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.     

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.     

Cold,Cold Heart: Who's Afraid of No Country for Old Men?

Stories of people killing people are a central part of culture and contain profound statements about important human issues. Senseless killings are particularly problematic. The long history of senseless killings in movies leads up to the 2007 movie, No Country for Old Men, in which senselessness has been raised to a peak. Although it is not a great commercial success, the movie has been recognized as deep, powerful, and important. In particular, the senseless killer has been judged to be one of the most frightening in movie history. The meaning of this fear may be found in examining the social and cultural context of contemporary life.     

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.     

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.     

Gifts of the Magi: Chef,Million Dollar Arm,and Cultural Mixtures

When groups using different cultural systems encounter one another in diverse societies, their previous cultures are transformed into a merged, complex cultural picture. Some culture areas are preserved while others are adjusted, exchanged, and merged. In our society, introducing groups to the cooking of other groups is a form of contact which produces less resistance. In sports, as well, contact, and interaction occur with less friction. It is sometimes thought that groups that need each other for survival integrate socially and merge culturally out of practical necessity. However, the pursuit of pleasure and fun can also be an occasion for cultural mixing. Such merging is depicted in the recent movies Chef and Million Dollar Arm.     

Heartland: Forgiveness in Columbus,Three Billboards Outside Ebbing,Missouri, and Lady Bird

Recent movies have used the familiar conventions of classic revenge movies, but the former have avoided the latter's grim resolutions in favor of a wiser, more forgiving attitude toward those who have offended the wronged. This unconventional change in a familiar story line points to the contrast between the pleasure of vicarious vindictiveness and the more thoughtful approach that we prefer in real life.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

Issues of integration abroad and readjustment to Japan of Japanese returnees

Returnees, or Japanese parents and children who live overseas and then return to Japan, often have anxieties about their ability to both cope with life abroad and to successfully readjust to Japanese life upon their return. The issues of returning are particularly acute for children, who face difficulties of reintegrating into both their peer group and the Japanese educational system. In this study, 21 returnee families, with a total of 40 children, were investigated. In general, it was found that most parents felt they had successfully integrated abroad and readjusted to Japan. Children were evaluated as being even more successful at integrating abroad, but almost all had a series of problems readjusting to Japan. However, most of these problems were resolved within a year or two after return. It was found, though, that the problem of cultural identity seems to linger as a continuing issue for returnee children. It was also found that, in general, children retained their degree of competence in English even after several years back in Japan, and that active (as opposed to merely expressed) parental support was important in motivating the children to continued English study.     

Voices of Newly Arrived Refugee Women

ABSTRACT

The numbers of refugees worldwide are at an all-time high. The majority of refugees relocated to the United States are women and children. Much research has concentrated on health care issues and trauma but few studies have expressed women’s viewpoints. This study consists of interviews with eight newly arrived refugee women to determine how they construct and negotiate their identity and the idea of being a refugee, as well as how they cope with the challenges of adjusting to a new cultural environment. Narratives indicate an interwoven pattern of interaction including family, home, and concerns.     

Acculturation, stress and coping : Some implications for research and education

Acculturation processes are conceptualized as requiring a multivariate model with variables operating at four psychosocial levels: cultural, ethnic, interpersonal and intrapersonal. Examples of changes in mental health status, social networks, cognitive style, social orientation and child rearing values consequent to immigration are considered. The primary focus is on the delineation of several approaches to the study of acculturative stress and coping. These include stressful life events, chronic role strains, and Lazarus's cognitive appraisal model.The implications of the model for research emphasize the importance of multivariate, multi-method, multi-level approaches involving both cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of situational and process variables. Since the school is a critical acculturation context, an intensified analysis of the strains, stresses and coping responses in that context is required. Promising approaches to such an analysis include parent and teacher cultural sensitivity training, classroom restructuring in order to reduce devaluation of immigrant children by the dominant ethnic group, and stress-innoculation training specifically designed to help children to learn to cope more effectively with the stresses of the school environment.     

A Complaint with the Cadi,ca. 1896: an East/West Cultural Encounter

This article presents a case study of A Complaint with the Cadi (Algeria), ca. 1896 – a painting by the French Orientalist artist Marie Lucas-Robiquet (1858–1959). Using cultural and social history as prisms, it explores what Lucas-Robiquet’s visual record communicates to the cultural ‘outsider’ about Muslim social life in French colonial Algeria. Attention is given to this artwork because it depicts the Islamic judiciary system as practised in late nineteenth-century Algeria. This article argues that this painting and its subject matter are rare in the Orientalist canon; that the artist was female, is, I posit, crucial to the ways in which this work can be read. Lucas-Robiquet, a decorated Orientalist, used a Naturalist style of painting which was both nuanced and sensitive to Islamic cultural traditions. I contend that A Complaint with the Cadi (or qā?ī meaning judge) is an important work because it represents a locus of historicised forms of Otherness: the French female artist and the Algerian cultural attribute.     

Angels With Dirty Faces: Who Invited Slumdog Millionaire and The Visitor?

Two recent movies, The Visitor and Slumdog Millionaire, exemplify very different ways of dealing with the pains of inequality in modern life. Popular culture celebrates the successes of meritorious individuals from backgrounds of victimization and oppression, but it struggles to find positive themes when social arrangements continue to victimize other meritorious individuals. We may appear to transcend our past inequalities, but we still have present inequalities to struggle against. Similarities to recent political events, the unsettled issues of immigration, the fear of Muslims, and the election of a multiracial President are noted.     

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.     

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.     

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?     

Cultural practices,age and the life course

Social science studies of cultural activity commonly focus on class, gender and ethnicity and often treat age as an unimportant background variable. This article demonstrates the central importance of age as a factor affecting cultural consumption, using data from the “Taking Part” Survey of England. As well as seeking to describe the main aspects of age differentiation, the article unpacks what is often called, in a simplified way, “age effects”. The socio-historical dynamics leading to the existence of age effects are examined, first theoretically, and second, through some empirical examples (doing sport, playing a musical instrument/singing, cinema, visiting exhibitions or collections of art/photography/sculpture, doing textile crafts). A number of influences are shown to account for the importance of age: health, the individual life course, the different socio-economic background of cohorts and other, more complex cohort effects. Possible interpretations of these cohort effects on cultural practices are discussed at the end of the article.     

Flight of the Blackbird: Red Tails and Fighting for American Legitimacy

Red Tails, a recent movie about the Tuskegee Airmen in battle, is the latest in a line of movies that seem to petition for admission to the fellowship of the mainstream American society by showing stories of groups overcoming discrimination and proving their strength and their patriotism. As the most excluded and longest-lasting pariah group, African Americans have enacted this scenario in real life and in the popular culture many times. Movies about war and the military are a powerful means of showing minority group worthiness. Those who will risk their lives in battle on behalf of the homeland and will fight with extraordinary skill should be worthy applicants for inclusion.