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For this week's bi-weekly scene study, Racquel Gates is back to dissect the ending of Coming to America with Hannah. They discuss what Lisa gives up in moving to Zamunda, the Disney princess evocations, and the many roles played by Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall.Don't forget to check-out Racquel's book, Double Negative: The Black Image and Popular Media!---If we give you butterflies, consider supporting us on Patreon! On Patreon have more great romance content including a bonus close scene analysis with Vanessa and Hannah. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Hannah McGregor and special guest Professor Racquel Gates meet in the fictional country of Zamunda to record this week's episode of Hot and Bothered, all about Coming to America.This week we discuss the tensions between Eddie Murphy and John Landis, what makes a 'black' film, and Racquel's concept of formal negativity. We finish the episode checking in with Vanessa for her thoughts on the movie. Don't forget to check out Racquel's book, Double Negative: The Black Image and Popular Imagination! ---If we give you butterflies, consider supporting us on Patreon! On Patreon have more great romance content including a bonus close scene analysis with Hannah and Vanessa. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
In this talk, Racquel Gates presents her experience working as consulting producer on the Criterion release of Melvin Van Peebles: Essential Films. A legendary filmmaker whose unique personality is just as well-known as his body of work, Van Peebles made an indelible impact on both Black film and independent cinema. How, then, to present new insights on Van Peebles in a way that built on viewers' existing familiarity with the filmmaker and his work while avoiding cliches and hagiography? In “Reintroducing Melvin Melvin Van Peebles,” Gates considers the history of her own research on Van Peebles's films, and details the pleasures — and challenges — of trying to create a bridge between the worlds of academic film studies and more public facing consumer film culture. Racquel Gates is an Associate Professor of Film and Media at Columbia University. Her research focuses on blackness and popular culture, with special attention to discourses of taste and quality. She is the author of Double Negative: The Black Image and Popular Culture (Duke, 2018), and is currently working on her second book, titled Hollywood Style and the Invention of Blackness. In 2020, she was named an Academy Film Scholar by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Racquel J. Gates’ new book, Double Negative: The Black Image and Popular Culture (Duke University Press, 2018), interrogates understandings of African-American representations on screen. This book is an important analysis of the concepts of negative and positive representations, especially in regard to the narrow space that these binary classifications create. Gates takes on not only the concept of representation, but also the texts where the images are presented, leading the reader through a variety of popular culture venues. Double Negative presents a careful typology of negativity, with extensive and diverse examples of each distinct variation. This analysis also integrates texts that are often dismissed or undermined. Instead, Gates provides valuable and nuanced interpretations of genres, reclaiming popular culture artifacts that are often excluded from scholarly or critical analysis. Gates explores many of the less respectable images and presentations of African-Americans, considering not only the images themselves and the narratives in which they are presented, but also the historical context in which the popular culture artifacts are engaged and consumed. Double Negative also takes up a metanalysis of celebrity in context of representation, especially in the entwining of race and gender. This is a fascinating book, examining important political questions and understandings through popular culture texts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Racquel J. Gates’ new book, Double Negative: The Black Image and Popular Culture (Duke University Press, 2018), interrogates understandings of African-American representations on screen. This book is an important analysis of the concepts of negative and positive representations, especially in regard to the narrow space that these binary classifications create. Gates takes on not only the concept of representation, but also the texts where the images are presented, leading the reader through a variety of popular culture venues. Double Negative presents a careful typology of negativity, with extensive and diverse examples of each distinct variation. This analysis also integrates texts that are often dismissed or undermined. Instead, Gates provides valuable and nuanced interpretations of genres, reclaiming popular culture artifacts that are often excluded from scholarly or critical analysis. Gates explores many of the less respectable images and presentations of African-Americans, considering not only the images themselves and the narratives in which they are presented, but also the historical context in which the popular culture artifacts are engaged and consumed. Double Negative also takes up a metanalysis of celebrity in context of representation, especially in the entwining of race and gender. This is a fascinating book, examining important political questions and understandings through popular culture texts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Racquel J. Gates’ new book, Double Negative: The Black Image