Tinsel and Rust - How Hollywood Manufactured the Rust Belt

Tinsel and Rust explores the pivotal role that Hollywood films have played in the shaping of the Rust Belt as a cultural and political idea, and in turn, the efforts of cities like Pittsburgh, Detroit, and Cleveland to remake their public image and revitalize their economies through film and media production.

List of contents

• Introduction: What Is the Rust Belt?


• Chapter 1: After the Flood, the Johnstown Landscape


• Chapter 2: Segregation Blues in Chicago


• Chapter 3: Erasing the Mistake on the Lake


• Chapter 4: Screening the Creative Class in Pittsburgh


• Chapter 5: Detroit, the 2008 Financial Crisis, and the Horrors of Precarity

About the author

Michael D. Dwyer is associate professor of Media and Communication at Arcadia University, where he teaches courses in Hollywood film, media studies, and writing. He is the author of Back to the Fifties (OUP, 2015). He lives in Philadelphia with his partner, Rachel.

Product details

• Authors: Michael D. (Associate Professor of Media an Dwyer, Dwyer Michael D.
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 24.06.2025
• EAN: 9780197612798
• ISBN: 978-0-19-761279-8
• No. of pages: 240
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > Theatre, ballet; Films, cinema, Individual Film Directors, Film-Makers, PERFORMING ARTS / Film / Direction & Production, Film production: technical & background skills, PERFORMING ARTS / Individual Director, Filmmaking and production: technical and background skills