American Film Studies Commons^™

Panic At The Drive-In: Affordance, Moral Panic, And Drive-In Theatres, Maria Chatzifilalithis

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

Review Of Pioneer Girl, By Bich Minh Nguyen, Quan-Manh Ha

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

DNA

From Raw To Cooked: Amy Tan’S “Fish Cheeks” Through A Lévi-Straussian Lens, Susan K. Kevra

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

In "Fish Cheeks" a scant 500 words short story, Amy Tan serves up a coming of age story about an Asian American teenage girl. Tan’s setting of Christmas for a traditional Chinese dinner, shared with the American boy on whom the protagonist, Amy, has a crush, emphasizes the girl’s dual identity as an Asian American, a reality she is confronting head on. Forced to see her family traditions through the eyes of a white, Christian boy, she finds those traditions distasteful. Rather than delighting in the dishes her mother has lovingly prepared, she is revolted by them, fixated instead on …

A “Monstress” Undertaking: An Interview With Lysley Tenorio, Noelle Brada-Williams

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

No abstract provided.

Introduction To Volume Six: An Identity Rebus, Noelle Brada-Williams

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

No abstract provided.

Volume 6 Cover, Mark P. Brada

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

No abstract provided.

Navigating The Interim, Joseph E. Saphire Jr

Masters Theses

Navigating the Interim attempts to build a framework for the ways in which visual art, media studies, and forms of social practice might intermingle within a career in the arts, as well as within a thorough art education curriculum. From broad theoretical analysis to the specificity of technical exercises and prompts, this paper serves as a roadmap for the ways in which production, teaching, and organizing might begin to merge into a single holistic practice. The author’s projects provide an anchor from which to analyze the various conceptual trajectories of art that have stemmed from modernism throughout the 20th century, …

Past Traumas, Present Griefs: Exploring The Effects Of Colonialism, Microaggressions, And Stereotyping From Wild West Shows To Indigenous Literature, Kimberly Dawn Allen

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Native Americans have long been, and continue to be, victims of racism, microaggression, and stereotyping. This continued exposure to violence, degradation, belittling, and discrimination work in the forefront to historical trauma and unresolved grief which has led to an increase in the numbers of individuals suffering from mental illness within the Indigenous population. Colonization created a long history of trauma and genocide that effects generations of Native American people, not just the individuals on which the horrific sins were committed. Using the lens of disability studies, this project will examine the ways in which portrayals of Native American people in …

Human Nature And Cop Art: A Biocultural History Of The Police Procedural, Jay Edward Baldwin

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Prior to 1948 there was no “police procedural” genre of crime fiction. After 1948 and since, the genre, which prominently features police officers at work, has been among the more popular of all forms of literary, televisual, and cinematic fiction. The received history suggests that much of the credit for this is due to Jack Webb, creator of Dragnet.

This study complicates that received history and traces the historical emergence of this signifying practice to early 20th century ideologies of Social control and the conjuncture of Social forces that ultimately coalesced in the training practices of the Los Angeles Police …

A Light In Darkness, Oscar Micheaux: Entrepreneur Intellectual Agitator, Airic Hughes

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Oscar Micheaux was a luminary who served as an agent of racial uplift, with a unique message to share with the world on behalf of the culturally marginalized African Americans. He produced projects that conveyed the complexity of the true black experience with passion and creative courage. His films empowered black audiences and challenged conventional stereotypes of black culture and potential. The legacy of Oscar Micheaux is historically unparalleled among his contemporaries. He transcended traditionally held perspectives about what black people could accomplish. The consciousness within his work still heavily influences black entertainment today. This study seeks to add to …

Suffering Saint, Asexual Victorian Woman, Or Queer Icon? Cinematic Representations Of Eleanor Roosevelt, Angela Beauchamp

MALS Final Projects, 1995-2019

This critical discourse analysis examines representations of Eleanor Roosevelt in a wide range of biographical, docudrama, and documentary film and television from 1945 to 2014. By focusing on the figure known by many as the most important woman of the twentieth century, and one who appears as a character or subject in over eighty movies and television programs, I investigate recurring discourses around heteronormativity and cultural constructions of gender and sexuality for American women over time. These filmic portrayals reveal attempts to normalize Eleanor's life, framing her accomplishments and motivations through lenses of marriage and family, or they "queer" Eleanor's …

Fame Gone Wild (2015: An Era Of Self-Invention), Stephanie E. Kang

Graduate School of Art Theses

Entertainment has become one of the fueling fires of society. In today’s world of nonstop broadcasting and streaming, many begrudgingly trudge through their 9 to 5’s only to live for their few post-work hours of leisure, which have been reserved for this week’s latest items on the viewing queue. Netflix and Hulu have become the opium of the masses. Consequently, this obsession with constant entertainment has now morphed into a shared yearning for the people that are watched and followed religiously through the screen – the celebrities. In this cultural moment, the concept of fame has become a vital element …

