Resist!

Protest Media and Popular Culture in the Brexit-Trump Era

Edited by Giuliana Monteverde and Victoria McCollum

Resist! pays close attention to popular culture; it examines the political ramifications of Kanye West’s support of Donald Trump, the significance of Aaron Sorkin’s language to American political discourse, and the casting of female emotion as a political force in House of Cards and The Handmaid’s Tale. In doing so, the collection traverses the formal world of ‘the political’ as it relates to presidential elections and referenda, while emphasising the sociocultural and political significance of popular texts which have played a critical role in exploring, critiquing and shaping culture in the twenty first century.

Popular culture is often considered trivial or irrelevant to more pressing political concerns, and celebrities are often reprimanded for their forays into the political sphere. Resist! pays close attention to texts that are too often excluded when we think about politics, and explores the cultural and political fall-out of a reality TV president and a divisive public vote on increasingly connected global audiences. In examining the cultural politics of popular media, this collection is inherently interdisciplinary, and the chapters utilise methods and analysis from a range of social science and humanities disciplines. Resist! is both creative and timely, and offers a crucial examination of a fascinating and frightening political and cultural moment.

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers / Rowman & Littlefield International

Pages: 284 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9½

978-1-78661-570-1 • Hardback • September 2020 • $146.00 • (£112.00)

978-1-78661-571-8 • Paperback • September 2020 • $54.00 • (£42.00)

978-1-78661-572-5 • eBook • September 2020 • $51.00 • (£39.00)

Series: Experiments/On the Political

Subjects: Political Science / Political Process / Media & Internet, Political Science / History & Theory, Political Science / Political Ideologies / Democracy

Resist!

Protest Media and Popular Culture in the Brexit-Trump Era

Hardback

Paperback

eBook

Summary

Resist! pays close attention to popular culture; it examines the political ramifications of Kanye West’s support of Donald Trump, the significance of Aaron Sorkin’s language to American political discourse, and the casting of female emotion as a political force in House of Cards and The Handmaid’s Tale. In doing so, the collection traverses the formal world of ‘the political’ as it relates to presidential elections and referenda, while emphasising the sociocultural and political significance of popular texts which have played a critical role in exploring, critiquing and shaping culture in the twenty first century.

Popular culture is often considered trivial or irrelevant to more pressing political concerns, and celebrities are often reprimanded for their forays into the political sphere. Resist! pays close attention to texts that are too often excluded when we think about politics, and explores the cultural and political fall-out of a reality TV president and a divisive public vote on increasingly connected global audiences. In examining the cultural politics of popular media, this collection is inherently interdisciplinary, and the chapters utilise methods and analysis from a range of social science and humanities disciplines. Resist! is both creative and timely, and offers a crucial examination of a fascinating and frightening political and cultural moment.

Details

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers / Rowman & Littlefield International

Pages: 284 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9½

978-1-78661-570-1 • Hardback • September 2020 • $146.00 • (£112.00)

978-1-78661-571-8 • Paperback • September 2020 • $54.00 • (£42.00)

978-1-78661-572-5 • eBook • September 2020 • $51.00 • (£39.00)

Series: Experiments/On the Political

Subjects: Political Science / Political Process / Media & Internet, Political Science / History & Theory, Political Science / Political Ideologies / Democracy

Author

Giuliana Monteverde is a Lecturer in Broadcast Production at Queens University, Belfast.

Victoria McCollum is a Lecturer in Cinematic Arts at Ulster University.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part 1: Hashtag Activism, the Celebrity Politician and Celebrities in Politics

1. ‘I miss the old Kanye’: Keeping Up with Kanye, Kim and President Donald Trump, Giuliana Monteverde and Victoria McCollum

2. Unlikely Heroes? – Celebrity Activism in Times of Trump and Brexit, Sabrina Mittermeier

Part 2: Political Fiction, Fictional Politicians and Unbreakable Women

3. The Good Fight: The Subtle Dance of Race, Gender, and Politics, Maria Cipriani

4. Feeling Unbreakable: TV Heroines in the Age of Trump, Jennie Carlsten

Part 3: American Dystopia, Brexit Dreams and Waking Nightmares: The Cultural Politics of Horror and the Spectacle of Violence in the Brexit-Trump Era

5. In Trump’s America, The Handmaid's Tale Matters More Than Ever, Stephanie Adams

6. ‘Outrage is Immediate but Moviemaking Takes Time’: 2018 and Horror Cinema’s Direct Response to President Donald Trump, Todd K Platts and Kibiriti Majuto

7. The Media and the Normalisation of Right-Wing Violence in the age of Brexit and Trump, Jason Lee

Part 4: Aesthetics of Protest: Visibility, Visual Culture and Creative Communication

8. A Sign of the Times: Humorous Slogans and Imagery in Modern Day Political Protest, Ellie Tomsett and Nathalie Weidhase

9. What Anti-Trump Protest Looks Like: Visual Analysis of Women’s March, Marjon Kenis and Hedwig de Smaele

10. ‘Sing an Angry Song’: The Impact of Political Choirs in the UK, Barbara Henderson

Part 5: Respect Existence or Expect Resistance: Identity Politics and Power in Popular American Sport

11. The Evolution: Women’s Power in the Populist Politics of Monday Night Raw, Samantha Kise

12. Taking the Knee and Taking to the Streets: Narratives of Respect and Disrespect in the Black Lives Matter Movement, Elaine Crory

Conclusion

Reviews

With 16 other contributing authors, [Monteverde and McCollum] cover different aspects of popular culture as it has unfolded during the Brexit-Trump era, with some emphasis on cinema. Together the authors make an important claim that popular culture has become, in a time of right-wing populism, more a channel for political expression and socially responsible activism than ever before. This theme is examined in 12 chapters, adopting at points the perspective of social protest and resistance, or paying homage to earlier scholars and social scientists, e.g., Tedd Gurr and Charles Tilly.... Fairly easy to read, the chapters eschew technical language and employ ethnographic narrative including quoted examples. From a theoretical point of view, the volume is informed by discourse analysis, uniting social trends and popular expressions of cultural resistance. Recommended.

— Choice Reviews

Monteverde and McCollum have brought together a timely collection that examines a range of forms of and opportunities for presenting resistance within culture. They demonstrate how this work and the issues it deals with are urgently present within our everyday lives and how these examples can provide hope when that can appear in short supply.

— Derek Johnston, Lecturer in Broadcast, Queen’s University, Belfast

A fantastic, urgent and lively collection that importantly thinks about what it means to resist in the here and now. Monteverde and McCollum are two of the most significant young scholars in Anglo-American cultural and media studies and this carefully curated edited collection reflects brilliantly their intelligence, craft and ethico-political commitment. A truly wonderful book.

— Robert Porter, Director of the Centre for Media Research, Ulster University