Contributions to the Study of Popular Culture – serie

This examniation of the cinematic style of film noir originals and their neo-noir remakes compares thirty-five films, beginning with Billy Wilder's classic Double Indemnity and concluding with Jim McBride's Breathless. In-depth analysis of the films explain the qualities and characteristics of film noir, while providing critical readings of both the originals and the remakes. The most significant films since 1944 are reviewed and reveal the ever-changing values in American society. As this study reveals, the noir style significantly impacted American film and neo-noir remakes attest to its continued popularity in cinematic art.This work will appeal to film scholars and to fans of film noir. Filmogrpahies and video information follow each chapter. Appendices briefly explain the roots of many noir films discussed in the text along with their subsequent remakes.

Parody is the least appreciated of all film comedy genres and receives little serious attention, even among film fans. This study elevates parody to mainstream significance. A historical overview places the genre in context, and a number of basic parody components, which better define the genre and celebrate its value, are examined. Parody is differentiated from satire, and the two parody types, traditional and reaffirmation, are explained. Chapters study the most spoofed genre in American parody history, the Western; pantheon members of American Film Comedy such as The Marx Brothers, W. C. Fields, Mae West, and Laurel and Hardy; pivotal parody artists, Bob Hope and Woody Allen; Mel Brooks, whose name is often synonymous with parody; and finally, parody in the 1990s. Films discussed include Destry Rides Again (1939), The Road to Utopia (1945), My Favorite Brunette (1947), The Paleface (1948), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), Blazing Saddles (1974), Young Frankenstein (1974), Hot Shots! Part Deux (1993) and Scream (1996).This examination of parody will appeal to scholars and students of American film and film comedy, as well as those interested in the specific comedians discussed and the Western genre. Gehring's work will also find a place in American pop culture studies and sociological studies of the period from the 1920s to the 1990s. The book is carefully documented and includes a selected bibliography and filmography.

Analyzing a sample of 25 films, including such notables as Red River, Shane, Unforgiven, The Wild Bunch, Wyatt Earp, and Dances with Wolves, this work examines traditional leadership theories as reflected in the western film genre. The western vividly portrays a variety of leadership styles, motifs, and characteristics giving perspective on several traditional leadership theories. The different leadership styles the films exhibit are categorized and described through content analysis. Some of the concepts and underlying theories and styles reveal a universal quality about leadership that transcends theoretical research. As a cultural study that traces the relative popularity of leadership styles, this work provides new insight toward studying leadership effectiveness.Through the lens of leadership theory, this unique look at the western films from 1945 to 1995 and the American culture they depict will appeal not only to leadership, film, and popular culture scholars but to leaders in business, government, and the military. Chapters group films by their similar depiction of leadership styles. Within each chapter the films are separately described, then each is explored within the context of leadership theory. Films prior to 1980 are included on the basis of their critical or commercial success, while films after 1980 are included on the basis of their box office success or their individual portrayals of gender or cultural leadership.

In the years since World War II, commercial television has become the most powerful force in American culture. It is also the quintessential example of postmodernist culture. This book studies how The Twilight Zone, The Prisoner, Twin Peaks, and The X-Files display many of the central characteristics that critics and theorists have associated with postmodernism, including fragmentation of narratives and characters, multiplicity in style and genre, and the collapse of traditional categorical boundaries of all kinds. The author labels these series strange TV since they challenge the conventions of television programming, thus producing a form of cognitive estrangement that potentially encourages audiences to question received ideas.Despite their challenges to the conventions of commercial television, however, these series pose no real threat to the capitalist order. In fact, the very characteristics that identify these series as postmodern are also central characteristics of capitalism itself, especially in its late consumerist phase. An examination of these series within the context of postmodernism thus confirms Fredric Jameson's thesis that postmodernism is a reflection of the cultural logic of late capitalism. At the same time, these series do point toward the potential of television as a genuinely innovative medium that promises to produce genuinely new forms of cultural expression in the future.

