The Last Word

Author(s):  
Justin Gautreau

The Last Word argues that the Hollywood novel opened up space for cultural critique of the film industry at a time when the industry lacked the capacity to critique itself. While the young studio system worked tirelessly to burnish its public image in the wake of celebrity scandal, several industry insiders wrote fiction to fill in what newspapers and fan magazines left out. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, these novels aimed to expose the invisible machinery of classical Hollywood cinema, including not only the evolving artifice of the screen but also the promotional discourse that complemented it. As likeminded filmmakers in the 1940s and 1950s gradually brought the dark side of the industry to the screen, however, the Hollywood novel found itself struggling to live up to its original promise of delivering the unfilmable. By the 1960s, desperate to remain relevant, the genre had devolved into little more than erotic fantasy of movie stars behind closed doors, perhaps the only thing the public couldn’t already find elsewhere. Still, given their unique ability to speak beyond the institutional restraints of their time, these earlier works offer a window into the industry’s dynamic creation and re-creation of itself in the public imagination.

2020 ◽  
pp. 169-174
Author(s):  
Justin Gautreau

The conclusion examines the last gasps of the Hollywood novel following the collapse of the studio system. As the inner workings of the industry became less and less of a secret, the Hollywood novel began emulating scandal magazines and the burgeoning porn industry to stay afloat. By the 1960s, it had devolved into a toothless genre that offered readers little more than erotic fantasy of movie stars behind closed doors. Once the film industry implemented a ratings system in the late 1960s, several screenwriters managed to restore the integrity of the Hollywood novel, only now approaching their literary endeavors not as antithetical to film work but as the first step in bringing their R-rated vision of Hollywood to the screen.


2015 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 641-661 ◽  
Author(s):  
TOBIAS HARPER

AbstractThe importance of the honours system as an institution in British politics and public life has frequently been underestimated. At the end of the First World War, the British government prioritized voluntary service to the state as an area which the honours system should reward more than others through the newly created Order of the British Empire. However, after the war the Order changed to focus more on civil servants, soldiers, and the broad category of ‘local service’. The latter could include volunteers, but more often did not. Various attempts to democratize honours through reforms from the 1960s focused on rewarding a wider range of service. The most successful of these was John Major's honours reform programme in 1993, which returned volunteer service to the forefront of the public image of honours. While these reforms were not as egalitarian as they seemed, they were successful because they integrated an ideology of crown honours with the other functions of the modern monarchy and opened up the honours system to a wider potential set of recipients. At the same time, they maintained a hierarchical structure that meant that elites who had traditionally enjoyed the exclusivity of high honours continued to do so.


Author(s):  
Eve Golden

Jayne Mansfield (1933−1967) was driven not just to be an actress but to be a star. One of the most influential sex symbols of her time, she was known for her platinum blonde hair, hourglass figure, outrageously low necklines, and flamboyant lifestyle. Hardworking and ambitious, Mansfield proved early in her career that she was adept in both comic and dramatic roles, but her tenacious search for the spotlight and her risqué promotional stunts caused her to be increasingly snubbed in Hollywood. In the first definitive biography of Mansfield, Eve Golden offers a joyful account of the star Andy Warhol called "the poet of publicity," revealing the smart, determined woman behind the persona. While she always had her sights set on the silver screen, Mansfield got her start as Rita Marlowe in the Broadway show Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?. She made her film debut in the low-budget drama Female Jungle (1955) before landing the starring role in The Girl Can't Help It (1956). Mansfield followed this success with a dramatic role in The Wayward Bus (1957), winning a Golden Globe for New Star of the Year, and starred alongside Cary Grant in Kiss Them for Me (1957). Despite her popularity, her appearance as the first celebrity in Playboy and her nude scene in Promises! Promises! (1963) cemented her reputation as an outsider. By the 1960s, Mansfield's film career had declined, but she remained very popular with the public. She capitalized on that popularity through in-person and TV appearances, nightclub appearances, and stage productions. Her larger-than-life life ended sadly when she passed away at age thirty-four in a car accident. Golden looks beyond Mansfield's flashy public image and tragic death to fully explore her life and legacy. She discusses Mansfield's childhood, her many loves -- including her famous on-again, off-again relationship with Miklós "Mickey" Hargitay -- her struggles with alcohol, and her sometimes tumultuous family relationships. She also considers Mansfield's enduring contributions to American popular culture and celebrity culture. This funny, engaging biography offers a nuanced portrait of a fascinating woman who loved every minute of life and lived each one to the fullest.


