Carroll: Ideology in Film

     Many among the Humanities often preoccupy themselves with the study of the ideology of mass art. Is art, particularly commercial, or mass art, merely a means of propagating a dominant culture’s ideology?  Or, barring that, is it a matter of subverting that culture’s ideology? Must the study of rhetoric fall into one of those two categories -- either wholesale proselytization, or condemnation? 

    The duality of such a standpoint is often a pitfall for many academics, as the reliance upon cultural ideology can be used as a crutch to avoid a true critical analysis. Such a shortcut, however, is capable of backfiring on the scholar -- for if their critique of a subject centers purely upon the ideological, then by default, their criticism is too far steeped within their own ideology as to be considered a truly neutral analysis. 

Whether epistemic (a viewpoint based upon the logic of said ideology), or dominant (an ideology shared by a ruling class, or culture), the labelling of something as ‘ideological’ is in and of itself a quagmire of logic. In order to do so, many scholars and critics argue that it must (respectively) either be demonstrably untrue, in the case of epistemiology, or otherwise a standard cultural rhetoric. In mass art, rhetoric can be disseminated in numerous various ways.  In some cases, this rhetoric may be unspoken ideology (as is the case in the racist and hyper-idealized Birth of a Nation,) whose morality and opinions are presented as factual, with the presupposition of audience empathy. In others, such as rhetoric found in classical television (such as Star Trek or The Andy Griffith Show), this rhetoric is often made more explicit, with a character espousing their own ideology for the sake of both the audience and whomever the character is addressing. In other instances, a “middle-ground” is often reached wherein particular themes and ideals are often alluded to and implied, if never explicitly stated as any sort of grounded “moral” of the story.

Does mass art, therefore, utilize these means of dispensing their rhetoric as a means of propagating cultural ideology?  The answer to that lies within the question. “Mass art,” as it is referred to, attempts to appeal to a mass audience -- as such, it can only be assumed that it will attempt to appeal to as broad of an audience as possible.  The presence of cultural ideology, therefore, should not come as a surprise in a work that is meant to be consumed, enjoyed, and pondered over by those who share these same presuppositions.