Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Mapping The Queer Ephemeral, Mitchell Famulare

Honors Theses

This thesis seeks to define/theorize and map the queer ephemeral, a cycle of emergence and reemergence of the queer subject within queer time. Straight time consists of the linear timeline where when one matures, attends college, attains a stable job, falls in love, marries, bears children, and lives happily ever after. Whether through movies, television, books, or our own guardians, time is presented to us as something stable, consistent, and reproductive; diverging off the conventional timeline brings societal pressures that isolate subjects who fall out of its fabric. As straight time facilitates the construction of some sort of ideal adult, …

5 Or 6 Amphibians: An Animated Short Film, Nicholas Lockwood

Honors Theses

My art project, “5 or 6 Amphibians”, explores a feeling I have had at Union - that of being split between too many things. It is six minutes of rotoscoped animation, presented on an array of nine screens. It is the culmination of my interest in time-based art, especially film and animation, as well as construction and technical knowledge.

Acting Hysterical: Analyzing The Construction, Diagnosis And Portrayal Of Historical And Modern Hysterical Women, Gillian Singer

Honors Theses

Hysterical women’s stories from the 19th and 20th centuries have all too often been ignored and furthermore, invalidated through the capitalization and spectacularization of hysterical women’s experiences. “Acting Hysterical: Analyzing the Construction, Diagnosis and Portrayal of Historical and Modern ‘Hysterical’ Women” aims to acknowledge hysterical women’s narratives by studying the visual documentation of hysterical women. Visual documentation of hysteria began with the photographing of Dr. Jean-Martin Charcot’s “hysterical” female patients and extends to modern cinematic representations from the last two decades of historical and modern hysterical women.

Medical Muses, a book based in years of research by Asti Hustvedt served …

Film Stills, Kevin Jordan

Honors Theses

Film cinematography has always fascinated me, particularly the way composition, color, and lighting augment the subject's mood and can evoke an emotion out of viewers. I want to emulate this in my portraits, with the goal of transporting the viewers into another world.

L' Obscurite' Manifestee (A Manifested Obscurity), Roswald Morales

Honors Theses

There are three directors that have revolutionized the world of French cinema by bringing to the forefront topics that make its audiences uncomfortable. Abdellatif Kechiche, director of the film Black Venus (2010), Ousmane Sembène, director of the film Black Girl (1966), and Céline Sciamma, director of the film Girlhood (2014) have become renowned for discussing the portrayal of black women in French society. This is a topic at hand that reveals the devastating truth behind French society in regarding black women during various eras. Black Venus narrates the life of an African woman during the slavery period in Europe. Black …

Culture Of Conflict: Watching The End Of The 1960s American Counterculture Through Documentaries About Rock Music, Matt Steinberg

Honors Theses

The 1960’s was a complicated time in American History. The decade started with Chubby Checker’s “The Twist” and concluded on “The End” by The Doors. The explosion of a youth counterculture is captured and preserved on film; a medium that was rapidly becoming more mobile, personal, and artistic. The expansion of the documentary field coincided with a unique cultural blossoming centered around rock music and the results of these films leave us with an audiovisual history of extraordinary moments in time. This thesis closely examines the development and issues of performance or rock documentaries to better understand the violent demise …

A Critical Study Of The African-American Comedic Tradition, Allison Longo

Honors Theses

This thesis examines the changes in African-American comedy during the 1980s. In exploring the changes during this decade, specific attention is paid to Eddie Murphy, who achieved incredible success beginning with his 1980 entrance on Saturday Night Live. In a relatively short period of time, Murphy was able to ascend to a level of cultural significance that far dwarfed that reached by any of the African American comedians who had preceded him. Through a comprehensive presentation of the historical development of African American humor, the following thesis challenges the consensus critical assumption that Murphy both consciously forewent opportunities to be …

The Origins And Evolution Of Corporate Sponsored Film, Clara Boesch

Honors Theses

Though possibly one of the most extensive genres in cinematic history, corporate sponsored films have been largely untouched by both historians and film critics. This thesis explores the origins and evolution of corporate-sponsored film resulting from the technological and economic climate of the nation from the late 19th century to the mid-20th century. It references the works of a few specialists in the field such as Rick Prelinger and Walter Klein, among others, as well as contemporary publications such as the trade journal Business Screen. In addition, it critically analyzes corporate-sponsored films from the pre-and post‐war periods to identify the …

