From Machiavellian city officials to big time mobsters (such as Arnold Rothstein, Lucky Luciano, and Al Capone) to corrupt beat cops to overzealous G-men to suffragettes to abolitionists to innocent citizens caught in the crossfire, Boardwalk Empire is replete with philosophically compelling characters who find themselves in philosophically interesting situations.
Dick Grayson--alter-ego of the original Robin of Batman comics--has gone through various changes in his 75 years as a superhero but has remained the optimistic, humorous character readers first embraced in 1940.
Marvel, like other media "e;universes,"e; is a collection of highly profitable and audience-satisfying products that exist not only as individual items of popular culture but coalesce to form a unique and all-encompassing identity.
The fictionalized Los Angeles of television's Angel is a world filled with literature--from the all-important Shansu prophecy that predicts Angel's return to a state of humanity to the ever-present books dominating the characters' research sessions.
For the first time ever a comprehensive biography of one of the twentieth-century s most innovative creative artists: the incomparable, irreplaceable Jim Henson.
Black Mirror is hands down the most relevant program of our time, if for no other reason than how often it can make you wonder if we re all living in an episode of it.
When Kenneth Johnson's science fiction miniseries V premiered in 1983, it netted more than 40 percent of the television viewing audience and went on to spawn a sequel, a weekly series, novelizations, comic books and a remake.
The wounds of nations: Horror cinema, historical trauma and national identity explores the ways in which the unashamedly disturbing conventions of international horror cinema allow audiences to engage with the traumatic legacy of the recent past in a manner that has serious implications for the ways in which we conceive of ourselves both as gendered individuals and as members of a particular nation-state.
When Fred Dibnah debuted on television in 1979, British audiences immediately embraced a new cultural icon: a steeplejack from Bolton who fell in love with England's decaying industrial landscape and an exhaustive storyteller whose charm and wit was matched only by his down-to-earth manner.
To dramatize a story using moving images, a director must have a full understanding of the meaning and emotional effect of all the various types of shots and cuts that are available to advance the story.
Today's media, cinema and TV screens are host to new manifestations of myth, their modes of storytelling radically transformed from those of ancient Greece.
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.
In 1997, the series "e;Stargate SG-1"e; first aired on American cable television and over the course of nearly nine seasons has developed its own unique mythological superstructure.
Although some scholars credit Shakespeare with creating in Henry IV's Falstaff the first "e;second banana"e; character (reviving him for Henry IV Part Two), most television historians agree that the popular co-star was born in 1955 when Art Carney, as Ed Norton, first addressed Jackie Gleason with a "e;Hey, Ralphie-boy,"e; on The Honeymooners.
Male and Female Violence in Popular Media brings into focus the apparently symmetrical phenomena of men's violence against women and women's violence against men, explaining the profound differences in their actual features as well as in their representations, which over the last few years have been proliferating in a vast array of global media contents.
This volume explores our cultural celebration of food, blending lobster festivals, politicians' roadside eats, reality show "e;chef showdowns,"e; and gravity-defying cakes into a deeper exploration of why people find so much joy in eating.
Critically analyzing four decades of television situation comedies from The Honeymooners to The Bill Cosby Show, Hamamoto shows how the sitcom reflects, explains, legitimates, and challenges the society in which it is grounded, illumining the power of laughter both to reaffirm and to question existing social structures.
This book is the first written by a film specialist to consider Stephen King's television work in its own right, and rejects previous attempts to make the films and books fit rigid thematic categories.
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.
Push: Software Design and the Cultural Politics of Music Production shows how changes in the design of music software in the first decades of the twenty-first century shaped the production techniques and performance practices of artists working across media, from hip-hop and electronic dance music to video games and mobile apps.
In Screening Queer Memory, Anamarija Horvat examines how LGBTQ history has been represented on-screen, and interrogates the specificity of queer memory.
From December 1957 through October 1959, Chicago TV viewers were held in thrall by "e;Marvin,"e; the ghoulishly hilarious host of WBKB-TV's late-night horror film series Shock Theatre.
