Cinema Civics: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

Civics 101

NHPR

Society & Culture, Government, History

4.6 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 5 August 2025

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When Mr. Smith Goes to Washington came out in 1939, it infuriated politicians, the press, and fascist nations. At the same time, it delighted audiences and informed them on the legislative process decades before Schoolhouse Rock. Today we talk about the film, as well as corruption, earnestness, our families, lost causes, and hope. Listen to our episode of Hannah's visit to the Lincoln Memorial here. CLICK HERE: Visit our website to see all of our episodes, donate to the podcast, sign up for our newsletter, get free educational materials, and more! To see Civics 101 in book form, check out A User's Guide to Democracy: How America Works by Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice, featuring illustrations by Tom Toro. Check out our other weekly NHPR podcast, Outside/In - we think you'll love it! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You all think I'm late.
0:04.5	Well, I'm not late.
0:06.8	I'm going to stay right here and fight for this lost cause.
0:10.2	Even if this room gets filled with lies like these.
0:15.0	You are listening to Civics 101.
0:17.1	I am to Capadice.
0:18.3	I'm Christina Phillips.
0:19.1	I'm Hannah McCarthy.
0:19.7	And today in our cinema
0:22.1	civic series, we are talking about the big one, Mr. Smith goes to Washington.
0:28.1	What do you know about law or making law to what the people need? I don't pretend to them.
0:31.6	And what are you doing in the Senate? Now, first off, I wanted to tell you, too, that this was not initially my first pick for cinema civics.
0:40.3	I was going to do Network, which is one of my favorite films of all time.
0:44.1	You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Veal.
0:49.1	But then I had a conversation with my mom, and I said, well, I can't decide if I'm going to do network or Mr. Smith
0:54.5	goes to Washington. And she was like, you have to do Mr. Smith goes to Washington. I said, why?
0:59.7	And she said, because it's a really hard time right now and people need hope. They don't need
1:05.1	media cynicism. They need a story about, you know, one person can fight against a problem or a difficulty in the government.
1:12.9	So I followed her advice.
1:17.3	Before we launch into the movie, Hannah, Christina, the three of us are people who love to be sarcastic.
1:24.3	And speaking for myself and myself only, a little bit of a know-it-all from time to time, it would be easy and it would be fun to sort of talk about how corny and propagandist, rah-rah America, and completely naive this movie is.
1:39.7	Let's just break that for like one day, or at least for 10 minutes of one day.
	...

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