Thomas Fahy

Terrified by the gruesome nightmares and unexplained bouts of sleepwalking that seem to be affecting her and many other students at Saint Opportuna High, Emma and her friends become even more unnerved when, after several deaths, they begin to suspect that something is causing them to kill in their sleep.

Sleepless

A compelling and innovative television writer, David Chase has created distinctive programs since the 1970s, each reflecting his edgy humor and psychological realism. These critical essays examine Chase's television writings, placing particular emphasis on how his past works have shaped and influenced the cultural phenomenon of HBO's The Sopranos, and studying Chase's use of identity, community, and place in defining his on-screen characters. Topics explored include Chase's constructs of the urban L.A. environment in The Rockford Files, the portrayal of hybridized American archetypes in Northern Exposure, and the interpretation of sexual identity/masculinity in The Sopranos. An appendix containing complete episode guides for The Rockford Files, Northern Exposure, and The Sopranos is also included.

Essays on The Rockford Files, Northern Exposure and The Sopranos

Considering David Chase

Sitting on pins and needles, anxiously waiting to see what will happen next, horror audiences crave the fear and exhilaration generated by a terrifying story; their anticipation is palpable. But they also breathe a sigh of relief when the action is over, when they are able to close their books or leave the movie theater. Whether serious, kitschy, frightening, or ridiculous, horror not only arouses the senses but also raises profound questions about fear, safety, justice, and suffering. From literature and urban legends to film and television, horror's ability to thrill has made it an integral part of modern entertainment. Thomas Fahy and twelve other scholars reveal the underlying themes of the genre in The Philosophy of Horror. Examining the evolving role of horror, the contributing authors investigate works such as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818), horror films of the 1930s, Stephen King's novels, Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of The Shining (1980), and Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960). Also examined are works that have largely been ignored in philosophical circles, including Truman Capote's In Cold Blood (1965), Patrick Süskind's Perfume (1985), and James Purdy's Narrow Rooms (2005). The analysis also extends to contemporary forms of popular horror and "torture-horror" films of the last decade, including Saw (2004), Hostel (2005), The Devil's Rejects (2005), and The Hills Have Eyes (2006), as well as the ongoing popularity of horror on the small screen. The Philosophy of Horror celebrates the strange, compelling, and disturbing elements of horror, drawing on interpretive approaches such as feminist, postcolonial, Marxist, and psychoanalytic criticism. The book invites readers to consider horror's various manifestations and transformations since the late 1700s, probing its social, cultural, and political functions in today's media-hungry society.

The Philosophy of Horror

Academy Award-winning screenwriter of the film American Beauty and creator of the HBO series Six Feet Under, Alan Ball has consistently probed the cultural forces shaping gender, sexuality, and death in the United States. Through gritty dialogue and edgy humor, Ball centers much of his social critique on the illusory promises of the American Dream. For many of his characters, a belief in the American Dream—including idealized notions of the family, heterosexual norms, and the acceptance of prescribed gender roles—proves stifling and self-destructive. This is the first book to explore Ball’s writings for theater, television and film, with an emphasis on his best-known work. These essays offer insight into both the captivating and problematic dimensions of Ball’s work, while drawing connections among his diverse writings. An interview with Ball is included.

Essays on Sexuality, Death and America in the Television and Film Writings

Considering Alan Ball

Aaron Sorkin is one of the most notable voices in Hollywood, attracting millions of weekly viewers with his television series The West Wing and scoring box office success with films like A Few Good Men and The American President. With a musician’s sense of rhythm and writing skills honed in the theater, Sorkin crafts dialogue that brings characters to life. His crisp, tight language is both exciting to listen to and poetic in its beauty and power—but what lies behind the slick, sophisticated exchanges between Sorkin’s characters? Does Sorkin’s ability to captivate viewers with rapid-fire, humorous dialogue lull them into overlooking an inherent political agenda, a sense of elitism, and gender bias prominent throughout his work? Aaron Sorkin’s skill as a writer garners him accolades, even from his critics: complex, nuanced, sometimes subtle but often forceful, Sorkin’s work is best understood when viewed from a variety of perspectives. This collection of essays on the work of Aaron Sorkin affords greater insight into the complexities of his writing, drawing connections between the film and television output of today’s most prominent and influential screenwriter. Scholars from various fields—film, literature, art history, political science, and more—examine the thematic content and rhetorical strategy of Sorkin’s writing. Eleven essayists explore the subtle, pervasive and often contradictory messages woven throughout Sorkin’s work, from politics to portrayals of women, and consider his impact on film, television and culture. An interview with Aaron Sorkin precedes the essays, each of which has notes and a bibliography. An appendix covering film and television credits is included. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

