Ghettos, Tramps, and Welfare Queens

Using material from almost three hundred films, Stephen Pimpare's book deals creatively with a subject few film historians have examined in depth: “representations of poor and homeless people and the places they have inhabited” in American cinema (p. xiii). The number of movies surveyed allows a broad assessment of how filmmakers have approached a sensitive topic; but equally valuable is Pimpare's relating of trends in scholarly studies of poverty, especially social welfare policy, to images in movies about the poor and how they live. His wide-ranging introduction demonstrates his broad knowledge of film history literature, beginning with Kevin Brownlow's work on silent film, although he could have benefitted from Amanda F. Grzyb's articles in the two-volume Encyclopedia of Homelessness (edited by David Levinson [2004]), which analyze the images of the homeless in narrative film from the silent film era to the present. Pimpare's goal is “not to investigate poverty and homelessness as a film scholar or critic would, but to see the ways in which poverty policy and policy history appear on screen” and to “document the ways in which individuals, families, and neighborhoods are represented; and ask how well that comports with our historical knowledge and current reality” of homelessness (p. xvii

Art · Art history · Encyclopedia · Library science · Literature · Media studies · Movie theater · Narrative · Political science · Poverty · Sociology · Subject (documents · Welfare · History · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Law

• Kubrick on Crime and Deviance

  Open Access•Nachman Ben-Yehuda, Galia Frank•Critical Criminology•2023

  Add to list

• Hostile Ignorance, Class, and Same-Race Friendships

  Open Access•Sherelle Ferguson, A Lareau•Socius Sociological Research for…•2021

  Add to list