Dance Floor Democracy : The Social Geography of Memory at the Hollywood Canteen

Tucker, Sherrie

Duke University Press（2014/10発売）

• 製本 Paperback:紙装版/ペーパーバック版／ページ数 277 p.
• 言語 ENG
• 商品コード 9780822357575
• DDC分類 792.70979494

Full Description

Open from 1942 until 1945, the Hollywood Canteen was the most famous of the patriotic home front nightclubs where civilian hostesses jitterbugged with enlisted men of the Allied Nations. Since the opening night, when the crowds were so thick that Bette Davis had to enter through the bathroom window to give her welcome speech, the storied dance floor where movie stars danced with soldiers has been the subject of much U.S. nostalgia about the "Greatest Generation." Drawing from oral histories with civilian volunteers and military guests who danced at the wartime nightclub, Sherrie Tucker explores how jitterbugging swing culture has come to represent the war in U.S. national memory. Yet her interviewees' varied experiences and recollections belie the possibility of any singular historical narrative. Some recall racism, sexism, and inequality on the nightclub's dance floor and in Los Angeles neighborhoods, dynamics at odds with the U.S. democratic, egalitarian ideals associated with the Hollywood Canteen and the "Good War" in popular culture narratives. For Tucker, swing dancing's torque-bodies sharing weight, velocity, and turning power without guaranteed outcomes-is an apt metaphor for the jostling narratives, different perspectives, unsteady memories, and quotidian acts that comprise social history.

Contents

Acknowledgments vii Prologue. Dance Floor Democracy? xiii Introduction. Writing on a Crowded Dance Floor 1 Part I. On Location: Situating the Hollywood Canteen (and Swing Culture as National Memory) in Wartime Los Angeles 1. Wrestling Hollywood to the Map 25 2. Cruising the Cahuenga Pass(t) 51 3. Operating from the Curbstone 76 Part II. Patriotic Jitterbugs: Tracing the Footsteps of the Soldier-Hostess Dyad 4. Dyad Democracy 107 5. Injured Parties 146 6. Torquing Back 179 Part III. Women in Uniforms, Men in Aprons: Dancing outside the Soldier-Hostess Dyad 7. The Dyad from Without 199 8. The View from the Mezzanine 212 9. Men Serving Men 226 Part IV. Swing Between the Nation and the State 10. (Un)American Patrol: Following the State on the Dance Floor of the Nation 243 11. The Making(s) of National Memory: Hollywood Canteen (the Movie) 281 Notes 321 Bibliography 351 Index 365