Dr Ellen Wright

Job: Senior Lecturer in Cinema and Television History
Deputy Head of Programme for Film Studies
Student Representative Liaison
Third Year Personal Tutor

Faculty: Computing, Engineering and Media

School/department: Leicester Media School

Research group(s): Cinema and Television History Centre (CATH)

Address: 3.06E Clephan Building, De Montfort University, The Gateway, Leicester LE1 9BH, UK

T: +44 (0) 116 257 7984

E: ellen.wright@dmu.ac.uk

W: http://dmu.ac.uk/cathi

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Personal profile

Dr Ellen Wright’s work tends to focus on Hollywood cinema between 1930 and 1960 and examines female star personae and celebrity, film star scandals, gender and performance, costuming, censorship, fandom, youth audiences and moral panics, audience and critical reception and media discourse across British and US contexts, primarily through the use of extra textual materials.

In particular she is drawn to denigrated forms such as the celebrity group ‘selfie’, pin-up photography, trash cinema, slash fiction and pornography as well as press books, promotional materials for films and TV shows, film fan annuals, film and photography magazines/pamphlets, syndicated radio plays, film star fiction, film star/celebrity endorsements and advertising tie-ups.

She examines these resources with a view to interrogating wider notions of gender, sexuality, class, taste, nationality and consumption.

Amongst other things, she has written on the pin-up and Hollywood glamour during WWII, the swimsuit in Hollywood cinema, the marketing of the female detective in post-war film noir and star capital and celebrity group selfies.

She has a podcast and blogs regularly. Both can be found on her website: https://hereslookingatyousite.wordpress.com/

