Science Fiction (SF) cinema warrants serious critical analysis. The genre thrives on terror, and society is full of fear-induced bigotry, intolerance and endless warfare. By invoking fear, SF cinema can subvert viewers’ expectations and put sexism, racism and class warfare in stark juxtaposition. In a purely ideological context a violent, sexist narrative can become a […]
‘The City’ is an iconic and constantly recurring theme in Science Fiction (SF) cinema. Huge, sprawling mega-cities are the dominant settings for many SF films. As author John R. Gold points out in his essay Under Darkened Skies: The City in Science Fiction Film, the city of the future is often as much part of […]
Science Fiction [SF] cinema has never received the degree of analytical and theoretical attention devoted to other film genres. In her book Alien Zone, author Annette Kuhn demonstrates that SF has been difficult to define as an actual genre, simply because it encompasses so many different elements. SF films rework and transform established themes and […]
America’s corporations are sitting on close to $2 trillion in offshore bank accounts in places like the Cayman Islands and Bermuda. That’s cash that is not being used to create jobs, build factories, or improve infrastructure. In a country where upward mobility is virtually impossible, corporations have become less committed to workers well-being and more […]
In Federalist Paper #30, Alexander Hamilton argues that the new American government must possess unrestrained power to impose taxes to support all the basic functions of that government – particularly the power to raise and supply an army or militia. He mentions building fleets and paying debts, but most of his examples deal with the […]
Voltaire: “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” John Stuart Mill: “I did not mean that Conservatives are generally stupid; I meant, that stupid persons are generally conservative.” H.L. Mencken: “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.” The fact that a thoroughly corrupt and incompetent cretin […]
H.L. Mencken wrote, “The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naïve and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen […]
Scholars have recently presented critical analyses of the popularity of zombies, vampires and witches to help explain the social and psychological implications of the undead in contemporary popular culture. Zombies are quick and easy metaphors that can be used for many purposes, representing any number of different themes. The proliferation of zombies in films, video […]
Historians have argued that New Journalism “degenerated” into Yellow Journalism because the lofty, idealistic goals of New Journalism were quickly subsumed into sensationalistic pabulum as newspapers tried to out-do each other for advertising revenue. With so much competition between the newspapers, stories were over-dramatized and altered to correspond to ideas that publishers and editors thought […]
One of the milestones in cinematic history was the first narrative film, The Great Train Robbery (1903). It was directed and shot by Edwin S. Porter, a former associate of Thomas Edison. The movie is only about 10 minutes long, with 14 scenes. It was the most popular and commercially successful film of the pre-nickelodeon […]
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