Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Human Trafficking And Film: How Popular Portrayals Influence Law And Public Perception, Jonathan Todres

Jonathan Todres

No abstract provided.

Commercial Content Moderation: Digital Laborers' Dirty Work, Sarah T. Roberts

Sarah T. Roberts

In this chapter from the forthcoming Intersectional Internet: Race, Sex, Class and Culture Online (Noble and Tynes, Eds., 2016), I introduce both the concept of commercial content moderation (CCM) work and workers, as well as the ways in which this unseen work affects how users experience the Internet of social media and user-generated content (UGC). I tie it to issues of race and gender by describing specific cases of viral videos that transgressed norms and by providing examples from my interviews with CCM workers. The interventions of CCM workers on behalf of the platforms for which they labor directly contradict …

Peak Oil And Transition: The Making Of A Documentary Video, John A. Duvall

John Duvall

Many scientists and academics have raised serious concerns regarding the depletion of fossil fuels—especially the peaking of oil production—and its impact upon society. According to these researchers, oil for transportation and production will soon become expensive and scarce, and known alternative sources of energy will be insufficient to make up the difference within the required time frame. Therefore, world civilization (and the United States in particular) will soon undergo a crisis in energy supply that will have significant impacts on the structure of community life, economic wellbeing, political organization, and individual lifestyles. One response to these threats is to attempt …

Savage Messiah: Ken Russell's Forgotten Masterpiece, John A. Duvall

John Duvall

This paper presents an analysis of Savage Messiah, Ken Russell’s filmic biography of WWI-era artist and sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, evaluating its various aesthetic codes of meaning, and demonstrating how these codes contribute to a unified narrative structure. Particular attention is paid to the phenomenological elements of the cinematic narrative – image composition, art direction, color, motion, editing and sound – in order to reveal the sensuous core of the film as its method of thematic expression. We offer observations on the narrative’s deep structure in terms of symbolic references, on Russell’s visual techniques of characterization, and on how these elements …

Savage Messiah: Ken Russell's Forgotten Masterpiece, John A. Duvall

John Duvall

This paper presents an analysis of Savage Messiah, Ken Russell’s filmic biography of WWI-era artist and sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, evaluating its various aesthetic codes of meaning, and demonstrating how these codes contribute to a unified narrative structure. Particular attention is paid to the phenomenological elements of the cinematic narrative – image composition, art direction, color, motion, editing and sound – in order to reveal the sensuous core of the film as its method of thematic expression. We offer observations on the narrative’s deep structure in terms of symbolic references, on Russell’s visual techniques of characterization, and on how these elements …

From Tawa'if To Wife? Making Sense Of Bollywood's Courtesan Genre, Teresa Hubel

Teresa Hubel

Introduction: Although constituting what might be described as only a thimbleful of water in the ocean that is Hindi cinema, the courtesan or tawa'if film is a distinctive Indian genre, one that has no real equivalent in the Western film industry. With Indian and diaspora audiences generally, it has also enjoyed a broad popularity, its music and dance sequences being among the most valued in Hindi film, their specificities often lovingly remembered and reconstructed by fans. Were you, for example, to start singing "Dil Cheez Kya Hai" or "Yeh Kya Hua" especially to a group of north Indians over the …

Yaari With Angrez: Whiteness For A New Bollywood Hero, Teresa Hubel

Teresa Hubel

This chapter comments on the relative insignificance of whiteness to Hindi film narratives, with white characters turning up, when they do, often as peripheral figures to create the effect of historical accuracy. It argues that in Hindi cinema, whiteness cannot function as it does in the West, where the legacy of imperialism has made it an unmarked category, whose invisibility allows it to function as a norm against which the aberration of racial others may be measured. In Indian films, whiteness is marked; and it is, increasingly, markedly white—to be resisted, or desired, or dismissed.

Nelly's Iconography Of Greece, Katerina Zacharia

Katerina Zacharia

No abstract provided.

