Screening terror

Hollywood, the United States and the construction of danger

Bibliographic Data

ID12919146
AuthorsKlaus Dodds (0000-0001-5074-0662, Royal Holloway University of London, corresponding author)
Year2008
Volume1
Issue2
Pages227-243
Publication date2008-07-11
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueCritical Studies on Terrorism (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1753-9161 • E-ISSN: 1753-9153
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17539150802184629
OpenAlexW1966327157
LanguageEN
Citations received32
References cited22

This paper is concerned with how and with what consequences Hollywood studios have approached the issue of terrorism. By drawing on the literatures of critical terrorism studies and critical geopolitics, a number of films are analysed for the purpose of considering the nature and motivation of terrorists, the objects of their assaults, the geographical location of the actual dramas, and the responses deemed necessary in the face of such apparent dangers. Finally, the paper briefly considers how one segment of film audiences, namely, participants (usually avid fans) who engage via online forums such as the Internet Movie Data Base (IMDb), engage and contest the movies themselves. The movie Rendition (2007) provides a brief example of how fans respond to a film explicitly concerned with terrorism and torture. This is important for considering how people make sense of films above and beyond their role as a highly successful form of entertainment

Advertising · Aesthetics · Art · Business · CONTEST · Entertainment · Face (sociological concept · Hollywood · Media studies · Movie theater · Political science · Social science · Sociology · Studio · Terrorism · The Internet · Torture · Visual arts · Cinema and Media Studies · Computer Science · Gothic Literature and Media Analysis · History · Law · Media Studies and Communication