Genre Gender And The Effects Of Neoliberalism

The romantic comedy has long been regarded as an inferior film genre by critics and scholars alike, accused of maintaining a strict narrative formula which is considered superficial and highly predictable. However, the genre has resisted the negative scholarly and critical comments and for the last three decades the steady increase in the numbers of romantic comedies position the genre among the most popular ones in the globally dominant Hollywood film industry. The enduring power of the new millennium romantic comedy, proves that therein lies something deeper and worth investigating. This new work draws together a discussion of the full range of romantic comedies in the new millennium, exploring the cycles of films that tackle areas including teen romance, the new career woman, women as action heroes, motherhood and pregnancy and the mature millennium woman. The work evaluates the structure of these different types of films and examines in detail the ways in which they choose to frame key contemporary issues which influence how we analyse global politics, including gender, class, race and society. Providing a rich understanding of the complexities and potential of the genre for understanding contemporary society, this work will be of interest to students and scholars of cultural & film studies, gender & politics and world politics in general.

This volume examines how different generations of women work within the genericity of audio-visual storytelling not necessarily to ‘undo’ or ‘subvert’ popular formats, but also to draw on their generative force. Recent examples of filmmakers and creative practitioners within and outside Hollywood as well as women working in non-directing authorial roles remind us that women are in various ways authoring commercially and culturally impactful texts across a range of genres. Put simply, this volume asks: what do women who are creatively engaged with audio-visual industries do with genre and what does genre do with them? The contributors to the collection respond to this question from diverse perspectives and with different answers, spanning issues of direction, screenwriting, performance and audience address/reception.

In this edited collection, an international ensemble of scholars examine what contemporary cinema tells us about neoliberal capitalism and cinema, exploring whether filmmakers are able to imagine progressive alternatives under capitalist conditions. Individual contributions discuss filmmaking practices, film distribution, textual characteristics and the reception of films made in different parts of the world. They engage with topics such as class struggle, debt, multiculturalism and the effect of neoliberalism on love and sexual behaviour. Written in accessible, jargon-free language, Contemporary Cinema and Neoliberal Ideology is an essential text for those interested in political filmmaking and the political meanings of films.

Neoliberal Rhetorics and Body Politics: Plastinate Exhibits as Infiltration uses transnational feminist rhetorical analyses to understand how the global force of neoliberalism infiltrates all parts of life from nation-state relationships to individual subject formation. Focusing on the hugely popular and profitable exhibits of preserved, dissected, and posed human bodies and body parts showcased in Body Worlds and BODIES…The Exhibition—plastinate shows offered by the German anatomist Gunther von Hagens and the US company Premier Exhibitions—the book analyzes how these exhibits offer examples of neoliberalism’s ideological reach as they also present a pop-cultural lens through which to understand the scope of that reach. By rhetorically analyzing the details of the exhibits themselves, their political and cultural contexts, their marketing literature and showcased artifacts, and their connection to historical displays of bodies, the book articulates how neoliberalism creates a grand narrative while simultaneously permeating daily living. As such, Neoliberal Rhetorics and Body Politics argues that these public, for profit exhibitions offer familiar, tangible, and rich sites within which to understand neoliberalism’s impact beyond the purview of public policy and economics. Predicated on the idea that neoliberal practices are not uniform, the book not only articulates how neoliberal discourses are embedded in these shows, but it also traces the ideological and material consequences of that inculcation. It focuses its analysis on the shows’ rhetorical deployment of necropolitics, biopolitics, intimacy, and affect, and details how the exhibits communicate neoliberalism’s guiding principles of self-reliance, individual choice, and freedom through market participation. In doing so, it answers a number of challenges posed by feminist transnational rhetorical studies; namely, that scholars extend their analyses to understand how information circulates, that we pay more attention to the affective aspects of transnational rhetorics, and that we recognize how pedagogy functions outside the classroom. In attending to these concerns, the book ultimately illustrates not only neoliberalism’s strong rhetorical force, but also reveals its deep cultural infiltration.

The financial collapse of 2008 extended and deepened a prolonged, multilayered crisis that has transformed, often in unexpected ways, how we think about all aspects of social life. Amid these turbulent times, film studies scholars have begun to ask new questions and create fresh strategies in order to integrate intellectual and political work in ways that directly address our current predicament. This timely volume reconsiders the relationships between cinema and society at a time when neoliberal policies threaten not only civic culture but also nearly every aspect of human life. Screening the Crisis brings together established authors as well as brilliant young scholars in the field of film studies to explore the ways in which new tendencies in US cinema enhance awareness of the complexity of the problems facing contemporary society. The issues addressed include economic inequality, shifts in gender roles, racial conflicts, immigration, surveillance practices, the environmental crisis, the politics of housing, and the fragility of nationhood. These questions are explored through in-depth studies and contextualized analyses of a wide variety of recent films, genres, and filmmakers. With its ample range of topics and perspectives, this collection provides an essential reference work for those who want to research how US cinema has responded to the manifold interconnected crises that characterize our current times.

Explores romantic comedy’s revitalizing response to shifting sexual and social mores of the past decade.

Comprised of 43 innovative contributions, this companion is both an overview of, and intervention into the field of cinema and gender. The essays included here address a variety of geographical contexts, from an analysis of cinema. Islam and women and television under Eastern European socialism, to female audience reception in Nigeria, to changing class and race norms in Bollywood dance sequences. A special focus is on women directors in a global context that includes films and filmmakers from Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe, North and South America. The collection also offers a solid overview of feminist contributions to thinking on genre from the "chick flick" to the action or Western film, to film noir and the slasher. Readers will find contributions on a variety of approaches to spectatorship, reception studies and fandom, as well as transnational approaches to star studies and essays addressing the relationship between feminist film theory and new media. Other topics include queer and trans* cinema, eco-cinema and the post-human. Finally, readers interested in the history of film will find essays addressing the methodological dimensions of feminist film history, essays on silent and studio era women in film, and histories of female filmmakers in a variety of non-Western contexts.

Refocus: The Films of Amy Heckerling is the first book-length study of the work of Amy Heckerling, the phenomenally popular director and screenwriter of Clueless and Fast Times at Ridgemont High. As such, the book constitutes a significant intervention in Film Studies, prompting a reconsideration of the importance of Heckerling both in the development of Teen cinema, and as a figure in Hollywood comedy. As part of the Refocus series, the volume brings together outstanding original essays examining Heckerling's work from a variety of perspectives, including film, television and cultural studies and is destined to be used widely in undergraduate teaching.