Explorations In The Domestic Space: How Hollywood Made A Home In Film Melodrama, Elana Katz

Honors Theses

This thesis utilizes the Hollywood domestic melodramas and sex comedies of the 1950s as a lens to discover the evolution of family and home from Eisenhower’s America to modern day. As a mode of expression with roots in nineteenth-century theater, melodrama serves as a primary genre for tracking historical and social shifts in twentieth-century American society. However, as the narrative form has evolved over time, what satisfies melodrama is difficult to define as its boundaries have been redrawn. Historians and film scholars examine melodrama through three overarching schools of thought: melodrama as a genre, a mode, or both. Film melodrama …

Going To The Movies The Origins Of The American Cultural Experience, Phoebe Cooper

Honors Theses

My thesis examines the cultural formation of the social experience of “going to the movies.” There is no doubt of a unique quality associated with going to the movies that holds a significant place in America’s cultural history. It is quite difficult to imagine life without movies. Their visually stimulating effects successfully captivate our minds and allow for a short period of solace from reality. Furthermore, there is something magical at work in the social tradition of going to the movies where the idea of sitting in a dark auditorium filled with strangers all sharing the same viewing experience. This …

Inmigracion Y Género: La Representación De La Mujer Inmigrante En El Cine Español Contemporáneo, Jenna Langhans

Honors Theses

This project explores the representation of undocumented women immigrants in Spanish cinema in the past three decades through the analysis of three films: Flores de otro mundo (1999) directed by Icíar Bollaín, and Princesas (2005) and Amador (2010), both directed by Fernando León de Aranoa. These directors are part of a third wave of Spanish film makers whose artistic motives lie in conveying pertinent commentary concerning important and controversial issues that affect contemporary Spanish society at the economic, political, and cultural levels. The intersection of immigration and gender dynamics is one of such issues that has evolved significantly since the …

Costa Brava Y A Mi Madre Le Gustan Las Mujeres: Películas Pioneras En Una Época De Cambio, Madelyn Degutis

Honors Theses

Spain has a long history of discrimination, social and legal, against homosexuals which began to change with the end of Franco’s dictatorship in 1975. Spanish society became more and more accepting of homosexuals, and the laws that changed between 1975 and the present day reflect this change. Although Spanish society is relatively accepting of homosexuals, they have not been portrayed to a proportionate extent or with the same accepting attitudes in film. In particular, there is an overwhelming underrepresentation of lesbian movies, especially those that portray them in a positive light. This trend began to change in the 1990s, around …

The Battle Of Algiers And The Dictatorship Of Truth: How Crillo Pontecorvo Used Film As An Illusion To The Reality Of A Dying Colonialism, Caitlin Gardner

Honors Theses

The Battle of Algiers from a historical perspective does provide the view with a lot of attention to detail but it is a very simplistic in representing the national liberation struggle within Algeria and among the major groups, such as the FLN and MNA. Also missing is the French perspective be it in leadership circles or the intellectual circles that showed sympathy to the Algerian cause. The pied-noirs, although present in the film, are not provided any real depth or nuance aside from being portrayed also as victims within the cycle of violence in the colonial struggles. Yet while terrorism …

Sex Text And Screen: Kubricks Adaption Of Sexually-Explicit Scenes From Text To Film, Elsa A. Perushek

Honors Theses

Over the course of Stanley Kubrick’s career, he adapted three controversial novels into three of his most successful films. Lolita, A Clockwork Orange, and Traumnovelle are all full of sexually-explicit content which, when adapted to film, caused even more controversy. Print and film are fundamentally different, and Kubrick faced a unique challenge by choosing source texts that were often uncomfortable for their audiences to read. Sexually explicit scenes in film are much more potent than those in novels; thus, for Kubrick to be successful he must find a balance between recreating the scene’s effect from the novel and allowing the …

Hijos, Muerte Y La Histeria Femenina: La Historia De La Malinche A Través De Dos Representaciones De La Llorona En El Cine Mexicano, Aria D. Walfrand

Honors Theses

This thesis is an exploration of two very famous Mexican legend figures, La Malinche and La Llorona, and the connection between women through two films: La Llorona (1960) and Las Lloronas (2003). These films, although they are about the myth of La Llorona, have very strong connections to La Malinche. These connections are based on the representation of them in the film and the themes of the children's background, the hysteria, and the effect that La Llorona's curse has on future generations. First, information is given on the history of La Malinche. There is not much concrete information about her …