In this book, Eleonora Ravizza analyzes how contemporary American popular culture has represented and reproduced the fifties. By investigating the cultural work of films and TV series from the last two decades, the book uncovers the inherent limitations of a ‘revisionist’ take on the fifties. Ravizza argues that, due to the visual nature of the fifties—crystallized in American consciousness through the widespread influence of television—most contemporary attempts to rework and rewrite the regressive gender, queer, and racial politics fall short of such a revisionist reevaluation.

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Authors and Affiliations

Leipzig, Germany

Eleonora Ravizza

About the author

Eleonora Ravizza works at the Institute for American Studies at Leipzig University as a lecturer. Her primary research interests include popular culture and literature, gender, queerness, genre, and psychoanalysis.

Bibliographic Information

Book Title: Revisiting and Revising the Fifties in Contemporary US Popular Culture
Book Subtitle: Self-Reflexivity, Melodrama, and Nostalgia in Film and Television
Authors: Eleonora Ravizza
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-61874-5
Publisher: J.B. Metzler Berlin, Heidelberg
eBook Packages: J.B. Metzler Humanities (German Language)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE, part of Springer Nature 2020
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-662-61873-8Published: 26 May 2020
eBook ISBN: 978-3-662-61874-5Published: 25 May 2020
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: VIII, 229
Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations
Topics: Popular Culture , American Culture, Cultural Studies

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Table of contents (6 chapters)

Front Matter

Introduction: Happy Days Are Here Again

The Fifties: Constructing American Cultural Identity

Fifties Self-Reflexivity: Pleasure, Media, and Cultural Politics

The Melodramatic Mode: Suffering Bodies and Troubled Minds

The Politics of Queer Nostalgia

Conclusion

Back Matter

About this book