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Articles 1 - 7 of 7

Full-Text Articles in American Film Studies

'Tomboy' Is Anachronistic. But The Concept Still Has Something To Teach Us, Lynne Stahl Jun 2019

'Tomboy' Is Anachronistic. But The Concept Still Has Something To Teach Us, Lynne Stahl

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

This article explores the tomboy trope in film and literature and the "taming" that characterizes it, framing both in relation to contemporary debates about gender and sexual identity as well as cultural anxieties around queer, trans, and nonbinary identity. Examining texts from Louisa May Alcott's Little Women to the 1980 film Little Darlings, the article argues that even while the term tomboy may be obsolete, tomboy narratives document processes of rebellion that hold continuing value.


She Would Not Be Silenced: Mae West's Struggle Against Censorship, Charlotte N. Toledo May 2017

She Would Not Be Silenced: Mae West's Struggle Against Censorship, Charlotte N. Toledo

The Downtown Review: An Interdisciplinary Journal Written and Peer-Reviewed by Mandel Honors College Students at Cleveland State University

Mae West, an actress during Hollywood's Golden Age, used her fame on stage, in films, and on the radio to offer social commentary on relationships between men and women in society. Her irreverent style of addressing issues of female sexuality and power certainly caught peoples attention and made them think about these issues in new ways. At the same time, her racy delivery made her a target of stage, film, and radio censorship. She refused to be silenced and continually pushed against restrictions to deliver he message of empowerment in her trademark provocative manner.


Religion And Violence In Jesse James Films, 1972–2010, Travis Warren Cooper Apr 2017

Religion And Violence In Jesse James Films, 1972–2010, Travis Warren Cooper

Journal of Religion & Film

This essay analyzes recent depictions of Jesse James in cinema, examining filmic portrayals of the figure between the years of 1972 and 2010. Working from the intersection of the anthropology of film and religious studies approaches to popular culture, the essay fills significant gaps in the study of James folklore. As no substantial examinations of the religious aspects of the James myths exist, I hone in on the legend’s religiosity as contested in filmic form. Films, including revisionist Westerns, are not unlike oral-history statements recorded and analyzed by anthropologists, folklorists, and ethnographers. Jesse James movies, in other words, have much …


Mccarthyism And The Id: "Forbidden Planet" (1956) As A Veiled Criticism Of Mccarthyism In 1950s America, William Lorenzo Jun 2016

Mccarthyism And The Id: "Forbidden Planet" (1956) As A Veiled Criticism Of Mccarthyism In 1950s America, William Lorenzo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Many American science fiction films of the 1950s served as political allegories commenting on the post-war fears of the nation. One major fear was the fear of communist infiltration: the Red Scare. In films of this era, the enemy walks as one of us. In most of these films, the alien other, the monster from without, takes on a familiar form. But at the height of all these fears comes the fear of the enemy from within, an enemy that winds up destroying us from the inside out, as can be seen in Forbidden Planet (1956). In this film, a …


The Meaning Of The Soldier: In The Year Of The Pig And Hearts And Minds, Laura Browder May 2016

The Meaning Of The Soldier: In The Year Of The Pig And Hearts And Minds, Laura Browder

English Faculty Publications

In the Year of the Pig (1968) and Hearts and Minds (1974)—the first an Academy Award nominee, the second an Academy Award winner—are the two best-known Vietnam War documentaries of their time. They are works that could hardly be more different—one a cool, intellectual take on the origins and then-current state of the war, and the second a highly emotional appeal to end the war. By viewing them together it is possible not only to connect the dots between the contrasting intellectual and filmic traditions from which each emerged, but also to see, through the viewpoints of each film, how …


Racial Etiquette And The (White) Plot Of Passing:(Re) Inscribing" Place" In John Stahl's Imitation Of Life, Adrienne Gosselin Jan 1998

Racial Etiquette And The (White) Plot Of Passing:(Re) Inscribing" Place" In John Stahl's Imitation Of Life, Adrienne Gosselin

English Faculty Publications

Examines the machinations of racial etiquette and ways in which John Stahl's 1934 film `Imitation of Life' enforces the politics of the white plot of passing and place. Passing plot as utilized by American white and black writers of the period; Antimiscegenation film.


A Visit To The Imaginary Landscape Of Harrison, Texas: The Filmed Stories Of Horton Foote, Gary Edgerton Jan 1989

A Visit To The Imaginary Landscape Of Harrison, Texas: The Filmed Stories Of Horton Foote, Gary Edgerton

Scholarship and Professional Work - Communication

Gary Edgerton's contribution to Film Literature Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 1.