and Popular Culture (Duke University Press, 2018), interrogates understandings of African-American representations on screen. This book is an important analysis of the concepts of negative and positive representations, especially in regard to the narrow space that these binary classifications create. Gates takes on not only the concept of representation, but also the texts where the images are presented, leading the reader through a variety of popular culture venues. Double Negative presents a careful typology of negativity, with extensive and diverse examples of each distinct variation. This analysis also integrates texts that are often dismissed or undermined. Instead, Gates provides valuable and nuanced interpretations of genres, reclaiming popular culture artifacts that are often excluded from scholarly or critical analysis. Gates explores many of the less respectable images and presentations of African-Americans, considering not only the images themselves and the narratives in which they are presented, but also the historical context in which the popular culture artifacts are engaged and consumed. Double Negative also takes up a metanalysis of celebrity in context of representation, especially in the entwining of race and gender. This is a fascinating book, examining important political questions and understandings through popular culture texts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Racquel J. Gates’ new book, Double Negative: The Black Image and Popular Culture (Duke University Press, 2018), interrogates understandings of African-American representations on screen. This book is an important analysis of the concepts of negative and positive representations, especially in regard to the narrow space that these binary classifications create. Gates takes on not only the concept of representation, but also the texts where the images are presented, leading the reader through a variety of popular culture venues. Double Negative presents a careful typology of negativity, with extensive and diverse examples of each distinct variation. This analysis also integrates texts that are often dismissed or undermined. Instead, Gates provides valuable and nuanced interpretations of genres, reclaiming popular culture artifacts that are often excluded from scholarly or critical analysis. Gates explores many of the less respectable images and presentations of African-Americans, considering not only the images themselves and the narratives in which they are presented, but also the historical context in which the popular culture artifacts are engaged and consumed. Double Negative also takes up a metanalysis of celebrity in context of representation, especially in the entwining of race and gender. This is a fascinating book, examining important political questions and understandings through popular culture texts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Racquel J. Gates’ new book, Double Negative: The Black Image and Popular Culture (Duke University Press, 2018), interrogates understandings of African-American representations on screen. This book is an important analysis of the concepts of negative and positive representations, especially in regard to the narrow space that these binary classifications create. Gates takes on not only the concept of representation, but also the texts where the images are presented, leading the reader through a variety of popular culture venues. Double Negative presents a careful typology of negativity, with extensive and diverse examples of each distinct variation. This analysis also integrates texts that are often dismissed or undermined. Instead, Gates provides valuable and nuanced interpretations of genres, reclaiming popular culture artifacts that are often excluded from scholarly or critical analysis. Gates explores many of the less respectable images and presentations of African-Americans, considering not only the images themselves and the narratives in which they are presented, but also the historical context in which the popular culture artifacts are engaged and consumed. Double Negative also takes up a metanalysis of celebrity in context of representation, especially in the entwining of race and gender. This is a fascinating book, examining important political questions and understandings through popular culture texts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Racquel J. Gates’ new book, Double Negative: The Black Image and Popular Culture (Duke University Press, 2018), interrogates understandings of African-American representations on screen. This book is an important analysis of the concepts of negative and positive representations, especially in regard to the narrow space that these binary classifications create. Gates takes on not only the concept of representation, but also the texts where the images are presented, leading the reader through a variety of popular culture venues. Double Negative presents a careful typology of negativity, with extensive and diverse examples of each distinct variation. This analysis also integrates texts that are often dismissed or undermined. Instead, Gates provides valuable and nuanced interpretations of genres, reclaiming popular culture artifacts that are often excluded from scholarly or critical analysis. Gates explores many of the less respectable images and presentations of African-Americans, considering not only the images themselves and the narratives in which they are presented, but also the historical context in which the popular culture artifacts are engaged and consumed. Double Negative also takes up a metanalysis of celebrity in context of representation, especially in