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While there is no question that women on movie screens are frequently eroticised, with countless shots of heaving bosoms or curvaceous rear ends, action stars do occasionally get a reprieve. Pam Grier, the first female action star, was not so lucky. While Grier's Amazonian status should be celebrated, the dark side of her career should also be noted as a cautionary tale of just how much misogyny and racism lurks behind Hollywood doors and intertwined into American cinema history. This chapter examines how Grier's career forces us to rethink both femininity and racism, as well as action films themselves.

The figure of the femme fatale is attached to a range of contested meanings around femininity, sexuality and violence. Despite its ambiguity and its origins in art, myth and fiction, the term has proven popular in giving a name to violent articulations of female power in non-fictional settings by journalists. In this chapter, I outline the figure of the femme fatale as an archetype of women's violence that appears throughout Western popular culture, and provide an overview of the term's definitions and cultural meanings. In doing so, I trace the figure's movement across different forms and genres of popular culture. I identify a number of themes in the existing scholarship around the figure: feminist criticism of the figure; the value that feminist film scholars have found in the figure as a symbol of power and sexual transgression; the relationship between the femme fatale, race and the colonial imagination; and the way the idea of the femme fatale has been used in reporting of real-life women's violence.

The world of the Action Film is a complex one. Whilst explosions may go off around the hero or heroine, skyscrapers crash into rubble, cars smash into one another, or the villain lives to fight on in another sequel, one thing is certain: the action film, loved and loathed in equal measures, remains a staple genre in cinema.

Sylvester Stallone's first appearance as John Rambo in First Blood was in 1982. It seems only logical, then, that this first edited collection in a three-volume publication is dedicated to the first 20 years in which action cinema began in earnest and grew to what it is today. By focusing on the 1980s to 2000, it becomes apparent that the action film is not simply gung-ho heroics played out to an expectant audience. Rather, it is a complex one, and one that demands further investigation.

This cutting-edge collection focuses on such areas of study include new, exciting and bold work on gender linked to vehicles, an LGBTQ+ case study of the Angel trilogy, star studies of Keanu Reeves and Arnold Schwarzenegger, sword and sorcery films, buddy-buddy cop movies, international examinations of action in both the films of Wong Kar-Wei and Colombian national cinema, and much more. Each chapter is housed within an academic framework and in-depth analysis is throughout.

This is the first volume in Emerald Publishing's bold examination of gender in action cinema. The following volumes will look at post-2000 work, focusing on Stars, Warriors, Bombshells and Atomic Blondes, and Transformations in action cinema. Much work has been written on action cinema, but in this collection you will time travel back to two decades in which one of the most spectacular genres erupted onto cinema screens. Whilst the action movie may still have its detractors, this book has been written for you to explore the complexities of gender portrayals in this genre. Above all else, it has been written for you to enjoy.

In this, the exciting first volume of a three-volume edited collection, you will be taken on a gender-focused adventure through action cinema's formative years. Through a series of in-depth case studies and analysis, each chapter focuses on the way that gender has been discussed in such films as the Mad Max franchise, sword and sorcery films, and the Angel trilogy. There are character case studies, including Ellen Ripley in Aliens, Sharon Stone in her ground-breaking work as femme fatale, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Keanu Reeves. We also take you on a journey through the action cinema of Wong Kar-Wai and Action Women in Colombian national cinema. The collection even takes you into the gendered dinosaur world of Jurassic Park. Whilst Action Cinema has often been derided, it has also been celebrated. We hope that this edited collection will make you want to revisit the action movies of the past, whilst we open them up to brand new interrogations.

A growing number of consumers expect brands to take a stand on social issues. When Gillette launched its video with a social message in 2019, the popular press described it as divisive and controversial. This study aims to examine themes behind the polarized consumer response, aiding brands in the development of social narrative videos.

The authors use an existential-phenomenological approach to investigate the meaning behind consumers’ reactions to the Gillette video. Empirical data collection consisted of 24 semi-structured, in-depth interviews. Data were analyzed using the hermeneutic method.

By viewing the Gillette video through the lens of a story, this research uncovers how marketing stories can lead to different interpretations. Specifically, the roots of polarization lie in perceived realism activation and character activation. Additionally, product placement may activate persuasive intent, interrupting immersion into the story.

Brand managers should consider the potential for alternative interpretations when using storytelling. By measuring a viewer’s narrative transportation, it is possible to identify different interpretations. From a tactical standpoint, brand managers should be cautious about using celebrity endorsers and prominent product placement in social narrative videos. These cues activate persuasive intent, leading to alternative interpretations.

While marketing research has tended to focus on storytelling’s positive outcomes, this research considers how stories can result in polarizing outcomes for brands. The concept of social narrative videos is introduced and a framework is presented that outlines facilitators and inhibitors for this type of brand communication.

This paper aims to shed light into money laundering using bitcoin. Digital payment methods are increasingly used by criminals to launder money obtained through cybercrime. As many forms of cybercrime are motivated by profit, a solid cash-out strategy is required to ensure that crime proceeds end up with the criminals themselves without an incriminating money trail. The authors examine how cybercrime proceeds can be laundered using services that are offered on the Dark Web.

Focusing on service-percentages and reputation-mechanisms in underground bitcoin laundering services, this paper presents the results of a cash-out experiment in which five mixing and five exchange services are included.

Some of the examined services provide an excellent, professional and well-reviewed service at competitive cost. Whereas others turned out to be scams, accepting bitcoin but returning nothing in return.

The authors discuss what these findings mean to law enforcement, and how bitcoin laundering chains could be disrupted.

These cash-out strategies are increasingly facilitated by cryptocurrencies, mainly bitcoin. Bitcoins are already relatively anonymous, but with the rise of specialised bitcoin money laundering services on the Dark Web, laundering money in the form of bitcoins becomes available to a wider audience.

This study aims to critically review the research on the phenomenon of discrimination in hospitality and tourism services to identify the key thematic areas, scenarios, antecedents and consequences; to provide theoretical propositions for future research; and to propose practical strategies to reduce discrimination and to improve equality in the field.

This paper adopts the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses guidelines to collect relevant academic work on discrimination in hospitality and tourism services from 1985 to 2020 and critically reviews and analyses the studies through bibliometric analysis, content analysis and critical analysis.

The findings show that the main sources of discrimination in hospitality and tourism services include sexism, racism, ethnocentrism, lookism and ego-altruism. Discrimination-related research has temporal and geographical variations. A research map is proposed to present existing knowledge of discrimination in hospitality and tourism services, which indicates that while the impacts (at the individual, organizational and institutional levels) of discrimination in hospitality and tourism services have been thoroughly researched, the nature and characteristics of the phenomenon remain context-based and poorly conceptualized.

An anti-discrimination guideline for hospitality and tourism practitioners is designed to cope with and eliminate discriminatory situations. This evidence-based guideline provides useful coping strategies based on the prevent–monitor–manage principle.

This paper is comprehensive in its scope, methodology and wide coverage of discrimination-related research in hospitality and tourism services. It is the first attempt to review this phenomenon in the existing literature and identifies the research gaps and future research agendas.