Abstinence Cinema: Virginity And The Rhetoric Of Sexual Purity In Contemporary Film, Casey R. Kelly
Mar 2016
Abstinence Cinema: Virginity And The Rhetoric Of Sexual Purity In Contemporary Film, Casey R. Kelly
Casey R. Kelly
Follow a decade of cinema relatively silent on virginity loss, films from the 2000s onward both reflect and help constitute American culture’s anxious preoccupation with subject. In Abstinence Cinema, Casey Ryan Kelly examines the rhetorical and political weight of films about virginity from the Twilight film series to The 40-Year-Old Virgin. This book connects the emergence of more conservative and fearful representations of sexuality with the success of the contemporary abstinence-until-marriage movement. Kelly shows how many contemporary films overinflate the personal and social value of remaining chaste, imploring audiences to think more carefully about the potentially dangerous repercussions of sexual …
Strange/Familiar: Rhetorics Of Exoticism In Ethnographic Television, Casey Kelly
Jul 2015
Strange/Familiar: Rhetorics Of Exoticism In Ethnographic Television, Casey Kelly
Casey R. Kelly
No abstract provided.
Feminine Purity And Masculine Revenge-Seeking In Taken (2008), Casey Kelly
Jul 2015
Feminine Purity And Masculine Revenge-Seeking In Taken (2008), Casey Kelly
Casey R. Kelly
The 2008 film Taken depicts the murderous rampage of an ex-CIA agent seeking to recover his teenage daughter from foreign sex traffickers. I argue that Taken articulates a demand for a white male protector to serve as both guardian and avenger of white women's “purity” against the purportedly violent and sexual impulses of third world men. A neocolonial narrative retold through film, Taken infers that the protection of white feminine purity legitimates both male conquest abroad and overbearing protection of young women at home. I contend that popular films such as Taken are a part of the broader cultural system …
True’ Love Waits: The Construction Of Facts In Abstinence-Until- Marriage Discourse, Casey Kelly
Jul 2015
True’ Love Waits: The Construction Of Facts In Abstinence-Until- Marriage Discourse, Casey Kelly
Casey R. Kelly
No abstract provided.
The Post-Nuclear Family And The Depoliticization Of Unplanned Pregnancy In Juno, Knocked Up, And Waitress, Kristen Hoerl, Casey R. Kelly, Kristen Hoerl, Casey R. Kelly
Jan 2010
The Post-Nuclear Family And The Depoliticization Of Unplanned Pregnancy In Juno, Knocked Up, And Waitress, Kristen Hoerl, Casey R. Kelly, Kristen Hoerl, Casey R. Kelly
Casey R. Kelly
This essay explores three films from 2007, Knocked Up, Juno, and Waitress, which foreground young women's unplanned pregnancies. These movies depoliticize women's reproduction and motherhood through narratives that rearticulate the meaning of choice. Bypassing the subject of abortion, the women's decisions revolve around their choice of heterosexual partners and investment in romantic relationships. Although they question the viability of the nuclear family for single pregnant women, these films represent new iterations of post-feminism that ultimately restore conservative ideas that valorize pregnancy and motherhood as women's imperatives. We conclude by addressing how these movies present a distorted and short-sighted depiction of …
Depoliticizing Pregnancy And The Post-Nuclear Family In Juno, Knocked Up, And Waitress, Kristen Hoerl, Casey Kelly
Dec 2009
Depoliticizing Pregnancy And The Post-Nuclear Family In Juno, Knocked Up, And Waitress, Kristen Hoerl, Casey Kelly
Casey R. Kelly
This essay explores three films from 2007, Knocked Up, Juno, and Waitress, which foreground young women's unplanned pregnancies. These movies depoliticize women's reproduction and motherhood through narratives that rearticulate the meaning of choice. Bypassing the subject of abortion, the women's decisions revolve around their choice of heterosexual partners and investment in romantic relationships. Although they question the viability of the nuclear family for single pregnant women, these films represent new iterations of post-feminism that ultimately restore conservative ideas that valorize pregnancy and motherhood as women's imperatives. We conclude by addressing how these movies present a distorted and short-sighted depiction of …
Women's Rhetorical Agency In The American West: The New Penelope, Casey Kelly
Dec 2008
Women's Rhetorical Agency In The American West: The New Penelope, Casey Kelly
Casey R. Kelly
This essay theorizes women's rhetorical agency in the nineteenth-century American West. Contrast between fluid gender norms in frontier life and the Cult of True Womanhood highlights how agency is confined by materiality. Agency is the capacity to recognize and act in moments when material structures are vulnerable to resignification. I offer an analysis of Frances Fuller Victor's novella The New Penelope to demonstrate how pioneer women writers reinvented womanhood in light of socioeconomic changes. This paper was nominated for the ORWAC Feminist Scholarship Award.
