Popular Culture Review 30.1
observations recur and coalesce freely between chapters like a film montage . At every turn , new , unexpected , connections and divergences between the Southern Gothic , Westerns , the Civil Rights Era , The Cold War , propaganda , and mass entertainment reveal themselves . From acclaimed adaptations of Tennessee Williams plays , to Cowboy heroes like John Wayne and Tex Ritter , to home movies and publicly produced “ informational ” pieces promoting everything from bus tourism , to the necessity of learning first-aid , Split Screen Nation : Moving Images of the American West and South draws together not only the myriad themes present in Cold War era film , but provides much useful insight on some of its perspective on wider American popular culture then and now .
The first scenes in the montage , and expertly analyzed , are provided by travelogues sponsored by companies like Ford and Greyhound . Films like America for Me ! and Freedom Highway encourage Americans to see the whole of the country by bus or automobile caravan . They contain a cross-section of typical middle-class white America at the time with characters representing blatant regional stereotypes , such as the timid New England schoolteacher , the brash Texas cowboy , and the wide-eyed Midwestern farm boy . All are zealously patriotic , or become so after coaxing from their fellow travelers . These films typically make virtually no mention of minorities , or of the changing face of America . They are , in effect , a sort of “ squeaky clean ” picture of what Middle America thought of itself . Feature-length home movies , notably Family Camping , add to the “ Leave It to Beaver ” motif , celebrating the nation ’ s landmarks , such as the Lincoln Memorial , while consciously avoiding the Deep South , and the struggle for civil rights . While insightfully analyzing each film , Courtney asks us to consider why patriotism and mythmaking appear so inexorably intertwined , and what that means for any society , in any era .
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