From Publishers Weekly

This perceptive study by the author of The Sword and the Dollar convincingly argues that TV and film are not popular culture, but marketed mass culture; and that these media do not distort reality, but preempt it. Their scripts, Parenti asserts, support militarism, imperialism, racism, sexism and authoritarianism, and the producer who offers work not supportive of these themes is in trouble. The corporations which control the media use their power to "legitimate the hegemonic ideological system," for example, they present negative views of working-class people--as boors, buffoons and sometimes lovable slobs--and of labor unions. The book is entertainingly written and rich in instances of the effort to force an artificial reality on viewers. Photos not seen by PW. 

Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

In this well-written polemic, Parenti, whose previous book Inventing Reality: The Politics of the Mass Media ( LJ 1/86) lambasted the Fourth Estate, argues that the American entertainment industry promotes stereotypes and perpetuates Western, white male supremacy. Reviewing films and television programs from the 1930s ( Gunga Din ) to 1990 ( Pretty Woman ), he finds that even those films that attempt to explore minority characters and their motivations portray images of underlying ideals that reflect capitalist and individualistic values. Parenti also discusses the roles of film distribution and television censorship in making sure that "supply creates demand." This provocative work belongs in all types of libraries. Political science and communication studies faculties will want to use this title as supplemental reading to the older, but more balanced book on the same topic: Cinema, Politics, and Society in America edited by Philip Davies and Brian Neve (St. Martin's, 1982). Photographs not seen.

- Ebba Kraar King, formerly with North Carolina State Univ. Libs., Raleigh

Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

Having previously taken aim at, among other topics, American foreign policy (The Sword and the Dollar, 1988) and media propaganda techniques (Inventing Reality, 1986), veteran progressive critic Parenti now delivers a swift kick to the assumption that American mass entertainment, although vapid, remains basically harmless. Parenti argues that ``make-believe media'' promote belief in economic and political values that support a corrupt status quo (``images and themes that propagate private enterprise, consumerism, superpatriotism, imperialism, racial stereotyping, and sexism''). While readers may question many of the implicit concepts Parenti uses to measure media performance (belief in class struggle, etc.), his exploration of topics--from Rambo's influence on Reagan to the way the movies rewrote the civil-rights struggle to make the FBI the hero to how working people are systematically portrayed as crass--are likely to challenge them to ask exactly what they have been absorbing. Parenti argues that even the genre of horror flicks--King Kong and giant grasshoppers--had a subtext of encouraging public fear of swarthy Third World hoards and communist attack. Other chapters explain how children's programming now is a seamless web of shows about toys, how medical dramas and law-enforcement programs distort reality, and how ownership of media in ever-fewer hands leads to even tighter ideological control and suppression of diversity of opinion. Prickly analysis, peppered with the remains of neatly dissected cultural icons. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.