In 1997 Ellen DeGeneres made television history when she came out to the American public on her nationally syndicated sitcom. In spite of the controversy stirred by this personal revelation, Ellen DeGeneres has gone on to become on one the most popular personalities in Hollywood. With her own highly rated daily talk show, a lucrative ad campaign with American Express, and a successful turn as Oscar host to her credit, she has become one of America's leading female comedians and won her has place a household name. High profile romances with actresses Anne Heche and fiance Portia de Rossi, have also made a her an unassuming champion for gay and lesbian rights. Ellen Degeneres' monumental success, however, belies a painful childhood and uncertain career beginnings. This comprehensive and intriguing biography explores the life events that shaped the hilarious public figure we know today.

Complete with a chronology of significant events, illustrations, and a bibliography of print and electronic resources, this detailed biography is ideal for general readers looking to learn more about their favorite star or for those seeking information on groundbreaking members of the gay and lesbian community.

Drawing examples from a wide range of African cultures, this ground-breaking book expands the continuing discourse on the aesthetic and cultural significance of cloth, body and dress in Africa and moves beyond contextual analysis to consider the broader application of cloth and dress to art forms in other media. In blending the concerns of Art History and Anthropology, the authors focus on the art patronage systems that stimulate production, consumption, commodification and cultural meaning, and emphasize the overriding importance of cloth to aesthetic and cultural expression in African societies. Through this approach they reveal complex processes that involve a series of actors, including textile artists, commissioning-patrons and consumer-patrons, all of whom shape cloth and dress traditions. These individuals not only influence production, but are a key to understanding the cultural meaning of cloth and dress and, by extension, the body in Africa.

For more than 50 years, television situation comedy has been inspiring laughter while reflecting American culture in unique and often fascinating ways. Between the prefeminist antics of Lucy Ricardo and the postfeminist musings of the women in "Friends," the depiction of females in this genre has evolved as interestingly and surprisingly as the women's movement itself. In Televison Women from Lucy to "Friends," author Lynn Spangler applies a cultural feminist perspective to many shows and characters, discussing the nature of humor, theories of television effects, and various definitions of feminism. Each decade of the half-century is analyzed, with six series highlighted for each period. The author discusses, for each sitcom, the features of its major female characters, including their appearance, work, and education, female friends, relationships with men, and other social issues that have made the situation comedy a powerful lens through which to view 20th-century feminist subjects.

Men in India are attracted to Hindi films partly because of their attraction to depictions of modern lifestyles. Dern DEGREESD'e argues that films help men handle their ambivalence about modernity by rooting their sense of Indianness in women's acceptance of traditional food habits, clothing, and gender subordination. The book is one of the first ethnographic studies of filmgoing and one of the first to focus on mainstream male audiences.

Dern DEGREESD'e considers the effects of films' eroticization of domination and submission on men's sexuality. The study provides ethnographic support for Mulvey's argument that filmgoing prompts men to make women the object of a controlling look. The book shows how films invent new ideologies of male dominance by associating Indianness with limitations on women's movements, and by portraying men as rational and modern, and women as emotional and traditional. One of the first ethnographic studies of filmgoing and one of the first to focus on mainstream male audiences, the book contributes to a rethinking of some key arguments in media studies. While media studies have rightly focused on how films prompt men to gaze at women, this study shows that films simultaneously encourage men to see themselves as the object of controlling looks. Dern DEGREESD'e exposes as one-sided the scholarly emphasis on how Indians value hierarchy and group guidance, asserting that Indian films instead celebrate individualism and love.

This collection of essays brings together the first comprehensive study of TV drama in China. Examining in depth the production, distribution and consumption of TV drama, the international team of experts demonstrate why it remains the pre-eminent media form in China. The examples are diverse, highlighting the complexity of producing narrative content in a rapidly changing political and social environment. Genres examined include the revisionist Qing drama, historical and contemporary domestic dramas, anti-corruption dramas, "pink" dramas, Red Classics, stories from the Diaspora, and sit-coms. In addition to genres, the collection explores industry dynamics: how TV dramas are marketed and consumed on DVD, and China's aspirations to export its television drama rights. The book provides an international and cross-cultural perspective with chapters on Taiwanese TV drama in China, the impact of South Korean drama, and trans-border production between the Mainland and Hong Kong.

