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142 C. L. R. James “C. L. R. James on Comic Strips” From American Civilization [1950]. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993, pp. 118–99. To state it crudely, where formerly we had to look at the economic relations of society, the political and social movements and the great artistic expressions to get a whole, complete and dynamic view of the society, while as far as the great mass was concerned, we had to guess; today it is not so. The modern popular film, the modern newspaper (the Daily News, not the Times), the comic strip, the evolution of jazz, a popular periodical like Life, these mirror from year to year the deep social responses and evolution of the American people in relation to the fate which has overtaken the original concepts of freedom, free individuality, free association, etc. To put it more harshly still, it is in the serious study of, above all, Charles Chaplin, Dick Tracy, Gasoline Alley, James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, Rita Hayworth, Humphrey Bogart genuinely popular novels like those of Frank Yerby (Foxes of Harrow, The Golden Hawk, The Vixen, Pride’s Castle), men like David Selznick, Cecil deMille, and Henry Luce, that you find the clearest ideological expression of the sentiments and deepest feelings of the American people and a great window into the future of America and the modern world. This insight is not to be found in the works of T. S. Eliot, of Hemingway, of Joyce, of famous directors like John Ford and Rene Clair. [. . .] We have to first consider the conditions (unique for over two thousand years) in which these films, strips, etc. are produced. The producer of the film or the newspaper publisher of a strip aims at millions of people, practically the whole population, and must satisfy them. Dick Tracy appears today in newspapers with a circulation of 43 millions. Of every four books that appear today one is a detective story. If even for the sake of argument, it is agreed that the publishers, the movie magnates, the newspaper proprietors and the banks which directly or indirectly control them, are interested in distracting the masses of the people from serious problems or elevated art, then the question still remains, why, at this particular time, this particular method of distraction should have arisen and met with such continuous success. To believe that the great masses of the people are merely passive recipients of what the purveyors of popular art give to them is in reality to see people as dumb slaves. C. L. R. JAMES 143 ...

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