Research group affiliations

The Cinema and Television History (CATH) Research Centre

Publications and outputs

1939: Secrets of Hollywood's Golden Year
dc.title: 1939: Secrets of Hollywood's Golden Year dc.contributor.author: Wright, Ellen dc.description: Talking head in a two part documentary series for the Paramount Plus channel
The Singing Detective: Deanna Durbin in Lady on a Train
dc.title: The Singing Detective: Deanna Durbin in Lady on a Train dc.contributor.author: Wright, Ellen dc.description: Short accompanying essay for the Powerhouse Films box Set 'Universal Noir, Volume 2'
‘The Most Famous Outlaw in the Whole USA’: Parody, Performance and the Nuancing of Jane Russell’s Persona in Her Early Western Promotion
dc.title: ‘The Most Famous Outlaw in the Whole USA’: Parody, Performance and the Nuancing of Jane Russell’s Persona in Her Early Western Promotion dc.contributor.author: Wright, Ellen dc.description.abstract: This paper will examine the star figure, both literally and figuratively, of Jane Russell, a star who first rose to public prominence through a promotional censorship scandal surrounding Howard Hughes’ 1943 Billy the Kid narrative, The Outlaw. Whilst Russell starred in a raft of Hollywood westerns throughout the course of her film career, this paper will examine Russell’s representation, early in her career, in the films and the promotional materials for the 1948 Bob Hope comedy vehicle, The Paleface, it’s 1952 sequel; Son of Paleface, and her cameo appearance that same year, in Road to Bali. This paper will consider the way in which these roles provided ample means for Paramount to exploit Russell’s high profile, scandalous sexpot, pin up persona by deliberately and repeatedly referring back to her infamous film debut for Hughes, but will also consider how in these film’s narratives, her persona actually develops, admittedly starting with, but ultimately progressing beyond, her Outlaw notoriety, towards a more complex depiction of independent, active and assured womanhood.
Context, content and form in 1940s British film star fan club publications.
dc.title: Context, content and form in 1940s British film star fan club publications. dc.contributor.author: Wright, Ellen; Smith, Phyll dc.description.abstract: This paper comes out of ongoing research that considers valuable historic examples of visible and ‘invisible’ star and fan labour, in a socio-industrial context long before social media celebrity culture and the neo-liberal focus upon one’s self-improvement and building yourself as a brand. It will examine the concerted development of a coterie of popular British film stars and their fan club culture during the mid to late 1940s, through studio-sanctioned but fan or star-produced magazines and bulletins for the official fan clubs of British actors and actresses such as Jean Kent, Anne Crawford, and Richard Attenborough. Recently digitised by De Montfort University, these rare, engaging, supremely collectible and yet academically overlooked resources, form a coherent body of fan media ideally suited for the detailed scrutiny of an online conference. These materials raise a number of surprisingly prescient issues around the uncredited but essential star labour that nurtures and maintains a star’s unique brand, offering parasocial precedents and valuable insights into visible and invisible star and fan labour and film fandom more generally. But beyond this they provide fascinating insights into the post war British stars and the star system, and the lives and complex, differentiated culture of British post war film fan consumption, whilst also demonstrating how socio-cultural, industrial and economic factors shape form and convention.
'I Just Like To watch you Guys': How Screenings of The Room Give People Permission to Perform
dc.title: 'I Just Like To watch you Guys': How Screenings of The Room Give People Permission to Perform dc.contributor.author: Wright, Ellen
‘How to Land Jobs in Hollywood’: Popular media, historical knowledge and the casting couch
dc.title: ‘How to Land Jobs in Hollywood’: Popular media, historical knowledge and the casting couch dc.contributor.author: Wright, Ellen; Smith, Phyll dc.description.abstract: This paper contrasts a series of speculative historical claims used in the wake of the #MeToo movement to justify cultures of abuse embedded within the US entertainment industry with historic documents which examine sexual harassment and assault. While most of the contemporary media discussions of the casting couch and abusive behaviours in Hollywood were necessarily euphemistic and vague, due to legal and taste boundaries, this paper contrasts a range of ephemeral, paratextual materials such as contemporaneous, newspaper and film fan magazines articles of the 30-50s, alongside concurrent illegal publications where explicit discussion of sexual matters was made – the more explicit the better. The use of Tijuana Bibles - once hugely popular but now little-discussed, illegal pornographic comic booklets which featured depictions of film stars and speculated the sexual scenarios behind the gossip and euphemism of the legitimate press - will allow us to test the notion that, in the recent past, sexual harassment was culturally acceptable or conversely was an unknown and secret practice. Using approaches to speculative texts drawn from Bourdieu and Relational Frame Theory in the analysis of metaphor and jokes and the understanding of cultural distinctions and references and implicit beliefs of producers and audiences in historic contexts, this work provides a methodology for such historical analysis. The cross examination of available historic audience understandings of and speculations on the casting couch not only provides historical context for a seemingly recent social and industrial issue, it reveals the levels of understanding and acceptance of the American film industry’s systematic use of sexual exploitation and ‘the lie-promise of the casting couch’ during these periods, exposing the fault lines where apparent acceptance and victim blaming in the press represent the limitations of censorship and contemporary mores, rather than popular opinion.
You call this archaeology?: Exploring Film History Through Fandom as Pedagogy
dc.title: You call this archaeology?: Exploring Film History Through Fandom as Pedagogy dc.contributor.author: Wright, Ellen dc.description.abstract: This multidisciplinary paper explores the exciting and potentially perilous terrain of how to engage learners effectively, in this instance, with film history, a topic they can consider ‘not so sexy’. Utilising pedagogical theory around experiential learning (Kolb, 2015) and threshold concepts (Mayer and Land, 2003); work on interpretive archaeology (Shanks and Hodder, 1995), and theories of fan engagement and its pedagogical potential (Larsen and Zubernis (2012) and Howell (2018)), alongside a theory of language, cognition and learning known as Relational Frame Theory, and the author’s experience of designing and delivering a research-focused, undergraduate film history module, this article examines the benefits of exploring history experientially. This article contends that direct, physical engagement with cinema-related, ‘fannish’ physical objects, creating what Gee refers to as an ‘affinity space’, inspires a more invested response from learners to broader related contexts, or, in Cousin’s (2006) terms, they increase the learner’s ‘emotional capital’, maximising the chances of learners engaging coherently and creatively with the principles, theories & methodologies of their chosen discipline. Building on existing work on fan studies pedagogy such as Booth (2018), Wright contends that encouraging learners to self-identify as ‘fans’ shifts the power balance, placing the learner in the position of expert, increasing the chances of learner engagement and academic success and making for a more invested, lively and varied learning and teaching experience. dc.description: The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version
