Ghettos, Tramps, and Welfare Queens

Down and Out on the Silver Screen

Stephen Pimpare

Examines (and features screenshots from) nearly 300 films released between 1902 and 2014.
First serious effort to examine poverty and homeless in film, a consistently prevalent -- and heretofore unaddressed -- phenomenon in American film.
Provides answers to major questions for filmmakers, filmgoers, and policymakers.
Of interest to film buffs and policy wonks; students of social work, social welfare, public policy, film studies, and history; and anyone concerned with poverty, inequality, and pop culture.

Ghettos, Tramps, and Welfare Queens

Down and Out on the Silver Screen

Stephen Pimpare

Description

Ghettos, Tramps, and Welfare Queens: Down & Out on the Silver Screen explores how American movies have portrayed poor and homeless people from the silent era to today. It provides a novel kind of guide to social policy, exploring how ideas about poor and homeless people have been reflected in popular culture and evaluating those images against the historical and contemporary reality. Richly illustrated and examining nearly 300 American-made films released between 1902 and 2015, Ghettos, Tramps, and Welfare Queens finds and describes representations of poor and homeless people and the places they have inhabited throughout the century-long history of U.S. cinema. It moves beyond the merely descriptive to deliberate whether cinematic representations of homelessness and poverty changed over time, and if there are patterns to be discerned. Ultimately, the text offers a preliminary response to a handful of harder questions about causation and consequence: Why are these portrayals as they are? Where do they come from? Are they a reflection of American attitudes and policies toward marginalized populations, or do they help create them? What does this all mean for politics and policymaking?

Of interest to movie buffs and film scholars, cultural critics and historians, policy analysts, and those curious to know more about homelessness and American poverty, Ghettos, Tramps, and Welfare Queens is a unique window into American politics, history, policy, and culture -- it is an entertaining and enlightening journey.

Ghettos, Tramps, and Welfare Queens

Down and Out on the Silver Screen

Stephen Pimpare

Introduction

Part I. In the Ghetto: Poor Places and the People in Them
1. Evils of the City: Poverty and Crime
2. Modern Gangs and Ghetto Gurls
3. The Urban Hellscape
4. Social Workers and Charity Reformers
5. Welfare Queens
6. Teachers to the Rescue
7. The Architecture of Poverty
8. Escaping the City: Rural Poverty

Part II. On the Street, On the Road: Poor Out of Doors
9. The First Tramp
10. The Last Free Tramp and the Hobo Played for Laughs
11. Impostor Tramps
12. Forgotten Men
13. The Depression Through the Eyes of the Clever Child
14. The Modern Tramp: Villain
15. The Modern Tramp: Victor
16. The Modern Tramp: Victim
17. Women and Children Last

Conclusion
Key Films Discussed
Books and Articles Cited
Index

Ghettos, Tramps, and Welfare Queens

Down and Out on the Silver Screen

Stephen Pimpare

Author Information

Stephen Pimpare, PhD, is Senior Lecturer in American Politics and Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire. He is the author of two previous books, A People's History of Poverty in America (2008), winner of the Michael Harrington Award from the American Political Science Association, and The New Victorians: Poverty, Politics & Propaganda in Two Gilded Ages (2004). After thirty years in New York City, he now lives in rural New Hampshire with his husband, two goats, two pigs, twelve chickens, and six turkeys.

Contributors:

n/a

Ghettos, Tramps, and Welfare Queens

Down and Out on the Silver Screen

Stephen Pimpare

Reviews and Awards

"In utilizing film to challenge our understanding of poverty, Pimpare provides an accessible text for retraining our thinking about poverty and unraveling widespread fallacies. Threaded throughout the book is a discussion of how race and gender are intricately bound up with any true discussion of poverty. ... the reader will gain a much more thorough understanding of the role we all play in the cycles of poverty." -- Melanie Lynn Carlson, Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

"Stephen Pimpare's Ghettos, Tramps, and Welfare Queens is a unique jaunt through Hollywood films that feature society's most marginalized and maligned, the homeless and the poor....his insightful examination of the way film (re)presents the poor and homeless is a valuable addition to both political science and cinema scholarship. Overall, Ghettos, Tramps, and Welfare Queens is a perceptive look at the intersections of popular imagery and public policy." -- Debbie Olson, PhD, Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

"This solidly researched volume, well illustrated and jauntily written, is a work of great originality that should attract a large audience of film scholars, social historians, social scientists, and welfare policy specialists, as well as film aficionados." -- Kenneth L. Kusmer, Professor of History at Temple University, Journal of American History

". . . its greatest strength is the author's desire not to segregate films from their audiences or their makers. This makes for a book that reflects deeply held beliefs about those less fortunate. Pimpare's conclusion offers separate lessons for filmgoers, filmmakers, policy makers, and journalists - a strong way to end the volume . . . High ly recommended. All readers." --G. R. Butters Jr., CHOICE

"While Pimpare has won awards for his previous work and is well-regarded within his fields, this book should be his breakout volume. Exceptional." --Joel Blau, DSW, MSW, Professor of Social Policy; Director of the PhD Program, Stony Brook School of Social Welfare

"Ghettos, Tramps, and Welfare Queens will be widely read in social work, sociology, political science, film studies, and communication. It's a multi-disciplinary tour de force showing how prevailing stereotypes about the poor and homeless get reinforced by popular culture, and film in particular." --Sanford S. Schram, PhD, MA, Professor of Political Science, Hunter College, CUNY

"Pimpare reveals an impressive range of knowledge on 20th century US history, social policy, and film history that is brought to bear on the project. This is a book with sweep, elegantly managed, and made very accessible." --Jose Arroyo, Principal Teaching Fellow, Department of Film and Television Studies, Milburn House, University of Warwick

"Pimpare (American politics and public policy, Univ. of New Hampshire) explores subjects in film that often get little attention but can say more about the American psyche than do popular genres such as the Western and gangster film. The author organizes the book by subject rather than strict chronology--thus, depictions of social workers and charity reformers, inspirational and lifesaving teachers, rural people in poverty, and villainous tramps all have their separate chapters. This ingenious schemata makes for accessible, stand-alone chapters that will certainly be used in the college classroom. Another of the volume's strengths is its broad appeal: it will serve multiple audiences, from historians to social workers and of course scholars of film studies. The preponderance of film stills and advertising materials and the filmographies and bibliography are important resources.

In addition the author writes in a breezy, nonacademic style, and the book is all the stronger for that. But perhaps its greatest strength is the author's desire not to segregate films from their audiences or their makers. This makes for a book that reflects deeply held beliefs about those less fortunate. Pimpare's conclusion offers separate lessons for filmgoers, filmmakers, policy makers, and journalists--a strong way to end the volume." --CHOICE

Ghettos, Tramps, and Welfare Queens

Down and Out on the Silver Screen

Stephen Pimpare

From Our Blog

The poverty of American film

Some decades ago, British film scholar Laura Mulvey showed us that movies possessed a male gaze. That is, the viewer was assumed to be a man -- a straight, white one -- and films were created by men to entertain men like them.We've made some progress. Among this year's Academy Award nominees are eighteen African Americans, five Asian Americans, and one native-born Hispanic American.

Posted on February 25, 2017

Read the blog post