The Persistence of Whiteness investigates the representation and narration of race in contemporary Hollywood cinema. Ideologies of class, ethnicity, gender, nation and sexuality are central concerns as are the growth of the business of filmmaking. Focusing on representations of Black, Asian, Jewish, Latina/o and Native Americans identities, this collection also shows how whiteness is a fact everywhere in contemporary Hollywood cinema, crossing audiences, authors, genres, studios and styles. Bringing together essays from respected film scholars, the collection covers a wide range of important films, including Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, The Color Purple, Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings. Essays also consider genres from the western to blaxploitation and new black cinema; provocative filmmakers such as Melvin Van Peebles and Steven Spielberg and stars including Whoopi Goldberg and Jennifer Lopez. Daniel Bernardi provides an in-depth introduction, comprehensive bibliography and a helpful glossary of terms, thus providing students with an accessible and topical collection on race and ethnicity in contemporary cinema.

Off the Page examines the business and craft of screenwriting in the era of media convergence. Bernardi and Hoxter use the recent history of screenwriting labor coupled with close analysis of the screenwriting para-industry-from "how to write a winning script" books to screenwriting software-to explore the state of screenwriting throughout the US media industries. They address the conglomerate studios making tentpole movies, expanded television, Indiewood, independent animation, microbudget scripting, the video games industry, and online content creation. This book is designed to be used by students and writers who want to understand what studios want and why they want it, but also how scripting is developing in the convergent media, beneath and beyond the Hollywood tent-pole. By addressing specific genres old and new, across a wide range of media, this essential volume sets the standard for anyone in the expanded screenwriting industry and the scholars that study it.

The Persistence of Whiteness investigates the representation and narration of race in contemporary Hollywood cinema. Ideologies of class, ethnicity, gender, nation and sexuality are central concerns as are the growth of the business of filmmaking. Focusing on representations of Black, Asian, Jewish, Latina/o and Native Americans identities, this collection also shows how whiteness is a fact everywhere in contemporary Hollywood cinema, crossing audiences, authors, genres, studios and styles. Bringing together essays from respected film scholars, the collection covers a wide range of important films, including Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, The Color Purple, Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings. Essays also consider genres from the western to blaxploitation and new black cinema; provocative filmmakers such as Melvin Van Peebles and Steven Spielberg and stars including Whoopi Goldberg and Jennifer Lopez. Daniel Bernardi provides an in-depth introduction, comprehensive bibliography and a helpful glossary of terms, thus providing students with an accessible and topical collection on race and ethnicity in contemporary cinema.

Leading scholars address the myriad ways in which America's attitudes about race informed the production of Hollywood films from the 1920s through the 1960s. From the predominantly white star system to segregated mise-en-scenes, Hollywood films reinforced institutionalized racism. The contributors to this volume examine how assumptions about white superiority and colored inferiority and the politics of segregation and assimilation affected Hollywood's classic period. Contributors: Eric Avila, UCLA; Aaron Baker, Arizona State U; Karla Rae Fuller, Columbia College; Andrew Gordon, U of Florida; Allison Graham, U of Memphis; Joanne Hershfield, U of North Carolina; Cindy Hing-Yuk Wond, College of Staten Island, CUNY; Arthur Knight, William and Mary; Sarah Madsen Hardy, Bryn Mawr; Gina Marchetti, U of Maryland; Gary W. McDonogh; Chandra Mukerji, UC, San Diego; Martin F. Norden, U of Massachusetts; Brian O'Neil, U of Southern Mississippi; Roberta E. Pearson, Cardiff U; Marguerite H. Rippy, Marymount U; Nicholas Sammond; Beretta E. Smith-Shomade, U of Arizona; Peter Stanfield, Southampton Institute; Kelly Thomas; Hernan Vera, U of Florida; Karen Wallace, U of Wisconsin, Oshkosh; Thomas E. Wartenberg, Mount Holyoke; Geoffrey M. White, U of Hawai'i; and Jane Yi.

Off the Page examines the business and craft of screenwriting in the era of media convergence. Bernardi and Hoxter use the recent history of screenwriting labor coupled with close analysis of the screenwriting para-industry-from "how to write a winning script" books to screenwriting software-to explore the state of screenwriting throughout the US media industries. They address the conglomerate studios making tentpole movies, expanded television, Indiewood, independent animation, microbudget scripting, the video games industry, and online content creation. This book is designed to be used by students and writers who want to understand what studios want and why they want it, but also how scripting is developing in the convergent media, beneath and beyond the Hollywood tent-pole. By addressing specific genres old and new, across a wide range of media, this essential volume sets the standard for anyone in the expanded screenwriting industry and the scholars that study it.

As studio bosses, directors, and actors, Jews have been heavily involved in film history and vitally involved in all aspects of film production. Yet Jewish characters have been represented onscreen in stereotypical and disturbing ways, while Jews have also helped to produce some of the most troubling stereotypes of people of colour in Hollywood film history. In Hollywood's Chosen People: The Jewish Experience in American Cinema, leading scholars consider the complex relationship between Jews and the film industry, as Jews have helped to construct Hollywood's vision of the American dream and American collective identity and have in turn been shaped by those representations. Editors Daniel Bernardi, Murray Pomerance, and Hava Tirosh-Samuelson introduce the volume with an overview of the history of Jews in American popular culture and the American film industry. Multidisciplinary contributors go on to discuss topics such as early Jewish films and directors, institutionalised anti-Semitism, Jewish identity and gossip culture, and issues of Jewish performance on film. Contributors draw on a diverse sampling of films, from representations of the Holocaust on film to screen comedy; filmmakers and writers, including David Mamet, George Cukor, Sidney Lumet, Edward Sloman, and Steven Spielberg; and stars, like Barbara Streisand, Adam Sandler, and Ben Stiller. The Jewish experience in American cinema reveals much about the degree to which Jews have been integrated into and contribute to the making of American popular film culture. Scholars of Jewish studies, film studies, American history, and American culture as well as anyone interested in film history will find this volume fascinating reading. Contributors: Daniel Bernardi, Vincent Brook, Wheeler Winston Dixon, Lucy Fischer, Lester D. Friedman, Sumiko Higashi, Sarah Kozloff, Peter Kramer, Murray Pomerance, Catherine Portuges, William Rothman, Vivian Sobchack, David Sterritt, Hava Tirosh-Samuelson

As indelible components of the history of the United States, race and racism have permeated nearly all aspects of life: cultural, economic, political, and social. In this anthology on race in early cinema, 14 scholars examine the origins, dynamics, and ramifications of racism and Eurocentrism and the resistance to both during the early years of American motion pictures. Any discussion of racial themes and practices in any arena inevitably begins with the definition of race. Is race an innate and biologically determined ""essence"" or is it a culturally constructed category? Is the question irrelevant? Perhaps race exists as an ever-changing historical and social formation that, regardless of any standard definition, involves exploitation, degradation, and struggle. In his introduction, Daniel Bernardi writes that ""early cinema has been a clear partner in the hegemonic struggle over the meaning of race"" and that it was steadfastly aligned with a Eurocentric world view at the expense of those who didn't count as white. The contributors to this work tackle these problems and address such subjects as biological determinism, miscegenation, Manifest Destiny, assimilation, and nativism and their impact on early cinema. Analyses of ""The Birth of a Nation"", ""Romona"", ""Nanook of the North"", and ""Madame Butterfly"" and the directorial styles of D.W. Griffith, Oscar Micheaux, and Edwin Porter are included in the volume.