View source for Defining Cult Movies: The Cultural Politics of Oppositional Taste

{{Infobox book
| name           = Defining Cult Movies: The Cultural Politics of Oppositional Taste
| author         = Mark Jancovich, Antonio Lázaro Reboll, Julian Stringer, and Andy Willis
| publisher      = Manchester University Press
| pub_date       = 2003
| pages          = 244
| isbn           = 071906630
| image          = [[File:Defining Cult Movies.jpg|200px|alt=Cover]]
}}
This fascinating collection edited by Mark Jancovich, Antonio Lázaro Reboll, Julian Stringer, and Andy Willis attempts to do the admittedly very difficult, combine the varying definitions of ‘cult cinema.’ In order to do so, they incorporate a mixture of the big names in the field, such as Jeffery Sconce, Joanne Hollows, and Ernest Mathijs and newer academics to try to challenge the very definition of ‘cult film.’ The narrative of these essays focuses on the ‘counter to mainstream’ elements of gore, sexuality, and artistic to achieve the visceral reaction that is related to the difficult definition they are compiling. Rather than a specific genre or quality, such movies tend to qualify by their consumption rather than content.

== Article 1: Introduction ==

“The term ‘cult movies’ covers a multitude of sins, and the sheer variety that composes this category is probably best summed by Jeff Sconce, who argues that it…includes entries from such seemingly disparate subgenres as “bad film,” splatterpunk, “mondo” films, sword and sandal epics, Elvis flicks, governmental hygiene films, Japanese monster epics, beach party musicals, and just about every other historical manifestation of exploitation cinema.” (1) This collection starts out with the assumption that there is an eclectic category of “cult film” and that, rather than by being defined by some feature, the notion of cult is identified through a ‘subculture ideology’ that is the aim of the directors or consumers of the work. The term defines itself as challenging the mainstream.

== Article 2: Esper, the Renunciator: Teaching ‘bad’ movies to good students ==

In this article, Jeffery Sconce makes an effort to challenge “the old guard of humanists still trying to come to terms with the dime novel and the penny dreadful.” However, this is not the only issue. The idea that film is high art is also problematic as many of the film students want to learn more about “film” than the actual movie. Sconce argues that the focus of film studies should expand to teaching, yes the basic aspects of “film” of the film (mise-en-scene, etc), but also the economic, philosophic, and contextual content and form of the film. Doing so in ‘bad’ movies encourages debate and allows the discussion to incur.   

== Article 3: The Masculinity of Cult ==

Joanne Hollows begs the question familiar to historiography surveys and paper defenses alike; “Where are the women?” In the growing expanse of subcultural studies, quoting McRobbie and Garber, Hollows argues that even the idea of subcultures have acquired masculine overtones; the idea of the inauthentic, conformist, premade, and homogenous is depicted as feminine, while the deviant, resistant, transgressive, and authentic are the masculine forms. Illustrated in films, this associates the assumed feminine nature of mainstream cinema, while the cult films tend to fill a more male sexual role. However, Hollows attempts to correct this with reclassification.

== Article 4: The Cult of Masculinity: From Fan-Boys to Academic Bad Boys ==

Building on the argument of Hollows, in the previous chapter, Jacinda Read critiques the critics themselves. Addressing Simon Frith, among others, Read asserts the assumption that the ‘anxieties of consumption’ has transferred from a ‘male’ production to a ‘female’ consumption, due to the decline of left politics and the institutionalization of feminism. This allows her to take Sconce’s definition of paracinema (‘bad’ cinema) and critique this interpretation as masculine. 

== Article 5: Spanish Horror and the Flight from ‘Art’ Cinema, 1967-73 ==

Andrew Willis follows the trajectory of splatterporn (highly graphic horror) in Spanish culture from its semi-legal and illegal underground origins through its varying legitimacy under Franco’s oppressive regime.

== Article 6: Trading in horror, Cult and Matricide: Peter Jackson’s Phenomenal bad taste and New Zealand Fantasies of Inter/national Cinematic Success ==

Harmony H. Wu follows the interestingly visceral start of Peter Jackson as director through Braindead (Dead Alive in the US), Meet the Feebles, and Bad Taste. The essay tries to unwrap the choice of such filmmaking as “a crude horror that makes a mockery of serious film making in New Zealand’ (91) that becomes so foundational to New Zealand filmmaking. 

