Sex Work,Office Work: Women Working Behind the Scenes in the US Adult Film Industry

Women currently working behind the scenes in the adult film industry both inform considerations of the contemporary experiences of sex work in the USA and shed some light on differential experiences of gendered workplace organizations. Based on ethnographic observations and informal interviews conducted at a typical adult film production company and on examining the industry's historical development, I have found that a diverse range of occupations and occupational opportunities are available for women in the adult film industry and women workers in the US adult film industry experience their gendered workplace in unique ways. I suggest that this is due in part to the adult film industry's wider social network, which has itself been shaped by the historical development of the adult film industry and the stigma of sex work.     

The Invention of Prestige: People on the Mountain and the Politics of the National

People on the Mountain (Sz?ts 1941) enjoys special standing in Hungarian film historiography: critics have hailed its use of real locations, deep humanity and sympathy for the downtrodden, and saw in it a precursor of Italian neorealism. This article argues that celebrations of the film's humanity and claims of its position apart from the ideologically inflected films of the period are misplaced, and that such critical readings are simply not justified by the historical context. Further, People on the Mountain is in fact the product of a state-controlled film industry and claims of the film's kinship with neorealism are greatly overstated. The article concludes by demonstrating that, contrary to accounts of unfavourable official reception, the film was very well received by industry bosses and state officials and links its reception to the film's use of a radical nationalist discourse which claimed for Hungarians precedence in Transylvania.     

Unrolling the Map in American History

Cinematic feature films are a big part of youth popular culture. When blockbuster movies are about historical topics, it is reasonable for teachers to be drawn to using them in the classroom to motivate students interest. This article overviews research on film in the history classroom and describes three learning functions that history movies can have fact and ficion; constructing the past and the people in it; and reacting to the past.     

'Samuel Bronston's Latest Epic': Spectacle,Heterogeneity and Nation in the Critical Reception of El Cid (1961)

Abstract

Although El Cid is now regarded by many as a classic, the New York Times was heavily critical of the film on its initial release in the US. This essay examines the contexts that shaped the film's reception in the early 1960s, and demonstrates that, although the New York Times was often explicitly critical of the spectacle associated with historical epics such as El Cid, its film critics were actually more concerned with the ways in which these films threatened cultural distinctions between popular and legitimate culture. Furthermore, it demonstrates that, although the New York Times was critical of historical epics during the late 1940s and the 1950s, it became far more hostile in the early 1960s, when El Cid was released, a period in which Hollywood was facing competition from film-makers working overseas such as Dino De Laurentiis and Samuel Bronston. The essay will therefore illustrate that, while the stated objection of the New York Times critics was to the spectacle of these historical epics, the vitriol that these films received from these critics was due to the way in which they not only threatened distinctions between high and low culture but also between Hollywood and European national cinemas.     

Absent fathers and 'moms', delinquent daughters and mummy's boys: Envisioning the postwar American family in Hitchcock's Notorious

Abstract

This article analyses Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious (1946 USA), paying particular attention to the film's deployment of the figures of the 'absent father' and the 'mom'. The article examines the intertextual relationships that connect these representational figures in the film to a range of other sites within the contemporary culture where anxieties concerning these figures were articulated. The article thus presents a contextualized reading of the film that connects the film to some of the key discourses of its moment and, through this reading, argues for the necessity for film scholars to consider the impact of extrinsic historical influences in shaping the narrative concerns of Hollywood films, and for a shift away from the traditional taxonomic conception of genre toward a more fluid conception that allows genres of discourse to be traced through unlikely groupings of films and other contemporary cultural artefacts.     

