Framing Monsters

Framing Monsters PDF Author: Joshua David Bellin
Publisher: SIU Press
ISBN: 9780809326242
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Beginning with celebrated classics, the author locates King Kong (1933) within the era of lynching to evince how the film protects whiteness against supposed aggressions of a black predator and reviews The Wizard of Oz (1939) as a product of the Depression's economic anxieties. From there, the study moves to the cult classic animated Sinbad Trilogy (1958-1977) of Ray Harryhausen, films rampant with xenophobic fears of the Middle East as relevant today as when the series was originally produced. Advancing to more recent subjects, the author focuses on the image of the monstrous woman and the threat of reproductive freedom found in Aliens (1986), Jurassic Park (1993), and Species (1995) and on depictions of the mentally ill as dangerous deviants in 12 Monkeys (1996) and The Cell (2000). An investigation into physical freakishness guides his approach to Edward Scissorhands (1990) and Beauty and the Beast (1991).

Framing Monsters

Framing Monsters PDF Author: Joshua David Bellin
Publisher: SIU Press
ISBN: 9780809326242
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 260

Get Book Here

Book Description
Beginning with celebrated classics, the author locates King Kong (1933) within the era of lynching to evince how the film protects whiteness against supposed aggressions of a black predator and reviews The Wizard of Oz (1939) as a product of the Depression's economic anxieties. From there, the study moves to the cult classic animated Sinbad Trilogy (1958-1977) of Ray Harryhausen, films rampant with xenophobic fears of the Middle East as relevant today as when the series was originally produced. Advancing to more recent subjects, the author focuses on the image of the monstrous woman and the threat of reproductive freedom found in Aliens (1986), Jurassic Park (1993), and Species (1995) and on depictions of the mentally ill as dangerous deviants in 12 Monkeys (1996) and The Cell (2000). An investigation into physical freakishness guides his approach to Edward Scissorhands (1990) and Beauty and the Beast (1991).

The Ashgate Encyclopedia of Literary and Cinematic Monsters

The Ashgate Encyclopedia of Literary and Cinematic Monsters PDF Author: Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317044258
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 558

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Book Description
From vampires and demons to ghosts and zombies, interest in monsters in literature, film, and popular culture has never been stronger. This concise Encyclopedia provides scholars and students with a comprehensive and authoritative A-Z of monsters throughout the ages. It is the first major reference book on monsters for the scholarly market. Over 200 entries written by experts in the field are accompanied by an overview introduction by the editor. Generic entries such as 'ghost' and 'vampire' are cross-listed with important specific manifestations of that monster. In addition to monsters appearing in English-language literature and film, the Encyclopedia also includes significant monsters in Spanish, French, Italian, German, Russian, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, African and Middle Eastern traditions. Alphabetically organized, the entries each feature suggestions for further reading. The Ashgate Encyclopedia of Literary and Cinematic Monsters is an invaluable resource for all students and scholars and an essential addition to library reference shelves.

Framing Blackness

Framing Blackness PDF Author: Ed Guerrero
Publisher: Temple University Press
ISBN: 1439904138
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
A challenge to Hollywood's one-dimensional images of African Americans.

Comic Drunks, Crazy Cults, and Lovable Monsters

Comic Drunks, Crazy Cults, and Lovable Monsters PDF Author: David Scott Diffrient
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 081565569X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 378

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Book Description
Contradictory to its core, the sitcom—an ostensibly conservative, tranquilizing genre—has a long track record in the United States of tackling controversial subjects with a fearlessness not often found in other types of programming. But the sitcom also conceals as much as it reveals, masking the rationale for socially deviant or deleterious behavior behind figures of ridicule whose motives are rarely disclosed fully over the course of a thirty-minute episode. Examining a broad range of network and cable TV shows across the history of the medium, from classic, working-class comedies such as The Honeymooners, All in the Family, and Roseanne to several contemporary cult series, animated programs, and online hits that have yet to attract much scholarly attention, this book explores the ways in which social imaginaries related to "bad behavior" have been humorously exploited over the years. The repeated appearance of socially wayward figures on the small screen—from raging alcoholics to brainwashed cult members to actual monsters who are merely exaggerated versions of our own inner demons—has the dual effect of reducing complex individuals to recognizable "types" while neutralizing the presumed threats that they pose. Such representations not only provide strangely comforting reminders that "badness" is a cultural construct, but also prompt audiences to reflect on their own unspoken proclivities for antisocial behavior, if only in passing.

Horrifying Sex

Horrifying Sex PDF Author: Ruth Bienstock Anolik
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786430141
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
The Gothic moment in literary history arose in the age of the Enlightenment, and the Gothic fascination with the unknown reflects the Enlightenment's response to the limits of reason. Traditionally, the emblem of the unknown that lurks in the Gothic is the supernatural, the monstrous, and the inhuman. Often overlooked is the observation that Gothic texts are also haunted by figures that represent the mystery of sexuality. This collection of essays sharpens that observation and asserts that Gothic anxieties about sexuality are likewise rooted in fear of the unknown, represented by sexual practices and desires that either lie hidden or deviate from cultural norms. The first three sections refer to popular as well as marginalized Gothic texts to portray the three prototypes of sexual "deviance": the female sexual Other in "The Fatal Woman"; the male sexual Other in "The Satanic Male"; and the homosexual Other in "Homosexual Horror." The fourth section covers literary works that celebrate sexual difference and question the idea that the sexually "deviant" is socially Other.