Essays on the Politics, Poetics and Sleight of Hand in the Films and Television Series

Considering Aaron Sorkin

"This collection of essays on the work of Aaron Sorkin affords greater insight into the complexities of his writing, drawing connections between the film and television output of today's most prominent and influential screenwriter"--Provided by publisher.

In Dining with Madmen: Fat, Food, and the Environment in 1980s Horror, author Thomas Fahy explores America’s preoccupation with body weight, processed foods, and pollution through the lens of horror. Conspicuous consumption may have communicated success in the eighties, but only if it did not become visible on the body. American society had come to view fatness as a horrifying transformation—it exposed the potential harm of junk food, gave life to the promises of workout and diet culture, and represented the country’s worst consumer impulses, inviting questions about the personal and environmental consequences of excess. While changing into a vampire or a zombie often represented widespread fears about addiction and overeating, it also played into concerns about pollution. Ozone depletion, acid rain, and toxic waste already demonstrated the irrevocable harm being done to the planet. The horror genre—from A Nightmare on Elm Street to American Psycho—responded by presenting this damage as an urgent problem, and, through the sudden violence of killers, vampires, and zombies, it depicted the consequences of inaction as terrifying. Whether through Hannibal Lecter’s cannibalism, a vampire’s thirst for blood in The Queen of the Damned and The Lost Boys, or an overwhelming number of zombies in George Romero’s Day of the Dead, 1980s horror uses out-of-control hunger to capture deep-seated concerns about the physical and material consequences of unchecked consumption. Its presentation of American appetites resonated powerfully for audiences preoccupied with body size, food choices, and pollution. And its use of bodily change, alongside the bloodlust of killers and the desolate landscapes of apocalyptic fiction, demanded a recognition of the potentially horrifying impact of consumerism on nature, society, and the self.

Fat, Food, and the Environment in 1980s Horror

Dining with Madmen

Sitting on pins and needles, anxiously waiting to see what will happen next, horror audiences crave the fear and exhilaration generated by a terrifying story; their anticipation is palpable. But they also breathe a sigh of relief when the action is over, when they are able to close their books or leave the movie theater. Whether serious, kitschy, frightening, or ridiculous, horror not only arouses the senses but also raises profound questions about fear, safety, justice, and suffering. From literature and urban legends to film and television, horror’s ability to thrill has made it an integral part of modern entertainment. Thomas Fahy and twelve other scholars reveal the underlying themes of the genre in The Philosophy of Horror. Examining the evolving role of horror, the contributing authors investigate works such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818), horror films of the 1930s, Stephen King’s novels, Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining (1980), and Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960). Also examined are works that have largely been ignored in philosophical circles, including Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood (1965), Patrick Süskind’s Perfume (1985), and James Purdy’s Narrow Rooms (2005). The analysis also extends to contemporary forms of popular horror and “torture-horror” films of the last decade, including Saw (2004), Hostel (2005), The Devil’s Rejects (2005), and The Hills Have Eyes (2006), as well as the ongoing popularity of horror on the small screen. The Philosophy of Horror celebrates the strange, compelling, and disturbing elements of horror, drawing on interpretive approaches such as feminist, postcolonial, Marxist, and psychoanalytic criticism. The book invites readers to consider horror’s various manifestations and transformations since the late 1700s, probing its social, cultural, and political functions in today’s media-hungry society.

