Film and Media Studies Commons^™

Let The Monsters Out Of The Closet: Overt Queer Depictions In Hollywood Horror Films, Miles D. Noecker

Media and Communication Studies Summer Fellows

According to Harry M. Benshoff in his book Monsters in the Closet, Hollywood has a long history of demonizing queer people in horror films with what he refers to as the “monster queer.” The monster queer can be read as a key fixture of most horror narratives as a destabilizing force to heteronormative society which must be vanquished. As a gay man and avid horror enthusiast, I find myself drawn to overt (rather than connotative) examples of monster queers, from Norman Bates to Buffalo Bill to Megan Fox’s Jennifer Check. I seek to analyze Hollywood horror films for the …

Schizophrenia In Film: The Missing Narrative, Art Thomas

Media and Communication Studies Summer Fellows

Film characters with schizophrenia are most often depicted as (1) violent and threatening or (2) extraordinary and talented. As a result of these cinematic representations, audiences have false assumptions about the reality of schizophrenia. Films give the impression that people with schizophrenia should be separated from society in some way by being placed in a mental institution or on a pedestal to show that even a sick brain can be marvelous.

I studied films that portray schizophrenic characters in order to identify a story that is not being told by Hollywood. By looking at the romantic, platonic, and familial relationships …

Trepidation: A Film Project On Cultural Trauma, Courtney A. Duchene

Media and Communication Studies Summer Fellows

A trailer and a screenplay for a docudrama film that examines cultural trauma in relation to police shootings and the 2016 election.

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 …

Female Moments / Male Structures: The Representation Of Women In Romantic Comedies, Jordan A. Scharaga

Media and Communication Studies Summer Fellows

Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl again. With this formula it seems that romantic comedies are actually meant for men instead of women. If this is the case, then why do women watch these films? The repetition of female stars like Katharine Hepburn, Doris Day and Meg Ryan in romantic comedies allows audiences to find elements of truth in their characters as they grapple with the input of others in their life choices, combat the anxiety of being single, and prove they are less sexually naïve than society would like to admit. In 1999, a character struggles …