Tastemakers and Tastemaking

Niamh Thornton is a Reader in Latin American Studies at the University of Liverpool, United Kingdom. She is the author and editor of several books, including iRevolution and Rebellion in Mexican Film/i and iInternational Perspectives on Chicana/o Studies: This World is My Place (coedited with Catherine Leen).

"Niamh Thornton's third monograph is a ground-breaking, very well researched, written and documented book that, in a reflective and honest fashion, explores the multilayered elements playing a key role in the decision-making process that tastemakers—film curators, filmmakers and stars/celebrities—face when making, curating or acting in films … Thornton has successfully opened up a fruitful discussion on the complex elements that construct fictional cinematic narratives and their interactions with social and cultural tensions that shape tastemaking." — Bulletin of Spanish Visual Studies

"…a compelling addition to studies of violence in Mexican cultural production. It is sure to prompt scholars and students alike to pause and consider the ways in which structural forces like gender and prestige mould our assessments of violence on screen." — Bulletin of Hispanic Studies

"This book offers a novel perspective on textual analysis by implementing videographic criticism, a groundbreaking methodology based on the radical splitting of images in order to isolate and magnify details and facilitate comparisons and value judgments that are free of personal taste and outside conventional systems of valuation. Tastemakers and Tastemaking is a well-researched and finely written book." — Adela Pineda, author of The Mexican Revolution on the World Stage: Intellectuals and Film in the Twentieth Century