Divas on Screen

Divas on Screen PDF Author: Mia Mask
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252091825
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 323

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Book Description
This insightful study places African American women's stardom in historical and industrial contexts by examining the star personae of five African American women: Dorothy Dandridge, Pam Grier, Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey, and Halle Berry. Interpreting each woman's celebrity as predicated on a brand of charismatic authority, Mia Mask shows how these female stars have ultimately complicated the conventional discursive practices through which blackness and womanhood have been represented in commercial cinema, independent film, and network television. Mask examines the function of these stars in seminal yet underanalyzed films. She considers Dandridge's status as a sexual commodity in films such as Tamango, revealing the contradictory discourses regarding race and sexuality in segregation-era American culture. Grier's feminist-camp performances in sexploitation pictures Women in Cages and The Big Doll House and her subsequent blaxploitation vehicles Coffy and Foxy Brown highlight a similar tension between representing African American women as both objectified stereotypes and powerful, self-defining icons. Mask reads Goldberg's transforming habits in Sister Act and The Associate as representative of her unruly comedic routines, while Winfrey's daily television performance as self-made, self-help guru echoes Horatio Alger narratives of success. Finally, Mask analyzes Berry's meteoric success by acknowledging the ways in which Dandridge's career made Berry's possible.

Divas on Screen

Divas on Screen PDF Author: Mia Mask
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252091825
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 323

Get Book

Book Description
This insightful study places African American women's stardom in historical and industrial contexts by examining the star personae of five African American women: Dorothy Dandridge, Pam Grier, Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey, and Halle Berry. Interpreting each woman's celebrity as predicated on a brand of charismatic authority, Mia Mask shows how these female stars have ultimately complicated the conventional discursive practices through which blackness and womanhood have been represented in commercial cinema, independent film, and network television. Mask examines the function of these stars in seminal yet underanalyzed films. She considers Dandridge's status as a sexual commodity in films such as Tamango, revealing the contradictory discourses regarding race and sexuality in segregation-era American culture. Grier's feminist-camp performances in sexploitation pictures Women in Cages and The Big Doll House and her subsequent blaxploitation vehicles Coffy and Foxy Brown highlight a similar tension between representing African American women as both objectified stereotypes and powerful, self-defining icons. Mask reads Goldberg's transforming habits in Sister Act and The Associate as representative of her unruly comedic routines, while Winfrey's daily television performance as self-made, self-help guru echoes Horatio Alger narratives of success. Finally, Mask analyzes Berry's meteoric success by acknowledging the ways in which Dandridge's career made Berry's possible.

Hollywood Divas, Indie Queens, and TV Heroines

Hollywood Divas, Indie Queens, and TV Heroines PDF Author: Susanne Kord
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742537095
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
Hollywood Divas, Indie Queens, and TV Heroines offers an entertaining and critical look at the representation of women in recent movies. Written in a refreshingly accessible style, the book analyzes over thirty box-office hits. The authors explore the screen personae of top stars such as Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock, Meg Ryan, and Renée Zellweger, as well as independent movie queens like Parker Posey and TV heroines like Sarah Michelle Gellar of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A must-read book for all film buffs who are tired of the mixed gender messages of mainstream culture.

Lost Divas

Lost Divas PDF Author: André Tubeuf
Publisher: Assouline Books & Gifts
ISBN:
Category : Opera
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Book Description
This book tells all about a lost, authentically legendary species: the divas. They were the first movie stars before Pickford and Garbo, there was Geraldine Farrar, Lina Cavalieri, and Mary Garden. They were the most stunning opera singers, their personalities perhaps even bigger than their voices. Their success and their lives filled the gossip columns. Their fans loved them, grand dukes covered them in jewels. They represented both the splendorous excesses of an era of elegance and luxury, and its swan's song. There is almost nothing that survives of them today. Thankfully, their image remains and reveals all. Along with unpublished pictures of the greatest divas of this century, rediscover their voices in the accompanying CD produced specially for this publication. 70 b/w & colour illustrations

Sitcom Queens

Sitcom Queens PDF Author: Michael Karol
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 0595846270
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 173

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Book Description
Whether it was Lucy and Ethel (Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance) or Eve Arden as Miss Brooks, Gale Storm as her dad's "little" Margie, always interfering but with the best of intentions, or the more modern Bea Arthur as Maude, flaunting the conventions of how a woman was supposed to behave, we all have our favorite funny ladies who brought us laughter every week, and, for a half-hour at least, took us away from our daily problems. Classic TV expert Michael Karol, in a series of original essays, examines the roles these Sitcom Queens played on TV, and how they became the beloved TV icons of generation after generation of TV fans. With a sitcom timeline and a Top 10!

