Television Commons^™

Matteo Garrone's Reality:The Big Brother Spectacle And Its Rupture, Anna Paparcone Bronner

Faculty Journal Articles

In Garrone’s film, Reality, the protagonist Luciano Ciotola becomes obsessed with his participation in the reality TV show Big Brother to the point that his whole life turns into a spectacle. In Italian cinema studies no other scholar had yet analyzed this film, despite its success and the very engaging and up-to-date topic. In my article, at the diegetic level, I show that the spectator experiences an overlap and a (con)fusion between Luciano’s everyday reality and his life as a member of the reality TV show. However, keeping in mind Guy Debord’s seminal work The Society of the Spectacle and …

Gynecologists, Bureaucrats, And Stoners: The Rise Of Women In Television Comedies And Critiquing The Postfeminist Perspective, Victoria Montecillo

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis looks to explore the rise of women in television comedy and the accompanying implications of this phenomenon. Using a historical framework, this thesis looks at the progression of representations of women in television comedies beginning in the 1950s up to today. Considering factors such as the rise of social media, as well as online television streaming services such as Hulu and Netflix as more legitimate avenues to distribute content, this thesis traces women’s place within television comedy, and argues that shows such as Parks and Recreation, The Mindy Project, and Broad City serve as examples of the progress …

Film Tourism And Expectation: Using The Hallyu Wave To Model How Governments And Media Exports Influence National Image, Aishat O. Bello

Undergraduate Research Posters

Film tourism encompasses the interest, investment and influence that exported media products can contribute to cultural globalization, and subsequent visitation of a nation. The Korean Wave or Hallyu wave has been studied and commended for its rapid spread and growing popularity within Asia and more recently, on a more global scale. By comparing and contrasting the methods used by the Korean government to enhance Hallyu, with several trade deals made by the US government to support Hollywood, we can see how the effects of film tourism were directed towards modifying perspectives on Korean culture. A few consequences of making trade …

How 9/11 Changed The Movies: The Tony Scott Barometer, E. Deidre Pribram Ph.D.

Faculty Publications: Communication

In an essay written some years ago on the 1945 film, Mildred Pierce, Linda Williams raises the intriguing question, why does the narrative frequently allude to but refrains from ever specifically mentioning World War II (22)? Williams’ assessment is that certain films are capable of addressing the most significant political events of the era in ways they could not have had they chosen to use direct depictions (24). Released in October 1945, following the end of U.S. involvement in the war, Mildred Pierce coincided with a period of demobilization and the economic and social reintegration of the returning American, largely …

The International Community's Response To The Hypothetical Emergence Of Superheroes, Brittany Nicole Woods

CMC Senior Theses

In a golden era for comic based media, this paper uses the hypothetical emergence of superheroes to analyze the assumptions and predictions of three international relations theories: realism, liberalism, and constructivism. Comics consistently reflect the real world, paralleling events and concepts discussed in foreign affairs dialogues. The thought experiment, and the comic genre itself, provides a vehicle for thinking broadly about the political and social ramifications of successful or failed problem solving, state interaction, and scientific advances.

Judgment And Choice: Moral Judgment, Enjoyment And Meaningfulness In Interactive And Non-Interactive Narratives, Daniel M. Shafer, Sophie Janicke, Jonmichael Seibert

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

This study extends Affective Disposition Theory (ADT) and the Integrated Theory of Enjoyment (ITE) to interactive television/film narratives. In the study, 168 participants were randomly assigned to experience one of two originally-produced films; one with interactive components, the other without. Participants in the interactive condition made choices for the protagonist throughout the films. Path analysis was used to examine hypotheses based on the ITE (using the recent perspective of enjoyment and meaningfulness as outcomes). Results indicate that the principles of ADT and ITE can be applied to interactive narrative forms. Suggestions for future research are offered.

