film

This article analyzes the narrative of politics and the image of the American presidency in political comedies Dave (1993), The American President (1995) and Man of the Year (2006). With a focus on the convergence of personal, popular and political, the article identifies major themes present in all of the three aforementioned films. Themes include conspiracy, the motif of the outsider, role of media, role of special interests, president’s relations with advisers, family, scandal, and public image. For each theme, the fictional account of Washington politics is compared with actual developments in that field. The article also discusses possible impact of media exposure on political participation and trust.

This essay examines the social negotiations within the structure globalization by investigating the boom of Japanese horror films in the United States, from their emergence in the mid-nineties until today. The films that are most frequently associated with the colloquial, hybrid term “J-horror” are those that have crossed not only international market borders, but have crossed cultural boundaries as well. These films have evolved from independent B-movies in the East to major blockbusters in the West and are now established as a genre within Hollywood cinema. This transformation is not by any means coincidental; rather, it can be explained by identifying the various cultural, economic, and technological factors behind its rapid growth in the West. The sudden global interest in the J-horror genre is largely dependent on the nexus between economic, technological and cultural circumstances both in the United States and in Japan. Through deconstructing the social framework which led to this recent Western consumption of J-horror films, specifically the modes of communication that maintain their mobility and the cultural environment that fuels their appeal, we may then finally draw greater conclusions concerning the shifting flow of power and representation in a globalized world.