Occupy The Future: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Dystopian Film And The Occupy Movement, Justin J. Grandinetti

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

The anarchic Occupy Wall Street protests, which began in 2011, had an immediate impact on politics and the global lexicon. By introducing the terms “the one percent” and “the 99%” into the public sphere, Occupy was able to draw attention to growing global income inequality. This revolutionary spirit was not lost on popular culture, as a number of films that followed the protests were linked to Occupy. The Hunger Games (2012), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), and Elysium (2013) represent films that were not only extremely successful in the box office, but were also connected to the Occupy Movement because …

Intersectionality In Jane Eyre And Its Adaptations, Laurel Loh

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

During the almost 170 years since Jane Eyre was published, there have been numerous adaptations in many different mediums and genres, such as plays, films, musicals, graphic novels, spin-off novels, and parodies. The novel has been read in many different critical traditions: liberal humanist, historicist, feminist, and postcolonial approaches dealing with topics such as the problem of female authorship and consciousness. In addition, it has been read in terms of an ideological struggle based on race, class, and gender; xenophobia and imperialism; female labor politics; and genre issues, to just name a few. As literary critics have explored numerous themes …

The “Fatty” Arbuckle Scandal, Will Hays, And Negotiated Morality In 1920s America, Aaron T. Whitehead

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

In the autumn of 1921, silent film comedian Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle was arrested for the rape and murder of a model and actress named Virginia Rappé. The ensuing scandal created a firestorm of controversy not just around Arbuckle but the entire motion picture industry. Religious and moral reformers seized upon the scandal to decry the decline of “traditional” moral values taking place throughout American society in the aftermath of World War I. The scandal created a common objective for an anti-film coalition representing diverse social and religious groups, all dedicated to bringing about change in the motion picture industry through …

The Lover's Cup, Kimberlee Relyea Guin

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This documentary film, The Lover's Cup is the story of a former Naval Officer from World War II, Dr. Phillip Trapp, who took Marines into the battle of Iwo Jima and lived to see the flag being raised on Mt. Suribachi. This 55-minute film explores his life experiences before, during and following World War II. His first-hand experiences are used to illustrate the Social and psychological impact of the Great Depression and World War II and his journey to overcome his adversity and create positive changes in the world through his subsequent education and service at the University of Arkansas …

Green Berets And Gay Deceivers: The New Left, The Vietnam Draft And American Masculinity, Anna L. Zuschlag

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

When masculinity is predicated on violence and military service is a man’s civic duty, then draft resistance becomes a doubly radical act. Men who refuse to take up arms for their nation threaten, at least potentially, both its political and gender order. This dissertation explores American masculinity during and after the Vietnam War, by analyzing cultural representations of, and responses to, the U.S. Selective Service System. At a time when mainstream Hollywood would not touch the Vietnam War, a generation of independent filmmakers, artists and agitators produced a number of remarkable films and documents dealing with the war, the draft …

The Movie Mogul, Moses And Muslims: Islamic Elements In Cecil B. Demille’S The Ten Commandments (1956), Michael D. Calabria Ofm

Journal of Religion & Film

Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 film, The Ten Commandments, has come to define the genre of the biblical epic. It has earned a permanent place in American culture due to its annual airing on television during the Easter and Passover holidays. Most viewers are unaware, however, that DeMille had sought to make a film that would appeal to Jews, Christians and Muslims at a time when their common Abrahamic ancestry had yet to be articulated, and interreligious dialogue was all but unheard of. To this end, Henry Noerdlinger, DeMille’s researcher for the film, consulted the Qur’an, and screenwriters incorporated Islamic …

The Binding Of Abraham: Inverting The Akedah In Fail-Safe And Wargames, Hunter B. Dukes

Journal of Religion & Film

This article draws upon Søren Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling and Jacques Derrida's The Gift of Death to trace how two exemplars of atomic bomb cinema reinterpret the Binding of Isaac (Akedah). Released during the twin peaks of Cold War tension, Fail-Safe (1964) and WarGames (1983) invert the Akedah of Genesis 22. In both films, an act of sacrificial patricide accompanies or replaces the sacrifice of an Isaac-like son. When viewed in the context of Cold War cultural politics—events such as Norman Morrison’s Abrahamic self-immolation and Kent State’s rejection of George Segal’s sacrificial memorial— the inverted Akedah emerges as …

"Era(C)Ing The South: Modern Popular Culture Depictions Of Southern History", Bryan Jack

SIUE Faculty Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

There has been significant research on various interpretations of the American South, and the relationship between Southern and American identity. However, there has been little investigation into how modern popular culture depicts and constructs the Southern past and how this shapes Southern identity. This article interrogates the relationship between modern films, race, and Southern history to ask, has the challenge to codified Jim Crow segregation changed filmic portrayals of Southern history? How do these portrayals affect both Southern and American identity? Using race as a lens, the article argues that the end of the Civil Rights Movement has created a …