Gary McDonogh. Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture

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Skowronek, S. (1993)

The Politics Presidents Make,

Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press.

EMILY CLOUGH

Presley, Elvis

b. 1935; d. 1977

A legend whose life and career can hardly be captured or even hinted at in so brief a

space as this, Elvis Presley was one of the biggest

stars

of the twentieth century.

Recording for Sam Phillips’ Sun Records in Memphis, TN in 1954–5, Presley released a

series of singles with a country side backed with a

blues

side. His cover of Arthur

Crudup’s “That’s All Right (Mama)” (1954) signaled the arrival of an explosive and

unique new performer. Combining the impassioned singing of the Pentecostal churches

with the country and blues music he heard on the

radio,

Presley defined the mixture o

black and white Southern sounds which was rockabilly.

In November 1955, now under the management of Tom Parker, Presley’s contract was

sold to RCA for the then exorbitant sum of $35,000. Presley continued to record startling

and hugely successful

rock ’n’ roll

songs, but increasingly his debt to Dean Martin was

highlighted. He recorded more pop-oriented songs, with lush productions, and embarked

on a

film

career. By the time he emerged from a two-year stint in the army in 1960, he

had largely abandoned rock for pop. For most of the 1960s, Presley eschewed

erforming, instead filming two or three movies a year and recording the generally

mediocre soundtracks. A stunning 1968

television

special proved that Elvis could still

rock. “Suspicious Minds” (1969) and “In the Ghetto” (1969) were both popular and

critical successes. Presley spent much of the 1970s performing in

Las Vegas

, taking

drugs and getting fat at his Graceland mansion in Memphis.

DEWAR MACLEOD

primaries

parties and elections; conventions

prime time

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Most competitive and renumerative network viewing hours between 20:00 and 23:00.

Here,

networks

place their most popular shows (and evening line-ups) in order to attract

desired demographics and sponsor revenues; this is the home of television

sitcoms,

dramas (

westerns,

crime, lawyers,

doctors,

soaps

) and, increasingly in the late twentieth

and early twenty-first centuries, of

news

magazines and “reality” shows. Manipulation o

rime time is especially notable during the three yearly sweeps months when audience

data are more systematically collected and compared. The impact of

cable

has altered the

stakes and viewership of prime time, yet it still constitutes an exclusive battlefield for

programmers,

producers

and

actors

GARY McDONOGH

CINDY WONG

Princeton University

Ivy League

prisons

The stern edifices and high security control of penal enclosure seem, in many ways,

antithetical to the promises of any American dream of freedom, opportunity and even

new beginnings. Yet, a staggering investment of more than $36 billion annually in the

construction of prisons and the care of prisoners and the sheer human “storage” of nearly

2 million men and women in jail suggests prisons nonetheless have become central

features of early twenty-first century American culture. Indeed, rates of imprisonment in

the US are higher than any country except Russia and far exceed rates that preceded the

Second World War. This has stimulated intense debates over the nature of crime and

control (including

capital punishment

and its efficacy or juvenile justice and

gangs

divisions of

race

and

class

that are reified by this system and the meaning and rights o

risoners within American life. At the same time, prisons have also become businesses,

whether as private investments, outsourced by governments or as vital components of the

economies of depressed localities competing for new construction and jobs.

American prisons have emerged from a variety of jurisdictions and philosophies.

Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary, for example, incorporated Quaker reflection

and individual solitude into a panoptic model. Other prisons represented the needs o

small towns and burgeoning industrial states as well as military and federal security.

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Some names became legendary in history as well as mass media—Sing Sing,

Leavenworth, Alcatraz,

Attica

Such mass imprisonment has not been shown to have a clear causal relationship with

reduced crime. Yet, prisons also reflect attitudes about crime, especially given

demographic and ideological shifts in American

cities

and society since the 1960s. Rules

imposed for the drug wars—“three strikes and you’re out”—have resulted in mandatory

sentences for the accumulation of minor offenses that have clogged prisons. Critics have

argued that minor possession and sales offenses focused on crack have also fallen

especially hard on minority populations.

