Gay Fandom and Crossover Stardom

Gay Fandom and Crossover Stardom

Author: Michael DeAngelis

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2001-08-15

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 082238020X

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Why and how does the appeal of certain male Hollywood stars cross over from straight to gay audiences? Do stars lose their cachet with straight audiences when they cross over? In Gay Fandom and Crossover Stardom Michael DeAngelis responds to these questions with a provocative analysis of three famous actors—James Dean, Mel Gibson, and Keanu Reeves. In the process, he traces a fifty-year history of audience reception that moves gay male fandom far beyond the realm of “camp” to places where culturally unauthorized fantasies are nurtured, developed, and shared. DeAngelis examines a variety of cultural documents, including studio publicity and promotional campaigns, star biographies, scandal magazines, and film reviews, as well as gay political and fan literature that ranges from the closeted pages of One and Mattachine Review in the 1950s to the very “out” dish columns, listserv postings, and on-line star fantasy narratives of the past decade. At the heart of this close historical study are treatments of particular film narratives, including East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause, The Road Warrior, Lethal Weapon, My Own Private Idaho, and Speed. Using theories of fantasy and melodrama, Gay Fandom and Crossover Stardom demonstrates how studios, agents, and even stars themselves often actively facilitate an audience’s strategic blurring of the already tenuous distinction between the heterosexual mainstream and the gay margins of American popular culture. In addition to fans of James Dean, Mel Gibson, and Keanu Reeves, those interested in film history, cultural studies, popular culture, queer theory, gender studies, sociology, psychoanalytic theory, melodrama, fantasy, and fandom will enjoy this book.


Reading the Bromance

Reading the Bromance

Author: Michael DeAngelis

Publisher: Wayne State University Press

Published: 2014-06-01

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 0814338992

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Film and television scholars as well as readers interested in pop culture and queer studies will enjoy the insights of Reading the Bromance.


Crossover Stardom

Crossover Stardom

Author: Julie Lobalzo Wright

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2017-12-28

Total Pages: 217

ISBN-13: 1628925795

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Crossover Stardom: Popular Male Stars in American Cinema focuses on male music stars who have attempted to achieve film stardom. Crossover stardom can describe stars who cross from one medium to another. Although 'crossover' has become a popular term to describe many modern stars who appear in various mediums, crossover stardom has a long history, going back to the beginning of the cinema. Lobalzo Wright begins with Bing Crosby, a significant Hollywood star in the studio era; moving to Elvis Presley in the 1950s and 1960s, as the studio system collapsed; to Kris Kristofferson in the New Hollywood period of the 1970s; and ending with Will Smith and Justin Timberlake, in the contemporary era, when corporate conglomerates dominate Hollywood. Thus, the study not only explores music stardom (and music genres) in various eras, and masculinity within these periods, it also surveys the history of American cinema from industrial and cultural perspectives, from the 1930s to today.


The Subject of Film and Race

The Subject of Film and Race

Author: Gerald Sim

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2014-07-31

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 162356753X

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The Subject of Film and Race is the first comprehensive intervention into how film critics and scholars have sought to understand cinema's relationship to racial ideology. In attempting to do more than merely identify harmful stereotypes, research on 'films and race' appropriates ideas from post-structuralist theory. But on those platforms, the field takes intellectual and political positions that place its anti-racist efforts at an impasse. While presenting theoretical ideas in an accessible way, Gerald Sim's historical materialist approach uniquely triangulates well-known work by Edward Said with the Neo-Marxian writing about film by Theodor Adorno and Fredric Jameson. The Subject of Film and Race takes on topics such as identity politics, multiculturalism, multiracial discourse, and cyborg theory, to force film and media studies into rethinking their approach, specifically towards humanism and critical subjectivity. The book illustrates theoretical discussions with a diverse set of familiar films by John Ford, Michael Mann, Todd Solondz, Quentin Tarantino, Keanu Reeves, and others, to show that we must always be aware of capitalist history when thinking about race, ethnicity, and films.


Understanding Fandom

Understanding Fandom

Author: Mark Duffett

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2013-08-29

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 1623565855

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Fans used to be seen as an overly obsessed fraction of the audience. In the last few decades, shifts in media technology and production have instead made fandom a central mode of consumption. A range of ideas has emerged to explore different facets of this growing phenomenon. With a foreword by Matt Hills, Understanding Fandom introduces the whole field of fan research by looking at the history of debate, key paradigms and methodological issues. The book discusses insights from scholars working with fans of different texts, genres and media forms, including television and popular music. Mark Duffett shows that fan research is an emergent interdisciplinary field with its own key thinkers: a tradition that is distinct from both textual analysis and reception studies. Drawing on a range of debates from media studies, cultural studies and psychology, Duffett argues that fandom is a particular kind of engagement with the power relations of media culture.


