In the chapter “Politics Is Show Business” by Brownell, we read about how in the New Politics and New Hollywood of the late 1960s and 1970s, “an ‘image’ could become ‘a reality’” (p. 282), that “actors had come out as interested citizens” (p. 285), and that there was a growing “mutually beneficial relationship with Hollywood [and politics]” (p. 286). Actors and filmmakers tell stories, but so do historians. Some things are always left out or emphasized of these narratives, sometimes for clarity and sometimes to tell a certain kind of story. Do you think the relationship or even blending of politics and actors is beneficial for history movies? Think about All the President’s Men and its relative accuracy versus the critiques of what the makers of Argo left out or overemphasized.

In the chapter “Politics Is Show Business” by Brownell, we read about how in the New Politics and New Hollywood of the late 1960s and 1970s, “an ‘image’ could become ‘a reality’” (p. 282), that “actors had come out as interested citizens” (p. 285), and that there was a growing “mutually beneficial relationship with Hollywood [and politics]” (p. 286). Actors and filmmakers tell stories, but so do historians. Some things are always left out or emphasized of these narratives, sometimes for clarity and sometimes to tell a certain kind of story. Do you think the relationship or even blending of politics and actors is beneficial for history movies? Think about All the President’s Men and its relative accuracy versus the critiques of what the makers of Argo left out or overemphasized.