Motels, Automobility, and Social Immobility in American Cinema

Childs, Danielle Rae

Danielle Rae Childs

Danielle Rae Childs is a second-year PhD Candidate in Film and Television Studies at the University of Warwick. Her doctoral project investigates the aesthetic utility and cultural significance of the motel in American cinema. Grounded in the historical development of the motel within U.S. culture, her research accounts for the setting’s enduring prominence, functions, and shifting meanings within the American film landscape, while also participating in film studies’ broader turn towards the relationship between cinema and architecture. 

Dossiers, no. 3, vol. 8September 28, 2023<September 30, 2023

Motels, Automobility, and Social Immobility in American Cinema

Danielle Rae Childs

Danielle Childs explores the transformation of the motel in American cinema from a temporary pit-stop to a post-recession purgatory that epitomizes marginalization and social immobility.