New Books In Communications

In Stephen Pimpare‘s new book, Ghettos, Tramps, and Welfare Queens: Down and Out on the Silver Screen (Oxford University Press, 2017), the reader is encouraged to think about how we portray poverty and people in poverty in movies. Overall, Pimpare argues that we use the “propertied gaze” (in connection with the sociological concept of the “male gaze”) to view people who are poor or homeless via film. That is, we see them as objects, as sources of redemption, or we do not even see them at all. Pimpare’s analysis is thoughtful and deep, taking the reader through almost 300 films. He ties the portrayals of people in poverty to well-known caricatures, including the welfare queen and the villain social worker, but he also make other connections seen elsewhere in the media, including the connection between poverty and crime, and the social and physical landscape of cities and their ties to poverty. Pimpare also pays special attention to what we do not see portrayed in films, including women and children, deep back