Film and Media Studies Commons^™

Hierarchy And Responsibility In Media: Cults, Culpability, And Culture, Max Hargett

Online Theses and Dissertations

This is a descriptive research project that investigates how popular entertainment media portrays cults. My intention is to see how the selected films and television shows portray issues of hierarchy and culpability within the cult and to explore how the genre and theme of the content was utilized in order to evoke certain reactions and sentiments in the audience. The selected films were The Sacrament, Martha Marcy May Marlene, and Midsommar. The selected television shows were Waco and American Horror Story: Cult. Each film and series is given its own analysis. Findings indicate that a common theme of the rigid …

Fear Of The Future: A Speculative Exploration Of Cinematic Dystopias, Katarina Megan Mcguire

Online Theses and Dissertations

Dystopia is often thought of as a simple fictional device or some far off possibility of an unrecognizable Earth. But what if dystopias are actually allegorical devices warning of the long-term effects of social controls like criminalization as well as reflections on current socio-political conditions? The aim of this study was to explore cinematic dystopias and their depictions of and reflections on such themes, including how they might act as speculations on the future. Relying on qualitative content analysis, this study gathered data from three dystopic films, including V for Vendetta, Minority Report, and Equilibrium, all chosen for their criminological …

The Waning Days Of Projection In The Mountain West, Samuel Gwinn Dunnington

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The Waning Days of Projection in the Mountain West is a novel featuring a young narrator named Argus, who worked for years as an apprentice and assistant to a documentary filmmaker named Max Morgen. The novel begins years after Argus and Max have gone their separate ways. Max has recently died, and his final wish was that his son send Argus all the footage they’d acquired over their years together in order to edit and complete the film Max originally set out to make. Argus must decide how to proceed.

Idyllic History: The Role And Agency Of Women And Religion In Contemporary Bollywood, Kushma Singh

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The intent of this thesis is to explore the directorial choices made by Ashutosh Gowariker, in his film Jodhaa Akbar (2008), and Sanjay Leela Bhansali, in his films Bajirao Mastani (2015) and Padmaavat (2018), in order to evaluate the representation of women and the Muslim religion. Through use of mise en scene, I discuss lighting choices, visual display and use of color and how these elements create and support the stories Bhansali and Gowariker have chosen. I also rely on the recorded history of the time periods as well as the literature to contextualize the films.

Out Of The Gutter, Into The Gram: A Comical Message And A Digital Medium, Tala Majzoub

Comparative Literature M.A. Essays

By analyzing three different comics on Instagram by the Lebanese political cartoonist, the Art of Boo, this essay argues that comics generate political meaning through emulating the medium of Instagram on the one hand, and by inviting the audience to become active participants on the other. Although a lot has been written about digital activism and political cartoons in the Arab world, little has been theorized about what makes this form of political artistic expression and dissent powerful on digital platforms. By drawing on Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics, this essay demonstrates that the medium of comics operates as a …

Paper Gangsters: White Collar And Corporate Crime On Film, Jacob Kavoukis

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Many of us have never been victims of a serious crime and as a result, rely on the media in its various forms to provide us with information that we can rely on as being accurate in order to learn about it. Information on white-collar crime in the media differs from more common street crime in that it receives very little attention. The lack of attention could be because these crimes are considered non-violent and victimless, are committed by those of high social stature and power and are often complex and challenging to understand. Films can play an important role …

Femme Ex Machina: Sex Robots, Embodiment, And Posthuman Subjectivity, Julia A. Empey

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Andrea Dworkin warned in her 1974 book Woman Hating that men would soon develop the technology to “create the sex objects that will gratify them” (199). This dissertation investigates one of those technologies: sex robots, as mediated through science fiction film and literature. While the sex robot is still an emerging technology, its embodiment, particularly when female-rendered, has been imagined and negotiated for centuries. Men creating women in a specific, desired image is not new, but the sex robot is currently being transformed from imagined representation to embodied subject. This dissertation traces a pattern of representation that has allowed us …

Witchcraft Anonymous, Molly Vogel

LMU Theses and Dissertations

An addict to magic in an (alternate reality) magical world wakes up with the ability to talk to the dead and must navigate sobriety while reluctantly solving cold cases for the cops.

