Author: James L. Hirsen
Publisher: Crown Forum
ISBN: 1400081939
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 290
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Book Description
In an updated study, a conservative spokesperson and author of Tales from the Left Coast offers an insightful look at how the line between news and entertainment has become blurred, as well as how the situation has allowed the liberal media to present their political views within entertainment product. Reprint. 15,000 first printing.
Author: Robert Burgoyne
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 9780816620715
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 154
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Book Description
Explores contemporary American films that challenge official history. Our movies have started talking back to us, and Film Nation takes a close look at what they have to say. In movies like JFK and Forrest Gump, Robert Burgoyne sees a filmic extension of the debates that exercise us as a nation -- debates about race and culture and national identity, about the nature and makeup of American history. In analyses of five films that challenge the traditional myths of the nation-state -- Glory, Thunderheart, JFK, Born on the Fourth of July, and Forrest Gump -- Burgoyne explores the reshaping of our collective imaginary in relation to our history. These movies, exploring the meaning of "nation" from below, highlight issues of power that underlie the narrative construction of nationhood. Film Nation exposes the fault lines between national myths and the historical experience of people typically excluded from those myths. Throughout, Burgoyne demonstrates that these films, in their formal design, also preserve relics of the imaginary past they contest. Here we see how the "genre memory" of the western, the war film, and the melodrama shapes these films, creating a complex exchange between old concepts of history and the alternative narratives of historical experience that contemporary texts propose. The first book to apply theories of nationalism and national identity to contemporary American films, Film Nation reveals the cinematic rewriting of history now taking place as a powerful attempt to rearticulate the cultural narratives that define America as a nation.
Author: James Hirsen
Publisher: Crown Forum
ISBN: 0307238679
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272
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Book Description
Now entering Hollywood Nation—where fact blurs with fiction, virtue with vice Millions of Americans are outraged by the radical politics of self-appointed celebrity pundits like Michael Moore, Barbra Streisand, Sean Penn, and Susan Sarandon. And actually, these stars’ public pronouncements could be the least of our worries, as New York Times bestselling author and media critic James Hirsen reveals in Hollywood Nation. Now more than ever, Hirsen shows, Hollywood elites are blurring the lines between entertainment and news to force their views onto the rest of the country. With their politically charged films, distorted documentaries, and skewed docudramas, they’re trying to set the agenda with little regard for the truth. Even worse, many so-called journalists are doing the same thing, dangerously mixing information and entertainment in an attempt to ratchet up ratings—and to inject their own views into the news. Hollywood Nation also reveals how the New Media are now leading the counterattack against the relentless liberal assault that comes from East Coast newsrooms and Left Coast studios. Through his extensive research and exclusive interviews with news and entertainment iconoclasts—including Bill O’Reilly, Mel Gibson, Ann Coulter, Dick Morris, Peggy Noonan, Laurie Dhue, and many others—Hirsen shows how liberals can no longer dominate the political and cultural debates. With a sharp eye and a keen wit, Hirsen takes the reader on a fun and fascinating journey through this Hollywood nation of ours. Along the way you’ll discover: •How mainstream media figures’ fame fundamentally distorts the delivery of news •How far news organizations are going in their quest to sex things up—and what celebrity journalists are saying about the plastic surgery push •An exclusive behind-the-scenes account of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ—a fascinating story that captures how the Left is finally losing its stranglehold on information •A cable news journalist spilling the beans about a rival news channel’s commercial stunt •How Michael Moore’s films are heralding a new trend toward over-the-top liberal propaganda—but how a newly emerging conservative Hollywood is fighting back •How the New Media are shaking things up and evening things out These days we’re just one big Hollywood nation. James Hirsen reminds us all that we need to pay attention to the Hollywood influence—not least because we must combat it.
Author: William D. Romanowski
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199942587
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336
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Book Description
Religious Communication Association's Book of the Year Hollywood and Christianity often seem to be at war. Indeed, there is a long list of movies that have attracted religious condemnation, from Gone with the Wind with its notorious "damn," to The Life of Brian and The Last Temptation of Christ. But the reality, writes William Romanowski, has been far more complicated--and remarkable. In Reforming Hollywood, Romanowski, a leading historian of popular culture, explores the long and varied efforts of Protestants to influence the film industry. He shows how a broad spectrum of religious forces have played a role in Hollywood, from Presbyterians and Episcopalians to fundamentalists and evangelicals. Drawing on personal interviews and previously untouched sources, he describes how mainline church leaders lobbied filmmakers to promote the nation's moral health and, perhaps surprisingly, how they have by and large opposed government censorship, preferring instead self-regulation by both the industry and individual conscience. "It is this human choice," noted one Protestant leader, "that is the basis of our religion." Tensions with Catholics, too, have loomed large--many Protestant clergy feared the influence of the Legion of Decency more than Hollywood's corrupting power. Romanowski shows that the rise of the evangelical movement in the 1970s radically altered the picture, in contradictory ways. Even as born-again clergy denounced "Hollywood elites," major studios noted the emergence of a lucrative evangelical market. 20th Century-Fox formed FoxFaith to go after the "Passion dollar," and Disney took on evangelical Philip Anschutz as a partner to bring The Chronicles of Narnia to the big screen. William Romanowski is an award-winning commentator on the intersection of religion and popular culture. Reforming Hollywood is his most revealing, provocative, and groundbreaking work on this vital area of American society.
