scholarly journals Beyond the Vampire: Revamping Thai Monsters for the Urban Age

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Ancuta
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
First Century ◽  
Urban Setting ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
City Life ◽  
Sexually Aggressive ◽  
Film And Television ◽  
Dominant Discourses ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
The City

This article revisits two of the most iconic Thai monstrosities, <em>phi pop</em> and <em>phi krasue</em>, whose changing representation owes equally as much to local folklore, as to their ongoing reinterpretations in  popular culture texts, particularly in film and television. The paper discusses two such considerations, Paul Spurrier’s <em>P</em> (2005) and Yuthlert Sippapak’s <em>Krasue Valentine</em> (2006), films that reject the long-standing notion that animistic creatures belong in the  countryside and portray <em>phi pop</em> and <em>phi krasue</em>’s adaptation to city life. Though commonplace, animistic beliefs and practices have been deemed incompatible with the dominant discourses of  modernization and urbanization that characterise twenty-first century Thailand. Creatures like <em>phi pop</em> and <em>phi krasue</em> have been branded as uncivilised superstition and ridiculed through their unflattering portrayals in oddball comedies. This article argues that by inviting these monsters to relocate to contemporary Bangkok, Spurrier and Sippapak redefine their attributes for the modern urban setting and create hybrids by blending local beliefs and cinematic conventions. The creatures’ predatory character is additionally augmented by the portrayal of the city as itself  vampiric. The article therefore reads these predatory spirits in parallel with the metaphor of the female vampire – a sexually  aggressive voracious creature that threatens male patriarchal order and redefines motherhood.

scholarly journals The Blindspot: Asian Misrepresentation In Orange Is The New Black

Elements ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Clare Kim
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Race Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
First Century ◽  
Marginalized Communities ◽  
Film And Television ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Idealistic View

As our nation and society attempt to introduce the notion of post-raciality in the twenty-first century, it becomes clear that this idealistic view of race relations in the United States can only be seen as valid when whiteness is considered to be “normal” or “neutral.” This prioritization of whiteness can be easily identified throughout popular culture, especially with the tendency of mainstream film and television to whitewash casts. However, one of the most prominent shows of the current age, Orange is the New Black (OITNB), has a cast that challenges the blindly accepted hegemonic standards by bringing marginalized communities to the center of attention. While it shatters many preconceived stereotypes dealing with race, class, and gender through its diverse array of characters, the show’s handling of its Asian characters seems only to perpetuate racist tropes. This essay examines why we have developed a blindspot for Asians when dealing with race and race relations by using OITNB as a quintessential microcosm of society at large

History Has Its Eyes on You

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurence Maslon
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Pop Culture ◽  
Technological Advance ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Generational Change ◽  
Personal Preference ◽  
Broadway Musical ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Consumer Habits

A generational change at the beginning of the twenty-first century intersected with the technological advance of the Internet to provide a renaissance of Broadway music in popular culture. Downloading playlists allowed the home listener to become, in essence, his/her own record producer; length, narrative, performer were now all in the hands of the consumer’s personal preference. Following in the footsteps of Rent (as a favorite of a younger demographic), Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton emerged as the greatest pop culture/Broadway musical phenomenon of the twenty-first century; its cast album and cover recording shot up near the top of music’s pop charts. A rediscovery of the power of Broadway’s music to transform listening and consumer habits seems imminent with the addition of Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen to a devoted fan base—and beyond.

Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
The Self ◽  
First Century ◽  
Care Of The Self ◽  
The West ◽  
City Life ◽  
Good Citizen ◽  
The Past ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Point Of Departure

What does it mean to be a good citizen today? What are practices of citizenship? And what can we learn from the past about these practices to better engage in city life in the twenty-first century? Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West: Care of the Self is a collection of papers that examine these questions. The contributors come from a variety of different disciplines, including architecture, urbanism, philosophy, and history, and their essays make comparative examinations of the practices of citizenship from the ancient world to the present day in both the East and the West. The papers’ comparative approaches, between East and West, and ancient and modern, leads to a greater understanding of the challenges facing citizens in the urbanized twenty-first century, and by looking at past examples, suggests ways of addressing them. While the book’s point of departure is philosophical, its key aim is to examine how philosophy can be applied to everyday life for the betterment of citizens in cities not just in Asia and the West but everywhere.

scholarly journals Fifty Shades of Bluebeard? Dukas'sAriane et Barbe-Bleuein the Twenty-First Century

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 399-438
Author(s):  
LAURA WATSON
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Mass Media ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
First Century ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Fifty Shades Of Grey

AbstractWith the appearance of opera videos in 2013 (DVD) and 2015 (YouTube), Paul Dukas'sAriane et Barbe-Bleue(1907) has been revived for twenty-first-century audiences. Not only has this formerly obscure work migrated to a mass-media landscape of personalized digital consumption, but its cultural recontextualization has also been extended to the interpretations staged in those opera videos. Both challenge historical, feminist readings ofAriane. Updating the action to modern scenes of abduction and captivity, these productions recast Ariane as victim and reframe the opera as part of the present discourse on sexual violence. As these recent productions ofArianeresonate with broader aesthetic tendencies in current popular culture, I trace parallels between the opera and three such examples from 2015. Selecting works that exemplify the trend of repackaging the Bluebeard tale as contemporary drama, I cite the filmsFifty Shades of GreyandRoom, and the Netflix seriesThe Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.

