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A comprehensive analysis of the changing representations of military women in American and British movies and TV programs from the Second World War to the present.
This book interrogates representations of fatherhood across the spectrum of popular U.S. film of the early twenty-first century. It situates them in relation to postfeminist discourse, identifying and discussing dominant paradigms and tropes that emerge from the tendency of popular cinema to configure ideal masculinity in paternal terms. It analyses postfeminist fatherhood across a range of genres including historical epics, war films, westerns, bromantic comedies, male melodramas, action films, family comedies, and others. It also explores recurring themes and intersections such as the rejuvenation of aging masculinities through fatherhood, the paternalized recuperation of immature adult masculinities, the relationship between fatherhood in film and 9/11 culture, post-racial discourse in representations of fatherhood, and historically located formations of fatherhood. It is the first book length study to explore the relationship between fatherhood and postfeminism in popular cinema.
From the beginning, both Robert Kirkman's comics and AMC's series of The Walking Dead have brought controversy in their presentations of race, gender and sexuality. Critics and fans have contended that the show's identity politics have veered toward the decidedly conservative, offering up traditional understandings of masculinity, femininity, heterosexuality, racial hierarchy and white supremacy. This collection of new essays explores the complicated nature of relationships among the story's survivors. In the end, characters demonstrate often-surprising shifts that consistently comment on identity politics. Whether agreeing or disagreeing with critics, these essays offer a rich view of how gender, race, class and sexuality intersect in complex new ways in the TV series and comics.
Humphrey Bogart. Abbott and Costello. Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney. John Wayne. Rita Hayworth and Betty Grable. Images of these film icons conjure up a unique moment in cinema and history, one of optimism and concern, patriotism and cynicism. What Dreams Were Made Of examines the performers who helped define American cinema in the 1940s, a decade of rapid and repeated upheaval for Hollywood and the United States. Through insightful discussions of key films as well as studio publicity and fan magazines, the essays in this collection analyze how these actors and actresses helped lift spirits during World War II, whether in service comedies, combat films, or escapist musicals. The contributors, all major writers on the stars and movies of this period, also explore how cultural shifts after the war forced many stars to adjust to new outlooks and attitudes, particularly in film noir. Together, they represented the hopes and fears of a nation during turbulent times, enacting on the silver screen the dreams of millions of moviegoers.
From HGTV and the Food Network to Keeping Up With the Kardashians, television is preoccupied with the pursuit and exhibition of lifestyle. Lifestyle TV analyzes a burgeoning array of lifestyle formats on network and cable channels, from how-to and advice programs to hybrid reality entertainment built around the cultivation of the self as project, the ethics of everyday life, the mediation of style and taste, the regulation of health and the body, and the performance of identity and "difference." Ouellette situates these formats historically, arguing that the lifestyling of television ultimately signals more than the television industry's turn to cost-cutting formats, niche markets, and specialized demographics. Rather, Ouellette argues that the surge of reality programming devoted to the achievement and display of lifestyle practices and choices must also be situated within broader socio-historical changes in capitalist democracies.
A cultural phenomenon for a decade, Friends ranked in the top ten for every year of its original run, an accomplishment unmatched by any other scripted series. And more than twenty-five years since its theme song promised “I’ll be there for you,” Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Joey, Chandler, and Ross are still entertaining audiences around the world. As the characters maneuvered their ways through dating, love, and the occasional conflict, their loyalty to each other remained steadfast. In Friends: A Cultural History, Jennifer C. Dunn explores why the show immediately took hold of viewers and how the series remained must-see TV for so long. Dunn examines the cultural landscape that allowed a...
The contention of Film and the American Presidency is that over the twentieth century the cinema has been a silent partner in setting the parameters of what we might call the presidential imaginary. This volume surveys the partnership in its longevity, placing stress on especially iconic presidents such as Lincoln and FDR. The contributions to this collection probe the rich interactions between these high institutions of culture and politics—Hollywood and the presidency—and argue that not only did Hollywood acting become an idiom for presidential style, but that Hollywood early on understood its own identity through the presidency’s peculiar mix of national epic and unified protagonist. Additionally, they contend that studios often made their films to sway political outcomes; that the performance of presidential personae has been constrained by the kinds of bodies (for so long, white and male) that have occupied the office, such that presidential embodiment obscures the body politic; and that Hollywood and the presidency may finally be nothing more than two privileged figures of media-age power.
The essays cover an astonishing range of subject matter, from mental health and plastic surgery to literature, music, political philosophy, performance, popular culture and history. They interrogate the dominance of whiteness, exposing the underpinnings of white privilege and considering its global consequences.
The films of Aki and Mika Kaurismäki are part of a globalising Finnish cinema, challenging conventional parameters at every turn. This work examines the films that the Kaurismäkis produced, individually and in collaboration, between 1981 and 1995 - films which mobilise various methods to reflect, criticise, counteract and contribute to the globalisation of Finnish society in the era of late capitalist development. This work provides an in-depth analysis of these films, exploring the aesthetic and narrative content of the films as well as their production and reception in Finland. The theoretical scope of the work situates the films not only in the field of transnational cinema, but also that of 'post-national' cinema. Exploring the Kaurismäkis' films in a post-national framework points to new, emergent understandings of both the fragility and the persistence of national culture and identity in a globalising world.