A visual celebration of Christmas, from religious beginnings to festive cultural touchstones – a book to treasure This book is a unique and groundbreaking visual celebration of Christmas, a joyous religious and cultural occasion observed by billions of people around the world. The origins of Christmas are in the Christian observance of the birth of Christ on 25 December and, since the early 20th century, it has become a secular holiday with a myriad decorations, rituals, and themes. Key themes covered include advent and the nativity; the Christmas tree and holiday decorations; gift giving and carol singing; classic Christmas films; and festive music. This extraordinary book showcases a broad spectrum of global festive traditions from many different cultures, such as fried chicken eaten for Christmas dinner, surfing Santas, and shoes filled with carrots. A collection of more than 200 rich and evocative images, paintings, books, prints, sculptures, textiles, ceramics, and photography, thoughtfully paired to highlight similarities and contrasts between them, the works included feature a diverse range of both lesser-known and iconic artists, including Sandro Botticelli, Grandma Moses, Beatrix Potter, Norman Rockwell, Andy Warhol, and many more. These significant works cover festive topics such as Advent; the Christmas tree and holiday decorations; gift giving and carol singing; and classic Christmas films and music. Essays by Sam Bilton, Dolph Gotelli and David Trigg explore traditional festive food and drink, Santa Claus throughout history, and the religious origins of Christmas. In The Christmas Book, the significant artistic and cultural influence of Christmas throughout history is explored through a wide range of beautiful and significant artworks and images from across the ages and six continents, creating the ultimate cultural companion to the festive season.

When Life magazine unveiled its list of the one hundred most influential Americans of the 20th century, the selection committee was guided by one question: How would our lives be different if each of the honorees did not live? Not surprisingly, Walt Disney made the list. In addition to a complete biography, Jackson explores Disney's impact on American mass media and popular culture by focusing on animation, live-action film, documentary film, television, books, comic books, magazines, sheet music and recordings, theme parks, business, and the over-all Disney vision. A bibliographic essay examines sources of Disney scholarship, including a listing of resources available at the Walt Disney Archives in Burbank, California. Appendices provide a Disney chronology, Disney film and television credits, Disney's awards, and a listing of theme parks.

Philip K. Dick was one of the most incisive, subversive, and entertaining authors of the last half of the twentieth century, and the increasing levels of respect and interest that his fiction and films have generated since the 1982 release of Blade Runner have made a comprehensive assessment of these films a virtual necessity. Future Imperfect is the only work to examine the cinematic adaptations of Dick's work in their entirety. Not all cinematic adaptations of Dick's work have been equally successful, but they have all at least made a similar effort to capture his evocative, paranoid, and compassionate view of humanity's precarious place in a fallen world--a world where rapidly proliferating technology, stultifying bureaucracy, and widespread political chicanery threaten both our bodies and our minds. Author Jason Vest seeks here to answer the question of how filmmakers as diverse as Ridley Scott, Paul Verhoeven, Steven Spielberg, and Richard Linklater have each, in their turn, expanded, extrapolated, and diverged from Dick's fiction in order to translate Dick's powerful and challenging insights on to the screen in a visual and yet still literary form. Dick's is a singular voice in American literature, and Future Imperfect aims to gauge exactly how well the cinematic adaptations of Dick's work have captured his unique vision of the human future, and how deeply Dick's storytelling abilities have influenced the development of science-fiction films from Blade Runner on. Students and general readers interested in science-fiction literature and film should find this an incredibly valuable work, as should film enthusiasts concerned with the issue of adaptation itself. BLAuthor Jason Vest isan expert in both American literature and the science-fiction genre BLThis marks the first book-length investigation of Dick's influence on the science-fiction genre, and also includes some of the more extended criticism on several seminal science fiction films

This easy-to-use guide explores the relationships between film images and the experience of war, showing how films influence war-time behavior and how wars influence films. This unique reference combines essays on the aesthetic and historical aspects of war films with classifications and discussions of films about different wars, a filmography arranged alphabetically with annotations, a bibliography of books and articles dealing with war films, a general guide for film study, along with separate indices to film titles, filmmakers, and subjects. This is both a research guide and text for serious scholars of military history and American popular culture, and an attractive reader for history buffs and for a general audience.

