The Emigrants: Straight Outta Compton,Dope, and Emerging from the Ghetto

Many recent movies about African American life have focused on people leaving the ghetto. Earlier movies about groups living in ghettoes have portrayed the ghetto as a permanent reality. Moviemakers explored ghetto life as an interesting subject and a source of cultural innovation. Life was hard, but social and cultural ways to cope with difficulty helped. Now, the ghetto is presented as a dangerous and depressing place. The only effective way to cope with it is to leave and find more nurturing environments. A few talented individuals and hard workers can succeed that way. They are seen as heroic because they refuse to accept defeat or failure. Few ghetto residents can take this route out of the ghetto, and the many who cannot are ignored or blamed. The audience can applaud the few successes and find a happy outcome to ghetto movies.     

Angel and the Badman: Mockingjay,Spectre, and Choosing Sides in War Movies

Recent films in the James Bond series and the Hunger Games series have taken entertaining and sentimental versions of stories about violence in the struggle between the established state and rebels against the state. The craft of the moviemaker lends heroic stature to one side in this fight, thus justifying the use of violence. In these movies, different sides are made to seem virtuous. In the James Bond movies, the defenders of the established order are the good guys. In the Hunger Games movies, the rebels trying to bring down the established order are the good guys. Our ambivalence about violence, morality, and inequality in general is not resolved, but only masked by the needs of entertaining story telling.     

Come Into My Parlor: Rendition,Ugly Betty,and Rude Awakening from the American Dream

Although the national ideology emphasizes that the American Dream is available to immigrants, recent events have made public opinion hostile to two groups, Mexicans and Arabs. Popular culture has played a historic role in presenting sympathetic portrayals of immigrants and their assimilation to American culture. Current depictions of Mexican immigrants continue this tradition, as shown by the television show, Ugly Betty. Arabs and Muslims, in contrast, have had a largely negative presentation in popular culture. A few recent movies and television shows have been more sympathetic, especially the movie, Rendition.     

War Games: Ender's Game,The Monuments Men,and Movies for Peace

The popularity of adolescent fantasy movies about cosmic war and the enjoyment of military adventures that we find in World War II movies suggest the unique importance of war-themed culture in fostering solidarity in large, complex, and factionalized societies. War movies offset the power of sub-cultural movements by emphasizing the togetherness to be found in patriotic attachment to the whole society. A review of the history of recent war movies such as Ender's Game and The Monuments Men raises the possibility of a new militarism among young people. However, the persistence of war-weariness indicates that young people may differentiate fantasies of combat from the recognition of the horrors of real war.     

Fearless Vampire Kissers: Bloodsuckers We Love in Twilight,True Blood and Others

The figure of the vampire has been an important element of popular culture for more than a century. The movies have been a home for vampire stories, and they have presented them as unusually frightening images. A recent explosion of vampire screen works reveals a new emphasis on addressing female issues as opposed to male issues and focusing on the erotic attraction of the vampire rather than the fear. As a fictional, but very obvious, example of an alien group in our midst, vampires are like many sub-groups. The change from fear to arousal may augur a change in sentiment that allows us to be more welcoming of outsiders.     

Hail the Conquering Hero: Remembering the Troops in The Hurt Locker,Inglourious Basterds and Avatar

Three recent movies about war are examined. All have been honored by critics and welcomed by audiences. The three movies are very different from one another. They reflect different ways of thinking and feeling about war. More specifically, they represent ways we relate to the troops we send into battle and our concerns about whether we have done and are doing the right things.     

Home of the Slave: The Birth of a Nation and the Persistence of Slavery

Different subgroups in society have diverse motives for remembering or forgetting important events in history. In American history, slavery has had a deep and enduring bad effect on everything that came afterward. There have been attempts to forget or remember this chapter in the national narrative related to the intentions of subcultural groups in the present. The treatment of slavery in American movies has been a powerful factor in these attempts. Recent movies have returned to a focus on slavery at the same time that national opinion has turned away from African American issues and sympathies. The recent movie The Birth of a Nation exemplifies the new emphasis on slavery in the movies and the lack of concern for it in public discourse.     

Resistance and Endurance: Harriet,The Irishman,and Movies About Indigestible History

Two current biopic movies, Harriet and The Irishman, present the life stories of real people who have been involved with slavery and organized crime. These images contradict the virtuous image of America that is fundamental to our sense of national identity and patriotism. Could this contradiction lead to oppositional movements for social change?     

One False Step: Detroit,Step and Movies of Rising and Falling

Detroit and Step are two recent movies in the context of urban riots in protest of police brutality. They refer to time periods separated by half a century, but there are common themes in the two that seem appropriate to both times. The movies are not primarily concerned with the riot events, but the riot is a major motivating force in both; Detroit is pessimistic, while Step is hopeful. Together, they define alternative possibilities of African American community life. One is eternally sought, and the other is always a dreadful possibility.     

Gender Transgression and Villainy in Animated Film

This study investigates the ways in which gender transgression and "queering" are used as an indicator of deviance and villainy in children's animated full-length movies. Through an analysis of male villains in 10 full-length animated movies, this article examines the ways in which gender transgression creates what is termed a "villain-as-sissy" archetype that signifies villains as deviant and enhances the positive gender qualities of heroes. Further, this study discusses the potential impact this pattern of representation may have in terms of limiting and reinforcing heteronormative gender roles and promoting negative associations about gays.     

