A Time of Homecoming

Popular Culture

The nature of the Thanksgiving holiday, in what has grown to be its dominant form since the middle of the 20th century—a largely domestic, family-centered feast largely shorn of its earlier qualities of shared, communal, and sometimes wild revelry—may explain why its presence in popular culture is considerably less than that of Christmas.

Nevertheless, it has been a theme of significant interest to moviemakers, television producers, songwriters and performers in certain areas of pop music, and comic-strip artists. In general, it is tapped in contexts where the emotional connection to family, or the culture's calendrical rhythms, are paramount concerns.

This part of the Project's 'Time of Homecoming' section takes a look at some of the holiday's presence on the movie and television screens, in popular song, and in other parts of the terrain of popular and pop culture.