Culture industries (ex: hollywood) offered americans new modes of identity formation, At the movies (cont. from last lecture): mobility, exclusion. The jazz singer = first talkie in the us, marks the transformation from silent films to talkies, icon of american modernity. Stars al jolson (jewish immigrant, worked his way up in the culture industry) Dream only comes true through his incredible skill + ability to put on blackface and perform as a minstrel singer (tradition of. American immigrant groups putting on blackface to carve a space for themselves in american culture) Some ppl can participate in the good life through some sort of representation that reinforces racial tropes. Not just in the us, advertised widely abroad. The politics of this mass culture, esp wrt race + ethnicity, works diff ways for diff ppl, both inclusion and exclusion. Demographic mobility (hope of social + political mobility as well) Seeing other parts of the nation and the world through soldiering or nursing.