Star Products, Star Capital, Fan Markets: Examining 1940s British Film Stardom Through Fan Club Publications
dc.title: Star Products, Star Capital, Fan Markets: Examining 1940s British Film Stardom Through Fan Club Publications dc.contributor.author: Wright, Ellen; Smith, Phyll dc.description.abstract: This paper is part on an ongoing project that examines the development of British film stars and their fan club culture during the mid to late 1940s, through studio-sanctioned but fan or star-produced magazines for the official fan clubs of British actresses Jean Kent, Anne Crawford, and Pat Roc, and the British fan club for American actress Deanna Durbin. These resources, accessed from the Bill Douglas Archive (Exeter), the Steve Chibnall Collection (De Montfort) and the authors’ own collections, are contextualised with broader contemporaneous articles in newspapers, novels, film magazines and British and US industry publications that discuss the British star system and film star fandom. Combined, these ancillary materials raise prescient issues around the uncredited but essential star labour that nurtures and maintains stars’ unique brands, star capital and fan-following, and around these particular stars as signifiers of Britishness, wealth, status and levity during a period of socio-cultural and industrial upheaval and austerity in Britain and its film industry. By considering the labour and ideologies at the heart of these particular British film star personae and film star fan culture, this paper broadens our understanding of the British film industry and its relationship with Hollywood, and offers valuable insights into star and fan labour and film fandom more generally, revealing a more complex, differentiated culture of British film fan consumption and authority, of British star construction and dissemination, of studio control, reflexivity and of economic function, than has been commonly assumed. dc.description: The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version.
‘A Swirl of Red, White and Blue Flags and Chesty Swimmers with Their Chins Up’: Esther Williams, Americanness, the Aquacade and Sex
dc.title: ‘A Swirl of Red, White and Blue Flags and Chesty Swimmers with Their Chins Up’: Esther Williams, Americanness, the Aquacade and Sex dc.contributor.author: Wright, Ellen dc.description.abstract: Aquacades and swimming spectaculars enjoyed huge popularity and financial success in America during the first half of the twentieth century. They capitalised upon a cultural preoccupation with physical fitness and youthfulness and the increasingly common notion of leisure time, of freedom and abundance, whilst evoking the glamorous, sexualised spectacle of beauty pageants, the chorus line and the showgirl and the then prevalent iconography of mechanisation and modernity. It is perhaps not surprising then that Hollywood, with its hunger for the modern, impressive and the titillating, its need to maintain its appeal with young audiences with leisure time and disposable income, and its subsequent need to present its stars as desirable yet respectable enough to placate censors and more conservative audiences, took this form and stars to its bosom, creating its own kaleidoscopic Berkeley-esque spectacles and swimming adventures starring pin-up and beefcake Olympian swimmers such as Esther Williams and Johnny Weissmuller. This chapter will focus upon all-American Williams, exploring discourse around MGM’s ‘Million Dollar Mermaid,’ and the promotional materials (posters, marquee displays, photographic pin-ups etc) for her and her films. This will be supplemented with a range of other contemporaneous materials that engaged with the American cultural phenomenon of the aquacade, such as pornographic comics, known as Tijuana bibles, satirical cartoons and promotional materials upon as well as archive footage of one of the most famous aquacades; Billy Rose’s Aquacade at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. The chapter will examine William’s star persona and its intrinsic ‘Americanness’ and explore common American understandings of the aquacade as a liminal space, and the swimmer as a desirable but ultimately disruptive figure. It will demonstrate how the iconography of the aquacade and the spectacular body of the swimmer were appropriated by the American film industry to evoke the aquacades’ sexualised connotations whilst ostensibly appearing to cinema censors and more conservative audiences, to be good clean fun.
Coming Attractions: Tijuana bibles and the pornographic re-imagining of Hollywood
dc.title: Coming Attractions: Tijuana bibles and the pornographic re-imagining of Hollywood dc.contributor.author: Wright, Ellen; Smith, Phyll dc.description.abstract: ‘Coming Attractions’: Tijuana Bibles and the Pornographic Re-imagining of Hollywood Historical understanding of early Hollywood stars by their audiences are rarely informed by the sorts of unofficial and uninhibited discourse that fan writing and slash fictions allow scholars of modern celebrity. ‘Tijuana bibles’–illegal, pocket-sized, pornographic comics of the 1920s-1940s–presented erotic narratives featuring recognisable film stars of that era and make historical (re)examinations of audience understandings of the gossip and scandals of Hollywood trade and fan press possible. Film fan magazines were key to the industry dissemination of carefully constructed star personae, mediating how little or much fans actually knew about their favourite stars, who were portrayed at turns as wholesome, virtuous, admirable and alluring, daring, exciting and glamorous. As stars were sex symbols, their fans craved further insights into, and confirmation of, star’s private lives and personas, beyond the studios’ official ‘line’. A semi-official gossip media of scandal and rumour emerged, with a culture of innuendo, veiled accusation and coded revelation. Tijuana bibles’ graphic sexual depictions work in symbiosis with the controlled revelations of these fan magazines and the uncontrolled enthusiasm of the fans. Highly illegal, little public record of these pornographic publications exist – the age, authors, and distributors remain essentially unknown – while their underground nature and the ageless value of pornographic imagery means these publications have been constantly reproduced, leaving an uncatalogued and uneven record of reprinted booklets, semi-legitimate books and incomplete collections and inevitable internet exploitation and interest – which both assist and confound the archivist and historian. This chapter examines how Tijuana bibles celebrate, denigrate and satirise their star subjects and their supposed/imagined peccadilloes; unhampered by the official studio ‘line’ or the threat of litigation or censorship, reflecting an unofficial discourse which could not have found its way into print or official record. It demonstrates a public understanding, outside of the coded rumours of fan magazines, which both subverted and recognised star-persona and industry-sanctioned gossip, illustrating the speculation of audiences beyond the boundaries of the Hay’s Office, decency or legality.

