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This book offers a range of accounts of the state of "European
Cinema" in a specific sociopolitical era: that of the global
economic crisis that began in 2008 and the more recent refugee and
humanitarian crisis. With the recession having become a popular
theme of economic, demographic, and sociological research in recent
years, this volume examines representations of the crisis and its
attendant market instability and mistrust of neoliberal political
systems in film. It thus sheds light on the mediation,
reimagination, and reformulation of recent history in the depiction
of personal, cultural, and political memories, and raises new
questions about crisis narratives in European film, asking whether
the theoretical notion of "national" cinema is less or more
powerful during moments of sociopolitical turbulence, and
investigating the kinds of cultural representations and themes that
characterize the narratives of European documentary and fictional
films from both small and large national markets.
This book offers a range of accounts of the state of "European
Cinema" in a specific sociopolitical era: that of the global
economic crisis that began in 2008 and the more recent refugee and
humanitarian crisis. With the recession having become a popular
theme of economic, demographic, and sociological research in recent
years, this volume examines representations of the crisis and its
attendant market instability and mistrust of neoliberal political
systems in film. It thus sheds light on the mediation,
reimagination, and reformulation of recent history in the depiction
of personal, cultural, and political memories, and raises new
questions about crisis narratives in European film, asking whether
the theoretical notion of "national" cinema is less or more
powerful during moments of sociopolitical turbulence, and
investigating the kinds of cultural representations and themes that
characterize the narratives of European documentary and fictional
films from both small and large national markets.
Easy A (2010) is the last significant box-office success in the
high-school teen movie subgenre and a film that has already been
deemed a 'classic' by many cultural commentators and popular film
critics. By applying interdisciplinary insight to a relatively
overlooked movie in academic discussion, Easy A: The End of the
High-School Teen Comedy? is the first in-depth volume that places
the movie within several key contexts and concepts of
intertextuality, gender, genre and adaptation, and social
discourse. Through the unpacking of a complex narrative that draws
its plot from Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter (1850) and
shares affinities with John Hughes' paradigmatic films from the
1980s and key films from the 1990s, this volume presents Easy A as
a palimpsest for the millennial generation. Clear and
comprehensive, the book argues that Easy A marks the end of the
commercially successful high-school teen comedy and discusses the
reasons through a comparative synchronic and semi-diachronic
historical comparison of the film with contemporary cinematic texts
and those of the 1980s and 1990s.
The romantic comedy has long been regarded as an inferior film
genre by critics and scholars alike, accused of maintaining a
strict narrative formula which is considered superficial and highly
predictable. However, the genre has resisted the negative scholarly
and critical comments and for the last three decades the steady
increase in the numbers of romantic comedies position the genre
among the most popular ones in the globally dominant Hollywood film
industry. The enduring power of the new millennium romantic comedy,
proves that therein lies something deeper and worth investigating.
This new work draws together a discussion of the full range of
romantic comedies in the new millennium, exploring the cycles of
films that tackle areas including teen romance, the new career
woman, women as action heroes, motherhood and pregnancy and the
mature millennium woman. The work evaluates the structure of these
different types of films and examines in detail the ways in which
they choose to frame key contemporary issues which influence how we
analyse global politics, including gender, class, race and society.
Providing a rich understanding of the complexities and potential of
the genre for understanding contemporary society, this work will be
of interest to students and scholars of cultural & film
studies, gender & politics and world politics in general.
Bringing together well-established scholars of media, political
science, sociology, and film to investigate the representation of
Washington politics on U.S. television from the mid-2000s to the
present, this volume offers stimulating perspectives on the status
of representations of contemporary US politics, the role of
government and the machinations and intrigue often associated with
politicians and governmental institutions. The authors help to
locate these representations both in the context of the history of
earlier television shows that portrayed the political culture of
Washington as well as within the current political culture
transpiring both inside and outside of "The Beltway." With close
attention to issues of gender, race and class and offering studies
from contemporary quality television, including popular programmes
such as The West Wing, Veep, House of Cards, The Americans, The
Good Wife and Scandal, the authors examine the ways in which
televisual representations reveal changing attitudes towards
Washington culture, shedding light on the role of the media in
framing the public's changing perception of politics and
politicians. Exploring the new era in which television finds
itself, with new production practices and the possible emergence of
a new 'political genre' emerging, Politics and Politicians in
Contemporary U.S. Television also considers the 'humanizing' of
political characters on television, asking what that representation
of politicians as human beings says about the national political
culture. A fascinating study that sits at the intersection of
politics and television, this book will appeal to scholars of
popular culture, sociology, cultural and media studies.
