Hollywood and Anti-Semitism

A Cultural History up to World War II

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by Steven Alan Carr

Cambridge University Press

Due/Published April 2001, 336 pages, paper

ISBN 052179854X

According to a powerful cultural narrative, Eastern European Jewish immigrants built the American film industry in the first decade of the 20th century and dominated it by the second. As opposed to determining a particularly Jewish vision of America, Carr argues that this way of looking at Jews in Hollywood emanates from a particularly American vision of Jews. Like the Jewish Question of the 19th century--which fretted over the full participation of Jews within public life--the Hollywood Question of the 1920s, 30s and 40s fretted over Jewish participation within the mass media. As a whole way of thinking and talking about both Jews and motion pictures, Hollywood and Anti-Semitism reveals a powerful set of assumptions concerning ethnicity, intent and media influence.

Contents

Introduction: What Is the Hollywood Question?

Part 1: The Hollywood Question and American Anti-Semitism, 1880Ð1929
1 Anti-Semitism and the American Jewish Question
2 Religion, Race, and Morality in the Hollywood Question
Part 2: The Hollywood Question for a New America, 1929Ð1941
3 A New Deal for the Hollywood Question
4 The Hollywood Question in Popular Culture
5 The Politics of the Hollywood Question
6 Answeringthe Hollywood Question

Part 3: The Hollywood Question, 1941 and Beyond
7 Popular Culture Answers the Hollywood Question
8 The Hollywood Question in Crisis, 1941
9 The New Hollywood Question
Notes
Bibliography
Index