The contributors to Media Crossroads examine space and place in media as they intersect with sexuality, race, ethnicity, age, class, and ability. Considering a wide range of film, television, video games, and other media, the authors show how spaces-from the large and fantastical to the intimate and virtual-are shaped by the social interactions and intersections staged within them. The highly teachable essays include analyses of media representations of urban life and gentrification, the ways video games allow users to adopt an experiential understanding of space, the intersection of the regulation of bodies and spaces, and how style and aesthetics can influence intersectional thinking. Whether interrogating the construction of Portland as a white utopia in Portlandia or the link between queerness and the spatial design and gaming mechanics in the Legend of Zelda video game series, the contributors deepen understanding of screen cultures in ways that redefine conversations around space studies in film and media.
Contributors. Amy Corbin, DesirÉe J. Garcia, Joshua Glick, Noelle Griffis, Malini Guha, Ina Rae Hark, Peter C. Kunze, Paula J. Massood, Angel Daniel Matos, Nicole Erin Morse, Elizabeth Patton, Matthew Thomas Payne, Merrill Schleier, Jacqueline Sheean, Sarah Louise Smyth, Erica Stein, Kirsten Moana Thompson, John Vanderhoef, Pamela Robertson Wojcik
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Intersections and/in Space / Paula J. Massood, Angel Daniel Matos, and Pamela Robertson Wojcik 1
I. Digital Intersections
1. "Where Do Aliens Pee?": Bathroom Selfies, Trans Activism, and Reimagining Spaces / Nicole Erin Morse 21
2. The Queerness of Space and the Body in Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda Series / Angel Daniel Matos 34
3. The Digital FlÂneuse: Exploring Intersectional Identities and Spaces through Walking Simulators / Matthew Thomas Payne and John Vanderhoef 50
II. Cinematic Urban Intersections
4. Blurring Boundaries, Exploring Intersections: Form, Genre, and Space in Shirley Clarke's The Connection / Paula J. Massood 67
5. Intersections in Madrid's Periphery: Cinematic Cruising in Eloy de la Iglesia's La semana del asesino (1972) / Jacqueline Sheean 82
6. Encounters and Embeddedness: The Urban Cinema of Ramin Bahrani / Amy Corbin 96
7. Perpetual Motion: Mobility, Precarity, and Slow Death Cinema / Pamela Robertson Wojcik 111
III. Urbanism and Gentrification
8. Senior Citizens under Siege: Number Our Days (1976) and Gray Power Activism in Venice / Joshua Glick 127
9. Music City Makeover: The Televisual Tourism of Nashville / Noelle Griffis 141
10. Portland at the Intersection: Gentrification and the Whitening of the City in Portlandia's Hipster Wonderland / Elizabeth A. Patton 155
11. Criminal Properties: Real Estate and the Upwardly Mobile Gangster / Erica Stein 167
IV. Race, Place, and Space
12. Dressing the Part: Black Maids, White Stars in the Dressing Room / DesirÉe J. Garcia 183
13. "I Do Not Know That I Find Myself Anywhere": The British Heritage Film and Spaces of Intersectionality in Amma Asante's Belle (2013) / Sara Louise Smyth 195
14. Queerness, Race, and Class in the Midcentury Suburb Film Crime of Passion (1956) / Merrill Schleier 206
15. Fair Play: Race, Space, and Recreation n Black Media Culture / Peter C. Kunze 221
V. Style and/as Intersectionality
16. The Toxic Intertwining of Small Town Lives in Happy Valley / Ina Rae Hark 237
17. Tattooed Light and Embodied Design: Intersectional Surfaces in Moana / Kirsten Moana Thompson 250
18. Vaguely Visible: Intersectional Politics in Bertrand Bonello's Nocturama (2016) / Malini Guha 262
Notes 275
Bibliography 303
Contributors 329
Index 335
Paula J. Massood is Professor, Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema, City University of New York.
Angel Daniel Matos is Assistant Professor of Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies at Bowdoin College.
Pamela Robertson Wojcik is Professor of Film, Television, and Theatre at the University of Notre Dame.
