Capital Punishment and the Contemporary Cinema

American cinema of the last century includes a large number of films with major characters on death row.  James Hogan’s silent film “Capital Punishment,” for example, screened in 1925.  During the 1950s, the death penalty was at the forefront in such respected films as Fritz Lang’s “Beyond a Reasonable Doubt” (1956), Robert Wise’s “I Want to Live” (1958), and Howard Koch’s “The Last Mile” (1959).  The late 1990s and the first decade of the twenty-first century saw an even greater number of films inviting contemplation of the death penalty.

The latter flurry of films perhaps relates to the period’s especially pronounced campaign to end capital punishment.  In keeping with the often-heard assertion that Hollywood leans to the left politically, most of these films seem opposed to the death penalty.  Some express their opposition in the fashion of a “message film,” while others proffer more subtle dramatic narratives.

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Everyday Eviction

Eviction has become a special burden for low-income African American women, many of whom live in run-down rental housing and are raising children in single-parent homes. University of Wisconsin sociologist Michael Desmond, quoted in an article in the New York Times, argues, “Just as incarceration has become typical in the lives of poor black men, eviction has become typical in the lives of poor black women.”

In Milwaukee, one tenant in every 25 renter-occupied units is evicted annually. Poor African American women constitute 13 percent of the City’s population but 40 percent of those evicted. The impact of evictions on social connections, school enrollments, and credit ratings should not be underestimated.

To the extent it pays attention to housing issues, the media has of late focused almost exclusively on mortgage foreclosures, and, to be sure, the damage subprime lenders have done to the hopes and dreams of the working class has been huge. However, there is a socioeconomic class trying to carry on without even the assets and income of the working class. We might reflect on its plight when we drive through the center-city and see the humble furniture and other possessions of low-income African American women stacked alongside the curb by landlords who have just finished evicting. But, then, how many of us even drive through the center-city?

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Justice Kennedy Goes to the Movies

smith goesThose industrious enough to reach the final paragraphs of the recent opinion of the Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) might have been surprised to find Justice Kennedy discussing Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939).  A Hollywood classic directed by Frank Capra, the film is the fictional story of a handpicked bumpkin Senator played by Jimmy Stewart, who sees the light, dramatically filibusters, and in the end teaches the Congress how to behave.  Justice Kennedy’s argument seems to be that if the campaign-related indictment of Hillary Clinton in the film titled Hillary: The Movie could be suppressed, the same fate could befall a beloved work such as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

The two films’ only similarity seems to be that they are indeed films.  One film is fictional, but the other attacks an actual Senator and Presidential candidate.  One is designed to entertain, but the other is designed to influence an election.  And most importantly, one is a work produced by the culture industry designed to make a profit, but the other is a work funded from corporate profits designed to change opinions. 

Are Justice Kennedy and the other members of the Supreme Court majority incredibly unsophisticated in their understanding of popular culture and politics, or is their analogy disingenuous?  Extending the inquiry, might a comparable question be posed regarding the Citizens United opinion as a whole?  The Supreme Court’s majority might be so oblivious as to think that corporations have the full panoply of First Amendment rights and that their financially self-serving broadsides are matters of free speech that enrich democracy.  Then, again, the majority might simply hope it can trick us into believing that.

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