Plan for cinema (1936)

2 PLAN FOR CINEMA X not easily be caught, despite the fallacy of supposing the ruse will succeed because the uneducated can be duped. To-day it is not a matter of dealing with the uneducated, but with the half-educated, and in that precisely is to be found why influence by explicit means is of no account. The very fact of the halfeducated being what they are, provokes an intuitive alertness to be on the look out for snares and delusions added to an intense dislike of any one who tries to teach them anything. It is only the tub-thumping moralist who sees danger ; he is not half-educated, but not quite educated enough, the narrowness of his vision, restricted on account of his preoccupation with sexual taboo, is just that which precludes him from seeing the wider vista wherein a very real influence has been implicitly exercised by cinema over a period of time. The youth of Europe to-day, and of England particularly, has grown up with Charlie Chaplin and the Ford car. Any filtration east of the ideology upon which American culture is based that may have occurred during the last fifteen years — and, of course, an immense amount has occurred for better or for worse — is attributable in the main to the American film. A subtle example of this implicit propaganda may be seen at work in the setting of certain fashions in men's clothes. Since the popularity of the gangster film, a number of hatters' and clothiers' shops have been established in London where nearly all the garments offered for sale are American. The hats are of a kind never before seen in London until the gangster \i)\* AfA \ I