Cultural Studies最新文献

{"title":"‘Water, asylum, metamorphosis, freak show’: flourishing through streaming karaoke play in China","authors":"Shuwen Qu","doi":"10.1080/09502386.2023.2274083","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2023.2274083","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTKaraoke has long been understood as an imitative musical practice, popular among the working class in western society. While scholars have noticed the communicative significance of karaoke in generating interpretive creativity and social interaction, they also point out the tendency of offline karaoke practices to strengthen cultural rules and social hierarchies. For this reason, this paper examines vibrant Chinese streaming karaoke practices and explores how Chinese streaming karaoke, as the originator of cultural and social enclave, offers hope for resistance against cultural censorship and social restriction. Through the lens of the theoretical concepts of tactics, affect and human flourishing, the analysis reveals that the karaoke enclave generates an affective field for vernacular creativities that foster personal wellbeing and social publicness in everyday life, through four playful tactics: to ‘water’ the vibrancy of life, to build ‘asylum’ so as to seek more intensified experiential connections and connect with total strangers, to ‘morph’ into unknown spontaneity and set up non-monetary values, and to perform ‘freak show’ to voice political affect and resonate with the most unlikely of people. The emancipatory power of streaming karaoke play, lies in the interdependence and interconnection of those tactics and they as a whole contribute to the human flourishing.KEYWORDS: Streaming karaokehuman flourishingaffecttacticsvernacular creativities AcknowledgementsThe author thanks two anonymous reviewers for their careful reading of the manuscript and their insightful and critical comments. The author is also grateful to Prof. David Hesmondhalgh for providing helpful comments on earlier draft of the manuscript.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationFundingThis research is supported by the Chinese Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (no.332202312623657), and by the Music Culture in the Age of Streaming—which has received funding from the European Research Council, under the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme, in the form of an Advanced Research Grant awarded to Professor David Hesmondhalgh, at the University of Leeds (Grant agreement no. 1010020615).","PeriodicalId":47907,"journal":{"name":"Cultural Studies","volume":"61 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135392894","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Memoryscapes of liberation: activist mnemonic labour in the queer press","authors":"Daniele Salerno","doi":"10.1080/09502386.2023.2274077","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2023.2274077","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, I will explore the role of memory in the context of homosexual liberation movements. I will do this through the lens of the queer press, which will serve as a doorway for the exploration of activist mnemonic labour. Activists undertake mnemonic labour to craft narratives that weave together historical oppression and resistance with hopes for a better future. These narratives are used to motivate and sustain activists in their present struggles. The queer press helps spread narratives across borders and creates shared memoryscapes for activism. My proposal is to view memoryscapes as schemata that inform activist mnemonic labour. On one hand, memoryscapes offer a shared purpose and direction for activists spread across different countries. On the other hand, they serve as arenas for mediation and comparison, linking distinct histories from diverse social groups and revealing their shared threads. This turns memory into a resource for building alliances across borders, and among different political and social groups. I will adopt this perspective to study two Argentinian homosexual liberation groups from the 1960s-70s: Nuestro Mundo and Frente de Liberación Homosexual (FLH). I will explore activist mnemonic labour on Nuestro Mundo’s bulletins and the FLH’s periodicals: Homosexuales and Somos. I will focus on two main aspects: (1) how activists adapt transnational narratives to the local context, and (2) how Argentinian activists weave narratives that blend historical oppression and resistance with visions of a different future.","PeriodicalId":47907,"journal":{"name":"Cultural Studies","volume":"132 ","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135927884","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Dripping in molasses: Black feminist nostalgia and Kara Walker’s <i>A Subtlety</i>","authors":"Loron