THE WORLD-WAR II COMBAT FILM: Anatomy of a Genre was film scholar Jeanine Basinger’s look not only at the specific genre but to use it of an example of how genres work: how they start, evolve, develop their specific tropes, then change. She picked the WW II combat movie — as opposed to WW II basic-training comedies, spy thrillers, Casablanca or films about life on the home front —
— because it’s a relatively narrow genre and a clear starting point: Pearl Harbor. As Basinger details, early films drew heavily on WW I film tropes and didn’t hesitate to show the horrors of war (contrary to the myth nobody did that before Saving Private Ryan): in Wake Island and Bataan! all the American soldiers die.
The genre soon acquired its distinctive elements: explanations of Why We Fight, the platoon or combat crew that has to learn to work together, representation for different parts of the country (a Texan, a college kid, an immigrant’s kid, a guy from Brooklyn), the cost of letting down your guard. After the war ended, it lay fallow for a while, picked up during the Korean War, then has fluctuated since (I believe there’s relatively little new stuff in this century, though that doesn’t mean the genre is dying or dead). The meaning and tone changes too, with the cynicism of films such as The Dirty Dozen developing in the 1960s.
I read the book to see if it had any insight for my work on Jekyll and Hyde. While Basinger does make me aware of things such as the visual aspects of Jekyll/Hyde films and the way they change over time, that was stuff I was thinking about before I read the book. Nevertheless, it’s a pleasure to reread her analysis.
THE BLACK GUY DIES FIRST: Black Horror Cinema from Fodder to Oscar by Robin R. Means Coleman and Mark H. Harris looks at the cliches and evolution of black horror, starting with the “spook” comic-relief character who wants to run away like Shaggy and Scooby. There’s also the protagonist’s best friend, the authority figure (whom the author concludes is less positive representation than an another obstacle for the hero to work around) and occasionally the protagonist of a film (something much more common in recent years). There’s the treatment of voodoo (usually negative and creepy), efforts to tackle social issues (Get Out wasn’t the first), good movies, bizarre movies (The Tale of the Voodoo Prostitute has a black sex worker curse her pimp by turning his dick into a rattlesnake).
While most writing about representation tends to be pessimistic (e.g., Is That Black Enough For You?) the authors are quite upbeat, citing the increase in not only black actors who don’t die first but the increase in black professionals writing and directing films. I read the book primarily for insight into Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde (I’m not sure it helped), but it’s very good in its own right.
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