Fiction In Reality
With the advent of "talkies" in Hollywood and publishing an ever-increasing field, many people turned to fiction as a refuge from the harsh realities of life. This saw a cementing in cinematic popularity of what became staple genres, such as pulp crime and the movie musical. Movies like "It Happened One Night" and "Gone With The Wind" transported audiences to settings of glamour and romance, while books such as "The Good Earth" and "Of Mice and Men" actually inspired real-life social movements in response to the societal injustices they illuminated. This presents an interesting phenomenon: escapism wasn't all that audiences got from this media, and to call it escapism is to misunderstand the speed, energy and movement [of Hollywood] at a time of economic stagnation and social malaise" [1]. It inspired people to go out and try to improve their own realities.
Sources Cited: Capra, Frank, director. It Happened One Night. Columbia Pictures Corp., 1934.
