scholarly journals Scratching the surface of spectacle: Black hypermasculinity and the Television Talent Show

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Helen Carol Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Black Male ◽  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Reality Television ◽  
Special Effect ◽  
Special Effects ◽  
Young Black Male ◽  
Male Experience ◽  
The Creation

This study explores the construction of black hypermasculinity in television talent show competitions through the re-valuing of spectacle as an aesthetic experience. Drawing on a screendance analysis of eighteen duet, trio and group performances featured in ITV’s Britain’s Got Talent (BGT) and Sky1’s Got To Dance (GTD) between 2008-2013, this study explores the circulation of black hypermasculinity and the potentiality for an alternate reading of spectacular displays of athleticism. Building upon Kristen Whissel’s concept of the emblematic nature of the special effect in cinema, the re-valuing of televised spectacles reveals themes regarding the black male experience in these competitions. Rather than dismissing these performances as commercial spectacles that recirculate notions of black hypermasculinity, these corporeal and televisual special effects instead highlight the thematic narrative of the reality television journey through themes of aspiration and transformation. Crews constructs images of superheroes, cartoons, animals and cyborgs, manipulated by camera angles and editing, that operate as both light entertainment and a reflection of the young black male experience in mediascope of reality television. The creation of spectacular and glossy images on screen therefore reveals the potentiality of a fluid gender and racialized representation.

scholarly journals Live reality television: Care structures within the production and reception of talent shows

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-21
Author(s):  
Annette Hill ◽  
Tina Askanius ◽  
Koko Kondo
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Reality Television ◽  
Social Experience ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Over Time

This article focuses on production and reception practices for live reality television using critical theory and empirical research to question how producers and audiences co-create and limit live experiences. The concept of care structures is used to make visible hidden labour in the creation of mood, in particular audiences as participants in the management of live experiences. In the case of Got to Dance, there was a play off between the value and meaning of the live events as a temporary experience captured by ratings and social media, and the more enduring collective-social experience of this reality series over time.

Used Universes and Immaculate Realities

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bob Rehak
Keyword(s):  
Pop Culture ◽  
Star Trek ◽  
Digital Tools ◽  
Special Effects ◽  
Star Wars ◽  
George Lucas ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Mind Set

One of the biggest changes in franchise building has been the refinement of digital tools for previsualizing special effects. This chapter explores the creation of the original Star Wars (1977), focusing on George Lucas as a techno-auteur whose use of animatics was central to creating the film’s world. Beyond production design, however, previz enabled Lucas to extend his authorial brand to encompass the contributions of other artists and pop-culture influences, minting originality out of appropriation. The chapter considers Lucas’s “Special Editions” of the late 1990s as examples of the previz mind-set, noting parallels with the design networks and creative fan productions around Star Trek.

The 7th Lawrence R. Schehr Memorial Award Winning Essay

2021 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Katelyn Knox
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
Black Male ◽  
Black Masculinity ◽  
Young Black Male ◽  
Award Winning ◽  
African American Communities ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Memorial Award ◽  
Musical Elements

Popular music abounds in Afropean literature, yet to date scholars have primarily read novels’ musical elements through author biography. In this article, I focus narrowly on the rich musical peritexts and musico-literary intermediality of two novels by Insa Sané: Du plomb dans le crâne (2008) and Daddy est mort…: Retour à Sarcelles (2010). In addition to the abundant diegetic musical references, both novels also feature two structural musical layers. I argue that these three musical elements constitute critical sites through which the novels’ narratives, which center around young, black, male protagonists who seek to escape vicious circles of violence through recognition, emerge. Ultimately, these novels’ musical elements situate the narratives’ discussions of black masculinity within much broader conversations transpiring between French and African American communities, thereby providing a much larger cultural genealogy to supplement the characters’ fraught literal ones.

Live tweeting, reality TV and the nation

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 352-367
Author(s):  
Mark Stewart
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Reality Television ◽  
Reality Tv ◽  
Imagined Community ◽  
Cultural Formation ◽  
Discursive Analysis ◽  
Audience Fragmentation ◽  
The Creation ◽  
National Borders

This article argues that the live tweeting of reality television allows the creation of an imagined community, bounded by national borders. In an era of audience fragmentation and time-shifting of television engagement, live reality television encourages audiences to watch at time of broadcast; this is amplified by the move of some audience members to live-tweet the broadcast, communicating amongst themselves within a dispersed backchannel. A crucial result of the digital conversation is to reinstate the importance of the nation as a space for the reading and reception of culture. The article utilizes a discursive analysis of the concurrent Twitter conversation around the second season of The X Factor NZ in New Zealand in order to highlight the ongoing role that is played by the nation as a cultural formation in such discussions, as well as the ways that it makes understandings of national cultural identity visible.

Through Archie Lindo’s Lens

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 143-163
Author(s):  
O’Neil Lawrence
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Visual Culture ◽  
Black Male ◽  
Male Body ◽  
Point Of Entry ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Iconic Representations

The “creation” of Jamaican national identity owed much to the artistic movement that preceded and followed independence in 1962. While depictions of the peasantry, particularly male laborers, have become iconic representations of “true” Jamaicans, the scholarship surrounding these works has conspicuously ignored any erotic potential inherent in them. Using the contemporaneous, mostly private homoerotic photographic archive of Archie Lindo as a point of entry, this essay questions and complicates the narrative surrounding nationalist-era art in Jamaica, particularly the ways the black male body was mobilized in the development of Jamaican art and visual culture.

The Good and Bad of It All: Professional Black Male Basketball Players as Role Models for Young Black Male Basketball Players

2009 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 443-461 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reuben A. Buford May
Keyword(s):  
Black Males ◽  
Social Learning Theory ◽  
Black Male ◽  
Role Models ◽  
Role Model ◽  
Young Men ◽  
Basketball Players ◽  
Convenience Sample ◽  
Young Black Male ◽  
The Media

It is a generally accepted belief, affirmed in the media, that professional Black male basketball players from the National Basketball Association serve as role models for young Black males. Very little empirical evidence, however, is available about how the young men think about these relationships. Using the concept of role model from social learning theory as a lens, I analyze interview data drawn from a convenience sample of 19 young Black men who participated in high school basketball to investigate the idea of “professional Black male basketball players as role models.” I find that young men do not necessarily accept the “good/bad” role-model dichotomy presented in the media, but rather, they are discerning in their acceptance and rejection of certain role-model attitudes and behaviors.

scholarly journals Augmented Virtual Reality: Playing Architect

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Miller
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Black Male ◽  
White Male ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Public Image ◽  
The Public ◽  
Young Black Male ◽  
The Social ◽  
Alternative Understanding

This thesis sits at the intersection of identity and technology by considering what it means to assume the role of architect as the young black male. The public image of the architect is represented instead, by the white male figure and distributed in a narrative of individualist and ego. However, a critique of the ego through introspection and auto-biographical context gives alternative understanding to the social, cultural, racial and political discourse for the minority seeking autonomy. Framed in modern blackness, design in research becomes a process of appropriation where the architect can be challenged by notions of new softwares where platforms are built instead of foundations. Research that began largely about architecture and virtual reality - instead concludes with urgent questions involving the architect and the tools he interfaces - opening avenues for critical discourse on identity, autonomy, anonymity, and devices.

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