No More Mind Games: Content Analysis Of In-Game Commentary Of The National Football League’S Concussion Problem, Jeffrey Parker

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

American (gridiron) football played at the professional level in the National Football League (NFL) is an inherently physical spectator sport, in which players frequently engage in significant contact to the head and upper body. Until recently, the long-term health consequences associated with on the field head trauma were not fully disclosed to players or the public, potentially misrepresenting the dangers involved in gameplay. Crucial to the dissemination of this information to the public are in-game televised commentators of NFL games, regarded as the primary conduits for mediating in-game narratives to the viewing audience. Using a social constructionist theoretical lens, this …

Shakespeare And The Cultural Olympiad: Contesting Gender And The British Nation In The Bbc’S Hollow Crown, L Monique Pittman

Faculty Publications

As part of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad celebrating both the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and the London Olympics, the BBC launched a season of programs, entitled Shakespeare Unlocked, most notably presenting the plays of the second tetralogy in four feature-length adaptations released under the unifying title The Hollow Crown. These plays so obviously engaged with the question of English nationalism suited a year in which the United Kingdom wrestled with British identity in a post-colonial and post-Great Recession world. Through its adaptative and filmic vocabularies, however, The Hollow Crown advances a British nationalism unresponsive to the casualties — often women and …

A Revolution In Favor Of Television: Wcvb-Tv And Robert Gardner's Screening Room, Brian L. Frye

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In the 1970’s, WCVB-TV in Boston produced many innovative and unusual programs. Among them was Robert Gardner’s Screening Room, one of the most delightfully unlikely programs ever aired on a network television station. Essentially, Screening Room was a talk show about independent filmmaking. Once a week, Gardner invited an independent filmmaker to show and discuss a selection of films or film clips. But Screening Room wasn’t just a showcase for independent film. It also introduced a network television audience to intellectual film critics like Rudolf Arnheim and Stanley Cavell, in a uniquely accessible and entertaining way. In any case, …

‘It’S Morning Again In America’: How The Tuesday Team Revolutionized The Use Of Music In Political Ads, Paul Christiansen Ph.D.

Paul Christiansen

Luo’S Ethical Experience Of Growth In Mo Yan's Pow!, Zhenzhao Nie

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Luo's Ethical Experience of Growth in Mo Yan's Pow!" Zhenzhao Nie examines the protagonist's experience of self-discovery in the process of natural to ethical choice. Nie's analysis of the novel rests on the theoretical framework "ethical literary criticism" he developed. In the novel Luo's life is narrated in retrospect when he is attempting to become the disciple of a monk and al-though Luo does not find what he is searching for in religion, he arrives at a new stage in his life which is based on ethical principles. The young Luo is unable to make …

Introduction To Fiction And Ethics In The Twenty-First Century, Zhenzhao Nie, Biwu Shang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Ethics Of Father And Son In Ri's 流域へ (Watershed Above) And Kaneshiro's Go, Inseop Shin, Jooyoung Kim

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their article "Ethics of Father and Son in Ri's 流域へ (Watershed Above) and Kaneshiro's GO" Inseop Shin and Jooyoung Kim discuss the ethics of father and son as they appear in the two novels by Kaisei Ri and Kazuki Kaneshiro. In both narratives the protagonists suffer from ethical conflicts with their fathers during their struggle to find their identities. The father is port-rayed as a figure who determines the ethical choices the protagonists face when they pursue their own lives. Shin and Kim argue that Korean Japanese fiction is a narrative that folds these choices back on oneself. …

Ethical Dilemma And Ethical Epiphany In Mcewan’S The Children Act, Biwu Shang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Ethical Dilemma and Ethical Epiphany in McEwan's The Children Act" Biwu Shang attempts to explore the ethical nature of the child's welfare in Ian McEwan's novel. Shang examines the various legal cases processed by the British High Court judge Fiona Maye and the blood transfusion case of Adam Henry in particular. Shang argues that Maye adopts ethical criteria throughout the cases she deals with. More significantly, Adam's blood transfusion case and his consequential death lead Maye to her ethical epiphany related to the child's welfare: life is the fundamental welfare of the child and to protect …

