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Researchers and film professionals have studied the impact of cinema on society for decades. However, less attention is paid to the changes and trends in the perception of lifestyle reflected in the cinema. This article studies the main themes and trends of non-advertising marketing content in films. Because movies are public and popular media, they can influence a person's values, lifestyles, and attitudes toward certain aspects of life. The relevance and importance of the study of consumer culture are because it forms such cultural phenomena as tastes, desires, values, norms of behavior, and interests. The article's research object was the works of Western cinema of recent years, the largest share of which was produced in the United States of America. The work analyzes cinematographic works and highlights the main themes and trends that have a transformative impact on the way of life and society's perception of the environment: health awareness, addictions (especially to tobacco products, alcohol and drugs), environmental awareness and sustainability, privacy and relationships (due to the representation of men and women at different stages of the life cycle and the perception of sex by young people), as well as the geek subculture. The study results showed that the themes mentioned above, reflected in the films, can influence life values, lifestyle and people's attitudes to perception, possession and use of certain products. Health and environmental awareness are essential not only at the individual level but also at the societal level. According to the results of the content analysis of the films, it was recorded that nowadays, the frequency of the appearance of cigarettes and similar products has significantly decreased, especially in films with limited access for children. The geek subculture has gained much popularity and recognition in recent years. In addition, the paper has practical value for any researcher who wishes to gain a deeper understanding of non-advertising marketing content that manifests its influence through popular films about society and consumer behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyses STEM identities in STEM fields represented in popular films. The authors argue that the recently produced big-budget popular films directly or indirectly affirm STEM characters with their portrayal of STEM fields. This analysis focuses on how popular narratives can be an essential tool to communicate the idea that women can be scientists and how they can inspire young women to enter science. These narratives reflect a significant problem in the interactions between the audience and science. The audience thinks the scientists are heroes and the public expect that scientists will automatically accept scientific solutions to problems. Nevertheless, scientists find a solution in these films, and everything gets better. Thus, recent popular STEMthemed big-budget films provide identification with the audience and STEM characters. These narratives construct an alternative STEM discourse by breaking down gender stereotypes and dominant ideology. These films can be coded as films that produce ideology against the dominant ideology and patriarchy, especially regarding STEM, character and gender representation. There is a positive change in the hierarchical order in the STEM field and the representation of women and Others. And these representations do not have any marginalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An editorial is presented on Journal of Popular Film and Television founded at the Popular Culture Center at Bowling Green State University in 1971. Topics include one-hundred film journals in English during the ferment of film studies in higher education; and major books of film history and criticism advancing the eclectic philosophy of the journal.

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Popular films often depict pandemics in apocalyptic ways, temporally portraying how day by day, fear increases as a virus takes over the world. The speed of transmission, alongside the virus's seemingly unstoppable global spread, evoke a sense of being engulfed by the extraordinary, creating an experience of time characterised by feelings of intensity and fear, both on and off-screen. In contrast, the lived realities of young New Zealanders during the COVID-19 pandemic speak to a more elongated, 'empty' experience of time that lacks such intensity. Our interviews with New Zealand youth revealed their sense of time as ever-shifting, characterised occasionally by moments of fear and anxiety, but much more so by long hours of boredom and disturbing lack of structure, particularly during lockdowns. This paper draws on Bakhtin's notion of the chronotope, alongside Bergson's insights into lived experiences of time and Deleuze's Cinema books, to compare the emotional temporalities of two leading science fiction pandemic films, 'Contagion' and 'Outbreak', and a range of popular zombie movies, to young New Zealanders' lived experiences of multiple COVID-19 lockdowns. We consider how New Zealand youth (in our interviews, but also on social media) narrate their lived experiences of COVID-19 by drawing upon an 'imaginative repertoire' made up of sci fi films, zombie references and moral ideas of the self, which can help us to better understand how temporality is reshaped during a pandemic, particularly for young people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The apartheid regime conspired to advance black ethnic divisions to facilitate the homelands and diminish the threat of black people to South Africa. From 1994, the democratic dispensation has engaged in various nation-building attempts to solidify a united South Africa that is multicultural and multilingual in conjunction with a progressive Constitution. Popular township films by Ekasi: Our Stories and Lokshin