Renegade Hero or Faux Rogue
Renegade Hero or Faux Rogue

Author: Ashley M. Donnelly

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2014-05-02

Total Pages: 199

ISBN-13: 0786471441

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This book explores the presence of the anti-hero in mainstream dramatic serial television. It offers critical examinations of Dexter, Sons of Anarchy, True Blood, Breaking Bad, and Boardwalk Empire. What purpose might such unusual protagonists serve in today's culture and what do their tales tell about U.S. political and economic issues from 2008 to 2012? The author discovers how the characters that seem initially so different prove to be strong examplars of established forms of power, such as white patriarchy and late capitalist interests. The study finds that even when the characters are groundbreaking fictional figures, they are all eventually written into submission by the narratives of their series, echoing the same tales of fictitious heroism recycled in American television narratives for decades. New trends in television narratives are discussed--with the expectation that perhaps future dramas will free audiences from oppressive narratives rather than continue to normalize them.

Antiheroines of Contemporary Media
Antiheroines of Contemporary Media

Author: Melanie Haas

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2020-12-02

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 1793624577

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This volume of essays provides a critical foray into the methods used to construct narratives which foreground antiheroines, a trope which has become increasingly popular within literary media, film, and television. Antiheroine characters engage constructions of motherhood, womanhood, femininity, and selfhood as mediated by the structures that socially prescribe boundaries of gender, sex, and sexuality. Within this collection, scholars of literary, cultural, media, and gender studies address the complications of representing agency, autonomy, and self-determination within narrative texts complicated by age, class, race, sexuality, and a spectrum of privilege that reflects the complexities of scripting women on and off screen, within and beyond the page. This collection offers perspectives on the alternate narratives engendered through the motivations, actions, and agendas of the antiheroine, while engaging with the discourses of how such narratives are employed both as potentially feminist interventions and critiques of access, hierarchy, and power.

Hero or Villain?
Hero or Villain?

Author: Abigail G. Scheg

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2017-11-21

Total Pages: 221

ISBN-13: 1476667691

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One dimensional television characters are a thing of the past--today's popular shows feature intricate storylines and well developed characters. From the brooding Damon Salvatore in The Vampire Diaries to the tough-minded Rick Grimes in The Walking Dead, protagonists are not categorically good, antagonists often have relatable good sides, and heroes may act as antiheroes from one episode to the next. This collection of new essays examines the complex characters in Orange Is the New Black, Homeland, Key & Peele, Oz, Empire, Breaking Bad, House, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Breaking Bad
Breaking Bad

Author: Lara C. Stache

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2017-10-06

Total Pages: 237

ISBN-13: 1442278277

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As one of the most critically acclaimed shows of all time, Breaking Bad explored the life and crimes of a high school chemistry teacher turned meth kingpin of the American Southwest. As Walter White and his former student Jesse Pinkman become deeply entwined in the drug world, their narrative leaves a trail of bodies strewn across the show’s five seasons—a story that resulted in more than 15 Emmy awards. In Breaking Bad: A Cultural History, Lara C. Stache offers an engaging analysis of the program, focusing on the show’s fascinating characters and complex story lines. Stachegives the show its due reverence, but also suggests new ways of understanding and critiquing the series as a part of the larger culture in which it exists. The author looks at how the program challenges viewers to think about the choices made in the narrative, analyzes what did and did not work, and determines the program’s cultural significance, particularly its place in twenty-first century America. The author also explores how Breaking Bad grapples with themes of morality, legality, and anti-drug rhetoric and looks at how the marketing of the series influenced the ways in which television shows are now promoted. Breaking Bad: A Cultural History captures the spirit of the series and examines how the show had an impact on viewers like no other program. This book will be of interest to fans of the show as well as to scholars and students of television, media, and American popular culture.

Cyberbullies, Cyberactivists, Cyberpredators
Cyberbullies, Cyberactivists, Cyberpredators

Author: Lauren Rosewarne

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2016-01-25

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 1440834415

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Written by an expert in media, popular culture, gender, and sexuality, this book surveys the common archetypes of Internet users—from geeks, nerds, and gamers to hackers, scammers, and predators—and assesses what these stereotypes reveal about our culture's attitudes regarding gender, technology, intimacy, and identity. The Internet has enabled an exponentially larger number of people—individuals who are members of numerous and vastly different subgroups—to be exposed to one other. As a result, instead of the simple "jocks versus geeks" paradigm of previous eras, our society now has more detailed stereotypes of the undesirable, the under-the-radar, and the ostracized: cyberpervs, neckbeards, goths, tech nerds, and anyone with a non-heterosexual identity. Each chapter of this book explores a different stereotype of the Internet user, with key themes—such as gender, technophobia, and sexuality—explored with regard to that specific characterization of online users. Author Lauren Rosewarne, PhD, supplies a highly interdisciplinary perspective that draws on research and theories from a range of fields—psychology, sociology, and communications studies as well as feminist theory, film theory, political science, and philosophy—to analyze what these stereotypes mean in the context of broader social and cultural issues. From cyberbullies to chronically masturbating porn addicts to desperate online-daters, readers will see the paradox in popular culture's message: that while Internet use is universal, actual Internet users are somehow subpar—less desirable, less cool, less friendly—than everybody else.

