Gary McDonogh. Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture

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Ford, Gerald R.

b. 1913

Thirty-eighth

president

of the United States, the first to become so without being

elected either to that office or the

vice-presidency

. A highly regarded moderate

Republican

from Michigan, he served in

Congress

for twenty-five years, first elected in

1948, and as House Minority Leader from 1965 to 1973. He was chosen by Richard

Nixon

under the terms of the 25th Amendment to replace Spiro

Agnew

(who had

resigned after pleading no contest to a charge of tax evasion), and, within a year, after the

Watergate

scandal had led to Nixon’s resignation, he took the oath of office as president

(August 9, 1974). As president he endeavored to deal with inflation and recession, the

energy crisis and a general post-Vietnam and Watergate malaise. After limited success in

dealing with the economy and in negotiations on nuclear weapons with the Soviet Union,

Ford lost the 1976 election to Jimmy

Carter

His wife, Betty (1918–), was a well-respected

First Lady

. A vocal supporter of the

Equal Rights Amendment,

she also suffered a diagnosis of breast

cancer

while in the

White House and used this as a chance to educate Americans about this disease. Then,

after recovering from

alcohol

dependency in 1978, she founded the Betty Ford Center in

1982, which is now considered the leading treatment facility for alcoholism and drug

addiction

(and so is frequently mentioned in the tabloid coverage of athletes, movie stars

and other celebrities).

ROBERT GREGG

Ford, John

b. 1894; d. 1973

Known as the foremost director of

westerns

Hollywood

history none of Ford’s six

Academy

Awards

for direction were for westerns. Renowned worldwide as one o

America’s finest cinematic storytellers, principally because of his blending o

characterization, action, dialogue and landscape, Ford, who directed 125 films from 1917

to 1966, was born John Martin Feeney in Maine, and moved to Hollywood in 1914. Both

lauded and criticized for his patriotism, sentimentality pride in being

Irish American,

olitical conservatism, irascibility and loyalty to friends, many of whom, like John

Wayne

and James

Stewart,

were part of his acting “family,” Ford remains one of the

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 446

undisputed geniuses of American narrative cinema.

THOMAS M.WILSON

foreign/art films

Hollywood

has created the foreign film in the US. While European nations may bemoan

the fact that 70 percent or more of films that dominate their marquees have American

origins and Hollywood

blockbusters

top the charts from Hong Kong to Buenos Aires,

roughly 98 percent of the films shown in the US are domestic. The remainder, then, are

marked as different and specialized—in terms of content, audience and even venue. Yet

audiences have developed clear expectations of classical Hollywood formulae,

recognizable characters—if not

stars

—and movies in English that continually constrain

the market; art films, by contrast, are subtitled rather than dubbed for mass distribution.

Moreover, Hollywood has appropriated international stars and settings within its own

production—whether borrowing (as in Chow Yun Fat in 1999–2000’s

Anna and the

ïng

) or remaking (

Three Men and a Baby,

1987, remaking a 1985 French hit).

Certainly some non-American films achieve mass distribution. British films in

articular share language and stars with Hollywood, have been popular for decades and

are even marked with a certain epic cachet. Canadian films have been hard pressed to

compete with American resources; hence,

directors

like Atom Egoyan often occupy a

liminal status. In the 1980s, Hong Kong films also gained wider markets through the

international stardom of Jackie Chan, although directors like John Woo and Ringo Lam

have also succumbed to the budgets of Hollywood in producing American versions o

style and stories—a path followed in earlier generations by directors like Josef von

Sternberg, Fritz Lang and Alfred

Hitchcock

There are important exceptions too. Roberto Benigni’s

Life is Beautiful

(1998) also

received a wide distribution (as well as Oscar accolades) in both dubbed and subtitled

versions. The Oscar for best foreign film (inaugurated in 1947) has recognized many

major directors. Despite repeated recognition of Japanese films in the 1950s, and a few

coproductions thereafter, it has also tended to reaffirm European films as art. Only one

Latin American

film has won the accolade.

