Tennessee Williams in the 50s: A Mirror Competing Discourses

Abstract

This article was a study of different but synchronized discourses mirrored in Tennessee Williams’s Hollywood adaptations in the 50s. It discussed the effect of artistic agencies of censorship on the hows and whys of Willaims’s adaptations. Most notably, PCA and HUAC were in charge of cultural and political regulations that no Hollywood film was immune from. Until the early 60, HUAC and PCA imposed religious values to supplant Communism, happy ending to replace the intellectual fad of pessimism and strict dressing code to restore the innocence of the Freud-conscious moviegoers. However, these agencies were not omnipotent. The voice of those discourses that the agencies were fighting against were heard in Hollywood. Hollywood achieved the subversion with the help of William’s controversial plots albeit tamed by some reinforcing discourses of optimism and diluted religious values.

Keywords

• Tennessee Williams
• Hollywood Adaptation
• Discourse
• Censorship
• Ideology
• New Historicism