Everybody’s Protest Cinema

This article uses Baldwin’s 1949 essay “Everybody’s Protest Novel” to consider that literary mode’s corollary in the 1990s New Black Cinema. It argues that recent African American movies posit an alternative to the politics and aesthetics of films by a director such as Spike Lee, one that evinces a set of qualities Baldwin calls for in his essay about Black literature. Among these are what recent scholars such as Ann Anlin Cheng have called racial melancholy or what Kevin Quashie describes as Black “quiet,” as well as variations on Yogita Goyal’s diaspora romance. Films such as Barry Jenkins’s adaptation of If Beale Street Could Talk (2018) and Joe Talbot and Jimmy Fails’s The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019) offer a cinematic version of racial narrative at odds with the protest tradition I associate with earlier Black directors, a newly resonant cinema that we might see as both a direct and an indirect legacy of Baldwin’s views on African American culture and politics.

AUDIENCE PERSPECTIVE ON TODD PHILLIPS’S JOKER (2019): A LACANIAN PSYCHOANALYSIS

The occurrence of American movies which raise psychological issues as part of the main theme often triggers audiences in producing various interpretations. In this respect, the writer chose one of the most popular American movies entitled Joker (2019), directed by Todd Phillips. The movie highlights not only social issues but also psychological issues that engage audiences to produce diverse interpretations, including misinterpretations toward the stereotype of people who suffer mental illness. Therefore, the writer aims to analyze further how the audience perceives and evaluates Joker (2019). Data collected through audiences’ statements in IMDb as an online database of information of films and critical reviews. Psychoanalysis Lacanian: the real, the imaginary, and the symbolic, is applied to comprehending the American audiences response and their interpretations towards Joker (2019) movie. The result of study reveals that audiences’ diverse life experience and background is actually giving major influence towards their interest, response, and interpretations to Joker (2019) movie.

Representation of Korean Values Sustainability in American Remake Movies

Globalization has triggered Korean movies more competitive. Many scholars and critics considered American and Korean popular culture domination. Hollywood has experiences in shaping the lifestyle of the world. This research aims to figure out sustainable values represented on American remakes of Korean popular movies. It also has purpose to find out the reason behind the sustainability. The study applied semiotic theories from Christian Metz. Representation approach was also applied to reveal the values beneath the transnational remakes supported by qualitative methods. The results revealed that there were several Korean values remain in the remake version of Korean American movies. It also revealed that the audience demands and taste mainly influence sustainability of values as well as universality of the values believed by the audience becomes the driving force of the sustainability represented in the remake movies.

Compliment Responses of The Main Characters in Indonesian and American Movies

Movies can be said as a reflection of real life. This study is aimed at finding the compliment responses by the main characters in two movies. The movies are 'Mars Met Venus' and 'Hitch'. The data were taken from the utterances of the main characters, both are male and female, that were considered as compliments' responses. The topics of the compliments in those two movies are appearance, ability, personality, and possession. The finding resulted in this research showed that there were 20 compliment responses found in those movies. There are silent, return, questioning, reassignment of praise, explaining, shifting to other topics, appreciation, and agree. In 'Mars met Venus, there are silent (3 times), returns (3 times), questioning (3 times), reassignment of praise (1), and explaining (1). While in 'Hitch', there are shifting to other topics (4 times), appreciation (1), explaining (1), questioning (2 times), and agree (1). Based on those, it can be concluded that questioning (25%) got the highest percentage, then shifting to other topics (20%), silent (15%), return (15%), explaining (10%), agree (5%), reassignment of praise (5%) and appreciation (5%). Questioning as the highest percentage in these movies shows that the person being complimented needs more explanation about the compliment. In comparison, there are similarities and differences from those movies. Those differences are the reflections of different cultures represented by the two movies. Keywords: pragmatics, movie, compliment response.

‘Because we’re worth it’: Young banlieue writers in France striving for inclusion

French banlieue literature written by immigrant and ‘post-migration’ writers often involves a paradoxical mix of both ‘high’ and ‘low’ language varieties – use of slang alternating with poetic utterances – as well as references to popular culture alternating with ‘high culture’, which may range from American movies to intertextual references to canonized authors. What is the extratextual message of this intriguing mix, what do the predominantly young writers aim at, and what audience do they address in this way? By distinguishing four different strategies, this article argues that this hybrid blend is intended to act as a signal to the French reader, and thus indirectly to publishers and critics, that the writers conform to national standards and values, show full integration into French society, and therefore are entitled to claim a legitimate place in the French literary field.