African American

males in major cities face

high probabilities of arrest and imprisonment that scar generations—

etween 1986 and

1995, the number of African Americans convicted of drug offenses rose 811 percent.

Here, we must also worry that prisons reproduce crime—60 percent of those released will

be back in three years.

Prisoners have also constituted an awkward category in American society—deprived

of rights for voting, gun ownership, etc. even after release, depending on state laws.

Federal decisions in the 1970s increased rights of education, legal counsel and activities

for prisoners and forced reform of outmoded, overcrowded and unsanitary jails.

Supreme

Court

decisions at the end of the twentieth century allowed states to curtail these rights.

Moreover, as prisons become private corporations, efficiency and cost-effectiveness

replace rights.

Many in America realize that prisons do not work to curtail crime, which has declined

in conjunction with economic growth. Yet, as a decentered system embodying competing

olitical, social and cultural interests, it is not clear if prisons can be readily changed to

participate in rather than reject the American dream.

Further reading

Parenti, C. (1999)

Lockdown America,

London: Verso.

Rosenblatt, E. (1996)

Criminal Injustice,

Boston: South End Press.

GARY McDONOGH

privacy

The right to control information, access and visibility is perceived as an important

cultural value in the United States, closely linked to

individualism

and

freedom

. While

debated in relation to public actions and rights to knowledge claimed by governments and

social institutions like schools, issues of privacy also permeate the

family

where

individual social spaces (separate

bedrooms

and control of

information

by children

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without informing parents) are also important to family dynamics. Privacy also shapes

interpersonal relations in terms of topics commonly discussed and avoided—one may be

warned not to bring up money or

religion

in social gatherings, while business interviews

face strict limits on information that may not be asked (marital status, criminal history not

directly relevant to the position, religion, etc.). Questions of privacy in the information

age have become especially important with regards to the data gathered by bureaucracies

and corporations and how these data are shared and used.

Rights to privacy have been worked out in complex ways throughout American history

Provisions of the

Bill of Rights

testify to the rights to protect the home from quartering

troops (3rd Amendment), unreasonable search and seizure (4th Amendment) and rights to

rotect the individual from testifying against him or herself (5th Amendment). Provisions

dealing with freedom and gun ownership also establish private rights, while dealing with

the extension of private beliefs and action into public forums. In the twentieth century

Supreme Court

decisions extended federal rights to the states. The right to privacy has

also been evoked in court cases that have protected birth control,

abortion

(

Roe

Wade,

1973) and euthanasia; it has been argued less successfully in areas such as

pornography

and sexuality (especially when rights of

children

are called into play). These issues are

also continually debated in issues ranging from

police

rights to use materials “in plain

sight” to control of garbage.

Nonetheless, many Americans feel that their privacy has been threatened in the late

twentieth and early twenty-first centuries by records gathered and kept by schools,

governments (Internal Rev-enue as well as

FBI

), medical providers and corporations.

Storage and access to such records through

computers

and the

Internet,

as well as the

ermeability of electronic communication have increased tension. Corporate mergers also

raise questions of data flows within multipurpose businesses. There is often a strong

ambivalence, too, in these areas as surveillance technologies have become accepted to

control crime, yet are challenged when they extend into private spaces (changing rooms,

bathrooms

) or even control of activity in public spaces (private choices to participate in

public events).

ecific laws have been enacted to safeguard medical records and credit materials, but

violations of these expectations are constantly revealed by media. The turmoil of legal

cases involving the

Clinton

White House has also heightened questions about the private

lives of public persons, as well as the ability of the powerful to have access to records

that are presumed to be confidential. One striking index of public sensitivity to these

issues has been the reluctance of many to complete questions of the 2000 census,

including Republican politicians speaking out against this legally established duty.

ass media

have heightened sensitivity to the manipulation of private data as well.

