Masculinity
ViewFinder transitioned from a print magazine to online only last issue (111) and this is my first real issue in charge of the editorial. It’s exciting to be at the helm of change and I’m proud to see this issue come together so quickly. Since we moved to being exclusively online I wanted to increase the number of articles we publish, broaden the variety of our contributors and open up to undergrads and postgrads for submission, giving them space to write and publish from their specialisms.
I also want to theme each issue, giving a framework for writers and contributors to work within and each issue to have a strong coherency. The themes are not absolute for each issue (which you will see by looking through the content) so there aren’t strict constraints, but I feel that by choosing a wide topic to focus on, some very interesting pieces have come about.
The theme for this issue is Masculinity. I chose this because it is a very contemporary topic of discussion, it can be difficult to approach, is relevant across many disciplines and the film and television industry and production is at the heart of the discourse. Masculinity, with its problems and influence comes in many guises and manifests in nearly all spaces of life, this is reflected well through the variety of articles and reviews we have in Issue 112.
Highlights from Issue 112 include Mark Taylor Batty’s appreciation of Harold Pinter’s forward-thinking explorations of toxic masculinity in The Caretaker, Liz Carville’s look at the representation of Irish male stereotypes in Oliver Stone’s Alexander, Fernando Sdrigotti’s look back at Last Tango in Paris, an exploration of Moroccan masculinity in Dutch film by Eva Dieteren, and Emma Morton’s analysis of cross-dressing in early Italian cinema. All this and more articles and reviews to explore.
Outside of the Masculinity theme we have pieces inspired from the Learning on Screen Awards 2019 such as historian Kate Williams’s speech on the night of the ceremony and Sally Lindsay recounting her experience making the Learning on Screen Broadcast Award nominated film about Emmeline Pankhurst, plus a fascinating insight into how TV used to be made and the ADAPT programme written by John Ellis.
I hope you enjoy issue 112 and find it interesting, entertaining and informative.
Kit Caless, Learning on Screen
If you’d like to submit something to a future issue, or know of someone who would, please contact me on kit@learningonscreen.ac.uk. The next four issues are themed as follows:
Class, Migration, Decolonisation, Home.