Author(s):  
Andrew Dean

This chapter examines how New Zealand author Janet Frame responded to both the demands of a national literature and biographical enquiry into her life. Frame in her early work courts the idea that madness provides special insight, an understanding that was read biographically by the masculine cultural nationalist coterie surrounding her at this time. However, in her later work she seeks to replace this public image with her own vision of authorship. Between two pairs of novels from the 1960s and 1970s, as well as her 1980s autobiographies, this chapter shows a dimension of metafiction that is less discussed, in which the form is used by an author to attempt to control her reception and to prescribe certain approaches. In particular, Frame would become preoccupied with an understanding of public attention as a form of contamination, and would in turn seek a purity of literary vision. The chapter closes by showing how representations of Frame’s life by biographers and film-makers, even after her death, have continued to participate in battles over the public reception of the author within New Zealand literary culture.


Author(s):  
Joseph M. Siracusa

‘Star Wars and beyond’ focuses on the various anti-missile shields proposed after the Cuban Missile Crisis. By the 1960s, both the United States and the Soviet Union, looking for alternatives to the doctrine of mutual assured destruction, found themselves caught up in an offensive and defensive arms race. Would an anti-missile shield respond effectively to the complex demands on it? Was the American arsenal enough of a deterrent to discourage rivals from striking first? Would the ‘shield’ approach reignite the arms race? Reagan’s Strategic Defence Initiative (christened ‘Star Wars’ by critics) did not at first capture the public imagination, but its legacy continued in later administrations and is still felt today.


1986 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Hamer

When Adrian Noble directed Measure for Measure at the RSC in 1983–4, colour supplement coverage focused on the costumes: the exuberance of the production was indicated by the extravagance of the designs. On 25 April 1985, before the opening of the director's new As You Like It, the Sunday Times Magazine ran an interview with him and with his Rosalind, Juliet Stevenson. There was a sense, not merely to be put down to the artificial hype of the publicity machine, that a new production and above all a new Rosalind were matters of concern and interest to a wide range of consumers of life's good things. Noble's Measure for Measure had been covered almost as a design story but As You Like It was treated very differently. Noble's views on the significance of the retreat into Arden were sought and reported: there was an underlying assumption that the readership had a stake in the representation of this play, that what was being staged was a property held in common by the journal's readers and that the play had a place in the public imagination independently of what directors did with it.


1991 ◽  
Vol 15 (12) ◽  
pp. 795-795 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosalind Ramsay

One hundred and fifty years on, how, Professor Clare asked an invited audience of eminent non-psychiatrists at the Royal Society of Medicine, do we fare? Is there really a more positive attitude to mental illness, now than in the nineteenth century, or even the 1960s? The Victorian public image of madness was characterised by ignorance, intolerance and fear and the mentally ill regarded as less than human, available to be exploited or used to entertain; and also, dangerous and incurable, best put away in large mental hospitals or ‘bins’. The media colluded in maintaining such attitudes: a leader in The Times in 1900, commenting on the 30-fold increase in the mental hospital population, was anxious that soon the mad might outnumber the sane!


1980 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 305-311
Author(s):  
Hazem El-Beblawi

Since the quadrupling of oil prices in 1973–74, OPEC and oil prices have made front-page news and captured the public imagination. It is no secret that oil prices are administered prices, where an economic agent is a price maker; other participants in the market have to adjust their behavior to this price. It is not a new phenomenon. From its early history, the oil industry in the United States — by far the world's first oil province — was dominated by the Standard Oil Trust. On the international scene, the role of the Seven Sisters hardly needs mention. They continued to control oil export prices until the 1960s.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (12) ◽  
pp. 1458-1464
Author(s):  
Sweta Kamboj ◽  
Rohit Kamboj ◽  
Shikha Kamboj ◽  
Kumar Guarve ◽  
Rohit Dutt

Background: In the 1960s, the human coronavirus was designated, which is responsible for the upper respiratory tract disease in children. Back in 2003, mainly 5 new coronaviruses were recognized. This study directly pursues to govern knowledge, attitude and practice of viral and droplet infection isolation safeguard among the researchers during the outbreak of the COVID-19. Introduction: Coronavirus is a proteinaceous and infectious pathogen. It is an etiological agent of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). Coronavirus, appeared in China from the seafood and poultry market last year, which has spread in various countries, and has caused several deaths. Methods: The literature data has been taken from different search platforms like PubMed, Science Direct, Embase, Web of Science, who.int portal and complied. Results: Corona virology study will be more advanced and outstanding in recent years. COVID-19 epidemic is a threatening reminder not solely for one country but all over the universe. Conclusion: In this review article, we encapsulated the pathogenesis, geographical spread of coronavirus worldwide, also discussed the perspective of diagnosis, effective treatment, and primary recommendations by the World Health Organization, and guidelines of the government to slow down the impact of the virus are also optimistic, efficacious and obliging for the public health. However, it will take a prolonged time in the future to overcome this epidemic.


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