Bioskop have ventured into this arena which was the forte of the South African Broadcasting Corporation, to engage in storylines that encourage nation-building. In this article, I argue that popular films have emerged to represent cosmopolitan tropes that galvanise Black Nationalism. Also, the films engage negative black tribal stereotypes that, if not attended to, could result in black disunity. It can also be argued that the latter has been a stimulant for African conflicts, occasionally causing genocides. This article explores the role popular films play in conveying a nation-building narrative that sustains Black Nationalism and reconciliation in post-apartheid South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Swedish film star Eva Dahlbeck (1920–2008) is now remembered mainly for her contributions to Ingmar Bergman's comedies in the 1950s. The epithet 'Pansarskeppet kvinnligheten' ('Battleship Femininity'), allegedly given to her by the director, has integrated her stardom into the myth-making process driven by Bergman and the press. This can erroneously give him sole credit for Dahlbeck's fame despite her already established star status. To reconsider such an auteurist misconception, this article examines Dahlbeck's stardom from 1946 to 1956, drawing on Richard Dyer's seminal theorization of a film star as a media construction. By analysing Dahlbeck's star image and its relationship to three characters she plays in Bergman's films, the article situates these films in the dynamics formed by diverse media texts and elucidates their historical and cultural context while also providing a case study of film stardom in post-war Sweden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most potent influences on normative interpersonal behaviors is entertainment media (e.g., film). Evidence has long suggested that the portrayal of individuals managing mental health concerns is associated with erratic and violent behavior. Such healthframing tendencies could influence consumers’ mental models, prototype scripts, and other behavioral expectations about social interaction involving someone with a mental health condition. To date, however, no prior study has provided an interaction analysis of discrete instances of social engagement in popular media as they pertain to interactions involving someone who is managing mental illness relative to those interactions that do not. Here, we undertake this task, observing disproportionate schematic associations of mental illness with relatively more intimacy—in terms of topic, setting, and relationship types, among other characteristics—within film with mental health portrayal emphases. Implications for these patterns are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The demise of America's state mental hospital system, or "deinstitutionalization," has received much attention from sociologists and historians of medicine. Less understood is the manner in which the public experienced and came to terms with it. Using elements of folklore and horror studies, I will examine how popular films accommodated audiences to institutional decline and confirmed popular antistatist pessimism. The Exorcist (1973), One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Halloween (1978), and When a Stranger Calls (1979) helped weave a tapestry of distrust. By endorsing popular conceptions of institutional failure and presenting mythical narratives of individualist triumph, these films helped pave a path towards the conservative Reagan era to come. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the significance of the trip abroad and its limits in two women-centric popular Hindi movies, English Vinglish (2012) and Queen (2014). The two movies are similar in that the female protagonist's trip is central to the plot, and as the female character leaves her middle-class Hindu family in India and experiences new environments and friendships in the West, she realizes and renegotiates both her own location and identity. In spite of these ventures, the female protagonist remains focused on gaining self-respect and loyal to the nation. As a result, the two women-centric popular Hindi movies remain limited in scope, assuming a shift in the Indian patriarchal system rather than challenging the framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The radical demographic change produced by the ageing population in the Western world has entailed a complete transformation of its popular culture. The cinema is one of the popular arts to have been especially affected by the so-called 'longevity revolution'. In fact, an important part of Hollywood celebrity culture and the mainstream film audiences belong to the same ageing demographic. The increasing necessity to tell and consume stories of ageing for the big screen is not only reflected in the growing number of films that feature older characters in their lead roles, but also in the changes produced in the cinematic narratives themselves. Film scholars within the inter-disciplinary field of cultural gerontology have started to address this phenomenon from various perspectives. Building on from their critical consideration, this article focuses on the particular case of Michael Radford's Elsa & Fred, a contemporary film released in 2014 that, paradoxically enough, helps renovate the youth-oriented genre of the romantic comedy through a 'silvering' romance. Taking into account contemporary manifestations of the romantic comedy genre, the essay proves that Radford's comedy contributes to the development of the 'gerontocom' as a new sub-genre in which old age is central to the protagonists' characterisations and storylines. By considering the interaction of the generic rules of the genre with the hyper-visibility of the protagonists' agedness, this article also shows the ways in which the film overcomes polarised views of ageing and enhances the figures' own process of becoming in the