American Daredevils
The nineteenth-century commitment to thrilling an audience embodied an emerging synergy of public performance, collective experience, and individual agency.
Mae West and Camp
A camp diva, a queer icon, and a model of feminism—the memorable Mae West left behind a complicated legacy, on and off the stage.
Her Bounty Is Boundless
From the first actor—a man—to play Juliet to the “girl boss” version on Broadway, Shakespeare’s young lover offers something new in every iteration.
Can Fan Hashtag Campaigns Stop the “Bury Your Gays” Trope?
Organized fan hashtag campaigns put pressure on the entertainment industry to improve their writing for and treatment of LGBTQ+ characters.
We All “Scream” for the Metatextual
Do you like scary movies? How about movies that scare you while satirizing and paying homage to their genre?
The Mockumentary: A Very Real History
What's the appeal of humor masquerading as seriousness? An entire movie genre stands ready to shed light on that question.
Fake News: A Media Literacy Reading List
Compiled by graduate students in a 2016 course on “Activism and Digital Culture,” at University of Southern California.
How Film Noir Tried to Scare Women out of Working
In the period immediately following World War II, the femme fatale embodied a host of male anxieties about gender roles.
How Local TV Made “Bad” Movies a Thing
Weekly shows on local TV stations helped make the ironic viewing of bad movies into a national pastime.
