The Great Depression is Depressing

Russell Crowe has said that Cinderella Man was his favorite movie. He has also said that he was greatly disappointed that the movie didn't do better at the box office. He can't understand why more people didn't go see such finely made movie.

I know why the movie didn't do better at the box office - Americans find the Great Depression depressing.

Americans are a forward-looking, optimistic people. I love history but Americans in general don't. People don't come to the USA to dwell on the past. They come to America to dream of the future. And in America that future is always so bright you have to wear shades.

I have been thinking about this subject for some time now but what made me post about it today was this article by Amity Shlaes. The basic question Shales asks is why historians haven't taken a closer, more critical look at FDR and his policies which in her opinion (and mine too) made the depression worse - not better as popular history would have you believe.

I hate to break it to Amity Shlaes but I don't think her book The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression will be a best-seller. People like to read uplifting Horatio Alger-like stories of American historical figures. That's why biographies on Franklin, Truman, Lincoln and the rise of the Kennedy Clan do so well. Conversely, people avoid negative books where the basic message is "things weren't as good as you think." That's why a biography of Ted Kennedy won't make the best seller list and that's why a book telling the truth about FDR's failed social experiments (even though the consequences of those failed experiments haunt us to this day) also won't be wildly popular. I'll buy Amity Shlaes book and I hope others do too. I'm not holding my breath to see it on the NYT Best Sellers List however.

The reason Cinderella Man did poorly because it focused on the Great Depression too much as the back-drop to Jim Braddock's great tale of triumphing over great odds to become champion of the world. Braddock's tale is supposed to be uplifting and in the end it is. However, much of the first three-quarters of the movie deals with people laid as low as it could get by forces beyond their control. That's just depressing and Americans don't go to movies to be depressed.

And I'm afraid they won't buy a book about the Great Depression for the same reason.