The Memory-History-Popular Culture Nexus: Pearl Harbor as a Case Study in Consumer-Driven Collective Memory

Patricia Leavy

Sociological Research Online, 2005, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-16

Abstract: In this paper I examine the fusing of collective memory, history and popular culture by analyzing current trends in American-made commercial films with historical events as subject matter that have also been distributed to a global audience. Pearl Harbor is the primary case study. Analysis shows that dominant historical narratives are reified by the use of what I term an ‘anticipatory-driven’ film experience where audience members engage in an interaction with pre-existing mainstream collective memory while their anticipation for impending climactic trauma is systematically heightened. Comparisons are made to other widely released US films about national and international events and ‘non-events.’ Questions are also raised about the increasing global importance of the memory-history-popular culture nexus post 9-11, and, how US produced films about 9-11 may or may not engage in the practices detailed in this analysis. In this vein the paper concludes with a discussion of how Pearl Harbor was marketed, edited and received in Japan, the second largest audience for Hollywood films and what this implies about social memory construction in a global commercial context.

Keywords: Collective Memory; Film; Hollywood; National Identity; Pearl Harbor; Social Memory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:socres:v:10:y:2005:i:1:p:1-16

DOI: 10.5153/sro.1021

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