Todd Decker awarded the Society for Cinema and Media Studies 2012 Best First Book Award

Todd Decker awarded the Society for Cinema and Media Studies 2012 Best First Book Award for Music Makes Me: Fred Astaire and Jazz (University of California Press 2011). The SCMS Committee had this to say about the book:

“Eloquently written in ways that make it accessible and indeed compelling to the non-specialist, Music Makes Me uses music history and theory to examine performative white masculinity in a cultural icon, Fred Astaire, who took inspiration for his work from black backgrounds. More than a study of single figure, though, Decker's rich volume is a veritable anatomy of the classic Hollywood studio system and deftly combines rigorous archival research with sharp textual analysis to far-reaching, productive ends. The reader gains valuable insights into both the day-to-day workings of the studio system and its broader ideologies (especially, sexual and racial). And the book resolutely confirms the virtues of the M in SCMS by engaging in cross-disciplinary scholarship on multiple manifestations of the modern entertainment industry, from the movies to television (and even to new iterations of musical performance on YouTube and such).  This book was awarded the prize unanimously and enthusiastically by the committee.”