Popular Culture Review Vol. 14, No. 2, Summer 2003 | Page 7

Introduction Vampires, and Wrestlers, and Wizards...oh my! Detectives, Designers, and Dashiell...oh my! What a great range of topics and tastes we bring you in this final issue of 2003. Our opening article discusses the “carnival” aspects of both professional wrestling and the Las Vegas entertainment world. David Schwartz, UNLV’s very own coordinator of the Gaming Studies Research Center, provides amusing assur ances that the carnival is alive and well here in the new millennium. Next, Dennis Russell and Richard Lentz outline “Project Kingfish” the United States Informa tion Agency’s strategy for introducing propaganda into the motion picture busi ness. For the period from 1951 to 1967 the USIA inserted ten minute newsreels into public movie showings throughout the world with the intent of directing U.S. foreign policy. Russell and Lentz concisely list the themes promoted by Project Kingfish as well as the various filmic techniques the USIA adopted depending upon the geographic area being targeted. While we have heard plenty about those “hard-boiled” male detectives - in both film and fiction - over the past few issues, Katja Hawlitschka brings us an enligh tening and important article on another type of detective fiction in “Female Academic Detectives: Bridging the Border Between Individualism and Commu nity.” Her character analyses of these sharp-witted, funny, unique detectives in spire readers to take on her Works Cited author by author, novel by novel. Ron Briley’s article on John le Carre and Philip Dubuisson Castille’s on Dashiell Hammett round out our suspense fiction category. Both articles are astute com mentaries on the roles that these two important authors have played in U.S. social and political history. On lighter notes, Kathryn E. Kuhn and Scott R. Harris bring us “ ‘It Had to Be You:’ Narrative Themes in A Wedding Story” which addresses one of the fastest growing popular culture arenas - the “reality” show. A Wedding Story pursues real life brides and grooms to the altar while Kuhn and Harris follow close behind (and before) them to deconstruct the show’s insistence on cliche themes such as love at first sight, love as “destiny”, and love conquers all. Mark Moss traces the connec tions between old world ambiance (i.e., class, refined culture, leisure - money!) and the marketing strategies of Ralph Lauren in “Dressing History: Nostalgia and Class in the Worlds of Ralph Lauren.” I don’t think I’ll ever look at those little horses on polo shirts in quite the same way. From the big screen medium (but with roots in the fictional worlds of Stoker,