...with the complicity of the entire corporate/political apparatus.

Who all currently imagine they have life boats of some sort.

The 1930s was the era of the Gangster Movie as well; people who lived well by preying on others. And the Musicals of Bubsy Berkely had some pretty silly numbers but also 42nd Street and Remember my Forgotten Man that dealt with some pretty serious things as well.

even when audiences would line up to see it. For example, Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit" was rejected for release by every major studio and eventually released by fledgling Lion's Gate. Even when there was easy money to be made by simply releasing a film that people wanted to see, that was relevant and which filled a hole left by the cheerleader media, the MSM refused while Fahrenheit went on to become the top grossing documentary film of all time, $222 mil domestic and nearlt $500 mil worldwide.

Another example would be "American Idol" and "The Voice" -- there are thousands of Americans who write their own music, play their own instruments and perform but they are all excluded from these shows, the format of which is impersonal karaoke. It is like forcing Shakespeare to choose a Hallmark card instead of doing the writing himself.

blacklisted for his elder years, but who's counting?

Nice post.

So, why? Presumably the ruling class of that time were no less aware of the axiom divide et impera than the ruling class now, yet they decided instead (exceptions aside, god knows I'm not shooting for logical rigor here) to embrace a variation on Henry Ford's theme of benefiting from casting a little bread upon the waters.

I can think of a couple of reasons. The consumer culture is founded on a belief in continual growth, continual waste, and continual production. But that leads to depletion of resources, and perhaps our rulers are now more aware of the potential for an upcoming Malthusian crisis than they were then. Ergo they want to gather all they can before the curtain comes down.

Another reason might be globalization. The ruling class could still be ignorant or ignoring the potential crisis, but now coming to realize that there are greater benefits to themselves if they cast the bread outside their own community. Still encouraging a culture of consumerism, just not enabling it in their own backyard. In any event still feathering their own nests, but that's what the ruling class does.

-- Mal

Although I wonder if part of our current situation may be due to the lack of tap-dancing.
Happy feet = happy people.

I miss her.

Comparing the Depression-era escapist fluff (though a 20-cent movie really did have the ability to lift spirits) to today's Hunger Games and the bickering of reality TV ... one wonders if we are really the victims of our own desire to wallow in dystopian visions and fake bickering.

We can criticize the mindless escapism of those 30s-era musicals (and gangster pics, to be fair), but it got people through a Depression and the run-up to a horrendous war that would take the lives of millions. My parents grew up during the Depression, and my mother was still trying to make those Shirley Temple "banana curls" on me and my sister a decade and a half later, against which we rebelled heartily. But despite the hardships of war and Depression they lived through, they had nothing but optimism. My boomer generation was cynical; today's generation is simply overwrought and perhaps one might say, hyperbolic. One wonders if we can really create positive change in such a climate.

I'm all for a good escapist movie. I'm really looking forward to seeing The Grand Budapest Hotel next month, and laughing my head off.

politically incorrect. Remember, she was a Republican't and hardly any interviewers ever challenged her politically. They thought of her as that innocent child movie star.
Remember when she had her first kiss on the silver screen? you'd think that she just did a porn flick. Everybody in the USA freaked out? Yeah, I liked her movies but real person behind the character was very ddifferent. R.I.P Shirley Temple

Quite unlike the ones mouthing off today. She exhibited more intelligence than Sarah Palin (can anyone see Palin as Ambassador to Ghana, or any country with dark skinned people? HA!),tons more graciousness and class than any of the blonde talking heads, and was otherwise a very great lady, as far as I knew. She was one of the first famous women to talk about breast cancer after she had a tumor removed in the '70s. She didn't like Reagan, which is also a plus.
So whatever this "real person behind the character" stuff you mentioned, I've never read anything bad about her, so please proceed.

Not all Republicans are necessarily bad.

John Wayne? Forget about it. OK, I proceeded...now what? Nothing! Not a God damn thing!

had to send my father to go live with an aunt and uncle who ended up abusing him. But they also knew that things could get better and they held on and kept fighting until things did start to get better. I think that is why they had so many feel good movies back then. We have movies that make a political or cultural statement, but we too also have feel good movies. Frozen has now become the most popular Disney movie ever. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty looks pretty uplifting to me. I can't wait to see that. But we don't have to wait for a movie to tell us to hold on and fight for better times.

I'm sharing a heart.

Does it really change anything?

If the gap between wealth and poor continues to grow exponentially does it really matter if you smile and dance (as with our cute little republican Shirley) - or if you slip into depression?

I would posit that it really doesn't - unless that singing & dancing encourages you to fight back.

I hadn't thought about it before, but you hit the nail on the head.

and politics and make use of a false scarcity of goods to pit one group of people against the other as a way of protecting their own elite, greedy, murder and theft based status. There are not too many people, in fact the population is dwindled from endless war that lead to the scenario of control and manipulation that the books and films construct. The message is this : we are the 99%.
By the end of those books, the 99% has ended the control by the 1% and is now attempting to build a better world from the rubble of two failed cultures. The message is the people prevail.

Frankly, the whole story seems to fit exactly what you are looking for: a government forcing its people into an individualized mindset and the people's subsequent coming together to fight the oppressors. Are you mad that it is not a 2 hour story and instead is an 8 hour story broken into 4 films?

nt