The audience for “foreign films,” then, is presumed to approach film with critical

expertise, dedication and a seriousness that tends to preclude importation of popular

romances and comedies (although

pornography

has been an importable category). For

decades, this also entailed specialized publicity and venues. In fact, the art cinema has

een marked by cramped quarters, alternative high culture accoutrements (expresso bars,

ookshops) and an erudite dedication to film that might mix current releases with

retrospectives on directors like Bergman, Kiorastami, Fellini or Kurosawa. Other films

have been screened in cinema clubs, especially on college

campuses

or in major

Entries A-Z 447

metropolitan centers. Smaller cities might have one cinema that survives on a mixture o

artistic and semipopular films.

Film festivals

also have screened works that no national

distributor would risk—films that are not necessarily anti-American but are, at least,

unfamiliar to the American spectator.

Some foreign films are also linked to ethnic populations in the United States.

International politics—as in films from

China

or the former Soviet Union—may also

support distribution. In the early twentieth century certain populations were able to

support independent theaters—like those of major Chinatowns or

Hispanic

neighborhoods; others rented halls for special showings. In an era of mass

video

and

satellite

television,

this taste has been satisfied by videos available in specialty shops,

grocers and other sites, as well as direct retransmission of external broadcasts. While

these tend to offer more popular foreign-language films (rather than “art” films), their

audiences are circumscribed. Nonetheless, Chinese theaters profited from the boom in

Hong Kong films.

Meanwhile, cinema classes and critics have created an international canon of “serious”

films that constitute high film culture even without boxoffice clout. Here, the impact o

auteurs has been important in both availability and acceptance—

eople will watch a film

y Truffaut, Saura, Wenders or Ray rather than identifying the product with a particular

national origin. Overall, the equation of “foreign” and “art” excludes many popular films

outside the US as it shapes the stylistic and intellectual demands imposed on American

independent/artistic productions.

ee also:

film criticism/theory

GARY McDONOGH

CINDY WONG

foreign investment

By 1990 the market value of US direct investment abroad measured $714.1 billion

compared with $530.4 billion for foreign investment in the US (Graham and Krugman

1991:17). Instead of making products domestically and exporting them, corporations

have become multinational, acquiring foreign assets with which to produce goods for sale

in local markets. The United States has long been at the forefront of this movement:

Coca-Cola, Nike and General Motors have contributed to the Americanization of the

world by investing directly in local distribution networks. Subsidiaries, once the vehicle

for tight control over foreign operations, have become more independent as firms realize

the value of the cultural knowledge and skills of its foreign employees.

US firms have long sought foreign markets as growth opportunities. For example, the

Big Three automakers have produced cars in Europe for decades, forcing smaller, local

manufacturers to consolidate operations. Such investment has caused a backlash that

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 448

includes sanctions, tariffs and public outcry against foreign “invasion” of products and

ideas.

The fear of foreign cultural and even physical invasion did not hit American shores

until the 1980s. While the United Kingdom and the Netherlands have long held

significant US investments, it was not until a weakened dollar allowed foreign firms to

acquire US assets at “fire-sale”

rices that Americans took notice of the phenomenon o

foreign investment and multinational corporations. Anecdotal evidence, such as Japanese

urchases of cultural icons such as the Rockefeller Center by Mitsubishi and Columbia

Pictures by Sony led to fears that the US was losing its leadership role in the global

economy Ironically the Rockefeller Center was ultimately sold at a massive loss to

Mitsubishi just six years later. While Japanese companies gobbled up $57 billion in US

real estate from 1987 to 1990, American firms invested more than that in other countries.

Regardless, globalization is creating a reality in which Japanese firms Toyota and Honda

produce identical cars whether they come off a Tokyo or

Cleveland, OH

production

plant.

The fear of capital flight long led countries to place restrictions on inflows and

outflows of investment and currency. Restrictions on direct foreign ownership o

institutions and land, as well as limits on currency conversion are common examples.

With the onslaught of technology and freetrade reforms in the late twentieth and early

twenty-first centuries, most countries have accepted globalization. The General

Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) provides for neutrality with respect to foreign-

investment ownership. Without capital controls, domestic fiscal and monetary policies

approach futility For example, increasing domestic interest rates to combat inflation

attracts foreign investment, which may fuel further inflation. The 1990s environment o

“hot money” (institutions ready to divert assets at a moment’s notice) requires refocused

attention on capital flows. Developing countries such as India, Malaysia and

China

maintain strict controls with varying success.

