Browsing by Author "Lee, Jason"
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Item Metadata only A long shot: Will disabled people ever be treated equitably by the film and TV industry?(Sociological Review Foundation, 2024-02-06) Lee, JasonItem Metadata only Academics Should Not Be So Wary of Researching Royalty(THE World Universities Insights Limited, 2019-12-03) Lee, JasonItem Metadata only Item Open Access Are You Kidding? Reassessing morality, sexuality and desire in 'Kids'(Film International, 2018) Lee, JasonFollowing the 25th anniversary of the making of this controversial film, this article for Film International examines the legacy of the 1995 film 'Kids', especially in relation to its young screenwriter Harmony Korine. Korine was feted at the time as instigated a new cinema. The work asks a number of important questions concerning censorship, transgression, and morality drawing on childhood studies as well as film studies. There is the notion that this film possibly could not get made today, and would not get distributed, indicating a shift it aesthetics and censorship, historically. The article goes against the grain and argues, in relation to Kristeva and other cultural theorists and philosophers, that the film is in fact a moralistic tract which offers up a warning. The analysis puts the film in the context of child sexual abuse, whilst acknowledging the nuances within a legal framework. As well as the cultural and sociological framework utilised, drawing at times on queer theory, this article also employs elements of film studies rhetoric exploring cinematography.Item Metadata only Becks and Posh and Baudrillard in America(International Journal of Baudrillard Studies, 2007-10) Lee, JasonItem Metadata only Burning Box(Eyewear Publishing, 2017-02-10) Lee, JasonItem Metadata only Caught in a trap - Baz Luhrmann's Elvis and the documentary, George Michael: Freedom Uncut(British Psychological Society, 2022-09-06) Lee, JasonItem Metadata only Celebrity, Pedophilia and Ideology in American Culture(Cambria Press, 2009-05-28) Lee, JasonDuring the 1980s, pedophilia and popular culture rose to the top of the agenda in many discourses, with fear and observation important aspects of the majority of media-saturated societies. Dr. Lee posits that we live in an age where the media and celebrity culture dominates, with America leading the way. One strand of this cultural trend is how reports of pedophilia and child sexual abuse are becoming increasingly common, with figures such as Michael Jackson demonised by the press as evil monsters and freaks on the fringes of society. Due to the extreme nature of these discourses, these figures, as well as the media and culture that surround them, define what is supposed to be normal in mainstream culture. The construction of the child and the use of violence in a neo-capitalist world are important areas. While it might be untrue to suggest that violence has increased, in a culture of observation and political correctness the violence perpetrated by and on children is significant. An important aspect of the ideology that surrounds us––and subsequently informs, deceives, and constructs us––is based on this violence. It is therefore important to understand not only the American society but also the other areas of the world dominated by American culture. In particular, these difficult and dark zones need to be explored in order to investigate the way we think and the way we behave. We need to understand culture and the reasons behind current attitudes to these subjects. Being such a contentious area, an academic approach that is as a comprehensive as this volume gets behind the myths and deconstructs the monsters. Books on pedophilia, other than the work of James Kincaid, tend to be blinkered. There are no books that have the scope of this text. By widening the debate to include 9/11 rhetoric, high school killings, and science fiction, this book explores continuing areas of importance in the study of American culture. The interrelated issues in the context of ideology throw important light on this complex subject. Celebrity, Pedophilia, and Ideology in American Culture reveals the connections between rapacious capitalism and the rape of children. The twenty chapters, which span the analysis of childhood, celebrity culture, important books and films on pedophilia and violence, post-9/11 theology and public rhetoric, and killing for fame, in an interrelated fashion cover intrinsically important areas of ideology. The book develops detailed theoretical insights in cultural theory and philosophy. With the economic meltdown of the first decade of the twenty-first century, we are witnessing the inability of the free market to cope with our contemporary world, which is not limitless, in terms of knowledge and the power of science to dominate the material world and resources. Child sexual abuse here functions as a metaphor for the rapacious attack on the planet, which knows no limit penetrating everything, even––and most especially––the weakest form, at every opportunity, corrupting the future. The pervasiveness of child sexual abuse, for many, cannot be argued with, and, in a postmodern world where truth is anathema, it offers a form of truth and is concerned with the absolute limit. Stimulating, suggestive, and sometimes provocative, the capaciousness of these essays will inform everyone interested in the media, popular culture, theory and theology, politics, and the zeitgeist. Celebrity, Pedophilia, and Ideology in American Culture is an important book for all media studies, popular culture, cultural theory, and American studies collections.Item Metadata only Child Sexual Abuse and the