Conclusion: Sincerity Dreams

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen Rutten
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
First Century ◽  
Contemporary Culture ◽  
Cultural Paradigms ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Inclusive Analysis

This conclusion reflects on today's dreams of renewing or revitalizing sincerity and rejects the notion that they are outdated or do not deserve any of our attention. It cites the work of several scholars to show that sincerity is anything but obsolete in twenty-first-century popular culture. Indeed, today's strivings to renew sincerity have not been neglected by scholars such as R. Jay Magill Jr., Epstein, and Yurchak. The rhetoric on new sincerity has been addressed in thoughtful analyses of contemporary culture that have helped the author in crafting a comprehensive and geographically inclusive analysis of present-day sincerity rhetoric. In post-Communist Russia, debates on a shift to late or post-postmodern cultural paradigms are thriving with at least as much fervor as—and possibly more than—in Western Europe or the United States. This conclusion discusses the newly gained insights which the author's sincerity study offers.

scholarly journals Sacred Spaces in a Holy City. Crossing Religious Boundaries in Istanbul at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 34-56
Author(s):  
Méropi Anastassiadou-Dumont
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Local Economy ◽  
First Century ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Sacred Spaces ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
The City ◽  
Holy City

The article examines Muslim pilgrimages to Christian places of worship in Istanbul after the 1950s. It aims to answer whether and how the Ottoman heritage of cultural diversity fits or does not fit with the pattern of the nation-state. After a brief bibliographic overview of the issue of shared sacred spaces, the presentation assembles, as a first step, some of the key elements of Istanbul’s multi-secular links with religious practices: the sanctity of the city both for Christianity and Islam; the long tradition of pilgrimages and their importance for the local economy; meanings and etymologies of the word pilgrimage in the most common languages of the Ottoman space; and the silence of the nineteenth century’s Greek sources concerning the sharing of worship. The second part focuses more specifically on some OrthodoxGreek sacred spaces in Istanbul increasingly frequented by Muslims during the last decades.

Race, Violence, and the City: Chicago’s Black Urbanity in Contemporary American Film and Literature

2021 ◽  
pp. 291-302
Author(s):  
Izabella Kimak ◽  
Zbigniew Mazur
Keyword(s):  
Racial Violence ◽  
First Century ◽  
Urban Setting ◽  
Native Son ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Strong Resemblance ◽  
Blacks And Whites ◽  
American Cities ◽  
The City ◽  
Film And Literature

In this article we look at three recent films–Native Son (2019, dir. Rashid Johnson, based on Richard Wright’s 1940 novel), Widows (2018, dir. Steve McQueen, based on a 1983 TV series), and The Hate U Give (2018, dir. George Tillman Jr., based on a book by Angie Thomas)–by Black directors that showcase the interactions between Blacks and whites in an American urban milieu. We argue that the setting of two of these films–Native Son and Widows–in Chicago, with The Hate U Give being set in a fictional urban setting bearing a strong resemblance to the Windy City, serves to articulate the continuing racial divisions of American cities in the twenty-first century. The three films show that the fossilization of the divide between Black and white districts inevitably leads to outbreaks of racial violence.

Reflecting the Nation: Costa Rican Cinema in the Twenty-First Century

2019 ◽  
pp. 113-180
Author(s):  
Liz Harvey-Kattou
Keyword(s):  
Costa Rica ◽  
Youth Culture ◽  
Costa Rican ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
First Century ◽  
San Jose ◽  
The Uncanny ◽  
Marginalised Groups ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
The City

This chapter argues that cinema has been the primary creative vehicle to reflect on national – tico – identity in Costa Rica in the twenty-first century, and it begins with an overview of the industry. Considering the ways in which film is uniquely positioned to challenge social norms through the creation of affective narratives and through the visibility it can offer to otherwise marginalised groups, this chapter analyses four films by key directors. Beginning with an exploration of Esteban Ramírez’s Gestación, it considers youth culture, gender, and class as non-normative spaces in the city of San José. Similarly, Jurgen Ureña’s Abrázame como antes is then discussed from the point of view of its ground-breaking portrayal of trans women in the capital. Two films shot at the geographic margins of the nation are then discussed, with the uncanny coastline the focus of Paz Fábrega’s Agua fría de mar and the marginalized Afro-Costa Rican province of Limón the focus of Patricia Velásquez’s Dos aguas.

Live Long and Prosper: Rebooting Star Trek and Reimagining Fandom

Film Reboots ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 33-46
Author(s):  
Erin Hanna
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Time Travel ◽  
Star Trek ◽  
First Century ◽  
Travel Narrative ◽  
Narrative Strategies ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
The Way

This chapter looks to Star Trek, a reboot that employed a time travel narrative to simultaneously cast the Star Trek universe as a new continuity and strategically recast iconic characters in a parallel timeline. The chapter asserts that the reinvention of Star Trek property as a twenty-first-century blockbuster required an investment not only in its narrative strategies, but also in a discursively reimagined audience, one that included both pre-existing and future fans. It demonstrates the way in which Star Trek highlights the intersecting logics of the film reboot and the mainstreaming of fandom in popular culture, both of which grow out of serial strategies designed to exploit new and established markets.

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