# Elia Kazan's "A Face in The Crowd" - wow **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 22, 2010, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elia-kazans-a-face-in-the-crowd-wow/565131 "2010-12-22T23:00:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2010, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elia-kazans-a-face-in-the-crowd-wow/565131/21 "2010-12-23T16:48:12Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > But again, Rush Limbaugh CAN’T influence anybody who doesn’t ALREADY think like him. > > “A Face in the Crowd” paints the American public as a bunch of dumb sheep who do whatever the man on TV tells them to. That’s both condescending and stupid. NOBODY does ANYTHING because Limbaugh or Beck tells them to. Just the opposite- a chosen few seek out Beck and Limbaugh because they’re saying precisely what those people already believe. > > In the same way, Jon Stewart doesn’t MAKE his audience liberal- his audience is ALREADY liberal, and seeks him out because he tells them exactly what they want to hear. > > If Limbaugh came out as PRO-abortion, you think his fans would blindly say, “Yes, Rush… we are now pro-abortion”? NO! They’d turn him off. > > In the same way, Lonesome RHodes could NEVER sway people who didn’t already think his way. You’re mixing up political positions with a set of attitudes. The entire history of demagoguery in America shows that large groups of people will respond to a combination of “you’re really great if only you were given your due” and “you’re being held back by this group.” You can plug in a variety of specific villains - elites, liberals, communists, blacks, the Establishment, immigrants, Jews, urbanites, Catholics - to fit the moment. Once the villain has been identified, anything they say or do, and anything that they are claimed to have said or done, will be believed as a negative. It’s a proven technique that has worked over and over, and is obviously working today. The point is not that all those Americans think a certain way. It’s that many of them have not thought and reasoned closely on a subject but have a vague set of dissatisfactions that will fit into a framework that is offered them on a platter. Once they adopt that framework, only time or extraordinary circumstances will change it, regardless of its relationship to reality. And yes, I am using terms this vague because they can be applied to other areas than politics and just as obviously are. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2010, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elia-kazans-a-face-in-the-crowd-wow/565131/22 "2010-12-23T17:14:17Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > You’re mixing up political positions with a set of attitudes. > > The entire history of demagoguery in America shows that large groups of people will respond to a combination of “you’re really great if only you were given your due” and “you’re being held back by this group.” You can plug in a variety of specific villains - elites, liberals, communists, blacks, the Establishment, immigrants, Jews, urbanites, Catholics - to fit the moment. Once the villain has been identified, anything they say or do, and anything that they are claimed to have said or done, will be believed as a negative. It’s a proven technique that has worked over and over, and is obviously working today. > > . A “Proven technique”? When and where? “Working today”? When and where? It’s no surprise that you embrace the idiotic, outdated premise of “A Face in the Crowd” if you have such a low opinion of your fellow citizens. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2010, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elia-kazans-a-face-in-the-crowd-wow/565131/23 "2010-12-23T18:10:31Z")
AFITC is a dark comedy, with elements of satiric exaggeration. The degree of LR’s influence is not to be taken any more literally than Dr. Strangelove’s schizoid Nazi mannerisms. Try telling RNC chairman Michael Steele that Limbaugh has no influence. Come to think of it, Steele may well have been of that opinion prior to their dustup, or he wouldn’t have spoken of Limbaugh like he did. In any event, his contrite response shows that he certainly feels differently now. You are partly correct that most of Beck’s and Limbaugh’s power derives from their ability to energize the base, as opposed to swaying people firmly opposed (although some in the middle may be influenced as well). But, why would this rule out their ability to influence public opinion? No, Limbaugh isn’t going to tomorrow announce that he’s pro-choice and have all his listeners go along. (This is an example of the fallacy of the excluded middle). But he can sway public opinion on individuals quite effectively. E.g., he pretty abruptly announced that John McCain was corrupt and not fit to be president in 2000. I recall a friend of mine (and longtime Rush listener) who had idolized McCain’s war heroics in the runup to the 2000 campaign. My friend quickly changed his mind and voted for Bush in the primary. Since much of LR’s culture and rhetoric correlates with a lot of the current red-state/Tea Party tenets, I can understand that a conservative might feel insulted by the premise of LR being able to sway people like they were sheep, \*if it’s assumed that such schemes would only work on conservatives. \* I for one am definitely not of that opinion, and I think that the introduction of Oprah into this discussion is a good illustration that this phenomenon is not unique to the right. Seriously, if people like Limbaugh, Beck and Oprah can’t influence the public’s opinion on politics, why is there any reason to be concerned about bias in the media? And yes, I do have a low opinion of the intelligence of a large chunk of my fellow citizens. As the Subgenius Church says, _“Do you know how dumb the average person is? Well, by definition, half of them are dumber than that”_ ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2010, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elia-kazans-a-face-in-the-crowd-wow/565131/24 "2010-12-23T19:13:11Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > It’s no surprise that you embrace the idiotic, outdated premise of “A Face in the Crowd” if you have such a low opinion of your fellow citizens. Oprah Winfrey. Barack Obama. See prior post. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2010, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elia-kazans-a-face-in-the-crowd-wow/565131/25 "2010-12-23T19:30:04Z")