Queerbaiting and Fandom

Queerbaiting and Fandom

Author: Joseph Brennan

Publisher: University of Iowa Press

Published: 2019-12-01

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 1609386728

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In this first-ever comprehensive examination of queerbaiting, fan studies scholar Joseph Brennan and his contributors examine cases that shed light on the sometimes exploitative industry practice of teasing homoerotic possibilities that, while hinted at, never materialize in the program narratives. Through a nuanced approach that accounts for both the history of queer representation and older fan traditions, these essayists examine the phenomenon of queerbaiting across popular TV, video games, children’s programs, and more. Contributors: Evangeline Aguas, Christoffer Bagger, Bridget Blodgett, Cassie Brummitt, Leyre Carcas, Jessica Carniel, Jennifer Duggan, Monique Franklin, Divya Garg, Danielle S. Girard, Mary Ingram-Waters, Hannah McCann, Michael McDermott, E. J. Nielsen, Emma Nordin, Holly Eva Katherine Randell-Moon, Emily E. Roach, Anastasia Salter, Elisabeth Schneider, Kieran Sellars, Isabela Silva, Guillaume Sirois, Clare Southerton


The Gus Van Sant Touch

The Gus Van Sant Touch

Author: Justin Vicari

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2012-09-18

Total Pages: 261

ISBN-13: 147660097X

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Beloved, controversial, influential, the creator of such fascinating and award-winning films as My Own Private Idaho, Good Will Hunting, Elephant, and Milk, Gus Van Sant stands among the great international directors, equally at home in Hollywood and the avant-garde. Examining his films thematically, this book finds consistency of vision in Van Sant's unique approach to cinema, which deploys postmodernist techniques such as appropriation, nonlinear narrative, and queering--not in the service of the chic but to apply an all-inclusive viewpoint to ageless tales of life, love and death. Van Sant's films are viewed through a multi-genre prism, including the work of Bruce Weber and Derek Jarman, the westerns of Sam Peckinpah, the music of the Velvet Underground and Nirvana, the fiction of Sam D'Allesandro, and especially the "cut-up"/collage practice of intertextual authorship pioneered by William Burroughs.


Rebel

Rebel

Author: Donald Spoto

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2000-08-22

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 1461741661

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This authoritative biography of film icon James Dean offers a clear-eyed look at the actor who crossed America's cinematic landscape with the brilliance and brevity of a meteor.


The Generic Closet

The Generic Closet

Author: Alfred L. Martin

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2021-04-06

Total Pages: 223

ISBN-13: 0253054621

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Even after a rise in gay and Black representation and production on TV in the 1990s, the sitcom became a "generic closet," restricting Black gay characters with narrative tropes. Drawing from 20 interviews with credited episode writers, key show-runners, and Black gay men, The Generic Closet situates Black-cast sitcoms as a unique genre that uses Black gay characters in service of the series' heterosexual main cast. Alfred L. Martin, Jr., argues that the Black community is considered to be antigay due to misrepresentation by shows that aired during the family viewing hour and that were written for the imagined, "traditional" Black family. Martin considers audience reception, industrial production practices, and authorship to unpack the claim that Black gay characters are written into Black-cast sitcoms such as Moesha, Good News, and Let's Stay Together in order to closet Black gayness. By exploring how systems of power produce ideologies about Black gayness, The Generic Closet deconstructs the concept of a monolithic Black audience and investigates whether this generic closet still exists.


Cult Pop Culture

Cult Pop Culture

Author: Bob Batchelor

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2011-12-07

Total Pages: 895

ISBN-13: 0313357811

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This three-volume collection of original essays examines cult pop culture, the often-seedy underbelly of American popular culture. Cult Pop Culture: How the Fringe Became Mainstream is the first collection dedicated to the quirky, offbeat aspects of American popular culture that people have loved, enjoyed, (and in some cases) worshiped over the last 50 years. By examining the people and subjects we hold most dear, this three-volume set offers deep insights into what Americans think, feel, and cherish. Organized by subject, the collection enables readers to focus on a given topic or compare different subjects across cult phenomenon. Volume One of the set covers film and television topics, Volume Two examines music and literature, and Volume Three explores sports, clubs, and the cult industry. Through this investigation of sublime, transcendent, and idiosyncratic trends, readers will learn more about iconic individuals, topics, and subjects that form the vast underbelly of American culture. By revealing how tightly interwoven cult topics are with the public's broader notion of popular culture, the collection underscores the blurry line between normal and abnormal, grandiose and degradation.