What is it about?
This article considers the urban landscape of New York City’s theatre district in the 1970s and how its identity as a contested space provides insight into key cultural shifts, including changes to the regulation of media, variance and convergence between industrial practices in the film industry, and discursive struggles between culture and capital.
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Why is it important?
Whereas histories of New York City's theatre district and its identity as a contested space in New York City during the 1960s and 1970s have, to date, been chiefly concerned with 42nd Street, this article seeks to highlight the value of alternate cinema histories within the wider disciplines of media and cultural studies when critiquing widely accepted versions of the past. Crucially, the case study of Snuff at the National Theatre on 44th Street and Broadway raises multiple questions regarding how Times Square during this period has been remembered, such as the cinemagoing landscape of New York, the timeline of gentrification in Midtown, and the ways in which critics aimed to contain 'low' media such as horror and pornography to prevent their spread from grind houses to prestigious milieus.
Perspectives
This article was influenced by my Masters dissertation research, conducted under the supervision of Professor Mark Jancovich at the University of East Anglia, for which I had considered the case study film of Snuff through the stages of production, distribution and exhibition. The latter chapter of my dissertation raised key issues in relation to the history of the National Theatre and its relevance to changes taking place in New York City's theatre district during the 1970s. With the support of my supervisor, I was assisted in developing my research further to write this journal article and share my findings.
Adam Herron
Northumbria University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: ‘A contemptible movie now showing in Times Square’: Cultural distinctions, space and taste in the exhibition of Snuff at the National Theatre, Horror Studies, October 2020, Intellect,
DOI: 10.1386/host_00017_1.
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