Description
Book SynopsisBaltimore seen through the eyes of John Waters, Anne Tyler, Charles S. Dutton, Barry Levinson, David Simonand also ordinary citizens. The city of Baltimore features prominently in an extraordinary number of films, television shows, novels, plays, poems, and songs. Whether it's the small-town eccentricity of Charm City (think duckpin bowling and marble-stooped row houses) or the gang violence of Bodymore, Murdaland, Baltimore has figured prominently in popular culture about cities since the 1950s. In Come and Be Shocked, Mary Rizzo examines the cultural history and racial politics of these contrasting images of the city. From the 1950s, a period of urban crisis and urban renewal, to the early twenty-first century, Rizzo looks at how artists created powerful images of Baltimore. How, Rizzo asks, do the imaginary cities created by artists affect the real cities that we live in? How does public policy (intentionally or not) shape the kinds of cultural representations that artists create?
Trade ReviewIn Mary Rizzo's latest book, she puts Baltimore in context, historically and culturally, through the lens of the arts, from film to literature to music dating back to the 1950s and up to present day. Through her research and synthesis, we learn how the arts shaped Baltimore's identity . . . As Rizzo weaves together narratives of a city long divided by race, she, too, helps to paint a picture of what Baltimore's identity was, what it is, and what it's becoming.
—Lauren LaRocca,
Baltimore MagazineCulture and cultural narratives might not literally pour concrete or stack bricks. But, as Rizzo shows in her cultural history—narratives do matter to the cities we live in.
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Public BooksTable of ContentsList of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction. Cities as Narratives
Part I. Renewal and Resistance
Chapter 1. The City of Anger: Blockbusting and Cultural Representations of White Innocence
Chapter 2. From Blight to Filth: John Waters in the Age of Urban Renewal
Chapter 3. "The Most Authentic Microphone of Black Folks Talking Ever Devised": Chicory and the Poetry of Human Renewal
Chapter 4. Hollywood East: William Donald Schaefer Animates Neoliberal Baltimore
Part II. Good Mo(u)rning, Baltimore
Chapter 5. Accidental Tourists: Alienated Whiteness amid Renaissance
Chapter 6. A People's History of West Baltimore: Roc, The Wire, and Baltimore on TV
Chapter 7. Welcome to Baltimore, Hon!: Race, Gender, and Urban Branding at the End of the Century
Epilogue
Notes
Index
