Popular Culture Icons in Contemporary American Drama

by Konstantinos Blatanis

Overview

First documenting the rapport contemporary American playwrights have established with popular cultures for more than 35 years, Blatanis then shows how that rapport can foreground some of the most prominent qualities of contemporary American drama, and expose the idiosyncrasies of American popular culture. He indexes only names and titles. Distributed in the US by Associated University Presses. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780838644157
Publisher:	Fairleigh Dickinson University Press
Publication date:	10/01/2003
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	274 KB

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	7
	Introduction	9
1.	Hollywood and Rock Mythologies	24
	Parody, Iconoclasm, and Deconstruction of Popular Icons	27
	Placement/Displacement of Self and Text on Screen	38
	Sublime and Macabre Rock Dreams	55
2.	Television	73
	Exposing the Discourse of Tele-Flow	78
	Thinking the Subject as a Real Tele-Text	86
	Considering the Tele-Icon in Mediating the Private/Public (Con) Fusion	92
	Reviewing the Role of Tele-Flow in a Social Space of Implosive Anesthesia	97
3.	Pulp Fiction Iconography	105
	Consuming Pulp Fiction Maps: A Trip in Hyperreality	110
	Simulating Dime-Literature Outlaws: An Act of Violating Violence	117
	Reclaiming Mythic Desperadoes: An Original Map of the Present Moment	125
	Uniting Superheroes and Archvillains: A Route towards "the Democracy of Life"	132
4.	Images of the West	139
	Cowboy--The Simulacrum of a Myth: The Course of Writing/Erasing History	143
	Cowboy Dreams: Pop Icons and the Act of (Re) Locating Cultural Geographies	151
	The West: The Meeting Point of Self and Other/the Site of Writing	156
	The West: The Open Horizon of a Life-Affirming Discourse	163
	Conclusion	171
	Notes	176
	Bibliography	186
	Index	192