Investors worldwide are realizing the need to invest globally Americans and non-

Americans alike are investing as much as 25 percent of their portfolios in foreign assets.

International mutualfund assets have mushroomed to over $400 billion. Foreign

corporations, it is realized, have no specific allegiance to their country of origin, but are

rimarily focused on creating profits for their shareholders. This fact further dispels the

fear that foreign investment will create any serious national security threats.

Further reading

Graham, E. and Krugman, P. (1991)

Foreign Direct Investment in the United States,

Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics.

MARC BALCER

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foreign policy

thematic entry list

forests and forestry

Vast woodlands and towering trees have impressed successive generations of American

explorers and pioneers, and have also provided resources for building and fuel for these

settlers as they cleared forest lands for agriculture and settlement. Nevertheless, the

United States remains surprisingly wooded—roughly one-third of the nation’s total land

surface. This entails extensive coverage in both the urban Northeast (

New England

and

the

Mid-Atlantic

) and the

Pacific Northwest,

while the Great Plains have relatively

minimal tree coverage. Western forests tend to be dominated by evergreens, including

ines, firs, spruces and the gigantic redwoods of the Pacific Coast. Eastern forests tend to

e hardwoods or mixtures of types, including the panoramas of oak, maple, beech and

other trees that make autumnal leaves an event throughout New England each year.

America’s diverse forests have shaped historical narratives of humans and nature,

whether tales of Native Americans or heroic woodsmen like Paul Bunyan or Daniel

Boone. They have also shaped American representations of landscape and are

fundamental to

mass media

as diverse as

Trail of the Lonesome Pine

(1936),

Sometimes

a Great Notion

(1971) and

Disney’s

Pocahantas

(1996). They have been recognized and

preserved as important components of urban

parks

and local identities, as well as

beloved and highly visited

national parks

and forests from the Smoky Mountains to

Yellowstone and Yosemite. Forests, for many people,

are

“nature.”

In the twenty-first century trees and forests represent not only a renewable resource,

ut also an expanding one. Yet, that resource is also the source of bitter fights over

management and ownership of forests and parklands. These controversies often reflect

differences between economic perspectives, environmental perspectives and sentimental-

ideological construction of the forest. Ownership of forest lands is divided between

government proprietorship, which dominates the

West

and

Alaska,

and private

management. While much of this private ownership does not involve logging

per se,

large corporate owners have developed extensive single-species, regularly planted tree

farms that worry environmentalists because of their lack of diversity and flexibility

Federal forests have become controversial because of their openness to leased

commercial cutting, which has meant the loss of old growth forests as wood is sold to

Asian markets. As in private “tree farms,” this logging can destroy unique environments,

which has pitted environmentalists and measures like the

Endangered Species Act

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 450

against loggers and their families as well as corporate interests, producing violent

confrontations on both sides. Various strategies of ecological management, however,

have emerged in the Pacific Northwest to reach a compromise between employment and

environment.

Further reading

Davis, R. (1983)

Encyclopedia of American Forests and Conservation History,

New

York: MacMillan.

Bunting, R. (1997)

The Pacific Raincoast,

Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.

GARY McDONOGH

Foster, Jodie

b. 1962

Actor and director who has brought intelligence and disturbing psychological depth to

extremely varied roles. A child actor for

Disney,

Foster made a startling breakthrough in

1976 as the edgy addict in

Taxi Driver

and as a 1920s nightclub star in Alan Parker’s

ugsy Malone

. Foster won Oscars for her gritty portrayal of a working-class, gang-rape

victim in

The Accused

(1988) and again for her

pas de deux

with Anthony Hopkins in

Silence of the Lambs

(1992); she has also worked in French cinema and with Woody

Allen

. Her directorial debut was the 1991

Little Man Tate,

focused on the situation of a

child prodigy.

