Current research
Liminal Noir in classical world cinema
Co-edited with my colleague Dr. Christopher Weedman, this collection features case studies of single films that explore the ongoing usefulness of film noir as a lens through which to explore classical world cinema that is liminally positioned (between genres, of hybrid form) and addresses boundaries in noirish fashion. Our goal is not to expand the noir canon but to recover lost nuances and give new life to specific classical era (1940s-1960s) films from diverse nations. Chapters include entries on films from Argentina, the former Czechoslovakia, England, France, Poland, Spain, and the US. (My chapter contribution is "Race and the Noir Western: Navigating The Walking Hills.")
Forthcoming October 2023 (Edinburgh University, Traditions in World Cinema Series)
Endorsements:
- “What if noir is not just a category and corpus, but a sensibility, an attitude, a resonance? How might that change our understanding of Varda and Wadja? Of films made in exile or under dictatorship? Of transnational stories? Of minor works? Helford and Weedman have gathered some startling answers to their remarkable proposition.” -Mark Bould (University of the West of England)
- “The anthology is a welcome addition to the ongoing discourse on the liminal variations on noir and its myriad incarnations.” -Sheri Chinen Biesen (author, Blackout: World War II and the Origins of Film Noir, Music in the Shadows: Noir Musical Films)
Jewish identity and the comedy of Sarah Silverman
Based on a preliminary paper presentation at the Western Jewish Studies Association Conference of 2023, I am at work on a journal-length article addressing Sarah Silverman's self-presentation of Jewishness in stand-up, television, and film. I posit that her ignorant comic persona and focus on issues of race and Jewishness (including Holocaust humor, blackface, and the concept of "Jewface") signify important if problematic attempts to construct through performance a secular Jewish American identity that reads Jewishness via race and problematizes a conception of identity based solely on oppression.
larry trainor AND GENDER in hbo's Doom Patrol
I am interested in considering gender and sexuality in the HBO series Doom Patrol with emphasis on the character of Larry Trainor. I've recently had a proposal accepted on the topic based on an invitation to write a chapter for a planned collection on masculinity in 21st-century SF television.
I posit that Trainor's complex life story in the series encourages a denaturalization of gender and sexuality through both human and human-alien interactions. The character is at various times a closeted homosexual, an insecure dominant, a gender-neutral "invisible man," and an asexual maternal figure. These multiple gender transformations offer a compelling conceptualization of gender within the speculative and gender-complex milieu of the series, enhanced by proximity to even more expansively conceptualized characters, particularly Crazy Jane and Danny the Street.
I posit that Trainor's complex life story in the series encourages a denaturalization of gender and sexuality through both human and human-alien interactions. The character is at various times a closeted homosexual, an insecure dominant, a gender-neutral "invisible man," and an asexual maternal figure. These multiple gender transformations offer a compelling conceptualization of gender within the speculative and gender-complex milieu of the series, enhanced by proximity to even more expansively conceptualized characters, particularly Crazy Jane and Danny the Street.