Bernard Beck

Biographic Data

ID3632026
NAMEBernard Beck
GIVEN NAMESBernard
FAMILY NAMEBeck
SIGNATUREBECK B
AFFILIATIONSNorthwestern University
VERIFIEDNo
TOTAL WORKS129
TOTAL CITATIONS28
AUTHOR COUNT129
EDITOR COUNT0
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR1966
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2024
H-INDEX2

  • Miles to Go

    Bernard BeckARTICLEMulticultural Perspectives2024

  • Thinking About Race in American Fiction and Origin

    Bernard BeckARTICLEMulticultural Perspectives2024

  • Save the Children

    Bernard BeckARTICLEMulticultural Perspectives2024

  • Once Upon a Time in America

    Bernard BeckARTICLEMulticultural Perspectives2023

    Four recent movies and broadcasts have brought our attention to historical episodes of racism, anti-semitism, authoritarianism, and murder in the first half of the Twentieth Century. These episodes had been largely forgotten as the history of social progress has been celebrated. New attention to past events as presented in the four works is associated with the loss of optimism in political and social trends in the present. Changes in our sense of…

  • Flying Saucers Are Real

    Bernard BeckARTICLEMulticultural Perspectives2023

    Two recent movies exemplify a new marriage of alien invader science fiction and multicultural issues of marginalized and minority groups in contemporary society. These two movies are impressively successful and have received many honors. They are marked by an implicit skepticism about mainstream society’s reasonableness and its benefit to struggling people in diverse communities. Sadly, the larger society resembles the alien invasions portrayed i…

  • Summer Nights of the Living Dead

    Bernard BeckARTICLEMulticultural Perspectives2023

    Two movies appeared at the same time in the summer of 2023, Oppenheimer and Barbie. Although they seem to be quite different, they were joined together in the public eye, being referred to as “Barbieheimer”. They were also notable for being very popular, although neither is a typical “summer movie”. Each is focused on a serious social problem that was thought to be urgent in earlier years but is now in the forefront of the public mind. The contra…

  • Our Roots Are Showing

    Bernard BeckARTICLEMulticultural Perspectives2023

  • Invitation to the Dance

    Bernard BeckARTICLEMulticultural Perspectives2022

    Movies have designated dance as a positive way for marginal and groups assigned a low status to cope with the enduring pain of inequality. A brief history of dance movies reveals the sentimental appeal of stories of coping with inequality by adopting dancer identities. The recent movie Tango Shalom offers an example of the use of dancing as a model for reconciling subcultural integrity with multicultural harmony and for substituting self-chosen i…

  • The Brains

    Bernard BeckARTICLEMulticultural Perspectives2022

    The movie Lansky presents a version of the memoirs of Meyer Lansky, a central figure in the origin and management of the national crime syndicate. The development of the Syndicate accompanies the story of Lansky’s life and career. The evolution from a traditional to a modern organization is discussed as an example of the use by criminal organizations and the immigrant subcultures they are based in. These movies are cited in discussing the treatme…

  • Breaking the Sound Barrier

    Bernard BeckARTICLEMulticultural Perspectives2022Cited by: 1

    CODA is an honored movie that combines important elements of several recent movies. The presentations of a thriving deaf community and a unique artistic community are rich and nuanced. The dilemma of a world dependent on high quality sound and a world without sound are explored and made poignant. The complexities of lives managed between separate and seemingly incompatible cultures are revealed in human perspective

  • Collateral Damage

    Bernard BeckARTICLEMulticultural Perspectives2022

  • White Mischief

    Bernard BeckARTICLEMulticultural Perspectives2021

    The Undoing, a miniseries on the cable channel HBO, is a crime melodrama that presents unannounced background content reflecting the changing multicultural situation in the United States. A dominant white Euro-American group is becoming merely another group in a crowded field of American subcultures. Although multicultural issues are not explicity referred to, details of the series invoke current controversies about the white European culture tha…

  • Arkansas Settler

    Bernard BeckARTICLEMulticultural Perspectives2021

    A recent award-winning movie, Minari, can be contrasted with other recent movies that focus on grief, rage and disappointment about America’s troubles, injustices, inequalities and cruelties. Minari is about a Korean immigrant family in America trying to make a life by farming in rural Arkansas in the 1980s. The context of similar, though not identical, movies about Americans facing insuperable odds to pursue the American Dream is commonplace in …

  • Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

    Bernard BeckARTICLEMulticultural Perspectives2021

    The movies can be part of sudden and thorough revelations of attitudes toward current events. The ambiguities of our history can be seen in the swings of public sentimentality. In the movies, these swings are highlighted. Our deepest sentiments can be unexpectedly unstable. What we find in the movies can emphasize these discontinuities. West Side Story, Hamilton, In the Heights, and Obama: In Pursuit of a More Perfect Union display some interesti…

