“To Be Real”: Drag, Minstrelsy and Identity in the New Millennium

Feb. 1, 2005

[1] In the preface to her analysis Racechanges, feminist scholar Susan Gubar explains her own induction to contemporary race theory via gender theory and questions the resistance to scholarly work on racechange: “Was the subject of transracial crossing more taboo than that of transvestism or transsexuality? Not only has the...

Passing as a “Lady”: Nationalist Narratives of Femininity, Race, and Class in Elite Canadian Figure Skating

Jan. 2, 2005

Canadian Nationalism and the Construction of a “Socially Appropriate” Femininity [1] Nations have historically constructed themselves as gendered institutions (eg. Nagel 1998; Parker and Russo et al. 1992; Yuval-Davis 1997), and at different times and for different purposes, they have sought to promote certain “official” gendered or sexual identities for...

Race, Gender and Terror: The Primitive in 1950s Horror Films

Dec. 1, 2004

(part of a series in Special Issue #40: Scared of the Dark: Race, Gender and the “Horror Film” – Guest Editor: Frances Gateward ) [2] Neil’s transformation is not just from white to black but from modern to primitive. At first, Neil believes that he has Chippewa blood in his...

NeoSlaves: Slavery, Freedom, and African American Apotheosis in Candyman, The Matrix, and The Green Mile

Nov. 1, 2004

(part of a series in Special Issue #40: Scared of the Dark: Race, Gender and the “Horror Film” – Guest Editor: Frances Gateward ) What became transparent were the self-evident ways that Americans choose to talk about themselves through and within a sometimes allegorical, sometimes metaphorical, but always choked representation...

Passing For Horror: Race, Fear, and Elia Kazan’s Pinky

Oct. 1, 2004

(part of a series in Special Issue #40: Scared of the Dark: Race, Gender and the “Horror Film” – Guest Editor: Frances Gateward ) [1] Film genres routinely mix and evolve over time in ways that change our expectations of them, and change the way that we as audiences read...

The Horrors of Remembrance: The Altered Visual Aesthetic of Horror in Jonathan Demme’s Beloved.

Sept. 1, 2004

(part of a series in Special Issue #40: Scared of the Dark: Race, Gender and the “Horror Film” – Guest Editor: Frances Gateward ) [1] Jonathan Demme’s Beloved (1998) , a film which tries to cope with the trauma of slavery, is a horror film in that it uses, and...

Technologies of Race: Special Effects, Fetish, Film, and the Fifteenth Century

Aug. 1, 2004

(part of a series in Special Issue #40: Scared of the Dark: Race, Gender and the “Horror Film” – Guest Editor: Frances Gateward ) [1] In periodizing film studies as a modern/modernist phenomenon simply because film technology emerges at the end of the nineteenth century, film scholars sometimes miss the...

A Labour of Patriotism: Female Soviet Gymnasts’ Physical and Ideological Work, 1952-1991

June 1, 2004

[1] “Smile! Otherwise, the spectator will see how hard you’re working, and the illusion will be lost” – (coach Renald Knysh to Olga Korbut). [2] Soviet women gymnasts enjoyed world dominance in their sport from 1952 until the collapse of the Soviet Union almost 40 years later. But the celebration...

“Quality Postfeminism?” Sex and the Single Girl on HBO

April 1, 2004

Figure 1-The Cast of Sex and the City [1] A very vibrant area of work in television studies at the moment dedicates itself to freshening up debates over “quality television” in an era of “must-see” programming (see Jancovich & Lyons, as well as Carr, Metz & Tankel, forthcoming). This article...

Stage Door Jennies: Brett Farmer interviews Stacy Wolf about her New Book, A Problem Like Maria: Gender and Sexuality in the American Musical.

July 2, 2003

[1] Farmer: The affinities between gay male cultures and the Broadway musical are so widely acknowledged that, in popular imaginings, one has become all but indexical of the other. The primary objective—and, in so small measure, the value—of your book, A Problem Like Maria: Gender and Sexuality in the American...

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