Media, Popular Culture and the American Century

by Bolton, Kingsley; Olsson, Jan

• ISBN13: 9780861966981
• ISBN10: 0861966988
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-01-13
• Publisher: Indiana Univ Pr

Summary

In 1941, media mogul Henry R. Luce exulted, "American jazz, Hollywood movies, American slang, American machines and patented products, are in fact the only things that every community in the world, from Zanzibar to Hamburg, recognizes in common." It is as true today as it was then. From the early days of Hollywood, an insatiable demand for U.S. cultural products -- in advertising, fashion, film, popular music, television, and much else -- has had a profound and continuing impact across the globe. Propelled by Media explores a diverse range of Americana, where the borders between the real and the imaginary, dream and dystopia, America and the world, blur and disappear. Essays move from configurations of U.S. culture in the early 1900s to the age of Google and digital music.

Author Biography

Kingsley Bolton is Professor of English at City University of Hong Kong and Stockholm University. Jan Olsson is Professor of Cinema Studies at Stockholm University.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Mediated America: Americana As Hollywoodiana	p. 7
Cinema and Americanization
Italian Marionettes Meet Cinematic Modernity	p. 35
"A Red-Blooded Romance"; Or, Americanizing Early Multi-Reel Feature Cinema: The Case Of The Spoilers	p. 62
Song Of The Sonic Body: Noise, The Audience, And Early American Moving Picture Culture	p. 101
Constructing The Global Vernacular: American English And The Media	p. 125
Americans At The Margins
You Only Live Once: Repetitions Of Crime As Desire In The Films of Sylvia Sidney, 1930-1937	p. 155
Punks! Topicality And The 1950s Gangster Bio-Pic Cycle	p. 185
Importing Evil: The American Gangster, Swedish Cinema, And Anti-American Propaganda	p. 216
American Dreams/American Nightmares
Sun Yu And The Early Americanization Of Chinese Cinema	p. 227
If America Were Really China Or How Christopher Columbus Discovered Asia	p. 249
Civil Rights On The Screen	p. 270
America Goes Digital
Goodbye Rabbit Ears: Visualizing and Mapping The U.S. Digital TV Transition	p. 285
Archival Transitions: Some Digital Propositions	p. 301
Are Americans Human?	p. 330
Afterword: Rethinking The American Century	p. 363
Contributors	p. 376
Bibliography	p. 378
Name And Title Index	p. 405
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