This eclectic, yet comprehensive analytical overview of the cataclysmic changes in the American film industry since 1990 shows how they have collectively resulted in a new era—The Digital Age. The American film industry has entered a new era. American Film in the Digital Age traces the industrial changes since 1990 that have brought us to this point, namely: the rise of media conglomerates, the proliferation of pornography through peripheral avenues of mainstream media, the role of star actors and directors in distributing and publicizing their own pet projects, the development of digital technology, and the death of truly independent films. Author Robert Sickels draws straight lines from the movies to music, DVDs, video games, fast food, digital-on-demand, and more, to demonstrate how all forms of media are merging into one. He explores the irony that the success of independent films essentially killed independent cinema, showing how it has become almost impossible to get a film released without the imprimatur of one of the big six media companies—Fox, Viacom, TimeWarner, Disney, General Electric, or CBS. In the end, using recent, popular films as examples, he explains not only how we got where we are, but where we're likely headed as well.

This intriguing book explores why spectacular films involving biblical figures or set in biblical times have been a staple of film-making since talkies began. Forshey looks at these films and suggests that the underlying purpose was to mediate between a monistic scientific world view and a dualistic religious world view, and between secular and religious ethics. Forshey discusses how filmic, political, religious, and cultural histories influenced filmmakers of these spectaculars. Chapter 1 differentiates between religious spectaculars and biblical spectaculars. The following chapters discuss early religious films and how the post-war and cold war eras led to a struggle to define the righteous nation. Chapters on biblical spectaculars examine films in which sex and social responsibility was a paramount concern (Samson and Delilah, David and Bathsheba). The 1960s were dominated by films about Jesus and the search for an ethical system for a world undergoing rapid social change. One entire chapter is devoted to Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments, the epitome of the biblical spectacular form, followed by a chapter on John Huston's The Bible as a culmination of the form, and a final chapter on how television rethought spectaculars and how Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ drew the battle lines between humanistic Christians and evangelical Christians. American Religious and Biblical Spectaculars will appeal to scholars of film, religion, and popular culture.

This book examines international radio news coverage of the four superpower summit meetings between Soviets and Americans from 1987 to 1990. It concentrates on the symbolic constructs used by radio services to report about the summits, including their treatments of the two superpowers, their leaders, and their perspectives as recorded in interviews, press conferences and releases, joint communiques, and briefings. The study assesses the degree of success enjoyed by each of the superpowers in directing the nature of international news coverage, particularly the public relations battle between Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan. It also weighs the viability of specific talking points written to direct U.S. summit statements by the National Security Council, and the degree to which news coverage was tainted by propaganda. Finally, it is able to suggest the nature of each service's contribution to diversity in international news flow, and to the ongoing debate about the equality of the international communication and information order.

What makes good art? Learn the tricks of the trade and tackle the techniques from the greatest artists from around the world with this fun activity-sketch book. Create your very own self-portrait like Picasso, collage like Matisse and understand conceptual art with thought-provoking tasks inspired by great artists. Covering everything from collage to pop art, expressionism to surrealism, this essential activity book will let you step into the shoes of the artists and learn how to master their craft. With helpful hints, tips and step-by-steps, Make Art with the Greats will help you to build your creative confidence as you explore the world’s most famous artists throughout history, from the early Renaissance to the present day. Familiarize yourself with the tricks of the trade by tackling a broad range of creative tasks and get to know the artists with a short biography and low-down on their practice. As Jackson Pollock once said, ‘some artists build things with a brush, some with a shovel, some with a pen.’ So, get ready to dabble with different artistic techniques alongside the biggest names in the world . . . and make art with the greats.

There are over fifty Chan films and an additional three Spanish language Chan films. This guide reviews the forty-four extant Chan films. Entries, alphabetically arranged, include a unique annotated cast list, a comparative rating system, production information, analysis and plot synopsis, a performance critique, and a collection of Chan sayings, which vary from film to film. An introduction discusses the history and literary origins of the Chan films and the formulaic devices common to the films.

