Mel Brooks In The Cultural Industries

Which strategies has Mel Brooks used to survive, adapt and thrive in the cultural industries? How has he gained his reputation as a multimedia survivor? Alex Symons takes a unique, artist-focused approach in order to systematically identify the range of Brooks's adaptation strategies across the Hollywood film, Broadway theatre and American television industries.By combining a cultural industries approach together with that of adaptation studies, this book also identifies an important new industrial practice employed by Brooks - defined here as 'prolonged adaptation'. More significantly, Symons also employs this method to explain the so far neglected way that Brooks's adaptations have contributed towards changing production trends, changes in critical attitudes, and towards the ongoing integration of the cultural industries today. An essential read for film students and scholars researching adaptation, this refreshing new approach will also be valued by everyone studying the cultural industries.

The Political Mel Brooks analyzes the work of Mel Brooks as political and social commentary. It demonstrates that Brooks is a serious, political filmmaker whose comedies go beyond goofy parody, attending to serious socio-political issues through a humorous lens.

Cultural Work examines the conditions of the production of culture. It maps the changed character of work within the cultural and creative industries, examines the increasing diversity of cultural work and offers new methods for analysing and thinking about cultural workplaces. Studying television, popular music, performance art, radio, film production and live performance it offers occupational biographies, cultural histories, practitioners' evidence, considerations of the economic environment as well as new ways of observing and studying the cultural industries.

Concerns the management of creativity and innovation. This book provides serious analysis of the cultural industries - media, entertainment, film, music, and the arts -from a business perspective. It covers as many industries as possible from many different perspectives. It is a useful primer on cultural industries for students and scholars.

As United States television programs, movies, music, and other cultural products make their way around the globe, a vigorous debate over "cultural imperialism" is growing in many countries. This book brings together experts in economics, sociology, anthropology, the humanities, and communications to explore what effects the North American Free Trade Agreement will have on the flow of cultural products among Mexico, the United States, and Canada. After an overview of free trade and the cultural industries, the book covers the following topics: dominance and resistance, cultural trade and identity in relation to Mexico and to French Canada, and intellectual property rights. Based on present trends, the contributors predict that there will be a steadily increasing flow of cultural products from the United States to its neighbors. This book grew out of a 1994 conference that brought together leaders of the cultural industries, policy makers, and scholars. It represents state-of-the-art thinking about the global influence of U.S. cultural industries.