Consolidação do American Way pelo poder cultural nos Estados Unidos (1941-1955)

Abstract

In the 19th century and early 20th century, the United States witnessed a clear rupture in the hegemony of thought that supported both political and economic power. This change was caused by the accumulation of inconsistencies in what was then known as the “American Way of Life,” or simply the “American Way.” Fearful of the system’s rupture, a group defending Anglo-Saxonism, a conservative policy of preserving American ideals, assumed political power, which, through “Acts” (laws) and the support of the economic elites, created what became known as the new “American Way of Life,” without, however, regaining popular support. This research seeks to understand how cultural power allowed the consolidation of the new ideological system. To this end, the codependency relationship between the fields of economic, political and, especially, cultural power was studied, which, according to Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002), exerts a symbolic, invisible power of cohesion and social control. The study observed the formation of the new American middle class, the “White Collars”, who were chosen to be the official model of the “American Dream”, the ultimate achievement of life in the United States. To achieve temporal cohesion and better conduct of the theme, we sought to investigate the producer and artist Walt Disney (1901-1966), his biographical construction in the search to become an individual symbol of success of the new ideology (Self-Made Man), as well as his effect as an agent of cultural power. Although the processes of rupture and reconstruction began at the end of the 19th century, we adopted the time frame from 1941 to 1955, starting with the strikes motivated by ideological dissociation and the first attempts by political power to create an alliance between the other powers, for the creation of Disneyland in the 1950s, the materialization of the American dream. To this end, a broad range of sources was used, from animations produced by Walt Disney, to a set of letters, newspaper materials and official FBI reports, linking this to an in-depth study of the North American jurisdiction relevant to the topic, these analyzed with the support of thinkers such as John Dewey (1859-1952), Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007), and the aforementioned Pierre Bourdieu.