From Chaplin's tramp to the Bathing Beauties, from madcap chases to skyscraper perils, slapstick comedy supplied many of the most enduring icons of American cinema in the silent era.
In this original study, Thompson explores the complicated relationships between Americans and television during the 1950s, as seen and effected through popular humor.
From the beginning, both Robert Kirkman's comics and AMC's series of The Walking Dead have brought controversy in their presentations of race, gender and sexuality.
Most horror film fans are familiar with the movie classics, from the early Universal archetypes to the Hammer landmarks--all of which have been celebrated in countless books and magazines.
Today, it seems as if everyone from heroic-yet-angsty teenagers, to giggling schoolgirls, to middle-aged businessmen, to bored moms are finding themselves whisked away to save distant worlds from some kind of unspeakable evil.
This is the first book to take a deep dive into the philosophical, social, moral, political, and religious issues tackled by Seth MacFarlane's marvelous space adventure, The Orville.
In 1969--the counter-cultural moment when Easy Rider triggered a "e;youthquake"e; in audience interests--Westerns proved more dominant than ever at the box office and at the Oscars.
In this first ever book-length treatment, 11 scholars with a variety of backgrounds in medieval studies, film studies, and medievalism discuss how historical and fictional medieval women have been portrayed on film and their connections to the feminist movements of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Throughout cinematic history, the buildings characters inhabit--whether stately rural mansions or inner-city apartment blocks--have taken on extra dimensions, often featuring as well developed characters themselves.
When Sydney Newman conceived the idea for Doctor Who in 1963, he envisioned a show in which the Doctor and his companions would visit and observe, but not interfere with, events in history.
From Rosemary's Baby (1968) to The Witch (2015), horror films use religious entities to both inspire and combat fear and to call into question or affirm the moral order.
Supernatural is one of the most successful horror TV shows ever, providing fifteen seasons of the adventures of Dean and Sam Winchester as they hunt monsters and save the world.
As properties of DC comics continue to sprout over the years, narratives that were once kept sacrosanct now spill over into one another, synergizing into one bona fide creative Universe.
The ever-popular "e;Whedonverse"e; television shows--Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly and Dollhouse--have inspired hundreds of articles and dozens of books.
Spanning over a century of cinema and comprised of 127 films, this book analyzes the cinematic incarnations of the "e;uncanniest place on earth"e;--wax museums.
Over its five seasons on the air, the televised series Outlander has combined romance, adventure, history, and time travel into a classic saga of love, war, and the ties that bind family together.
Mars has long served as a blank canvas for illustrating society's aspirations and anxieties--a science fiction setting for exploring our "e;future history.
NBC's Grimm is an understudied series full of compelling characters, including Monroe, the charmingly knowledgeable vegetarian who looks like a werewolf; Wu, the funny cop who beats his way to the truth; Adalind, the enjoyably vengeful, risk-taking witch; Trubel, the furious young loner accused of insanity; Kelly, a powerful older warrior-woman; Nick, a compassionate detective; Hank, Juliette, Rosalee and others.
Vampire narratives are generally thought of as adult or young adult fare, yet there is a long history of their appearance in books, film and other media meant for children.
During the 2010s, science fiction's immortal adversaries King Kong and Godzilla, representing our conflicts per Carl Sagan's "e;dream dragons"e; analogy, made comebacks in American cinema.