Invisible Women in History and Global Studies: Reflections from an Archival Research Project

This article questions the continuing invisibility of the significant scale of the involvement of women in historical movements/moments. The focus is on Mahatma Gandhi-led Civil Disobedience movement (1930–1933), which was a historic turning point enabling the political involvement of masses of women in South Asia. Using an individual narrative, multi-archival research, and secondary literature survey, this article contends that the thriving subaltern and feminist historical traditions have had limited impact on historical ‘gender mainstreaming’. Furthermore, the paper argues that revealing the diverse nature and the substantial scale of women's involvement in social/political change is important for two reasons: firstly, it contributes to a fuller understanding of history and, secondly, because historical research is essential for contemporary policy-making. Reclaiming the role of ordinary women in disparate history writing traditions thus can be a tool to understand and counter persistent gender inequality, in South Asia and in the larger global community.     

Continuity of Midwifery Care in England: A New Professional Project?

Over the last decade, an increasing amount of research has examined the relationship between gender and professionalization using female professional projects to illustrate how the generic notion of a profession has been a gendered one. This paper develops Witz's (1990) theory of professional strategies in female-dominated occupations particularly regarding midwives in Britain in the twentieth century and suggests that an important dimension that also needs to be critically examined in midwifery history is the interaction of gender and social class within midwifery. Furthermore it documents the traditional emphasis in midwifery on the single woman's career path. This historical analysis has resonance today as midwifery in Britain is undergoing a renaissance. The role of the midwife and the current organization of the maternity services are being reviewed with the intention of providing increased choice and control over the reproductive process for women and increased continuity of care with a midwife. These changes are viewed as midwives' new professional project and the implications for midwives and women discussed. The aim of this paper is to explore the explanatory power of these approaches to current developments in maternity care and by drawing historical parallels, consider the impact that this professionalizing strategy may have for those who are excluded from this process of ‘dual closure’. Furthermore, this paper asks whether this new way of working empowers midwives, women, both or neither?     

Is Vygotsky Relevant? Vygotsky's Marxist Psychology

This article explores the connections between Vygotsky's psychology and Marxism, arguing that his was a “Marxist psychology” in its “historical foundation”: a specific conception of history. This conception of history is evident in Vygotsky's analysis and diagnosis of the crisis in psychology. The creation of a Marxist, general psychology was the historical task that was defined by this crisis, and his developmental psychology was the historical project of such a psychology. In his practice of the methodology of this general psychology, Vygotsky recounted “child history”: the history of the genesis of mind. The conception of history evident in Crisis throws new light on Vygotsky's texts on child development: They tell a history of the objective tendencies of consciousness, of the dialectical processes of sublation, and of self-mastery. As Vygotsky interpreted the higher mental functions, they are manifestations of the child's ability to master himself or herself as a consequence of the “social moment” of consciousness. In fostering these functions, one shaped a human consciousness capable of free and deliberate choice.     

Filmic public relations for a global audience: The United Nations and The Blue Vanguard

The project investigates the use of documentary film as a public relations tool by the United Nations (UN) for worldwide promotion of its first peacekeeping intervention in response to the Suez crisis of 1956. Specifically, it undertakes a historical investigation into the communicative purpose of the 1957 documentary film, The Blue Vanguard, which was made by the UN Department of Public Information (UNDPI). Beyond the interest connected with the intervention in the Suez crisis, the film is significant in the history of the UN’s global public relations since it was one of the first films made for the UN by UK film director, Thorold Dickinson, who arrived as Chief of Film at the UN in October 1956.The author argues that Thorold Dickinson used the documentary to make a radical public information proposition to a global audience on behalf of the United Nations. Specifically, the public relations discourse and cinematicity in The Blue Vanguard reminded a global audience that achieving peace required a new level of cultural tolerance and global co-operation, involving codes of judgement beyond the nationalistically-determined registers of the time.     

The Significance of the Wealth of Nations for Economic Education

Students' understanding of history may be shaped less by their social studies teachers than by the powerfully ubiquitous, historically themed media images they passively consume outside of school. In this article, the author describes two strategies conducted during a classroom-based action research study designed to explore how historically themed film can be used to scaffold activities that encourage middle school students to conduct inquiries of the past and critically evaluate feature films and documentaries. Data collected from student surveys, focus group discussions, assignments, and classroom observations suggested that students benefit from well-structured activities that encourage them to compare historical accounts with cinematic portrayals of the past. In particular, the Know-Wonder-Learn and anticipation guide strategies can encourage critical critical viewing and thinking about how film accounts are created.     

