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Dr Ellen Wright

Job: Senior Lecturer in Cinema and Television History
Deputy Head of Programme for Film Studies
Student Representative Liaison
Third Year Personal Tutor

Faculty: Computing, Engineering and Media

School/department: Leicester Media School

Research group(s): Cinema and Television History Centre (CATH)

Address: 3.06E Clephan Building, ºÚÁÏÍø, The Gateway, Leicester LE1 9BH, UK

T: +44 (0) 116 257 7984

E: ellen.wright@dmu.ac.uk

W:

 

Personal profile

Dr Ellen Wright’s work tends to focus on Hollywood cinema between 1930 and 1960 and examines female star personae and celebrity, film star scandals, gender and performance, costuming, censorship, fandom, youth audiences and moral panics, audience and critical reception and media discourse across British and US contexts, primarily through the use of extra textual materials. 

In particular she is drawn to denigrated forms such as the celebrity group ‘selfie’, pin-up photography, trash cinema, slash fiction and pornography as well as press books, promotional materials for films and TV shows, film fan annuals, film and photography magazines/pamphlets, syndicated radio plays, film star fiction, film star/celebrity endorsements and advertising tie-ups. 

She examines these resources with a view to interrogating wider notions of gender, sexuality, class, taste, nationality and consumption.

Amongst other things, she has written on the pin-up and Hollywood glamour during WWII, the swimsuit in Hollywood cinema, the marketing of the female detective in post-war film noir and star capital and celebrity group selfies.

She has a podcast and blogs regularly. Both can be found on her website:

Research group affiliations

The Cinema and Television History (CATH) Research Centre

Publications and outputs


  • dc.title: Marilyn Monroeâ„¢: Authorisation and the problematic politics of star narratives, sex aids, biopics and borrowed dresses. dc.contributor.author: Wright, Ellen dc.description.abstract: This paper considers the ethical politics of star product endorsement, using the somewhat unique and potentially troublesome example of the product marketing for the Womanizer Marilyn Monroeâ„¢ clitoral stimulator. Monroe’s persona, with its explicit focus on feminine performativity, is a multifaceted one. Simultaneously discussed as an affecting figure of female empowerment, but of immense vulnerability, recent reappraisals frequently position her as victim of sexual as well as symbolic violence, within a harmful and exploitative patriarchal industry and larger cultural context. The complexities of the star’s charismatic appeal are further highlighted by the fact that this year is the 60th anniversary of her tragic death, and aside from this, Monroe’s image has twice re-entered the public sphere and prompted considerable controversy. Firstly, with the loan of (and alleged damage to) the gown that she famously wore to sing happy birthday to President Kennedy, to the celebrity socialite Kim Kardashian, and secondly, with the release of speculative Netflix quasi-biopic Blonde (2022) In the case of Monroe’s gown, its phenomenal value did not preclude it from alledged mistreatment and subsequent damage, whilst in the case of the latter, accusations of sexism, cruelty and abuse have a number of critics have referred to Blonde as ‘sexist,’ ‘cruel’ and ‘abuses and exploits Marilyn Monroe all over again.’

  • dc.title: The Ghostly Spectre of Race in Black Moon (1934) dc.contributor.author: Wright, Ellen dc.description: Accompanying essay for Black Moon (1934) in Powerhouse Film’s Indicator DVD/Bu-ray box set Columbia Horror (2024)

  • dc.title: 1939: Secrets of Hollywood's Golden Year dc.contributor.author: Wright, Ellen dc.description: Talking head in a two part documentary series for the Paramount Plus channel

  • dc.title: The Singing Detective: Deanna Durbin in Lady on a Train dc.contributor.author: Wright, Ellen dc.description: Short accompanying essay for the Powerhouse Films box Set 'Universal Noir, Volume 2'

  • dc.title: ‘The Most Famous Outlaw in the Whole USA’: Parody, Performance and the Nuancing of Jane Russell’s Persona in Her Early Western Promotion dc.contributor.author: Wright, Ellen dc.description.abstract: This paper will examine the star figure, both literally and figuratively, of Jane Russell, a star who first rose to public prominence through a promotional censorship scandal surrounding Howard Hughes’ 1943 Billy the Kid narrative, The Outlaw. Whilst Russell starred in a raft of Hollywood westerns throughout the course of her film career, this paper will examine Russell’s representation, early in her career, in the films and the promotional materials for the 1948 Bob Hope comedy vehicle, The Paleface, it’s 1952 sequel; Son of Paleface, and her cameo appearance that same year, in Road to Bali. This paper will consider the way in which these roles provided ample means for Paramount to exploit Russell’s high profile, scandalous sexpot, pin up persona by deliberately and repeatedly referring back to her infamous film debut for Hughes, but will also consider how in these film’s narratives, her persona actually develops, admittedly starting with, but ultimately progressing beyond, her Outlaw notoriety, towards a more complex depiction of independent, active and assured womanhood.

  • dc.title: Context, content and form in 1940s British film star fan club publications. dc.contributor.author: Wright, Ellen; Smith, Phyll dc.description.abstract: This paper comes out of ongoing research that considers valuable historic examples of visible and ‘invisible’ star and fan labour, in a socio-industrial context long before social media celebrity culture and the neo-liberal focus upon one’s self-improvement and building yourself as a brand. It will examine the concerted development of a coterie of popular British film stars and their fan club culture during the mid to late 1940s, through studio-sanctioned but fan or star-produced magazines and bulletins for the official fan clubs of British actors and actresses such as Jean Kent, Anne Crawford, and Richard Attenborough. Recently digitised by ºÚÁÏÍø, these rare, engaging, supremely collectible and yet academically overlooked resources, form a coherent body of fan media ideally suited for the detailed scrutiny of an online conference. These materials raise a number of surprisingly prescient issues around the uncredited but essential star labour that nurtures and maintains a star’s unique brand, offering parasocial precedents and valuable insights into visible and invisible star and fan labour and film fandom more generally. But beyond this they provide fascinating insights into the post war British stars and the star system, and the lives and complex, differentiated culture of British post war film fan consumption, whilst also demonstrating how socio-cultural, industrial and economic factors shape form and convention.

  • dc.title: 'I Just Like To watch you Guys': How Screenings of The Room Give People Permission to Perform dc.contributor.author: Wright, Ellen

  • dc.title: ‘How to Land Jobs in Hollywood’: Popular media, historical knowledge and the casting couch dc.contributor.author: Wright, Ellen; Smith, Phyll dc.description.abstract: This paper contrasts a series of speculative historical claims used in the wake of the #MeToo movement to