Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction -- The influence of literature on film and television. Shutter Island: Martin Scorsese's allegory of despair -- When fiction becomes reality: Authorial voice in the door in the floor, secret window, and swimming pool -- The "very simplicity of the thing": Edgar Allan Poe, Jessica B. Fletcher, and Murder, she wrote -- Changing faces: Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, and films of the 1980s -- Displaced people and the frailty of words: communication in Ordinary people, On golden pond, and Terms of endearment -- Portrayals of class, race, and sexual orientation. Working man blues: images of the cowboy in American film -- From the wilderness into the closet: Brokeback Mountain and the lost American dream -- What happened to Celie and Idgie?: "apparitional lesbians" in American film -- Litigating the past: portrayals of the Japanese in American film -- Portrayals of class, race, and ethnicity. Fatherhood, fidelity, and friendship: Owen Thoreau Jr. and men of a certain age -- Frank's place: coming home to a place we'd never been before -- "American life is rich in lunacy": the unsettling social commentary of The Beverly hillbillies -- Grits and yokels aplenty: depictions of southerners on prime-time television -- Portrayals of women in film and television. From Great expectations to The bachelor: the jilted woman in literature and popular culture -- The lady is (still) a tramp: prime-time portrayals of women who love sex -- "This moment of June": Laura Brown, Clarissa Vaughn, Virginia Woolf, and The hours.

Description based on print version record.

Electronic reproduction. Palo Alto, Calif. : ebrary, 2014. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ebrary affiliated libraries.