American Film and the Culture Wars

Battleground in the Trump Era

Terence McSweeney

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2026
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9798765140772
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film History & Criticism

American Film and the Culture Wars: Battleground in the Trump Era is an exploration of the relationship between American cinema and what many have referred to as the "Trump era," the "Trump age," or even the "Trump phenomenon."

This book contends that American cinema offers an insight into this fractious period and emerged as one of the primary battlegrounds on which a war of interpretation was fought, a frontline in what many refer to as the "culture wars." This resulted in a body of films which should not be regarded as disposable entertainment, but rather as visceral cultural artefacts which reflect, engage with, and have even been able to influence the tumultuous period in a range of palpable ways. Films discussed include: Sound of Freedom (2023), Top Gun: Maverick (2022), Get Out (2017), Superman (2025), Sicario: Day of the Soldado (2018), 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (2016), and The Hunt (2020), among many others.

Across six theoretically informed but accessible chapters, McSweeney interrogates how American film emerged as a striking manifestation of the political and historical moment in which they were formed: engaging with a broad tapestry of social movements (Black Lives Matter [2013-], Me Too [2017-], and Times Up [2018-]); genres (superhero, horror, action, science fiction film); and key issues, debates, and events (gun control, abortion, religion), revealing that it is still the cinematic medium which provides a frame of reference for how we understand and comprehend the world, as much as, if not more than, it has ever done.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Contemporary American Film as Cultural Battleground
• 1 A Cinema of the Deplorables?
• 2 Cinema of the MeToo and Time’s Up Era
• 3 African American Film in the Era of Black Lives Matter
• 4 Tales from the Border: Drugs, Crime, Rapists, and “some, I assume, are good people.”
• 5 “THE LONE WARRIOR!”: The Fears and Fantasies of an Action Hero Presidency
• 6 “America Needs a Superhero”: The Conflicted Fantasylands of the Superhero Film in the Donald Trump Era
• Conclusion: Battlegrounds: “What kind of American are you?”
• Works Cited
• Selected Filmography
• Index