Film and Media Studies Commons^™

Norm And The People, Jacqueline N. Wade

Theses and Dissertations

Norm and the People is a 90-minute hybrid film about the Minister and activist Norman Eddy and the work he and other activists did in Spanish Harlem from the 1940s through his death in 2013. The film is told through interviews, archival photos and videos, reenactments, and puppets.

Supernova, Prinsey M. Walker

University of New Orleans Thesis Films

Film making is the one of the only creative outlets that has the ability to encompass the past, present, and future. Supernova, specifically is a piece that is a reflection of the black community. The story is an analysis of the family structure, privilege, and colorism. Beyond the audience's interpretation of the story, film making is a gateway to spiritual enlightenment of the inner soul for artists. The product upon completion may not be critically acclaimed. However, it is the take away as an artist that has the most meaning for passion projects.

Inaccessible Interpolated Imagery: How Coffee Farmers In The State Of Chiapas Might Access Political Economic Opportunity Through Representation, Paolo Fiann Bicchieri

Master's Theses

Here is a useful parable to boil down the idea of this project and set the tone: when one goes to the bar to tell a story about a fight at the bar, they would never venture to place themselves as the hero of the brawl, taking out three drunkards in a single punch, unless they were really in the bar, at that time, fighting a good fight. One would never do this as the bartender, locals, and regulars would all know if this were the case or not. Yet transnational corporations, governments, and even consumers do this all the …

The Wizard's Alphabet Book: Illustration As Counter-Environment To The Digital World, Stephen Barany

MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture

This thesis essay accompanies a built installation of twenty-six densely drawn illustrations, each consisting of numerous creatures and objects whose names all begin with the same letter. Thus, each illustration represents a different letter of the alphabet. Printed on cloud-shaped substrates and suspended as a group in a 10”x10” ring, the array of illustrations form a small space where viewers can immerse themselves in the act of free and careful looking. This essay elaborates on the ideas that propelled the design and construction of this illustrated installation.

This essay explores the potential for illustration to create a space for looking …

Because Potato, Candice Evers

MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture

This thesis project explores the phenomenological qualities of the internet; asking, since the internet is difficult to grasp, what other modes of investigation might we have available? Using an investigative framework set forth by Jack Halberstam, this thesis declines to come to knowledge solely through understanding the formal, the structural, the highly visible and mainstream. The literature that I have gathered provides a range of modes for interrogating the simultaneously central and inconsequential subject of my thesis itself: the potato. Juxtaposing the physical, political and material conditions of the potato the internet’s least academic mode of knowing: the meme. Analyzing …

Dark Moon, Kate Mathews

Theses and Dissertations

Dark Moon is a short narrative film that follows Billie as she comes home for the weekend to look after her father, Jack, who has recently been diagnosed with early onset Dementia. The appearance of a mysterious woman shines a light on their changing power dynamic, threatening to throw their world out of orbit. Dark Moon is a rumination on an ailing man’s need for agency and a daughter’s misguided attempts to keep her father safe. Inspired by my own relationship with my father, the film explores loss and the ways we try, however foolishly, to fight against it.

Anamnesis: A Film About Forgetting, Neville Pullar Elder

Theses and Dissertations

In the film Anamnesis I bear witness to the injury and death of my childhood best friend Dominic, when I was 11. The film is a quest: A search for a visual memory that I have forgotten or perhaps, deliberately hidden from myself. Can remembering the events in their entirety and chronological order help me heal? Is searching for the lost memories nothing more than a smokescreen to avoid the steps I must take to deal/heal the trauma?

I communicate the relationship between the interplay of memory-making and sense-making and the reconstruction process that enables our past and present to …

Freestyle's Forsaken, Sage D. Rivera

Theses and Dissertations

Freestyle is a genre of music born in the mid-1980s from Latino and Black communities in the urban epicenters of the United States. This project spotlights a freestyle music artist “Corina," and how she suffered a patriarchal construct but finally got the moment of significance she deserved.

Reporting On Athletes And Mental Health: An Evolution In Language And Lexicon From 1970 To 2019, Vivian Ferris

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the spring and summer of 2021, several athletes made headlines for seemingly prioritizing mental health over the status quo of sports society. For example, in May 2021, during the French Open, professional U.S. tennis player Naomi Osaka announced she would not appear at press conferences, despite threats of fines, citing on social media it was for her mental health. The controversy surrounding Osaka and others led to further questions. Looking through the lens of agenda setting and framing theories, the purpose of this study is to better understand the frequency, variety, and evolution of language in journalistic coverage of …

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.

Isocrates's Place In Postmodern Advertising, Christopher Barkley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study in communication and rhetoric seeks to ascertain constructive applications for distinct advertising practices by examining Isocrates’s work and place in postmodern advertising. The focus uses 5 principles known to Isocrates which are: 1) commonwealths of households, 2) integration of reputation, elegance, substance and style, 3) education and public discourse, 4) phronesis and praxis, and 5) truth and verisimilitude. These 5 principles can form a constructive and practical advertising approach. This study is important. It examines Isocrates through the lens of advertising and extends the research done about him by leading Isocrates scholars who have looked primarily at his …

Gabriella: Gender Gap And Discrimination Experienced By Women Employees In The Filmmaking Sector, Janelle G. Gutierrez, Carla R. Isip