Bringing together well-established scholars of media, political
science, sociology, and film to investigate the representation of
Washington politics on U.S. television from the mid-2000s to the
present, this volume offers stimulating perspectives on the status
of representations of contemporary US politics, the role of
government and the machinations and intrigue often associated with
politicians and governmental institutions. The authors help to
locate these representations both in the context of the history of
earlier television shows that portrayed the political culture of
Washington as well as within the current political culture
transpiring both inside and outside of "The Beltway." With close
attention to issues of gender, race and class and offering studies
from contemporary quality television, including popular programmes
such as The West Wing, Veep, House of Cards, The Americans, The
Good Wife and Scandal, the authors examine the ways in which
televisual representations reveal changing attitudes towards
Washington culture, shedding light on the role of the media in
framing the public's changing perception of politics and
politicians. Exploring the new era in which television finds
itself, with new production practices and the possible emergence of
a new 'political genre' emerging, Politics and Politicians in
Contemporary U.S. Television also considers the 'humanizing' of
political characters on television, asking what that representation
of politicians as human beings says about the national political
culture. A fascinating study that sits at the intersection of
politics and television, this book will appeal to scholars of
popular culture, sociology, cultural and media studies.
The romantic comedy has long been regarded as an inferior film
genre by critics and scholars alike, accused of maintaining a
strict narrative formula which is considered superficial and highly
predictable. However, the genre has resisted the negative scholarly
and critical comments and for the last three decades the steady
increase in the numbers of romantic comedies position the genre
among the most popular ones in the globally dominant Hollywood film
industry. The enduring power of the new millennium romantic comedy,
proves that therein lies something deeper and worth investigating.
This new work draws together a discussion of the full range of
romantic comedies in the new millennium, exploring the cycles of
films that tackle areas including teen romance, the new career
woman, women as action heroes, motherhood and pregnancy and the
mature millennium woman. The work evaluates the structure of these
different types of films and examines in detail the ways in which
they choose to frame key contemporary issues which influence how we
analyse global politics, including gender, class, race and society.
Providing a rich understanding of the complexities and potential of
the genre for understanding contemporary society, this work will be
of interest to students and scholars of cultural & film
studies, gender & politics and world politics in general.
Easy A (2010) is the last significant box-office success in the
high-school teen movie subgenre and a film that has already been
deemed a 'classic' by many cultural commentators and popular film
critics. By applying interdisciplinary insight to a relatively
overlooked movie in academic discussion, Easy A: The End of the
High-School Teen Comedy? is the first in-depth volume that places
the movie within several key contexts and concepts of
intertextuality, gender, genre and adaptation, and social
discourse. Through the unpacking of a complex narrative that draws
its plot from Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter (1850) and
shares affinities with John Hughes' paradigmatic films from the
1980s and key films from the 1990s, this volume presents Easy A as
a palimpsest for the millennial generation. Clear and
comprehensive, the book argues that Easy A marks the end of the
commercially successful high-school teen comedy and discusses the
reasons through a comparative synchronic and semi-diachronic
historical comparison of the film with contemporary cinematic texts
and those of the 1980s and 1990s.
In defiance of the alleged "death of romantic comedy," After
"Happily Ever After": Romantic Comedy in the Post-Romantic Age
edited by Maria San Filippo attests to rom-com's continuing
vitality in new modes and forms that reimagine and rejuvenate the
genre in ideologically, artistically, and commercially innovative
ways. No longer the idyllic fairy tale, today's romantic comedies
ponder the realities and complexities of intimacy, fortifying the
genre's gift for imagining human connection through love and
laughter. It has often been observed that the rom-com's "happily
ever after" trope enables the genre to avoid addressing the
challenges of coupled life. This volume's contributors confront how
recent rom-coms contend with a "post-romantic age" of romantic
disillusionment and seismically shifting emotional and relational
bonds. Fifteen chapters contemplate the resurgence of the "radical
romantic comedy" and uncoupling comedy, new approaches in genre
hybridity and serial narrative, and how recent rom-coms deal with
divisive topical issues and contemporary sexual mores from
reproductive politics and marriage equality to hook-up culture and
technology-enabled sex. Rom-coms remain underappreciated and
underexamined-and still largely defined within Hollywood's
parameters of culturally normative coupling and its persistent
marginalization of racial and sexual minorities. Making the case
for taking romantic comedy seriously, this volume employs critical
perspectives drawn from feminist, queer, postcolonial, and race
studies to critique the genre's homogeneity and social and sexual
conservatism, recognizing innovative works inclusive of LGBTQ
people, people of color, and the differently aged and abled.