Benton","doi":"10.1080/09502386.2023.2264580","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2023.2264580","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTKara Walker is best known for her depictions of sexualized violence and gendered racism during slavery in the form of black paper silhouettes. Scholars such as Salamishah Tillet argue that Walker's art, along with art by some of her post-civil rights contemporaries, offers ‘aesthetic interventions’ to problematic racial histories as part of a larger project of memory reclamation and justice. Walker's A Subtlety, Or the Marvelous Sugar Baby, an Homage to the unpaid and overworked Artisans who have refined our Sweet tastes from the cane fields to the Kitchens of the New World on the Occasion of the demolition of the Domino Sugar Refining Plant is another such interventionist project. Debuting in the Williamsburg neighbourhood of Brooklyn, New York in May of 2014, A Subtlety explores how a figure like mammy ‘survives as a cultural force that influences and reflects a national conscience’ (Wallace Sanders [2008]. Mammy: a century of race, gender, and southern memory. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 12). And yet, to say that the historical rootedness of the title, sugar sphinx sculpture, and molasses-covered walls and cherub-faced small figures throughout the installation were ambiguous to some spectators, is an understatement. Hundreds of photographs and videos were uploaded to social media sites with people making gestures towards the figure that some critics deemed highly inappropriate. This paper explores how A Subtlety both understands and undermines representations of Black women's bodies and how Black artists in the African diaspora contend with complex cultural signs of the past in the present. Utilizing studies of Black feminist theory and visual culture, I argue that Walker’s A Subtlety – and her art more broadly – offers theoretical and geographic space to ponder where Black pleasure and collective memory can exist in systems of misogynoir, as well as in the Black nostalgic imagination.KEYWORDS: Feminismpleasuregazesugarmammymemory Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).","PeriodicalId":47907,"journal":{"name":"Cultural Studies","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135266369","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Streaming Black to the future: post-soul aesthetics &amp; competing Nostalgia in FX’s <i>snowfall</i> and <i>POSE</i>","authors":"Ta’Les Love","doi":"10.1080/09502386.2023.2261963","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2023.2261963","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTTelevision networks, in partnership and collaboration with streaming platforms, are now increasingly using nostalgia themed programming to captivate diverse audiences. To meet the growing calls for diverse representation, many of these shows retell the history and events of Black America during the Reagan period, drawing on post-soul aesthetics and culture. Further, streaming services have made a conscious effort to acquire rights to older Black sitcoms, enabling Black audiences to relive the memories attached to post-soul media. Using textual analysis of FX dramas Snowfall and POSE, this paper analyses how television programmes invoke post-soul aesthetics to produce a distinct and consumable form of Black nostalgia. This results in a competing nostalgia where viewers are unable to disassociate the feel-good moments of a past era from the racial trauma, oppression and discrimination that shaped this same period. While discourse around Blackness and nostalgia should fervently occupy space outside of understandings of structural racism and economic marginalization, this paper argues that television networks and streaming platforms are choosing to produce Black nostalgic programmes that highlight this tension. Therefore, this has led to a resurgence of post-soul-themed programming.KEYWORDS: Black Lives Matterracial memoriestelevision dramas1980sNetflixHulu Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationNotes on contributorsTa’Les LoveTa’les Love is an Assistant Professor in the Brooks School of Interdisciplinary Studies at Grand Valley State University. Her research interests are situated at the intersections of race, digital media studies and television studies. Dr Love’s work also interrogates mediated representations of Black womanhood and how Black women use social media technologies for community building, entrepreneurship and activism.","PeriodicalId":47907,"journal":{"name":"Cultural Studies","volume":"31 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136112992","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Streaming Black girlhood: biculturality, nostalgia and hypervisibility in Cuties","authors":"Nicosia Shakes, Barbara Thelamour","doi":"10.1080/09502386.2023.2261949","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2023.2261949","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTThe