Film and Media Studies Commons^™

Language Attitudes Towards Drag And The Lgbtq+ As Influenced By American Theater, Kj Myke

Rushton Journal of Undergraduate Humanities Research

This paper examines the relationship between theatrical drag portrayals and American social perception of LGBTQ+ through an analysis of drag characters in theater. This inquiry discusses whether these portrayals influence language towards LGBTQ+ in American culture. Two cases—Knock ‘Em Dead and Kinky Boots—reveal differing attitudes: one being more stereotypical and inauthentic, while the other offers more authentic nuances to queer experience. Findings indicate that the context in which shows are created heavily influences which language attitudes get adapted by the show and advertised to audiences.

Star Wars And Gender In 1980s America, Melissa Ulmer

Rushton Journal of Undergraduate Humanities Research

This research paper examines the role of gender in the franchise Star Wars. With the first installment of the trilogy released in 1977, many expected this film would turn out like many before. However, the world that George Lucas created was an instant hit and continues to be today. This paper focuses on how the franchise was set apart from other science fiction films based on a defiance of typical gender roles that were prevalent in the late twentieth century, specifically focusing on the two leading roles, Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa, and employing analysis of the films, cast …

Under The Influence: New York’S Crisis Of Addiction, Exploitation, And Drug Policy Within Depression-Era Films, Simone White

Rushton Journal of Undergraduate Humanities Research

During the 1930s, New York City stood at the center of media innovation and cultural influence. It was also the center of the continuing opioid epidemic and a pivotal site for the reception and promotion of addiction films. This article argues that Depression-era films, The Struggle (1931), Narcotic (1933), and Assassin of Youth (1938), reflected economic, political, and moral anxieties surrounding drug abuse. Using National Board of Review records, studio pressbooks, and contemporary periodicals, this study examines how cinematic portrayals of addiction influenced ideologies, criminalized users, and deepened social stigma.

From Prometheus To Pygmalion To Pandora: Teaching Greek Mythology With Frankenstein’S “Dark Brides”, Kyle William Bishop

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

As Mary Shelley unambiguously informs readers on the title page of her 1818 novel Frankenstein, her tale of Victor’s discovery of the secret of non-biological reproduction represents the Promethean myth, a morality tale warning against the usurpation of divine authority. In Shelley’s novel, Victor ultimately recognizes the dangerous path he has discovered, and he refuses to create a female companion for his hideous progeny, risking his own life to protect the world from a potential race of monsters. In the cinematic tradition, however, this unrealized “bride” often has been created, and these fantastic narratives realize the Pygmalion myth, that …

Butterflies & You: Considerations Of Human Relationships With The Natural World, M. E. Colby

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Science communication only accounts for approximately 2% of the entire scientific output of 2017-2022 (Parejo-Cuéllar et. al, 2024). It is an under-researched and under-valued field, especially in an age that has devalued science as a whole. The delicate art of explaining complicated ideas to people who are unfamiliar with scientific jargon is vital to humans’ understanding of the world. Butterflies & You is a documentary film exploring the relationship between humans and the many different butterfly species that call Illinois home. Video-based science communication is important to research and practice because of its impact on environmental advocacy and the growing …

The Bmt: Will This Time Be Different?: Red Hook Braces For A Mega-Project On The Waterfront. Can It Avoid The Mistakes Of Atlantic Yards?, Steve Kastenbaum

Capstones

"The BMT: Will this time be different?" investigates how New York City's push to rapidly build housing is reshaping communities. A $3.5 billion mega-project at the Brooklyn Marine Terminal promises transformation through 6,000 apartments, a modernized port, and waterfront improvements, but residents are split on whether it represents progress or displacement. The development uses a controversial "general project plan" process that bypasses normal community review, the same approach that enabled the still-unfinished Atlantic Yards project. Local voices in Red Hook range from excitement about investment, jobs and amenities to fears about gentrification and broken promises. This pilot episode launches a …

Hollywood, Ai, And The Moral Universe: An Analysis Of The Terminator And Battlestar Galactica, Lara Sumera Samms

