CALL FOR PAPERS
Money & the Genre Film
An area of multiple panels for the 2013 Film & History Conference on 
Making Movie$: The Figure of Money On and Off the Screen November 20-24, 2013
Madison Concourse Hotel (Madison, WI)
www.filmandhistory.org/The2013FilmHistoryConference.php
DEADLINE for abstracts: July 1, 2013

AREA: Money & the Genre Film

Genre films—romance, comedy, horror, science fiction, melodrama, noir, and others—are categorized by their use of readily identifiable narrative elements. That use, however, evolves over time, reflecting the cultural, economic, and technological evolution of Hollywood as an institution.  What, then, is the impact of money, from budget to box office, on the various forms of genre film? Science fiction – transformed multiple times, since the 1930s, by revolutions in special effects – is the most obvious example. Computer generated imagery allows science-fiction filmmakers to tell stories that would have been impossible in the era of stuntmen dressed in rubber suits and spaceship models hung from fishing line.  But what of genres other than science fiction, and the impact of money on genre outside of special effects?

This area, comprising multiple panels, will examine the diverse ways in which money has shaped, and continues to shape, genre.  It welcomes papers on genres created or transformed by money – or the things money can buy – but also on genres (or sub-genres) that have remained impervious to money’s effects. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

•	Being there: Globe-trotting and location-driven films (To Catch a Thief, Around the World in 80 Days, Topkapi, The Italian Job)
•	The rise and fall of the big-budget musical
•	The star-driven “action film” from Stallone to Schwarzenegger to Statham
•	The short, strange life of the mega-comedy (It’s a Mad, Mad World, The Great Race, 1941, etc.)
•	Don’t show the monster: Low-budget horror from Cat People (1942) to The Blair Witch Project (1999)
•	Using what’s already there: B Movies and the reification of genre tropes
•	The genre that money forgot: domestic melodrama from the “weepies” to the Women’s Entertainment Network
•	Money & the Science Fiction, Western, War Film, or Gangster genres, or any other genre/sub-genre.

Proposals for complete panels (three related presentations) are also welcome, but they must include an abstract and contact information, including an e-mail address, for each presenter. For updates and registration information about the upcoming meeting, see the Film & History website (www.filmandhistory.org).

Please send your 200-word proposal by e-mail to the Area Chair by July 1, 2013:
Andrew Howe
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