My recent travels around North America culminated in two tri-state conferences. I very much enjoyed returning to the PCA/ACA community (I have previously attended SWPACA and EuPOP) and presenting at the Mid-Atlantic Popular & American Culture Conference in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Drawing on the construction of the films' posters to demonstrate my points, I compared Daniel Craig's latest portrayal of James Bond in Spectre with his initial interpretation in Casino Royale, and I discussed some of the possible influences on and implications for this. My abstract can be viewed here: https://mapaca.net/conference/2016/p/contemporary-british-hero-daniel-craig-james-bond
The discussion following my presentation raised some really interesting questions around differences in the international reception of Bond and the franchise's relationship with an ever evolving cultural context.
- Why do different countries receive different cuts of these films e.g. China received a different cut of Skyfall
- Why did US and UK audiences respond differently to Spectre?
- Why is Bond still so popular when we have moved away from misogyny?
I was very honoured to find out that my presentation had been nominated for a Ralph Donald Award and I hope to hear the outcome of this soon.
As always I very much enjoyed watching presentations from fellow scholars, particularly those on Downton Abbey and Harry Potter, as I found them to be relevant to my research and indicative of a general interest in representations of British culture in popular entertainment texts.
I also attended a conference on Photography and Britishness, held at the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, CT. It was particularly interesting to see representations of British culture in another medium and the differences in these images depending on the producer. Bristol based photographer Martin Parr gave a keynote on his career 'capturing' Britain and the following Q&A highlighted an association with tradition as the audience drew on his images of events of the British Establishment that haven't changed for hundreds of years (the odd ceremonies at Oxford University, the Epson Derby, the uniforms at Christ's Hospital School). This association was particularly interesting to me as I considered its application to the representations of British culture in some hugely successful film and television texts of recent years (Downton Abbey, The Queen, The King's Speech etc.). I found myself thinking of Riz Ahemd's quote again: 'The reality of Britain is vibrant multiculturalism, but the myth we export is an all-white world of lords and ladies.' (from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/15/riz-ahmed-typecast-as-a-terrorist)
