The Politics of Glamour: Ideology and Democracy in the Screen Actors Guild [Hardcover]

David F. Prindle (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1988 | ISBN-10: 029911810X | ISBN-13: 978-0299118105 | Edition: First Edition

Rarely are the off-screen lives of actors examined for evidence of deep thinking or good citizenship. Still more rarely do the internal workings of labor unions attract public scrutiny. Nevertheless, as David Prindle shows in his examination of democracy in the Screen Actors Guild, this actors’ union has for over 50 years been an arena for idealistic, yet intense and hardboiled political maneuvering.
    In The Politics of Glamour, readers become aware of the seriousness and political commitment displayed by people whom the general public has generally admired more for their artistic skills. After reading this account of politics among America’s screen royalty, no one could wonder about where Ronald Reagan, a former SAG president, received his political training.
    Besides analyzing the politics of SAG, however, the author follows a good story wherever it leads. The reader can expect to learn something about the political economy of Hollywood and the American labor movement, the value of celebrity within the acting community, the impact of technological change, and even a bit of gossip.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This "case study of ideology and democracy" examines a unique union whose members are in a precarious profession where job stability and work conditions vary greatly. Prindle describes the "permanent internal strife" and "consistent split" in the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) between its conservative and progressive factions, which have fundamentally different beliefs and values about the role of unions as well as critical disagreements over guild policies. The book examines the impact and legacy--both personal and professional--of the blacklist and graylist of the 1940s and 1950s, concluding that the much publicized actions of SAG in the 1980s saw the legacy of militant anti-Communism become anti-anti-Communism. For students of contemporary American unionism.
- John R. Sillito, Weber State Coll. Lib., Ogden, Ut .
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

David F. Prindle is professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin. His first book, Petroleum Politics and the Texas Railroad Commission, received the V.O. Key Jr. Award given by the Southern Political Science Association to the best book on Southern politics. He is author of many books, including Stephen Jay Gould and the Politics of Evolution.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 274 pages
• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press; First Edition edition (November 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 029911810X
• ISBN-13: 978-0299118105
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,382,370 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Individual Freedom And The Price Of Union Membership, March 30, 2000

By 

Mark Mcintire (Santa Barbara, California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Politics of Glamour: Ideology and Democracy in the Screen Actors Guild (Hardcover)

When does a labor union cease to become the solution to individual worker struggles and start becoming the problem? Dr. David Prindle sets before the reader a titillating example of just such a case in his definitive; The Politics of Glamour, Democracy and Ideology in the Screen Actors Guild.

Tracking the sound reasons for forming SAG in the late 1920's, Prindle details the many early injustices visited on workers in front of the camera in uniquely American industry, the movie business. Adroitly, Prindle illustrates how SAG was born as a Guild and bred into a Union. This is a comprehensive history of the titanic forces at play shaping the most widely known yet little understood labor union in the United States. Dr. Prindle explains in careful detail the evolution of SAG from founders like Eddie Cantor and Jimmy Cagney through recent Guild Presidents Ronald Reagan, Charlton Heston and Ed Asner.

If you want to know how the Screen Actors Guild evolved from a scrappy, tough-fisted bunch of actors bent on decent jobs, wages and working conditions to a wimpy, politically correct pack of star-wanna-bees, then you will enjoy this book.

Prindles style has snap, crackle and pop because he doesn't take sides in the many ideological wars that ravage SAG politics even to this day. He lets the towering Hollywood legends call it as they see it. Then he documents the antics of their retinues, deployed in battalion strength to muscle political control over one of Americas most influential labor organizations.