Any film or television program refers to certain "stock" devices to create a chosen visual and emotional environment. A frequent image in modern culture is a tightly-packed row of homes, similar in style and each with a tiny fragment of land, which serves for parking, storage, recreation, gardening, and decoration. The homes follow the model of the tight suburb, but they are not American ranch houses. This image is dominated by rectangular trailers, most of which have removed wheels or at least concealed them with a trelice covering. During its history, the trailer, or mobile home, has been viewed as progressive, adventurous, and, finally, as the opposite of these American ideals. Today, when a director or producer incorporates the trailer park into a visual narrative, she seeks most often to depict Americans locked in—spiritually and physically—to a lower economic class by social strictures. Some...