Reaganizing Hollywood
In 1983 Ronald Reagan did as president what he had never been able to do as an actor—he had a significant impact on the movie industry. Not that the president got the Reagan equivalent of PT-109 produced or that his … {…}
Architectural Politics: The Vietnam War Memorial
“Their monument sticks like a fishbone in the city’s throat.” The monument Robert Lowell had in mind when he wrote those lines was Augustus St. Gauden’s Civil War Memorial of Colonel Robert Shaw and his black troops, but in 1984 … {…}
Power Chic as Style and Politics
A decade ago Tom Wolfe coined the term “radical chic” to describe what he regarded as a trendy identification of the wealthy with the poor. Wolfe’s 1970 essay focused on a benefit for the Black Panther party, and what he … {…}
Football’s First Strike
As a child growing up in Ohio, I thought of the Cleveland Browns as gods. In that belief I was no different from most of my school friends. Our fall Sundays were spent watching the Browns on television or, if … {…}
The Portable Generation
“What are they like?” Because I teach and because the college at which I teach, Sarah Lawrence, has a reputation for being experimental, I am constantly asked this question about my students. Most of the time I resist answering. I … {…}
Southern Labor Battles
<center WORKING LIVES: THE SOUTHERN EXPOSUREHISTORY OF LABOR IN THE SOUTH, ed. by Marc S. Miller. New York: Pantheon Books. 414 pp. Cloth, $17.95; paper, $7.95. The turn of the century brought with it a special kind of regimentation for … {…}
Male Soap Opera
Long after it should be dead at the box office, Kramer vs. Kramer is still thriving. It is not hard to figure out why. Kramer vs. Kramer is a film with a subject to wrench the heart—a failed New York … {…}
Football, Play and Obsession
Unlike most books by former athletes, Dallas Cowboy wide receiver Peter Gent’s North Dallas Forty is anything but a modest “I was there” piece of writing. Although structured around eight days in the life of Phil Elliott (like Gent, a … {…}
The Unions and the Mobs
John Ford in Grapes of Wrath, Martin Ritt in The Molhv Maguires, Hal Ashby in Bound for Glory have all shown that the union movement can be powerful material for the screen. Yet we do not have in this country … {…}
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Belabored Podcast #7: Social Arsonists· May 24, 2013 ·
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Traversing the U.S. Food System: An Interview with Tracie McMillan· May 22, 2013 ·
