Details

<span><span>This collection of essays looks at how films in the last few years have reflected and juxtaposed the ascent of Barack Obama and his administration. The films examined here include </span><span>The Help</span><span>, </span><span>Django Unchained</span><span>, </span><span>Lincoln</span><span>, </span><span>The Mist</span><span>, </span><span>Invictus</span><span>, </span><span>Black Dynamite</span><span>, and </span><span>The Great Gatsby</span><span>.</span></span>

<span><span>Introduction</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>David Garrett Izzo</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>Part I: Resonance from the Past: Experience Is Learned Backward But Must Be Lived Forward</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>Chapter 1 - “I Really Need a Maid!” White Womanhood in The Help</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>Kwakiutl L. Dreher</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>Chapter 2 - Gwendolyn Brooks’s Bronzeville and Tate Taylor’s Jackson: “Art hurts. Art urges voyages—and it is easier to stay at home.”</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>Blake G. Hobby</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>Chapter 3 - If Django and Lincoln Could Talk: James Baldwin Goes to the Movies</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>Robert McParland</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>Chapter 4 - The Exceptional N*gger: Redefining African American Identity in Django Unchained</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>Rodney M. D. Fierce</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>Chapter 5 - Blaxploitation in the Age of Obama: Black Dynamite, Django Unchained, Racial Reasoning, and Racial Capitalism</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>Brian E. Butler</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>Chapter 6 - Between The Butler and Black Dynamite: Servility, Militancy, and the Meaning of Blaxploitation</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>Andrew Grossman</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>Chapter 7 - Rednecks, Racism, and Religion: King and Darabont’s Precarious Prophecy of Obama’s Coming</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>Victoria McCollum</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>Part II: The Present Is an Eternal Now Connecting Past and Future</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>Chapter 8 - “I Am Trayvon Martin”: Obama and the Black Male in Cinema</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar and Alisha Saiyed</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>Chapter 9 - Invictus: South Africa as a Post-racial Fantasy in the Age of Obama</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>Sohinee Roy</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>Chapter 10 - “Mama, I Think I Broke Something”: Thinking about the Environment in Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>Irina Negrea</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>Chapter 11 - It’s Not a Wonderful Life: The Financial Crisis on Film and the Limits of Hollywood Liberalism</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>Peter Grosvenor</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>Chapter 12 - Reimagining Barack Obama as Jay Gatsby in Baz Luhrmann’s Film Adaptation of The Great Gatsby</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>Cammie Sublette</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>Part III: The Present Imagines the Future</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>Chapter 13 - The Hunger Games, Race, and Social Class in Obama’s America</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>Sonya C. Brown</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>Chapter 14 - Rise of the Planet of the People: Contradictions and Revolution in Rise of the Planet of the Apes </span></span>
<br>
<span><span>doug morris</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>Part IV: The 2013 Academy Award for Best Picture: 12 Years a Slave</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>Chapter 15 - “Under the Floorboards of This Nation”: Trauma, Representation, and the Stain of History in 12 Years a Slave</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>Ed Cameron and Linda Belau</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>Chapter 16 - 162 Years after 12 Years a Slave: A Viewing through Double-Consciousness</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>Salvador Murguia</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>Chapter 17 - Revoking the Privilege of Forgetting: White Supremacy Interrogated in 12 Years a Slave</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>David M. Jones</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>Chapter 18 - No, You Can’t: Passive Protagonists in The Blind Side, Django Unchained, and 12 Years a Slave</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>Thomas Britt</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>Index</span></span>
<br>
<span><span>About the Editor and Contributors</span></span>
<br>
<span></span>

<span><span>David Garrett Izzo</span><span> is professor of English at Shaw University. He is the author or editor of several books, including </span><span>Bruce Springsteen and the American Soul</span><span> (2011) and </span><span>Huxley’s </span><span>Brave New World</span><span>: Essays</span><span> (2008).</span></span>
<br>
<span></span>