Page 102 - A Handbook Genre Studies in Mass Media

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The popular Andy Hardy films of the 1930s and 1940s, featuring Mickey
Rooney, epitomize Hollywood’s response to the Great Depression in
the creation of a mythic pre-Depression world of economic security,
social stability, and small-town values. The world of Andy Hardy is
distinguished from the postwar youth films by the absence of genera-
tional conflict. The plots in these films do not center on basic value
differences between the generations so much as the inevitable difficul-
ties encountered by young people as they learn the rules and roles of
a world run by adults.
Andy’s father, Judge Hardy, represents the adult ideal. The judge
clearly knows best; he dominates the world that he and Andy inhabit.
Personal and social discovery for adolescents in the 1930s amounts to
learning and respecting rules that, as children, they had to obey but could
not fully understand. The family oriented teen comedies of this period
portray adolescence as a process of growing into adult expectations. For
it to function effectively, this process requires the firm and perceptive
guidance of wise and powerful adults. Judge Hardy’s power is based upon
a mutually understood legitimacy. He does not wield naked and brutal
power; he exercises legitimate authority. His power is rooted in traditional
moralities that remain, as far as the 1930s movie myth is concerned,
responsive to the universally agreed upon needs of young people.
The audience is never in doubt about what Andy’s father does for a
living: he is the Judge. His job is to interpret the most basic moral-legal
principles and use them to solve practical problems, including those aris-
ing in his own family. He has the authority to render judgment, not simply
authorization to execute the judgments of others. The opening scene of
Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938) shows Judge Hardy in court presiding
over a case in which an adolescent has committed a minor infraction.
The judge admonishes the young man to inform his father about “this
mess,” thereby displaying his authority as a judge and, by extension,
the power of all adults over the young. This message is underscored in
the boy’s response, “Dad, he’d skin me alive.” Significantly, the judge
refers to the boy throughout the scene as “Mr.,” suggesting that he is
judging him according to adult standards in order to prepare him to as-
sume adult responsibilities. Judge Hardy rules on the basis of his own
competence and experience, interpreting the law according to absolute
moral principles. He operates in a harmonious universe in which adult-
controlled institutions support one another. In the scene just described,
judicial authority reinforces parental authority.

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