Perhabs I Will: A Content Analysis And Media Production Focusing On Contemporary Comedy And Comedians, Abs Anderson

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This research examined the comedy talk shows Billy on the Street (2011-2017), The Eric Andre Show (2012-present), and Ziwe (2021-present) in order to discover the specific types of humor incorporated within their programs. This study searched for the presence of cringe, stand-up, surreal, sketch, and improvisational comedy in each show. The study analyzed each program using the benign violation theory and the hierarchy of influences model. A content analysis of 15 episodes selected across every program found at least three of the five genres present in their content. An additional purpose of this study was to produce a comparable program …

Tradition-Innovation [In Arts, Design, Media Higher Education]: A New Peer-Reviewed Open Access Journal, Yvonne Houy, Maryrose Flanigan

Creative Collaborations

How can we build a future for teaching/mentoring creative work and research that honors and enhances core disciplinary traditions? This new peer reviewed open access eJournal—collaboratively brought to life by the international Alliance for the Arts Research Universities network (a2ru), and a2ru member UNLV—provides a forum to address this question by exploring the intersection of teaching, creative work and emerging research practices.

In the challenging crucible of the pandemic, educators forged new techniques and innovative practices. Faculty in disciplines underserved by typical digital learning tools—such as in the Arts, Design and Media disciplines—explored and developed creative solutions as they shifted …

‘Big’ And ‘Little’ Quo Vadis? In The United States, 1913–1916: Using Gis To Map Rival Modes Of Feature Cinema During The Transitional Era, Jeffrey Klenotic

Faculty Publications

This article emanates from a geospatial database of over 600 premieres of the Cines company’s Quo Vadis? (1913), an eight-reel film distributed by George Kleine, and nearly 250 premieres of the Quo Vadis Film Company’s Quo Vadis? (1913), a three-reel film of ambiguous origins distributed by Paul De Outo. By mapping local premieres of both films across the United States from 1913 through 1916, the data show with spatiotemporal precision the spread of Quo Vadis? as one of cinema’s early blockbuster titles. Yet within this national phenomenon, the two films’ footprints reveal differing cultural geographies served by competing efforts to …

Writing In Film Studies: Poetics And Pedagogy, Bryan Mead

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The focus of this dissertation is writing instruction inside undergraduate film courses. While the existence of textbooks devoted to teaching students how to write about film highlights the need for such instruction, evidence suggests many courses underuse or neglect such texts. Instead, most instructors focus their efforts on content instruction, expecting students to translate an increased content knowledge into written argumentation. Yet, as is the case across the disciplines, students struggle to write successfully in these disciplinary courses. One of the main reasons for this disparity between instructor expectation and student success is the notion of disciplinarity, and how influential …

“I Save Me”: Gender, Agency, And Power In Better Call Saul, Stephanie Kocer

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Historically, women on television have been portrayed in wife and mother roles, making them a foil to their husbands, but never the main focal point of the show. These characters stay on the sidelines, without being given truly original storylines where they are allowed to drive their own narratives. During the first season of Better Call Saul, Kim Wexler is a supporting character, without any storylines that aren’t linked to Jimmy McGill. Jimmy often treats Kim as a damsel in distress. He thinks it’s his job to save her, and usually from the chaos that he’s created. In this thesis …

Toward An Archaeology Of Manuscripts, Mark A. Mattes

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

The title of Rachael Scarborough King’s edited collection of essays, After Print, refers at once to Peter Stallybrass’s insight that printing is a provocation of manuscript, as well as to what the study of manuscripts looks like when we move away from stadial and supersessionist print culture paradigms of authorship and publication and instead embrace archival methods and interpretive approaches that center on concepts of media interrelation in early modern manuscript cultures, such as Margaret Ezell’s concept of social authorship.The essays in King’s collection, including an epilogue by Ezell herself, bear the fruits of such intermedial and transmedial approaches, bringing …