In the early 1980s, serious American independent films including Stranger Than Paradise, Blood Simple, and She's Gotta Have It attracted ever-widening audiences, culminating with Steven Soderbergh's award-winning sex, lies, and videotape. This film, which won the Cannes Film Festival's top award and took more than $30 million at the box office in the United States alone, capped a remarkable decade for off-Hollywood filmmakers. Outsider Features takes an in-depth look at 10 of the most successful independent feature films made during this decade, from John Sayles's seminal and groundbreaking The Return of the Secaucus Seven to Michael Moore's wry and irreverent Roger & Me, the most lucrative non-music documentary ever made. Outsider Features offers accounts of the genesis of each film, complete synopses and critical analyses, and biographies of each filmmaker.

This is the first book to examine the various uses of the Arthurian legend in Hollywood film, covering films from the 1920s to the present. The authors use five representational categories: intertextual collage (or cult film); melodrama, which focuses on the love triangle; conservative propaganda, pervasive during the Cold War; the Hollywood epic; and the postmodern quest, which commonly employs the grail portion of the legend. Arguing that filmmakers rely on the audience's rudimentary familiarity with the legend, the authors show that only certain features of the legend are activated at any particular time. This fascinating study shows us how the legend has been adapted and how through the popular medium of Hollywood films, the Arthurian legend has survived and flourished.

J. K. Rowling achieved astounding commercial success with her series of novels about Harry Potter, the boy-wizard who finds out about his magical powers on the morning of his eleventh birthday. The books' incredible popularity, and the subsequent likelihood that they are among this generation's most formative narratives, call for critical exploration and study to interpret the works' inherent tropes and themes. The essays in this collection assume that Rowling's works should not be relegated to the categories of pulp fiction or children's trends, which would deny their certain influence on the intellectual, emotional, and psychosocial development of today's children. The variety of contributions allows for a range of approaches and interpretive methods in exploring the novels, and reveals the deeper meanings and attitudes towards justice, education, race, foreign cultures, socioeconomic class, and gender.Following an introductory discussion of the Harry Potter phenomenon are essays considering the psychological and social-developmental experiences of children as mirrored in Rowling's novels. Next, the works' literary and historical contexts are examined, including the European fairy tale tradition, the British abolitionist movement, and the public-school story genre. A third section focuses on the social values underlying the Potter series and on issues such as morality, the rule of law, and constructions of bravery.

Contending that a mythology of race consisting of themes of sex and savagery exists in the United States and is perpetuated in popular culture, Frankie Y. Bailey identifies stereotypical images of blacks in crime and detective fiction and probes the implied values and collective fantasies found there. Out of the Woodpile is the first sociohistorical study of the evolution of black detectives and other African American characters in genre fiction. The volume's three divisions reflect the evolution of the status of African Americans in American society.The three chapters of the first section, From Slaves to Servants, begin with a survey of the works of Poe and Twain in antebellum America, then discuss the depiction of blacks and other natives in British crime and detective fiction in the days of the British Empire, and lastly focus on American classics of the pre-World War II period. In Urban Blues, Bailey continues her investigation of black stock characters by zeroing in on the denizens of the Black Metropolis and their Black Rage. Assimilating, the final section, contains chapters that scrutinize The Detectives, Black Lives: Post-War/Post Revolution, and the roles assigned to Black Women. The results of survey questions carried in The Third Degree, the newsletter of the Mystery Writers of America, as well as the views of fourteen crime writers on the creation of black characters in genre fiction are followed by the Directory, which includes a sampling of cases featuring black characters, a list of black detectives, relevant works of fiction, film, television, and more. The volume's informed analyses will be important reading for students and scholars in the fields of popular culture, American popular fiction, genre fiction, crime and detective fiction, and black and ethnic studies. It is also a timely resource for courses dealing with race relations and blacks in American literature or society.

This pioneering study presents an overview of the Mexican comic book industry, together with in-depth studies of the best selling Mexican comic books of the 1960s and 1970s. Most of the popular superhero, adventure, humor, romance, political, detective, and Western comic books are described and analyzed in detail, and then discussed in terms of how they reflect both Mexican and United States cultures. The study concludes with a critical discussion of the media imperialism hypothesis' applicability to the Mexican comic book.The comic book is Mexico's most popular print medium, read by all ages and socio-economic groups. Many may be surprised to learn that, in Mexico, Mexican comic books far outsell U.S. comic books in Spanish translation. The Mexican comic book is not a clone of its U.S. model, but rather a hybrid product that mixes U.S. forms and conventions with Mexican content. This work is a major contribution to the understanding of contemporary Mexican culture.