last stage of their lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hollywood film has been positioned as a form of public pedagogy – a site of efficacious informal learning. Acknowledging this educative potential, this article examines the ways in which faculty and students perceive and respond to representations of higher education offered by popular film. Drawing on focus groups and interviews with 22 participants, we discuss the key themes about teaching and learning that faculty and students observed in filmic representations – including an emphasis on genius, the presence or absence of effort, and a prevalence of extreme faculty-student relationships – and consider the extent to which these lessons shape viewers' understanding and experiences of teaching, learning, and universities. While many participants suggested these representations are 'just entertainment' and thus have limited impact, their comments nonetheless indicate ways in which films shape their own and others' experiences and perceptions of the university, underscoring the need for further research in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Themes of surveillance in popular cinema raise critical questions about the apparatus of spectatorship and the overlap between film technology and real governmental and corporate spying. This paper argues that, since about 1998, what critics have called 'surveillance cinema' evolves a new type of 'hypernarrative' viewpoint that alters the political significance of surveillance in film, displacing the 'metanarrative' suture between a viewer's position and the spying camera. Science-fictional or fantastical camera movements and actions – 'impossible' in earlier surveillance cinema because they contravene the realism through which spying is connected to actual-world politics – are now themselves naturalised and made 'realistic'. A capacity to roam freely over space and time, as well as to surveil both factual and counterfactual 'lines' of plot, becomes standard in the spectator's repertoire – surveillance is something we freely do rather than problematically observe. In what I call 'time travel surveillance cinema', the politics of surveillance is thus displaced and devalued but not altogether abolished. Politics resurfaces, in line with general tendencies of genre cinema, through anodyne individual reactions to 'time travel surveillance', especially in the guise of inapt happy endings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data over the 2009–2016 period, this paper examines the impact of star power on box office revenues in China. Unlike most existing studies, we measure star power as a continuous variable based on the number of registered fans of movie stars on the most popular microblogging website in China (Sina Weibo). We also examine the impact of star power on box office revenues through three important channels (industry recognition, internet media evaluation, and internet media buzz). Estimation of log-linear specifications shows that directors play an important role in the financial success of movies in China. The direct effect of star power on the financial success of movies is negative, and the same applies to the direct effect of internet media evaluation. The indirect quality effect of star power through industry recognition is positive but insignificant. The marginal effect of industry recognition becomes significantly positive only when the level of star power reaches the second quartile of its distribution. The indirect signal effect of star power through internet media evaluation is negative and statistically significant. However, the indirect signal effect through internet media buzz is positive and significant at all levels of star power and this effect dominates the negative direct effect of star power once it reaches a threshold level. Endogeneity-corrected estimation results confirm that the total effect of star power on box office revenues in China is positive and significant. The Chinese movie industry, which appears to be dominated by low-quality movies, can benefit from further reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Selective exposure on the basis of social identity is an important factor in film viewership. • Our theory is tested using a sample of college students. • Wide gaps in movie viewership are apparent between partisans. • Social identity, rather than partisanship or ideology, explains sorting in movie viewership. Abstract While research in media and politics has long stressed the importance of television, the political impact of movies has largely been ignored. However, a small body of literature suggests that both political docudramas and popular films may have the capacity to change the issue attitudes of viewers. Building on that work, this paper examines the potential for selective exposure in movie viewership. We develop a theory that there is large-scale sorting into popular movies rooted in social identity theory. We argue that sorting is a result of two processes: film studios marketing films towards particular social groups and individuals sorting into films based on social group characteristics. We test this theory using a unique dataset in which undergraduate students were asked to rate trailers for a variety of political docudramas and popular films. Our results indicate that there is indeed widespread sorting into popular films on the basis of social identities rooted in socio-demographic traits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the perspectives of Hollywood cinema. Topics discussed include the overlap and interplay between spectacle and narration in popular film and television, the technological and ideological intersections of cinema and surveillance, and television surveillant narrattives. American action-thriller films ''Enemy of the State'' directed by Tony Scott, ''The Bourne Ultimatum'' directed by Paul Greengrass also are discussed.

