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

America on Film: Representing Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality in the Movies is a lively introduction to issues of diversity as represented within the American cinema. The first synthetic and historical text of its kind, America on Film provides a comprehensive overview of the industrial, socio-cultural, and aesthetic factors that contribute to cinematic representations of race, class, gender, and sexuality. The volume chronicles the cinematic history of various cultural groups, examines forces and institutions of bias, and stimulates discussion about the relationship between film and American national culture. The book is organized within a broad historical framework, with specific theoretical concepts - including film genre, auteurism, cultural studies, Orientalism, the "male gaze," feminism, and queer theory - integrated throughout. Each individual chapter features a concise overview of the topic at hand, a discussion of representative films, figures, and movements, and an in-depth analysis of a single film, including The Lion King, The Jazz Singer, Smoke Signals, The Grapes of Wrath, and The Celluloid Closet. This new edition is fully revised and updated. It includes a new chapter on the representation of disability in American film, and a new collection of updated case studies, including discussions of 8 Mile, Erin Brockovich, Crash, and Brokeback Mountain, among others.