Another reason you should stop debating Rush or Beck or Maddow and pay attention to what I’m saying about Oprah and how she abslutely proves the premise of AFITC is this: in order to influence the outcome of an election, you don’t have to sway a huge percentage of people, because it’s not a huge percentage of people who make a difference. It’s a fairly small sliver of people known in polls as “undecided”. It’s not like hoardes of people switch their political philosophies for every election - most people can be counted on to vote the same general way no matter who is running. It’s the handful of folks who CAN be swayed that matter. I started to say:" And while it can’t be conclusively proved, I think it’s completely legitimate and reasonable and easy to believe that previously apolitical Oprah was the proof in the AFITC pudding" and then I decided to actually look: > [@](#): > > ]Identifying the effects of political endorsements has historically been difficult. Before the 2008 > Democratic Presidential Primary, Barack Obama was endorsed by Oprah Winfrey. We assess the > endorsement’s impact using subscriptions to O! – The Oprah Magazine and the sales of books > Winfrey has recommended as measures of her influence. We find it had a positive effect on the > votes and financial contributions Obama received, and on voter participation. No connection is > found between the measures of Oprah’s influence and previous elections, nor with underlying > political preferences. Our results suggest Winfrey’s endorsement was responsible for > approximately 1,000,000 additional votes for Obama. That’s the opening of a September 2008 study mentioned and linked to in [this](http://usliberals.about.com/b/2008/08/15/oprahs-support-made-the-difference-for-obama.htm) article: "T**he Role of Celebrity Endorsements in Politics: Oprah, Obama, and the 2008 Democratic Primary"** ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2010, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elia-kazans-a-face-in-the-crowd-wow/565131/26 "2010-12-23T19:38:46Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > Ahem… I gotta say you are mistaken, sir. > > Our current President, considered a laughable longshot by most people when he started out, due to his youth, inexperience, and skin color, was resoundingly endorsed by the single most powerful and influential television entertainer in the history of the medium, who had never previously endorsed any candidate for office. > > You HAVE heard of Oprah Winfrey, I take it? > [@Stoid](#): > > Oprah Winfrey. Barack Obama. See prior post. I should stop reading this thread because the movie sounds interesting and this will probably ruin it, but nevermind all that. You may have felt Obama was going to win after Oprah endorsed him, but that sounds like _post hoc ergo propter hoc_ to me. I think endorsements rarely help anybody, and I don’t think he won in Iowa because of Oprah. Obama was not considered “a laughable longshot” by the time Oprah endorsed him. It was national news when he launched his campaign and he was very well known at that point considering he was a freshman senator. And course, Oprah didn’t endorse him then. She waited until December 2007, about a month before the Iowa caucuses. [By then there had already been several polls indicating Obama would win Iowa](http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/ia/iowa_democratic_caucus-208.html#polls), although I think everyone would agree Clinton was the favorite. Things started moving more in Obama’s favor a few weeks after Oprah’s endorsement. Oprah got him some news and might’ve contributed some excitement, but I don’t think that’s what helps you win in the Iowa caucuses - it’s making phone calls and shaking hands. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2010, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elia-kazans-a-face-in-the-crowd-wow/565131/27 "2010-12-23T19:40:25Z")
Some more (Wiki has a page evoted to the subject of Oprah’s endorsement of Obama!) > [@](#): > > **Polls** > > A CBS poll found that a third of all Americans claimed that most people they know would be more inclined to vote for Obama because of Winfrey’s endorsement.[[37]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oprah_Winfrey%27s_endorsement_of_Barack_Obama#cite_note-36) A study by the Pew Research Center found that Winfrey’s campaign appearances had dramatically increased Obama’s visibility, especially among African-Americans.[[38]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oprah_Winfrey%27s_endorsement_of_Barack_Obama#cite_note-37) One reason Winfrey’s endorsement was useful in helping Obama compete with Senator Clinton was because as of December 2007 (when Winfrey first began campaigning) Winfrey was the one woman in the world more admired than Hillary Clinton among American women.[[39]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oprah_Winfrey%27s_endorsement_of_Barack_Obama#cite_note-38) > [@](#): > > In April 2008, _[The New York Times](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times)_ editorial board wrote: > “ If Barack Obama is elected president, a good chunk of credit should go to Oprah Winfrey. Her early and enthusiastic endorsement of Senator Obama – and her heavily attended appearances with him in Iowa and South Carolina – played a big role in winning over bit parts of Middle America to the Obama cause. Ms. Winfrey has since faded into the background of the campaign, but her impact persists.