This article investigates Indonesia's Darah dan Mahkota Ronggeng (Blood and Crown of the Dancer) (Yazid, 1983), a discredited and missing film adaptation of Ronggeng Dukuh Paruk (The Dancer of Paruk Village) (1982), a commercially successful and critically acclaimed novel. Using textual and sociological approaches, this article demonstrates the following: how the disappearance of the adaptation can shed light on the cultural constructs of Indonesian popular film and adaptation and how the surviving screenplay, combined with other secondary sources, can reveal the politics of adaptation, society and government in New Order Indonesia. The film's loss reveals the poor infrastructure of Indonesian film archiving, the dichotomy of popular and non-popular film adaptation, and the neglect of critically and commercially unsuccessful film adaptations. The screenplay embodies the depoliticization and politicization of critical issues in societal and governmental lives such as indigenous religion, traditional women, supra-local crime and social discontent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reviews Peruvian film and television production such as telenovelas, popular comedy, Auteur Cinema including teen telenovela called ''Torbellino'' (Whirlwind) directed by Luis Llosa Urquidi, television (TV) comedy program ''El Wasap de JB''; and Argentine telenovela "Rebelde Way" created and produced by Cris Morena.

In the course of the hermeneutic analysis of the audiovisual media text, the author draws the following conclusions: 1) Western media took several decades to legalize non-traditional sexual orientations in general and in the school environment, in particular; 2) comedy drama Love, Simon (2018) is the pioneer film produced by a major Hollywood studio, featuring a gay protagonist being an underage school student; 3) homosexuality of the protagonist is presented by the film authors with the maximum degree of attractiveness for the audience (the synthesis of genres of comedy and melodrama, a charismatic performance, storyline following the key recipes of the most popular films on the school theme of the past), which provided impressive box office success; 4) the positive feedback of the American media critics on the film illustrates that political correctness of the Western society now extends not only to a tolerant attitude towards homosexuality among adults, but also among schoolchildren: this is eloquently expressed by the low age rating assigned to this the film (PG13); 5) the film Love, Simon contains signs of propaganda of non-traditional sexual orientation among minors, which formally falls under the Russian law No. 135-FZ (2013). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main aim of the article is to paint a picture of contemporary American horror film and mark the division between its mainstream and independent sides. The first part focuses on topics, subgenres and strategies connected with mainstream American horror films; the second part is dedicated to the renaissance of low-budget, but original and artistically fulfilled horror movies produced outside Hollywood and directors that achieved commercial success thanks to following their vision and thinking outside the box. In the article, Grzegorz Fortuna Jr. uses methods connected with production studies research to discover how the economy, changing tastes of audiences and artistic ideas influence contemporary independent American horror film. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this paper is to establish how the term "a mainstream film" is used and understood, what meaning is assigned to it in contemporary discourse about cinema. Wide research was carried out, aimed at pinpointing its usage both on the Internet, among bloggers and film forum members, as well as in academic papers. It turns out that the term is widely used, but very scarcely defined. Moreover, it is understood in very different, often incompatible manners. At least six meanings were detected. A mainstream film can be a blockbuster, a film which propagates dominant ideologies, a realist film, a film which employs continuity editing, a film rooted in the tradition of classical Hollywood cinema, a film that is easy to comprehend. Until recently, all these meanings could be combined due to a relatively high degree of uniformity within film culture, but now, when cinema is experiencing growing diversification in all spheres, it is probably better not to use it at all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on topics including popular films, horror films, and David Lynch.