the entwining of race and gender. This is a fascinating book, examining important political questions and understandings through popular culture texts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Racquel J. Gates’ new book, Double Negative: The Black Image and Popular Culture (Duke University Press, 2018), interrogates understandings of African-American representations on screen. This book is an important analysis of the concepts of negative and positive representations, especially in regard to the narrow space that these binary classifications create. Gates takes on not only the concept of representation, but also the texts where the images are presented, leading the reader through a variety of popular culture venues. Double Negative presents a careful typology of negativity, with extensive and diverse examples of each distinct variation. This analysis also integrates texts that are often dismissed or undermined. Instead, Gates provides valuable and nuanced interpretations of genres, reclaiming popular culture artifacts that are often excluded from scholarly or critical analysis. Gates explores many of the less respectable images and presentations of African-Americans, considering not only the images themselves and the narratives in which they are presented, but also the historical context in which the popular culture artifacts are engaged and consumed. Double Negative also takes up a metanalysis of celebrity in context of representation, especially in the entwining of race and gender. This is a fascinating book, examining important political questions and understandings through popular culture texts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Racquel J. Gates' new book, Double Negative: The Black Image and Popular Culture (Duke University Press, 2018), interrogates understandings of African-American representations on screen. This book is an important analysis of the concepts of negative and positive representations, especially in regard to the narrow space that these binary classifications create. Gates takes on not only the concept of representation, but also the texts where the images are presented, leading the reader through a variety of popular culture venues. Double Negative presents a careful typology of negativity, with extensive and diverse examples of each distinct variation. This analysis also integrates texts that are often dismissed or undermined. Instead, Gates provides valuable and nuanced interpretations of genres, reclaiming popular culture artifacts that are often excluded from scholarly or critical analysis. Gates explores many of the less respectable images and presentations of African-Americans, considering not only the images themselves and the narratives in which they are presented, but also the historical context in which the popular culture artifacts are engaged and consumed. Double Negative also takes up a metanalysis of celebrity in context of representation, especially in the entwining of race and gender. This is a fascinating book, examining important political questions and understandings through popular culture texts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies
Dr Racquel Gates is assistant professor of Cinema and Media Studies at the College of Staten Island. She is the author of Double Negative: The Black Image and Popular Culture (Duke, 2018). For the latest episode, Racquel talked to Neil about her book and a number of other topics including contemporary black screen art and criticism, Eddie Murphy, Halle Berry, Whoopi Goldberg, Black cultural scholarship and the Academy, Empire, Reality TV, Sorry To Bother You and lots more. Racquel was very tolerant of Neil’s rambling enthusiasm for her work and the ideas and thoughts it spawned in him. Her book is incisive and entertaining and as a thinker Racquel expertly discusses texts while understanding the fluidity of ideas and issues around flaws, problems, virtues and areas of scholarly note. This conversation is one of our favourites. It gets into some really fascinating areas and touches on black film history and the wider contexts of the contemporary moment. We hope you enjoy it. Here’s a link to the book Racquel mentions whose title gets lost on the episode due to a drop in the Skype signal - Horror Noire by Robin R. Means Coleman. A link to Wesley Morris on the Longform Podcast and his NYT essay, and the Harper’s Podcast Like This Or Die, all of which are referenced in Neil and Dario’s chat around the central conversation on this episode. Listen on: iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-cinematologists-podcast/id981479854?mt=2 Website: www.cinematologists.com PlayerFM: https://player.fm/series/series-2416725 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0RjNz8XDkLdbKZuj9Pktyh Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists
From the way in which the experiences of African Americans are portrayed on screen, to the way skin color is captured on film, the history of movies and photography is inextricable from race. How do nonwhite, nonmale filmmakers create a language that equalizes a subject? What sort of language and historical practices are required to reflect these perspectives? In this live discussion at Film Comment Selects titled “Race and Representation,” Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold discusses these questions with Antonio Méndez Esparza, director of Life and Nothing More (the opening night film of the series), RaMell Ross, director of Hale County This Morning, This Evening (winner of a prize at Sundance), and Professor Racquel Gates, author of Double Negative: The Black Image and Popular Culture.