I am a professor of pop culture, so I know personally that talking about race can be so incredibly awkward at times – but it does not always have to be! Often, many restrict themselves from fully participating in these necessary dialogues only because of a profound fear of “saying the wrong thing.” As individuals responsible for preparing a new generation of thinkers prepared to innovate improved solutions for the society we share, inevitably, the topic of race must not only be broached, but broached productively. I write to provide tools to help make such difficult conversations less difficult.
I wrote
Black Oscars: From Mammy to Minny, What the Academy Awards Tell Us about African Americans
I recommend this book because it is one of the few works that systematically analyzes different facets of individual identity by illustrating how movie makers consciously and strategically prioritize the images they showcase onscreen.
Nothing we see is by coincidence nor accident and the authors remind me of the audience’s responsibility in remaining as active participants, constantly questioning rather than blindly accepting the images we see onscreen.
America on Film: Representing Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality in the Movies, 2nd Edition is a lively introduction to issues of diversity as represented within the American cinema. Provides a comprehensive overview of the industrial, socio-cultural, and aesthetic factors that contribute to cinematic representations of race, class, gender, and sexuality Includes over 100 illustrations, glossary of key terms, questions for discussion, and lists for further reading/viewing Includes new case studies of a number of films, including Crash, Brokeback Mountain, and Quinceanera
This book is an absolutely indispensable reference – Donald Bogle may well be dubbed the “godfather” of race studies in film as he meticulously chronicled and chartered black images in early film.
The book’s title alone already clues readers into the idea that Bogle will not pull any punches in describing popular black film caricatures that we now regard as problematic today.
This classic iconic study of black images in American motion pictures has been updated and revised, as Donald Bogle continues to enlighten us with his historical and social reflections on the relationship between African Americans and Hollywood. He notes the remarkable shifts that have come about in the new millennium when such filmmakers as Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave) and Ava DuVernay (Selma) examined America's turbulent racial history and the particular dilemma of black actresses in Hollywood, including Halle Berry, Lupita Nyong'o, Octavia Spencer, Jennifer Hudson, and Viola Davis. Bogle also looks at the ongoing careers of such stars…
This irreverent biography provides a rare window into the music industry from a promoter’s perspective. From a young age, Peter Jest was determined to make a career in live music, and despite naysayers and obstacles, he did just that, bringing national acts to his college campus atUW-Milwaukee, booking thousands of…
This book is both valuable and important primarily because whenever most conversations get started about race relations, magically white people as a group are “left out” as attention is turned to black, indigenous, Latino, or other people of color.
This book prompts readers to reconcile with whiteness as a larger category of analysis to deepen our understanding of complex race relations.
Explores how whiteness is culturally constructed in American films.
Performing Whiteness crosses the boundaries of film study to explore images of the white body in relation to recent theoretical perspectives on whiteness.
Drawing on such diverse critical methodologies as postcolonial studies, feminist film criticism, anthropology, and phenomenology, Gwendolyn Audrey Foster examines a wide variety of films from early cinema to the present day in order to explore the ways in which American cinema imposes whiteness as a cultural norm, even as it exposes its inherent instability.
In discussions that range from The Philadelphia Story to Attack…
I recommend this book to anyone who has ever seen a female character onscreen (does that make all of us?!).
As a cisgender male, I grew up with a pretty myopic point of view and was conditioned to look to (white) males onscreen for key pieces of information or heroism.
This book helped me appreciate why my perspective was slanted and shaped this way – Karen Hollinger’s work has sensitized me to the idea that there is always more than one perspective to be mindful of when watching a movie.
Feminist Film Studies is a readable, yet comprehensive textbook for introductory classes in feminist film theory and criticism.
Karen Hollinger provides an accessible overview of women's representation and involvement in film, complemented by analyses of key texts that illustrate major topics in the field. Key areas include:
a brief history of the development of feminist film theory
the theorization of the male gaze and the female spectator
women in genre films and literary adaptations
the female biopic
feminism and avant-garde and documentary film
women as auteurs
lesbian representation
women in Third Cinema.
Each chapter includes a "Films in Focus" section,…
In this deeply researched novel of America's most celebrated outlaw, Mark Warren sheds light on the human side of Billy the Kid and reveals the intimate stories of the lesser-known players in his legendary life of crime. Warren's fictional composer and Santa Fe journalist, John Blessing, is assigned to report…
This book is excellent in providing quantitative data to demonstrate how well-meaning people often make negative racial associations based upon media content – this book really helps readers question to what degree we are influenced by or are impervious to media images.
While they do not focus on movies exclusively, they do thoroughly explain subtle racial patterns within mainstream media.
Living in a segregated society, white Americans learn about African Americans not through personal relationships but through the images the media show them. "The Black Image in the White Mind" offers the most comprehensive look at the intricate racial patterns in the mass media and how they shape the ambivalent attitudes of Whites towards Blacks. Using the media, and especially television, as barometers of race relations, Robert M. Entman and Andrew Rojecki explore but then go beyond the treatment of African Americans on network and local news to incisively uncover the messages sent about race by the entertainment industry -…
Rather than merely chronicle Black Academy Award winners, this book offers a critical and complete analysis of the various nominated and winning roles for Black actors since the Academy's inception. In addition to providing a consistent framework, this book helps readers re-assess not just the quantity, but the quality of Black images over time.
Going decade by decade in highly accessible language, this book shows how the Oscars are a litmus test, ultimately reflecting to what degree our society has truly embraced diversity within the hallowed confines of our sacred imaginations.
It’s 1969. Women are fighting for equality. Rosalee, an insecure sculptor, and Fran, a best-selling novelist, have their issues. Will their bitter envy of each other and long-held secrets destroy their tenuous friendship? Or will Jill, Rosalee’s granddaughter, and the story behind her emerald necklace bind them together?
I grew up thinking that being adopted didn’t matter. I was wrong. This book is my journey uncovering the significance and true history of adoption practices in America. Now, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, the renewed debate over women’s reproductive rights places…