Fictional depictions of Native American concepts of justice, crime, and the investigation of crime are explored in this original work. Shaman or Sherlock explores depictions created by Native American authors themselves, as well as those created by outsiders with mainstream agendas. The most successful of these writers fuse authentic Native American culture with standard genre conventions, thus providing an appealing, empathetic view of little-understood or underappreciated groups, as well as insight into issues of cross-cultural communication. Dealing with such significant concepts as acculturation, regional diversity, and assimilation, this unique study evaluates over 200 detective stories.Though the crime novel began in Europe as a manifestation of Enlightenment rationality and scientific methodology, the Native American detective story moves into the realm of the spiritual and intuitive, often incorporating depictions of non-material phenomena. Shaman or Sherlock? explores how geographical and tribal differences, degrees of assimilation, and the evolution of age-old cultural patterns shape the Native American detective story.

John W. Landon, himself a theatre pipe organist, has written the first history of the theatre pipe organ. He traces its development from church organ to a theatrical instrument that took the place of a piano. Landon also discusses the pipe organ's later emergence as a solo instrument, its use in radio broadcasting and phonograph records, and its present uses. The book also includes a history of those companies that built theatre organs and biographical sketches of some of the leading theatre organists. The appendixes list theatre organ installations around the world.

A very exciting collection that explores sport in itself and also as a cultural phenomenon. In unexpected ways, bicycles are linked to modernization in Mexico, baseball takes on socialist overtones in the Yucatan, and the political outlook in Cuba and Nicaragua is explained in terms of their emphasis on sports. This reviewer especially liked Lever's article on Brazil, in which she demonstrates that sport helps complex modern societies cohere. Spanning a time period from the turn of the century to the present, the seven essays offer dramatic insights into Latin American societies; Robert Levine's conclusion presents comparisons with sports in the US. This new entry into the growing field of sport and social analysis is highly recommended for college and university libraries. ChoiceA collection of eight original essays by distinguished scholars, this book examines the role of sports, particularly soccer and baseball, in Latin America from the late 19th century to the present. The first study of its kind, Sport and Society in Latin America vividly demonstrates the ways in which sport can be used to study various historical and social processes and expands our understanding of sport as a major form of social behavior in Latin America. The contributors analyze the relationship of sport to foreign penetration and cultural imitation, urbanization and the rise of mass society, social divisiveness and social integration, class conflict, politics, and nationalism and revolution.

This volume represents a first in its analysis of historical trends in the humor of eight Western countries: Australia, Belgium, France, Great Britain, Israel, Italy, the United States, and Yugoslavia. In each country, the authors surveyed and assessed the national humor in a way designed to facilitate comparative study. Each essay details the historical development of national humor with an emphasis on the twentieth century and contemporary trends. The survey includes traditional and popular forms of humor as well as humor in literature, the performing and visual arts, and the mass media. A bibliography suggesting materials for further study completes each chapter. Not only do the contributors present a vivid picture of traditional forms of humor such as carnivals, popular performances, and special festivities, they also examine historical changes in humor. Each author discusses the functions of humor; and as a whole, the contributors demonstrate that sexual, aggressive, social, intellectual, and defensive humor have developed differently and are appreciated differently.

Filling a void with his critical study of an important American humorist, Steven H. Gale has provided a comprehensive description of S.J. Perelman's prose, plays, and screenplays, along with a biographical portrait which emphasizes his connections to other writers of his time. The work is supplemented by a chronology of events, a bibliographic essay, and a general subject index.

Is the detective novel popular fiction or serious literature? This collection of essays examines the historical, literary, and critical aspects of the genre. Three interrelated aspects of detective fiction are addressed: the mystery story as a vehicle for social criticism, women crime writers, and the American hard-boiled detective story--its origins in cowboy fiction, recent trends, and whether the mean streets still belong exclusively to men. Contributors span the ranks of well-known crime writers, popular critics of detective fiction, and academic scholars. This unusual volume aptly illustrates the nature and attractions of a style of fiction that was once dismissed as merely sensational and is now seen as mainstream.

