Dangerous Dreams

Mining from the mainstream, and never going too far afield, Whitt (literature and media studies, U. of Colorado at Boulder) carefully constructs her take on American film and television and its relationship with class, gender, race, ethnicity, politics, religion, and sexual orientation. However, she does not draw from a narrow range of works as she discusses the influence of literature on film and television. She addresses Scorsese’s allegories of despair; the author’s voice in The Door in the Floor, Secret Window, and Swimming Pool; the ＂very simplicity of the thing＂ in Edgar Allen Poe and Murder She Wrote; films of the 1980s; communications; images of the cowboy in the American film; Brokeback Mountain and the lost American dream; ＂apparitional lesbians＂; portrayals of Japanese in films; fatherhood and fidelity; coming home to a place we have never been before; the unsettling social commentary of The Beverly Hillbillies; depictions of southerners; the jilted woman; prime-time portrayals of women who love sex; and The Hours. Annotation ©2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)