• Leonard J. Leff. "The Breening of America." PMLA, Vol. 106, No. 3 (May, 1991), pp. 432-445 Published by: Modern Language Association

Leonard J. Leff’s article “The Breening of America” works to point out the fact that as head of the PCA Joseph Breen worked not only out of concern for upholding decency and morality, but at the same time he attempted to promote a political, profit-seeking agenda. The article indicates that many famed Hollywood directors including Charlie Chaplin shared the same contempt for certain aspects of American culture written about by famous authors such as Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Steinbeck, but they did not have the same freedom in expressing it.

The article characterizes Joseph Breen, who had fully realized power in July 1934 when The MPPDA created the PCA and named him director. Breen is noted to be morally conservative, and at the same time to have tyrannical tendencies. Nevertheless, Breen is described most aptly in this article as a facilitator between social forces, and American filmmakers. He is attributed with both providing a staunch conservative influence on the social environment, and with maximizing the profitability of Hollywood by way of giving the American public precisely what they wanted to see.

This is a particularly interesting portrayal of an organization that was for all intents and purposes designed to provide censorship. A censor of the film industry cannot be arbitrarily lawless and continually maximize profitability. Joseph Breen realized this and therefore took on his aforementioned facilitator role. This applies directly to The Grapes of Wrath because it begs the question; would the film have been as profitable if it it’s thematic focus was more closely aligned with Steinbeck’s? Leff would contend that it probably would not have been as profitable. Needless to say however, the thematic focus of the film was tailored toward providing entertainment that was uplifting at least to some extent.

• Peter Lisca “The Grapes of Wrath as Fiction.” PMLA, Vol. 72, No. 1 (Mar., 1957), pp. 296-309 Published by: Modern Language Association

Peter Lisca writes in his article “The Grapes of Wrath as Fiction” that Steinbeck artfully integrates the two essential elements of a piece of fiction in such a way that it cannot suffer from the potential criticism of being labeled propaganda. The two elements Lisca aims to highlight are plot and characters. More specifically, Lisca is referring to the creation of the fictional family the Joads and their relationship to the harsh realities of the Great Depression.

Steinbeck is able to indicate quite convincingly that the entirety of his work is representative of circumstances brought on Americans by the economic and political context of life during the Great Depression. He falls short of shameless propaganda however, because he is able to develop his characters in such a way that all of their emotional responses are the byproduct of real social conditions. Further, the portrayal is not one-sided. There are moments of hope throughout the novel, and it even ends on a relative high-note.

It is important to note that there are very few critics of Steinbeck’s work. This being the case, if the theme of The Grapes of Wrath the film were aligned with Steinbeck’s it can only be assumed that it would have been popular and profitable. The film could certainly have been more inclusive of social conditions, and less focused on simply an examination of a solitary family unit. Nevertheless it is vital to recognize that the film did not represent a departure from a propagandistic theme. The thematic difference lies in the completeness of the portrayal of plot and characters.

Magistrale, Tony and Michael A. Morrison, ed. Dark Night's Dreaming : Contemporary American Horror Fiction. Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1996.
Call#: Van Pelt Library PS374.H67 D37 1996

The Exorcist is based on the book of the same name written by William Peter Blatty, who also wrote the screenplay. Chapter 6, “Casting Out Demons: The Horror Fiction of William Peter Blatty” details Blatty’s inspirations for writing the novel and his thoughts on the reaction to his work. Even the book had an enormous impact, spending 55 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. From this, the more serious intentions of the story can be understood without the visual stimulations of the movie to distract.

Douglas E. Winter writes that Blatty brought a new legitimacy to the horror genre, that he “ushered the reign of Stephen King and the stylized horror genre in the late 1970s and early 1980s” (84). Blatty was raised as a Roman Catholic, having attended a Catholic grammar school, a Jesuit high school, and a Jesuit university – Georgetown. Before writing The Exorcist, he had already published 8 books and produced 11 film scripts, and was known as a comedy writer. It wasn’t until 1971 that he wrote the book based on a successful exorcism he had read about in the Washington Post in 1949. Blatty said, “It seemed a validation of what we were being taught as Catholics, and certainly a validation of our hopes for immortality. Because if there were evil spirits, why not good? Why not a soul? Why not life everlasting?” (qtd. in 87). It was this confirmation that Blatty tried to evoke through his novel, though he concedes that “the real point of the book is nowhere to be found in the film” (qtd. in 91).

Winter praises The Exorcist as a book that confronts religious issues in a thought-provoking manner. He also discusses the social undertones of the story, of women's liberation and the rebellion of youth. The popularity of the book can be attributed to its sensationalism and to the pronounced taboos, but Blatty's real intention, as shown by Winter, was to reveal his hopeful attitude of what the exorcism implies about the justification of religion and the afterlife.