{"title":"Keeping Up With The Kings","authors":"L. Kozak","doi":"10.7560/vlt9006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7560/vlt9006","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:This article performs a close reading and quantitative analysis of the five shows of Robert and Michelle King—The Good Wife, BrainDead, The Good Fight, Evil, and The Bite—with respect to the series’ formal textual and paratextual elements. Comparing both the use of recaps and the lengths and “coldness” of opening sequences, this article argues that the Kings developed most of their aesthetic innovations within the broadcast context before further refining them in their streaming shows. A first look at the Kings’ oeuvre demonstrates the increasing blurriness between streaming and broadcast television poetics.","PeriodicalId":335072,"journal":{"name":"The Velvet Light Trap","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-08-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130401560","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Fast Forwarding The Past (On Pause): Daniel Lopatin’s Memory Vague and the Hauntological Aesthetic of Vaporwave","authors":"Jordon J. Jacobson","doi":"10.7560/vlt9004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7560/vlt9004","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:This article examines the electronic musician Daniel Lopatin’s experimental audiovisual work Memory Vague (2009), in which the artist compiles and manipulates “dead” media in the form of looping audio tracks and forgotten visual artifacts. In repurposing and redistributing lost media, Lopatin’s work engages with the archival methods of the field of media archeology, Derrida’s concept of hauntology, and the concerns of the internet subculture Vaporwave. Lopatin validates dead media beyond its economic commodity value, thus providing an alternative to the streaming era’s inherent drive toward corporate profit.","PeriodicalId":335072,"journal":{"name":"The Velvet Light Trap","volume":"12 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-08-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115335274","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"\"There Would Be No Kerry Washington without Diahann Carroll\": Shout-Out Culture, Sisterhood, and the Discourse of Black Womanhood","authors":"Ashley S. Young","doi":"10.7560/vlt8902","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7560/vlt8902","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:This article theorizes the relevance of the shout-out, a public expression of appreciation, as an African American cultural tradition and explores how Black actresses intentionally use shout-outs in awards show speeches to acknowledge each other's work and to collectively rearticulate ideological understandings of Black womanhood. In tracing the explicit ways that Black actresses use shout-outs, this study examines the interconnections among Black actresses in Hollywood, revealing what they say to and about each other and the larger meanings implicit in these conversations as they relate to broader issues of African American representation. Focusing specifically on Black-themed awards shows, I argue that Black actresses cultivate their own spaces and create room for themselves to celebrate and shout out each other and each other's work, forming a sisterhood that thrives on mentorship and empowerment, thus creating a legacy and an alternative archive of Black women's accomplishments on-screen.","PeriodicalId":335072,"journal":{"name":"The Velvet Light Trap","volume":"143 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127942377","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Golden Gays: Awards Legitimation from the Globes to GLAAD","authors":"Benjamin Kruger-Robbins","doi":"10.7560/vlt8904","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7560/vlt8904","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:This article historicizes how the Golden Globe Awards and the George Foster Peabody Awards selectively commended television programming with gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) themes from the 1970s through the mid-1990s. I argue that these awards programs' different legitimizing practices helped to define LGBTQ+ programming as elite, sequestering it from television's everyday discursive positioning. I first consider how the outcast status of the Golden Globes, organized by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, compelled greater attention to \"queer\" television oddities, even while the recognitions upheld a troublingly classed framing of LGBTQ+ shows that dovetailed with the organizer's late-1980s discrediting following disclosures of bribery and other dealings. The Peabodys, on the other hand, promoted standards for \"respectable\" programming and therefore refused recognition of gay-themed shows until doing so became politically expedient in the late 1980s. This academic awarding institution later singled out \"quality\" entries for acclaim, paving the way for more contemporary associations between LGBTQ+ television and premier viewing platforms. Ultimately, I argue that activist media watchdogs such as the Gay and Lesbian Alliance against Defamation (GLAAD) emulated the Globes' and Peabodys' public relations strategies, becoming de facto awards organizations in the 1990s that adopted \"quality\" criteria for recognizing queer-themed shows.","PeriodicalId":335072,"journal":{"name":"The Velvet Light Trap","volume":"7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115834102","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Awarding Chinese-Language Cinemas: Imaginary Transnational Identities of the Golden Horse Awards","authors":"C. Lin","doi":"10.7560/vlt8903","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7560/vlt8903","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:Frequently referred to as the \"Chinese Oscars,\" the Golden Horse Awards, held in Taiwan annually since 1962, accept submissions from various Chinese-speaking countries despite China's suppression of Taiwan. This article reveals that the transnationalism of the Golden Horse Awards has been influenced by the cross-border tendency of early Chinese cinemas, the political turmoil of the past six decades in Taiwan, and the shifts in Chinese-language film industries in East and Southeast Asia under the influence of neoliberal globalization. It examines how the Golden Horse Awards have transformed from a tool of state ideology during the Cold War into an evaluating system that aims to promote both the global image of Taiwan and the artistic values of Chinese-language films in a broader sense. Drawing on theories from film festival and transnational cinema studies, this article further compares the Golden Horse Awards with the Cannes Film Festival to demonstrate the ways in which both festivals culturally legitimize local \"national\" cinema while aligning with transnational cinemas to counter larger film hegemonies. I bring the research up-to-date by examining the challenges the Golden Horse Awards have faced since China withdrew from the competition following political controversy at the 2018 ceremony. By focusing on how the Golden Horse Awards function