Me Pick Books

I've picked out four books from the Toronto Public Library that I hope will be useful in researching my topic. The books are these:

European Culture in the Great War: Arts, Entertainment, and Propaganda, 1914-1918 by Richard Stites and Aviel Roshwald

A Century of Media, A Century of War by Robin Andersen

Cinema Wars: Hollywood Film and Politics in the Bush-Cheney Era by Douglas Kellner

Projections of War: Hollywood, American Culture, and World War II by Thomas Patrick Doherty

These books will hopefully provide some insight on my topic from a variety of time periods (WWI, WWII, War on Terror) from a few perspectives (Europe, North American). I'll also use the books that Ms Retsos so helpfully suggested from her classroom.

Wait, no, I'm doing this now!

I've decided to narrow my focus down to entertainment during wartimes. Over the next few days I'll be deciding which wars I want to focus on (most of them will be more recent, i.e. 1900+), and will try to research the issue of how entertainment responds to and comments on war from the perspective of multiple cultures, not just the United States.

I haven't made any decisions yet and I have to think through the topic some more, but some possible ideas for pieces of entertainment I can incorporate are Empire of the Sun and Grave of the Fireflies for WWII (showing POVs from two different cultures), TV shows like 24 and Sleeper Cell for the Post-9/11 world, along with movies like United 93 and World Trade Center. Obviously there will be a lot more when I start researching more.

What am I doing?

Good question, me. I'm researching the development and purposes of theater, film and television throughout history, starting with a few guiding questions:

1. When did theater become a popular medium? Where and when did it begin? (Similar questions about film and tv, even though those are more obvious)

2. What purposes did theater, film and television serve throughout history (entertainment/escapism/propaganda/art)?

3. How do famous/significant/controversial pieces of theater, film and television reflect their time periods, and are there cases where they ended up leading to social changes (it's like History Through Film all over again)?

4. How has the popularity of theater, film and television affected society throughout history (not just contemporary society)?

5. How have different societies developed different "versions" of theater, film and television as a reflection of their culture?

And other things too, probably.

Yeah.