Screening Characters: Theories of Character in Film, Television, and Interactive Media

Description

Characters are central to our experiences of screened fictions and invite a host of questions. The contributors to Screening Characters draw on archival material, interviews, philosophical inquiry, and conceptual analysis in order to give new, thought-provoking answers to these queries. Providing multifaceted accounts of the nature of screen characters, contributions are organized around a series of important subjects, including issues of class, race, ethics, and generic types as they are encountered in moving image media. These topics, in turn, are personified by such memorable figures as Cary Grant, Jon Hamm, Audrey Hepburn, and Seul-gi Kim, in addition to avatars, online personalities, animated characters, and the ensembles of shows such as The Sopranos, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad. Cover Half Title Series Title Copyright contents list of figures acknowledgments foreword: consorting with characters introduction: screening characters part one the importance of actors 1. seeing and hearing screen characters: stars, twofoldness, and the imagination 2. character and the star vehicle: the impact of casting cary grant 3. character collaborations: the writer–actor relationship in mad men part two social types, social contexts 4. being typical and being individual 5. the mark of the social: stereotypes, folk psychology, and metonymy in mainstream film 6. racialized disgust and character in film part three medium-specific features and constraints 7. impossible characterizations 8. performative metamorphosis: animated characters and spectator proximity 9. social media as interface, or how characters enter our everyday reality 10. owning our actions: identification with avatars in video games part four emotional and moral engagement 11. ethical criticism and fictional characters as moral agents 12. absorbed character engagement: from social cognition responses to the experience of fictional constructions 13. “familiarity breeds contempt”: why fascination, rather than repeat exposure, better explains the appeal of antiheroes on television part five the character within genre 14. girls who can leap through time: shojo and time travel in east asian media 15. action and affordances: the action hero’s skilled and surprising use of the environment 16. introducing characters in television crime series: stylistic and narrative strategies about the contributors about the american film institute index