America Noir

At the height of the Cold War, ten writers and filmmakers challenged such social pieties as the superiority of American democracy, the benevolence of free enterprise, and the sanctity of the suburban family. Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone related stories of victims of vast, faceless bureaucratic powers. Jim Thompson's The Grifters portrayed the ravages of capitalism on those at the bottom of the social ladder. Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley featured an amoral con man in an international setting, implicitly questioning America's fitness as leader of the free world. These artists pioneered the detached, ironic sensibility, so prevalent today, through works that radically juxtaposed cultural references and blurred the distinctions between 'high' and 'low' art. Their refusal to surrender to political correctness and their unflinching portrayal of the underside of American life directly paved the way for the counterculture, which would explode in the 60s and forever change the way that America views itself.