The Videographic Essay: Practice and PedagogyMain MenuThe Videographic EssayTable of ContentsIntroduction, Acknowledgements, and Further ReadingScholarship in Sound & Image: A Pedagogical EssayPedagogical essay authored by Christian Keathley and Jason MittellDissolves of PassionIn Dialogue: Eric Faden and Kevin B. LeeBecoming Videographic Critics: A Roundtable ConversationA conversation among practitioners curated by Jason MittellBut Is Any Of This Legal?Videographic ExercisesGallery of All ExercisesCreditsChristian Keathley0199b522721abf067a743773a226b6064fe22f8cJason Mittell06e96b1b57c0e09d70492af49d984ee2f68945deCatherine Grantc9eab209ad26b2e418453515f6418aa2cbe20309
Success
12016-05-06T18:24:26-07:00Jason Mittell06e96b1b57c0e09d70492af49d984ee2f68945de75431In June 1982, film scholar Richard Dyer published a two-page essay on African-American star Diana Ross in the journal Marxism Today. Part of Dyer’s essay explicitly focuses on the American conception of success and specifically on how Ross is one of the few black artists who has been “allowed” to be such a success. The first half of this audiovisual essay applies Dyer’s text not to the “real” Diana Ross but to the fictional character she portrays in the star vehicle Mahogany (Berry Gordy, 1975), thereby showing how the onscreen performance and the off-screen persona are intertwined. The second half of the audiovisual essay aims to raise the question (rather than providing a definite answer) whether or not, three decades later, Dyer’s text could be applicable to African-American superstar Beyoncé Knowles. Published in [in]Transition: Journal of Videographic Film & Moving Image Studies, 2:4 2016: http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/intransition/2015/12/29/successplain2016-05-06T18:24:26-07:00Jason Mittell06e96b1b57c0e09d70492af49d984ee2f68945de