on principle
Observe and Report: The Ethics of ‘Cameraperson’
Cameraperson is observational in ways both purer and more complex than much of what appears in documentaries edited to appear as objective works.
Dogs, Dialectics, and Academy Awards
Controversies involving A Dog's Purpose, The Birth of a Nation, and Last Tango in Paris reveal that access to more offscreen information can lead to greater accountability.
Lost and Found: A ‘Blair Witch’ Postmortem
As the latest Blair Witch exits cinemas, PopMatters asks what was the aura of the first Blair Witch Project, and has it been lost?
From Curiosity to Denial: The Case of ‘An Open Secret’
The failure of An Open Secret to connect with a wide audience speaks to the persistence of denial when the perpetrators of child abuse populate the entertainment industry.
On Entertaining Terror: Film v Television
While United 93 was released "too soon" for viewers' comfort, a mix of critically derided films and critically acclaimed series continue to depict the age of terror.
There Are No Accidents on ‘Mulholland Drive’
David Lynch's Mulholland Drive unfolds in a series of desires, warnings, and deals that are often made under duress by unseen malevolent forces, or motivated by darkness within.
Black Mass Murder: Extreme Metal and the PMRC
A mainstream metal band like The Black Dahlia Murder is more explicit than anything the Parents Music Resource Center sought to regulate in 1985.
Does Reality Television Need ‘The Profit’?
A series about making money, airing on CNBC, might seem like an unlikely place for fostering positive values.
The Ethics of Death-Defying Media
Furious 7's path to the screen is emblematic of the ways in which film and other media defy (and define) death as images develop lives of their own.
That’s Entertainment? Sold Into Bondage for ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’
Network and cable programming both demonstrate overwhelming irresponsibility and contradiction concerning depictions of sexual violence and abuse.
‘The Purge’: Lawful, But Not Helpful
By grounding the violence of his barely veiled speculative fiction in the here-and-now, James DeMonaco risks inciting an audience beyond the walls of the cinema.