The success of clown comedy is dependent on the comic or comics who take center stage. These comics are usually identified with a specific comedic shtick, physical or visual humor, and their underdog status. This study by film scholar Wes Gehring presents a brief, historical overview of major figures in the genre, including W. C. Fields, Charlie Chaplin, Bob Hope, and Woody Allen. The comedians discussed are drawn from four genre periods: the silent era, the depression era, the post-World War II period, and the modern era.

Contending that a mythology of race consisting of themes of sex and savagery exists in the United States and is perpetuated in popular culture, Frankie Y. Bailey identifies stereotypical images of blacks in crime and detective fiction and probes the implied values and collective fantasies found there. Out of the Woodpile is the first sociohistorical study of the evolution of black detectives and other African American characters in genre fiction. The volume's three divisions reflect the evolution of the status of African Americans in American society.The three chapters of the first section, From Slaves to Servants, begin with a survey of the works of Poe and Twain in antebellum America, then discuss the depiction of blacks and other natives in British crime and detective fiction in the days of the British Empire, and lastly focus on American classics of the pre-World War II period. In Urban Blues, Bailey continues her investigation of black stock characters by zeroing in on the denizens of the Black Metropolis and their Black Rage. Assimilating, the final section, contains chapters that scrutinize The Detectives, Black Lives: Post-War/Post Revolution, and the roles assigned to Black Women. The results of survey questions carried in The Third Degree, the newsletter of the Mystery Writers of America, as well as the views of fourteen crime writers on the creation of black characters in genre fiction are followed by the Directory, which includes a sampling of cases featuring black characters, a list of black detectives, relevant works of fiction, film, television, and more. The volume's informed analyses will be important reading for students and scholars in the fields of popular culture, American popular fiction, genre fiction, crime and detective fiction, and black and ethnic studies. It is also a timely resource for courses dealing with race relations and blacks in American literature or society.

Popular music may be viewed as primary documents of society, and America's Musical Pulse documents the American experience as recorded in popular sound. Whether jazz, blues, swing, country, or rock, the music, the impulse behind it, and the reaction to it reveal the attitudes of an era or generation. Always a major preoccupation of students, music is often ignored by teaching professionals, who might profitably channel this interest to further understandings of American social history and such diverse fields as sociology, political science, literature, communications, and business as well as music.In this interdisciplinary collection, scholars, educators, and writers from a variety of fields and perspectives relate topics concerning twentieth-century popular music to issues of politics, class, economics, race, gender, and the social context. The focus throughout is to place music in societal perspective and encourage investigation of the complex issues behind the popular tunes, rhythms, and lyrics.

Famous for her classic novel Little Women, and regarded as America's best-loved author of juvenile fiction, Louisa May Alcott is not readily identified with page-turning thrillers and sensational tales. Freaks of Genius, however, presents a collection of previously unknown sensational narratives by Alcott, originally published in the weekly storypapers of the 1860s and never before reprinted. The stories are startling examples of an atypical Alcott, delving into such subjects as violence and insanity, revenge and murder, and narcotics addiction and evil.Included in the collection are six of Alcott's tales of the sensational: A Nurse's Story, The Freak of a Genius, La Jeune, A Laugh and a Look, The Romance of a Bouquet, and Mrs. Vane's Charade. Their themes include the blight of inherited insanity, the power struggle between man and man, the sexual power struggle between man and woman, a Faustian/Mephistophelian pact (later used in A Modern Mephistopheles), the passions of actors and actresses, and feminist triumphs and failures. These skillfully plotted stories are sure to interest the general reader with their narrative excitement, and to fascinate the scholar trying to reconcile their darkness with the sweetness and light tone that has always been associated with Alcott's work. In addition, the book includes the first complete bibliography of Alcott's known thrillers, both anonymous and pseudonymous. For libraries, general readers, and courses such as American literature and feminist studies, Freaks of Genius will be an essential publication.

