Beyond the stars

As clues to both American cultural history and the means by which perceptions of America and Americans are developed by global audiences, stock characters in American popular film deserve an examination. Conventional secondary characters have long been an important component of popular films. Seldom remarkable, they are - in their near-invisibility - interesting and illuminating clues to their cultural milieu. [This book] contains 20 essays on stock characters, and character conventions which neatly divide into four categories. These groupings are ethnic and racial stereotyping, social classes, professions and the idiosyncratic type. The essays define and delineate a variety of social phenomena as they are reflected in popular film. All the essays examine popular film as reflections of American attitudes toward various racial and/or ethnic groups, occupational types, socio-economic classes, religious groups, and "people not like us". Stock figures in American movies are part of our cultural heritage; they deserve an honored place in the literature of film and popular culture.