John Mercer

Sexualised Masculinity: Men’s Bodies in 21st Century Media Culture explores evolving portrayals of masculinity in contemporary media, focusing on the increasing eroticisation of the male body.This book examines how traditional and digital media – from films and television to social media platforms and fashion – have transformed the ways masculinity is represented and perceived. Through a wide array of case studies, it highlights how male bodies are now sites of erotic value, challenging long-standing norms and expectations. By exploring both global and local media, John Mercer and Clarissa Smith provide insights into the shifting landscape of gender and sexuality, offering a critical perspective on how masculinity is consumed, performed, and commodified in today’s world.This book is essential for students and scholars in fields such as gender studies, media studies, cultural studies and social history, and is particularly relevant for those interested in understanding the intersections of masculinity, media and sexuality in the 21st century.The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Sexualised Masculinity: Men’s Bodies in 21st Century Media Culture explores evolving portrayals of masculinity in contemporary media, focusing on the increasing eroticisation of the male body.This book examines how traditional and digital media – from films and television to social media platforms and fashion – have transformed the ways masculinity is represented and perceived. Through a wide array of case studies, it highlights how male bodies are now sites of erotic value, challenging long-standing norms and expectations. By exploring both global and local media, John Mercer and Clarissa Smith provide insights into the shifting landscape of gender and sexuality, offering a critical perspective on how masculinity is consumed, performed, and commodified in today’s world.This book is essential for students and scholars in fields such as gender studies, media studies, cultural studies and social history, and is particularly relevant for those interested in understanding the intersections of masculinity, media and sexuality in the 21st century.The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Gay pornography, online and onscreen, is a controversial and significantly under-researched area of cultural production. In the first book of its kind, Gay Pornography: Representations of Sexuality and Masculinity explores the iconography, themes and ideals that the genre presents. Indeed, John Mercer argues that gay pornography cannot be regarded as one-dimensional, but that it offers its audience a vision of plural masculinities that are more nuanced and ambiguous than they might seem. Mercer examines how the internet has generated an exponential growth in the sheer volume and variety of this material, and facilitated far greater access to it. He uses both professional and amateur examples to explore how gay pornography has become part of a wider cultural context in which modern masculinities have become 'saturated' by their constantly evolving status and function in popular culture.

This is a concise and accessible introduction into the concept of objectification, one of the most frequently recurring terms in both academic and media debates on the gendered politics of contemporary culture, and core to critiquing the social positions of sex and sexism.Objectification is an issue of media representation and everyday experiences alike. Central to theories of film spectatorship, beauty fashion and sex, objectification is connected to the harassment and discrimination of women, to the sexualization of culture and the pressing presence of body norms within media. This concise guidebook traces the history of the term’s emergence and its use in a variety of contexts such as debates about sexualization and the male gaze, and its mobilization in connection with the body, selfies and pornography, as well as in feminist activism.It will be an essential introduction for undergraduate and postgraduate students in Gender Studies, Media Studies, Sociology, Cultural Studies or Visual Arts.

This is a concise and accessible introduction into the concept of objectification, one of the most frequently recurring terms in both academic and media debates on the gendered politics of contemporary culture, and core to critiquing the social positions of sex and sexism.Objectification is an issue of media representation and everyday experiences alike. Central to theories of film spectatorship, beauty fashion and sex, objectification is connected to the harassment and discrimination of women, to the sexualization of culture and the pressing presence of body norms within media. This concise guidebook traces the history of the term’s emergence and its use in a variety of contexts such as debates about sexualization and the male gaze, and its mobilization in connection with the body, selfies and pornography, as well as in feminist activism.It will be an essential introduction for undergraduate and postgraduate students in Gender Studies, Media Studies, Sociology, Cultural Studies or Visual Arts.

Gay pornography, online and onscreen, is a controversial and significantly under-researched area of cultural production. In the first book of its kind, Gay Pornography: Representations of Sexuality and Masculinity explores the iconography, themes and ideals that the genre presents. Indeed, John Mercer argues that gay pornography cannot be regarded as one-dimensional, but that it offers its audience a vision of plural masculinities that are more nuanced and ambiguous than they might seem. Mercer examines how the internet has generated an exponential growth in the sheer volume and variety of this material, and facilitated far greater access to it. He uses both professional and amateur examples to explore how gay pornography has become part of a wider cultural context in which modern masculinities have become 'saturated' by their constantly evolving status and function in popular culture.

