Film and Media Studies Commons^™

Mental Illness In Horror Films, Nix Bradly

Emerging Writers

The depiction of mental illness within in the horror film genre has historically been non-inclusive or demonizing of the mentally ill. When we look at the genre today, there are still many instances of this villainization of the mentally ill, although there are recent examples of more progressive depictions of those afflicted. This article looks at the history and current trends of depictions of mental illness in films and argues that we can help move the genre away from stigmatizing mental illness by uplifting and supporting those who have mental illness to express themselves through the art of horror film …

Regional Disputation Between North Halmahera And West Halmahera Regencies, 2003-2010, Liliane Mojau

International Review of Humanities Studies

Ideally, the proliferation of the administrative region is aimed at improving the welfare of society. In reality, the proliferation of the administrative region often triggers the regional disputation. The regional disputation between the North Halmahera and the West Halmahera regencies is one of the cases that took a long time. There are six villages that contested in this regional disputation, namely Dum-Dum, Gamsungi/Akesahu, Akelamo Kao, Tetewang, Bobane Igo, and Pasir Putih. At first, the government of the North Halmahera and the West Halmahera regencies coordinated to settle their region boundaries. But it develops to the status issue of the six …

Obsessed With The Image: Vulgar Auteurism And Post-Cinematic Affect In The Late Films Of Tony Scott, Ethan Cartwright

Film and Media Studies (MA) Theses

Beginning in the mid-2000s and carrying through the next several years, a small, dedicated group of critics and cinephiles worked at reevaluating certain contemporary Hollywood genre filmmakers whose work had been largely maligned or ignored by both critics and mainstream audiences. This group, termed as “vulgar auteurism,” distinguished directors like Michael Mann and Paul W.S. Anderson for their audacious and unique formal styles, often using digital technologies and imagery. This thesis proposes that the films and filmmakers associated with vulgar auteurism are connected through how they uniquely portray life in the early 21^st century using three of Tony Scott’s …

Netflix, Quarantine, And Chill: An Analysis Of Black Female Representation On 2020 Netflix Original Streaming Movies, Brier Evans

XULAneXUS

This study examines the frequency and nature of Black female representation in Netflix Original films and series released during the COVID-19 pandemic year of 2020. As cinema closures drove audiences to streaming platforms, Netflix emerged as the dominant media outlet, raising important questions about how the platform depicted Black women during a year defined by both pandemic isolation and heightened calls for racial justice following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Using content analysis, the researcher coded 112 Netflix Original films and 102 Netflix Original series for the racial identity of main cast members, the frequency of Black …

Cinematic Palimpsests: Polysemy And In(Ter)Dependency In The Spectator Experience, Lyric Luedke

Film and Media Studies (MA) Theses

The model of the cinematic palimpsest helps us to critically reevaluate formal aspects of film language, relationships between film texts, and the construction of cinematic meaning in conversation with the spectator. Originating in Medieval Europe, a palimpsest is traditionally defined as a book or similar physical text “created by a process of layering whereby the existing text was erased, using various chemical methods, and the new text was written over the old one” again and again (Dillon 2005). Palimpsests rely on the core principle of in(ter)dependency, wherein each element or layer is both independent and interdependent, inherently affecting the significance …

Re-Animating Post-Digital Cinema: [Animated] Fluidity And Hybrid Aesthetics In Tomm Moore’S Celtic Trilogy, Tom James Mclaughlin

Film and Media Studies (MA) Theses

Tomm Moore’s Celtic Trilogy, consisting of The Secret of Kells (2009), Song of the Sea (2014), and WolfWalkers (2020), displays an inter-medial hybridity and synergy of commercial and experimental elements that encourage a redefinition of animation with a focus on the innate qualities of fluidity in animated aesthetics. This fluidity in visual aesthetics and narratology honors the legacy of studio animation over the past century, while reintroducing technological and creative experimentation. This freedom further allows for authentic cultural (self-)representation of Celtic traditions in film.

Paralleling a history of cinematic theories by Arnheim, Cholodenko and Manovich projects a shared space for …

Layer Cake: Post-Cinematic Aesthetics And The “Social Justice Impulse” In Kaneza Schaal's Jack &, Amber M. Power

Film and Media Studies (MA) Theses

Kaneza Schaal is a New York City-based theater artist who consistently utilizes a collaborative and hybrid approach to performance making, privileging demographic diversity alongside formal diversity. Drawing on intermedial performance discourse, early television scholarship, and social practice theory, I argue that Schaal’s citation of 1950s sitcom aesthetics in her 2018 theatrical work Jack & self-consciously stages a critique of the cultural hegemony that structured twentieth century television in order to contest the contemporary US media-incarceration nexus.

