Media & Minorities looks at the media's racial tendencies with an eye to identifying the "system supportive" messages conveyed and offering challenges to them. The book covers all major media--including television, film, newspapers, radio, magazines, and the Internet--and systematically analyzes their representation of the four largest minority groups in the U.S.: African Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans. Entertainment media are compared and contrasted with news media, and special attention is devoted to coverage of social movements for racial justice and politicians of color.
The Hollywood Comedy is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humor. The book follows the careers of Comedy teams, such as Martin & Lewis, the Marx Brothers, Abbott & Costello, Laurel & Hardy and many more comedy groups. Also we follow the comedy Kings & Queens like Lucille Ball, Marthe Raye, David Spade, Richard Pryor, Bill Murray, Soupy Sales, Grouch Marx, Mo & Curly Howard, Terry-Thomas, Buddy Hackett, Billy Crystal, Patsy Kelly, Larry Fine, Don Knotts, Ernie Kovaks, Ted Knight, Dave Thomas, Rich Little, Robin Williams, Red Skeleton, Jim Varney, Ma & Pa Kettle, Andy Hardy Phil Silvers, Milton Berle, Ed Wynn and Alan Young and so many more comedians. A look at the style of comedy and so much more...
This book offers a complete overview of the contributions of U.S. Latinos to American popular culture and examines the emergence of the U.S. Latino identity. According to the 2010 Census, Latinos represent more than 16 percent of the total population and are the largest and fastest-growing minority group in the United States. Their vast contributions to popular culture are visible in nearly every aspect of American life and are as diverse as the countries and cultures of origin with which Latinos identify themselves. This book provides a historical overview of the developments in U.S. Latino culture and highlights the most recent expressions of Latino life in American popular culture. With coverage of topics like Latino representations in television, radio, film, and theater; U.S. Latino literature and art; Latino sports stars in baseball, basketball, boxing, football, and soccer; and contemporary pop music; this book will appeal to general readers and be a useful and engaging resource for high school and college students. The work examines the cultural ties that U.S. Latinos maintain with their country of origin or that of their ancestors, explains why language is a critical cultural marker for Latinos, and identifies how Latinos are changing American popular culture. Insightful information on U.S. Latino identity issues and prevalent cultural stereotypes is also included.
For decades, Screen World has been the film professional's, as well as the film buff's, favorite and indispensable annual screen resource, full of all the necessary statistics and facts. Now Screen World editor Barry Monush has compiled another comprehensive work for every film lover's library. In the first of two volumes, this book chronicles the careers of every significant film actor, from the earliest silent screen stars – Chaplin, Pickford, Fairbanks – to the mid-1960s, when the old studio and star systems came crashing down. Each listing includes: a brief biography, photos from the famed Screen World archives, with many rare shots; vital statistics; a comprehensive filmography; and an informed, entertaining assessment of each actor's contributions – good or bad! In addition to every major player, Monush includes the legions of unjustly neglected troupers of yesteryear. The result is a rarity: an invaluable reference tool that's as much fun to read as a scandal sheet. It pulsates with all the scandal, glamour, oddity and glory that was the lifeblood of its subjects. Contains over 1 000 photos!
Before Salma Hayek, Eva Longoria, and Penelope Cruz, there was Lupe Velez—one of the first Latin-American stars to sweep past the xenophobia of old Hollywood and pave the way for future icons from around the world. Her career began in the silent era, when her beauty was enough to make it onto the silver screen, but with the rise of talkies, Velez could no longer hope to hide her Mexican accent. Yet Velez proved to be a talented dramatic and comedic actress (and singer) and was much more versatile than Greta Garbo, Katharine Hepburn, Gloria Swanson, and other legends of the time. Velez starred in such films as Hot Pepper (1933), Strictly Dynamite (1934), and Hollywood Party (1934), and her popularity peaked in the 1940s after she appeared as Carmelita Fuentes in eight Mexican Spitfire films, a series created to capitalize on Velez's reputed fiery personality. The media emphasized the "Mexican Spitfire" persona, and by many accounts, Velez's private life was as colorful as the characters she portrayed on-screen. Fan magazines mythologized her mysterious childhood in Mexico, while mainstream publications obsessed over the drama of her romances with Gary Cooper, Erich Maria Remarque, and John Gilbert, along with her stormy marriage to Johnny Weissmuller. In 1944, a pregnant and unmarried Velez died of an intentional drug overdose. Her tumultuous life and the circumstances surrounding her early death have been the subject of speculation and controversy. In Strictly Dynamite: The Sensational Life of Lupe Velez, author Eve Golden uses extensive research to separate fact from fiction and offer a thorough and riveting examination of the real woman beneath the gossip columns' caricature. Through astute analysis of the actress's filmography and interviews, Golden illuminates the path Velez blazed through Hollywood. Her success was unexpected and extraordinary at a time when a distinctive accent was an obstacle, and yet very few books have focused entirely on Velez's life and career. Written with evenhandedness, humor, and empathy, this biography finally gives the remarkable Mexican actress the unique and nuanced portrait she deserves.
Remember the days when a night at the movies comprised a full three to four hours of varied entertainment? The attraction was not just the colossal main feature, but the supporting program: the newsreel, the cartoon, the shorts and the before-interval picture or "B" feature. Here's a book where you can re-live those wonderful times. No less than 140 varied features (from Hollywood's main studios to Poverty Row) are discussed, all with full cast and technical credits plus other background information. And to round the book out, I've also included 28 cartoons and 9 shorts!
This cumulative index to all the films detailed and reviewed in the "Hollywood Classics" series to date, features both original release and alternative titles, together with the year of production. This book is lavishly illustrated with black-and-white reproductions of original movie posters, many from the author's private collection.
A complete index to all the films reviewed in all 24 of the "Hollywood Classics" movie books, this massive final volume not only devotes 120 pages to the title index but also contains 212 pages of exhaustive details and comments on an additional 80 must-see films. This additional 80 includes such classics as "A Streetcar Named Desire", the 1937 "Prisoner of Zenda", the multi-award winning "All the King's Men", Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo", Henry King's "Tol'able David", Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments", Byron Haskin's "The War of the Worlds", the Vivien Leigh and Robert Taylor "Waterloo Bridge", the Clark Gable and Jean Harlow "Red Dust", Ronald Colman's "If I Were King", the classic noir "Out of the Past", three versions of "Romeo and Juliet", and the delightful Claudette Colbert and James Stewart comedy, "It's a Wonderful World".
