Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Of the people who packed theaters in 2004 to see Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ,” most were already regular churchgoers. Using data from a Fall 2004 poll of a Southern state’s adult population, this study investigated the merits of explaining this phenomena using a presumed media influence model in which religious individuals chose to see the movie partly because they believed that the movie would promote religious faith and practice among others. Results provide support for the model but suggest a need for a more refined operationalization of the “other people” thought to be influenced.

Publication Type: Individual Paper
Abstract: In 1908 African American composers Bob Cole, J. Rosamond Johnson and James Weldon Johnson produced the all African American Broadway musical The Red Moon, which dramatized the role of Black industrial colleges such as Hampton Institute, in the uplift and “Americanization” of Blacks and Native Americans. They imagined alliances between Blacks and Native Americans as a possible antidote to the poison of white supremacy. Cole and Johnson communicated a politics of uplift and racial pride in the musical. In the production a chorus of “Gibson Gals” appeared on stage as sophisticated, pure, respectable, and in regular stage makeup as opposed to Blackface. This representation contested notions of Black women during this time period.
During the 1908-1910 theatrical seasons of The Red Moon, a column entitled
“The Red Moon Rays” appeared in the African American newspaper The New York Age. The column featured stories about the stars of the show and offered insight into the strategies used to elevate the Black female performer. The stars of the show, Ada Overton Walker and Abbie Mitchell, made a concerted effort to change the status of Black women both on and off the stage. They deployed performative Black female uplift by using the image of the Gibson Girl to change the representative image of Black women. Using the music of Cole and Johnson, I will look at how Ada Overton Walker and Abbie Mitchell used the image of the Gibson Girl to argue for womanhood rights for Black women.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: According to social psychologists, a confession reinforces a community’s norms after these norms have been broken. Confessions are thus often portrayed as an important step on the road to the healing of a community after an act has created a rift. In this paper, I will argue that in certain situations, confessions may have the unintended and paradoxical consequence of deepening rifts in the community rather than healing them. Specifically, I will demonstrate that the phenomenon of confession has an elective affinity with a particular understanding of racism as “individual pathology.” By reinforcing the understanding of racism as individual pathology, confessions such as the ones offered by Michael Richards, Mel Gibson and, to a lesser extent, Don Imus, can effectively blind those witnessing the confession to a different, but certainly equally significant, understanding of racism: structural or institutional racism. The result of the non-recognition of racism as structural or institutional is an inability to deal with this sort of racism and the consequences that it produces. Whether it be the case that confessions render witnesses less able or less willing to understand racism in terms other than individual pathology, confessions such as these may end up encouraging the neglect of or even exacerbating the consequences of structural and institutional racism, thus deepening the rifts in the community rather than healing them.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper serves to expose how the promotional culture industry (advertising, PR, marketing, and related entities) uses authenticity to promote positive sentiments about personalities, products and ideas. A review of the meaning of authenticity in many different contexts is joined with a critical review of trends in the promotional culture industry to demonstrate that authenticity is the most recent trick or gimmick used to promote and advertise. The dilemma faced by Disney/ABC when Gibson was arrested for drunk driving just months before the release of Apocalypto was solved through the use of a neutral “news” format to rehabilitate Gibson’s image and project the film as an authentic representation of an ancient culture. The paper demonstrates the limits of using authenticity as a promotional tool and suggests the difficulty of projecting authenticity in any media contrived environment.