FORGETTING THE PAST AND ENVISIONING THE FUTURE: THE MODEL-CHARACTER OF THE POLITICALLY INDIFFERENT CITIZEN IN THE GREEK COMMERCIAL POST-CIVIL WAR CINEMA (1948-1967)

Abstract

After the Greek civil war between the forces of the Communist Party and those of the right-wing civil political system (1946-1949), commercial cinema met an explosive development. The paper connects its growth with the attempt on behalf of the post-civil war right-wing Greek state to establish its cultural hegemony through popular movies, which promoted ideas such as hard work, family values, an individualistic perspective on prosperity (as opposed to the social struggles of the left), and, above all, obedience to the legal order (since, after its defeat, Communist Party was literally illegal). All these ideas were expressed through the emergence of the model-character of a poor but honest citizen: usually coming from the working class, his main features were his political indifference and his desire for undisturbed social peace, while the plot was built around his pursuit of personal happiness, achieved through hard work or, in the case of women, through a successful marriage. During the post-civil war era, all the way through the 1967 dictatorship, cinemas (especially in working-class neighborhoods) will function not only as meeting points for entertainment, but also as cultural melting-pots, where the political passions of the past would be left in oblivion, where the controversies of the present would be blunted, and where a very cheap ticket could create a convincing promise of a prosperous future.