"It sort of filtered into their subconscious through motion pictures, but it's an historical secret. This - whatever this is - needs to be studied and, in a kind of definitive way, talked about"
About this Quote
Calling it an "historical secret" is doing double work. It hints at suppressed knowledge, sure, but it also names a cultural embarrassment: everyone knows cinema shapes public memory, yet we treat that influence as unmentionable because it complicates the comfort story of "I just like movies". Schultz’s phrasing is deliberately hazy - "This - whatever this is" - because the subject is slippery. He’s talking about a force you can feel but can’t easily cite: a blend of propaganda, genre tropes, casting choices, and editorial simplifications that become a shared national dream.
The insistence that it "needs to be studied" pushes the remark out of celebrity punditry and toward civic urgency. He’s not asking for more opinions; he wants a "definitive" accounting, as if cultural criticism should function like an audit. Subtext: we’re living with the downstream consequences - political myths, recycled stereotypes, a public that confuses cinematic realism with truth - and the cost of not naming the mechanism is that it keeps working, invisibly, on the next generation.
Quote Details
| Topic | Movie |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Schultz, Dwight. (2026, January 16). It sort of filtered into their subconscious through motion pictures, but it's an historical secret. This - whatever this is - needs to be studied and, in a kind of definitive way, talked about. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/it-sort-of-filtered-into-their-subconscious-88154/
Chicago Style
Schultz, Dwight. "It sort of filtered into their subconscious through motion pictures, but it's an historical secret. This - whatever this is - needs to be studied and, in a kind of definitive way, talked about." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/it-sort-of-filtered-into-their-subconscious-88154/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"It sort of filtered into their subconscious through motion pictures, but it's an historical secret. This - whatever this is - needs to be studied and, in a kind of definitive way, talked about." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/it-sort-of-filtered-into-their-subconscious-88154/. Accessed 19 Feb. 2026.