Public And Relational Communication Ethics In Political Communication: Integrity, Secrecy, And Dialogue In ‘The Contender’, Jon A. Hess, Joy Piazza

Jonathan A. Hess

There is no denying the omnipresence of media in the twenty-first century. One form of media that is particularly influential is film. Unlike print forms of entertainment, in which age and reading ability dictate accessibility, movies are accessible to virtually everyone. And, regardless of the producer's purpose for making the film, all movies provide an insight into our culture and the individuals who reside within it. Some movies are produced solely for entertainment value, but others seek to convey some type of message or to stimulate thought on the part of the viewer (Good & Dillon 2002; Kupfer 1999; Lipkin …

The Geography Of Reception: Why Do Egyptians Watch Turkish Soap Operas?, Necati Anaz

Necati Anaz

No abstract provided.

The Psychology Of Abandon (Leveller's Press, 2015), Kirby Farrell Prof

kirby farrell

The download is a description of my new paperback, The Psychology of Abandon: Berserk Style in American Culture. The book investigates language and imagery of thinking that throws off inhibitions in pursuit of uncanny resources.

The Decline In Average Weekly Cinema Attendance, 1930-2000, Michelle C. Pautz

Michelle Pautz

Since the beginnings of the motion picture industry, with the one small Edison studio in New Jersey in the early 1900s, America has fallen in love with films. One could argue and debate the reasons, employing everything from sociology to psychology to economics; but one thing is certain: This love affair has changed over the years. This change is perhaps most evident in the decline in the percentage of the United States population that goes to the cinema weekly. One interesting aspect of cinema attendance is that during the Great Depression, which swept the United States in the 1930s, a …

Lawrence Baron. Projecting The Holocaust Into The Present: The Changing Focus Of Contemporary Holocaust Cinema (Book Review), Kathrin M. Bower

Kathrin M. Bower

Projecting the Holocaust is a valuable addition to extant scholarship on Holocaust cinema and offers a refreshingly inclusive and positive take on how feature films contribute to our understanding of history. In contrast to other surveys of Holocaust cinema, Baron includes films that focus on stories of perpetrators, non-Jewish victims, the experiences of the second generation, and neo-Nazi groups. This inclusivity is also evident in Baron's position that the Holocaust is not the property of specific countries or peoples and that its representation speaks to universal concerns about human civilization as well as to particular questions about national identities.

Outing Hybridity: Polymorphism, Identity, And Desire In Monika Trent's Virgin Machine, Kathrin M. Bower

Kathrin M. Bower

Monika Treut's 1988 film, Virgin Machine, offers a playful, self-ironizing look at the construction of sexual identities, utilizing the techniques specific to the filmic medium to create cuts and bridges between concepts, characters, and locations. In its portrayal of the passage and passages of the story's central character, Dorothe Muller, the film takes the viewer on a voyage of self-exploration and self-discovery that moves from one harbor city, Hamburg, and ends in another, San Francisco. The move between harbor cities carries associations of commerce and exchange, arrivals and departures, as well as the potential for import and export of goods …

Poem (Film Review), Kathrin M. Bower

Kathrin M. Bower

POEM is the feature-length debut for Ralf Schmerberg, a self-taught photographer and filmmaker known for his music videos of German bands Die Toten Hosen and Die Fantastischen Vier and his imaginative television commercials. Schmerberg and his collaborator, the writer Antonia Keinz, spent two years reading poetry to determine the final selection of 19 poems for the film project. The concept of creating a film devoted to visual interpretations of poetry was intriguing enough to attract big name actors, including Klaus Maria Brandauer, Meret Becker, Hannelore Elsner, Jürgen Vogel, and Hermann van Veen, as well as camera men who previously had …

,,Wahr Spricht, Wer Scahtten Spricht": Die Angst Vor Der Unbestimmbarkeit In Der Darstellung Des Holocaust, Kathrin M. Bower

