Here's looking at you. » podcast: Recent Episodes
Dr Ellen Wright
Here's looking at You podcast is a series of conversations hosted by Dr Ellen Wright. Conversations around feminism and politics, gender and sexuality - in film, photography and performance - with particular interest in classical Hollywood, pin-up cultures and burlesque.
Dr Wright is the Vice Chancellor’s 2020 Lecturer in Cinema and Television History at DeMontfort University in Leicester. She has taught Film Studies, Media Studies and Photographic Theory.
Her research interrogates the wider notions of gender, sexuality, class, taste, nationality and consumption linked to Classical Hollywood cinema and tends to focus on denigrated forms such as the celebrity group ‘selfie’, pin-up photography, 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.
Her published work so far has examined female star personas 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 American contexts, primarily through the use of extra textual materials.
This website is a hub for her various research projects.
In this podcast Dr Ellen Wright talks with Dr Adrian Smith of the university of Sussex. Adrian is an expert on exploitation cinema. ‘But what is exploitation cinema?’ I hear you ask. Well, as Roche observes, in his article, ‘Exploiting Exploitation Cinema: an Introduction‘ it is not a genre of films but: ‘an industry with a […]
In this podcast Dr Lucy Neville of University of Leicester talks with me about sexual desire and pornography Lucy is a Lecturer in Criminology with an interest in understanding women’s engagement with sex, sex work, and pornography. Her PhD thesis in Forensic Psychology involved investigating violence perpetuated against sex workers by both clients and intimate […]
This podcast is intended to sit alongside the Midlands Four Cities-funded Dialogue Days event I co organised with my De Montfort University colleague, Prof Justin Smith and Prof James Chapman and Dr Claire Jenkins at University of Leicester. The event, ‘Delving into the Archives: A Screen History Workshop,’ took place online, on Tuesday 10th of […]
In this podcast I talk with Dr Claire Jenkins about her work on ‘100 Million Dollar Women’ – the women directors who are currently working and thriving in hollywood. Claire is a lecturer in Film and Television Studies at of University of Leicester and I first came across her brilliant work at the one day […]
In the latest Here’s Looking at You podcast Dr Ellen Wright talks with Jane Giles, programmer between 1988 and 1992 at the former doyenne of British repertory cinemas, The Scala cinema. Located initially on the site of an old concert hall in Tottenham Street, Fitzrovia, it moved later to its legendary second home in the […]
In the latest HLAY podcast Dr Ellen Wright (and her friend Bobbie) talks with triple-threat burlesque powerhouse Cece Sinclair. Cece has been on the British burlesque seen for a few years now and has a reputation for her professionalism, her polished performances and her sheer likeability. They grabbed the chance to chat at this year’s […]
The 16th Here’s Looking At You podcast is a conversation with senior Lecturer in Film Studies at University of Exeter, Dr Lisa Stead. Lisa is currently working on a very exciting AHRC-funded project entitled Reframing Vivien Leigh: Stardom, Archives and Access. This project examines for the first time how the legacies of screen star Vivien […]
The 15th instalment of the Here’s Looking at You podcast is a frank conversation with body-based performance artist, Nick Kilby. Nick’s work examines often very challenging, broader political and philosophical ideas, such as cults, blood sports and toxic masculinity and in particular, during this conversation, we discuss a recent piece of work that I was […]
Yaaas Queen! After a short break Here’s looking at you returns and in this sickening podcast, Dr Ellen Wright has a discussion with thin, white and salty New York comedy queen and Ru Paul’s Drag Race alumni Miz Cracker. Having met on the afternoon of Cracker’s last date on her sell-out UK It’s Time tour, […]
A couple of weeks ago the lovely Jade, who works for the Phoenix cinema in Leicester approached me about recording a ‘Phoenix Talks’ podcast about why the film-going public loves a Christmas film, about nostalgia and what makes for a good Christmas film, and specifically about why the 1946, Frank Capra classic, It’s a Wonderful Life […]
In this podcast Dr Ellen Wright talks with Pawlet Brooks of the social enterprise Serendipity, who facilitate and coordinate Leicester’s annual Black History Month provision. The pair got together in the days immediately prior to the beginning of BHM so the mood was electric. They discuss Pawlet’s role at Serendipity, and the political function and […]
In this podcast, Dr Ellen Wright has a discussion with film programmer at the BFI Southbank, Anna Bogutskaya. The pair discuss the current Joan Crawford retrospective, ‘Fierce: the untameable Joan Crawford’ and associated public talk that Anna programmed. As well as Crawford’s legacy, Ellen also asks Anna, a self-confessed ‘film nerd’, about her […]
As part of the Women in Hollywood symposium I talked with lawyer Jill Greenfield of FieldFisher solicitors, who is currently pursuing the civil case against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein for alleged sexual assaults. In our conversation Jill talks about herself and her motivations for being a lawyer and for taking on the civil case against […]
Inspired by the upcoming Women in Hollywood symposium and by broader current events in the US film industry, in this podcast I talk with American scholar and invited speaker at the symposium, Kerry McElroy. Kerry is an interdisciplinary scholar currently based at Concordia University in Montreal, who researches and writes on women’s exploitation in Hollywood. […]
In this podcast I follow up on my recent blog post You can laugh, you can cry, you can do whatever you like, express yourself, just don’t hurt yourself’: Performance, Pedagogy and The Room by talking with The Room aficionado, audience researcher and Film and Culture lecturer Dr Richard McCulloch about the ‘best worst film […]
In this podcast I talk with PhD candidate Emma Purce about her research into the British seaside freak show in 20th century Britain. Whilst a lot has already been written on the freak show in the 19th century and particularly in America, Emma is really helping to shape our understanding of the 20th century freak […]
In this episode of Here’s Looking at You I chat with burlesque emcee, singer, teacher and former contestant in BBC’s The Voice, Kiki Deville. Kiki is a charismatic and hugely talented performer who is renowned for her big voice, big personality and big boobs and this has led her to be considered an unruly woman. […]
Following its success at the Emmy Awards, where it won best TV drama, best actress and best supporting actress, it is probably time to release my podcast about the TV adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale. In this podcast I talk with poet, teacher, writer, musician and community activist Josie Moon, about the Margaret Atwood source […]
A little later than anticipated, but well worth the wait, here is podcast #5 ‘Why Burlesque Needs Rubyyy Jones.’ In this podcast I chat with the award-winning queerlesque star about how she defines herself, as a performer and persona, where the three yyy’s comes from, her roots and role models, her early performances, how her […]
Welcome to the fourth Here’s Looking at You podcast. In this podcast I talk about Wonder Woman with Dr Rayna Denison, senior lecturer in Film at University of East Anglia and editor of the Eisner award-nominated Super Heroes on World Screens and Melanie Adams, pin-up artist at Madams Pin-Ups and Wonder Woman expert. We discuss Wonder […]