American Suburbs in the Long Shadow of the Big City
Patrycja Włodek
patrycja.wlodek@gmail.comPedagogical University of Cracow (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4019-3727
Abstract
Suburbs are “a Russia, only with money” – the joke quoted by William H. Whyte in The Organization Man points to the ambivalent status of suburban districts, noticeable also in their cultural representations. On the one hand, suburbia are simply a way of spatial planning, on the other – this particular space has always been as tangible as symbolic and mythical. They serve as a microcosm and metonymy of ideas crucial for post-war America, such as nation, capitalism, security, pax Americana. The article focuses on the mechanisms and reasons (considered both synchronically and diachronically) for the very existence of the movie-made American suburbia seen as symbolic territories.
Keywords:
American cinema, suburbs, urban planning, symbolic territory, ideology, capitalismReferences
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Authors
Patrycja Włodekpatrycja.wlodek@gmail.com
Pedagogical University of Cracow Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4019-3727
PhD, Jagiellonian University graduate (film studies and sociology), Assistant Professor at the Pedagogical University of Krakow; she specializes in the history of American cinema; film critic and publicist, contributor to many magazines, periodicals and books. Author of the books “Świat był przemoczoną pustką”. Czarny kryminał Raymonda Chandlera w literaturze i filmie [“The World Was a Wet Emptiness”. Raymond Chandler, Hard-boiled Fiction and Film Noir] (2015) and Kres niewinności. Obraz i upamiętnienie ery Eisenhowera w amerykańskich filmach i serialach – pomiędzy reprezentacją, nostalgią a krytycznym retro [The End of Innocence. Depiction and Commemoration of the Eisenhower Era in American Cinema and Television – Representation, Nostalgia and Critical Retro] (2018).
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