Political Uses of the Past in Popular Culture

The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941)

In pitting the celebrated nineteenth-century politician against the devil himself, this film reimagines the economic and legal transformations of that…

Dec 13 •

The depicted relationship between Roy Cohn and Donald Trump links law, real estate, and politics, as well as establishing a lineage of the American…

Nov 3 •

Is It Worth the Aggravation?

Oasis’s reunification this week is the latest development in Britpop’s long afterlife, its leading lights continuing to carve out careers in the music…

Aug 30 •

This intimate depiction of a Chicago motorcycle club meditates on associational culture, the social changes of the 1960s, and how gender and generation…

Jul 14 •

Love Lies Bleeding

This 1980s-set erotic thriller transforms the conventions of the genre through its same-sex couple protagonists, queering the world of bodybuilding it…

May 26 •

Coming down from ‘Cocaine Socialism’

After their 1990s zenith, Britpop and New Labour were frequently evoked to denigrate each other, until a shifting political and cultural climate brought…

Apr 24 •

Based on real events, Pride offers a message of solidarity between oppressed groups, albeit while centring a whiggish narrative of gay rights and…

Apr 16 •

Made in Dagenham (2010)

Based on a real strike by women workers, Made in Dagenham depicts its protagonists as overcoming class and gender divisions, but its narrative of…

Apr 13 •

Drive-Away Dolls

A lesbian road movie that embraces queer liberation and highlights the violence underpinning respectability politics.

Apr 3 •

This biographical film, based on the work of author Isabel Wilkerson, explores the working of discrimination in its totality, and offers a vision as to…

Mar 20 •

Bob Marley: One Love

This biopic casts Bob Marley as an almost messianic figure, but offers a very narrow interpretation of its protagonist’s politics.

Mar 13 •

This filmic treatment of the lives of the Von Erich family uses wrestling as a moving metaphor for both Reaganomics and toxic masculinity.

Mar 10 •

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