The more incorrectly [films] present the surface of things, the more correct they become and the more clearly they mirror the secret mechanism of society. In reality it may not often happen that a scullery maid marries the owner of a Rolls Royce. But doesn’t every Rolls Royce owner dream that scullery maids dream of rising to his stature? Stupid and unreal film fantasies are the daydreams of society, in which its actual reality comes to the fore and its otherwise repressed wishes take on form.

Siegfried Kracauer, "The Little Shopgirls Go to the Movies," in The Mass Ornament: Weimar Essays, 1927.