La “Border Culture” Del Personaje Mexicoamericano En El Sureste De Estados Unidos En Los Cuentos De Lorraine López Y Mijito Doesn’T Live Here Anymore De Jaime Martínez, Jaime Chavez

The Coastal Review

This paper explores the concepts of "Border Culture" and "Borderlands" by Gloria Anzaldúa in Soy la Avon Lady and Other Stories, Homicide Survivors Picnic and Other Stories, by Lorraine López and the novel Mijito Doesn’t Live Here Anymore by Jaime Martínez. The paper argues that the Mexican American character in the southeast of the United States lives in the "Borderlands" and practices a "Border Culture" because they don't follow the traditional stereotypical role of the Mexican American character within the literary canon of both the dominant culture and Chicana/o literature.

Until One Resembles The Other, Chad E. Mundie Jr.

Theses and Dissertations

A written accompaniment to Chad Mundie’s thesis exhibition titled Until One Resembles the Other, conceived during the years 2021-22 and installed at The Anderson Gallery, Richmond from April 9-22nd.

The following writing explores themes of labor within the home, generational knowledge, interiority, exteriority, and emotional residue through a series of essays surrounding areas of interest within my practice. The writing concludes with documentation of the show and an accompanying explanatory text.

Afroam: A Virtual Film Production Group, Bill Taylor Jr.

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Because of the gatekeeping practices of the Hollywood film industry, and the high cost of both filmmaking and distribution in general, Afro-American filmmakers have struggled to produce films with “global reach.” This study visits the possibility of Afro-American filmmakers using alternative technologies and infrastructures to produce high-quality films, thereby bypassing the high cost and exclusionary practices of Hollywood studios. Using new 21st-century digital technology, this study involved the creation of a small geographically dispersed virtual film production team. The study’s foundational framework was a constructivist qualitative research paradigm, using Action Research, and supported by 24 months of triangulated data from …

The Cowboy Conundrum: An Examination Of Representation Within The Western Film Genre, Madelynn E. Woodard

Honors College Theses

Despite historical demographic data indicating otherwise, much of the Western Film Genre depicts The Cowboy as a white male individual. Previous research has demonstrated that filmmakers often tell and depict stories within which they identify themselves, and with the predominant population of directors within the Western Genre being that of white men, the narrative of the West being portrayed on screen has shifted public perception to an inaccurate portrayal of the history of the West. From Vaqueros to liberated slaves, much of the Cowboy community was comprised of Black, Spanish, Mexican, and Indigenous people of color. This study employed a …

Merging Modest With Complexity, Mark Garry

Doctoral

This thesis will enable a retrospective critical examination of aspects of my practice as an artist from 2005 - 2020. The research question addresses the implication of multiple forms of inter-reliance enabled in the practice. This will be enabled by opening a discursive space that retrospectively, integrates and critically examines the role and function of inter-reliance as a structural methodology and how this is implicated in the practice over this period.

This thesis will use term inter-reliance to define a play of relations where individual art works when viewed in isolation exist only in partial illumination as a form of …

‘Own Your Narrative’: Teenagers As Producers And Consumers Of Porn In Netflix’S Sex Education, Debra Dudek, Giselle Woodley, Lelia Green

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Netflix’s Sex Education both represents sex education and educates viewers about sex. From the opening scene of the first episode, viewers are positioned to see this series as one that is not afraid to represent explicitly the details of a range of sexual experiences. The series’ frank depiction of sexual relationships between characters, and its exploration of characters’ hopes, fears, and choices regarding ways to express their sexual desire is, arguably, ground-breaking. This paper focuses upon the ways in which the series represents young people as producers and consumers of pornographic/erotic narratives, harnessing the communication options within their social settings …