Perverse Spectators

The Practices of Film Reception

Janet Staiger

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 2000
• Print ISBN:
  9780814781395
• eBook ISBN:
  9780814724095
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Media Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Film and television have never been more prevalent or watched than they are now, yet we still have little understanding of how people process and make use of what they see. And though we acknowledge the enormous role the media plays in our culture, we have only a vague sense of how it actually influences our attitudes and desires.
In Perverse Spectators, Janet Staiger argues that studying the interpretive methods of spectators within their historical contexts is both possible and necessary to understand the role media plays in culture and in our personal lives. This analytical approach is applied to topics such as depictions of violence, the role of ratings codes, the horror and suspense genre, historical accuracy in film, and sexual identities, and then demonstrated through works like JFK, The Silence of the Lambs, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Psycho, and A Clockwork Orange. Each chapter shows a different approach to reconstructing audience responses to films, consistently and ingeniously finding traces of what would otherwise appear to be unrecoverable information.
Using vivid examples, charting key concepts, and offering useful syntheses of long-standing debates, Perverse Spectators constitutes a compelling case for a reconsideration of the assumptions about film reception which underlie contemporary scholarship in media studies.
Taking on widely influential theories and scholars, Perverse Spectators is certain to spark controversy and help redefine the study of film as it enters the new millennium.

Index

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, 69

Abject, 170

Absorption, 12

Abstract expressionism, 146, 158n

Acting, 34, 36

Action-adventure genre, 12, 20, 22, 68, 70

Actors, 37

ACT-UP, 162

Adaption, 95, 104, 106, 167–68, 182, 184, 197

Address, 13–18, 21–24

Advertising, 29, 67–68, 78, 81, 86, 106, 145, 166, 171, 173, 177n, 197. See also Marketing

Aesthetics, 3, 5–6, 11, 15, 24, 29, 33–35, 38, 51, 62, 101, 115–16, 136, 186

Affect, 3–4, 24, 33–34, 36, 38–39, 51–53, 56n, 184. See also Crying; Laughter; Terror

Agee, James, 66

Albee, Edward, 129, 147

Alexander, Shana, 146–47

Allen, Robert C., 41n

Allen, Woody, 216

All the President’s Men, 219

Alpert, Hollis, 101

Althusser, Louis, 3–4, 115–18, 123

Altman, Rick, 61, 64–65, 68–69, 75n

Altman, Robert, 75n

Amos ‘n’ Andy (radio), 49

Anderson, Amanda, 80

Anger, Kenneth, 130, 136, 139, 150, 157n

Ansen, David, 119

Anticipation of the Night, 135

Antonioni, Michelangelo, 142

Anxiety, 206

Apollo (film company), 140

Archer, Eugene, 141

Aristocracy, 50–51

Armstrong, David, 211

Arnold, Gary, 94

Art cinema, 33–35, 39, 49, 102, 107, 127, 132, 137, 142, 145, 191

Art of the Moving Picture, The, 19

Audiences, 67, 101. See also Spectators

Auteurism, 4, 100, 102, 104–5, 107, 145

Authorial voice, 103–4

Authorship,...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• I Historical Theory and Reception Studies
• II Interpretation and Hollywood Film History
• III Interpretation and Identity Theory
• IV Interpretation and the Representation of the Real
• Permissions
• Index
• About the Author