Introduction
image source: S. Alkuun
It has been suggested that Alfred Hitchcock is an indispensable historian, critic, and analyst of American middle-class culture from the 1940s through the 1970s. Hitchcock used his films not only to record the expectations or the fantasies of the mass American audience but also to shape its very behavior. With the start of his Hollywood film career in 1940, Hitchcock includes many post-World War II trends and concerns in his films - particularly the changing feminine identity, the new American masculinity, and the presence of alternative forms of sexuality in middle-class culture. All of these themes are reoccurring and reflect the social history of the time.
4/18/03 by E. Wennerberg