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Articles 1 - 30 of 108
Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Intolerable Masculinity: Screening Men's Shame And Embracing Curious Futures, Cole Clark
Intolerable Masculinity: Screening Men's Shame And Embracing Curious Futures, Cole Clark
Film and Media Studies (MA) Theses
This thesis argues that to critique hegemonic masculinity and patriarchy in good faith, film and television must focus on the futures created through men’s ethical action in the present, rather than inert displays of men’s horrific behaviors that rely on audience shame as a tool for reclaiming men’s pride. Men’s freedom to change their situation is introduced through Manon Garcia’s (2022) notion of masculinity as an “impasse,” preventing men from authentic connection with others. This concept is furthered using David Buchbinder (2013), with the television examples Mad Men (Weiner 2007-2015) and Black Mirror (Brooker 2011-2023) each presenting a different masculine …
Taylor Swift As Religion: The Deification Of An International Pop Music Superstar And The Ramifications Of Fame, With A Comparison To Vox Lux, Jessica Cotturone
Taylor Swift As Religion: The Deification Of An International Pop Music Superstar And The Ramifications Of Fame, With A Comparison To Vox Lux, Jessica Cotturone
Religion and Film
This paper explores the ways in which the culture surrounding pop music superstar Taylor Swift is a religion. Taylor Swift has had an indelible impact on her fans, who are known as Swifties, and this paper brings attention to the ways that she establishes a strong connection with her fans such that they come to view her as a religious figure. Definitions of religion proposed by scholars Clifford Geertz and Meghan Johnston Aelabouni are used to analyze how this popular music culture can fit into a broader conceptualization of religion. Special attention is given to the deification of celebrities in …
Written In Blood: The Cultural Work Of Family, Sexuality, And Race In Adaptations Of Anne Rice's Interview With The Vampire, Ariana Alvarado
Written In Blood: The Cultural Work Of Family, Sexuality, And Race In Adaptations Of Anne Rice's Interview With The Vampire, Ariana Alvarado
Undergraduate Theses
Anne Rice’s gothic novel “Interview with the Vampire” (1976) has not only stood the test of time as a cult classic, but has continued to be told and retold through a film adaptation (1994) and recent AMC television production (2022). Looking through the lens of adaptation theory and the ideas of Nina Auerbach in Our Vampires, Ourselves, this presentation highlights how both the original novel and subsequent adaptations use the figure of the vampire to represent the social changes of the era of its creation, particularly in regards to queerness and sexuality.
Sharp Stick Grasps At Autistic Women’S Liminal Vulnerability, Meaghan Krazinski
Sharp Stick Grasps At Autistic Women’S Liminal Vulnerability, Meaghan Krazinski
Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture
This film analysis of Sharp Stick by Lena Dunham critically explores how the film uptakes representations of the ideas around the vulnerabilities of Autistic women in popular culture, and yet does not explicitly name them as such. This liminality is critical and plays into the intersectional analysis that the author engages around the way vulnerability and Autistic identity is interpreted and read. The author draws upon McDermott's (2022) "neurotypical gaze" in an analysis that shows how traditional tropes around Autistic women’s vulnerability are social constructions that are brought into relief by stereotypes around race, gender, and ability. The author uses …
Disney Princess Films: Feminist Movements And The Changing Of Gender Roles, Mckinley M. Frees
Disney Princess Films: Feminist Movements And The Changing Of Gender Roles, Mckinley M. Frees
Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects
No abstract provided.
