Book Review: 'The Wow Climax: Tracing The Emotional Impact of Popular Culture', Henry Jenkins: New York: New York University Press, 2007, 284 pp. $39.95 (paperback)

Abstract

'The Wow Climax: Tracing the Emotional Impact of Popular Culture' by Henry Jenkins analyses a variety of media in the course of discussing the affective quality and cultural power of popular aesthetic forms. His motley selection of essays covers a range of topics and issues, from computer games to comic books, WWF wrestling to 1970s sexploitation films, children's play and television programmes to the off-screen life of Lupe Velez (a 1930s Hollywood sex siren). These disconnected areas of enquiry are all drawn together on the premise that each and every form produces a requisite 'wowness' that goes beyond the textual limits of the subject matter and the contexts of their initial reception. In this way, Jenkins' book is largely about the role of memory and nostalgia in generating the emotional force of popular entertainment forms.