Media(Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) Lee, JasonThis is the first book to explore child sexual abuse within global religious and media organisations. Termed here the dual narrative, there is, on the one hand, the view that everyone is a potential paedophile, and, on the other, the notion of a witch-hunt falsely accusing people. Beginning with a re-examination of historic claims of satanic ritual abuse, the author moves on to investigate global celebrity culture, the global religious context as well as an analysis of technology. The internal report into the BBC and the UK’s Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse are examined, plus recent claims of satanic child sexual abuse. Most revealing is how child sexploitation is at the heart of the establishment maintaining power, driven by constructions of gender. It is also shown how memory is selective involving stories we tell ourselves to confirm identities.Item Metadata only Child Sexual Abuse in Film and Media(Amsterdam University Press, 2023) Lee, JasonItem Metadata only Constructing Myths, peddling Lies: Neo Nazism, propaganda and Steve Bannon(2017-05-05) Lee, JasonItem Metadata only Criticism and the Terror of Nothingness(Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003-04) Lee, JasonDESTINY IS OFTEN ANOTHER NAME for narrative, it being the order we retrospectively find in scattered events. It is traditionally the role of the storyteller to create a believable narrative, with the reader investing attention into believing the story while the critic dissects the results to ascertain whether the magic works. As Wallace Stevens put it, "we orchestrate a whole history and then imprison ourselves in the score, as if someone else had written it." 1 In the author's note to the second edition (1962) of Wise Blood (1949) Flannery O'Connor makes the point that her novel is a comic novel, yet its comedy does not lessen the depth of understanding it offers concerning the complexity of freedom. 2 The obsession with fate and destiny that swamps her characters, leads the reader into a gothic nightmare where humans in their attempt to re-create themselves dig themselves further into the graves of their dead relatives. For O'Connor free will does not mean one will but many wills conflicting in one man, and she explains the integrity of the central character of Wise Blood, Hazel Motes, as stemming from his vigorous attempts to rid himself of the "ragged figure who moves from tree to tree in the back of his mind." This figure is the Jesus of his grandfather, and it is also the religious preoccupation of the Deep South. Destiny has shaped his features and his character in the mold of his grandfather, and whomever he meets believes he too is a preacher. After establishing the Church Without Christ, like many sons attempting to shake off their origin, Hazel Motes realizes that his new way of behaving is in some sense being controlled [End Page 211] by his past and that he must shake off all vestiges to possess freedom. One might argue that, by eventually blinding himself, Hazel Motes is behaving as a soul who has given into the temptation of purgation, as if this is destiny. But it can be argued that this act is going against destiny, as it is an act that is perhaps trying to persuade God of something, despite the Oedipal connotations. Questioned by his landlady why he blinded himself he says to pay, and when asked to pay for what, he replies it does not matter what. Mrs. Flood is frightened of death, particularly death being one long blind existence, and Hazel Motes is a reminder to her of her destiny. This can be read as a judgment on life also. Yet she eventually decides to take care of him, for both altruistic and materialistic reasons, believing that his widow would inherit his war pension. Mrs. Flood, her name evocative of apocalyptic occurrences and Old Testament punishment, is a critic of the text; the text in this instance is nothing written but rather Motes himself. It seems that Hazel Motes, his name a reference to taking the mote out of one's own eye before you try and take the splinter out of another's, is punishing himself for his previous denial of Christ and for his sins, such as fornication, as with Mrs. Watts the prostitute and Sabbath Hawks, and murder, but also something more primal. After trying desperately to break the curse of his biological inheritance, his wise blood, just like the character Enoch Emery, it forces him to once again take on roles that deny him freedom. Hazel Motes may seem to a contemporary reader as a caricature, the mad preacher/antipreacher of the American South, but as V. S. Pritchett puts it, Hazel Motes is "entirely real" (p. viii). His self-blinding is part of his further alienation from the world, the world he has come back to after the "Great War." O'Connor shows how this watershed in human history was so devastating, Motes's new theology entirely rational. After having an insight into the world in reality through war, Hazel Motes is now "going to do some things...Item Metadata only Culture, Madness and Wellbeing: Beyond the Sociology of Insanity(Springer, 2023-12-12) Lee, JasonThis book is a unique study of the historical, theoretical, and cultural interpretations of ‘madness’ including interviews with those who have experiences of ‘madness’. It takes a transdisciplinary approach, employing historical, psychological, and sociological perspectives through an intersectional lens. This work explains how the prioritization of thinking over feeling in Western thought means the transrational imagination has frequently been negated in tackling mental health with detrimental results. This book, therefore, examines creative media, especially