Bi Erasure And Bi Invisibility In Media And Medicine: Moving Beyond, Lacy M. Telles
Bi Erasure And Bi Invisibility In Media And Medicine: Moving Beyond, Lacy M. Telles
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
This project examines the bisexual erasure and invisibility that is found in film, television, literature, and in the field of reproduction. Even though bisexual people make up a large portion of the LGBTQ community, because of bi invisibility, they tend to get lost in the cause. This website offers information about bi invisibility, highlights obstacles faced by bisexuals, provides resources for bisexuals, and includes some fun topics for bisexual people. It also has a page of bisexual testimonies: real bi people with real bi stories. There is evidence of erasure and invisibility, especially in children’s books and the field of …
Spit Brimming With Futures, Penny Molesso
Spit Brimming With Futures, Penny Molesso
School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work
SPIT BRIMMING WITH FUTURES is an immersive video and audio installation that uses ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) to investigate the intersection of transgender and neurodivergent identity, expressing an urgent need to imagine stories about transgender, autistic people that affirm our agency and autonomy amidst a political climate that weaponizes neurodivergence to delegitimize trans experiences. The American political right’s vilification of transgender people is used to uphold structures of white supremacy and heteropatriarchy that become destabilized when rigid binary gender categories are challenged. The political right has a vested interest in keeping trans people out of public view, thus weaponizing …
"Real Women Have Bodies": A Study In Adaptation, Madison Ephlin
"Real Women Have Bodies": A Study In Adaptation, Madison Ephlin
Honors Projects
The art of adaptation is a difficult process, and is often hard to please general audiences that have a connection to the source material. As a student who studies both English Literature and Film Production, the question asked through this study is what does it take to write a “successful” adaptation? What qualifies as “successful”? How does an adaptation balance the themes, characterization, and plot of a piece of literature with the continuous momentum and visual complexity that the medium of film requires, all in 120 pages or less? This study engages with these questions by actively practicing adaptation, adapting …
Utopian Promises, Dystopic Realities: Teaching Bell Hooks “No Love In The Wild”, Naimah H. Ford
Utopian Promises, Dystopic Realities: Teaching Bell Hooks “No Love In The Wild”, Naimah H. Ford
Feminist Pedagogy
This original teaching activity discusses bell hooks’ film review of Beasts of The Southern Wild and explains how it can be used to encourage students to recognize how popular culture reproduces and reinforces disturbing paradigms. This original teaching activity, based on hooks’ review “No Love in The Wild,” encourages students to be informed while navigating visual images in popular culture. This activity also explains how hooks’ film review and the film can be used to empower students with strategies to analyze film and other visual images that are seemingly progressive but support the strictures and structures that reinforce patriarchy, racism, …
Princes, Princesses, And Socialites: Feminism And Class Transgression In Hollywood Romantic Comedies, Justina Marie Clayburn
Princes, Princesses, And Socialites: Feminism And Class Transgression In Hollywood Romantic Comedies, Justina Marie Clayburn
Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations
This dissertation explored how characters in romantic comedies negotiate and transgress class boundaries as the films conform to and challenge genre and social expectations, focusing primarily through a feminist lens. Specifically, it addresses the different ways the films negotiate ideas about American identity and economic systems, simultaneously trying to acknowledge problematic elements while upholding social and nationalistic ideals. Feminism has a complicated relationship with Hollywood romantic comedies. While the genre often focuses on issues of interest to women and forefronts female characters and their professional and personal experiences, the denouement generally reinforces heteronormative monogamous relationships above others and the traditional …
Sociocultural Pressures Among Parents Of Queer Children In Films With Non-Western Environments, Samay Bhasin
Sociocultural Pressures Among Parents Of Queer Children In Films With Non-Western Environments, Samay Bhasin
Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters
The heteronormative and cisnormative nature of society has required queer individuals to undergo the phenomenon of “coming out” as their queer identity. This phenomenon has the potential to take great tolls on queer individuals especially when it comes to parents. Queer individuals with unaccepting parents are eight times more likely to attempt suicide, six times more likely to experience clinical depression, and three times more likely to suffer under substance abuse (Ryan et al., 2009; Ryan et al., 2010). However despite such concerning statistics, there is still a significant gap in scientific research on creating supportive environments …