A compelling and innovative television writer, David Chase has created distinctive programs since the 1970s, each reflecting his edgy humor and psychological realism. These critical essays examine Chase’s television writings, placing particular emphasis on how his past works have shaped and influenced the cultural phenomenon of HBO’s The Sopranos, and studying Chase’s use of identity, community, and place in defining his on-screen characters. Topics explored include Chase’s constructs of the urban L.A. environment in The Rockford Files, the portrayal of hybridized American archetypes in Northern Exposure, and the interpretation of sexual identity/masculinity in The Sopranos. An appendix containing complete episode guides for The Rockford Files, Northern Exposure, and The Sopranos is also included.

The Writing Dead features original interviews with the writers of today’s most frightening and fascinating shows. They include some of television’s biggest names—Carlton Cuse (Lost and Bates Motel), Bryan Fuller (Hannibal, Dead Like Me, Wonderfalls, and Pushing Daisies), David Greenwalt (Angel and Grimm), Gale Anne Hurd (The Walking Dead, The Terminator series,Aliens, and The Abyss), Jane Espenson (Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Battlestar Galactica), Brian McGreevy (Hemlock Grove), Alexander Woo (True Blood), James Wong (The X-Files, Millennium, American Horror Story, and Final Destination), Frank Spotnitz (The X-Files and Millennium), Richard Hatem (Supernatural, The Dead Zone, and The Mothman Prophecies), Scott Buck (Dexter), Anna Fricke (Being Human), and Jim Dunn (Haven). The Writing Dead features thought-provoking, never-before-published interviews with these top writers and gives the creators an opportunity to delve more deeply into the subject of television horror than anything found online. In addition to revealing behind-the-scene glimpses, these writers discuss favorite characters and storylines and talk about what they find most frightening. They offer insights into the writing process reflecting on the scary works that influenced their careers. And they reveal their own personal fascinations with the genre. The thirteen interviews in The Writing Dead also mirror the changing landscape of horror on TV—from the shows produced by major networks and cable channels to shows made exclusively for online streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Studios. The Writing Dead will appeal to numerous fans of these shows, to horror fans, to aspiring writers and filmmakers, and to anyone who wants to learn more about why we like being scared.

Talking Terror with TV's Top Horror Writers

The Writing Dead

When one of the five remaining survivors of their defunct religious cult ends up dead from drowning, the rest begin to think that they too are being targeted in the way their powerful cult leader predicted so many years ago. Reprint.

The Unspoken

Truman Capote—along with his most famous works In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffany’s—continues to have a powerful hold over the American popular imagination. His glamorous lifestyle, which included hobnobbing with the rich and famous and frequenting the most elite nightclubs in Manhattan, makes him the subject of ongoing interest for public and academic audiences alike. In Understanding Truman Capote, Thomas Fahy provides a new direction for Capote studies that offers a way to reconsider the author’s place in literary criticism, the canon, and the classroom. By reading Capote’s work in its historical context, Fahy reveals the politics shaping his writing and refutes any notion of Capote as disconnected from the political. Instead this study positions him as a writer deeply engaged with the social anxieties of the 1940s and 1950s. Understanding Truman Capote also applies a highly interdisciplinary framework to the author’s writing that includes discussions of McCarthyism, the Lavender Scare, automobile culture, juvenile delinquency, suburbia, Beat culture, the early civil rights movement, female sexuality as embodied by celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, and atomic age anxieties. This new approach to Capote studies will be of interest in the fields of literature, history, film, suburban studies, sociology, gender/sexuality studies, African American literary studies, and American and cultural studies. Capote’s writing captures the isolation, marginalization, and persecution of those who deviated from or failed to achieve white middle-class ideals and highlights the artificiality of mainstream idealizations about American culture. His work reveals the deleterious consequences of nostalgia, the insidious impact of suppression, the dangers of Cold War propaganda, and the importance of equal rights. Ultimately Capote’s writing reflects a critical engagement with American culture that challenges us to rethink our understanding of the 1940s and 1950s.

Thomas Fahy

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