This article focuses on the reproduction of rural anti-idyllic representations in audiovisual popular culture through an analysis of the Finnish film Kuutamosonaatti (The moonlight sonata, 1988). We examine how the divide between rural and urban people, as well as their living environments and gender roles, has been constructed in the film. We also show how the film mixes features of Hollywood hillbilly characters with a Finnish negative stereotyping of rural men. Moreover, both in Finland and the United States, the negative stereotyping of rural men had begun before the era of modern film. This paper claims that the representations of rural otherness in popular film mirror the development of the Finnish society toward a modern, urban way of life, which becomes dominant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Images of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) professionals in popular films influence public perceptions of the participation, status, role, and contributions of women in STEM. This study used content analysis and textual analysis to examine the prevalence and portrayals of female STEM characters in 42 popular films in the United States from 2002 to 2014. Findings revealed that female STEM characters were outnumbered by male STEM characters in speaking roles by 2 to 1. Female STEM characters appearing in lead, co-lead, and secondary roles (N=62) typically were cast in co-lead or secondary roles in the films, and the typical female STEM character was a Caucasian scientist employed as a biologist or astronaut who worked as a member of a research team, was attractive, was equally as likely to be in either a romantic relationship or single, and was not a mother. Social learning theory and possible selves theory suggest that presenting a greater number and more diverse portrayals of female STEM characters may be important for girls' and young women's identification with STEM characters and future interest in STEM careers. These findings call for an increase in the overall presence of female STEM characters in popular films, including women from traditionally underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, and a greater focus on more diverse portrayals of female STEM characters to replace overt and subtle gender stereotypes of STEM professionals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores representations of race in three Greek popular films of the 1970s and 1980s. The portrayal of African characters in these films is antagonistically positioned in relation to the dominant, ‘whitewashed’ Greek national narrative which relies on the nineteenth century idea that Greece is the progenitor of European civilization. Often masquerading itself as ‘just a joke’, the discourse of these films narrates the African Other as lacking in terms of culture, intelligence and beauty – the three central categories upon which the idea of the ‘white supremacy’, according to Cornell West, is historically constructed in modernity. Tightly woven with this idea (largely introduced in Greece by the leading European powers), these films enunciate explicitly colonial viewpoints in a country that was neither a colonial power nor at the geopolitical center of the European project. The article argues that the racialized representations of these films are an effect of appropriating the Eurocentric idea of historicism, where the ‘progress’ and ‘backwardness’ of groups and nations are measured according to how effectively they perform the values of modernity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Popular movies grab and hold our attention. One reason for this is that storytelling is culturally important to us, but another is that general narrative formulae have been honed over millennia and that a derived but specific filmic form has developed and has been perfected over the last century. The result is a highly effective format that allows rapid processing of complex narratives. Using a corpus analysis I explore a physical narratology of popular movies-narrational structure and how it impacts us-to promote a theory of popular movie form. I show that movies can be divided into 4 acts-setup, complication, development, and climax-with two optional subunits of prolog and epilog, and a few turning points and plot points. In 12 studies I show that normative aspects in patterns of shot durations, shot transitions, shot scale, shot motion, shot luminance, character introduction, and distributions of conversations, music, action shots, and scene transitions reduce to 5 correlated stylistic dimensions of movies and can litigate among theories of movie structure. In general, movie narratives have roughly the same structure as narratives in any other domain-plays, novels, manga, folktales, even oral histories-but with particular runtime constraints, cadences, and constructions that are unique to the medium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to discuss pleasure as a way of understanding film. I do not seek to judge the correctness, political or otherwise, of certain pleasures, or to offer any overarching theory of pleasure. Instead I investigate what film scholars talk about when we talk about pleasure. Understanding pleasure more as an attitude to film spectatorship rather than an object in and of itself, I consider the importance not solely of the rational pursuit of prima facie pleasures but also of more enigmatic emotional needs relating to intimacy, pain and the confirmation of shared values. Separating cinematic pleasure from any necessary association with positivity, I caution against the potential for pleasure to be instrumentalized as part of a neo-liberal ethic of happiness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue is intended to take forward a sympathetic reconceptualization of the pleasures of popular film and of related forms such as soap operas and pornography. The five articles contained in the special issue vary in length and scope, and are followed by a response piece from a senior scholar. We hope that the dialogic mix of case studies and theoretical or survey approaches brings a liveliness to the treatment of pleasure, and indeed that it encapsulates our sense that pleasure retains a conceptual elusiveness, no matter how often discussed (or experienced). We acknowledge the elusiveness in this introduction, which we have