Film scholars and fans of the Charlie Chan films will appreciate the extensive information each review provides. Each film is given a star rating, and several appendices provide additional information such as the lost films of Charlie Chan, actors who played Chan, and Chan on television.

Soap opera story, the only mass-public form of continuing narrative today, is oral culture for our electronic era. Carol Williams' It's Time for My Story is an examination of soap opera sources, structure, and response, particularly from the critical viewpoints of psychology, both archetypal and empirical, and popular culture, specifically narratology and feminism, that uncover the true nature of the genre. First, Williams traces the development of soap opera from its immediate source in radio and television as well as from its fundamental source in age-old myth and storytelling. Then she analyzes the content and form that together make up the structure of soap opera. Finally, she looks at what soaps mean to watchers and in the process debunks many myths about soap opera (for instance, the myth that soap opera, like all television drama, is merely commercial, produced formulaically by advertisers; Williams argues that soap opera is not only a commercial product but also a popular art form derived from the wellspring of culture and folk story). She also argues that it is a form which has been depreciated because it is historically a woman's medium. Discussions with writers, creators, and fans are included throughout. Recommended to scholars and students of media, drama, popular culture, and women's studies.

George Lukas and other leading filmmakers acknowledge their indebtedness to mythographic scholarship on archetypes. In his new study, author Rodney Farnsworth identifies a pattern of filmmakers' obsessions with archetypical rituals centered on sacrifice and the family in films made between 1977 and 1983, a period of political upheaval on both sides of the Atlantic. Combining a strong historical reading of the films in a sociopolitical context and utilizing Queer Theory as a framework for his arguments, Farnsworth offers a close examination of key films of the period, including works by Stanley Kubrick, Robert Altman, and Francis Ford Coppola, and provides a fascinating and timely glimpse of an important political and cinematic time.

Marking the end of a more liberal era, the late seventies and early eighties witnessed the growth of reactionary conservative movements such as the New Religious Political Right. These were the years that gave birth to movies--from esoteric art-house pictures to blockbusters such as "Star Wars"--that seemed in many cases to be adaptations of primordial mythology, subverting liberal-to-moderate views into reactionary depictions of family life. Although filmmakers had turned to these myths to shape their works, Farnsworth observes, the unstable, volatile nature of the archetypes deconstructed their best social intentions into something rich, strange, and deadly. This thought-provoking work will be of interest to students of social history as well as film studies.

Grotesques, angels, Beast-Man, and the Medusa are among the marvelous cast of characters analyzed in this volume. Originally presented at the 7th International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts held in 1986, these essays are stimulating responses by scholars to a range of creative works by Mark Strand, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Kafka, Tolkein, Henry James, Julio Cortazar, Sherwood Anderson, Ursula Le Guin, I.B. Singer, Joyce, and others. Examining both mainstream and fantasy literature from many nations, the authors zero-in on the myriad shapes of the fantastic and study the world of SF and film. Five sections treat the fantastic from various enlightening perspectives and seven figures illustrate the essays' provocative theses. In Part I, Discovery and Interpretation, five authors sleuth out surprising elements of fantasy in poetry, short fiction, and a neo-Romantic fairy tale. Also in Part I, an inquiry is made of fantasy in the post-modernist movement. The Inexplicable Reality of Part II refers to deaths that are anything but terminal and four essays chronicle fantastic occurrences whose scientific rationale is tenuous at best. The fifth article traces the elusiveness of fantasy in a number of authors and works. Beast-Man, angels, the Medusa, and other Marvelous Beings are the subject of six essays in Part III. In Part IV, Fantasy in Symbiosis with other Forms, six essays consider the combination of fantasy with murder mystery, with taoism, with the symbolism of the tarot, with Freudian dreams, and with other genres. In the final section, From Fantasy to Science Fiction: Critical Considerations, essays address fantasy and Science Fiction in film, present a discussion between 2 critics of science fiction, and view the history and development of the contemporary SF novel. Series Editor Marshall B. Tymn's selected bibliography of criticism on the fantastic supplements the bibliographies that follow each essay and completes this remarkable work: fascinating reading for generalists; a necessity for students and scholars, aestheticians and critics of the fantasy and SF genres in literature, film, and art.