Download or read book Natural Born Celebrities written by David Schmid and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-09-15 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jeffrey Dahmer. Ted Bundy. John Wayne Gacy. Over the past thirty years, serial killers have become iconic figures in America, the subject of made-for-TV movies and mass-market paperbacks alike. But why do we find such luridly transgressive and horrific individuals so fascinating? What compels us to look more closely at these figures when we really want to look away? Natural Born Celebrities considers how serial killers have become lionized in American culture and explores the consequences of their fame. David Schmid provides a historical account of how serial killers became famous and how that fame has been used in popular media and the corridors of the FBI alike. Ranging from H. H. Holmes, whose killing spree during the 1893 Chicago World's Fair inspired The Devil in the White City, right up to Aileen Wuornos, the lesbian prostitute whose vicious murder of seven men would serve as the basis for the hit film Monster, Schmid unveils a new understanding of serial killers by emphasizing both the social dimensions of their crimes and their susceptibility to multiple interpretations and uses. He also explores why serial killers have become endemic in popular culture, from their depiction in The Silence of the Lambs and The X-Files to their becoming the stuff of trading cards and even Web sites where you can buy their hair and nail clippings. Bringing his fascinating history right up to the present, Schmid ultimately argues that America needs the perversely familiar figure of the serial killer now more than ever to manage the fear posed by Osama bin Laden since September 11. "This is a persuasively argued, meticulously researched, and compelling examination of the media phenomenon of the 'celebrity criminal' in American culture. It is highly readable as well."—Joyce Carol Oates

Download or read book Natural Born Celebrities written by David Schmid and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2005-08-21 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A historical account of how serial killers have become famous in American culture looks at the consequences of their fame and examines how that fame has been used in both the popular media and law enforcement, profiling a variety of notorious murderers and their influence on popular culture, from 1893 killer H. H. Holmes to terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden.

Download or read book Natural Born Killers written by Quentin Tarantino and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This original screenplay offers fans and film buffs the opportunity to compare Tarantino's original vision with Oliver Stone's version of the story of Mickey and Mallory, outlaw lovers on the run.

Download or read book Natural Born Angel written by Scott Speer and published by Scholastic UK. This book was released on 2013-04-01 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a world where guardian angels are celebrities who save people for money, Maddy's life was transformed when she became the girlfriend of the hottest Angel around. But she never imagined that she'd become even more famous than Jackson. Unfortunately for Maddy, she's an irresistible PR opportunity - and soon her popularity soars higher than any Angel. Her relationship is cracking under the pressure. And as tension starts to mount between Angels and humans, she finds herself an ambassador for humankind. With Jackson at the helm of the Immortals, the two ex-lovers must become sworn enemies. It's Angels in one corner, humans on the other - until an evil force, greater than anything on Earth, forces them to stand united if they want to survive.

Download or read book Celebrity and the Environment written by Dan Brockington and published by Zed Books Ltd.. This book was released on 2013-07-04 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The battle to save the world is being joined by a powerful new group of warriors. Celebrities are lending their name to conservation causes, and conservation itself is growing its own stars to fight and speak for nature. In this timely and essential book, Dan Brockington argues that this alliance grows from the mutually supportive publicity celebrity and conservation causes provide for each other, and more fundamentally, that the flourishing of celebrity and charismatic conservation is part of an ever-closer intertwining of conservation and corporate capitalism. Celebrity promotions, the investments of rich executives, and the wealthy social networks of charismatic conservationists are producing more commodified and commercial conservation strategies; conservation becomes an ever more important means of generating profit. Celebrity and the Environment provides vital critical analysis of this new phenomena and argues that, ironically, there may be a hidden cost to celebrity power to individual's relationships with the wild. The author argues that whilst wildlife television documentaries flourish, there is a significant decline in visits to national parks in many countries around the world and this is evidence that t a time when conservationists are calling for us to restore our relationships with the wild, many people are doing so simply by following the exploits of celebrity conservationists.

Download or read book True Crime written by Mark Seltzer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-18 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: True crime is crime fact that looks like crime fiction. It is one of the most popular genres of our pathological public sphere, and an integral part of our contemporary wound culture-a culture, or at least cult, of commiseration. If we cannot gather in the face of anything other than crime, violence, terror, trauma, and the wound, we can at least commiserate. That is, as novelist Chuck Palahniuk writes, we can at least "all [be] miserable together." The "murder leisure industry," its media, and its public: these modern styles of violence and intimacy, sociality and belief, are the subjects of True Crime: Observations on Violence and Modernity. True Crime draws on and makes available to American readers—and tests out—work on systems theory and media theory (for instance, the transformative work of Niklas Luhmann on social systems and of Friedrich Kittler on the media apriori—work yet to make its impact on the American scene). True Crime is at once a study of a minor genre that is a scale model of modern society and a critical introduction to these forms of social and media history and theory. With examples, factual and fictional, of the scene of the crime ranging from Poe to CSI, from the true crime writing of the popular Japanese author Haruki Murakami to versions of "the violence-media complex" in the work of the American novelist Patricia Highsmith and the Argentinian author Juan José Saer, True Crime is a penetrating look at modern violence and the modern media and the ties that bind them in contemporary life.

