Hegemony In Classical Hollywood Cinema

     Hegemony helps me understand why men are portrayed as always being so strong and virile in Classical Hollywood Cinema. Hegemony allows the most powerful individuals in society the ability to shape and control the way that everyone else thinks about something. Quite often, the rest of us are blissfully unaware that we are even being manipulated in such a grotesque misuse of power. The ruling elite make it so that what they tell us is socially correct and therefore left unquestioned. Throughout Classical Hollywood Cinema, people were taught to believe that men should act like Humphrey Bogart and women should look like Audrey Hepburn.

Picture Courtesy of austinchronicle.com

           In the Alfred Hitchcock film Notorious, Carey Grant exemplifies the archetypal heroic male figure that Classical Hollywood Cinema praised. Throughout the movie Grant rescues Ingrid Bergman time after time and is never seen without a suit and tie. Hitchcock made it so that even when confronted by Nazis in the climactic final scene, Grant's character never shuddered or strayed away from the level-headed, stoic character that Hollywood demanded he play. The men of Classical Hollywood were told to be bold and daring, which in turn instilled that in ever common man around the country who watched their films. 

The Final Scene of Notorious (courtesy of youtube)