For instance, gangster and prison films will reflect certain features of a social issue but won't actually fully explore the problem in the way that would qualify it for this genre.
Examples of this style of narrative are apparent within films such as The Soul of Youth (1920) in which the larger problem of delinquent children with no home is portrayed through the ineffectiveness of the orphanage the protagonist resides in juxtaposed with the idealized life of the family of the judge he eventually settles in with.
Another instance that deserves to be mentioned comes once again from Wild Boys of the Road (1933) in which the film reaches its climax as the protagonists are being dealt with by a judge, bringing the larger social issue into an individualist lens by applying the solution of a nationwide problem to a few individual experiences.
The film follows the progressive demise of a couple due to their inability to control their drinking, once again devolving a larger societal problem onto a focused set of characters.
[9] Perhaps the most notable instance of the idea of real-life insertions is the opening scene of Border Incident (1949), a social problem film about Mexican immigration following the instituting of the Bracero Program in 1942 meant to alleviate the shortage of farm-hand work in the United States.
This reality-based narrative combines with the voice over, which mentions borders no less than five times to subtly push an ideology of mutual dependency towards the audience while allowing itself the appearance of being an authentic representation of the situation, showing again the effect real life insertions can have on the social problem films ability to affect its viewers.
Even in more contemporary social problem films such as Coming Home (1978) and The Good Lie (2014), there is a sense of familial importance, the former in terms of his "brothers" who he stands by no matter what, and the latter in the form of their tribe members who travel thousands of miles for a new life.
Many of these films fed into a populist form of thought meant to instill confidence among the nation in the wake of the Great Depression, supporting the platform of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, which supposedly would alleviate the unemployment issue facing the United States at that time.
This is particularly displayed in such films as Wild Boys of the Road (1933), in which the protagonist runs away from home with friends in an attempt to find work, only to end up arrested and in need of assistance, which is subsequently granted by a judge.
The film's interaction with New Deal ideologies is reflected in the confident tone of the judge as he grants aid to the homeless kids presented to him, the progressive nature of neighborly helpfulness is thrust upon the audience without allowing them to contemplate the fact that it took a middle-class figure to save the unemployed.
[6] Just as the New Deal gave confidence in the short term but lagged in long-term growth for employment, so did the social problem films of this time depict a sense of optimism even when stuck in the non-progressive narrative of a middle-class savior.
Meanwhile, at Columbia Pictures, Frank Capra made his reputation (among the industry and filmgoing public alike; a rarity in that period) by developing his signature blend of social problem film and screwball comedy.
It addressed post-war social problems through its optimistic portrayal of the struggle for normalization, using a protagonist who had lost both hands in the war, notedly played by Harold Russell, a non-professional actor who had that same experience.
[4] While McCarthyism, in the form of the House Un-American Activities Committee, dampened some of Hollywood's enthusiasm for left-leaning critiques of American society,[16] the genre continued nonetheless over the next two decades.
[13] This, combined with the untrusting environment and Cold-War tensions, was reflected in a bevy of films about mental health, the ineffectiveness of treatment, and the way that affected individuals can be helped.
The social problem genre reflected issues of mental health and addiction particularly well through films like Bigger Than Life (1956),[17] which was consequently based on an article titled "Ten Feet Tall" published in The New Yorker.
[18] The film follows a protagonist in a healthy, happy familial relationship who is forced to take cortisone for a rare disease, ultimately abusing the medication which then results in mental health issues.
This national consciousness of feminist ideals, combined with a wartime environment that was largely a failure, as well as the inability to fully care for veterans, is expressed through Coming Home's narrative and characters while also maintaining certain factors of the classic social problem film.
In the contemporary United States, an immigration social issue that has been relevant for years is the idea of refugee asylum, whereas the returning-veteran storylines now often focus on the addiction to war and the inability to function normally without it.
A contemporary social problem film that addresses this issue is The Good Lie (2014), which follows the life of a group of Sudanese children as they escape their village to a refugee camp and come to America as adults.
The beginning of the film does a decent job of representing the struggle over 25,000 children faced while trekking across Africa enduring the elements, animals, and soldiers trying to kill them as it follows the protagonists as they make the journey themselves, losing some along the way.
As the protagonist group arrives in America, the film experiences a shift from displaying the plight of these refugees to a culture clash of sorts as they struggle to adapt to American customs and realize the ineffectiveness of the bureaucratic systems meant to help them.
This is evident as post-WWII films often focused on a return to home for the veterans, encouraging family life and spousal support, as well as the revealing of the capability of humans to commit evil, resulting in forays into addressing these issues.
Then during Vietnam, the feminist movement combined with national feelings of regret created both hyper-masculine films depicting the horror of battle but also the returning veterans plight and a more formulaic approach to narrative instead of a didactic one.
The film is both cinematic and visceral, interweaving aspects of the war in documentary-like style juxtaposed with the usage of sound and technological advances to create an intense, encapsulating narrative.
The film begins on a quote that equates war to a drug, and ends on the protagonist's 'days on tour' counter resetting to 0, indicating both the hardship faced by military personnel and how it shapes them into being more like machines built for a purpose rather than purely motivated soldiers.
[27] This pseudo-reality is problematic in that it presents a certain social problem, along with a viable solution, like diet and exercise, yet it doesn't speak to the cultural issues and systematic factors like cheap fast food in poverty-stricken areas.
The ability for users to obtain, via YouTube, actual real-life video of events occurring around the world makes it tougher for filmic representations to become the didactic entity they need to be in order to fit in the genre.
For instance, with over 100,000 results for a search on Iraq war footage, it becomes difficult to depict a sense of reality in which the viewer can relate purely, therefore the filmmaker's artistic influence becomes more apparent.
This combined with the development of news programming via television has created a sort of environment where the social problem film was forced to change form, the majority didactic approach was no longer satisfactory as people have access to actual footage, therefore the implementation of deeper characterization and richer narratives became relevant in the more contemporary entries into this genre.