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From King Kong to Candyman, the boundary-pushing genre of the horror film has always been a site for provocative explorations of race in American popular culture. In Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films from 1890's to Present, Robin R. Means Coleman traces the history of notable characterizations of blackness in horror cinema, and examines key levels of black participation on screen and behind the camera. She argues that horror offers a representational space for black people to challenge the more negative, or racist, images seen in other media outlets, and to portray greater diversity within the concept of blackness itself. Horror Noire presents a unique social history of blacks in...
Providing new insight into key debates over race and representation in the media, this ethnographic study explores the ways in which African Americans have been depicted in Black situation comedies-from 1950's Beulah to contemporary series like Martin and Living Single.
Written for students studying intercultural communication for the first time, this textbook gives a thorough introduction to inter- and cross-cultural concepts with a focus on practical application and social action. Provides a thorough introduction to inter- and cross-cultural concepts for beginning students with a focus on practical application and social action Defines “communication” broadly using authors from a variety of sub disciplines and incorporating scientific, humanistic, and critical theory Constructs a complex version of culture using examples from around the world that represent a variety of differences, including age, sex, race, religion, and sexual orientation Promotes civic engagement with cues toward individual intercultural effectiveness and giving back to the community in socially relevant ways Weaves pedagogy throughout the text with student-centered examples, text boxes, applications, critical thinking questions, a glossary of key terms, and online resources for students and instructors Online resources for students and instructors available upon publication at www.wiley.com/go/baldwin
Shelton Jackson «Spike» Lee is one of the most culturally influential and provocative film directors of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Bringing together seminal writings - from classic scholarship to new research - this book focuses on this revolutionary film auteur and cultural provocateur to explore contemporary questions around issues of race, politics, sexuality, gender roles, filmmaking, commercialism, celebrity, and the role of media in public discourse. Situating Lee as an important contributor to a variety of American discourses, the book highlights his commitment to exploring issues of relevance to the Black community. His work demands that his audiences take inventory of his and their understandings of the complexities of race relations, the often deleterious influence of media messages, the long term legacy of racism, the liberating effects of sexual freedom, the controversies that arise from colorism, the separatist nature of classism, and the cultural contributions and triumphs of historical figures. This book seeks to stimulate continued debate by examining the complexities in Lee's various sociopolitical claims and their ideological impacts.
Conflict is inherent in virtually every aspect of human relations, from sport to parliamentary democracy, from fashion in the arts to paradigmatic challenges in the sciences, and from economic activity to intimate relationships. Yet, it can become among the most serious social problems humans face when it loses its constructive features and becomes protracted over time with no obvious means of resolution. This book addresses the subject of intractable social conflict from a new vantage point. Here, these types of conflict represent self-organizing phenomena, emerging quite naturally from the ongoing dynamics in human interaction at any scale—from the interpersonal to the international. Usi...
In a collection of essays based on direct interview research, Say it Loud! amplifies the voice of ordinary African-Americans as they respond to media presentations of Black society. Each chapter investigates ways in which African-American identity is constructed, maintained, and represented in mass media and how these portrayals are interpreted within the African-American community. Together the essays cover a vast array of media messages in television, film, music, print and cyberspace. From the Boondocks comic strip, The Cosby Show, and The Color Purple to the music of rap artist DMX and original testimony from a Menace II Society copycat killer, the material included in this volume is examined as context for the African-American struggle to achieve definition, meaning, and power. Say it Loud! offers rare insight into how this struggle is both helped and hindered by the representation of race in our media culture.
Being Mara Brock Akil: Representations of Black Womanhood on Television examines the body of work of Mara Brock Akil, the showrunner who produced Girlfriends, The Game, Being Mary Jane, and Love Is__. The contributions to this volume are theoretically anchored in Patricia Hill Collin’s Black Feminist Thought, with a focus on how Brock Akil’s shows intentionally address Black humanity and specifically provide context for Black women’s lived experiences and empathy for Black womanhood by featuring woman-centered characters with flaws, strength, and complexity. Shauntae Brown White and Kandace L. Harris have compiled a volume that analyzes themes that define Black womanhood and examines audience reception of and social media interaction with Brock Akil’s work.
As portrayals of heroic women gain ground in film, television, and other media, their depictions are breaking free of females as versions of male heroes or simple stereotypes of acutely weak or overly strong women. Although heroines continue to represent the traditional roles of mothers, goddesses, warriors, whores, witches, and priestesses, these women are no longer just damsels in distress or violent warriors. In Heroines of Film and Television: Portrayals in Popular Culture,award-winning authors from a variety of disciplines examine the changing roles of heroic women across time. In this volume, editors Norma Jones, Maja Bajac-Carter, and Bob Batchelor have assembled a collection of essay...
One of the most popular shows to come out of Shondaland, Shonda Rhimes’s production company, is ABC’s political drama Scandal (2012–18)—a series whose tremendous success and marketing savvy led LA Times critic Mary McNamara to hail it as “the show that Twitter built” and Time magazine to name its protagonist as one of the most influential fictional characters of 2013. The series portrays a fictional Washington, DC, and features a diverse group of characters, racially and otherwise, who gather around the show’s antiheroine, Olivia Pope, a powerful crisis manager who happens to have an extramarital affair with the president of the United States. For seven seasons, audiences learn...
An exploration of the history of Black horror films. Delves into the themes, tropes, and traits that have come to characterize Black roles in horror since 1968, a year in which race made national headlines