Often, this is the stuff of crime novels, programs and movies, although these issues may

e equally apparent in medical dramas. The impact of the potential manipulation o

private information also underscores dystopic visions like

The Net

(1995).

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Further reading

Henderson, H. (1990)

Privacy in the Information Age,

New York, Facts on File.

GARY McDONOGH

CINDY WONG

private schools

Public education has been a primary institution for the creation of American citizenship

since government-supported schools became widespread in the mid-nineteenth century.

Despite concerns about content and efficacy it has coalesced as a comprehensive network

with interlocking local, state and federal control. It also represents a major commitment

in tax support of both the people and multiple governments. Private schools at the

rimary and secondary levels, by contrast, offer choices, which may involve exclusivity

based on

religion, race,

gender or

class

. In the early twenty-first century choices also

reflect concerns with

public schools,

their educational methods and contents, or violence

and social issues that lead parents to seek alternatives.

The Roman Catholic

parochial school

system is the largest private system nationwide

(religious orders also run private schools). Jewish day schools, at least elementary are

also widely available, while groups like the

Amish

have fought to maintain educational

autonomy Episcopalians and Quakers also run longstanding private schools less

exclusively denominational in tone. Religious private schools also include Christian

academies that emerged with

white flight

. Many private schools, however, have no

formal religious affiliation.

Private schools have also been associated with class divisions, especially with regard to

elite “prep” schools.

New England

academies like Phillips Academy in Andover,

Massachusetts (founded 1778), Phillips Exeter (founded 1781), Lawrenceville, Groton,

Deerfield and ChoateRosemary Hall offer strong curricula and teachers, distinguished

active alumni, historical buildings and campus landscapes, extensive facilities and well-

trodden paths to the

Ivy League,

although few rival the $400 million endowments o

Phillips Andover and Phillips Exeter. This entails selectivity in academic excellence and

cost, since tuition may run from $15,000 to 120,000 annually before board (although

schools provide financial aid). This model has been depicted in literature like Owen

Johnson’s

Lawrenceville Stories,

and figures in Hollywood portrayals of private schools,

such as

Dead Poet’s Society

(1989).

Other metropolitan areas offer a competitive, varied hierarchy of selective private

schools—competition for placement in

New York

City can start almost from birth—as

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well as variation in costs and financial aid. In general, private schools claim to offer a

superior education in facilities, teachers and selection of students. Some also offer

innovative programs, including Montessori formats, more libertarian “free schools,”

foreign residential opportunities and seminar settings. Private schools may offer single-

gender education, although many have become co-educational since the 1970s.

Debates over public and private schooling are often debates about finance, control and

the nature of the public sphere. Some argue that the competition of private schools

regulates and energizes public education. Here, choosing private schools criticizes the

failures, moral and educational, of the public system. School vouchers, for example, that

allow parents to take money from the public system to subsidize their choice of private

education have been especially controversial. Proponents of public schools, meanwhile,

characterize private schools as privileged and their supporters as opponents of the idea o

a heterogeneous public educational space in which different races, classes and levels o

ability meet. Regulations about contents, practices and standards for measuring student

success remain areas where government and private schools intersect. These debates

continue to rage in legislatures, school boards and

mass media

as well as the classroom.

Further reading

(1999)

Handbook of Private Schools,

Boston: Porter Sargent.

Gaffney E. (ed.) (1981)

Private Schools and the Public Good,

South Bend: Notre Dame.

Randall, V. (1994)

Private Schools and Public Power,

New York: Teacher’s College.