Zombie... That's what every kid in school calls Mikey since he died. But his problems are much worse than that. After he helped the ghost of Travis Cleveland Riley, an angry spirit who followed him back from the dead, Mikey thought he was all done with being haunted. He was wrong. A new and more terrifying presence has arrived. Now, with the help of his friends and Mrs. Grey, Mikey must figure out how to survive once again. As if that weren't bad enough, he also has to navigate his way through the baffling world of Jr. High. A bully who wants to beat him like a pi ata, two girls who are vying for his attention and a mom who embarrasses him every chance she gets. Life shouldn't be that hard when you're back from the dead

Tall, dark and handsome, with a manufactured name and a scrupulously designed professional image, Rock Hudson represented the Hollywood ideal of American masculinity during the 1950s and 60s; an ideal that was to be questioned and ultimately undermined during the years to follow by lurid accounts of his private life and his death from AIDS related illness.This illuminating analysis of Hudson's career reassesses the perceived disparity between his public persona and his 'true' nature. Exploring his unique qualities as a performer and exposing the role of his agent, producers and directors in the construction of his image, John Mercer unpicks Hudson's stardom to reveal a more complex star identity than has hitherto been understood. Foregrounding the ways in which Hudson's career provides insights into the nature of American popular culture and attitudes towards gender and sexuality, Mercer ultimately depicts Hudson as a star who embodied a period of transition between the old Hollywood and the new.

The full-colour illustrated history of this south-east London suburb. The history of this Greater London area from a well-respected local author. Illustrated in full colour with over fifty images and maps.

Long before they were written down, these stories were told and retold many times: to family, friends, strangers, anyone who would listen with an ear for a story. They share one thing in common - they are all true. Events, people, actions taken, words spoken, have been faithfully reproduced no matter how "tall" the tale. They follow the dictum that truth is stranger than fiction; passionate, ridiculous, rich in meaning. JOHN MERCER was born and grew up in the northern English city of Leeds in Yorkshire. In his twenties he spent several years living and working in Scotland, first on a west coast estate as a sheep farmer. He returned to work on a boat as a herring fisherman to pay his fees at a school of spiritual education in the Scottish Borders. He came to San Francisco in 1979 to help open an antique shop doomed to fail, fell in love and stayed, starting his own business as a cabinetmaker instead. He has been acting in the Bay Area since 2000.

Until Bexleyheath was enclosed in the nineteenth century, it was a wild area,the haunt of footpads and highwaymen. The development of textile printing by Charles Swaisland in Crayford drew workers to the area. Enclosure brought permanent homes, and more prosperous residents moved in, some creating landmarks like Red House, home to artist William Morris. The inexorable growth of London made Bexleyheath a desirable place for commuters to live, and eventually London swamped the district entirely and Bexley became a London Borough. John Mercer traces the rags-to-riches story of Bexleyheath from its emergence in the early nineteenth century to the present day. Through a focus on the specific events, locations and inhabitants that have been integral to the town's development, he creates a detailed picture of the growth of the area and its rise to municipal importance as one of thirty-five major centres in Greater London.

'We recognised the place from the newsreels. There was a large desk covered with dust. An ornamental chandelier hung low from the ceiling. From here Hitler had plotted. Here had been Goering, Himmler, Hess, Goebbels, Ribbentrop - Outside were the remains of a bonfire. The wall was smoke-blackened by the burning. We had reached the heart of Hitler's Germany.' John Mercer was called up in June 1944, and after nine months of square-bashing, vehicle training, Morse code and line laying, he became a gunner. He landed in Normandy on 13 June. The next year saw Mercer skirmishing in Belgium and suffering in waterlogged Holland. He would spend hundreds of hours glued to the radio, waiting for a signal to fire. During the assault on Le Havre, he was taken prisoner by Germans. After transferring to the 7th Division, he was one of the first British troops to enter Berlin, and the Reich Chancellery. Mercer's letters to his widowed mother, together with extracts from the official War Diaries, tell his gripping story. Letters from Normandy is about life in wartime: the trauma, the uncertainty, and perhaps above all, the will to return home.

This addition to the "Britain in Old Photographs" series brings together a collection of black-and-white pictures spanning the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Drawn from family albums, local collections and professional photographers, they show the way things were and how they have changed. Every photograph is captioned, providing names and dates where possible, revealing historical and anecdotal detail and giving life to the scenes and personalities captured through the camera lens. Bringing together all aspects of daily life - celebrations and disasters, work and leisure, people and buildings - the collection should inspire memories, as well as serve as an introduction to visitors.

Melodrama: Genre, Style and Sensibility is designed as an accessible overview of one of the most popular genres at undergraduate Film Studies. The book identifies three distinct but connected concepts through which it is possible to make sense of melodrama; either as a genre, originating in European theatre of the 18th and 19th century, as a specific cinematic style, epitomised by the work of Douglas Sirk or as a sensibility that emerges in the context of specific texts, speaking to and reflecting the desires, concerns and anxieties of audiences. Films discussed include All That Heaven Allows, Safe, Fear Eats the Soul, Black Narcissus, Suddenly Last Summer and Rebel Without a Cause. Each chapter includes overviews of key essays, analyses of significant and widely studied films and includes an annotated reading list.

Sidcup is a pleasant place to live. It is full of trees and there are parks and open spaces. Beneath the spread of modern housing lie four ancient settlements and four great estates, whose outlines still affect the topography of Sidcup. The villages of North Cray and Foots Cray were there before the Norman Conquest, while Halfway Street was a village in the Middle Ages. Sidcup itself was a mere hamlet where an inn and a smithy were established. The estates of Frognal, Foots Cray Place, Lamorbey and the Hollies all gave employment.