DLSU Senior High School Research Congress

The gender gap issue continues to be prevalent in varying sectors in the Philippines even in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aims to highlight women’s experiences in the filmmaking sector of the art industry working in an online set-up and to also clearly show its effects to their target audience, which is the working-class sectors in the Philippines through a short mockumentary film. Data was collected from six participants, men and women who are between 20 to 50 years old and have worked part-time or full-time in the filmmaking industry in the last 10 years. The results …

Fantasized Masculinity Performed In American War Narratives, Shea O'Scannlain

English Honors Theses

In this thesis I wanted to explore the ways that masculinity has been written in history through the genre of fiction. The first chapter discusses traumatized white masculinity in Kurt Vonnegut's novel SlaughterHouse Five and Oliver Stone's film Born On The Fourth of July. The second chapter deals with the female Black experience in response to the white patriarchy in Toni Morrison's novel Home and HBO's television series LoveCraft Country. And finally chapter 3 deals with mythologized masculinity redeemed through violence in Martin Scorsese's film Taxi Driver and Frank Miller's comic book series The Dark Knight Returns. …

Spinning Plates, Anikó K.L. Sáfrán

Masters Theses, 2020-current

Spinning Plates is an intermedia exhibition based on multitasking, at times to an absurd level, to address the gendered division of care labor in a typical, heteronormative household. One hundred years into the pursuit of passing an Equal Rights Amendment, women are still taking on the majority of duties related to managing and caretaking the household and its children, even though most women have also joined the income-generating labor force. At the core of the exhibit are performance-based videos of the mother-artist multitasking, completing household chores, exercising, and creating art. Some of the artworks are action paintings, others are drawings …

Peering Across The Filmic Cultural Boundary: An Analysis Of Societal And Gender Representation In Once Upon A Time In The West (1968) And Sholay (1975), Aditya Singh

Undergraduate Theses

In contrast to mainstream and blockbuster movies, art house and independent films are usually rooted in a particular sense of self, of culture, or of beliefs. While they may not enjoy the level of exposure or profit as their bigger budget counterparts, they are often more likely to resonate with an audience due to their more personal, less-commodified brand of storytelling. Often, when international film industries are attempting to remake foreign films, they look to these independent, original efforts, since it is unlikely that the big budget movies can be remade due to oftentimes monetary constraints alone.

There has existed …

A More Equitable Film Pedagogy: Including Media Literacy In Higher Education Film Classrooms To Result In Better Media Practitioners, Alexis Romero Walker

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This article explains the importance of including critical media literacy practices in skills-based classrooms in film education. Students continue to use methods of filmmaking that are inherently biased because they continue to be taught an age-old set of skills that do not engage in critical analysis. With the convergence of contemporary film theory in the classroom, educators can help students learn new methods of filmmaking that are representative for all communities and people. Through textual analysis of three films, this article shows why educators in higher education film programs must include critical media literacy in the skills course curriculum and …

Are We Centering The Adult In Youth Media Education? Decolonizing The Reception Of Youth-Produced Media Texts, Jacqueline Ryan Vickery

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This article asks media educators to consider how the assumptions and values we hold are reflected in our reception and circulation of youth-produced texts in ways that colonize youth interests, sensibilities, and aesthetics. Drawing from experiences facilitating youth media workshops and focusing on two videos produced by teens in foster care as case studies, I demonstrate how youth media programs overlook the value of “just for fun” youth-produced media texts. Although media educators value play as part of the media production process, I argue that the media we choose to circulate and celebrate are texts that resonate with and reflect …

There Is Sometimes A Buggy: Queering The Cowboy, Kelsey Gavin

Art and Art History Honors Papers

For my honors thesis project and body of work for the Annual Student Exhibition 2022, I will be interpreting stills from David Lynch's movie Mulholland Drive, sourcing from a singular four-minute scene referred to as The Cowboy scene. I will be recreating this scene in various mediums focusing on three central parts of the scene: The Cowboy, The Skull, and Adam Kesher. This project will examine and delve into the overall theme I have been exploring in my studio practice over the course of the past several years about how film and painting intertwine. For the Annual Student Exhibition it …

Russia's Agenda For Ukraine: An Examination Of Putin's Media Propaganda Narratives, Gillian Grace Littleton

Honors Theses

This thesis explores Russian discourse about Ukraine as reflected in Russian popular media since 2014’s Euromaidan Revolution. The thesis provides an overview of Russia’s historic denial of Ukrainian statehood and it argues: Russian historians and politicians have seen Ukraine as a “little-brother” nation to Russia, with a shared Slavic heritage, and that any attempts by Ukrainians to separate themselves from Russia are Western influence movements. The thesis examines three types of mass media in order to demonstrate the interaction between history, politics and popular culture. Chapter 1 explores the public speeches of key Russian political figures including Vladimir Putin himself, …

Creative Citizen Peacebuilding: Japanese Artists And Audiences Respond To The Vietnam-American War, Long T. Bui, Ayako Sahara

Peace and Conflict Studies

This article explores two case studies related to South Vietnam and Japan, relating them to the controversial history and legacy of the Second Indochina War. The first is the Japanese adoption and adaptation of South Vietnamese antiwar music. The second is a Japanese film, uncovered decades later after the war, exposing the role of Japan in South Vietnam. Cultural productions, from nations allied with the United States, sought to expose the popular struggle for peace against the rising tide of Cold War military violence and corporate capitalist exploitation. Through interviews, archival research, and textual analysis, the article argues for a …