The films of Pedro Almodovar have demonstrated great crossover appeal in their ability to attract both mainstream and marginal audiences and to command critical as well as commercial success. The contributors to this anthology of critical essays seek, through close readings of the director's 10 feature films, to analyze the multiple contexts of Almodovar's phenomenal international success. This volume offers a corrective to the glib approaches that have dominated previous discussions of Almodovar's films, which have treated them, on the one hand, as simply the latest contribution to the travel poster image of passionate, romantic Spain, or, on the other, as historical joyrides through the global pop culture scene. As the first comprehensive study of Almodovar's cinema to be published in North America, the book is also noteworthy for the range of critical and theoretical methodologies that the contributors bring to the study of his works. Drawing upon disciplines that run from psychoanalysis, feminism, queer theory, film and media studies, and cultural theory to the empirical study of audience response, the authors nevertheless share a concern to illuminate the specifically Spanish context of the director's films. While this volume serves the important function of introducing American audiences to post-Franco Spanish culture, it also pursues the complementary goal of projecting contemporary Spain into the critical debate on the forms and functioning of postmodern culture and society.

Radical Visions discusses an important period in American film history: Films such as Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Midnight Cowboy, Nashville, and Taxi Driver challenged the narrative structure and style of the classical Hollywood paradigm, transformed its conventional genres, exploded traditional American myths, and foregrounded a consciousness of the cinematic process. Film students, scholars, and aficionados will gain insight into generic conventions and narrative style presented within the cultural attitudes of the time.The book features a chronological movement through the period, not by auteur but by film, from Bonnie and Clyde to Taxi Driver. It includes in-depth analyses of 16 films, but discusses other films when relevant. It traces the thematic development of the films as the period progresses from an optimistic radicalism at the beginning, to doubt and shattered dreams, to paranoia and pessimism at the end. It summarizes contemporary reviews and reactions to the films as they came out and gauges the films' interactions with audiences and the society of the time. It also discusses European filmmakers' influences on the films of the period. The book supports and solidifies the view of a Hollywood renaissance during this period, and it more sharply defines and delineates the parameters and characteristics of the period than previous studies.

John Andre was captured in September 1780, outside British lines, and was hanged as a spy. Forty years later, he was still so highly regarded that, in 1821, his body was exhumed and reburied in the Heroes' Corner of Westminster Abbey. This book argues that James Fenimore Cooper's second novel, The Spy, is an examination of the nature and character of clandestinity in which the author investigates the morality of deceit and disguised intentions in normal life as well as in wartime by using the Andre affair as background. A century later, The Spy was undiscovered by British spy novelists. The publication date of The Spy (1821--the year of Andre's reinterment) further suggests that this affair is really the impetus for Cooper's examination of the nature of spying. Cooper is usually acknowledged as the originator of the Western; one of the assertions of this book is that he is also the first spy novelist.

Since the Second World War, Europe has undergone a continual invasion: wave after wave of American popular culture. The diffusion of American culture in Europe is both a European story about America and an American story about Europe. This work examines this cross-cultural phenomenon from the European viewpoint. Nearly two dozen European experts in their respective fields offer an invigorating, engaging, and open-minded examination of America as perceived with the acute insight of the interested European outsider—a fruitful tradition that stretches back to Lafayette, de Tocqueville, and Goethe, to name three. Of interest to scholars, students, and general readers alike.The book's focus is both sensuous and intellectual: how America is seen (The Image); heard (Popular Music); perused (The Written Word); digested (Food); learned from its common ways (Social Customs); perceived by minorities (Ethnic Cultures); and taken as an instrument of change (Americanization). It is the first book of its kind published in the United States. It is rich with selected, up-to-date critical bibliographies in areas for which very little information is otherwise available. In sum: a cogent, cross-cultural analysis of how U.S. popular culture exposes both European dreams of well-being and nightmares of discontent. These are insights which deserve to be savored.

Departing from prior scholarship on T. E. Lawrence, this work examines the extent of Anglo-American cultural interplay and the popular culture machinery involved in the manufacture of the Lawrence of Arabia legend. Although not recognized as such, the Lawrence legend was as much an American product as a British one. American journalist Lowell Thomas first publicized the story through war travelogues given in New York City, which soon found their way to England. The legend was perpetuated by American literary interest in Lawrence and then by a Hollywood film. By the 1960s, the Lawrence of Arabia story had become a small commercial industry.The volume challenges conclusions about the relationship between Lawrence and Lowell Thomas, demonstrating it was much closer than Lawrence biographers have previously thought or were willing to admit. It also illustrates that American involvement in the construction and propagation of the Lawrence legend is greater than believed. The book features several unpublished or rare photographs as well as draws upon previously unpublished manuscript material, business letters, and supporting documents to recreate the origins of the popular legend of Lawrence of Arabia.