  • Extraordinary People

    Bernard BeckARTICLEMulticultural Perspectives2021

    Two movies about Black protest movement leaders in the 1960s are playing on home screens during African American History Month during the COVID-19 pandemic. The movies are made by African American moviemakers and are focused on Black protest movements. One Night in Miami and Judas and the Black Messiah present the lives and activities of Black leaders as seen through their personal lives and through their political careers. These leaders were inv…

  • The Last Laugh

    Bernard BeckARTICLEMulticultural Perspectives2020

    Subcultures can appear in multicultural societies not only by the contact of existing cultures but also by cultures that remain constant while the larger society changes. A recent movie, Dark Waters, is an example of this process. Parasite and Joker, two other recent movies, both Academy Award winners, differ from the first in the ways they present the process of subcultural development. Dark Waters shows a marginal community getting effective as…

  • Our Kind of Town

    Bernard BeckARTICLEMulticultural Perspectives2020

    Americans currently sheltering in place can stay involved in popular culture by using the expanded offerings on home screens. An impressive number of African American moviemakers have created content for them. This creative content is now commanding large audiences and winning awards. Two cable series that have drawn interest and praise are The Chi on Showtime and Lovecraft Country on HBO. They both concern Black communities located in Chicago, w…

  • Staying Alive, Breaking Away

    Bernard BeckARTICLEMulticultural Perspectives2020

    The disruption of ordinary life by a deadly pandemic, an outrageous display of police violence, and a tumbling economy have left Americans isolated, frozen, and terrified. For many, the television screen has become the only contact with the outside world and the only source of entertainment. In recent years, cable television networks have drawn our attention by deep content and expert presentation. At this time, two cable series have debuted that…

  • Resistance and Endurance

    Bernard BeckARTICLEMulticultural Perspectives2020

    Two current biopic movies, Harriet and The Irishman, present the life stories of real people who have been involved with slavery and organized crime. These images contradict the virtuous image of America that is fundamental to our sense of national identity and patriotism. Could this contradiction lead to oppositional movements for social change

  • Jim Crow and Internment in Green Book and George Takei’s Allegiance

    Bernard BeckARTICLEMulticultural Perspectives2019

    Contemporary political and cultural realities make the renegotiating of African American cultural images an urgent matter. A recent movement to improve the position of African Americans in the movie business has produced a new wave of debates. Current movies show a variety of approaches to defining those images. The success of Green Book has been viewed as a major achievement. It offers an oddly cheerful view leading to a happy ending, as strange…

  • No City for Young Boys

    Bernard BeckARTICLEMulticultural Perspectives2019

    Contradictions between precious ideals and social realities are often handled by locating the problems of inequality in a limited setting, so that the rest of social life will not be disturbed. Racial inequality in America, starting with slavery, is concretely expressed in the troubled relations between agencies of social control, like the police, and racial minority communities. Two recent movies, The Hate U Give and When They See Us, deal with …

  • Women of the Year

    Bernard BeckARTICLEMulticultural Perspectives2019

    Four movies, Mary Magdalene, Wild Nights with Emily, The Wife, and Slut in a Good Way, showing women as central characters are discussed. All of the movies have been made primarily by women. At this time, the Me Too movement has called attention to the perspectives of women and their life experiences. In these movies, fully developed characters have replaced common stereotypes, both positive and negative. The contrast between stereotypes and rich…

  • The Next Voice You Hear

    Bernard BeckARTICLEMulticultural Perspectives2019

    Two recent movies have used a similar plot device: A young Black man employs a “White voice” on the telephone to accomplish job tasks and achieve success. But in both cases he encounters problems in his personal and African American community relations. The contradictions of passing for White by voice are discussed. Another recent movie concerns class bigotry and xenophobia among Chinese people in Singapore. The contrast between the two popular c…

  • Guess Who’s Coming to the Oscars

    Bernard BeckARTICLEMulticultural Perspectives2018Cited by: 1

    The movie awards for 2018 were dominated by works by and about marginalized people who are underrepresented in contemporary movies. The movies use established forms of superficial, sensational, and escapist movie-making. The conventions of these “eye candy” forms contradict and undermine the serious adult significance of the works, in obedience to the commercial demands of the movie industry

  • After the Fall

    Bernard BeckARTICLEMulticultural Perspectives2018

    Two recent movies, The Rider and Red Sparrow, are in contrast to a large number of movies celebrating the triumph of afflicted persons over obstacles that seem insurmountable. Through commitment, hard work, and determination, these characters are able to do the impossible. However, these two movies instead focus on the dire consequences of an inability to overcome obstacles. This change may reflect an increasing pessimism about current challenges…