Digital Commons Network^™

Asian American Represenation In Sitcoms, Anna Blake

Student Research Submissions

Representation of minorities in the media is powerful in shaping the public’s perceptions of a community or group. Some well-known Asian stereotypes are that they are good at math, tiger moms, and foreigners. In the literature review, I found that in addition to those common stereotypes, Asians were commonly portrayed as model minority myth, kung fu master, dragon lady/lotus blossom, and family-oriented. Using a quantitative content analysis approach, I examined how Asian Americans are portrayed in American sitcoms and searched for positive and negative representations. I analyzed 24 episodes of Fresh Off The Boat, which aired from 2015 to 2020 …

A Content Analysis Of Queer Slang On Tik Tok, Kuri Benitez

Student Research Submissions

Social media platforms’ concentration of diversity and interactions has accelerated the rate of cultural change on the Internet. With the rise of Tik Tok, a video-sharing social media platform, language used by marginalized groups is being incorporated into the platform’s slang due to the rapid rotation of trends. This study aims to provide data to a new field related to Tik Tok culture and the effects of trends on marginalized groups.

Using qualitative content analysis, this article studies an LGBTQ+-inspired Tik Tok trend to determine if the portmanteau of “-ussy”’s meaning has changed from its original use and if trends …

Queer Representation In The Scream Franchise, Amber M. Harvey

Student Research Submissions

This paper is an exploration of queer representation across the Scream film franchise. The original Scream premiered in 1996 and in 2022 and the series was rebooted with new characters that are the second generation of the characters in the first film. The direct parallels between the films allow for an analysis of how representation has grown with the times. The ultimate goal of this paper was to investigate two different aspects of on screen representation: quantity (how many queer characters are shown?) and quality (Are they queer coded? Are they shown to actually be queer? Do they embody queer …

Leading Lad(Y) In Love: Gender And Agency In Two Self-Reflective Romantic Comedies, Cristina Montemorano

Student Research Submissions

What can romantic comedies with satirical elements tell us about the romantic comedy genre and romance in general? This senior seminar paper explores two self-reflective films – Isn’t it Romantic (2019) starring Rebel Wilson and Playing it Cool (2014) starring Chris Evans – that simultaneously break and follow this genre’s norms, actively parodying genre conventions and themes. Montemorano’s examination of gender and agency uses a combination of content and comparative analyses in order to study if the gender of main characters impacts how a movie follows or breaks genre conventions, how satire reveals and perpetuates gender and filmic norms, and …

Get Out, Queen & Slim: A Content Analysis Of How Race Is Portrayed In Two Mainstream Hollywood Films, Ronic Ngambwe

Student Research Submissions

This paper analyzes how African-Americans and race are portrayed in two mainstream Hollywood films: Get Out (2017) and Queen & Slim (2019). The goal was to compare emerging themes to what previous literature indicates about the portrayal of African-Americans and race in mainstream films and representation on-screen and behind-the-scenes in Hollywood. Previous literature suggests that African-Americans are often placed in stereotypical and limiting roles and that this is in part due to the lack of diversity behind-the-scenes. A content analysis along with open-source coding revealed racial solidarity as the key emerging theme throughout both films. A theme that was also …