Masculinity In American Movie-Musical Films, Christopher Sparks
Masculinity In American Movie-Musical Films, Christopher Sparks
Spring Showcase for Research and Creative Inquiry
My presentation explores the relation between American masculinity and film musicals. I demonstrate how the dominance of the musical at the box office in the middle of the 20th century reflects historical events and technological change. Drawing on both scholarly and popular criticism, I show how the images of masculinity that Americans once encountered on the silver screen have transformed as musicals became marginal to popular culture in the United States. My research considers both classic 20th century musicals, such as Wizard of Oz (1939) and 42nd Street (1933), and more recent experiments with the genre, including …
Film Women Violence, Madison R. Ross
Film Women Violence, Madison R. Ross
Masters Theses
As a condensed version of social reality, film has become a more common object of modern sociological and criminological investigation. As such, we can explore film to understand taken-for-granted as well as innovative constructions of social phenomena. Among these are gendered violence. We can use film to dig deep into its logics, elaborated in visual and narrative representations. Prior literature has analyzed crime films and the behavioral constructions within them, outlining the representations of serial homicide, rape, mass shootings and revenge. However, few studies have outlined films that do meaningful, non-voyeuristic representational work on the issue of violence against …
"I Want To Know What I'M Looking At": Surveilling Gender As A Response To Cultural Anxieties In Halloween, Sleepaway Camp, And Scream, Jennifer Jacinda Mclawhorn
"I Want To Know What I'M Looking At": Surveilling Gender As A Response To Cultural Anxieties In Halloween, Sleepaway Camp, And Scream, Jennifer Jacinda Mclawhorn
Institute for the Humanities Theses
The purpose of this thesis is to investigate slasher films and how they use gendered tropes to respond to and perpetuate cultural anxieties. The methodology primarily uses textual analysis that includes close attention to content, context, and discourse. The study reveals structural patterns and problems that emerge within slasher films, specifically within the Final Girl trope and the behaviors that govern it. In surveilling the Final Girl’s gender performativity, it is apparent that abjection, or a gut reaction to something that exists between two distinct boundaries or categories, is provoked when the Final Girl crosses a socially established gender boundary. …
At Home Among Strangers, Aleksandra Gorbacheva
At Home Among Strangers, Aleksandra Gorbacheva
Theses and Dissertations
At Home Among Strangers is a character-driven documentary that explores the price of freedom for a gay person in a society that lacks freedom and civil rights. It follows an asylum seeker from Russia, Sasha Smirnov, during a crucial moment of his life: starting over in New York City at 40 as a journalist without English language skills. The film reflects on the choices one makes and the consequences of staying true to oneself.
Bisexuality In 21st Century Media, Bethany Abrams
Bisexuality In 21st Century Media, Bethany Abrams
Audre Lorde Writing Prize
This paper sets out to examine bisexuality in 21st century media in order to highlight the importance of good bisexual representation. Media that perpetuates harmful stereotypes only adds to the discrimination that bisexual individuals experience. This paper begins by discussing stereotypes and types of discrimination that are particularly relevant to the bisexual community. After this, pieces of media are analyzed thoroughly for how they portray bisexuality. The three main pieces that are analyzed are Alex Strangelove, Atypical, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. After analyzing each piece, the paper continues to examine audience reactions and discusses the implications of representing bisexuality …
Celluloid Subversion: A Queer Reading Of 1980s Teen Slasher Cinema, Yates Diaz
Celluloid Subversion: A Queer Reading Of 1980s Teen Slasher Cinema, Yates Diaz
FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
“Celluloid Subversion” examines the slasher film genre, specifically how it came to prominence in the early 1980s at the dawn of Ronald Reagan and the New Right’s takeover of American political and social life. With its violence against women and individuals who engage in allegedly immoral acts, the genre is commonly perceived as a cinematic representation of patriarchal values writ large on screen. However, its propensity for challenging gender norms and its adherence to tropes such as that of the Final Girl – where a woman survives the killer’s carnage before defeating him – imbue it with subversively queer qualities …
Hail, Caesar!, Kel R. Karpinski
Hail, Caesar!, Kel R. Karpinski
Publications and Research
This piece looks at queer characters in the Coen Brothers’ film Hail, Caesar! (2016). The film takes place during the heyday of the Hollywood film studio set in 1951 and draws on many films during that time period of the 1930s, 40s and 50s.
