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Mis/takes

Archetype, Myth and Identity in Screen Fiction

  • Price: $37.50 $33.75
  • Paperback: 248 pages
  • Also available in Hardback and e-Book
  • Published: June 2006
  • ISBN: 978-1-58391-721-3
  • Publisher: Routledge

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Mis/takes departs from the bulk of screen discourse by applying Jungian and Post-Jungian ideas on unconscious processes to popular film and television. This perspective offers a rich insight into the way that various myths infiltrate popular culture.

By examining the function of psychological motifs and symbols in cinema and television, Terrie Waddell opens up another way of thinking about how identity can be constructed and disrupted. Mulholland Drive, Memento, The Others, The X-Files, Twin Peaks, The Sopranos, Spider, Intimacy and Absolutely Fabulous all lend themselves to this approach.

The close analysis of these films/programs are guided by a number of core archetypes from trickster and Self to incest and the grotesque. The book’s four parts reflect these dominant patterns:

  • Jung, trickster and the screen

  • Mistaken identities, self-deception and the undead

  • Redeemers, bad dads and matricide

  • Excesses of the sad and the sassy

Mis/takes gives readers a chance to engage with screen material in an original and subversive way. This study will be of great interest to Jungian analysts and students of film, cultural studies, media, gender studies and analytical psychology.

Table of Contents

Introduction. Part I: Jung, Trickster and the Screen. Analytical Psychology and Myth: The Bigger Picture. Mutability, Identity and the Farce if Fixity: Trickster. Part II: Mistaken Identities, Self-deception and the Undead. The Obscure by the More Obscure: Mulholland Drive. Setting the Conditions for Forgetting: Memento. The Undead, Psychopomps and Filicide: The Others. Part III: Redeemers, Bad Dads and Matricide. Dana Immaculate and Divine Children: The X-Files. Libidinal Frenzy: Twin Peaks. Incest by Goomah/Daughter Proxy: The Sopranos. Motherly and Slatternly Creatures: Spider. Part IV: Excesses of the Sad and the Sassy. The Fear of Exposure and Connection: Intimacy. Grotesques, Bakhtin and Rupture: Absolutely Fabulous. Conclusion.

Author Biography

Terrie Waddell is a Lecturer in Media Studies and Convenor of Gender, Sexuality and Diversity Studies at La Trobe University, Australia