Masters Theses

This thesis defends the argument that depictions of artificial intelligence in Hollywood film and television point to a moral universe. Films The Terminator (1984) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), as well as the television series Battlestar Galactica (2004-2009) are analyzed to find clues of moral facts. This research paper submits that these stories add weight to the moral argument and provide evidence that humans implicitly recognize a moral universe. Such acknowledgment of moral structures cannot be adequately explained within a secular framework such as utilitarianism or evolutionary ethics. However, the Christian worldview frames reality around the existence of God, …

Examination Of Sportscasters To Understand The Key Overlapping Traits And Skills Exhibited, Jason Prill

Masters Theses

The world of sportscasting is a growing and crowded field. Due to its appeal, the field itself has become competitive with a few select broadcasters holding the most coveted positions. These broadcasters have set themselves apart in their skills, leading to their placement at the pinnacle of the industry. However, a lack of research has presented a gap in the field on what skills are most dominant for successful sportscasters. As an understudied avenue, sportscasting often goes overlooked in traditional research due to its misnomer as a “fun” profession. The following presents an in-depth look at high-level sportscasters to find …

Towards Abolitionist Media Studies, Beth Capper

Feminist Pedagogy

The reflections in this article are grounded in my experience teaching a graduate-level special topics course on media and abolition at the University of Alberta in 2023. In this article, I draw upon my experience teaching this course in order to offer a general framework for integrating abolitionist principles into the media studies classroom. In addition to tracing a critical genealogy of scholarly and activist efforts to delineate and intervene in the relations among prisons, policing and media, I propose two key abolitionist principles that challenge how we teach media studies: (1) an intentional centering of incarcerated/criminalized people and a …

Star Wars: Andor – An Abolitionist Study Guide, Marcelo Garzo Montalvo, Isaac Ginsberg Miller

Feminist Pedagogy

This study guide provides a set of activities for teaching abolition through Season 1 of the speculative fiction TV series Star Wars: Andor (2022). Through the practice of critical literacy (viewing, reading, and analysis), we offer various ideas on how to engage Andor as a relevant pedagogical tool for studying and teaching abolitionist movement histories and methodologies. By guiding students through a critical analysis of this widely-circulated, mainstream cultural text, we seek to activate an abolitionist pedagogical lens that can be applied across various genres and media – making tangible connections between popular culture and political struggles writ large. These …

An Axe To The Funny Bone: Curated Instability And Horror-Comedy Intersections In American Storytelling, Samantha Box

Masters Theses

Funny. Terrifying. Subversive.

Horror-Comedy twists and bites at the intersection of two incredibly reactive genres— with both Horror and Comedy being well known for the political and social discourses they embody and reinvent through story. While prevalent in American popular culture, scholarly analysis of this hybrid space barely exists beyond a small number of Film Studies investigations. Despite this lack, Horror-Comedy works continue to be successfully produced. This thesis unpacks the vibrant relationship between fear and laughter in contemporary American storytelling through Horror-Comedy, maintaining a focus on structural dynamics and the audience-disarming results of simultaneously applying horror and humor to …

Avant-Garde Architectural Influences In Japanese Cinema: The Influences Of Kenzo Tange And Archigram, Aissatou L. Balde, Ehsan Sheikholharam Ma

Symposium of Student Scholars

Kenzo Tange and Metabolists created a blueprint for utopian and organic urban futures in postwar Japan, inspiring the fictional worlds of Japanese cinema and animation, from Akira’s cyber-punk cityscapes to Howl’s Moving Castle’s urban mobility. These futuristic cities have a lot in common with Archigram in their “Walking City” concept. While Metabolists focused on cities that could grow and change like living organisms, Archigram took it further by designing robot-like megastructures that could walk across the planet. Neither group built most of their ideas, but both used imaginative designs to rethink how cities could work in a fast-changing world. These …

The Evolution And Impact Of The Token Black Friend Trope In American Media, Sophie E. Rice, Kurt Milberger

Symposium of Student Scholars

Abstract

This research explores the history of the token Black friend trope in American media and how these misrepresentations continue to influence popular culture and negatively impact Black Americans. Historically, the token Black friend stereotype singles out Black characters to fill gaps in the plot through comedy, intelligence, or self-sacrifice, all while being excluded from the white protagonist’s larger narrative. The prevalence of this trope is apparent through several contemporary and classic examples, which are used to evaluate the effects of the token Black friend trope on American culture. To deconstruct these misrepresentations, this essay supplements these examples with scholarship …

The Reception Of Neurodiversity Represented Within Netflix’S Wednesday, Anna Stevens

Graduate Theses & Dissertations

This paper explores how neurodiversity is represented through popular media - particularly Netflix's show Wednesday - and aims to discuss the effects this representation could have in regards to how it's received by the public, as well as those who are neurodiverse.

