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In this volume, contributors explore the deep ideological polarization in US society as portrayed in horror narratives and tropes. By navigating this polarized society in their representation of social values, twenty[1]first-century horror films critically frame and engage conflicting and divisive ideological issues. Culture Wars and Horror Movies: Social Fears and Ideology in Post-2010 Horror Cinema analyses the ways in which these “culture wars” make their way into and through contemporary horror films, focusing on the post-2010 US context and its fundamental political divisions.
Navigating a polarized society in their representation of social values, twenty-first-century horror films critically frame conflicting and divisive ideological issues. Culture Wars and Horror Movies: Gender Debates in post-2010 US Horror Cinema analyses the ways in which these “culture wars” make their way into gender, focusing on the post-2010 US context and its fundamental political divisions. Approaching these topics from feminist and postfeminist theories to ecocritical views, this volume explores how contemporary horror movies engage with the current context of “culture wars.”
Entertainment has long been a source of controversy in American life. On the one hand, American popular culture is enormously desired, captivating audiences around the world. On the other hand, more and more critics blame it for the breakdown of morals and even civilizations itself. Surely Christians and other religious citizens have something to contribute to what is, after all, a discussion of morality. But too often their contributions have been ill-informed, unreflective and reactionary. In this groudbreaking book, William Romanowski brings something desperately needed to the discussion: an informed, systematic and challenging Christian perspective. Comprehensive and historically revealing, Pop Culture Wars bids to accomplish nothing less than to reframe and render more constructive a crucial but angry cultural debate.
Essay from the year 2012 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: A, University of Malta, language: English, abstract: Horror genre has its origins in the gothic 19th century novels like Marry Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) or John Polidori’s The Vampire (1819). Even though horror movie is a typical European genre, it has a long history in American cinema dating back to 1915 silent movie Les Vampires by Freuillade and to one of the first sound movies from 1931, Tod Browning’s famous Dracula. Horror movies may be put into three categories: ones that contain the supernatural elements, in which vampires, ghosts, witchcraft appears; psychological horror, which relies on characters’ fears, their guilt or beliefs; and massacre movies, with scenes of slaughter, brutality and rough treatment (Cinema Studies 184). Although horror movies, as an element of mass culture, may be perceived as simplistic, predictable, lacking depth and simply being an unworthy for analysis, there is a great deal of films that in its content reflect the contemporary problems that occurred in the American society. While many critics consider horror genre as a “low culture,” one must not fail to notice that its significance is enormous. One can sense an inextricable link between film and social concerns, since the role of the film is to project certain fears and concerns of contemporary society as well as to help people to resolve them. As Prawer observed: "If the terror film is thus connected to our social concerns, it also, paradoxically, helps us to cope with our ordinary life by jolting us out of it" (60). A popular opinion has it that the popularity of horror movies increases along with the disturbance experienced by the society. Since the 20th century is perceived as the era of the constant social upheaval, the history of the horror movie equals the history of the anxiety (Wells 3); hence, the time the cultural chaos erupts, the audience turns to horror movies as a means that liberates them from their anxiety. As Phillips asserts, “anxiety tends to promote a sense of helplessness; fear, on the other hand, provides an impetus for change” (9). Thus, the fear evoked by the slasher film, one is forced to invent new ways of coping with his or her difficulties, since a typical way of thinking will occur not only problematic but also troublesome.
Examining how horror and science fiction films from the 1950s to the present invent and explore fictional “us-versus-them” scenarios, this book analyzes the different ways such films employ allegory and/or satire to interrogate the causes and consequences of increasing polarization in American politics and society. Starting with the killer ants film with an anti-communist subtext Them! (1954) and concluding with Jordan Peele’s social horror film with revenge-seeking homicidal doppelgängers Us (2019), Martin Harris highlights social and political contexts, contemporary reviews and responses, and retrospective evaluations to show how American horror and science fiction films reflect and respond to contemporary conflicts marking various periods in U.S. history from post-WWII to the present, including those concerning race, gender, class, faith, political ideology, national identity, and other elements of American society. Horror and Science Fiction Cinema and Society draws upon cinematic sociology to provide a resourceful approach to American horror and science fiction films that integrates discussion of plot construction and character development with analyses of the thematic uses of conflict, guiding readers’ understanding of how filmmakers create otherworldly confrontations to deliver real-world social and political commentary.
Mass Culture and Everyday Life is a collection of lively work from the small but seminal journal Tabloid. The book offers a clarification of the study of mass culture as it transforms daily life, providing a detailed survey of a wide range of the mass culture phenomena that have defined our everyday lives in recent years: from Hillary's hairdo to tampons, exercise fads and fashion trends; from soaps to opera to rythmn and blues; from horror movies to the interrelation of cats, pigs and mothers in Babe. This volume includes ground-breaking essays on: the boom of talk radio and talk TV; shopping as cinematic spectacle; and how "everyday life" in the university community has become a key battleground in America's "culture wars." The direct, accessible, and refreshingly personal work speak not only to an academic audience but to a wide general readership.
The contributors to this volume explore the themes of fear, cultural anxiety, and transformation as expressed in remade horror, science fiction, and fantasy films. While opening on a note that emphasizes the compulsion of filmmakers to revisit issues concerning fear and anxiety, this collection ends with a suggestion that repeated confrontation with these issues allows the opportunity for creative and positive transformation.
Cult Cinema: an Introduction presents the first in-depth academic examination of all aspects of the field of cult cinema, including audiences, genres, and theoretical perspectives. Represents the first exhaustive introduction to cult cinema Offers a scholarly treatment of a hotly contested topic at the center of current academic debate Covers audience reactions, aesthetics, genres, theories of cult cinema, as well as historical insights into the topic