YUDIN K.A. “Storm Center”: Mccarthyism in American Culture and Cinema
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.15688/jvolsu4.2024.1.5
Kirill А. Yudin
Candidate of Sciences (History), Associate Professor,
Department of History and Cultural Studies, Ivanovo State University of Chemistry and Technology,
Prosp. Sheremetevsky, 27, 153000 Ivanovo, Russian Federation;
Grant Executor,
Herzen University, reki Moiki Emb., 48, 191186 Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation,
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ,
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9579-7056
Abstract. Introduction. The article is devoted to the consideration of McCarthyism as one of the leading factors that influenced the cultural policy and politics of memory in the United States throughout the entire period of the Cold War.
Methods and materials. The ways of representing the atmosphere of conservative ideological control in the United States in the films of the 1950’s – 2010’s are explored. Films are considered media texts, and the images contained in them are considered symbolic resources used to form and transform a collective identity, legitimize power, its control, and repressive technologies and practices – social mobilization, politicization of everyday life, censorship, and segregation into “their” and “strangers.”
Analysis. In the course of the historical and imagological analysis, a conditional typology of potential agents of McCarthyism is made. The following are distinguished: institutional conformist careerists, administrators; “soft” conformists – failed oppositionists to political pressure; indoctrinated representatives of mass culture, demonstrating the active complicity of the authorities in imposing ideological labels and encouraging spy mania and exposure.
Results. Conclusions are drawn that McCarthyism has become a form of anti-Americanism, moral corrosion, and commemorative trauma in American society, the result of the escalation of the cultural, ideological, and mental “storm,” producing a state of intolerance not only to the image of the enemy but also to the Other as a whole. This required more than half a century of overcoming and purifying in the media space.
Key words: McCarthyism, Cold War, media space, American cinematography, culture, image of the enemy, ideological control, symbolic politics.
Citation. Yudin K.A. “Storm Center”: Mccarthyism in American Culture and Cinema. Vestnik Volgogradskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Seriya 4. Istoriya. Regionovedenie. Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya [Science Journal of Volgograd State University. History. Area Studies. International Relations], 2024, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 44-54. (in Russian). DOI: https://doi.org/10.15688/jvolsu4.2024.1.5.
“Storm Center”: Mccarthyism in American Culture and Cinema by Yudin K.A. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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