Funny peculiar: Lucille Ball and the vaudeville heritage of early American television comedy

ABSTRACT

In this essay I examine the traces of vaudeville performance in the first season of the early American television comedy series I Love Lucy (CBS, 1951–1957), proposing that while sitcom may be regarded as a narratively conservative format, it may also harbour eccentric figures; the funny peculiar. American vaudeville offered a space in which normative heterofemininity was both upheld and subverted. As one of the direct inheritors of that theatrical tradition, early sitcom could embody complex negotiations of gender and identity. The first season of I Love Lucy is inflected by the performance traditions of American vaudeville, while its development was enabled by a theatrical tour to promote and establish the show. Funding for the pilot came from a vaudeville agency and key actors, producers and writers for the series had a background in this comedic tradition. Vaudeville comedy allowed some female performers licence to explore and explode the feminine ideal and early television comedy offered a similar potential. Lucille Ball's performance as Lucy Ricardo is exemplary in this regard.     

The distribution of police use of force across patrol and specialty units: a case study in BWC impact

Journal of Experimental Criminology - To examine differences in use of force by police patrol and specialized units, and the impact of body-worn cameras (BWCs) on use of force in these groups. We...     

Belarusians between East and West

Belarus has a divided identity that reflects its complex history and culture. A mixed-methods investigation incorporating focus groups and national representative surveys conducted over a decade or more suggests that Belarusians themselves are more likely to regard themselves as “European” than their counterparts in Ukraine and Russia, but less likely to do so than in other European countries. There is substantial support for a hypothetical European Union membership, particularly among younger respondents, but there is also strong and widely distributed support for a closer association with the other members of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Consistently, it is the “multidirectional” foreign policy promoted by the current leadership, which seeks closer relations with East and West at the same time, that finds the greatest support. But a “Slavic choice” is also popular, and much more so than a “Western choice” or isolationism.     

Beyond the census. Reconstructing Dutch women's labour market participation in agriculture in the Netherlands,ca. 1830–1910

Many historians have pointed out for various countries that nineteenth-century national censuses do not accurately reflect women's economic activity. This was no different for the Dutch national censuses. In this article, we argue that under-recording was especially severe in agriculture, and that this problem increased towards the end of the century. The rise in under-recording was partly due to an increased irregularity of women's work on farms, but it also reflected changing living standards and ideologies, in which work was increasingly defined as undesirable for women. In relative terms, agriculture did become less important to men and women alike because of mechanization and industrialization. Nevertheless, agriculture continued to employ many women, especially married women and daughters working on their husbands' and fathers' farms. By offering additional source material and methods for estimating women's labour force participation in agriculture on a regional level, such as relating their occupational status to their husbands', and estimating the number of days worked, we aim to offer an enhanced methodology for gauging the work of women in agriculture, which may be applied to future research.     

Characteristics of female patients admitted to an adolescent secure forensic psychiatric hospital

Bluebird House is the only mixed gender NHS secure forensic psychiatric hospital for adolescents in the South of England. It has admitted more than 30 female patients since the service opened in 2008. The admission criteria are that patients must be detained under the Mental Health Act and present evidence of being a risk of harm to others. This article describes the clinical characteristics of 30 consecutive female patients admitted to a highly specialised adolescent forensic inpatient service. Key results include a very high rate of incidents of risk behaviours exhibited by female patients within the unit but good clinical outcomes. The majority of patients had severe symptoms of mental disorder, especially emotional instability, self-harm behaviours and aggressive behaviours. Few had diagnoses of mental illness. Assessment findings from the Millon Adolescent Clinical Inventory and the Structured Assessment of Violence Risk are discussed, as are parallel with studies from other female secure services.     

Arts and Cultural Engagement,Reportedly Antisocial or Criminalized Behaviors,and Potential Mediators in Two Longitudinal Cohorts of Adolescents

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Arts and cultural engagement is a potential strategy for reducing or preventing reportedly antisocial or criminalized behaviors (those previously and...     

Transfiguring the golem: technicism,human relations technology,and the human project

The original Minnowbrook perspective is described as part of a broader human relations technology movement in which the organization of human activity could be accomplished without the negative features of bureaucracy—routinization, rationalization, depersonalization, mechanization, computerization. But, the problem is really not bureaucracy, it is technicism—the technological imperative. The article contrasts masculine and feminine perspectives on organizations and the implications of this contrast for wars between nation-states, human and organizational communication, and human relations technology. In this technicism era, public administered institutions are the best bet to hold together the fabric of society.     

Childhood attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) symptoms and adolescent female sexual victimisation: mediating and moderating effects of risky behaviours

Abstract

The mediating effects of risky behaviours on the linkage between childhood attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) symptoms and adolescent sexual victimisation in college women were examined using structural equation modelling (n=374). The moderating effects of timing onset of risky behaviours were also examined. General risky behaviour was not a significant mediator. Rather, findings supported a specificity hypothesis suggesting risky sexual behaviour is a better explanation of the ADHD symptoms–sexual victimisation association than is general risky behaviour. Early onset of alcohol or marijuana use, consensual sexual activity and staying out all night interacted with childhood ADHD symptoms to increase general risky behaviour and sexual risk-taking. We conclude that to understand the risk for sexual victimisation in adolescent females with childhood ADHD symptoms it would be advisable to focus specifically on sexual risk-taking.     

Procedural justice and police legitimacy: a systematic review of the research evidence

Objectives

We undertook a systematic review and meta-analysis to synthesize the published and unpublished empirical evidence on the impact of police-led interventions that use procedurally just dialogue focused on improving citizen perceptions of police legitimacy.

Methods

The systematic search included any public police intervention where there was a statement that the intervention involved police dialogue with citizens that either was aimed explicitly at improving police legitimacy, or used at least one core ingredient of procedural justice dialogue: police encouraging citizen participation, remaining neutral in their decision making, conveying trustworthy motives, or demonstrating dignity and respect throughout interactions. The studies included in our meta-analyses also had to include at least one direct outcome that measured legitimacy or procedural justice, or one outcome that is common in the legitimacy extant literature: citizen compliance, cooperation, confidence or satisfaction with police. We conducted separate meta-analyses, using random effects models, for each outcome.

Results

For every single one of our outcome measures, the effect of legitimacy policing was in a positive direction, and, for all but the legitimacy outcome, statistically significant. Notwithstanding the variability in the mode in which legitimacy policing is delivered (i.e., the study intervention) and the complexities around measurement of legitimacy outcomes, our review shows that the dialogue component of front-line police-led interventions is an important vehicle for promoting citizen satisfaction, confidence, compliance and cooperation with the police, and for enhancing perceptions of procedural justice.

Conclusions

In practical terms, our research shows the benefits of police using dialogue that adopts at least one of the principles of procedural justice as a component part of any type of police intervention, whether as part of routine police activity or as part of a defined police crime control program. Our review provides evidence that legitimacy policing is an important precursor for improving the capacity of policing to prevent and control crime.