Hollywood: 1945-1955

[metu]

This is probably the decade in history, other than the current one, which interests me the most. This is not just the end of WWII and the bringing of a new age of Cold War; it was not only the age of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC); it was also the rise of television. 1947 was the peak year for cinema box office attendance. The Korean War is called the forgotten war in large part because people wanted a break; they could just stay home and change the channel. How did Hollywood try to bring back the golden age?

All comments are welcome within the topic, including "Marilyn Monroe was hot."

 

[metu]

Yes this is a challenge to the UM community. Let's come out of the woodwork and discuss difficult issues.

Prove me right.

 

[Roxy Bungalow]

Because so many men came back from the war and wanted to start families, there was a huge boom in marketing towards children, more toys and specfically "cute" things. The role of the teenager was rapidly rising as a target market too. People finally had more money and wanted to spend it. It seems like a happy time and it showed in the commercial products. But I love how there was this surface excitement of the new and improved and the indulgent, while underneath was a paranoia and a lingering sadness.

 

[metu]

Interesting.

Now, this was marketing to children, but through their parents: not to be confused with the Elvis phenomenon. You specified toys and cute things, but it seems to me that Hollywood was more actively targeting boys with sci-fi movies.

I don't think that there was all that much of a progressive excitement. There was certainly a raised standard of living and growing level of comfort. There was a whole host of new products.

Rather than sadness, I would say discontent. Material wealth has always been what we've been fed: rarely what we've craved.

Paranoia is more my angle. It seems that Hollywood worked on the fear of being imprisoned by material wealth as in The Heiress (1949) and the fear of subversive forces as in Stalag 17 (1953).

That these two films frame the Korean War does not strike me as coincidence.