The wow climax [[electronic resource] ] : tracing the emotional impact of popular culture / / Henry Jenkins

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910778290803321
• Autore: Jenkins Henry <1958->
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: New York, : New York University Press, c2007
• ISBN: 0-8147-4311-0; 0-8147-4370-6; 1-4356-0035-5
• Descrizione fisica: vi, 285 p. : ill
• Disciplina: 302.230973
• Soggetti: Popular culture - United States; Popular culture - United States - Psychological aspects; Emotions - Social aspects - United States; Affect (Psychology) - United States; Aesthetics - Social aspects - United States; Mass media - Social aspects - United States; Mass media - United States - Psychological aspects; United States Social conditions 1933-1945; United States Social conditions 1945-
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references (p. 247-272) and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Games, the new lively art -- Monstrous beauty and mutant aesthetics : rethinking Matthew Barney's relation to the horror genre -- Death-defying heroes -- Never trust a snake : WWF wrestling as masculine melodrama -- Exploiting feminism in Stephanie Rothman's Terminal Island -- "You don't say that in English!" : the scandal of Lupe Velez -- "Going bonkers!" : children, play, and Pee-Wee -- "Complete freedom of movement" : video games as gendered play spaces -- "Her suffering aristocratic majesty" : the sentimental value of Lassie.
• Sommario/riassunto: Henry Jenkins at Authors@Google (video)Vaudevillians used the term "the wow climax" to refer to the emotional highpoint of their acts-a final moment of peak spectacle following a gradual building of audience's emotions. Viewed by most critics as vulgar and ; sensationalistic, the vaudeville aesthetic was celebrated by other writers for its vitality, its liveliness, and its playfulness.The Wow Climax follows in the path of this more laudatory tradition, drawing out the range of emotions in popular culture and mapping what we might call an aesthetic of immediacy. It pulls together a spirited range of work from Henry Jenkins, one of our most astute media scholars, that spans different media (film, television, literature, comics, games), genres (slapstick, melodrama, horror, exploitation cinema), and emotional reactions (shock, laughter, sentimentality). Whether highlighting the sentimentality at the heart of the Lassie franchise, examining the emotional experiences created by horror filmmakers like Wes Craven and David Cronenberg and avant garde artist Matthew Barney, or discussing the emerging aesthetics of video games, these essays get to the heart of what gives popular culture its emotional impact.