Search

Drawing on the work of Mikhail Bakhtin, this paper introduces a dialogic approach that draws attention to how meaning is created by viewer responses to social texts. Focusing on the depiction of aliens in popular films, this paper analyzes different representations of aliens and viewer responses to those depictions. The Avengers (2012) draws on traditional geopolitical understandings of United States hegemony to create its fictional Marvel Universe. Avatar (2009) and District 9 (2009) feature strikingly different transformations of the protagonist into the alien other. As mediascapes become increasingly fractured, popular geopolitics and related fields will benefit from engaging more closely with the diversity of viewer responses. Keywords: Popular Geopolitics; Dialogic Approach; Mikhail Bakhtin; Alien Films., Introduction If a film features aliens, it is signaling to the viewers that it is fictional, that it is occurring in an imaginary geopolitical universe. The success of these films, [...]

Throughout much of his remarkable and somewhat eccentric career, filmmaker Francois Truffaut was criticized for avoiding discussions of the urgent political and social issues of the day. Like a modern-day [...]

The author examines the character of the learned emigre philologist Dr. Morbius in the 1956 science fiction film, 'Forbidden Planet.' Morbius is viewed as the embodiment of post-war European intellectual in America who cannot find a proper home in the US.

The film 'Batman' (1990) featured Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne contained political value that can be related to contemporary politics. The film depicted the disagreement between culture and anarchy in its make-believe Gotham City. In the story of the film 'Batman,' the people in the city had their own culture where vigilance was tolerated and politics was very much influenced by social status. The film can be of help in analyzing and evaluating political ideology, in knowing the condition of law enforcement and construction of literature in present day political set-up.

Apes in science fiction cinema evoke a long-standing narrative of an ontological humanness threatened by animality. Apes have been portrayed as torn between humanity and animality.