Download or read book Natural Born Killaz written by Terry L. Wroten and published by Black Dawn Publishing. This book was released on 2010 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beneath the bright lights and the looming Capitol Records building there lays a different Los Angeles than the one depicted in films and on television. On the streets of South Central disputes are settled over gun smoke and the greatest love comes from your homeys. Welcome to the “Set.” Ever since they were kids John and Kevin had always lived in their brothers Killa and Crip Van's shadows and when tragedy strikes their families they would have to walk a mile in their shoes. Almost over night they go from fun loving teenagers to soldiers on the front line of the war between red and blue. During their rise they learn the harsh reality of the lifestyle they've chosen as friends become enemies and lovers executioners. John and Kevin quickly learn that there was only one law in the jungle they had chosen to roam… Crip or Die!

Download or read book Celebrity and Power written by P. David Marshall and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2014-08-15 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Simultaneously celebrated and denigrated, celebrities represent not only the embodiment of success, but also the ultimate construction of false value. Celebrity and Power questions the impulse to become embroiled with the construction and collapse of the famous, exploring the concept of the new public intimacy: a product of social media in which celebrities from Lady Gaga to Barack Obama are expected to continuously campaign for audiences in new ways. In a new Introduction for this edition, P. David Marshall investigates the viewing public’s desire to associate with celebrity and addresses the explosion of instant access to celebrity culture, bringing famous people and their admirers closer than ever before.

Download or read book The Oliver Stone Experience written by Matt Zoller Seitz and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2016-09-13 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stone himself serves as guide to this no-holds-barred retrospective—an extremely candid and comprehensive monograph of the renowned and controversial writer, director, and cinematic historian in interview form. Over the course of five years, Academy Award-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone (Midnight Express, Scarface, Platoon, JFK, Natural Born Killers, Snowden) and New York Times bestselling author Matt Zoller Seitz (The Wes Anderson Collection) discussed, debated, and deconstructed the arc of Stone's outspoken, controversial life and career with extraordinary candor. This book collects those conversations for the first time, including anecdotes about Stone's childhood, Vietnam, his struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder, and his continual struggle to reinvent himself as an artist. Their dialogue is illustrated by hundreds of never-before-seen photographs and documents from Stone's personal archive, dating back to Stone's birth: personal snapshots, private correspondence, annotated script pages and storyboards, behind-the-scenes photography, and production files from all of his films to date—through 2016's Snowden, and including Stone's epic Showtime mini-series Untold HIstory of the United States. Critical commentary from Seitz on each of Stone's films is joined by original essays from filmmaker Ramin Bahrani; writer, editor, and educator Kiese Laymon; writer and actor Jim Beaver; and film critics Walter Chaw, Michael Guarnieri, Kim Morgan, and Alissa Wilkinson. At once a complex analysis of a master director’s vision and a painfully honest critical biography in widescreen technicolor, The Oliver Stone Experience is as daring, intense, and provocative as Stone’s films—it's an Oliver Stone movie about Oliver Stone, in the form of a book. Both this book and Stone’s highly anticipated film, Snowden, will be released in September 2016 to coincide with Stone’s seventieth birthday (September 15, 1946). Also available from Matt Zoller Seitz: Mad Men Carousel, The Wes Anderson Collection: Bad Dads, The Wes Anderson Collection: The Grand Budapest Hotel, and The Wes Anderson Collection.

Download or read book Pretty Face written by Lucy Parker and published by Carina Press. This book was released on 2017-02-20 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Highly acclaimed award-winning author of Act Like It Lucy Parker returns readers to the London stage with laugh-out-loud wit and plenty of drama “To say I loved this book is an understatement—I adored it. The romance is beautifully written and developed and the chemistry between Luc and Lily is explosive.” —All About Romance The play’s the fling It’s not actress Lily Lamprey’s fault that she’s all curves and has the kind of voice that can fog up a camera lens. She wants to prove where her real talents lie—and that’s not on a casting couch, thank you. When she hears esteemed director Luc Savage is renovating a legendary West End theater for a lofty new production, she knows it could be her chance—if only Luc wasn’t so dictatorial, so bad-tempered and so incredibly sexy. Luc Savage has respect, integrity and experience. He also has it bad for Lily. He’d be willing to dismiss it as a midlife crisis, but this exasperating, irresistible woman is actually a very talented actress. Unfortunately, their romance is not only raising questions about Lily’s suddenly rising career, it’s threatening Luc’s professional reputation. The course of true love never did run smooth. But if they’re not careful, it could bring down the curtain on both their careers… London Celebrities Book 1: Act Like It Book 2: Pretty Face Book 3: Making Up Book 4: The Austen Playbook Book 5: Headliners

Download or read book Seeing Stars written by J. Sterling and published by J. Sterling. This book was released on 2014-03-13 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Madison Myers is a hard working assistant to one of LA's top talent agents. Determined to make a respectable name for herself in the business, the last thing she wants in her life is singing sensation Walker Rhodes, with his non-stop tabloid filled antics and bad boy behavior. But after he pulls her onstage during one of his concerts and serenades her in front of thousands of screaming fans, all bets are off. She doesn't want to give in to his charms, but Walker is relentless... and keeping a secret of his own. A secret that changes everything between them. Come fall in love with Walker & Madison in Seeing Stars.