Intimacy on the Internet
Intimacy on the Internet

Author: Lauren Rosewarne

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-04-14

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 1317581415

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The focus of this book is on the media representations of the use of the Internet in seeking intimate connections—be it a committed relationship, a hook-up, or a community in which to dabble in fringe sexual practices. Popular culture (film, narrative television, the news media, and advertising) present two very distinct pictures of the use of the Internet as related to intimacy. From news reports about victims of online dating, to the presentation of the desperate and dateless, the perverts and the deviants, a distinct frame for the intimacy/Internet connection is negativity. In some examples however, a changing picture is emerging. The ubiquitousness of Internet use today has meant a slow increase in comparatively more positive representations of successful online romances in the news, resulting in more positive-spin advertising and a more even-handed presence of such liaisons in narrative television and film. Both the positive and the negative media representations are categorised and analysed in this book to explore what they reveal about the intersection of gender, sexuality, technology and the changing mores regarding intimacy.

Watching Sympathetic Perpetrators on Italian Television
Watching Sympathetic Perpetrators on Italian Television

Author: Dana Renga

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2019-02-11

Total Pages: 341

ISBN-13: 3030115038

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This book offers the first comprehensive study of recent, popular Italian television. Building on work in American television studies, audience and reception theory, and masculinity studies, Sympathetic Perpetrators and their Audiences on Italian Television examines how and why viewers are positioned to engage emotionally with—and root for—Italian television antiheroes. Italy’s most popular exported series feature alluring and attractive criminal antiheroes, offer fictionalized accounts of historical events or figures, and highlight the routine violence of daily life in the mafia, the police force, and the political sphere. Renga argues that Italian broadcasters have made an international name for themselves by presenting dark and violent subjects in formats that are visually pleasurable and, for many across the globe, highly addictive. Taken as a whole, this book investigates what recent Italian perpetrator television can teach us about television audiences, and our viewing habits and preferences.

Emotions in Contemporary TV Series
Emotions in Contemporary TV Series

Author: Alberto N. Garcφa

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-04-08

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 1137568852

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This edited collection offers a wide range of essays showcasing current research on emotions in TV series. The chapters develop from a variety of research traditions in film, television and media studies and explores American, British, Nordic and Spanish TV series.

Ida Lupino, Filmmaker
Ida Lupino, Filmmaker

Author: Phillip Sipiora

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2021-07-15

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 1501352091

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Ida Lupino, Filmmaker begins with an exploration of biographical studies and analytical treatments of Lupino's film and television work as director, moving forward to assess Lupino's career in film and television with particular attention given to Lupino's singular, pioneering achievements and her role(s) within the cultural milieu(s) of her time, particularly the representation of women in cinema. Each chapter includes a close analysis of the film or television work with insights drawn from film history and cultural/gender studies to demonstrate that Lupino was a significant directorial figure in the development of film, especially in the late 1940s and early 1950s-and in television extending well into the 1960s. Lupino left her imprint on filmmaking and her canon of film and television work continue to influence Hollywood movie making. The contributors to this volume assess Lupino's main strengths as a filmmaker-her treatment of narrative movement, plotting, dialogue, gender roles, and uses of tradition representations of men and women in frames of parody and satire. The book collectively examines the successes (and failures) of Lupino's directorial career, including focusing on the reasons why she initially proved to be so strategic to the progress of women behind the camera.

Kinds of American Film Comedy
Kinds of American Film Comedy

Author: Wes D. Gehring

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2024-02-14

Total Pages: 243

ISBN-13: 1476688990

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This groundbreaking film study begins with a survey of American print humorists from eras leading up to and overlapping the advent of film--including some who worked both on the page and on the screen, like Robert Benchley, Will Rogers, Groucho Marx and W. C. Fields. Six comic film genres are identified as outgrowths of a national tradition of Cracker Barrel philosophers, personality comedy, parody, screwball comedy, romantic comedy and dark comedy. Whether it is Mark Twain or a parody film involving Steve Martin, comedy is most often about blowing "raspberries" at the world, and a reminder you are not alone.