film, as a transrational form of human expression for healing and wellbeing, along with television, theatre, social media, music, and computer games. ‘Madness’ with regards to gender, sexuality, adolescence, and class in media and film is interrogated, as well as ‘madness’ and race through a focus on colonialism, post-colonialism, and psychiatry. It analyses group psychosis, including celebrity culture, and the ‘madness’ of leaders and gurus. This book challenges the lasting influence of the Age of Reason by furthering our understanding of the value of transrationality and the diverse ways of being human.Item Metadata only Cultures of Addiction(Cambria Press, 2012-08) Lee, JasonDifferent cultures and the specific culture manifested within them are intrinsically linked to addiction in a complex fashion which has a long history. For important thinkers, such as Nietzsche, addiction actually embodies human culture, rendering addiction and culture inseparable. This is clearly seen within the Western world’s addiction to the consumption of material goods and the damage that results. Utopia has often become dystopia. Not only is an understanding of addiction key to understanding culture but to an understanding of the very act thinking itself and the way of being in the world. Addiction raises key philosophical questions, such as: do people really have a choice in their behavior, and what governs them; is it free will or predetermination? Is it biology or environment is it the external world or the internal that drives addiction, or a complex combination of both? In a contemporary context the media frenzy around celebrity addiction continually fuels public debate in this area, and this book deepens the understanding of addiction within this contentious context. This book addresses a key concern over how addiction became the norm, and it seeks to understand its dominance comprehensively. How did it come to pass that not being an addict was a transgressive act and way of being? While there has been a great deal of debate about addiction utilizing the discourse of individual and often competing disciplines such as biology and psychology, little attention has been paid to the cultural aspects of addiction. The innovative approach taken by this book is to offer insights into this complex area through a contemporary methodology that covers diverse interrelated areas. Drawing on different disciplines, offering deeper insights, from the analysis of music lyrics to empirical social science and anthropological work in AA groups in Mexico and the portrayal of the “addiction’ to therapy in film and television, amongst other areas, this book addresses the need for a more comprehensive approach. Academic analysis is also given to the discourse on celebrity culture and addiction. A contemporary fusion of the humanities and the social sciences is the best way forward to tackle this subject and move the debate on. The focus of this study is an innovative interdisciplinary and intercultural approach to addiction, from the social sciences to the humanities, including cultural studies, film and media studies, and literary studies. Areas that have been overlooked, such as lost women’s writings, are examined, in addition to comics, popular film and television, and the work of AA groups. This edited collection is the first study to provide such a comprehensive analysis of the cultures of addiction. Traversing cultures across the globe, including Asia, Central America, as well as Europe and America, this book opens up the debate in addiction studies and cultural studies. The important insights the book delivers helps to answer questions such as: In what way can Deleuze further the understanding of addiction through the analysis of rock lyrics? How does anthropology improve the understanding of AA groups? How can cultural studies deepen knowledge on the “addiction” to therapy? These are just some of the vast array of areas this book covers. Other areas include the condemnation of “addiction” to comic reading through an historical examination, violence in popular culture, and lost women’s writing on addiction. No other book has such depth and contemporary breadth. Cultures of Addiction is an important book for those taking cultural studies courses across a range of interrelated disciplines, including English and literary studies, history, American studies, and film and media studies. This will be invaluable to library collections in these fields and beyond in the social sciences, and specifically in addiction studies and psychology.Item Metadata only The Devil you don't know?: The rise and fall and rise of Linda Blair(Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2017-03-21) Lee, JasonItem Metadata only Dr Cipriano's Cell(Chipmunkapublishing, 2011-10-11) Lee, JasonItem Metadata only Encountering the real in Dogme95(Routledge, 2005-12-01) Lee, JasonItem Metadata only Face Up to Croaking it: Forgiveness and Judgement: injustices to an unjust God in Magnolia(Vertigo Magazine, 2007-08) Lee, JasonItem Metadata only Facebook, Paedophile Hunters, and Surveillance – Mediated Transnational Abuse(NMEDIAC, 2021) Lee, JasonFacebook and paedophile hunter groups in the UK, US, and India are examined. QAnon is studied and how Facebook has aided their strength. The notion of the hunt is explored in the UK and India where hoaxes are common. Financial incentives and dataveillance are analyzed. Theological paradigms are extrapolated in terms of cultural theory and capital with the recognition surveillance leads to pre-determination and the eradication of the human.Item Metadata only Fucking monsters: post-apocalyptic desire in Tim Roth's The War Zone(16:9, 2003-11) Lee, Jason