Martial arts and the globalization of US and Asian film industries

Abstract

This article investigates how globalization is affecting film industries in the USA and Asia. It argues that these industries are becoming more closely integrated with one another both materially and aesthetically, and that this in turn is leading to the denationalization of individual films and film industries on both sides of the Pacific. The article explores how globalization is experienced differently by different film industries – and by different sectors within individual industries – and how it entails both losses and opportunities for Asian film makers. Taking the contemporary Hollywood and East Asian martial arts film as an exemplary cultural style of globalization, it also looks at how integration involves both cultural homogenization and the production of difference. Specific topics discussed include the growth of Hollywood's Asian markets, Jackie Chan and the flow of Hong Kong talent into Hollywood, Hollywood remakes of South Korean movies, the resurgence of Asian film industries, Hollywood's local-language film production and Zhang Yimou's Hero.     

JUNO (JASON REITMAN, 2007): A PRACTICAL CASE STUDY OF TEENS,FILM AND CULTURAL STUDIES

Jason Reitman's Juno (2007), the story of how a teenager handles her pregnancy, is the kind of film that leaves no one indifferent. Released at a time of conflicting discourses on sexual education, Reitman's film addressed the confusion experienced by teenagers as they came of age in a context where patterns of masculine and feminine behaviour were rapidly changing. In this essay I argue that Juno offers a complex understanding of the disorientation suffered by adolescents during the 1990s – a time when anti-sex discourses coexisted with an increasingly sexualized youth culture. This said, my intention is to move towards the film in a roundabout way by focusing, first, on why so many, supposed ‘cultural criticisms’ of films turn out to be so superficial. In this introductory section, the argument will be made for an approach in film analyses that takes full account of cinema as a visual medium. After exposing my critical stance, I shall draw nearer to the film itself by examining various of the overlapping contexts that, together, created a conducive space for its success – namely, the political scene; changing attitudes towards sex and gender; and most importantly, cinema's aesthetic dimension and the impact of genre conventions in the film-viewing experience. Once the complex diagram of differing (and sometimes contradictory) forces at work in Juno has been mapped out, my aim is to link these conjunctures to a detailed analysis of a key scene in the film as a means of demonstrating how the combination of film studies and Cultural Studies can operate as a method that eschews too easy, ideologically oriented, assumptions.     

Attitudes and Vocational Information

This article addresses the dearth of African American women in high school U.S. history textbooks. The authors conducted a content analysis of the images in an African American history textbook and found that black women are underrepresented. Women are found in less than 15 percent of the images in the African American history text, while they make up nearly 30–50 percent of the images in two mainstream texts that the authors analyzed. The authors use Rachel Mattson's five heuristics to show how to incorporate images of black women in more meaningful ways in the curriculum: sourcing, inside-the-frame/outside-the-frame, intertextuality, framing historical questions, and using visual codes and conventions.     

The return of the Indian guide New formulations of the Indian guide at the end of the 20th century

Abstract

In the myth of the North American frontier defined as a place where two or more cultures interact, there is a set of characters who represent the capacity to move in both worlds and to build bridges between them. The translator is one and the 'guide' another. The figure of the 'Indian guide' – explored from white people's point of view ever since Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales – staged a large scale return at the end of the 20th century in North American (Canadian and American) novel and film, but now transformed by authors (generally Native American but not exclusively so) who view the history of the North American West from, as it were, the other side of the frontier line. This article will try to describe the new, rebellious, empowering characteristics of the Indian guide as represented in novels and films of the last 30 years.     

