‘Maysville? That’s a white town’: “The Harder They Fall” and Blackness in the Western Landscape
This article is part of the USSO special series Resilience/Renewal: Shifting Landscapes in American Studies The popularity of the Western as a genre solidified the frontier mythology as one of the building myths of the American nation and its cultural iconography. However, the Western carries sinister implications in its ‘good guys vs bad guys’ code. The danger of keeping the Western alive without revision lies in the frontier myth’s binary, civilization/savagery, that excused the violence towards cultural Others in the name of expansion and progress of the (white) United States and white exceptionalism. This binary is mirrored in the earliest forms of Western literature as well as the first cinematographic Westerns, in which the villains are often Native Americans, who are considered ‘savage’, barely human, to justify their demise at the hands of the white heroes.[i] Through their Otherness, the frontier myth defined Native Americans as part of the territory, […]
Continue ReadingThe Changing face of black masculinity in American Horror Cinema
This article is part of the USSO special series Resilience/Renewal: Shifting Lanscapes in American Studies The representation of blackness and black masculinity within American horror films has been a multifaceted and complicated journey that has reflected societal changes. However, the 1960s changed this narrative when, shortly after the assassination of Martin Luther King, George A. Romero released Night of the Living Dead. For the first time, horror audiences were presented with an African American protagonist (played by Duane Jones) who is heroic, intelligent and does not conform to the traditions of an angry black man. However, there are still racist undertones present in the film, most notably in its climactic scene. Despite the director denying any intention for his work to offer a commentary on race,[i] it unconsciously reflects the turbulence of the time and is of enduring relevance to this day. The film ends with Ben’s death at the […]
Continue ReadingBroadway, Hollywood, and the Problem with The Prom
Among all the necessary and welcome debates around identity in contemporary culture, few have been more pronounced in theatre and film than that of who should be cast to play characters of marginalised identities. From gender identity and religious beliefs to nationality and disability, this issue is occurring with increasing regularity. Eddie Redmayne has called his portrayal of Lili Elbe, who underwent sex reassignment surgery in the early 20th century, in The Danish Girl (2015) “a mistake”[i], which reflects a wider trend of studios and casting directors rightly taking more care when selecting actors for certain roles. It should be said, though, that this is not an entirely new phenomenon – over 40 years ago Vanessa Redgrave, an outspoken critic of Israel’s actions in Palestine, was attacked when chosen to portray musician and Holocaust survivor Fania Fénelon in Arthur Miller’s television film Playing for Time (1980)[ii]. And while this centred […]
Continue ReadingMending Fences: The Broken Bond between Theatre and Film
Play to film adaptations have fallen in prestige and numbers in recent years, and one of the main reasons for this is the decline in popularity of plays that can be adapted. For example, A Streetcar Named Desire was the 5th highest grossing film of 1951[i] while Fences was the 91st highest grossing film of 2016[ii]. As film technology has improved in the intervening years, so has the public interest in stage works that are not comedies or musicals declined. From a culture of regular and successful stage to screen adaptations to one in which it is vanishingly rare, this article will reflect on how and why these changes have come about. One notable facet of this decline is the relative scarcity of actors moving from the stage to film. Whereas in previous decades actors struggling to find work in film could earn equal prestige on stage, it is now […]
Continue Reading“Where is Thy Sting?”: Clifford Odets and the Problem of Audience
On September 6th 1936, The New York Times went to print with an article entitled: “Odets, Where is Thy Sting?”[i] Reflecting on the recent reception of Clifford Odets’s The General Died at Dawn (1936), Frank Nugent described the enthusiasm of the audiences who had come to see the Broadway playwright’s first Hollywood feature: “[T]hey had come to hear their prophet of social reform in his first sermon from a cinema pulpit. They were prepared to cheer, they were anxious to cheer, and, by every soapbox from Union Square to Columbus Circle they did cheer”.[ii] But they soon fell silent, however, upon realising that the film offered them very little to cheer about. While many hsad come with the hopes of catching a glimpse of the sharp political edge which had made Odets’s plays something of a sensation, it quickly became apparent that the film offered very little in the way […]
Continue ReadingDrama and Cinematic Adaptation: USSO Special Series
The adaptation of plays into films has been a core part of Hollywood’s output in the 95 years since the introduction of sound into cinema. In this time a huge number of the cinema’s finest and best-regarded works have begun life on the stage, Broadway or otherwise. Despite this close relationship, though, the movement of works from the stage to the screen has rarely been straightforward, and is often tinged with controversy, disappointment, and inequality. This special series has sought to examine any and all facets of this relationship, and given that we have had almost two years with minimal attendance at cinema and theatres, it will hopefully illuminate the historic, current, and possibly future challenges faced by theatre artists. Playwrights have made vast contributions to American culture, but it is often only when these works are filmed, from Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) to Grease (1971) that they attain […]
Continue ReadingVisualising the Americas: Kent’s Third Annual Americanist Symposium, Keynote Addresses
What happens when you attempt to condense thousands of words, and years of research, into a single image? This was the challenge put to attendees of the Kent Americanists Symposium in June 2019 – to find and share the single image through which an entire wider discussion could be accessed.
Continue ReadingSocial Disorder: Publics, 1968, Amateur photography and Vivian Maier
This essay is the fourth in our series, ‘Literature, Visual Imagery and Material Culture in American Studies’. The series seeks to situate literature, visual imagery and material culture at the heart of American studies, and will explore the varying ways in which written and non-written sources have been created, politicised, exploited, and celebrated by the diverse peoples of the United States and beyond. You can find out more information here.
Continue ReadingReview: Ghostly, Ghastly, Corporeal and Creaturely: Tim Burton’s Curious Bodies, First International Conference on Twenty-First Century Film Directors
Tim Burton’s Curious Bodies (The First International Conference on Twenty-First Century Film Directors), University of Wolverhampton, 15 February 2018 The inaugural International Conference on Twenty-First Century Film Directors, organised by The University of Wolverhampton in conjunction with Redeemer University College, Ontario, focused on the films of Tim Burton. Specifically, it explored the theme of ‘curious bodies’ in his work. Held at Light House Media Centre in Wolverhampton, this one-day event brought together contributors from around the world in stimulating discussion that built on existing scholarship about Burton and challenged some existing notions. After a brief introduction to proceedings from Dr Frances Pheasant-Kelly (University of Wolverhampton), Dr Samantha Moore (University of Wolverhampton) delivered the day’s first keynote address. She discussed the function of physical metamorphosis in animation, situating it historically as a subversive tool that serves to disrupt narrative structure and causal logic. With reference to films including Corpse Bride (2005), […]
Continue Reading“Exceptional Zombie Cannibals” – Antonia Bird’s ‘Ravenous’ (1999) and the discourse of American exceptionalism
In the last couple of decades, a conflict has emerged between the perception of exceptionalist rhetoric as a historical symbol of American patriotism and the much more harrowing visions pervading the present-day political stage. For a historian of the antebellum era, such as myself, “American exceptionalism” is synonymic with a post-War of Independence period when America rapidly transformed from a remote and largely unexplored land mass into a force to be reckoned with in the world arena (as noted by non-American observers at the time such as Alex De Tocqueville).
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