== Article 7: The Making of a Cult Reputation: Topicality and Controversy in the Critical Reception of Shivers ==

Along with Jeffery Sconce, few scholars of Cult Film are more referenced or respected than Ernest Mathijs. His essay attempts to go past the ambiguous definitions of cult films as “kind of offbeat, kind of weird, kind of strange’ or ‘that has a passionate following, but does not appeal to everyone.” In order to clarify, Mathijs concentrates “on the reception of cult film and its relation to textual features.” In order to challenge his definition, Mathijs uses the Cronenberg movie Shivers and describes how the critical response of the highly negatively reviewed film led to its cult status. 

== Article 8: The Argento Effect ==

The interesting career of Dario Argento has labeled him the Italian Hitchcock. His dark and suspenseful movies represented a post-War transition for Italian film as a divergence from American imitation. However, in this essay, Peter Hutchings uses this to argue what is cult. Is it the desire to consume the ‘foreign’ inherently cult movie consumption or can such movie watching be part of a larger trend? If it is so, can artificial cults be created?

== Article 9: Sexploitation as Feminine Territory: The Films of Doris Wishman ==

Moya Luckett looks at Doris Wishman, “the most prolific woman director of American film in the sound era.” Her impressive portfolio encompasses some of the most famous sexploitation cult films. Luckett follows the transformation from traditional sexploitation to a form of feminist critique.  

== Article 10: Kung Fu Cult Masters: Stardom, Performance and ‘Authenticity’ in Hong Kong Martial Art Films ==

Leon Hunt tackles the classic and often imitated genre of Kung Fu Films. In his attempts to critique it, he struggles with the notion of “authenticity.” Looking at the ‘forms’ of the martial arts, Hunt tries to address the ‘cult’ cornerstone of the “authentic” in Kung Fu movies and the slow dissipation of skills into the artificial. 

== Article 11: ‘Sharon Stone, Screen Diva’: Stardom, Femininity, and Cult Fandom’ ==

In this piece, Rebecca Feasey again attacks the masculinity of cult. Looking at Sharon Stone, Feasey tackles the singling out of the character of the “dumb blonde” and the female driven/directed movies for ridicule. “Consequently, we have seen how much certain forms of cult movie fandom are predicated on a homosocial othering of femininity and hence how much these forms of fandom are a boy’s game. This is, of course, to claim not that women cannot participate within it, but rather that to do so they must distance themselves from, and disavow, their own femininity.” (183) 

== Article 12: The Importance of Trivia: Ownership, Exclusion, and Authority in Science Fiction Fandom ==

The language of the obsessive cult member of film is shown in Nathan Hunt’s essay in the form of trivia. To the sci-fi fan, trivia represents not only a form of hidden knowledge and, therefore, rehearsed skill, but a language which distinguishes them from the “phantom menace of the mainstream consumer.” (198) 

== Article 13: Art, Exploitation, Underground ==

In Mark Betz’s essay, he explores (though much of the essay describes what he plans to explore) the importation of “Euro-skin” for the selling of movies. While it is nothing new to say that sex sells, the use of a ravishing leg to advertise The Bicycle Thief or a busty woman to sell tickets to (Rome) Open City is at issue. This and the use of unsexual sexuality creates the bizarre advertising realm of the art house ad. 

== Article 14: Midnight Sex-Horror Movies and the Downtown Avant-Garde ==

The book concludes with this entry by Joan Hawkins, which ties the whole book together. Combining the sexual and the visceral, Hawkins looks into the experimental art world of midnight films. While coming to conclusions about the 1980s and 90s, she acknowledges that these films gain their cult status by their relation to the world they are created in and then the world in which they are consumed; this was put to the test after 9/11 as both the setting and the greater culture changed. 


[[Category:Media Studies]]
[[Category:Cultural Studies]]
[[Category:Wikify]]
[[Category:Book Summaries]]
[[Category:Mark Jancovich]]