both as a physical and an imaginary site that embodies the ambivalence of the umbrella term \"Chinese-language cinemas,\" this article sheds light on broader complex issues of national identities, globalization, and transnational cinemas in film awards studies.","PeriodicalId":335072,"journal":{"name":"The Velvet Light Trap","volume":"52 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125452706","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Professional Widows: Contesting History with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame","authors":"A. Vesey","doi":"10.7560/vlt8907","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7560/vlt8907","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:Female musicians account for almost 8 percent of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's inductees. The Rock Hall, however, often invites rock widows to accept their late husbands' awards. As a result, rock widows' sustained presence at Rock Hall induction ceremonies illustrates the hall's bias against women's contributions to rock history. This article uses textual and discourse analysis to examine how HBO generated programming out of rock widow Courtney Love's fraught history with Nirvana following the band's 2014 induction into the Rock and Rock Hall of Fame. The channel broadcast the Rock Hall's 2014 ceremony, which included Nirvana's induction and reunited Love with her late husband's family and band, including drummer Dave Grohl. Within a year, HBO programmed Foo Fighters: Sonic Highways and Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, two documentary projects that foregrounded Grohl's and Love's contributions to Nirvana's legacy and were particularly instructive in their illumination of Love's significance to the band's legacy. Love used HBO's interest in Cobain as an opportunity to reframe her career through their marriage. Thus, in this article, I recognize Love's rock widow status as a guiding force behind Nirvana's mid-2010s renaissance on HBO and a challenge to HBO and the Rock Hall's hegemonic masculinity.","PeriodicalId":335072,"journal":{"name":"The Velvet Light Trap","volume":"89 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130457129","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Industrializing Nationalist Dissent: Music Censorship, 2 Live Crew, and the Politics of Performance at the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards","authors":"Michael M Reinhard","doi":"10.7560/vlt8905","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7560/vlt8905","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:This article considers how performances at the Video Music Awards (VMAs) have been central to constructing the cultural brand of MTV by fusing debates around nationalism, anticensorship, and consumer activism. When the rap group 2 Live Crew performed their single \"Banned in the U.S.A.\" during the 1990 VMAs telecast, they drew from their experience of being arrested in Florida for violating the state's obscenity standards, thus drawing attention to how rap music was being censored on racial grounds. This public relations effort reflected a response to earlier pressure campaigns by consumer and political activist groups like the Parents Music Resource Center. 2 Live Crew's criticism of censorship was not unique, as other moments in the telecast represented how MTV's partnerships with music trade organizations, and the later Rock the Vote campaign, worked to industrialize performances of dissent as part of a broader method of handling political regulatory threats over obscenity in music. Through these performances of nationalist dissent, the 1990 VMAs telecast can thus be read as a form of \"industrial reflexivity\" that worked to brand the consumption of MTV's youth culture as a legitimate citizenship practice.","PeriodicalId":335072,"journal":{"name":"The Velvet Light Trap","volume":"12 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131600007","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Hollywood's Culture of Scientific and Technical Achievement","authors":"Charles R. Acland","doi":"10.7560/vlt8906","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7560/vlt8906","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:This article offers a brief historical analysis of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Scientific and Technical Awards to show how changing notions of achievement in this arena helped shape the American movie business. This examination reveals the shifts and settlements in what the film industry, and its related technological apparatus, was imagined to be. Especially notable is the way these awards acknowledged specialized technology companies as core contributors to the ordinary operations of the film business, a factor that became even more important in the poststudio era.","PeriodicalId":335072,"journal":{"name":"The Velvet Light Trap","volume":"33 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125379912","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"(Re)Writing Music History: Television, Memory, and Nostalgia in The People's History of Pop","authors":"L. Weston","doi":"10.7560/vlt8806","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7560/vlt8806","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:This article explores how the BBC series The People's History of Pop (2016–2017) challenges the production of televised music history. Its delivery is characterized by a move away from Aristotelian \"Great Man\" narratives and toward an exploration of \"history from below,\" which narrativizes popular music history from a fan perspective. Through its aesthetic and representational strategies, the series foregrounds the material cultures surrounding popular music, emphasizing their value as a site of nostalgic and affective engagement.","PeriodicalId":335072,"journal":{"name":"The Velvet Light Trap","volume":"24 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115429464","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"ACT UP Documentaries and the Question of Intermediate Archival Context","authors":"Matthew Connolly","doi":"10.7560/vlt8807","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7560/vlt8807","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:This article considers the status of preexisting footage used within contemporary documentary when that footage originates from another discrete nonfiction work. It proposes a category for these earlier titles (intermediate archival context) and offers terms to examine the translation of preexisting material from one documentary context to another (recognition, formal fidelity, and intentional proximity). Through an analysis of the use of AIDS activist media footage within two modern-day documentaries on the activist group ACT UP, the article argues that the influence of intermediate archival context can be understood not only in the appropriation of individual images but in the citation and interpretation of formal strategies seen within historical nonfiction","PeriodicalId":335072,"journal":{"name":"The Velvet Light Trap","volume":"117 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128931615","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}