Dr. Leah Aldridge

Aldridge received her PhD in Cinema & Media Studies from USC School of Cinematic Arts with interests in: Representation, Race, Gender and Genre; Culture Industry, Distribution and Circulation; Diaspora, Globalization and Cultural Exchange; and Documentary, Independent, and Experimental Forms and Circuits. Her main research is in the relationship between international distribution and domestic production of Black film and television and has published on the brands of cinematic Blackness. She received her BA in English from USC and an MFA in screenwriting from the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television.

Scholarly Work and Publications

"Will Smith: A Global Brand of Blackness," in The Myth of Colorblindness: Race and Ethnicity in American Cinema, Turner, Sarah, E., and Nilsen, Sarah, eds., Palgrave Macmillan, Nov. 2019

Book Review: "Double Negative: The Black Image in Popular Culture," by Raquel Gates, Duke University Press, Film Quarterly, Vol.72 No. 4, Summer 2019

"Some Like it Hot: Film Analysis," in Introduction to Film Reader, Casper, Drew, and Edwards, Richard, McGraw Hill Education, 2018

Curator's Note: Cultural Production of Black Panther Behind the Scenes, in media res: a media commons project, [online] 2018

Book Review: "The Writers: A History of American Screenwriters and Their Guild," by Miranda Banks, Rutgers University Press, Film Criticism, Winter 2017

"To Brand and Rebrand: Questioning the Futurity of Tyler Perry," in From Madea to Media Mogul: Theorizing Tyler Perry, Russworm, TreaAndrea, et al, eds., Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2016

"Mythology and Affect: The Brands of Cinematic Blackness of Will Smith and Tyler Perry," Spectator 31:1, University of Southern California, pp 41-47, Spring 2011