[[44]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oprah_Winfrey%27s_endorsement_of_Barack_Obama#cite_note-43) ” “Oprah’s unprecedented mid-December endorsement of Obama sent a clear signal to her mixed-race female-dominated audience that they should feel as comfortable having Obama on their living room television screens for the nightly newscast as they do having her there during late-afternoon coffee talk,” noted Thomas F. Schaller of [Salon.com](http://Salon.com).[[27]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oprah_Winfrey%27s_endorsement_of_Barack_Obama#cite_note-salon.com-26) > \*\*[[edit](http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Oprah_Winfrey%27s_endorsement_of_Barack_Obama&action=edit§ion=10)] \*\* Oprah Rhodes? Lonesome Winfrey? ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2010, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elia-kazans-a-face-in-the-crowd-wow/565131/28 "2010-12-23T19:42:22Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > I should stop reading this thread because the movie sounds interesting and this will probably ruin it, but nevermind all that. You may have felt Obama was going to win after Oprah endorsed him, but that sounds like _post hoc ergo propter hoc_ to me. I think endorsements rarely help anybody, and I don’t think he won in Iowa because of Oprah. Obama was not considered “a laughable longshot” by the time Oprah endorsed him. It was national news when he launched his campaign and he was very well known at that point considering he was a freshman senator. And course, Oprah didn’t endorse him then. She waited until December 2007, about a month before the Iowa caucuses. [By then there had already been several polls indicating Obama would win Iowa](http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/ia/iowa_democratic_caucus-208.html#polls), although I think everyone would agree Clinton was the favorite. Things started moving more in Obama’s favor a few weeks after Oprah’s endorsement. Oprah got him some news and might’ve contributed some excitement, but I don’t think that’s what helps you win in the Iowa caucuses - it’s making phone calls and shaking hands. Read more. Oprah openly encouraged to run on her show _before_ he did. The official endorsement wasn’t anything like news to the people who watch her. ---
**Author:** ![Neidhart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Neidhart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neidhart)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2010, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elia-kazans-a-face-in-the-crowd-wow/565131/29 "2010-12-23T23:16:39Z")
Never heard of this film before! Just added it to my Netflix queue. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2011, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elia-kazans-a-face-in-the-crowd-wow/565131/30 "2011-01-03T17:42:44Z")
Watched it over the weekend – good flick, very prescient. Andy Griffith did a heck of a job in his first dramatic role. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2011, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elia-kazans-a-face-in-the-crowd-wow/565131/31 "2011-01-03T18:53:46Z")
It was also surprisingly adult, didn’t you think? Very matter-of-fact about sex, for instance, in a manner not often seen in films of the era. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2011, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elia-kazans-a-face-in-the-crowd-wow/565131/32 "2011-01-03T21:15:00Z")
[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase] Most sources state that Rhodes was loosely based on the career of Arthur Godfrey, and the best thing anyone can say about that is that Godfrey is almost totally forgotten today. That may be the most hopeful parallel to today’s world about the movie. Every other way to look at it leads to total despair. [/QUOTE] Godfrey wasn’t an inspiration for Norma Desmond obviously, but he was something of a real-life one. His ratings declined after Julius Larosa’s firing but he was was still only slightly down from the top of his game and he was majorly powerful: if he complimented a moderately successful restaurant on his show there’d be a line out the door for the next six months, or if he enjoyed a vacation to a particular hotel they’d be booked for months, and likewise if he dissed something on the air (the U.S. Weimaraner Society- deservedly- got deluged with hate mail when they instructed him to drown some albino puppies born to his Weimaraner and he ranted about it on air). When he buzzed a control tower in his private plane and got his license suspended for 6 months (a stunt that would have gotten most people put in jail for at least a few days) the audience basically said “That Art’s a card!” An interesting difference twixt him and Lonesome was that he really didn’t court plain folks appeal. When he broke his leg he decided to host his TV show from his home in Virginia and there was an argument twixt him and his keepers. His manager and sponsors were against it saying that if the public saw how he lived (lavish mansion on thousands of acres) it would take away his ‘plain folks appeal’, and his argument was “My fans know I’m rich, it doesn’t cost them anything for me to live large, they like seeing it, it’s about the only time they’ll get invited into a mansion for most of them”, and he won. Turned out he was right- his ratings actually went up. After leaving his show and taking a rest for a while he tried to get back in the game only to find out that he wasn’t wanted. His audience had moved on to other media personalities, _NOBODY_ wanted to work with him anymore, his attitude was as bad as ever, and even as late as the early 1980s when they tried to put together an Arthur Godfrey Reunion retrospective he and Julius Larosa got into a shouting match that all said Godfrey started. That’s why in the late 1970s and early 1980s (he died in '83) you’d see him hawking life insurance and dog food on afternoon commercials- he didn’t need the money, he was very rich, but he was that anxious to be back in front of cameras and microphones again and it was the only work he could get. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elia-kazans-a-face-in-the-crowd-wow/565131.md?page=1)