Author: Jean-Michel Valantin
Publisher: Anthem Press
ISBN: 1843311704
Category : Armed Forces in motion pictures
Languages : en
Pages : 174
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Book Description
A concerned investigation of the curious relationship between Hollywood and the US Department of Defense that exposes some distressing collaborations.
Author: Robert Burgoyne
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781299944794
Category : Historical films
Languages : en
Pages : 254
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Book Description
Events of the past decade have dramatically rewritten the American national narrative, bringing to light an alternate history of nation, marked since the country's origins by competing geopolitical interests, by mobility and migration, and by contending ethnic and racial groups. This book analyses films that give shape to the counternarrative that has emerged since 9/11 - one that challenges the traditional myths of the American nation-state.
Author: Steven J. Ross
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0195181727
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 513
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Book Description
"Ever since the film industry relocated to Hollywood early in the twentieth century, it has had an outsized influence on American politics. Almost immediately, the savviest stars and moguls learned that their ability to attract millions of fans also meant that they could sway public opinion. Through compelling larger-than-life figures in American cinema - Charlie Chaplin, Louis B. Mayer, Edward G. Robinson, George Murphy, Ronald Reagan, Harry Belafonte, Jane Fonda, Charlton Heston, Warren Beatty, and Arnold Schwarzenegger - Hollywood Left and Right reveals how Hollywood's engagement in politics has been longer, deeper, and more varied than most people would imagine. Alternating between stars from the right and the left, Steven J. Ross shows how each gained ascendancy in Tinseltown in different periods. From Chaplin, whose movies almost always displayed his leftist convictions, to Schwarzenegger's nearly seamless transition from action blockbusters to the California governor's mansion, Ross shows how both left and right activism in Hollywood reinforced the defining trends in American politics from the early 1900s to the present. Most significantly, Hollywood Left and Right challenges the commonly held belief that Hollywood has always been a bastion of liberalism. The real story, as Ross demonstrates in this passionate and entertaining work, is far more complicated. Most surprisingly, while the Hollywood left was usually more vocal and visible, the right had a greater impact on American political life, capturing a Senate seat (Murphy), a governorship (Schwarzenegger), and the ultimate achievement, the Presidency (Reagan)."--Jacket.
Author: Delia Malia Caparoso Konzett
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 081358745X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 264
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Book Description
Whether presented as exotic fantasy, a strategic location during World War II, or a site combining postwar leisure with military culture, Hawaii and the South Pacific figure prominently in the U.S. national imagination. Hollywood’s Hawaii is the first full-length study of the film industry’s intense engagement with the Pacific region from 1898 to the present. Delia Malia Caparoso Konzett highlights films that mirror the cultural and political climate of the country over more than a century—from the era of U.S. imperialism on through Jim Crow racial segregation, the attack on Pearl Harbor and WWII, the civil rights movement, the contemporary articulation of consumer and leisure culture, as well as the buildup of the modern military industrial complex. Focusing on important cultural questions pertaining to race, nationhood, and war, Konzett offers a unique view of Hollywood film history produced about the national periphery for mainland U.S. audiences. Hollywood’s Hawaii presents a history of cinema that examines Hawaii and the Pacific and its representations in film in the context of colonialism, war, Orientalism, occupation, military buildup, and entertainment.
Author: Wendy Su
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813167094
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 240
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Book Description
In recent years, the film industry in the People's Republic of China has found itself among the top three most prolific in the world. When the Chinese government introduced a new revenue-sharing system in 1994, the nation's total movie output skyrocketed with gross box-office receipts totaling billions of yuan. This newfound success, however, has been built on an alternately competitive and collaborative relationship between the ascendant global power of China and the popular culture juggernaut of America. In China's Encounter with Global Hollywood, Wendy Su examines the intertwining relationships among the Chinese state, global Hollywood, and the Chinese film industry while analyzing the causes and consequences of the rapid growth of the nation's domestic film production. She demonstrates how the Chinese state has consolidated power by negotiating foreign interest in the lucrative Chinese market while advancing its cultural industries. Su also reveals how mainland Chinese and Hong Kong filmmakers have navigated the often-incompatible requirements of marketization and state censorship. This timely analysis demonstrates how China has cannily used global capital to modernize its own film industry and now stands poised to step clear of Hollywood's shadow. The country's debates -- on- and offscreen -- over cultural change, market-based economic reforms, and artistic freedom illuminate China's ongoing efforts to build a modern national identity.
Author: John Sayles
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781560256328
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 256
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Book Description
A collection of short stories by the American filmmaker that explores life on the edge of poverty and fame.