Kathrin M. Bower

,,WER MIT den Juden kämpft, kämpft mit dem Teufel": So die Behauptung im Kommentar zu dem Film Juden ohne Maske, welcher vom Gaufilmstellenleiter Walter Böttcher im Auftrag des Reichspropagandaministeriums 1938 zusammengestellt wurde. Dieser Film sollte als Mittel der ,Volksaufkärung' über die Ziele und Beweggründe der nationalsozialistischen Politik fungieren und griff die antisemitische Fahne, die schon in der Münchener Ausstellung ,,Der ewige Jude" 1937 plakativ ausgehängt wurde, zielstrebig auf. Die Einsetzung dieses Filmes nach den Novemberpogromen im Jahr 1938 weist auf eine gezielte Taktik des Propagandaministeriums hin, vollendete Tatsachen nachträglich durch filmische Darstellungen zu rechtfertigen. Da die Nationalsozialisten die Bevölkerung aber …

Pretty Woman: 25 Ans De Mensonges Au Sujet De La Prostitution, Donna M. Hughes Dr.

Donna M. Hughes

No abstract provided.

Revisiting A Struggle: Port Kembla, 1938, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

A review and discussion of the 2015 documentary film 'Pig Iron Bob' (Producer/Director Sandra Pires). The focus of this film is the dramatic 2-month long boycott by Australian waterside workers in Port Kembla (NSW), 1938/39, of a cargo of Australian pig-iron bound for Japan. The workers took their action in protest against Japanese militarism and the Sino-Japanese War. The boycott enraged the conservative Australian government of the day which pulled out all stops to maintain its policy of appeasement towards Japan.

The “Babe” Vegetarians: Bioethics, Animal Minds And Moral Methodology, Nathan Nobis

Nathan M. Nobis, PhD

Here I discuss the role the film “Babe” has played in helping people address these challenges and make this moral progress. It is thought that a significant number of young people (mostly girls, now young women) became vegetarians due to their seeing “Babe.” These people are often called “Babe Vegetarians,” influence by what has been called “The Babe Effect.” Many of their stories are found on the internet.

The Monster Of Wall Street, Michael A. Stanley

Michael A Stanley

The scathing social satire that is Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho uses a unique stream-of consciousness narrative that draws the reader into the text by way of a fascination with the narrator. Patrick Bateman, a wealthy and powerful Wall Street elite who divides his time between giving fashion advice and frequenting New York’s trendiest restaurants and clubs, also happens to be a delusional psychotic and ostensibly a serial killer. Shifting between a narrative that sounds like a schizophrenic’s journal of descent into madness and occasionally addressing the reader directly, Ellis has created a voice for the main character that is …

Relational Maneuvers In Autobiographical Video Art, Matthew Ryan Smith, Ph.D.

Matthew Ryan Smith, Ph.D.

No abstract provided.

El Norte, Matthew A. Holtmeier

Matthew A. Holtmeier

Graffiti Goes To The Movies: American Fictional Films Featuring Graffiti Artists/Writers And Themes, Jeffrey Ian Ross Ph.D.

Jeffrey Ian Ross Ph.D.

Since the early 1980s, in addition to the increase in graffiti and street art in many urban contexts, a number of movies have been made that have either examined this phenomenon and the people who engage in this activity, or used graffiti and street art as a backdrop to tell a story. This article briefly reviews the scholarly literature that examines movies that portray criminals and criminal actions, and then analyzes seven American-produced fictional (drama) films using graffiti writers/artists as major characters and then draws generalizations about them. Although this is not a semiotic analysis of the films, to the …

Sexercising Our Opinion On Porn: A Virtual Discussion, Evangelos Tziallas

Evangelos Tziallas

A variety of pressing questions on the current topics and trends in gay male pornography were sent out to the contributors of this special issue. The answers provided were then collated into a ‘virtual’ discussion. In a brief concluding section, the contributors’ answers are reflected upon holistically in the hopes of shedding light on the changing face of gay male pornography.