Tag: Portrayals

Free Download Jonathan L. Friedmann, "Goliath as Gentle Giant: Sympathetic Portrayals in Popular Culture "
English | ISBN: 1666904694 | 2022 | 168 pages | EPUB | 12 MB
In the Hebrew Bible and stories loyal to it, Goliath is the stereotypical giant of folklore: big, brash, violent, and dimwitted. Goliath as Gentle Giant sets out to rehabilitate the giant’s image by exploring the origins of the biblical behemoth, the limitations of the "underdog" metaphor, and the few sympathetic treatments of Goliath in popular media. What insights emerge when we imagine things from Goliath’s point of view? How might this affect our reading of the biblical account or its many retellings and interpretations? What sort of man was Goliath really? The nuanced portraits analyzed in this book serve as a catalyst to challenge readers to question stereotypes, reexamine old assumptions, and humanize the "other."

Free Download Anne L. Walsh, "Fictional Portrayals of Spain’s Transition to Democracy"
English | ISBN: 1443895741 | 2017 | 140 pages | PDF | 536 KB
This manuscript looks at a selection of narratives published in Spain during the transition to democracy and compares them with more recent publications. The main focus here is how fiction brings an extra dimension to the recreation of the past, by adding imagination to historical fact. One effect of this is to challenge readers or spectators to question the effect the reliability of the narrator has on conviction about the events told. By using a specific moment in time, Spains Transition, it will be seen that memory, history and imagination all blend together to create very different stories, but all are linked with the idea that the past will always haunt the present and actions from the past will have far-reaching consequences. Texts analysed here include work by Javier Cercas, Eduardo Mendoza, Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, Rosa Montero, Arturo Pérez-Reverte, and Gonzalo López Alba, as well as episodes from two popular TV series, Cuéntame cómo pasó and Protagonistas de la Transición.

Free Download Gregory M. Fulkerson, "Reimagining Rural: Urbanormative Portrayals of Rural Life "
English | ISBN: 1498534066 | 2016 | 172 pages | EPUB | 3 MB
Reimagining Rural: Urbanormative Portrayals of Rural Life examines the ways in which rural people and places are being portrayed by popular television, reality television, film, literature, and news media in the United States. It is also an examination of the social processes that reinforce urbanormative standards that normalize urban life and render rural life as something unusual, exotic, or deviant. This includes exploring the role of the media as agenda setting agent, informing people what and how to think about rural life. Further it includes scrutinizing the institution of formal education that promotes a homogenous urban-oriented curriculum, while in the process, marginalizing the unique characteristics of local rural communities. These contributions are some of the only studies of their kind, investigating popular cultural representations of rural life, while providing powerful evidence and unique challenges for an urban society to rethink and reimagine rural life, while confronting the many stereotypes and myths that exist.

Free Download Donnetrice Allison, "Black Women’s Portrayals on Reality Television: The New Sapphire"
English | ISBN: 1498519326 | 2016 | 292 pages | EPUB | 628 KB
This book critically analyzes the portrayals of Black women in current reality television. Audiences are presented with a multitude of images of Black women fighting, arguing, and cursing at one another in this manufactured world of reality television. This perpetuation of negative, insidious racial and gender stereotypes influences how the U.S. views Black women. This stereotyping disrupts the process in which people are able to appreciate cultural and gender difference. Instead of celebrating the diverse symbols and meaning making that accompanies Black women’s discourse and identities, reality television scripts an artificial or plastic image of Black women that reinforces extant stereotypes. This collection’s contributors seek to uncover examples in reality television shows where instantiations of Black women’s gendered, racial, and cultural difference is signified and made sinister.