The Social Construction of Race, Part Deux

This is the bulk of readings for the 'discourses of race' section of the course as we wade through it this week. Pay particular attention to Zook's article on the Fox Network as it invests that political economic perspective that is so well dramatized in Bamboozled as well as the Means-Coleman article on 'black sitcoms' which is a good example of textual analysis. The Herman Gray article is also important. The other articles you can use for your papers, if relevant and/or to expand on our class discussion.

Kristal Brent Zook, "The Fox Network and the Revolution in Black Television"
Robin R. Means-Coleman, "Black Sitcom Portrayals"
Herman Gray, "The Politics of Representation in Network Television" from Watching Race: Television and the Struggle for Blackness (University of Minnesota Press, 1995/2004)

Donald Bogle, "Workplace Dramas, Ensemble Casts 1990s Style"
Chyng Fen Sun, "Ling Woo in Historical Context: The New Face of Asian American Stereotypes on Television"

This is the  'incomplete sentence' vaudeville routine by Mantan Moreland & Ben Carter from the Charlie Chan movie The Scarlet Clue (Phil Rosen, 1945)

Below is Sarah Jones' 'Your Revolution' (with DJ Vadim) from Def Poetry Jam's Season 1 (2002)

Cinema Going as Social Act: Westerns, Giallos and More Generic 'Trash'

Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace

Bondanella, Chp. 11-14

Wagstaff, "A Forkful of Westerns: Industry, Audiences and the Italian Western"
from Dyer & Vincendeau, Popular European Cinema (Routledge, 1992)
Koven, "What Is Giallo?" + "Toward an Understanding of Vernacular Cinema"
from Koven, La Dolce Morte: Vernacular Cinema and the Italian Giallo Film (Scarecrow Press, 2006)

Sergio Leone's Fistful of Dollars

The 'Post' Archipelago: A Brief Intro

Young Jacques Derrida's English Comp Essay
Note the teacher's comments. Do they still apply to Jacques' adult writing? Read 'Différance' below to find out.

Some introductory readings to the various 'posts' that we will be reading in the next weeks. Having concluded our discussion of structuralism, here is some material to bring us towards the post-structuralist theoretical framework. Remember that a good exercise for us is to read the theories in their original form. As you read get a sense of the language, of the rhetorical processes, of the way the argument proceeds. I am including here, in addition to the Roland Barthes essay on "The Death of the Author" also a brief introduction to poststructuralism, postmodernism and postcolonial studies (the pdf has these entries in alphabetical order but please read them in the order above). I've also included Derrida's 'Différance' --this is a bonus reading but I would urge all of you to tackle it in order to get that sense of the language mentioned above so that we may talk about it in class. Enjoy.

"poststructuralism"; "postmodernism"; "postcolonial studies" entries
from A Dictionary of Cultural and Critical Theory; 2nd Ed. (Wiley-Blackwell)

Roland Barthes, "The Death of the Author" from Image/Music/Text

David Harvey, "Postmodernism" from The Condition of Postmodernity

Jacques Derrida, Différance

Structuralism 101

"Structuralist Theories" from Selden et al. A Reader's Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory, 3rd Edition (Prentice Hall, 1985)

Below are some very basic intro articles on Semiotics and the media for those that need a refresher/recap:

Mieke Bal, Semiotics for Beginners
Scott McCloud, from Understading Comics: Chapter 2, Semiotics
Jonathan Bignell, Media Semiotics: Introduction + The Cinema

The Social Construction of Race I

As we watch Spike Lee's Bamboozled* and discuss the film, Ash Corea's "Racism and the American Way of Media" is a good summary of the issues raised by Lee and those that you will be reading about in greater detail with the next group of articles. As a bonus, a classic article by Stuart Hall.

*Through Bamboozled please reflect on the mechanisms that Lee describes (through a satirical register) as well as how he narrativizes the power dynamics at work inside the (fictional) CNS network. How does he convey the conversion of aspects of African-American culture into a commodity within the context of a white-owned and controlled corporation? Also, as Delacroix is 'permitted' to move up in the corporate entertainment ladder by becoming show runner and head writer of a 'variety' show, what are the conditions that he needs to submit to? How does the white construction of black culture play into what he is being asked to conform to? In the end, what is the price that Delacroix has to pay according to Lee?
Finally, what does Spike Lee say about the way in which Mantan: The New Millenium Minstrel Show's genealogy in minstrel shows and blackface performance (along with the accumulation of historical artefacts) has become an empty gesture, a comedic ploy that removes the complexities of history and society and keeps racial hierarchies intact? What forms of contemporary popular culture do you think Spike Lee would consider to be operating through the same mechanisms today?
That's a whole lot of questions. Enjoy.