GARY McDONOGH

CINDY WONG

Procter & Gamble

Personal goods multinational founded in 1837 in Cincinnati, Ohio for the manufacture o

candles and soap. Intensive

advertising

has made its products household staples, from

Ivory Soap (1879) moving through Crisco shortening (1923), detergents (Tide, 1946),

toothpaste (Crest, 1955), Pampers disposable diapers (1961) and other products that have

kept

baby boomers

clean, healthy sweet-smelling and good-looking. Indeed, P&G is

famous for creating brands competing against its own products—

roducing not only Tide

ut Cheer, Dash, Bold, Era and Oxydol as well as many subtypes of each to keep the

consumer constantly involved. P&G also pioneered sponsorship of

radio

cooking shows

and

soap operas,

which cemented its loyal fan/consumer base. Consumers now reach 5

illion worldwide, with P&G operations in seventy countries and profits of $3.7 billion

on $37 billion in sales in 1998. Despite its wholesome image, P&G has been attacked for

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the environmental impact of its products and the need for cleanliness it sells. Its star and

moon logo, inherited from its candle-making days, was also briefly and erroneously

identified as a Satanic symbol.

GARY McDONOGH

producers, film and television

Under the studio system, producers were generally employees who “ran” the movie,

although some created a more personal set of choices and films. Since the end of the

studio era, executive producers have played an ever-more important role in envisioning

and assembling the production of film or

television,

especially its financing. Together

with the directors, they overlook the budgeting of production and post-

roduction of the

project while line-

roducers oversee shoots. Independent film producers are often brokers

etween the filmmakers and the distributors. The Producers Guild of America emerged in

1966 from the Screen Producers Guild (founded 1950) and the Television Producers

Guild. In 2000 it has more than 1,500 members worldwide.

Certain producers have emerged as more distinctive figures in New

Hollywood,

especially

blockbuster

film-makers like Steven

Spielberg,

George

Lucas

and James

Cameron. Others, like James Schamus and Ted Hope (

Ice Storm,

1997;

Happiness,

1998)

or Oliver

Stone,

who also writes and directs, are associated primarily with idependent

films. Male and female

actors

also appear as producers in film and television series.

The image of producers in media is often negative, as in Robert Altman’s

The Player

(1992). Dustin Hoffman satirized government and media as a film producer asked to

produce a “war” in the satirical

Wag the Dog

(1997).

Yet money is a real issue for films. While in many European countries, the government

romotes some form of national cinema and television, in the US, government funding

hardly exists for feature films. Producers must assemble a complex package of backing

from studios and financial sources. Cable

networks

like HBO and Showtime have

become major producers in the 1990s.

CINDY WONG

Promise Keepers

masculinity

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Protestants, evangelical

individual denominations: Methodists; Southern Baptists; Bible belt

Protestants, mainline

individual denominations: Episcopalians; Methodists

Prozac

Introduced onto the market by pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly in 1988, Prozac

(Fluoxetine) is taken to combat

depression

experienced by as many as 17 million

Americans. The first of many such antidepressants (selective serotonin re-uptake

inhibitors, or SSRIs), Prozac is now the brand name that is generally used to refer to

current medical responses to chemically induced depression, though doctors often choose

to prescribe Zoloft instead. Many doctors believe that depression may be caused by a

chemical imbalance of serotonin, which a daily capsule of fluoxetine can correct with few

side-effects, though the drug’s safety has been brought into question recently. Often

considered the wonder drug of the early 1990s, Prozac has received widespread attention,

from medical practice to

humor

ROBERT GREGG

Pryor, Richard

b. 1940

Film actor and comedian known for his crude

humor

and hilarious characterizations

African American

life. A great influence on comedians such as Eddie

Murphy,

Pryor

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provided the counterpoint to Bill

Cosby’s

more genteel and genial wit. In addition to

movies of his live comedy routines, he also starred in

Lady Sings the Blues

(1972) with

Diana Ross, Mel Brook’s

Blazing Saddles

(1973),

Stir Crazy

(1980) with Gene Wilder,

and the third

Superman

movie. He injured himself badly in an accident involving

cocaine, which later became a source for some of his routines. More recently he has been

stricken with multiple sclerosis.