As a critical second layer to my analysis, I look at the ways Schaal utilizes the tools of the avant- garde (intermediality, collaboration and …

Pennies From Heaven: Death And The Afterlife In World War Ii Fantasy Films, Elise Williamson

Film and Media Studies (MA) Theses

Wartime fantasy films produced by major Hollywood studios during World War II integrate the supernatural (i.e., ghosts, angels, and the afterlife) into wartime settings with relevant protagonists and themes to address the psychological trauma of wartime death and loss. Three case studies – The Human Comedy (Clarence Brown, 1943), A Guy Named Joe (Victor Fleming, 1943), and Between Two Worlds (Edward A. Blatt, 1944) – explore fantasy narratives and conventions unconventionally blended with the war film genre, and illustrate how the war film setting (home front vs. combat front vs. war zone) influences character focus (civilians vs. military), the …

(De/Re)Constructing Chicanx/A/O Cinema: Liminality, Cultural Hyphenation, And Psychic Borderlands In Real Women Have Curves And Mosquita Y Mari, Diana Alanis

Film and Media Studies (MA) Theses

When discussing ChicanX/a/o cinema, as situated in the United States, its relationship to “American” cinema is one of decoloniality that interrogates the contradictions of a diverse yet homogenous national identity. The formation of cultural identity in conjunction with national identity is inherently contradictory when nationalism requires allegiance that negates differences among communities. ChicanX/a/o identity is one of hybridization that rejects a fixed category of meaning in favor of a liminal landscape of potentiality— a psychic Borderland of identity. Contemporary ChicanX/a voices in Real Women Have Curves (Patricia Cardoso, 2002) and Mosquita y Mari (Aurora Guerrero, 2012) use feminist and feminine …

Beyond The Image: Marilyn Monroe, Shelley Winters, And The Method, Emily K. Oliver

Film and Media Studies (MA) Theses

Sexist gossip for women and professional celebration for men is a longstanding, detrimental trend within popular culture, society, and film studies scholarship. While this tendency can be traced consistently throughout film history, it is particularly apparent within the discourse surrounding the transitional period of postwar Hollywood (1945 - 1960). Though frequently disassociated from one another for their seemingly oppositional contemporary legacies, Marilyn Monroe and Shelley Winters began their careers synonymously as studio- created ’blonde bombshell’ archetypes. Monroe’s and Winters’ early acting credits represent severe industry illustrations of objectification and sexist tactics to utilize female bodies to sell performances. Following variable …

The Ben-Hur Franchise And The Rise Of Blockbuster Hollywood, Michael Chian

Film and Media Studies (MA) Theses

The Ben-Hur films were some of the most popular, controversial, and financially successful films of the 20^th century. As a result, Hollywood mindset and practices were heavily influenced by the marketing strategies and discourse surrounding these films, as many studios and filmmakers wanted to achieve the same, if not a higher, level of success. Thus, the current state of the blockbuster oriented American film industry owes a great debt to the Ben-Hur films for helping to popularize blockbuster filmmaking. While the blockbuster marketing, fandom, and discussions of today are more profuse and sophisticated than that of the past, the …

Curation Of The Video Art Exhibition In The Museum, Kamla Thurtle

Film and Media Studies (MA) Theses

The goal of this thesis is to illustrate the importance of video art through a spatial and aesthetic phenomenological framework, revealing the critical nature of aesthetic experiences for forming meaning between art-objects and viewers facilitated through acts of curation. Video art, emerging in the 1960s and heavily intertwined with the museum, marks a unique, novel, and profound disruption of the representative regime of aesthetic experiences and objects through its nature to question cultural systems of the world as a radical medium. By evolving from anti-art movements in tandem with technological innovations, video was distant from art history, discourse, and tradition, …

Media’S Portrayal Of Women And Its Impact On Body Image And Self-Esteem, Hannah Bareis

Marketing Undergraduate Honors Theses

This project addresses the portrayal of women in media and its damaging effects on body image and self-esteem. It raises two critical questions: What negative impact is media creating on women? What can be done to combat these destructive effects?

