Daniel Bernardi

As an enduring American icon, the STAR TREK series represents a utopian future where humans no longer engage in racism, sexism, or capitalism--or does it? STAR TREK AND HISTORY traces the shifting and reforming meaning of race as articulated throughout the STAR TREK television series, feature films, and fan community. 60 illustrations.

Race-ing Toward a White Future

Star Trek and History

The Persistence of Whiteness investigates the representation and narration of race in contemporary Hollywood cinema. Ideologies of class, ethnicity, gender, nation and sexuality are central concerns as are the growth of the business of filmmaking. Focusing on representations of Black, Asian, Jewish, Latina/o and Native Americans identities, this collection also shows how whiteness is a fact everywhere in contemporary Hollywood cinema, crossing audiences, authors, genres, studios and styles. Bringing together essays from respected film scholars, the collection covers a wide range of important films, including Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, The Color Purple, Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings. Essays also consider genres from the western to blaxploitation and new black cinema; provocative filmmakers such as Melvin Van Peebles and Steven Spielberg and stars including Whoopi Goldberg and Jennifer Lopez. Daniel Bernardi provides an in-depth introduction, comprehensive bibliography and a helpful glossary of terms, thus providing students with an accessible and topical collection on race and ethnicity in contemporary cinema.

Race and Contemporary Hollywood Cinema

The Persistence of Whiteness

Michael Green

This expansive three-volume set investigates racial representation in film, providing an authoritative cross-section of the most racially significant films, actors, directors, and movements in American cinematic history. • Views the films via a historical approach in which every subject is considered both through a contemporary lens and in terms of the time of its production and initial reception • Provides up-to-date information on recent movies such as Selma (2014), The Fast and The Furious (2001–2015), 12 Years a Slave (2013), Django Unchained (2012), and Lone Survivor (2013) • Provides readers with the information and background necessary to form informed views about racial representation in film—still an important "hot-button" subject today • Edited by top scholars in the field, Daniel Bernardi and Michael Green, and contains entries by other important experts, such as Andrew Gordon and Priscilla Ovalle

Race in American Film: Voices and Visions that Shaped a Nation [3 volumes]

Addressing representation and identity in a variety of production styles and genres, including experimental film and documentary, independent and mainstream film, and television drama, Filming Difference poses fundamental questions about the ways in which the art and craft of filmmaking force creative people to confront stereotypes and examine their own identities while representing the complexities of their subjects. Selections range from C. A. Griffith's "Del Otro Lado: Border Crossings, Disappearing Souls, and Other Transgressions" and Celine Perreñas Shimizu's "Pain and Pleasure in the Flesh of Machiko Saito's Experimental Movies" to Christopher Bradley's "I Saw You Naked: 'Hard' Acting in 'Gay' Movies," along with Kevin Sandler's interview with Paris Barclay, Yuri Makino's interview with Chris Eyre, and many other perspectives on the implications of film production, writing, producing, and acting. Technical aspects of the craft are considered as well, including how contributors to filmmaking plan and design films and episodic television that feature difference, and how the tools of cinema—such as cinematography and lighting—influence portrayals of gender, race, and sexuality. The struggle between economic pressures and the desire to produce thought-provoking, socially conscious stories forms another core issue raised in Filming Difference. Speaking with critical rigor and creative experience, the contributors to this collection communicate the power of their media.

Actors, Directors, Producers, and Writers on Gender, Race, and Sexuality in Film

Filming Difference

Addressing representation and identity in a variety of production styles and genres, including experimental film and documentary, independent and mainstream film, and television drama, Filming Difference poses fundamental questions about the ways in which the art and craft of filmmaking force creative people to confront stereotypes and examine their own identities while representing the complexities of their subjects. Selections range from C. A. Griffith’s “Del Otro Lado: Border Crossings, Disappearing Souls, and Other Transgressions” and Celine Perreñas Shimizu’s “Pain and Pleasure in the Flesh of Machiko Saito’s Experimental Movies” to Christopher Bradley’s “I Saw You Naked: ‘Hard’ Acting in ‘Gay’ Movies,” along with Kevin Sandler’s interview with Paris Barclay, Yuri Makino’s interview with Chris Eyre, and many other perspectives on the implications of film production, writing, producing, and acting. Technical aspects of the craft are considered as well, including how contributors to filmmaking plan and design films and episodic television that feature difference, and how the tools of cinema—such as cinematography and lighting—influence portrayals of gender, race, and sexuality. The struggle between economic pressures and the desire to produce thought-provoking, socially conscious stories forms another core issue raised in Filming Difference. Speaking with critical rigor and creative experience, the contributors to this collection communicate the power of their media.

As studio bosses, directors, and actors, Jews have been heavily involved in film history and vitally involved in all aspects of film production. Yet Jewish characters have been represented onscreen in stereotypical and disturbing ways, while Jews have also helped to produce some of the most troubling stereotypes of people of color in Hollywood film history. In Hollywood's Chosen People: The Jewish Experience in American Cinema, leading scholars consider the complex relationship between Jews and the film industry, as Jews have helped to construct Hollywood's vision of the American dream and American collective identity and have in turn been shaped by those representations. Editors Daniel Bernardi, Murray Pomerance, and Hava Tirosh-Samuelson introduce the volume with an overview of the history of Jews in American popular culture and the American film industry. Multidisciplinary contributors go on to discuss topics such as early Jewish films and directors, institutionalized anti-Semitism, Jewish identity and gossip culture, and issues of Jewish performance on film. Contributors draw on a diverse sampling of films, from representations of the Holocaust on film to screen comedy; filmmakers and writers, including David Mamet, George Cukor, Sidney Lumet, Edward Sloman, and Steven Spielberg; and stars, like Barbra Streisand, Adam Sandler, and Ben Stiller. The Jewish experience in American cinema reveals much about the degree to which Jews have been integrated into and contribute to the making of American popular film culture. Scholars of Jewish studies, film studies, American history, and American culture as well as anyone interested in film history will find this volume fascinating reading.

The Jewish Experience in American Cinema

Hollywood's Chosen People

Julian Hoxter

"Due to rapid technological change, economic challenges facing media industries, and the writers' strike of 2007-08, screenwriting has been changing dramatically. While industry professionals in LA are still writing screenplays, what the studios want is changing, and there are new players in the market. Larger studios have become more conservative about the 'tentpole' pictures they need to make their bottom lines work, relying more on sequels, remakes, and established properties with track records in other media. The spec market for pre-written scripts and pitches by established professionals is in drastic decline--and viable content creation by fans and amateurs is on the rise. At the same time new opportunities for writers are proliferating in TV, micro--budget independents, games, and emerging content platforms like iTunes and VOD services. Off the Page is designed to be used by students and writers who want to understand what studios want, and what kind of opportunities exist beyond the old-school three-act structure screenplay. The book addresses specific genres old and new, a wide range of media, as well as specific professional details like working collaboratively in a 'writer's room,' showrunning, and the specific ways that scripts themselves are now written."--Provided by publishe

Daniel Bernardi

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