How do political conflicts shape popular culture? This book explores that question by analyzing how the Planet of the Apes films functioned both as entertaining adventures and as apocalyptic political commentary. Informative and thought provoking, the book demonstrates how this enormously popular series of secular myths used images of racial and ecological crisis to respond to events like the Cold War, the race riots of the 1960s, the Civil Rights movement, the Black Power movement, and the Vietnam War. The work utilizes interviews with key filmmakers and close readings of the five Apes films and two television series to trace the development of the series theme of racial conflict in the context of the shifting ideologies of race during the sixties and seventies. The book also observes that today, amid growing concerns over race relations, the resurgent popularity of Apes and Twentieth Century Fox s upcoming film may again make Planet of the Apes a pop culture phenomenon that asks who we are and where we are going."
- ISBN10 0786400870
- ISBN13 9780786400874
- Publish Date 1 February 1996
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 24 February 2011
- Publish Country US
- Imprint McFarland & Co Inc
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 264
- Language English