ee also:

actors

ROBERT GREGG

psychology and psychiatry

The study of mind and behavior represents links with the life sciences, the social

sciences, the humanities and therapeutic domains, including both the medical

specialization of psychiatry and practices of clinical and humanistic psychology. With

more than fifty subfields recognized by the American Psychological Assocation for its

roughly 100,000 members, psychologists may be characterized by their research

methods, their focal interests or the areas in which these interests are applied; they may

also combine academic research and teaching with counseling and other roles. More than

250,000 psychologists are employed nationwide. Psychology is also deeply connected to

research and theory in other disciplines, including

anthropology, biology, education,

information theory

linguistics,

medicine, neurobiology and

sociology

. Psychoanalytic

interpretations also have currency in the humanities including film studies.

In addition, psychology permeates popular discourse both in reference to specific terms

from the field (including psychoanalytic jargon) and a more general concern with

emotions, motivations and individual and social problems in which “psychologistic”

explanations have become commonplace. This role is reinforced by the psychologist in

mass culture as commentator on events and problems in radio

talk shows,

as news

columnist

television

analyst and as lead character (

Spellbound,

1945;

High Anxiety,

1977;

Color of Nïght,

1994;

The Bob Newhart Show,

CBS, 1972–8). The highly popular

1990s

sitcom

Frasier

(NBC, 1993–), for example, contrasts a radio psychiatrist as

advisor with his own emotional and social problems.

American pscyhology has a strong experimental tradition dating back to the nineteenth

century, encompassing modern work in sensory studies, physiological psychology,

comparative studies (with animals) and cognitive studies. Cognitive sciences have

ecome linked with innovations in computers and communications. Other formative

figures in American psychology, include more philosophical functionalists like William

James and John Dewey J.B.Watson was the father of behaviorism, which focused on

stimulus-response models.

Psychoanalysis was bolstered in the US by refugees fleeing the Nazis, including Karen

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Horney, Alfred Adler and others who developed diverse discussions of the Freudian

legacy. Psychoanalysis was seized upon by Hollywood as both practice and subject o

countless, albeit often comic, expositions. Questions raised about Freud and the limits o

his observations and interpretations in the late twentieth century divided the

psychoanalytic community in painful, sometimes public ways.

The Second World War and the

Cold War

became a watershed, as Herman (1995)

argues, in bringing clinical and therapeutic aspects to the fore in both professional and

ublic discourses as experts in the field skyrocketed (the APA soared from 2,739

members in 1940 to 30,839 in 1970). Their work in universities and private practice

included studies of personality adjustment and social psychology tackling questions like

gender and sexuality, prejudice and individuality, contributing to a broader reformulation

of these issues in American life. These studies are also linked to applied psychological

investigations and treatments in clinical practice, counseling, education and industry.

Abnormal psychology deals specifically with questions of different knowledge of and

action in the world. Developmental psychology has also become an important field.

merican Psychologist,

the journal of the APA, is a central journal in the field; the

APA also publishes other specialized journals and maintains databases and news releases

available at its website (http://www.apa.org/psychnet).

Psychology Today,

a more

opular journal, also has provided information on research and issues in the field for

thirty years.

Further reading

Gilgen, A. (1982)

American Psychology Since World War II

, Westport: Greenwood

Press.

Herman, E. (1995)

The Romance of American Psychology,

Berkeley: University of

California.

GARY McDONOGH

public art

American art in public spaces, not surprisingly has been dominated by memorials of war

and politics—generals, presidents or obelisks and sorrowful figures recalling the fallen.

Washington, DC,

for example, takes on trappings of a mausoleum in the monumental

neo-classical structures on and around the mall commemorating Washington, Lincoln and

Jefferson, as well as statues of state heroes huddled in the Capitol. Additional space on

the mall has been found for recognition of Franklin Delano

Roosevelt

and a controversial

Vietnam memorial

by Maya Lin. At a local scale, public art dominates busy crossroads

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