America on Film: Representing Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality at the Movies, 3rd Edition

There is a cut on the front cover that looks like the book was damaged when cutting open the box (was delivered to me in a padded envelope package), the front cover and first page is tearing off, and water damage.

This book arrived damaged with a slit in the package AND the book. I’m not sure how this happened. I need this book for one of my graduate classes with weekly assignments due and I paid $51.00 dollars for. There has to be something that can be done without me having to send this book back because I absolutely need it. Disappointed.

This is a textbook aimed at those studying film history, or representations of race, class, gender, sexuality and ability in film. It's not instantly appealing - the book is large and floppy with thin pages, no colour (unless you count grey boxes around some text) and slightly pixelated, lowish quality images. However, the text is thorough and well-written and covers a wide array of important subjects.The book starts with an introductory chapter on studying film form and representation, and the way it relates to or portrays ideology. This is followed by a chapter on the structure and history of Hollywood filmmaking, five chapters on race in film (specifically covering whiteness, African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans and Latinos), two chapters on class (representations of it before and after the Great Depression), four chapters on sex and gender, three chapters on sexuality and a chapter on (dis)ability. Each chapter is split into clear sections, and ends with discussion questions (that you can think about solo, or talk about in seminars) and suggestions for further reading. Important words throughout the book are highlighted in bold (several in most paragraphs) which helps students to identify the subjects at a glance. I'm quite impressed with how well these subjects are overviewed in the book, though if you have interest in one specific area you may be better off obtaining a book simply about that subject (eg. gender). This is certainly a great place to start in studying the way that movies can shape or reflect cultural views and prejudices.As for whether it has any appeal outside of film, media or cultural representation students, I would think it's unlikely as most casual readers would prefer something more accessible in terms of form (not a large, unwieldy textbook), but the writing is not so dense and academic that it couldn't be appreciated by a newbie to film study, so if you fancy it, go ahead!

Less a cover to cover read, more a set of critical essays for the student or cinephile to dip into whenever the needs calls. This new edition has a wider focus than previous editions, encapsulating both the strides film and film criticism has taken in the last couple of decades with regards to diversity. While these issues have always been portrayed, we now have a generation of experts who have grown up in a more cultured and understanding world and who can bring their modern perspectives. We have more roles across the industry for people who struggled to get a foot in the door previously, and we are beginning to see new stories and approaches to filmmaking. As the introduction suggests, there is more to do and much more to come and if the last few turbulent years are anything to go by, the culture war has never been so pronounced, propelled both forwards and backwards by an all-encompassing media which serves to create naught by division and echo chambers.Having taken some film classes as part of my degree twenty years ago, much of the terminology has remained the same, and sadly many of the examples of American film are the same. With such a rich cinematic history you would expect each year to bring a pantheon of new films to dissect and discuss. The industry is getting better in this regard, but you typically have to look to genre film such as Horror to find those films truly pushing the envelope without being on the nose - but those are depressingly the precise types of films old school critics tend to ignore. Nevertheless, as these new essays are starting to show, progress is being made with regards to criticism too. More recent releases such the as excellent The Florida Project, Get Out, BlacKkKlansman, and even The Expendables are covered.The bulk of the essays focus on Race - especially with regards to America and Africa, but it is great to see Asian criticism and film finally getting belated attention. There are also essays on the early women pioneers in American Cinema, the changes to masculinity over the decades, approaches to sexuality on screen and behind the camera, and depictions of disabilities. Any budding or long term critic should find this an enlightening read, and it should be a vital tool for anyone learning about film as a hobby or as part of education - it may be too buried in literary ideas for the average film fan or even self-proclaimed movie nerd, but if you allow your biases to be peeled back, you'll learn plenty too.

This is a very long book covering the same old dusty ground. No doubt it will be quoted in many a media studies essay. I don’t find it particularly enlightening. To me, a film is entertaining or not entertaining. When I’m bored, such as in Last of the Mohicans and Dances with Wolves, I begin to speculate on how Whitey saves the day and that there are ‘good’ hippy Indians and bad ‘punk’ Indians in both films. This book doesn’t even go into this obvious conclusion as it is too busy doing its righteous spiel in the carefully delineated ‘Indian’ section. Just a bit too lightweight and obvious to shed real insight for me.

This is a Liberal overview of the history of Hollywood, mainly focusing on representations of gender, race, disability, and class: It's obviously been written (and priced) for use by Media Studies undergraduates, and very thorough in it's coverage of these contemporary issues. I don't think it will have a great appeal outside that niche, though: It is illustrated, but it's really an academic text rather than anything designed to appeal to the casual reader.

This is a volume intended to be used as a text book for those seriously studying film, media or critical studies as part of a structured course, but it will also serve the interested layman who wishes to improve their understanding of this most versatile of visual arts.The most powerful American influence in the world isn`t through their economic or military powers – it`s through the export of their culture - and movies play a hugely significant part in persuading people to think American social/political views to be the norm.This book doesn`t seek to persuade anyone that movies aren`t entertainment, but it does seek to make students (or viewers) aware that there are subtexts and layers to cinema that are deliberate; in most cases, there is no right or wrong way of viewing a film, but they can be interpreted very differently by viewers who are more aware of the different perspectives a little knowledge can present.It covers a lot of ground; taking the perspectives of current social/political awareness into account, multiple topics and a wide-ranging historical overview of American film is presented, exploring how American cinema has (and does) reflect social attitudes and structures through the medium; it is at times academic, but the astute reader will find much to enhance not just their understanding of movies but also increase their enjoyment of film in general.Any film buff can tell you that often a film has to be seen more than once to reveal all it's values – and sometimes films dismissed on a single viewing are revealed to be deeper, or much more interesting than a superficial first watch might provide.Although this is a serious and educational volume pitched at college student level, it's a very recommendable book that will greatly enhance one's critical viewing experience.Do feel free to ignore the more negative reviews and use the “look inside” option at the top of the page for a sample of the contents.