Fright Favorites

Fright Favorites PDF Author: David J. Skal
Publisher: Running Press Adult
ISBN: 0762497602
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 539

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Book Description
Turner Classic Movies presents a collection of monster greats, modern and classic horror, and family-friendly cinematic treats that capture the spirit of Halloween, complete with reviews, behind-the-scenes stories, and iconic images. Fright Favorites spotlights 31 essential Halloween-time films, their associated sequels and remakes, and recommendations to expand your seasonal repertoire based on your favorites. Featured titles include Nosferatu (1922), Dracula (1931), Cat People (1942), Them (1953), House on Haunted Hill (1959), Black Sunday (1960), Rosemary's Baby (1968), Young Frankenstein (1976), Beetlejuice (1988), Get Out (2017), and many more.

Speculative Imperialisms

Speculative Imperialisms PDF Author: Susana Loza
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1498507972
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 205

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Book Description
Speculative Imperialisms: Monstrosity and Masquerade in Postracial Times explores the(settler) colonial ideologies underpinning the monstrous imaginings of contemporary popular culture in the Britain and the US. Through a close examination of District 9, Avatar, Doctor Who, Planet of the Apes, and steampunk culture, Susana Loza illuminates the durability of (settler) colonialism and how it operates through two linked yet distinct forms of racial mimicry: monsterization and minstrelsy. Speculative Imperialisms contemplates the fundamental, albeit changing, role that such racial simulations play in a putatively postracial and post-colonial era. It brings together the work on gender masquerade, racial minstrelsy, and postcolonial mimicry and puts it in dialogue with film, media, and cultural studies. This project draws upon the theoretical insights of Stuart Hall, Homi K. Bhabha, Edward Said, Philip Deloria, Michael Rogin, Eric Lott, Charles Mills, Falguni Sheth, Lorenzo Veracini, Adilifu Nama, Isiah Lavender III, Gwendolyn Foster, Marianna Torgovnick, Ann Laura Stoler, Anne McClintock, Eric Greene, Richard Dyer, and Ed Guerrero.

Monster Culture in the 21st Century

Monster Culture in the 21st Century PDF Author: Marina Levina
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 144119326X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
In the past decade, our rapidly changing world faced terrorism, global epidemics, economic and social strife, new communication technologies, immigration, and climate change to name a few. These fears and tensions reflect an evermore-interconnected global environment where increased mobility of people, technologies, and disease have produced great social, political, and economical uncertainty. The essays in this collection examine how monstrosity has been used to manage these rising fears and tensions. Analyzing popular films and televisions shows, such as True Blood, Twilight, Paranormal Activity, District 9, Battlestar Galactica, and Avatar, it argues that monstrous narratives of the past decade have become omnipresent specifically because they represent collective social anxieties over resisting and embracing change in the 21st century. The first comprehensive text that uses monstrosity not just as a metaphor for change, but rather a necessary condition through which change is lived and experienced in the 21st century, this approach introduces a different perspective toward the study of monstrosity in culture.

Working Juju

Working Juju PDF Author: Andrea Shaw Nevins
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820356107
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 183

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Book Description
Working Juju examines how fantastical and unreal modes are deployed in portrayals of the Caribbean in popular and literary culture as well as in the visual arts. The Caribbean has historically been constructed as a region mantled by the fantastic. Andrea Shaw Nevins analyzes such imaginings of the Caribbean and interrogates the freighting of Caribbean-infused spaces with characteristics that register as fantastical. These fantastical traits may be described as magical, supernatural, uncanny, paranormal, mystical, and speculative. The book asks throughout, What are the discursive threads that run through texts featuring the Caribbean fantastic? In Working Juju, Nevins teases out the multilayered and often obscured connections among texts such as the Pirates of the Caribbean film series, planter and historian Edward Long’s History of Jamaica, and Grenadian sci-fi writer Tobias Buckell’s Xenowealth series set in the future Caribbean. Fantastical representations of the region generally occupy one of two spaces. In the first, the Caribbean fantastic facilitates an imagining of the colonial experience and its aftermath as one in which the region and its representatives exercise agency and in which the humanity of the region’s inhabitants is asserted. Alternately, the fantastic is sometimes situated as a signifier of the irrational and uncivilized. The thread that unites portrayals of the fantastic Caribbean in the latter kind of works is that they tend to locate Caribbean belief systems as powerful, even at times inadvertently in contradiction to the text’s ideological posture. Nevins shows how the singular “Caribbean” identity that emerges in these text is at odds with the complex historical narratives of actual Caribbean countries and colonies.

Science Fiction Cinema and 1950s Britain

Science Fiction Cinema and 1950s Britain PDF Author: Matthew Jones
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1501322540
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
For the last sixty years discussion of 1950s science fiction cinema has been dominated by claims that the genre reflected US paranoia about Soviet brainwashing and the nuclear bomb. However, classic films, such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and It Came from Outer Space (1953), and less familiar productions, such as It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958), were regularly exported to countries across the world. The histories of their encounters with foreign audiences have not yet been told. Science Fiction Cinema and 1950s Britain begins this task by recounting the story of 1950s British cinema-goers and the aliens and monsters they watched on the silver screen. Drawing on extensive archival research, Matthew Jones makes an exciting and important intervention by locating American science fiction films alongside their domestic counterparts in their British contexts of release and reception. He offers a radical reassessment of the genre, demonstrating for the first time that in Britain, which was a significant market for and producer of science fiction, these films gave voice to different fears than they did in America. While Americans experienced an economic boom, low immigration and the conferring of statehood on Alaska and Hawaii, Britons worried about economic uncertainty, mass immigration and the dissolution of the Empire. Science Fiction Cinema and 1950s Britain uses these and other differences between the British and American experiences of the 1950s to tell a new history of the decade's science fiction cinema, exploring for the first time the ways in which the genre came to mean something unique to Britons.