Ash Corea, "Racism and the American Way of Media" from Questioning the Media
Stuart Hall, "What is This 'Black' in Black Popular Culture" from Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies



Clip from the 1949 film Hollywood Varieties where actors Glenn Vernon and Edward Ryan apply blackface make-up while on stage and reminisce about 'the good ol' days' --as they say-- of minstrelsy.

Return to the Real: New Wave Neo-Realism + Midterm Guide & La Dolce Vita Link

Anna Magnani as Mamma Roma (Città Aperta)

Antonioni and Fellini, although in very different ways and with different degrees, did share an apparent obliviousness to concrete social issues and a much more evident interest in larger framing questions and issues of form. Pierpaolo Pasolini is one of a handful of filmmakers who mark a return to the concerns of realism --even though if you look at the dates to the films you will realize that all of this is happening in sync with the other more formally oriented films-- and to concrete social investigation. This 'return' however, as we will see, is certainly not a stale or naive re-proposal of neo-realism's outlook and is operating from a modernist perspective and includes a concern with intertextuality, formal experimentation and stylistic specificity.

La Dolce Vita is here.
(Remember to download the subtitles files --the one with the .srt extension)

Viano, Mamma Roma from Pasolini: A Certain Realism
Sitney, "New Wave Neorealism: Pasolini, Olmi and Rosi" from Vital Crises in Italian Cinema

The following articles are short pieces that were included in the Criterion Edition of the Mamma Roma DVD. They include information on the short, La Ricotta, which we will be watching in class. You are not responsible for these but they are interesting and informative readings and help you to approach and appreciate Pasolini's very particular style and poetic.
Indiana, Pasolini, Mamma Roma and La Ricotta + Pasolini Interview
Siciliano, La Ricotta + Pasolini Interview


These are some essential readings that are, however, not required. I recommend these to anyone interested in investigating further issues of 'realism', reality and cinema.
Barthes, "The Reality Effect"
McCabe, "Realism and the Cinema: Notes on Some Brechtian Theses"
McCabe, "Theory and Film: Principles of Realism and Pleasure"
Abercrombie, Lash & Longhurst , "Popular Representation: Recasting Realism".

Midterm Study Guidelines here.

Art, Modernism: Antonioni, Fellini

Bondanella, History of Italian Cinema; Chapters 5-9

Bordwell, "The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice"
from Poetics of Cinema

Marcus, "Antonioni's Red Desert: Abstraction as the Guiding Idea"

from Italian Film in the Light of Neorealism

Godard, "Jean-Luc Godard Interviews Michelangelo Antonioni"
from Cahiers du Cinema #160, November 1964

Barthes, "'Dear Antonioni...'"

Text of a speech given by Roland Barthes in 1980; from Cahiers du Cinema #311, May 1980

Bondanella, "La Dolce Vita: The Art Film Spectacular" 

from The Films of Federico Fellini

(nb. You are responsible for the Bordwell, Marcus and Bondanella on La Dolce Vita. The Godard interview and the Barthes letter are extra readings which we will talk about in class --but they are short really interesting pieces of artists and critics confronting themselves with Antonioni's work)

Theory Midterm Study Guide

You can find the study questions/study guide for the midterm here. We will talk about these tomorrow in class. Enjoy.

"Beneath the cobblestones, the beach": Theory, Alternative Media, Situationism and Cultural Resistance

How To Talk Like A Situationist

Guy Debord - Report on the Construction of Situations and on the International Situationist Tendency's Conditions of Organization and Action (1957)

If you are interested in reading more of the Situationist International's documents, manifestos and screeds (they are always fun, engaging and inspiring) you can find an excellent selection in the anthology edited by Tom McDonough and published by MIT Press titled Guy Debord and the Situationist International: Texts and Documents. Modern day situationists have made the book available here. Of course all of the Situationist documents are also available online at the Situationist Online Archive which is a true treasure trove of material. There are many other sources for Situationist materials freely available online, a direct result of the 'proto-free culture' approach the Situationist International always promoted.

Hans Magnus Enzensberger - Constituents of a Theory of the Media (1970)

Extra:
John Downing - Radical Media in Italy

Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema: Psychoanalysis, Feminism and Film

Stills from Otto Preminger's Laura, 1944

"Woman as image, man as bearer of the look."

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE MIDTERM HAS BEEN MOVED TO WEDNESDAY OCT. 16. 
It will include all the material covered since the beginning of the semester up to and including the following Laura Mulvey essay (and Preminger's Laura).

Laura Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema"

‘Men dream of women. Women dream of themselves being dreamt of. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. Men look at women, women watch themselves being looked at. -John Berger, Ways of Seeing

Jill Soloway, the creator of the TV series Transparent and  I Love Dick (based on the Chris Kraus novel of the same title about having a crush on cultural critic and author Dick Hebdige which some of you might have read in previous classes). This is a talk she gave on 'The Female Gaze' at the Toronto Film Festival.

Paul B. Preciado: Tuesday, Oct. 8 @ 6.30pm