Overview
The history of the 'video nasties' has been recounted many times and the films that caused so much offence have themselves been endlessly examined. However, the industry that gave rise to the category has received scant little attention. Earlier histories have tended to foreground issues of censorship, and as such, offer only glimpses of an under explored industrial history of British video. This book focuses explicitly on an industry that is still portrayed in heavily caricatured terms, that is frequently presented as immoral or corrupt, and that continues to be understood through the rhetoric of the tabloid press, as 'merchants of menace'.
Full Product Details
Author: Mark McKenna (Associate professor, Staffordshire University)
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Imprint: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 9781474451093
ISBN 10: 1474451098
Pages: 216
Publication Date: 30 May 2022
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Manufactured on demand
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.
Reviews
Through the employment of a range of new perspectives, Nasty Business makes a major contribution to scholarship on the video nasties and the Video Recordings Act, as well as to industrial studies of the (British and global) video industry and its history.--Kate Egan, Senior Lecturer in Film and Media at Northumbria University, and author of 'Trash or Treasure? Censorship and the Changing Meanings of the Video Nasties.'
Through the employment of a range of new perspectives, Nasty Business makes a major contribution to scholarship on the video nasties and the Video Recordings Act, as well as to industrial studies of the (British and global) video industry and its history. -- Kate Egan, Senior Lecturer in Film and Media at Northumbria University, and author of 'Trash or Treasure? Censorship and the Changing Meanings of the Video Nasties.'
Author Information
Dr Mark McKenna is an Associate Professor in Film and Media Industries at Staffordshire University. He is the author of Nasty Business: The Marketing and Distribution of the Video Nasties (EUP, 2020), Snuff (LUP, 2023), Big Wednesday: Lamenting Lost Youth in the New Hollywood (Routledge, 2024) and Levelling Up the Screen Industries: Film & Television Production as Regenerative Strategy in Places Left Behind (forthcoming, Routledge, 2025). He is the co-editor of Horror Franchise Cinema (Routledge, 2021), Stars and Franchises: Identity, Image and Intellectual Property (forthcoming, EUP, 2025), and the author of the report Silicon Stoke - Developing Film TV and Other Content Production in North Staffordshire, which explored the opportunities for stimulating the growth of the screen industries set against the backdrop of the UK government’s levelling-up agenda.
