The Fallacy of "Regarding Frank Capra"

For the past week or so I have been looking through chapter two of Eric Smoodin's "Regarding Frank Capra" for any last minute insights on Asian American cinema for my paper. Even though Smoodin provides a very factual account of the relationship between American studios and Chinese markets, there is one place in his analysis where he commits a fallacy. On page 62, paragraph 2, Smoodin recounts the complaints of Willys Peck about the Chinese officials reaction to a film called Shanghai Express. After multiple quotes from Peck that criticize the behavior of Chinese bureaucrats and film screeners, Smoodin ends the paragraph with the sentence "Thus the modern Chinese state of rationalized, Western systems of discipline was being undone by unstable and irrational Chinese bureaucrats." I believe that Smoodin is guilty of the fallacy that Fischer reffered to as the "fallacy of figures." Smoodin did not provide any sort of bridge between Peck's criticisms and this concluding sentenc
e. Therefore it is difficult for readers to know whether to take the meaning of this sentence literally. It is difficult to tell if this conclusion is Smoodin's analysis of the historical situation or Smoodin's analysis of what Peck thought the historical situation was at the time.

Jason Feldstein