World on Film

World on Film PDF Author: Martha P. Nochimson
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1405139781
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 465

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Book Description
This uniquely engaging and lively textbook provides a comprehensive introduction to international film, from the golden age of European cinema to the contemporary blockbusters of India and Asia, and the post World War II emergence of global film culture. Offers an overview of film culture in European countries such as France, Sweden and Spain, as well as Africa, Hong Kong, China, and India, in a clear and conversational style to engage the student reader Provides a detailed exploration of the impact of globalization on international cinema Includes a comprehensive companion website (www.wiley.com/go/worldonfilm) with an expansive gallery of film stills also found in the text, plus access to sample syllabi for faculty and a detailed FAQ Addresses the differences in visual and narrative strategies between Hollywood-influenced movies and international cinema Highlights key words within the text and provides a comprehensive glossary of critical vocabulary for film studies Each chapter includes in-depth case studies of individual films and directors, cultural and historical context, selected filmographies, and ideas for projects, essays, and further research

Diva

Diva PDF Author: Angela Dalle Vacche
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292717113
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 333

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Book Description
"Animated by a luminous goddess at its center, the diva film provided a forum for denouncing social evils and exploring new models of behavior among the sexes...Dalle Vacche offers the first authoritative study of this important film genre of the cinema that preceded the First World War...Contrasting the Italian diva with the Hollywood vamp Theda Bara and the famous Danish star Asta Nielsen, Dalle Vacche shows how the diva oscillates between articulating Henri Bergson's vibrant life-force and representing the suffering figure of the Catholic mater dolorosa." -- Cover.

Divas

Divas PDF Author: Kenn Duncan
Publisher: Universe Publishing(NY)
ISBN: 9780789317971
Category : Actresses
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"For more than 30 years, Kevin Duncan's photographs energized such seminal publications as After Dark Magazine and Opera News. Renowned for this ability to capture the distinctive styles and personalities of his subjects, frequently dancers, he gained widespread acclaim for his gift of celebrating a specific type of performer: the woman whose phenomenal talent and charisma make her more than a star, more than an icon, she is a Diva." "Until his untimely death in 1986, Duncan's camera was like a disco ball illuminating the likes of Bernadette Peters, Chita Rivera, Angela Lansbury, Gelsey Kirkland, Joan Rivers, Bette Midler and other luminaries of the stage and screen." "DIVAS! is a celebration of Duncan, his muses, and the time in which they lived, loved, posed, and partied. It includes famous images, such as Anita Morris's controversial body-baring shot from Broadway's Nine, as well as rarely seen photographs of Susan Sarandon, Carrie Fisher, Lily Tomlin, Labelle, and Diane Keaton."--BOOK JACKET.

Little Diva

Little Diva PDF Author: LaChanze
Publisher:
ISBN: 1250878667
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Let her entertain you: A little leading lady with high hopes and diva dreams wants to be just like her mommy!

The Encyclopedia of Racism in American Films

The Encyclopedia of Racism in American Films PDF Author: Salvador Jimenez Murguía
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442269065
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 824

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Book Description
From D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation in 1915 to the recent Get Out, audiences and critics alike have responded to racism in motion pictures for more than a century. Whether subtle or blatant, racially biased images and narratives erase minorities, perpetuate stereotypes, and keep alive practices of discrimination and marginalization. Even in the 21st century, the American film industry is not “color blind,” evidenced by films such as Babel (2006), A Better Life, (2011), and 12 Years a Slave (2013). The Encyclopedia of Racism in American Film documents one facet of racism in the film industry, wherein historically underrepresented peoples are misrepresented—through a lack of roles for actors of color, stereotyping, negative associations, and an absence of rich, nuanced characters. Offering insights and analysis from over seventy scholars, critics, and activists, the volume highlights issues such as: Hollywood’s diversity crisis White Savior films Magic Negro tropes The disconnect between screen images and lived realities of African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, and Asians A companion to the ever-growing field of race studies, this volume opens up a critical dialogue on an always timely issue. The Encyclopedia of Racism in American Film will appeal to scholars of cinema, race and ethnicity studies, and cultural history.

Opera as Soundtrack

Opera as Soundtrack PDF Author: Jeongwon Joe
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317085485
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Filmmakers' fascination with opera dates back to the silent era but it was not until the late 1980s that critical enquiries into the intersection of opera and cinema began to emerge. Jeongwon Joe focusses primarily on the role of opera as soundtrack by exploring the distinct effects opera produces in film, effects which differ from other types of soundtrack music, such as jazz or symphony. These effects are examined from three perspectives: peculiar qualities of the operatic voice; various properties commonly associated with opera, such as excess, otherness or death; and multifaceted tensions between opera and cinema - for instance, opera as live, embodied, high art and cinema as technologically mediated, popular entertainment. Joe argues that when opera excerpts are employed on soundtracks they tend to appear at critical moments of the film, usually associated with the protagonists, and the author explores why it is opera, not symphony or jazz, that accompanies poignant scenes like these. Joe's film analysis focuses on the time period of the post-1970s, which is distinguished by an increase of opera excerpts on soundtracks to blockbuster titles, the commercial recognition of which promoted the production of numerous opera soundtrack CDs in the following years. Joe incorporates an empirical methodology by examining primary sources such as production files, cue-sheets and unpublished interviews with film directors and composers to enhance the traditional hermeneutic approach. The films analysed in her book include Woody Allen’s Match Point, David Cronenberg’s M. Butterfly, and Wong Kar-wai’s 2046.