Download or read book The Battle for Beverly Hills written by Nancie Clare and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2018-03-06 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents the untold history of Beverly Hills, examining the glamour, fame, gossip and politics of a city that the stars fought to keep from the clutches of an avaricious Los Angeles, building the foundation for celebrity influence and political power.

Download or read book Ultraviolent Movies written by Laurent Bouzereau and published by Citadel Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of extreme violence in movies analyzes the public response to this ever-growing phenomenon, tracing its beginnings in films such as Bonnie and Clyde and discussing how it fits into the artistic vision of filmmakers including Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorcese. Original.

Download or read book War Noir written by Sarah Trott and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2016-11-03 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The conflation of the hard-boiled style and war experience has influenced many contemporary crime writers, particularly in the traumatic aftermath of the Vietnam War. Yet, earlier writers in the genre, such as Raymond Chandler, remain overlooked when it comes to examining how their war experience affected their writing. Sarah Trott corrects this oversight by examining Chandler alongside the World War I writers of the Lost Generation as well as highlighting a melding of very different styles in Chandler's work. Based on Chandler's experience in combat, Trott explains that the writer created detective Philip Marlowe not as the idealization of heroic individualism, as is commonly perceived, but instead as an authentic individual subjected to very real psychological frailties from trauma during the First World War. Inspecting Chandler's work and correspondence indicates that the characterization of the fictional Marlowe goes beyond the traditional chivalric readings and can instead be interpreted as a genuine representation of a traumatized veteran in American society. Substituting the horror of the trenches for the corruption of the city, Chandler formed a disillusioned protagonist in an uncaring America. Chandler did so with the sophistication necessary to straddle genre fiction and canonical literature. The sum of this work offers a new understanding of how Chandler uses his war trauma, how that experience established the traditional archetype of detective fiction, and how this reading of his fiction enables Chandler to transcend generic limitations and be recognized as a key twentieth-century literary figure.

Download or read book Shots in the Mirror written by Nicole Hahn Rafter and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2006 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Criminologist Nicole Rafter analyses the source of the appeal of crime films, and their role in popular culture. She argues that crime films both reflect and shape our ideas about fundamental social, economic and political issues.

Download or read book The Subject of Murder written by Lisa Downing and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-05 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The subject of murder has always held a particular fascination for us. But, since at least the nineteenth century, we have seen the murderer as different from the ordinary citizen—a special individual, like an artist or a genius, who exists apart from the moral majority, a sovereign self who obeys only the destructive urge, sometimes even commanding cult followings. In contemporary culture, we continue to believe that there is something different and exceptional about killers, but is the murderer such a distinctive type? Are they degenerate beasts or supermen as they have been depicted on the page and the screen? Or are murderers something else entirely? In The Subject of Murder, Lisa Downing explores the ways in which the figure of the murderer has been made to signify a specific kind of social subject in Western modernity. Drawing on the work of Foucault in her studies of the lives and crimes of killers in Europe and the United States, Downing interrogates the meanings of media and texts produced about and by murderers. Upending the usual treatment of murderers as isolated figures or exceptional individuals, Downing argues that they are ordinary people, reflections of our society at the intersections of gender, agency, desire, and violence.

Download or read book The Drama of Celebrity written by Sharon Marcus and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-08-11 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do so many people care so much about celebrities? Who decides who gets to be a star? What are the privileges and pleasures of fandom? Do celebrities ever deserve the outsized attention they receive? In this fascinating and deeply researched book, Sharon Marcus challenges everything you thought you knew about our obsession with fame. Icons are not merely famous for being famous; the media alone cannot make or break stars; fans are not simply passive dupes. Instead, journalists, the public, and celebrities themselves all compete, passionately and expertly, to shape the stories we tell about celebrities and fans. The result: a high-stakes drama as endless as it is unpredictable. Drawing on scrapbooks, personal diaries, and vintage fan mail, Marcus traces celebrity culture back to its nineteenth-century roots, when people the world over found themselves captivated by celebrity chefs, bad-boy poets, and actors such as the "divine" Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923), as famous in her day as the Beatles in theirs. Known in her youth for sleeping in a coffin, hailed in maturity as a woman of genius, Bernhardt became a global superstar thanks to savvy engagement with her era's most innovative media and technologies: the popular press, commercial photography, and speedy new forms of travel. Whether you love celebrity culture or hate it, The Drama of Celebrity will change how you think about one of the most important phenomena of modern times.