cast in the form of a dialogue to acknowledge our individual motivations and to indicate the different academic and cultural contexts in which we, the two editors, work. We jointly describe the content of the articles at the end of the dialogue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Counterfactualist approaches to the past (e.g., 'What if Germany had won WWII?') are common, if commonly derided, in various subdisciplines of history, and increasingly prevalent in popular film and narrative fiction. Literary criticism, however, has only begun to consider the phenomenon (and medieval studies not at all), despite counterfactual history's potential for opening up the textual past in new ways. This essay risks the censure of 'responsible' historians by asking what implications the interwoven topics of genre prescription, gender ideology, and historical contingency may have for the practice of counterfactual literary history in a specifically medieval context. My case study, drawn from the trilingual miscellany Harley 2253 (c.1330-40), is a scandalously obscure Anglo-Norman bourde (jest, tale) known as Gilote et Johane: a fast-moving, genre-bending hybrid in which two young women debate sexual mores, take lovers, outwit fathers, shout down clergy, advise passing wives, preach their audacious 'lesson' to churchfuls of femmes, and finally burst forth from Winchester to spread their mobile erotic doctrine 'across all England and Ireland.' As our narrator frames it, the tale is designed to provoke outrage and redoubled vigilance; however, Gilote et Johane's imagination of an alternative social future enables other, less deterministically 'medieval' species of response. Taking seriously the radical counterfactual vision presented by this rollicking 'cautionary tale' allows us to reconsider the place of a forgotten poem within a famous manuscript, and within Anglo-Norman and canonical English literary history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to contribute to the discussion on organizational space and gender by focusing on a powerful tool for management learning—popular culture and, in particular, Hollywood films. Taking a performative practice approach to the study of both gender and space and working with films featuring women in the central organizational role, this study explores the protagonists’ spatial practices as these are used to subvert, intentionally or unintentionally, organizational patriarchal structures. In this context, the study traces both how space is gendered through particular situated social practices and how gender is spaced, or how gender performativity is materialized in and through organizational space. Findings show that although on surface organizational spaces marginalize women, certain spatial practices can hybridize the workspace and transform the “margin” into a “space of radical openness.” This new space can also aid in subverting the traditional “strong plot” of the career woman, thus transforming both what we know and how we know in organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an interview with the film festival director and producer Ray Murray. He talks about his Artsploitation Films which is a company that distributes genre films and ones dealing with gay issues and excess violence. Murray comments on the shift in global film making from art films to American popular films and genre cinema and streaming films becoming the main income source for Americans. His foreign arthouse releases includes "The Summer House" and "Death in Buenos Aires"

The Sapphireswas the most popular Australian film of 2012. Loosely based on history, the film tells the story of four Indigenous young women, three of whom move in 1968 from a country reserve to Melbourne, who are transformed from singing hymns and country and western to becoming a soul group in the mould of the Supremes and who then tour Vietnam during the war entertaining the American troops. This article analyses the reasons for the popularity of the film. I argue that beyond the feelgood drama, including a romantic comedy subplot, the film minimizes the mistreatment of Indigenous Australians during the 1950s and 1960s, elides the 20 years era of self-determination and suggests a positive continuity between the period of assimilation and paternalism and the John Howard Liberal-dominated government's neoliberal ideology of personal responsibility. To this end, the film also plays down the racism of the assimilationist period and, through the character of Kay, implies that the policy of taking children away from their families (the Stolen Generations) had positive results. The film denies the young women's agency by introducing the character of the Irish Dave Lovelace as the creator and manager of the Sapphires. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Introduction: Although cancer is currently considered a serious socio-medical challenge and health education in Poland has been positioned as a public health priority, the impact of popular culture on people's ideas about cancer has been neglected. This study therefore aims to analyse the way popular Polish films portray cancer and the experience of cancer., Material and Methods: Seven popular Polish films featuring cancer were analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The main categories included in the coding frame were disease, therapy, patient, physicians/oncologists and psychosocial issuses related to cancer., Results: Polish films fail to provide the audience with basic information about the disease, its diagnoses and treatment and cancer is often represented as a mysterious disease with an unclear cause, an unpredictable and unsuccessful course of treatment, characterised by pain, suffering and inevitable death. Films may therefore instil carcinophobia. Since films accurately reflect problems of daily life faced by cancer patients and their families they have educational potential., Conclusion: Although Polish films reinforce harmful stereotypes about cancer, its treatment, oncological institutions and specialists, cinema has the ability to raise the public's and health professionals' awareness regarding the psycho-social and emotional strains faced by cancer patients and the medical problems related to cancer., Competing Interests: The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Domaradzki.)