To see a full list of Ellen Wright's publications and outputs click here.

Research interests/expertise

Hollywood cinema of the classical era

Representation

Gender and sexuality

Star studies

Photography and Hollywood

Discourse analysis

Erotica

Areas of teaching

gender and sexuality, taste, material cultures, film history.

Qualifications

BA (Hons) Film Studies

MA Film Studies

PhD

PGCert HE

Courses taught

Cult Film

Film and Material Cultures

Dissertation

Membership of professional associations and societies

Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (AFHEA)

Projects

#DMUEngage project #TheyNeverClothed

Conference attendance

"A Glimpse behind the Screen: Tijuana Bibles and the Pornographic Reimagining of Female Film Stars." May 2016 Doing Women's Film and Television History Structures of Feeling Conference

”Every woman Should Glamour for Attention”: Hollywood Stars, Fan Annuals, Consumption and the Negotiation of Feminine Desirability in Austerity Britain.’ Nov 2015, Turning the Page conference, Ghent.

”Every Woman Should Glamour for Attention”: Rita Hayworth and Consumption in Austerity Britain.’ Sept 2015, The Look of Austerity conference, Museum of London.

‘Hollywood Confidential: Tijuana Bibles, Audiences and Film Stars in Classical Era Hollywood.’ June2015, HoMER Network ‘What is Cinema History?’ conference, Glasgow.

“Air Raid Warden to Glamour Girl”: The Windmill Girl and the Wartime Negotiation of Female Sexuality in Picture Post’. June 2015, Women and Girls in Print and Pixels conference, Oxford Brookes University.

‘Good Entertainment for a Certain Type of Film Goer: Cultural Distinction, National Identity and Betty Grable Fandom in WWII Britain’, Sept 2014, Fan Studies Network conference, Regents University, London.

‘Pool of Desire: The Aquacade, Hollywood and Swimming as Sexual Spectacle.’, Sept 2014, Sporting Females: Past, Present and Future conference, Leeds Metropolitan University.

‘Watch the Birdie: The Cultural Politics of Twitter and the Celebrity Group Selfie.’ June 2014, Celebrity Studies conference, Royal Holloway, University of London.

‘A Glimpse Behind the Screen: Tijuana Bibles and the Pornographic Reimagining of Hollywood.’ Nov 2011, Scandal in Culture: Taboo – Trend – Transgression conference, University of Wroclaw.

‘A Yank at the ABC: Betty Grable, Hollywood and ‘American-ness’ in Wartime Britain.’ July 2011 Second World War: Popular Culture and Cultural Memory conference, University of Brighton.