era of streaming services and online distribution of independent films have offered more varied representations of the African Diaspora than were previously available through traditional media. Within this context, Maïmouna Doucouré’s acclaimed 2020 film, Cuties, presents a poignant and nuanced, yet controversial representation of Black immigrant biculturality, girlhood, and puberty. In this essay, we engage with Cuties through the lens of nostalgia as an escape from uncomfortable realities. Set in France, the film centres the immigrant experience. The protagonist Aminata (Amy), a French-Senegalese preteen, witnesses her mother’s sadness at her husband’s impending wedding. Amy embarks on a journey of body agency and rage that demonstrates her navigation between cultures. We critically engage with how Amy disrupts her mother’s and community’s immigrant nostalgia: a longing and idealizing for the culture of their homeland in opposition to the dominant culture of their adopted country. We also examine how the U.S. release of Cuties on Netflix got caught, perhaps unintentionally, in the crosshairs of a U.S. culture war. The marketing for Cuties presented a sexualized, feel-good depiction of the girls in the film which distracted from Doucouré’s true aim of depicting the rage of girlhood and the negative influences of sexualized popular culture, hypervisibility, and imagery on adolescent girls. We consider this backlash from the perspective of nostalgia as well: We unpack how this controversy reflects some Black viewers’ desire for a ‘return’ to polite and tame filmic representations of Black girls. Despite Doucouré’s efforts to explain herself and sympathetic critics’ campaign to defend the film, there was some preoccupation with the young girls’ display of sexuality. We perceive Doucouré as challenging audiences to stay present in the challenges facing young Black girls, particularly as they are increasingly exposed to online models of sexuality and femininity.KEYWORDS: NostalgiaimmigrationAfro-Frenchsocial mediagirlhoodfilm Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 The original French title is Atlantique.2 For the African diaspora, those push/pull factors include government overturn, natural disasters, economic opportunity, and receiving countries' immigration and refugee policies. See Dodson (Citation2014).3 The English translation loses some of the meaning in the original French, which literally translates to The Black Girl from or The Black Girl of. As Allison Conner (Citation2017) notes, the original French signifies ‘both roots and possession.’4 Johnson defines ‘flesh dance’ as ‘a choreographic/sonic coupling through which hip hop lyrics direct black women to move in sexually mimetic ways.’ (p. 155). Flesh dance is a type of instructional dance, which is a genre of social dance, performed to songs that specify how to do the dance.5 These racist inventions around the bodies of Black/A","PeriodicalId":47907,"journal":{"name":"Cultural Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136142367","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"‘The end of the common world’: COVID anxieties, bordered lives and democratic censorship in Taiwan","authors":"Chih-ming Wang, Zhai Gong","doi":"10.1080/09502386.2023.2261973","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2023.2261973","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTThis paper provides ethnographic sketches of the struggles of bordered lives – mainland spouses and their families, PRC students and overseas Taiwan – during the pandemic time when their rights to enter or return to overseas Taiwanese was denied as part of the preventive measures against COVID-19. By conducting interviews with mainland spouses from a distance and looking at the discussion of a Facebook group called ‘Overseas Taiwanese COVID-19 Self-Help Group’ as an archival site, we seek to understand and analyse the reasons why their right to enter or return was silenced, discredited, denied and attacked, and used these ethnographic sketches as the basis for explaining the emergence of democratic censorship, a paradox that sadly is part of the living reality in Taiwan. Furthermore, inspired by Michel Foucault’s discussion of raison d’etat as the rationale for the state’s, rather than people’s, survival, we situate democratic censorship in the context of tense China–Taiwan relations and call for the ‘de-Cold Warring’ (Chen Citation2010) of consciousness as the key to save democracy from the spectre of autocracy.KEYWORDS: Mainland spousesPRC students‘Xiao Ming’‘Xiao Hong’Overseas Taiwanese COVID-19 Self-Help Groupraison d’etat Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Situated on the coast of Fujian Province, Kinmen and Matsu are what Szonyi (Citation2008) calls ‘Cold War islands’ that were used as