Studies in Entertainment (Tania Modleski, editor) and The Americans: The Democratic Experience (Daniel Boorstin, author) demonstrate the ideological difference a decade can make in the consciousness of feminist issues. Studies in Entertainment was published in 1986, but reads like a book of the nineties. The Americans was published in 1973, but reads like a book of the sixties.
The Americans seems dated because it fails to live up to its subtitle. Boorstin (1973) describes the history of white, male capitalists in the United States. He labels these capitalists "Go-Getters." In the first chapter of the book he describes how the Go-Getters tamed the Old West. Boorstin (1973) glamorizes the lives of the ranchers and cowboys who successfully thwarted the "Indian menace" and created capitals of commerce like Abilene, Dodge City, and Cheyenne: "A Go-Getter's loyalty was his willingness to stick by his guns to avenge a friend, to defend his cattle, or to secure a fortune" (p. 34). Boorstin (1973) even devotes an entire chapter to lawyers, the "generalized Go-Getters."
In contrast, Modleski (1986) takes a critical look at mass entertainment as a means of understanding its relationship to gender. Mass entertainment, in many respects, defines the basic foundations of culture. Instead of taking a textbook approach to her subject, as Boorstin (1973) has, Modleski (1986) presents a series of essays written by distinguished professors from a diverse range of disciplines including film, philosophy, and cultural studies.
In her introduction to the essays, Modleski (1986), critiques the various approaches to mass culture. Two extremes are presented. Humanists and Marxists take a serious approach to mass culture which they consider a low form of art. These critics believe that middle-class citizens have become addicted to mass culture and can never extricate themselves in favor of higher-level intellectual pursuits. Mo...