Popular trauma culture [electronic resource] : selling the pain of others in the mass media / Anne Rothe.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rothe, Anne.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Psychic trauma and mass media.

Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in mass media.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (223 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press, c2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In Popular Trauma Culture, Anne Rothe argues that American Holocaust discourse has a particular plot structure-characterized by a melodramatic conflict between good and evil and embodied in the core characters of victim/survivor and perpetrator-and that it provides the paradigm for representing personal experiences of pain and suffering in the mass media. The book begins with an analysis of Holocaust clichés, and then explores the embodiment of popular trauma culture in two core mass media genres: daytime TV talk shows and misery memoirs.

Contents:

Introduction : Oprah at Auschwitz

Popular trauma culture : generating the paradigm in Holocaust discourse. Holocaust tropes

Victim talk

American survivors

Trauma kitsch

Television : watching the pain of others on daytime talk shows. Talking cures

Trauma camp

Popular literature : reading the pain of others in misery memoirs. Selling misery

Fake suffering

Forging child abuse

Simulating Holocaust survival

Epilogue : fantasies of witnessing.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 167-201) and index.

ISBN:

1-283-86430-4

0-8135-5220-6

OCLC:

777375528