garrisons against China during the Cold War era. Though closer to the Chinese mainland than to Taiwan in distance, they are separated from the Chinese mainland despite deep historical connections of migration. In January 2001, as a signal of the Taiwan–China reconciliation, the travel between Fujian and Kinmen and Matsu was re-established, as part of the attempt to materialize the three ‘direct communications’ – in commerce, travel, and postage – across the Taiwan Strait. The eruption of Covid-19, however, put a halt on this travel in February 2020. It was not resumed until 25 March 2023.2 Taiwan’s cultural anthropologist, Sau-hua Liu notes that naming Covid-19 in Chinese was a tortuous political process: while the original translation was more neutral, since 21 February 2020, the Taiwan government decided using ‘Wuhan Pneumonia’ as its official name in Chinese, subjecting the term to stigmatization and discrimination (Citation2020, p. 21).3 At the initial stage, there were debates about the origin of the virus, and many have pointed to the wet market in Wuhan, though some sources suggested otherwise. Such an association between the virus and Wuhan, and later China, thanks to Donald Trump, has racist implications. See A. Liu (Citation2022); Lynteris (Citation2018).4 According to Article 17 of the “Act Governing Relations between Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area” (《大陸地區與台灣地區人民關係條例》), it takes four stages for mainland spouses to obtain the Taiwanese citizenship: get together (團聚), s","PeriodicalId":47907,"journal":{"name":"Cultural Studies","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136212339","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"New wave of totalitarianism/authoritarianism in East Asia: an editorial introduction","authors":"Stephen C. K. Chan, Wang Xiaoming","doi":"10.1080/09502386.2023.2261947","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2023.2261947","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47907,"journal":{"name":"Cultural Studies","volume":"201 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136212018","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Changing ‘practical consciousness’ of Shanghai’s middle class under covid lockdowns: a residential community’s defiance and mobilization","authors":"Chun Zhang","doi":"10.1080/09502386.2023.2261952","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2023.2261952","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTDuring the spring 2022 lockdowns in Shanghai, strict implementation of the Zero Covid policy compelled every person residing in Shanghai to confront the agents of the state and the authority behind them to develop a certain kind of practical consciousness and political sentiment – a political judgment of the dynamic reality in everyday life. During the 2-month lockdown, one witnessed both a surprising level of general compliance, as well as sporadic but widespread civil protests. Through an anthropological case study based on observations collected in the author’s own resident community, this article is an attempt to document the experiences of the residents in Shanghai under the lockdowns while examining their practice of self-governance and collective defiance. In addition, focusing on those who are considered to be ‘middle class’, it also examines how they relied on their professionalism to organize themselves in a state of high anxiety, and to make decisions and take action in a precarious and dynamic situation. It analyzes how they demonstrated a kind of ‘practical consciousness’ that initiated change and fragmentation in the collective will through the process of collective action such as negotiation, conflict, and resolution with those representing the power of the authorities. Ultimately, the political sentiments of the Chinese middle class are analyzed in terms of how they might organize their demands of everyday life into political demands and identify their own power through future collective action.KEYWORDS: Shanghai lockdownmiddle classpractical consciousnesspolitical sentiment Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 As opposed to conceptualizing and simplifying ‘big politics,’ ‘political sentiment’ emphasizes that ‘real political sentiment’ requires making targeted judgments about complex situations and implementing its own principles in dynamic response. It is a political judgment of dynamic reality, rooted in sensitivity to those everyday needs and the ability to organize them into political demands.2 ‘Shanghai Release,’ Official Account, March 27, 2022. The announcement reads: ‘From 5:00 pm on March 28 to 5:00 pm on April 1, the east side of Shanghai (Pudong) will be closed for four days … from April 1 at 3:00, it will be in turn of the west side of the city (Puxi). All residents will be tested several rounds for Covid-19. At 3 o’clock on April 5, all