American Indian Females and Stereotypes: Warriors,Leaders, Healers,Feminists; Not Drudges,Princesses, Prostitutes

This article is written by a Native female author. It delves into the historical stereotypes of Native females as drudges, princesses, and prostitutes perpetrated by media, movies, and literature. The author reviews research on the traditional and modern roles of Native females, including roles as warriors, leaders, and healers. Current literature and research on Critical Indigenous Feminist Theory is reviewed.     

The Teacher From the Black Lagoon: Revenge of the Bad Teacher

School teachers have been used as heroic characters in movies for a long time. Their heroism compensates for the failures of social life in our society by treating problems in the classroom, not the real world, and by acting as the mediators between diverse sub-cultures and the larger society. They are the agents of rationality, scholarship, and inclusiveness in addressing great social issues. In recent years, many movies about bad workers have appeared, including comedies and melodramas. Bad Teacher is a new kind of movie that treats the usually heroic teacher as a kind of bad worker. The critique of the teacher comes at a time when school teachers are being demonized in political discourse, and it makes use of disparaging stereotypes for dramatic effect.     

After the Fall: Awakening from the Dream in The Rider and Red Sparrow

Two recent movies, The Rider and Red Sparrow, are in contrast to a large number of movies celebrating the triumph of afflicted persons over obstacles that seem insurmountable. Through commitment, hard work, and determination, these characters are able to do the impossible. However, these two movies instead focus on the dire consequences of an inability to overcome obstacles. This change may reflect an increasing pessimism about current challenges and individuals’ ability to meet them.     

The Awful Truth: Unflattering Portraits in A Serious Man,and Precious

Minority groups are often justified in being watchful for the difficulties that negative reputations can bring on them. The necessity for discovery and discussion of serious issues within a minority community is real, but the resistance to such a candid approach is founded in their position of vulnerability and the power of old stereotypes. Two recent movies, A Serious Man and Precious, in spite of their enthusiastic reception by movie critics and audiences, are viewed with uneasiness by some commentators in the Jewish and African-American communities. This negative view is predictable and unavoidable. It reminds us that even hyper-sensitive minorities have real enemies.     

Mrs. Miniver's Girls: Plucky Girls in Hidden Figures,The Zookeeper's Wife,Their Finest,and Colossal

Four recent movies, Hidden Figures, The Zookeeper's Wife, Their Finest, and Colossal exemplify a new cultural version of the movie heroine. This version combines feminism with commitment to solving an overwhelming problem. These heroines, thus, display the character virtues of Wonder Woman and Mrs. Miniver. This new version reflects changing concerns about the cultural understanding of women and a new direction for women moviemakers.     

Guess Who’s Coming to the Oscars: Multicultural Breakthroughs in Black Panther and Other Recent Movies

The movie awards for 2018 were dominated by works by and about marginalized people who are underrepresented in contemporary movies. The movies use established forms of superficial, sensational, and escapist movie-making. The conventions of these “eye candy” forms contradict and undermine the serious adult significance of the works, in obedience to the commercial demands of the movie industry.     

What the Butler Saw: Lee Daniels's Studies in Biography and History

The movie Lee Daniels’ The Butler is an example of a work that is meant not only to entertain but to convey an important attitude and offer important viewpoints. The movie deals with a deep issue in the history of movies and the history of the country: racial inequality. Three issues are discussed in this article: (a) African Americans in movies, (b) the contradictions of the servant role, and (c) the generational conflict between fathers and sons.     

Intruders: New Neighbors in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and The Hundred-Foot Journey

Conflicts over territory are about the power to establish dominant cultures in territories and are often accompanied by cultural claims to legitimacy by each side. The cultural claims, or ideologies, are often expressed in terms of “homeland” dwellers versus “intruders.” Two recent movies, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and The Hundred-Foot Journey, depict such conflicts. They refer to novel groups in the depictions, but they follow the pattern of earlier movies, such as Broken Arrow. Novel groups are required because the earlier examples of despised alien cultures no longer convey to modern audiences the extreme hostility felt by the combatants in the earlier movies.     

The Carrickshock Incident, 1831: Social Memory and an Irish cause célèbre

This article examines the ways that a violent incident in Irish history has been remembered and interpreted over the past 170 years. The event occurred on an isolated road in south Kilkenny in December 1831 when an armed police column clashed with a large crowd, resulting in the deaths of 17 people. Unlike most incidents of this kind, the majority of the victims (13) were constables. The uniqueness of the occurrence made it a cause célèbre at the time and has helped to perpetuate its memory in the locality ever since. As with larger, more familiar sites of memory, successive generations of local people have remembered the incident in various ways since the early nineteenth century. Their objects of remembrance and their understanding of the event have also shifted dramatically over time, suggesting that the process of collective memory at the micro level can be as varied and complex as on the national stage.     

Young Campers in Love: Who Are the Grown-ups in Moonrise Kingdom?

Popular culture, especially movie culture, is the arena where the struggles of the diverse cultures belonging to age groups are carried out. Moonrise Kingdom is an unusual movie, different from the usual summer or coming of age movies. In such movies, different theories of youth are displayed, providing tools for constructing the political bases of marginalization of adolescents. These theories limit the character traits that can be awarded to all subcultural groups, in this case to youth.