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Television

2017

Articles 1 - 4 of 4

Full-Text Articles in Women's Studies

(Not) One Of The Boys: A Case Study Of Female Detectives On Hbo, Darcy Griffin Sep 2017

(Not) One Of The Boys: A Case Study Of Female Detectives On Hbo, Darcy Griffin

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In 1997 HBO aired its first original drama series, Oz. In the years that have followed the network has positioned itself as vanguard in the television landscape, however, HBO drama series have remained a complicated, and often dangerous site for female characters. Moreover, with a few exceptions (Sex and the City, or True Blood for example), original HBO drama series remain focused on the network’s primary audience demographic: the predominantly male, relatively affluent consumers of quality television. This research explores the representation of female detectives within original HBO crime drama series, The Wire (2002--8) and Season Two of True Detective …

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Girl Crush: Liminal Identities And Lesbian Love In Children's Cartoons, Madison Bradley Jul 2017

Girl Crush: Liminal Identities And Lesbian Love In Children's Cartoons, Madison Bradley

Media and Communication Studies Summer Fellows

A textual analysis of the cartoon Steven Universe, this project takes a semiotic approach to explore anti-essentialist messages of gender identity. I argue that within the mainstream media, the cartoon expresses prosocial messages about gender by representing nonbinary characters and gender fluid themes. Using children’s media studies, queer studies, and reception studies, I investigate how the show portrays liminal identities. In particular, I focus on how lesbian existence and gender fluidity are simultaneously normalized and othered through the text’s visuals and dialogue. Critically analyzing the ways in which the media represents queerness as ‘too adult,’ this study reveals that children’s …

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The Fat Female Bodies Of Saturday Night Live: Uncovering The Normative Cultural Power Of A Countercultural Comedy Institution, Katharine Cacace Feb 2017

The Fat Female Bodies Of Saturday Night Live: Uncovering The Normative Cultural Power Of A Countercultural Comedy Institution, Katharine Cacace

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Despite its reputation as one of the most countercultural and anti-establishment voices in mainstream television comedy, Saturday Night Live helps produce and reproduces cultural norms. Using weight and gender as a lens, this paper investigates Saturday Night Live’s methods of creating, imitating, and evoking the fat female body in order to limit female agency and police unruly female power. It contends that even the inclusion of nonnormative female bodies—fat bodies, queer bodies, and bodies of color—is merely a reiteration of the techniques of neoliberal multiculturalism for the television audience.

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The Parton Paradox: A History Of Race And Gender In The Career Of Dolly Parton, Lindsey L. Hammers Jan 2017

The Parton Paradox: A History Of Race And Gender In The Career Of Dolly Parton, Lindsey L. Hammers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

With a career that has spanned over five decades, country music artist Dolly Parton has continually redefined her image and her music to remain relevant. By incorporating the musical and lyrical stylings of disco and other popular music genres into her songs, Parton moved beyond music’s color line to increase her popularity as an artist. This thesis shows how Parton established a distinct career that catered to different audiences as she traversed the musical color line and repackaged what feminism looked like to country music fans during the Women’s Movement of the 1960s. Placing Parton’s actions in conversation with music’s …

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