Pop Junctions: Reflections on Entertainment, Pop Culture, Activism, Media Literacy, Fandom and More.
Reflections on Entertainment, Pop Culture, Activism, Media Literacy, Fandom and More
This post is part of a series of essays that emerged from Henry Jenkins’ doctoral seminar on global genres at the University of Southern California. In this contribution, Christian Pattavina employs ideas about genre to question what it means for films to be ‘religious’.
Read MoreThis post is part of a series of essays that emerged from Henry Jenkins’ doctoral seminar on global genres at the University of Southern California. In this contribution, Joy Hannah Panaligan explores the relationship between the kaiju genre and disability in Pacific Rim (2013) by Guillermo del Toro, which veers away from traditional kaiju narratives of national trauma. This kaiju invasion instead demands collective, global action and cooperation, allegorizing universal problems like climate change. This post draws on Sunaura Taylor’s (2024) concept of disabled ecologies to map out how kaiju films can examine the invisible and visible “disabilities” embedded in human and non-human actors within the ecological system.
Read MoreWhen a little more than a year ago I was invited to teach a course in film genre at the USC Cinema School, my first reaction was that I was born to teach a core class in American film genre. I could teach a class taking contemporary PhD students through the history of genre criticism and watch a mix of genre films – canonical and deep cuts, old and new.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the next wave of important work in genre theory would be coming through an engagement with the global production and circulation of genre films, the mutual influence of genre across the planet. And so, without even fully knowing what I might mean by it, I proposed teaching a course on “film genre in the age of the global shuffle”.
Over the next few posts, Pop Junctions will share a collection of essays that emerged from this course. This post provides an introduction to this series of posts to provide context to the questions that continue to face genre studies today.
Read More‘Emmys Watch 2025’ showcases critical responses to the series nominated for Outstanding Drama, Outstanding Comedy, and Outstanding Limited Series at that 77th Primetime Emmy Awards. Contributions to this theme explore critical understandings of some series nominated in these categories. This contribution by Chris Comerford compares the mix of comedy and drama in The Bear and Shrinking. Though it may have started as one, The Bear no longer feels like a comedy, nor even a “dramedy”. Despite its nomination once again for Outstanding Comedy Series at this year’s Emmy Awards, this article argues that The Bear has slipped further from its comedic roots in favour of prioritising drama and introspection. By contrast, the article examines fellow nominee Shrinking’s second season and its successful intertwining of comedy and drama even as its tone and subject matter get increasingly heavier.
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