According to a study done by Common Sense Media, "American teens use an average of 9 hours of media daily, not including for school and homework" (Common Sense Media, 2015). This data, along with many others, shows the severity of media exposure to teens. This has brought a valuable discussion to the table. How has this impacted female body image, …

Beautiful People: The Past, Present, And Future Of The Fashion Industry's Thin Ideal, Shane White

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Negative body image among women has become an extremely relevant topic in the last decade. The “ideal” female body image and what a person should look like according to marketing and advertising has become a highly controversial issue. This project seeks to show how the fashion industry has, over centuries, shaped how people think they need to look and in today’s time and show how it has been a root cause of issues like body image complexes leading to negative self-perception, eating disorders, mental illnesses like anxiety, depression and addiction, and even suicide. Over the last three to four decades, …

Sound, Vision And Alter Ego: Creating A Visual Narrative For My Music, David Ciura

Postgraduate

This artistic research project comprises a musical short film called Who Is Nate Nixon? and an exegesis that examines the relationship between the film’s music and visuals. Following a review of the literature in four key areas: media; visuals; alter ego; and narrative, I establish the conceptual framework I use to create the short film. The musical short film is based on my original music and a musical alter ego developed for the project. I employ a practice-led methodology in which the creative work and my journals are the main data sources. As the basis of my reflection, I employ …

Anti-Americanism And The Auteur: Critical Discourse And The French Film Industry From 1946 To 1965, Madison Gee

Honors Theses

Cinema is not only a popular form of entertainment but an art through which socio-cultural, economic, and political activities intersect. France's cinematic history, in particular, is characterized by its government's protectionist policies and the enduring popularity of New Wave films. Yet, the end of World War II saw the expansion of American soft power and, consequently, widespread fear that Hollywood’s market dominance would push out local producers. In this thesis, I aim to study the impact of Cold War anti-Americanism on the French film industry’s development from 1946 to 1965. Through a critical discourse analysis of popular film magazines of …

The Origin Of Beach Names In Tanjungsari: Toponymy Studies, Netiasa Adab, Frans Asisi Datang

International Review of Humanities Studies

This toponymy study discusses the origin names of beaches in Tanjungsari Subdistrict, Gunungkidul Regency, Yogyakarta which are spread in three villages, namely Kemadang, Ngestirejo, and Banjarejo. This research aims to documents the naming of beaches in the area and classifies the naming into three presuppositions meaning based on Nyström’s theory, which are categorical, associative, and emotive meaning. This study used a qualitative research method. Research data were collected by means of observation and interviews with Village Hall officials and the community. The results of this study can be used to add information that can be conveyed to tourists. The results …

Public History: An Effort To Increase Indonesian Historical Consciousness During Covid-19 Pandemi, Abdurakhman Abdurakhman, Syahidah Sumayyah Rahman

International Review of Humanities Studies

The writing of public history has become one of the methods of history that have developed and are in great demand. The difference between history in general and public history is the selection of groups that are used as research sources. Through this research, the author find that public history can be used as a way to raise historical consciousness in Indonesia. Historical Consciousness relates to thinking of ourself in time as historical beings and being aware of belonging to a specific group with a particular history and identity. The current global pandemic presents a challenge for historians. Documenting the …

Schizophrenic Auditory And Visual Hallucinations In The Poem “Du Pyeon-Eui Jugeum”, Nadira Istirahmah, Lovelyta Panggabean, Eva Latifah

International Review of Humanities Studies

Although the mental health issue is often brought up as an interesting discussion topic for these past few years, negative stigmas towards people with psychological disorders, especially schizophrenia, still exist within society. However, by expressing self-acceptance and innermost thoughts in her poetry, Choi Seung-Ja succeeded in breaking the stigmas and lived her life as a schizophrenic poet. Based on this fact, this research aims to unfold the meaning of the auditory and visual hallucinations shown in Choi Seung-Ja’s poem entitled “Du Pyeon-eui Jugeum” and to explain the motives behind the creation of the schizophrenic aspects. In order to achieve these …

Using Portfolio As A Source Of Information About Learning Process, Rifa Andhini, Sisilia Setiawati Halimi Dr.

International Review of Humanities Studies

Alternative assessments are said to be suitable for young language learners, but are rarely used by language teachers from all educational levels. One of the causes is teachers’ lack of knowledge regarding the best ways to utilize alternative assessments. This research explores how an English teacher for young learners can use portfolio, an alternative assessment, as a source of information about learning process. Data from journal entries and stimulated recall sessions that focus on the participant’s lesson plans were collected every week to reveal how portfolio was used, while initial and final interviews were done to reveal the participant’s perception …