Encompassing a rich range of screen media from the last decade,
After "Happily Ever After" celebrates works that disrupt and
subvert rom-com fantasy and formula so as to open audience's eyes
along with our hearts. This volume is intended for all readers with
an interest in film, media, and gender studies.
In New Approaches to Contemporary Adaptation, editor Betty
Kaklamanidou defiantly claims that "all films are adaptations". The
wide-ranging chapters included in this book highlight the growing
and evolving relevance of the field of adaptation studies and its
many branding subfields. Armed with a wealth of methodologies,
theoretical concepts, and sophisticated paradigms of case-studies
analyses of the past, these scholars expand the field to new and
exciting realms. With chapters on data, television, music,
visuality, and transnationalism, this anthology aims to complement
the literature of the field by asking answers to outstanding
questions while proposing new ones: Whose stories have been adapted
in the last few decades? Are films that are based on "true
stories""simply adaptations of those real events? How do
transnational adaptations differ from adaptations that target the
same national audiences as the texts they adapt? What do
long-running TV shows actually adapt when their source is a single
book or novel? To attempt to answer these questions, New Approaches
to Contemporary Adaptation is organized in three parts. Part 1,
"External Influences on Adaptation", delves into matters
surrounding film adaptations without primarily focusing on textual
analysis of the final cinematic product. Part 2, "Millennial TV and
Franchise Adaptations", demonstrates that the contemporary
television landscape has become fruitful terrain for adaptation
studies. Part 3, "ElasTEXTity and Adaptation", explores different
thematic approaches to adaptation studies and how adaptation
extends beyond traditional media. Spanning media and the globe,
contributors complement their research with tools from sociology,
psychoanalysis, gender studies, race studies, translation studies,
and political science. Kaklamanidou makes it clear that adaptation
is vital to sharing important stories and mythologies, as well as
passing knowledge to new generations. The aim of this anthology is
to open up the field of adaptation studies by revisiting the object
of analysis and proposing alternative ways of looking at it.
Scholars of cultural, gender, film, literary, and adaptation
studies will find this collection innovative and thought-provoking.
In defiance of the alleged "death of romantic comedy," After
"Happily Ever After": Romantic Comedy in the Post-Romantic Age
edited by Maria San Filippo attests to rom-com's continuing
vitality in new modes and forms that reimagine and rejuvenate the
genre in ideologically, artistically, and commercially innovative
ways. No longer the idyllic fairy tale, today's romantic comedies
ponder the realities and complexities of intimacy, fortifying the
genre's gift for imagining human connection through love and
laughter. It has often been observed that the rom-com's "happily
ever after" trope enables the genre to avoid addressing the
challenges of coupled life. This volume's contributors confront how
recent rom-coms contend with a "post-romantic age" of romantic
disillusionment and seismically shifting emotional and relational
bonds. Fifteen chapters contemplate the resurgence of the "radical
romantic comedy" and uncoupling comedy, new approaches in genre
hybridity and serial narrative, and how recent rom-coms deal with
divisive topical issues and contemporary sexual mores from
reproductive politics and marriage equality to hook-up culture and
technology-enabled sex. Rom-coms remain underappreciated and
underexamined-and still largely defined within Hollywood's
parameters of culturally normative coupling and its persistent
marginalization of racial and sexual minorities. Making the case
for taking romantic comedy seriously, this volume employs critical
perspectives drawn from feminist, queer, postcolonial, and race
studies to critique the genre's homogeneity and social and sexual
conservatism, recognizing innovative works inclusive of LGBTQ
people, people of color, and the differently aged and abled.
Encompassing a rich range of screen media from the last decade,
After "Happily Ever After" celebrates works that disrupt and
subvert rom-com fantasy and formula so as to open audience's eyes
along with our hearts. This volume is intended for all readers with
an interest in film, media, and gender studies.
