Conclusion

Abstract

Across the nineties decade, spin and the different spin strategies that evolved out of the particular political and cultural issues, the intellectual history and the social history, became as common and necessary as the gravitational forces that keep the planets spinning through the universe. Spin could be the servant or the bodyguard of power (as it certainly was for the Clinton presidency) or it could be a force for changing minds, for negotiating prejudice into acceptance (as it was for the gay community), or it could be the catalyst for a seismic shift in human behavior (as it was for the redefinition of sexuality under the threat of AIDS). But above all, in the decade of popular deconstruction, spin was the elemental configuration of reality.

Movies do not come out of the thin air. They have a history, just as we and our society do, and the histories of film, our culture, and ourselves are intimately intertwined.

—Robert Kolker, Film, Form and Culture