Stephen Lee Naish, "Screen Captures: Film in the Age of Emergency" (Lever Press, 2026)

Mar 10, 2026

Stephen Lee Naish, writer and cultural critic, mines film and pop culture for political meaning. He traces Star Wars fandom vs studio power, masculinity unravelling in indie and mainstream films, climate and disaster narratives in superhero and disaster movies, and how pandemic and streaming reshape cinemas and regional filmmaking.

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ANECDOTE

From $150 Camcorder To Film Writer

Stephen Lee Naish learned filmmaking hands-on by filming local bands with a $150 camcorder while working day jobs.
He built a reputation doing low-cost concert videos, which led him into writing about film and culture after returning to study via the Open University.

INSIGHT

Emergency Is Rooted In Neoliberal Capitalism

Naish frames the pandemic, climate disasters, and political crises as symptoms of a larger neoliberal capitalism emergency.
He argues meaningful responses to climate or COVID require confronting profit-driven systems rather than only managing individual disasters.

INSIGHT

Star Wars Accelerationism Damaged The Saga

Naish calls Disney's Star Wars sequel era 'accelerationism' where franchise output raced ahead without coherent planning.
The result: disjointed films, fandom toxicity, and a post-story galaxy lacking meaningful continuity or leadership.

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Movies open a window into our collective soul. In Screen Captures: Film in the Age of Emergency (Lever Press, 2026), Stephen Lee Naish guides us through recent cinematic phenomena that reflect/refract our contemporary political existence. Stephen Lee Naish is a writer, independent researcher, and cultural critic. He is the author of several books on film, politics, music, and pop culture. He lives in Kingston, Ontario. He has appeared on the New Books Network three times for previous books: Create of Die: Essays on the Artistry of Dennis Hopper (2016), Deconstructing Dirty Dancing (2017), Riffs and Meaning (2018)

From Star Wars-scope blockbusters and Hollywood coming-of-age comedies to independent horror productions, Naish draws out the ways these movies shape, and are shaped by, their audience's own dissatisfactions. In his discussion of the Star Wars franchise, Naish highlights a conflict between internet discussion-fueled fandom vs the Disney Empire that shares features with the ongoing rebellions depicted in the films themselves. A passionate fan base who can now voice their discontent via the internet is feeding back into the studio's agenda and criticizing the actions of characters within the film and the actors alike. Chapters on the super-heroes genre and disaster movies draw out the climate-based social tensions these reflect. Depictions of masculinity ("Men on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown") on screens large and small bleed into discussions of the work and presence of Nicholas Cage, David Lynch, and Dennis Hopper -- with a side-excursion into Valerie Solanas's strikingly prescient SCUM Manifesto. Stephen Lee Naish's Screen Captures adds a sharpening filter to the film-goer's experience on the big and little screen.

Joel Tscherne is an Adjunct History Professor at Southern New Hampshire University. His Twitter handle is @JoelTscherne.

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