Author : Eric Greene
Publisher : Wesleyan University Press
Page : 292 pages
File Size : 18,5 MB
Release : 1998
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9780819563293
Compelling case study considers Planet of the Apes films as racial allegory.
Author : Eric Greene
Publisher : McFarland
Page : 263 pages
File Size : 15,71 MB
Release : 2024-05-15
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 1476608288
How do political conflicts shape popular culture? This book explores that question by analyzing how the Planet of the Apes films functioned both as entertaining adventures and as apocalyptic political commentary. Informative and thought provoking, the book demonstrates how this enormously popular series of secular myths used images of racial and ecological crisis to respond to events like the Cold War, the race riots of the 1960s, the Civil Rights movement, the Black Power movement, and the Vietnam War. The work utilizes interviews with key filmmakers and close readings of the five Apes films and two television series to trace the development of the series' theme of racial conflict in the context of the shifting ideologies of race during the sixties and seventies. The book also observes that today, amid growing concerns over race relations, the resurgent popularity of Apes and Twentieth Century--Fox's upcoming film may again make Planet of the Apes a pop culture phenomenon that asks who we are and where we are going. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.
Author : Amy J. Ransom
Publisher : McFarland
Page : 232 pages
File Size : 31,53 MB
Release : 2018-07-10
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 1476632677
Richard Matheson's 1954 novel I Am Legend has spawned a series of iconic horror and science fiction films, including The Last Man on Earth (1964), The Omega Man (1971) and I Am Legend (2007). The compelling narrative of the last man on earth, struggling to survive a pandemic that has transformed the rest of humanity into monsters, has become an American myth. While the core story remains intact, filmmakers have transformed the details over time, reflecting changing attitudes about race and masculinity. This reexamination of Matheson's novel situates the tale of one man's conflicted attitude about killing racialized "others" within its original post-World War II context, engaging the question of post-traumatic stress disorder. The author analyzes the several film adaptations, with a focus on the casting and interpretations of protagonist Robert Neville.
Author : John Perlich
Publisher : McFarland
Page : 213 pages
File Size : 41,93 MB
Release : 2010-03-08
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0786455926
Contemporary myths, particularly science fiction and fantasy texts, can provide commentary on who we are as a culture, what we have created, and where we are going. These nine essays from a variety of disciplines expand upon the writings of Joseph Campbell and the hero's journey. Modern examples of myths from various sources such as Planet of the Apes, Wicked, Pan's Labyrinth, and Spirited Away; the Harry Potter series; and Second Life are analyzed as creative mythology and a representation of contemporary culture and emerging technology.
Author : Joe Russo
Publisher : Macmillan
Page : 316 pages
File Size : 25,57 MB
Release : 2001-08-11
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9780312252397
For the first time ever, the complete, provocative history behind the motion picture series that began a new tradition in science fiction film sagas. Planet of the Apes Revisited is the colorful, factual account of the science fiction milestone Planet of the Apes and the series of movies and TV shows it inspired. Through exclusive interviews with cast and crew and access to the personal archives of Arthur P. Jacobs, the producer and originator of the first film and all its spin-offs, Joe Russo and Larry Landsman present a fascinating, in-depth look at the entire Apes canon, featuring: Rare, behind-the-scenes photographs Deails on special effects and makeup Story and screenplay developments On-the-set changes and post-production edits Behind-the-scenes anecdotes A chapter on Tim Burton's "reimagining" of the classic Planet of the Apes The book also serves as an invaluable reference volume on Hollywood filmmaking and the many personalities who are part of the legend and lore of this outstanding adventure series. The most comprehensive guide available, Planet of the Apes Revisited vividly re-creates the history, the sticky studio politics, and the fascinating creative process that resulted in this unprecedented science fiction phenomenon.
