Cinema Wars

Douglas Kellner is George Kneller Chair of Philosophy of Education at UCLA. He is the author of many books on social theory, politics, history, and culture, including Camera Politica: The Politics and Ideology of Contemporary Hollywood Film, co-authored with Michael Ryan, and Media Spectacle and the Crisis of Democracy. He is the co-editor of Media and Cultural Studies Keyworks (Wiley-Blackwell 2006). Kellner's most recent book is Guys and Guns Amok: Domestic Terrorism and School Shootings from the Oklahoma City Bombings to the Virginia Tech Massacre. His website is at www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/kellner.html.

• Acknowledgments viiList of Plates ixIntroduction: Film, Politics, and Society 1Hollywood Film as a Contested Terrain 2Cinema, Politics, and Social History: From Cinematic Realism to Allegory 13Hollywood Film and the Contemporary Moment: Signs of the Times 18Reading Film Diagnostically: Imagining Obama 34In This Book 401 Confronting the Horrors of the Bush-Cheney Era: From Documentary to Allegory 51The Golden Age of Documentary 52Real Disaster Films: From An Inconvenient Truth and Environmental Documentaries to Animated Allegories 71Allegories of Catastrophe: Social Apocalypse in Disaster, Horror, and Fantasy Films 802 Hollywood’s 9/11 and Spectacles of Terror 989/11 as Disaster Film and Spectacle of Terror 99Representations of 9/11 in Hollywood Film: United 93 and World Trade Center 101Disney Television Republican Propaganda: The Path to 9/11 108Hollywood’s Terror War 1183 Michael Moore’s Provocations 132Michael Moore, Emile de Antonio, and the Politics of Documentary Film 133Roger and Me and the Documentary of Personal Witnessing 136Bowling For Columbine and Exploratory Documentary Montage 140Fahrenheit 9/11 and Partisan Interventionist Cinema 146Sicko and the Michael Moore Genre 1554 Hollywood Political Critiques of the Bush-Cheney Regime: From Thrillers to Fantasy and Satire 163The Hollywood Political Thriller Against the Bush-Cheney Regime 165Star Wars Prequels as Anti-Bush-Cheney Allegory 173From Satire to Dystopia 1835 The Cinematic Iraq War 199Documenting Iraq 200Interpreting the Iraq Fiasco 208Iraq and Its Aftermath in Fiction Films 219Conclusion: Hollywood Cinema Wars in the 2000s 239Critical Representations 240History Lessons 250Final Reflections 258References 262Index 269

"Notwithstanding the lack of surprise, Kellner is always challenging and provocative, and for that reason alone, Cinema Wars is worth reading." (Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 1 June 2011) "This volume will be a valuable source ... .The provocative political stances taken and wide range of films discussed here will stimulate debate for academics and students alike." (Times Higher Education, February 2010)