Released in 1987, the continued popularity of Dirty Dancing by Emile Ardolino, and its associated soundtrack cannot be disputed. David Shumway's analysis of the film's soundtrack argues that its newly produced songs, such as '(I've Had) the Time of My Life' performed by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes, rupture the purported realism of the film's 1963 setting in favour of idealized fantasy. Exploring the implications of Shumway's claim, this article examines how Dirty Dancing's theme song has been taken up in two contemporary romantic comedies - Crazy Stupid Love by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa (2011), and Heartbreaker by Pascal Chaumeil (2010) - in which it is used by the male protagonists in order to win favour with their prospective partners. Combining Judith Butler's work on performativity and citationality with the work of Ian Garwood and Frank Krutnik on the role of quotation in the recent romantic comedy and Rick Altman's and Richard Dyer's work on the film musical, the article observes how in both films, the male characters appeal directly to the women's enjoyment of Dirty Dancing, culminating in scenes where the male and female leads perform a dance to '(I've had) the Time of My Life'. Complicating the dominant perception of the use of older songs in the contemporary romantic comedy, the article investigates the complex legacy of a hugely popular film whose eclectic soundtrack has seen relatively little academic interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contents of a popular film and television video collection at a mid-sized university totaling 2,242 items were examined for availability and total number of checkouts on three major streaming services: Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime. A total of 1026 titles were coded for availability on Netflix and Hulu. Then, 454 items were coded for availability on Amazon Instant. It was found that total circulation counts changed depending on the streaming services used. Specifically only Hulu was found to correlate negatively. Library titles available on Netflix Streaming had more charges on average then titles not available on Netflix streaming. Titles available on Amazon Instant were twice as likely to circulate then items not available on Amazon Instant. This leads to the possibility that Amazon Instant might be used as collection development tool in order to gauge how often certain DVD title could circulate. In addition it can be concluded that availability over subscription streaming services, such as Netflix and Amazon Instant, actually points to items that may circulate more frequently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Not only is electronic media now totally integrated into the heart of students' lives, it is increasingly being viewed as a possible stimulus for learning in schools. A series of New Zealand studies and one in Australia indicate that, by using subtitles of popular movies and associated literacy activities, both reading achievement and engagement are enhanced, particularly for diverse and low achieving students. Same language subtitling (SLS) appears to evoke unavoidable reading mileage where reading skills are practised subconsciously (Banks, 2012). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nurses have traditionally been seen as among the most trusted of workers, with cultural connections with caring and femininity long been associated with their profession. While the portrayal of nurses in overseas screenworks has had some attention, Australian productions have not. This study identifies four categories of screenworks: popular entertainment, training and recruitment films, wartime nursing, and nurses as workers and unionists. Although more recent mainstream media portrayals of nurses increasingly depict strong, assertive professionals, little research has been conducted into the fourth category, a significant number of which are made by nurses. When nurses take on the film-making task, different outcomes are produced. New types of film about nurses and by nurses offer an evolving representation of the profession and are helping to change the identity of nurses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The book and film franchise of Harry Potter has inspired a monumental fandom community with a veracious output of fanfiction and general musings on the text and the vivid universe contained therein. A significant portion of these texts deal with Professor Severus Snape, the stern Potions Master with ambiguous ethics and loyalties. This paper explores a small community of Snape fans who have gone beyond a narrative retelling of the character as constrained by the work of Joanne Katherine Rowling. The 'Snapewives' or 'Snapists' are women who channel Snape, are engaged in romantic relationships with him, and see him as a vital guide for their daily lives. In this context, Snape is viewed as more than a mere fictional creation. He is seen as a being that extends beyond the Harry Potter texts with Rowling perceived as a flawed interpreter of his supra-textual essence. While a Snape religion may be seen as the extreme end of the Harry Potter fandom, I argue that religions of this nature are not uncommon, unreasonable, or unprecedented. Popular films are a mechanism for communal bonding, individual identity building, and often contain their own metaphysical discourses. Here, I plan to outline the manner in which these elements resolve within extreme Snape fandom so as to propose a nuanced model for the analysis of fandom-inspired religion without the use of unwarranted veracity claims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]