Myths And Memories: The New South & Lost Cause In Georgia, Stephen Bliss Jones

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The defeat of the Confederacy led way to the development of two related but distinctly separate ideological movements, the New South and the Lost Cause. However, in the course of Civil War historiography, the two have been conflated with one another, with the Lost Cause winning out as the solely accredited ideological product of the vanquished Confederacy. The modern Neo-Reconstruction school of thought discredits the New South as a distinct sociopolitical movement, and frequently associates its cultural products to the Lost Cause. This dissertation examines the cultural and political evolution of each movement, with a focus upon their primary cultural …

Animals In Entertainment: Ethical Considerations, Industry Regulations, Incidents, And The Future Of Animal Performers, Kendyll Conlisk

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Some of our favorite films, theatre productions, and live performances involve animals. A Dog's Purpose, Annie, Barnum and Bailey circus; the list is endless. But have you ever wondered, "How do they train them?" and "Is this benefiting or harming the animals?" Animals in entertainment have a long history dating back to ancient civilizations. Research done by World Animal Protection found that three out of four tourist animal attractions involve some form of animal abuse, and up to 550,000 animals around the world suffer due to these cruel attractions for human amusement. This does not imply that all animals used …

Opening The Door Of The Celluloid Closet, Melissa Hernandez

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

While watching the documentary, The Celluloid Closet, I was instantly intrigued by how queer people and cinema mixed. Going as far back to the black and white, silent films era, queer people have been used as comedic relief, but not in an appealing way. Constantly being the butt of the joke, disregard for queer people became so normalized that certain tropes started popping up in cinema. One trope that we can still see be used frequently in today’s films is the “bury your gays” trope (also known as the “dead lesbians syndrome”) where queer characters in cinema are not …

Enhancing Facial Expressiveness For Games Through Procedural Animation, Abhijit Varanasi

All Theses

Facial animation is one of the most important parts of bringing characters to life in video games and virtual experiences. This thesis explores a new approach to creating more expressive facial animations using procedural techniques and blended facial performance for more flexibility. The project uses FACS (Facial Action Coding System), which breaks down facial expressions into small, measurable muscle movements. By building a facial rig based on these muscle units, the character’s face can be animated in a way that reflects real human emotion. The animation in this work is not just pre-recorded, though it can respond in real-time to …

Prostitution In Video Games: Stigma, Violence And Male Pleasure, Laura Aguilera-Ávila, Lara Escobar Hernández

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

Prostitution has traditionally been framed in society as a space significantly determined by patriarchal hierarchies, in addition to being affected on many occasions by stigmatisation and violence. The representation of prostitution and of those who practice it in the media is a topic of special interest, since the discourses and messages disseminated by the media play a fundamental role in socialisation. Video games are not exempt from this debate: with millions of players worldwide and a special reach among young people, they are among the most influential media outlets today. This qualitative research analyses a series of titles, both AAA …

Diseño Visual, Identidad De Género Y Diversidad Cultural En La Animación Contemporánea: El Caso De Raya And The Last Dragon, Elisabet Fonts González

GDI. Revista de investigación de Género, Diseño e Innovación

En los últimos años, la animación ha evolucionado hacia representaciones más inclusivas de género y diversidad cultural. Raya and the Last Dragon (López Estrada & Hall, 2021) destaca como un caso significativo de esta transformación, integrando elementos visuales, narrativos y simbólicos que reconfiguran los arquetipos femeninos tradicionales. Este estudio adopta un enfoque cualitativo centrado en el análisis visual, narrativo y simbólico de los personajes Raya, Namaari y Sisu. Basándose en fuentes primarias del proceso creativo y marcos teóricos de la animación y los estudios de género (Furniss, 2017; Lauretis, 1987; Wells, 1998), presta especial atención al diseño de personajes, la …