In New Approaches to Contemporary Adaptation, editor Betty
Kaklamanidou defiantly claims that "all films are adaptations". The
wide-ranging chapters included in this book highlight the growing
and evolving relevance of the field of adaptation studies and its
many branding subfields. Armed with a wealth of methodologies,
theoretical concepts, and sophisticated paradigms of case-studies
analyses of the past, these scholars expand the field to new and
exciting realms. With chapters on data, television, music,
visuality, and transnationalism, this anthology aims to complement
the literature of the field by asking answers to outstanding
questions while proposing new ones: Whose stories have been adapted
in the last few decades? Are films that are based on "true stories"
simply adaptations of those real events? How do transnational
adaptations differ from adaptations that target the same national
audiences as the texts they adapt? What do long-running TV shows
actually adapt when their source is a single book or novel? To
attempt to answer these questions, New Approaches to Contemporary
Adaptation is organized in three parts. Part 1, "External
Influences on Adaptation", delves into matters surrounding film
adaptations without primarily focusing on textual analysis of the
final cinematic product. Part 2, "Millennial TV and Franchise
Adaptations", demonstrates that the contemporary television
landscape has become fruitful terrain for adaptation studies. Part
3, "ElasTEXTity and Adaptation", explores different thematic
approaches to adaptation studies and how adaptation extends beyond
traditional media. Spanning media and the globe, contributors
complement their research with tools from sociology,
psychoanalysis, gender studies, race studies, translation studies,
and political science. Kaklamanidou makes it clear that adaptation
is vital to sharing important stories and mythologies, as well as
passing knowledge to new generations. The aim of this anthology is
to open up the field of adaptation studies by revisiting the object
of analysis and proposing alternative ways of looking at it.
Scholars of cultural, gender, film, literary, and adaptation
studies will find this collection innovative and thought-provoking.
With strict guidelines on methodology and time frame -- films
produced after September 2001, and a socio-semiotic theoretical
framework -- Betty Kaklamanidou unpacks the problematic terms and
ideas that go along with defining a new genre. Kaklamanidou
considers a different sub-genre per chapter, placing each group of
films in their socio-historical context to reach conclusions about
the production of political films in millennial Hollywood. In
shifting the terms of the debate, The "Disguised" Political Film in
Contemporary Hollywood offers a fresh, new approach to the subject
of the political film. The political film is not a clearly
delineated object but rather an elusive one and resistant to clear
boundaries. So, what is a political film? Can The Hunger Games
(2012) belong to the same category as Lincoln (2012)? Is Jarhead
(2005) a political movie simply because it is set during the Gulf
War but with no reference to the motives of the conflict and/or
American and Arab relations, and thus in the same group of war
films such as The Three Kings (1999), another narrative that
focuses on the same military conflict but includes direct
commentary to governmental and military strategies? Are historical
films by definition political since the majority deals with
significant events and/or people in a specific socio -cultural
landscape?
With strict guidelines on methodology and time frame -- films
produced after September 2001, and a socio-semiotic theoretical
framework -- Betty Kaklamanidou unpacks the problematic terms and
ideas that go along with defining a new genre. Kaklamanidou
considers a different sub-genre per chapter, placing each group of
films in their socio-historical context to reach conclusions about
the production of political films in millennial Hollywood. In
shifting the terms of the debate, The "Disguised" Political Film in
Contemporary Hollywood offers a fresh, new approach to the subject
of the political film. The political film is not a clearly
delineated object but rather an elusive one and resistant to clear
boundaries. So, what is a political film? Can The Hunger Games
(2012) belong to the same category as Lincoln (2012)? Is Jarhead
(2005) a political movie simply because it is set during the Gulf
War but with no reference to the motives of the conflict and/or
American and Arab relations, and thus in the same group of war
films such as The Three Kings (1999), another narrative that
focuses on the same military conflict but includes direct
commentary to governmental and military strategies? Are historical
films by definition political since the majority deals with
significant events and/or people in a specific socio -cultural
landscape?
The millennials, who constitute the largest generation in America's
history, may resist a simple definition; nevertheless, they do
share a number of common traits and also an ever increasing
presence on film and television. This collection of new essays
first situates the millennials within their historical context and
then proceeds to an examination of specific characteristics as
addressed in the television and film narratives created about them,
including their relationship to work, technology, family, religion,
romance and history. Drawing on a multiplicity of theoretical
frameworks, the essays show how these cultural products work at a
number of levels, and through a variety of means, to shape our
understanding of the millennials.
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