Abject Pleasures in the Cinematic : : The Beautiful, Sexual Arousal, and Laughter / / Aaron Kerner.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter EBOOK PACKAGE Arts 2023
• VerfasserIn: Kerner, Aaron,
• Place / Publishing House: Edinburgh : : Edinburgh University Press, , [2023]; ©2023
• Year of Publication: 2023
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (296 p.) :; 16 B/W illustrations

Examines the cinematic strategies that elicit visceral pleasure in the face of content that is crass, politically problematic, or unethicalDiscusses the ways in which the cinematic elicits pleasurable sensationsEmphasizes the pleasure drawn from abject contentFocuses squarely on the visceral experience, as distinct from the emotional appeal of the cinematicAbject Pleasures in the Cinematic examines the cinematic strategies that elicit visceral pleasure—tears, goosebumps, sexual arousal, laughter—even in the face of content that is crass, politically problematic, or unethical.While there might be a progressive predisposition within our discipline, affect pledges no allegiance to any particular political inclination. Progressives, or progressive content, does not hold a monopoly on affect. The beautiful has no inherent bond to the good (i.e., morally good, or having cultural merit), rather it is an affective experience, and it might come to us in the most unlikely and unsavory places. Pornography, even with the most regressive content, wields the possibility to be sexually arousing even despite our own ethical objections. While well-intended academics routinely claim that watching people get hurt is not funny, and we might appreciate the gesture to cultivate our better angels, but such assertions do not necessarily align with our lived-experience.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Figures -- Acknowledgments -- Preface -- 1 Abject Pleasures in the Cinematic: A Taxonomy of Cinematic Strategies for Eliciting Pleasure -- PART 1 -- 2 On the Beautiful -- 3 Neo-Giallo: “It’s beautiful, it’s beautiful, it’s beautiful,” the Affective Experience in Suspiria -- 4 Musicality: Poetic Ruptures in Spike Lee’s 25th Hour, and Chris Cunningham/Björk’s Music Video “All Is Full of Love” -- PART 2 -- 5 On Sexual Arousal -- 6 Pornography: Erotic Disavowal, Regressive Content, and the Chikan (Sub-)Genre -- 7 Romance: The Handmaiden and its Arousing Spectacles -- PART 3 -- 8 On Laughter -- 9 Body Humor: Dick Pics in Cringe Comedy and the Carnivalesque Grotesque Body -- 10 Conclusion: The Limitation of Theories of Affect -- Bibliography -- Media-ography -- Index