Editorial

Editorial: Texts, Lies, and Propaganda

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This is not fake news. Over the past six months, there have been increasing concerns about the validity of news media content. A report might come out, for example, discrediting a politician or a government program. This article is then followed up by reports discrediting that report, which is then followed by reports discrediting the writers discrediting the original report. Then, a day later, another report comes out discrediting the media outlet that didn’t report on the discredited report, and so on and so forth, until president-elect Donald Trump takes to Twitter and types the words, “Fake News!”

Culture

Representations of the Hollywood Witch: 1939-1950

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Our last stop on this cinematic journey was 1937 with the release of Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.  Up to that point, the Hollywood witch had already evolved from a turn-of-the-century “clown witch” to a stereotypical cartoon “hags in rags” and finally into an animated femme fatale. Throughout that early period, the witch was contained within the framework of fantasy.  Even those few outliers created a wall of separation between reality and the witch. MacBeth (1916) is just a retelling of a Shakespearian drama.  In the Witch of Salem (1913), the “witch” is a victim of hysteria. In film studies speak, the witch never threatens to enter into the viewer’s world.