Medicine's Moving Pictures
Subtitle: Medicine, Health, and Bodies in American Film and Television (Rochester Studies in Medical History)
Contributors: Leslie J. Reagan (Editor); Nancy Tomes (Editor); Paula A. Treichler (Editor)
Edition: 1 edition
Publisher: University of Rochester Press
Published: November 1, 2007
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 343
ISBN-13: 9781580462341
Subjects: Film theory & criticism; Medicine; Television; Performing Arts; Pop Arts / Pop Culture; Cinema/Film: Book; Film & Video - General; Performing Arts / Film / General; Medical personnel in motion pictures; Medical personnel on television; Medicine in motion pictures
Description: This book argues that health and medical media, with their unique goals and production values, constitute a rich cultural and historical archive and deserve greater scholarly attention. Original essays by leading media scholars and historians of medicine demonstrate that Americans throughout the twentieth century have learned about health, disease, medicine, and the human body from movies. Heroic doctors and patients fighting dread diseases have thrilled and moved audiences everywhere; amid changing media formats, medicine's moving pictures continue to educate, entertain, and help us understand the body's journey through life. Perennially popular, health and medical media are also complex texts reflecting many interests and constituencies including, notably, the U.S. medical profession, which has often sought, if not always successfully, to influence content, circulation, and meaning. Medicine's Moving Pictures makes clear that health and medical media representations are "more than illustrations," shows their power to shape health perceptions, practices, and policies, and identifies their social, cultural, and historical contexts.