Transcinematheque: Defining Cinematic Language In The Trans New Wave, Mel Turnage
Transcinematheque: Defining Cinematic Language In The Trans New Wave, Mel Turnage
Honors Undergraduate Theses
This thesis aims to analyze the films of the Trans New Wave in order to define tropes and motifs of cinematic language and structure. The language of the filmmaking itself presents a different approach from mainstream transgender films, and this changes how certain imagery of transness is contextualized in a larger narrative. In particular, the films of the Trans New Wave operate in contrast to both historical trans films and modern prestige/studio films to deliver more realistic portrayals of trans peoples’ experiences and beliefs. This new language of the Trans New Wave serves to create a more accurate and profound …
Art Imitates Life: The Representation (Or Lack Thereof) Of Black Women In Video Games, Bug Gadson
Art Imitates Life: The Representation (Or Lack Thereof) Of Black Women In Video Games, Bug Gadson
Faculty Curated Undergraduate Works
The key focus of this essay is to compare the representation of black women in media, primarily in television and film, to the representation of black female characters in video games. Using black feminist theory, this essay illustrates the treatment of black female characters in gaming. The particular and deliberate methods of writing black female characters in video games are used to highlight white video game characters and their narratives, instead of giving life and dimension to the black female characters themselves. The hostile and unsafe environments in gaming spaces are cultivated through upholding these harmful stereotypes of black women, …
Blindspotting And Covid: The Gentrification Of Racism, Ashley Starr-Morris
Blindspotting And Covid: The Gentrification Of Racism, Ashley Starr-Morris
Journal of Religion & Film
The novel Coronavirus is not only exposing old patterns of racism and systemic inequalities, but deepening them as well. The notion of blindspotting, as described in the film by the same name, is used to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic impacts the “spiritual emergency” or crisis of racism in America. "Blindspotting" is an image or situation that can be interpreted in two ways but is understood by some in only one way, thereby producing a blind spot. In 2020 and 2021, we see segments of American society, from politics to white Christian nationalism, upholding a sacred canopy of exceptionalism by …
When We See Us: Coming 2 America And The Intricacies Of Black Representation And Diasporic Conversation, Terri Bowles
When We See Us: Coming 2 America And The Intricacies Of Black Representation And Diasporic Conversation, Terri Bowles
Markets, Globalization & Development Review
This is a review essay of the film Coming 2 America (2021) by Craig Brewer, a follow-up to the 1988 comedy classic Coming to America , which stars Eddie Murphy as a newly crowned African king confronted with shifting family dynamics and evolving challenges to his royal authority. The review examines the cultural space occupying the 30 years that separate the first film and its sequel, and interrogates the structures of popular film and comedy that situate representational discourses of gender and diasporic Black representation.
An Analysis Of Lgbtq+ Representation In Television And Film, Katelyn Thomson
An Analysis Of Lgbtq+ Representation In Television And Film, Katelyn Thomson
Bridges: An Undergraduate Journal of Contemporary Connections
As LGBTQ+ representation in television and film increases, viewers must continue to question if this representation is accurate and enough to represent a whole spectrum of individuals. TV and film hold a powerful role in shaping societies perceptions, biases and stereotypes of a community and individuals. This essay analyzes TV and film representations to provide the reader with a better understanding of the power and impact that accurate representations of LGBTQ+ can have on the community and society as a whole. By looking at the issue through the lenses of queer theories, scripting theory, in addition to Stuart Hall and …
Madwomen And Mad Women: An Analysis Of The Use Of Female Insanity And Anger In Narrative Fiction, From Vilification To Validation., Lindsay Haralu
Madwomen And Mad Women: An Analysis Of The Use Of Female Insanity And Anger In Narrative Fiction, From Vilification To Validation., Lindsay Haralu
College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses
This project examines the use of female insanity and anger in narrative fiction, as demonstrated by the character of the madwoman. Madness is a concept that has long been gendered female throughout Western history, in medicine, language, religion, and culture. Socially and culturally constructed madness can be used to determine the boundaries of society, the norms and values from which “madness” deviates, while the character of the madwoman can be used to demonstrate how women have challenged these boundaries and how the roles of women and definitions of femininity have changed over time. This study analyzes the madwoman trope from …
Big Community In Little Chinatown: How Asian Americans (Re)Present Their Community Today, Meghan Morrison
Big Community In Little Chinatown: How Asian Americans (Re)Present Their Community Today, Meghan Morrison
Capstone Projects and Master's Theses
This paper looks at a series of modern Asian American pieces of media in order to analyze how women and LGBT+ depict and create their community, especially in relation to another marginalized ethnic group. By examining the relationship between these groups within popular media, we can uncover how Asian Americans choose to represent themselves and gain a deeper understanding on how marginalized groups choose to portray themselves.
