Stephen Pimpare, “Ghettos, Tramps, and Welfare Queens: Down and Out on the Silver Screen” (Oxford UP, 2017)

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast · Sep 25, 2017 · 1h 1m

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…