The Black Mise-en-Femme is a special collection of essays addressing contemporary film and television by women scholars who are personally invested in the intersectionality of race, gender, class, and nation in media. The volume begins with Marquita’s Smith’s essay, “’Don’t Be a Martyr’: Kinship, Intimacy, and Carceral Care in Ava DuVernay’s Middle of Nowhere.” Smith aptly points out that in the current climate of mass incarceration narratives like DuVernay’s elevate an often-overlooked perspective. In “Black Women Having It All: The Rise of Professional Women in African American Romance Films,” Maryann Erigha examines romantic comedies released after 2000 in which the new modern professional woman is now a stock protagonist. Lynne Joyrich’s essay, “American Dreams and Demons: Television’s “Hollow” Histories and Fantasies of Race,” is part of an existing, but growing, body of scholarship that examines the functions of blackness in science fiction, horror, fantasy and supernatural worlds. In “Trending Topics: A Cultural Analysis of Being Mary Jane and Black Women’s Engagement on Twitter,” Felicia L. Harris and Loren S. Coleman look at the representation of young women in Black entertainment television. The volume closes with April Lundy’s reflections in her article “Caught Between a Thot and a Hard Place: The Politics of Black Female Sexuality at the Intersection of Cinema and Reality Television.” Lundy brings her experience as a former producer to this analysis of the representation of womanhood in television. This volume is theoretically informed enough for specialists yet accessible to lay readers. It is ideal for classroom use because it builds on existing cinema and media studies discourses by applying them to contemporary film, television, video, and social media. The Black Mise-en-Femme is bound to foster conversation, encourage criticality, and inspire readers to push conversation beyond existing boundaries.
Preview the issue here. For a limited time, you can download and read the introduction here and “Caught Between a Thot and a Hard Place: The Politics of Black Female Sexuality at the Intersection of Cinema and Reality Television” by April D. Lundy here.
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