ee also:

directors

GARY McDONOGH

foster care

State-run system to place

children

from abusive or otherwise damaging homes in

temporary substitute care, usually through licensed families. The fostercare system, once

seen as a partial substitute for

adoption

as well as a means of protecting children, has

een accused of neglect in regulation and reliance on financial incentives to foster

arents, resulting in cases of crowding, insecurity and sometimes abuse from foster

parents which turns already troubled children into potential drop-outs, homeless children,

Entries A-Z 451

runaways or criminals. Nonetheless, roughly 500,000 children pass some time in foster

care each year while reforms move slowly ahead.

ee also:

home; family

GARY McDONOGH

foundations

Non-governmental and non-

rofit funds, usually from a single source and administered

y trustees for various social and cultural purposes, represent a vital feature of American

ostwar society Foundations control hundreds of billions of dollars in funds and

administer grants of more than $2 billion annually to augment and shape programs in

social welfare, universities,

museums,

health,

education

and other areas. The origins o

these foundations can be found in religious or charitable trusts that have existed

worldwide for millennia. They also participated in the early American nation, although

few major trusts today antedate those established by turn-of-the-century robber barons.

Their enduring authority can be seen in new moguls of the information age: a $5 billion

gift by Bill and Melinda

Gates

to their foundation in 2000 made it the largest in the US,

with assets of over $21 billion. In 1999, there were roughly 50,000 active grant

organizations of this type; the largest 10,000 controlled $304 billion (92.3 percent of total

assets) and awarded $14.3 billion (90 percent).

In the classic pattern, rich corporations, people or families constitute independent

foundations (the dominant structure) as a return to society or to enhance the family and

corporate image. Some of the largest private American foundations thus bear names

associated with big businesses like Ford,

Rockefeller,

Gates, Mellon, Packard, Hewlett,

Lilly, and Pew. Apart from the Gates Foundation, the other largest foundations by assets

include the Lilly Endowment ($11.5 billion), the Ford Foundation ($9.5 billion) and the

David and Lucille Packard Foundation ($8.9 billion). Ford has been the largest grantor, at

$400 million annually followed by the W.K.Kellogg Foundation and Lilly; Gates and his

wife distributed $16 billion in 1999, again setting new standards. This philanthropic route

was also developed in the 1990s by George Soros, Ted

Turner,

Jim Clark of Netscape

and others.

Other types of foundations, including many corporate foundations, rely on continuing

donations rather than endowments. Operating foundations focus on special programs,

while community foundations may draw from many sources to deal with the issues of a

particular locality

These non-

rofit enterprises facilitate the development of social, economic, political,

artistic, scientific, medical and other projects. Some foundations are general in scope

while others develop special initiatives—the Spencer Foundation in Education, the John

and Catherine T.MacArthur Foundation in peace, the Annenberg foundation in

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 452

communication/education, etc. Education is a favorite field, directly and through

institutions as well as funding academic research. Health, social and international issues

are also prominent causes. Yet, foundations are not simply philanthropic. They also move

the nation’s cultural and social policies. Foundations, in many ways, react to certain

national issues, like global warming, civic journalism, campaign finance reforms and

national cultural policies, while they are also forerunners, trying to support studies to

rovide certain knowledge about issues and shifting national policies. Conservative

foundations like the Heritage Foundation, however, promote very different agendas.

Concerns about non-

rofit independence demand government regulation of boards and

olicies. Worries range from their relations to corporations and taxes to continuing

concerns about the involvement of non-profit groups with political parties.

The US government has also used the independent foundation model to promote

research and the arts. The National Science Foundation, for example, was established

during the

Cold War

(1950) to promote intersecting interests of scientific and

technological development, science education and defense. It focuses especially on

hysical sciences, life sciences and engineering. It has also funded social science work,

occasionally amid controversies about the implications of government funding like the

scandals that highlighted misuse of anthropological data during the

Vietnam War

In 1965, following President

Kennedy’s

stress on American Arts,

Congress

created

the National Foundation for the Arts and Humanities as another para-foundational

independent agency One section, the National Endowment for the Arts, has promoted

creation of and access to art in America. Yet it has also proved a catalyst for

conservatives attacking its support for controversial

performance artists

or those like

Robert

Mapplethorpe

who challenged generalized norms of sexuality and

religion

While the NEA has an independent board and head, controls on funding allow censorship

and punishment to creep in. Another wing, the National Endowment for the Humanities,

funds research and projects in academic arenas and museums as well as outreach

rograms. It has also been criticized for supposed leftism as well as academic irrelevance

of projects, although it remains a major resource for scholars in its summer and long-term

grants. The NFAH also includes a foundation devoted to museum services.

