Casey Ryan Kelly is Professor of Rhetoric and Public Culture in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Nebraska. He is author of four books, including Apocalypse Man: The Death Drive and the Rhetoric of White Masculine Victimhood. His work regularly appears in journals such as The Quarterly Journal of Speech, Critical Studies in Media Communication, and Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the National Communication Association's Karl R. Wallace Memorial Award.

• Introduction: On Obscene Enjoyment


• 1. Leaked Celebrity Tirades and the Primal Scene of Racism


• 2. Anxiety, Racial Capitalism, and the Donald Sterling Tapes


• 3. YouRacist.com: The Libidinal Economy of Public Freak Out Videos


• 4. Access Hollywood and the Return of the Primal Father


• Epilogue: On Pointless Enjoyment


• Selected Bibliography


• Index

From the infamous Access Hollywood tape and leaked tapes of racist celebrity tirade to everyday racist outbursts posted on YouTube: why has our technological capacity to catch powerful white men engaging in racist and misogynist transgressions failed to create a culture of progressive, democratic accountability? Caught on Tape argues that our focus on hot mics and obscene private videos transforms antiracism and gender justice into disempowering forms of spectatorship that ultimately conceal the structural nature of whiteness, white supremacy, and patriarchy.