closed areas will be reopened. In the controlled areas, the closed-loop will be organized at the level of household, all residents should stay at home, people and vehicles can only enter without leaving the residential community.’3 As in an item of ‘The Citation2022 Shanghai Covid-Citation19 Outbreak’ on Wikipedia, ‘On March 22, two people posted information on a group chat saying Shanghai was about to perform a ‘city closure’ (Chinese: 封城). The next day, the public security bureau of Shanghai investigated both for the crime","PeriodicalId":47907,"journal":{"name":"Cultural Studies","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136296346","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Wulumuqi Road","authors":"Wang Xiaoming","doi":"10.1080/09502386.2023.2261950","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2023.2261950","url":null,"abstract":"Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes1 See also Shu Haolun’s 2011 documentary Nostalgia (乡愁), about life in Dazhongli, the community in which he grew up—a film he made just before the community was razed for redevelopment.2 Several days after the Wuhan protests, the government announced that shops could reopen, subject to further closure in the event of positive Covid tests.3 For an example of this discourse, see Chuang (Citation2019).","PeriodicalId":47907,"journal":{"name":"Cultural Studies","volume":"54 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135197890","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Rewriting the queer potential of <i>She’s Gotta Have It</i>","authors":"Alexandria Smith","doi":"10.1080/09502386.2023.2261968","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2023.2261968","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTThis paper argues that the 2017–2019 comedy-drama Netflix series She’s Gotta Have It attempts to rewrite the past represented within the 1986 feature-length film of the same name through its portrayal of Black women’s sexuality. While lauded, the film was met with criticism of Spike Lee’s portrayal of women in the film as ultimately misogynist and homophobic, evidenced by Lee’s decision to show protagonist Nola Darling being punitively raped by one of her sexual partners as well as by the flat and stereotypical construction of the Black lesbian character, Opal Gilstrap. In contrast, the 2017 series introduces us to Nola Darling as a pansexual and polyamorous Black visual artist in a rapidly gentrifying Fort Greene, Brooklyn. This paper identifies sexual politics and self-representational strategies as two sites of nostalgic re-construction in which elements of the past are both reproduced and revised. For instance, Nola’s self-identification as pansexual and her sustained relationship with a reimagined and more robustly characterized Opal illustrate that Nola’s sexual desires are not bound by heteronormativity. At the same time, the series echoes the film in that the primary sexual and romantic conflicts revolve around the ways Nola’s Black femininity is juxtaposed with the Black cis masculinity of her three primary suitors. The use of self-representational strategies, primarily Lee’s signature 4th wall breaking, provides a sense of continuity through its nostalgic callback to Lee’s earlier works, while also allowing Nola to articulate the ‘new’ identities of polyamory and pansexuality which depart from the language used in the ‘86 portrayal. Relatedly, Nola’s work as a visual artist allows the show to prioritize Nola’s perceptions of her lovers and herself. Overall, this paper mobilizes Black feminist, lesbian, and queer analyses in service of identifying and complicating Lee’s efforts to recuperate misogynist and heteronormative gendered portrayals in a contemporary medium.KEYWORDS: Black film and TVfeminist film analysispansexualitySpike LeeBlack nostalgiaNola Darling Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 An article in The Hollywood Reporter briefly frames the Netflix series as an opportunity for Lee to ‘[get] his do-over’ of the She’s Gotta Have It rape scene which Lee acknowledges regretting. (Barboza Citation2017). In an interview with Deadline in 2014 Lee names the She’s Gotta Have It rape scene as ‘stupid,’ ‘immature,’ and ‘his biggest regret.’ He promises, three years before the series’ Netflix debut, that ‘there will be nothing like that in She’s Gotta Have It, the TV show, that’s for sure.’ (Fleming Citation2014)2 The Black femme function, with Ursula as its signal example, refers to how the presence of Black femme characters and figures within cinematic images can allow audiences to see and imagine liberatory possibilities beyond the constraints of normative ‘common sense’ (","PeriodicalId":47907,"journal":{"name":"Cultural Studies","volume":"49 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135644072","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}