Ethical Discourse And Narrative Strategies In Yan's老师，好美 (To My Teacher, With Love), Zhuo Wang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Ethical Discourse and Narrative Strategies in Yan's老师，好美 (To My Teacher, with Love)" Zhuo Wang discusses the way in which narrative converges with ethics at the site of a radical "ethical environment" in Geling Yan's novel. Wang focuses on how the novel's first-person confessional narration, third-person reflective narration, and online narration dialogue with and interrogate one another working together to bring forth Yan's reconsideration of the ethical dimensions of her text. Wang argues that the novel's personal and social ethics are embodied multiple narrative voices which altogether reflect on the close relationship between novels and ethical discourse …

Narrative Ethics And Alterity In Adichie's Novel Americanah, Nora Berning

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Narrative Ethics and Alterity in Adichie's Novel Americanah" Nora Berning analyses Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's novel through the lens of a narrative ethics of alterity. Focusing on the notion of alterity, Berning argues that a specific turn-of-the-century ethics emerges in contemporary fictions of migration in general and in intercultural novels in particular. An ethical genre in its own right, such twenty-first century fictions as Americanah generate a particular kind of ethical knowledge that revolves around questions of identity and alterity and around individual and collective perceptions of self and other. By addressing the interplay of "the ethics …

Ethics Of Counter Narrative In Delillo’S Falling Man, Qingji He

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Ethics of Counter-Narrative in DeLillo's Falling Man" Qingji He analyzes Don DeLillo's counter-narrative in his post-9/11 novel Falling Man. The objective is to show how ethical dimensions function fundamentally in formulating an appropriate counter-narrative and why DeLillo's counter-narrative echoes views expressed in his "In the Ruins of the Future." He argues that DeLillo's counter-narrative entails the necessity of ethical consciousness and responsibility. It is Giorgio Morandi's still life paintings instead of media representation that become pivotal in Lianne's transformative and redemptive process after the terrorist attack. Similarly, David Janiak's performance art and Richard Drew's picture …

Human Cloning As The Other In Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, Wen Guo

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Human Cloning as the Other in Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go" Wen Guo analyzes Kazuo Ishiguro's novel with focus on Ishiguro's analogy between human cloning and people of marginality in contemporary society. Guo discusses the novel's ambience of doubt and suspense and elaborates on how the theme of otherness is addressed by Ishiguro's mock-realism in a landscape of science fiction. Further, Guo analyses the "unhomely" Hailsham of the novel, the clones' self-pursuit, and their ethical attitudes. Guo argues that in Ishiguro's novel a person's ethical choices are determined by his/her situation which confirms Ishiguro's beliefs with …

Perspectives Of Ethical Identity In Ng's Steer Toward Rock And Jen's Mona In The Promised Land, Hui Su

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Perspectives of Ethical Identity in Ng's Steer toward Rock and Jen's Mona in the Promised Land" Hui Su examines Fae Myenne Ng's and Gish Jen's novels. In the novels, the protagonists make different decisions: in Steer Toward Rock Jack after displacement in China adopts US-American identity and in Mona in the Promised Land Mona, a second generation Chinese American, selects Jewish identity. Owing to their different situations, the two protagonists reflect challenges of identity building in the case of the "Other" in US-American culture and society. Su argues that Ng and Jen, although varying in their …

Outrage Is The New Black, Derek R. Scancarelli

Capstones

In 1964, legendary comedian Lenny Bruce was brought to court on an obscenity charge after years and repeated arrests for using what was then deemed to be sexually vulgar language. Despite the testimony of fellow artists and intellectuals (Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, James Baldwin), Bruce was convicted. The symbolism of what Bruce stood for is way more important than the four months he consequently spent in a workhouse. It proved that comedy has the power to shake the system- make people challenge authority and question the value of parallel thinking. Now – in 2015 – America is obsessed with outrage. …