Author : Daniel Bernardi
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 1149 pages
File Size : 11,31 MB
Release : 2017-07-07
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN :
This expansive three-volume set investigates racial representation in film, providing an authoritative cross-section of the most racially significant films, actors, directors, and movements in American cinematic history. Hollywood has always reflected current American cultural norms and ideas. As such, film provides a window into attitudes about race and ethnicity over the last century. This comprehensive set provides information on hundreds of films chosen based on scholarly consensus of their importance regarding the subject, examining aspects of race and ethnicity in American film through the historical context, themes, and people involved. This three-volume set highlights the most important films and artists of the era, identifying films, actors, or characterizations that were considered racist, were tremendously popular or hugely influential, attempted to be progressive, or some combination thereof. Readers will not only learn basic information about each subject but also be able to contextualize it culturally, historically, and in terms of its reception to understand what average moviegoers thought about the subject at the time of its popularity—and grasp how the subject is perceived now through the lens of history.
Author : Rich Handley
Publisher : Hasslein Books
Page : 324 pages
File Size : 48,56 MB
Release : 2008-11
Category : Planet of the Apes films
ISBN : 061525392X
"The definitive unauthorized chronology"--Cover.
Author : Martin Harris
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 276 pages
File Size : 13,19 MB
Release : 2024-09-02
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 1040122299
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.
Author : Susana Loza
Publisher : Lexington Books
Page : 205 pages
File Size : 40,85 MB
Release : 2017-12-27
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 1498507972
Speculative Imperialisms: Monstrosity and Masquerade in Postracial Times explores the(settler) colonial ideologies underpinning the monstrous imaginings of contemporary popular culture in the Britain and the US. Through a close examination of District 9, Avatar, Doctor Who, Planet of the Apes, and steampunk culture, Susana Loza illuminates the durability of (settler) colonialism and how it operates through two linked yet distinct forms of racial mimicry: monsterization and minstrelsy. Speculative Imperialisms contemplates the fundamental, albeit changing, role that such racial simulations play in a putatively postracial and post-colonial era. It brings together the work on gender masquerade, racial minstrelsy, and postcolonial mimicry and puts it in dialogue with film, media, and cultural studies. This project draws upon the theoretical insights of Stuart Hall, Homi K. Bhabha, Edward Said, Philip Deloria, Michael Rogin, Eric Lott, Charles Mills, Falguni Sheth, Lorenzo Veracini, Adilifu Nama, Isiah Lavender III, Gwendolyn Foster, Marianna Torgovnick, Ann Laura Stoler, Anne McClintock, Eric Greene, Richard Dyer, and Ed Guerrero.
Author : Adilifu Nama
Publisher : University of Texas Press
Page : 213 pages
File Size : 43,92 MB
Release : 2010-01-01
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 0292778767
Winner, Rollins Book Award, Southwest Texas Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association, 2008 Science fiction film offers its viewers many pleasures, not least of which is the possibility of imagining other worlds in which very different forms of society exist. Not surprisingly, however, these alternative worlds often become spaces in which filmmakers and film audiences can explore issues of concern in our own society. Through an analysis of over thirty canonic science fiction (SF) films, including Logan's Run, Star Wars, Blade Runner, Back to the Future, Gattaca, and Minority Report, Black Space offers a thorough-going investigation of how SF film since the 1950s has dealt with the issue of race and specifically with the representation of blackness. Setting his study against the backdrop of America's ongoing racial struggles and complex socioeconomic histories, Adilifu Nama pursues a number of themes in Black Space. They include the structured absence/token presence of blacks in SF film; racial contamination and racial paranoia; the traumatized black body as the ultimate signifier of difference, alienness, and "otherness"; the use of class and economic issues to subsume race as an issue; the racially subversive pleasures and allegories encoded in some mainstream SF films; and the ways in which independent and extra-filmic productions are subverting the SF genre of Hollywood filmmaking. The first book-length study of African American representation in science fiction film, Black Space demonstrates that SF cinema has become an important field of racial analysis, a site where definitions of race can be contested and post-civil rights race relations (re)imagined.