Challenging Faith And Gaining Power: Women In Film Who Reject And Subvert Religion, Annika Murrah
Challenging Faith And Gaining Power: Women In Film Who Reject And Subvert Religion, Annika Murrah
Religion and Film
This paper examines the ways that women seize power through rejection and subversion of religion by relating women in film to the real world. Rejection of faith is exemplified by characters in the films The Little Hours (2017) and The Miseducation of Cameron Post (2018). Subversion of faith is understood through the films Whale Rider (2003), Jennifer’s Body (2009), and Transparent (2014). Narrative analysis of these films is contrasted with studies of orthodox religion as examined by Dr. Brenda E. Brasher and Dr. Mary Gerhart. The importance and effect of women’s newly-gained power is applied to social change as recorded …
Art Imitates Life: The Representation (Or Lack Thereof) Of Black Women In Video Games, Bug Gadson
Art Imitates Life: The Representation (Or Lack Thereof) Of Black Women In Video Games, Bug Gadson
Capstone Showcase
The key focus of this essay is to compare the representation of black women in media, primarily in television and film, to the representation of black female characters in video games. Using black feminist theory, this essay illustrates the treatment of black female characters in gaming. The particular and deliberate methods of writing black female characters in video games are used to highlight white video game characters and their narratives, instead of giving life and dimension to the black female characters themselves. The hostile and unsafe environments in gaming spaces are cultivated through upholding these harmful stereotypes of black women, …
Playing With Noise: Anne Elliot, The Narrator, And Sound In Jane Austen's And Adrian Shergold's Persuasion, Brianna R. Phillips
Playing With Noise: Anne Elliot, The Narrator, And Sound In Jane Austen's And Adrian Shergold's Persuasion, Brianna R. Phillips
The Corinthian
This paper pushes against the critical tradition that views silence or listening in relation to passivity and powerlessness by exploring the role of noise in Jane Austen’s Persuasion and in Adrian Shergold’s experimental 2007 film adaptation of that novel and how sound relates to Anne Elliot’s emotional legibility. Austen fills the narrative landscape with sounds that are filtered almost exclusively through Anne so that even when she is silent, she is “making noise” through her focalizations and through free indirect narration. Both Austen and Shergold align noise with Anne’s emotions such that Anne’s sensorial responses to shocking, loud, and disruptive …
Visual Weimar: The Iconography Of Social And Political Identities, Kerry Wallach
Visual Weimar: The Iconography Of Social And Political Identities, Kerry Wallach
German Studies Faculty Publications
In the Weimar Republic, images were perceived to be as unreliable as they were powerful. They helped create and codify difference while simultaneously blurring lines within the categories of gender and race. Visual culture provided a wild playground for discourses about gender presentation and sexuality that encompassed veterans, athletes, criminals, the New Woman, and androgynous figures. Despite the growing prominence of images in race science, it was widely held that images could not be trusted to convey accurate information about race. The propagandistic use of images for political purposes had the potential to be equally ambiguous. It was ultimately up …
Crazy Rich Asians: Exploring Discourses Of Orientalism, Neoliberal Feminism, Privilege And Inequality, Devi Vijay
Crazy Rich Asians: Exploring Discourses Of Orientalism, Neoliberal Feminism, Privilege And Inequality, Devi Vijay
Markets, Globalization & Development Review
In this review of Crazy Rich Asians (2018), I examine elements of orientalism, neoliberal feminism, privilege and inequality that layer the film. Specifically, I interrogate the film’s American inflection of orientalism, surfacing a constant duel between essentialized Asian and American values, where what is American eventually wins out. Independent, entrepreneurial women are integral to this narrative of global capitalist accumulation. Yet, as the East meets the West in the globalized consumptive spaces of the super-rich, inequalities in the United States and Singapore are either repackaged under the myth of meritocracy, or conveniently erased. While the film demarcates a new Hollywood …