The Aesthetic Politics of Hollywood's Chain Gang in FDR's America

Mervyn Leroy’s 1932 film I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang functioned within a complex network of New Deal propaganda. This thesis analyzes the close connection between the film and its 1930s Great Depression American historical context through close readings of its visual and narrative politics. I divide this project into three parts: Chapter 1 explores Southern racial and penal histories through the lens of Frankfurt school theory; Chapter 2 demonstrates the ways in which pre-Code Hollywood business strategies structure the film’s representations of gender and transgression; Chapter 3 theorizes the film’s use of montage and its New-Deal embedded temporal politics.