Screening Difference: How Hollywood's Blockbuster Films Imagine Race, Ethnicity, and Culture

Jaap Van Ginneken

ISBN 10: 0742555836 / ISBN 13: 9780742555839

Published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (UK), 2007

About this Item

Looking at orientations in casting, make-up, sets, props, lighting, camera movements, music, and language, this book follows the genres, from animated cartoons to romantic movies. It tracks the stories to their origins and dissects their hidden messages. Num Pages: 294 pages, black & white illustrations. BIC Classification: 1KBBWF; APFA; JFSL. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 237 x 161 x 28. Weight in Grams: 576. . 2007. hardcover. . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland.

Seller Inventory # V9780742555839

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Screening Difference: How Hollywood's Blockbuster Films Imagine Race, Ethnicity, and Culture
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (UK)
• Publication Date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0742555836
• ISBN 13: 9780742555839
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Did you know that Pocahontas probably never fell in love with John Smith, as the Disney and other film versions of those events pretend? That Godzilla was originally an anti-American and anti-nuclear movie, heavily cut and supplemented with new material? That Zorro was not created by an American author but derived from the much older Mexican struggle for independence? That Anna and the King was largely invented? That the myth of the sexually eager Hula girls is based on misunderstandings by the first explorers? That Black Hawk Down and many other war movies were censored and indirectly subsidized by the Pentagon? Screening Difference takes us on a fascinating voyage through major movie blockbusters that deal with the encounter between 'us,' based on white Hollywood, and 'them,' the filmic representations of other races, ethnicities, and cultures. Looking at subtle orientations in casting and make-up, sets and props, lighting and camera movements, music and language, this lively book follows the best-known genres and subgenres: from animated cartoons to wilderness films, from romantic movies to colonial adventures. Screening Difference tracks the stories back to their origins and patiently dissects the hidden messages that have gradually crept into them.

About the Author

Jaap van Ginneken is an independent author and lecturer on psychology, culture, and communication based in France. He has published seventeen books in thirty-two editions and five languages to date. He formerly taught in the area of entertainment studies and public opinion at the Department of Communication Science at the University of Amsterdam as an associate professor.