In this sequel to Film, Horror, and the Body Fantastic, Badley examines horror fiction as a fantastic genre in which images of the body and the self are articulated and modified. Badley places horror fiction in its cultural context, drawing important connections to theories of gender and sexuality. As our culture places increasing importance on body image, horror fiction has provided a language for imagining the self in new ways—often as ungendered, transformed, or re-generated. Focusing on the works of Stephen King, Clive Barker, and Anne Rice, Badley approaches horror as a discourse that articulates the anxieties of our culture.

Stephen King has been hailed as a writer of the late 20th century Everyman, yet his representations of women remain debatable. These essays not only explore his portrayal of female characters, they illuminate Stephen King's own psychology and that of our culture's fears, anxieties, and feminine obsessions. The various works examined include Carrie, Gerald's Game, Rose Madder, Holloween, Friday the 13th, Dolores Claiborne, It, Christine, and Misery. The essays progress through various discussions of female power versus male authority, the association of female with evil, and King's monster imagery associated with the mother-figure characters. Written by various scholars and professors, these essays offer rare insight into the treatement of the female characters of Stephen King's imagination.The works of Stephen King are as popular as they are contested. Delineated by his precise commentary on the late 20th century culture, and most notably American culture, his horror fiction strikes a more specific, personal note with readers. These essays tap into the feminine aspect of King's social commentary. Concentrating on his treatment of female characters, these essays explore Stephen King's exposure of the fears, anxieties, and obsessions concerning the female and feminine that our culture harbors. The numerous works analyzed in this book provide a comprehensive study of King's treatment of the feminine, and what it implies about our culture and Stephen King.

Senegalese director Ousmane Sembene has often been referred to as a pioneer of the sub-Saharan African cinema. From Borom Sarret (1963) to Guelwaar (1992), Sembene has developed a political and aesthetic project that has deeply influenced the evolution of African filmmaking. This project, with its goal to create a new Africa free of the remnants of colonialist oppression, has subsequently become the objective of emerging generations of African filmmakers. In this book seven scholars explore Sembene's notion of a new Africa by examining the central issues of change, cultural alienation and economic dependence that infuse the director's cinematic and literary works.In this book seven scholars explore Sembene's notion of a new Africa by examining the central issues of change, cultural alienation and economic dependence that infuse the director's cinematic and literary works.

Combining theoretical and practical approaches, this collection of essays explores classic detective fiction from a variety of contemporary viewpoints. Among the diverse perspectives are those which interrogate the way the genre reflects important social and cultural attitudes, contributes to a reader's ability to adapt to the challenges of daily life, and provides alternate takes on the role of the detective as an investigator and arbiter of truth.Part I looks at the nature of and the audience for detective fiction, as well as at the genre as a literary form. This section includes an inquiry into the role of the detective; an application of object-relations psychology to the genre; and analyses of recent literary criticism positing that traditional detective fiction contained the seeds of its own subversion. Part II applies a variety of theoretical positions to Agatha Christie and her heirs in the British ratiocinative tradition. A concluding essay positions the genre within the middle-class traditions of the novel since its inception in the eighteenth century. Of interest to all scholars and students of detective fiction and British popular culture.

Motion pictures were first seen in 1894, when Thomas Edison introduced the Kinetoscope, a device for individually looking at film through a viewer. Over the next three years, Edison manufactured almost 1,000 Kinetoscopes and produced some 250 films to show in them. A million people worldwide first saw motion pictures through these devices.This book describes in detail how Kinetoscopes worked and how they were sold, and describes the parlors to which the public flocked, fascinated by the novelty of moving images. It examines how the machines were copied by others and later eclipsed by the advent of projection. It also indicates where surviving machines can be found in the United States and Europe. The book concludes with an index to Edison's films between 1892 and 1896, and presents titles, filming dates, subject descriptions, and information on the location of surviving copies. Copiously illustrated, the book is a vital research tool for all students of motion picture history.