DOUBLE NEGATIONS: HONG KONG CULTURAL IDENTITY IN HOLLYWOOD'S TRANSNATIONAL REPRESENTATIONS

This article attempts to develop a critical understanding of the reconstitution of Hong Kong identity in Hollywood productions involving Hong Kong film talents. It argues that the ‘local’ in the city's historical context of the nineties no longer refers to any entity pertaining to a particular locality and culture but is always already determined by the framework of the transnational, which structures the perception of its local social reality. In particular, the paper suggests that the remaking of Hong Kong cultural identity in Hollywood films could be grasped in terms of the notion of a double negation. While the formation of such an identity is based on a negation of Chineseness, Hong Kong's transnational crossing to Hollywood initiates another negation that negates the very symbolic realm common to Chineseness. Jackie Chan's Hollywood blockbuster, Rush Hour, is used to illuminate the ways in which Hong Kong film stars and directors working for the global entertainment syndicate re-appropriate their agency in the production of a transnational narrative of their identity.     

FIGURES OF HOPE AND THE FILMIC IMAGINARY OF JIANGHU IN CONTEMPORARY HONG KONG CINEMA

Through an extensive allegorical reading of films, this paper attempts to capture a certain cultural form of imagination in Hong Kong during the transitional period leading up to the historical handover of power in 1997. Dwelling on the world of signification conjured up through what I call the jianghu filmic imaginary,the analysis focuses on the ideological and utopian impulses registered in relation to a whole emotional complex of anxiety, bewilderment and despair in the works of some highly creative local filmmakers of the genre: Ching Siu-Tong, Ann Hui, Tsui Hark and Wong KarWai. The study draws theoretically from Castoriadis's notion of the social imaginary and Bloch's aesthetics of hope, to focus on the textual and contextual re-constructions of a number of very unconventional martial arts swordplay (wuxia) films made in Hong Kong in the last two decades: namely, Tsui's Butterfly Murders (1979), Hui's Romance of Book and Sword (1987), Ching/Tsui's Swordsman II (1992), and Wong's Ashes of Time (1994). By identifying the ideological and affective moments in the filmic imaginary,I want to trace what has been left in a ruined culture for utopian longings, and point to the presence/absence of ‘hope’ as the cultural imagination for an unknown and unknowable future (beyond 1997). It is my contention that an understanding of that peculiar form of popular imaginary at the unusual juncture of Hong Kong's history can begin with a critical attempt to cope with this subtle practice of hope, so as to recognize (or reject) it as mediation in the process of our collective cultural crisis, anticipation and identification.     

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas: Critical Analysis of a Film Depiction of the Holocaust

Film depictions of the Holocaust have become a ubiquitous part of social studies education, as many states have mandated Holocaust or genocide curricula in recent years; however, the quality of such curricula varies greatly, as does the level of teacher preparation for Holocaust-based instruction. Given the increase in mandates and the lack of more rigorous content knowledge expertise, many teachers turn to films, such as The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, to represent, for students, the horrors of the Holocaust. The film, however, is deeply problematic in several ways—historical inaccuracy, questions of agency and gender, and an overarching message that represents a potentially dangerous interpretation of responsibility for the greatest crime in human history. This article explores the failings of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and proposes strategies that teachers may use to mitigate the film’s shortcoming and to provide for a valuable learning experience for students.     

Is generic buprenorphine film as good as Suboxone?

When Indivior's popular Suboxone film went off patent, Dr. Reddy's was ready with the generic, and there are more companies now providing it as well — including Indivior itself (distributed by Sandoz). The point of generics, from a patient or payer point of view, is that they are less expensive than brand. But there can be problems — with quality, including of active ingredients. Patients frequently complain when their agonist medications are switched — whether it's from one type of methadone to another or, now, from Suboxone film to a generic.     

Film in History Education: A Review of the Literature

Abstract

This article charts the ways in which film has been included in history education over time and the research that has accompanied this. Through an analysis of historical development, current strands of educational research are realigned according to Epstein’s theory of historical perspectives. Following this, the article presents a thorough critique of research on film in history education and suggests a path for future research based on an informed appreciation of the past.