Further reading

Falkenstein, J. and Jacobs, D. (1999)

The Foundation Directory,

New York: The

Foundation Center.

GARY McDONOGH

CINDY WONG

FOX

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networks, television; cable television

franchises

Often taken as the demise of American identity local and regional, franchises also

represent an economic negotiation of individual aspirations and cultural expectations.

Behind

McDonald’s,

Holiday Inn

motel

rooms, many gas stations, camera stores, florists

and weight-loss centers there is both a tested plan and an individual entrepreneur striving

for success while meeting the franchiser’s (and customers’) demands for uniformity.

Franchises offer dreams of independence and wealth, although they also may lock owners

and families into work as self-exploitative and struggling

momand-pop stores

Franchising involves a “parent” company which negotiates an agreement with an

individual owner to market products and services, as well as reputation. This entails both

an initial fee (and establishment costs) and an ongoing relationship through royalties.

Franchising also entails negotiation not only of appropriate buyers, but also of sites,

localizations and business relations, which may include more direct co-ownership.

Early franchise arrangements in place by the 1920s included

automobile

dealerships,

soft-drink bottlers and service stations, which accounted for 75 percent of franchise

income in the 1990s. These include franchise empires of chains within chains. In the

postwar period, new opportunities in

fast food

and motels, responding to new lives built

around cars,

highways

and suburbia, spurred renewed interest in franchises. Franchises

soon turned to cities, smaller towns and increasing diversity within shopping centers and

malls,

while Century 21, founded in 1972, has revolutionized

real-estate

sales through

interconnected offices nationwide.

Franchise sales in 1999 reached 11,000 billion, and franchises employed 8 million

people—as many as the automobile industry Despite the commitments under which

owners operate, however, their failure rate is significantly lower than the failure rate for

independent businesses (8 percent for franchises in their first five years as opposed to 77

percent for independent businesses).

Among the most common franchises encountered by Americans are many fast-food

services, convenience stores, home-care stores, motels, real estate, clothing, athletic wear,

computers

and travel. Franchises cater to varying

class

demands, although issues o

racial opportunity in ownership as well as service have erupted as public issues, most

notably with the food chain Denny’s. This model has also allowed for both the extension

of American forms and products abroad and imitation by other chains in Europe, Asia

and

Latin America

Further reading

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 454

Ludden, L. (1999)

Franchise Opportunities Handbook,

Indianapolis: JIST.

Luxenberg, S. (1985)

Roadside Empires,

New York: Penguin.

GARY McDONOGH

Francis, Connie

b. 1938

Born Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero, this darkhaired, upbeat singer became a

favorite among early 1960s youth. Her hits “Who’s Sorry Now?” (1958) and “Where the

Boys Are” (1960) revealed a desirous but bubbly

femininity

. She became a film

star

with the rise of 1960s

teenage

/beach films, and appeared in

Where the Boys Are

(1960),

ollow the Boys

(1963) and

Looking for Love

(1965). She won a $3 million suit in 1974

against a

motel

in one of whose rooms she had been raped; the highly publicized episode

left her emotionally scarred and she put aside her career until 1993.

EDWARD MILLER

Franklin, Aretha

b. 1942

Born in Memphis, Tennessee, and raised in

Detroit, MI,

Aretha Franklin is considered

the “Queen of

Soul

.” Trained throughout her youth in gospel singing in church, her vocal

range and abilities transcend those of most singers in the music business. She was signed

to Columbia Records in 1960, but did not have her first hit until 1967. In that same year

she recorded “Respect” which reached number one on the

popular music

charts, and

quickly became a virtual anthem for both

Civil Rights

and

women’s movements

Further reading

Greig, C. (1999)

Icons of Black Music,

San Diego: Thunder Bay Press.

ROBERT GREGG

fraternities and sororities

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