This thesis evaluates how films from Western Europe portray the social, political and economic degradation that allows the American influence to rise leading up to the Cold War. Specifically, this thesis evaluates classic films from Weimar Germany, the Soviet Union, post-fascist Italy and post-Vichy France as historical and cultural artifacts that depict the harsh conditions of postwar life and how American influence revitalized daily European life. While the American influence (defined as the support of democracy, technological modernization and a capitalist economy) was supported by many struggling Europeans who looked to the United States as a standard to rebuild, critics from each country viewed American influence as a threat to the stability of national independence which they sought to maintain as recovery balanced postwar society.

In this thesis, I trace the history of the Salvadoran-American gang Mara Salvatrucha, also known as MS-13. I argue that the blame for MS-13 does not lie on immigrants and youth making bad choices, but rather that United States government policy is to blame for the formation and growth of MS-13. In order to argue this point, I analyze US policy including mass incarceration, policing, deportation, and involvement in El Salvador.

Public Art bears an important role in the perpetuation of public narratives in a community. In the wake of the recent anti-racist, decolonization movements, public memorials and monuments are rightly being reconsidered. Historians, artists, politicians, and activists alike are now bringing to light the social and cultural issues that come with commemorating colonizers and white supremacists in controversial public artworks. In my thesis, I will investigate and analyze three different monuments that have been, or currently, are controversial in the eyes of the community. The three monuments that I have chosen to research and analyze are the Captain Cook “Discovery” Statue in Hyde Park in Sydney, Australia, the Cecil Rhodes statue that was central to the Rhodes Must Fall movement in South Africa, and the statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Park, which was vandalized last year in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement. Each of these monuments plays an impactful role in the communities they inhabit but has or currently is facing a wave of controversy. I will analyze the varying reactions by the public and the controversies surrounding these three individual monuments. My aim is to find that there is a common theme between reactions to colonizer monuments across the world. If there is a common thread between how people everywhere think colonizer monuments should be dealt with, this may lead to more being taken down.