Discussion Questions
July 4, 2013

  1. America appeared to be ambivalent about Hollywood and the movies it produced in the 1920s and 1930s.  Why was this new entertainment medium seen as problematic, even dangerous, for Americans?
  2. What was the purpose of the Code of 1930?  Whom was it meant to protect?
  3. Why was prohibition introduced?  Who supported it and what was it intended to do?
  4. "Baseball, perhaps more than any other sport or popular activity of the 1920s, reflected the ideals of America and the American Dream"  Discuss.
  5. Define the term "American Dream".
  6. The film The Roaring Twenties appears to depict two distinct views of the American Dream.  Is it indeed more than one version or is it simply the same dream but with different means to achieve it?

Continuing Themes and Questions:

A question to be considered after viewing the movie.  This is a question which we will continue to consider after viewing each movie

According to Gunning, "Fictional films serve as historical evidence in the same way that other representational art forms do -- by making events vivid, portraying social attitudes, and even revealing the unconscious assumptions of past societies....Attitudes about gender, class, and ethnicity, as well as heroism, work, play, and "the good life" are all portrayed in fictional films as they are in an era's novels, plays, and paintings. But as a form of mass visual entertainment, films reflect social attitudes in a specific and vivid manner.". 

However, as Gunning also cautions, "Interpreting Hollywood movies as a reflection of prevailing social attitudes or generalizing from specific films requires great caution. Fictional films are complex industrial and social products and how they are made, distributed, exhibited, and received by audiences and critics must be investigated to fully evaluate their roles as historical evidence. For example, it is dangerous to interpret a few films from a specific period as simple reflections of American society. The attitudes portrayed in a specific film may represent a series of compromises carefully designed to be non-offensive."

 

  1. Based on what Gunning above notes with respect to films and Hollywood, what then can we, as historians, do with the film we have just viewed?  
  2. In what way could that film be used as "evidence" for the past, and what are the problems with its use?  What specifically can we learn from this movie? 
  3. What is the relationship of the content of this movie to the concept of the American Dream?