In Search of Authenticity: the ‘Global Popular’ and ‘Quality’ Culture—the Case of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and Pavement

Main Article Content

Hilary Radner

Abstract

Through an examination of three special issues devoted to The Lord of the Rings trilogy in Pavement, a New Zealand magazine, I propose to discuss the way in which the representation of these films suggests the complexities of the intersection between the global and the local within New Zealand culture and its consequences in particular in terms of the marginalisation of an indigenous discourse. I draw upon the work of scholars such as T. Bennett and J. Woolacott to define and examine the “reading formations” mobilized by the LOTR phenomenon within such publications as Pavement, directed towards a local NZ ‘hip’ readership.

Article Details

Section
Special Issue Articles (Peer Reviewed)
Author Biography

Hilary Radner, University of Otago

Hilary Radner is Professor of Film and Media Studies at the University of Otago. She is the author of Shopping Around: Feminine Culture and the Pursuit of Pleasure (Routledge Press, 1995), and the co-editor of Film Theory Goes to the Movies (Routledge Press, 1993), Constructing the New Consumer Society (St Martin's Press, 1997), and Swinging Single: Representing Sexuality in the 1960s(University of Minnesota Press, 1999).