ENGL 277 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Melodrama, Manichaeism, Classical Hollywood Cinema
7 Feb 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Two contrasting reading of stella dallas: the lesbian family romance patricia white uninvited. Linda williams: goal: expand what counts as melodrama. 1. space of innocence: raise the question whether a return to the space of innocence is possible, innocence: physical space, rural and material origins, innocence taking pleasure in itself, two implicit opposites: guide vs knowledge and experience. Conflated for women: knowledge of class difference and limitations of social mobility. Moral legibility: morality is clear to the viewer, focus on victim hero who the same character, recognition of their virtue, virtue is shown through suffering, innocence is proven through survival of a ritual ordeal. Uses and evades realism: solutions in melodrama: emotional and not social, md find solution to problems that cant be solved, want to return to innocence. But wants to do this without breaking the old traditions. Effects of the wrong instead of the wrong itself. Worked out emotionally but the class system remains in place.
