Digital Commons Network^™

“Let’S Do The Time Warp, Again!” The Rocky Horror Picture Show As Hysterical Theatre, Frances Wendorf

Film and Media Studies (MA) Theses

In studying not only the distinct aesthetics and themes of the film but also the experience of the cult midnight movie screenings, this thesis re-positions The Rocky Horror Picture show as a radical descendent of the theatrical legacy of Jean- Martin Charcot’s lectures on hysteria. His “theatre of hysteria” is a retroactive terminology for the physician’s highlytheatricalized lecture series at the Salpêtrière hospital in Paris in the 1880s on the diagnosis of hysteria, during which the bodies of hysterical patients were rendered an objectified public spectacle under the guise of medical observation. The thesis explores intersections between queer and hysterical …

The Rape-Revenge Genre In The Digital Age Of Heightened Visibility: The Rise Of Female Storytellers And Fourth-Wave Feminism, Marynell Dethero

Film and Media Studies (MA) Theses

The rape-revenge cinema genre has continued to evolve since its initial emergence in the 1970s. Many of the most popular films belonging to the genre produced in the 1970s, like Meir Zarchi’s I Spit on Your Grave (1978) or Wes Craven’s directorial debut The Last House on the Left (1972), have been criticized heavily by film critics and scholars for their exploitative tropes. However, I argue that regardless of the production value of the films, the rape-revenge genre is inherently feminist because sexual violence is and always has been an inherent issue to the feminist movement and because the genre …

Balancing Multiple Worlds: The Multiverse And The Fractured Asian American Experience In Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022), Austin Kang

Film and Media Studies (MA) Theses

This thesis examines the ways in which the 2022 film Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) employs the philosophical ideas concomitant with the multiverse hypothesis in order to narrate an emotionally poignant, yet somewhat typical story about a multi-generational Asian American family. This thesis argues that the film uses its characters as vehicles to not only illustrate the multilayered nature of Asian American realities through the allegory of “auto verse-jumping” across the multiverse, but also to philosophically contemplate and respond to the existence of the multiverse via its presentation of conceptual parallels. The film employs the hypothetical existence of the …

The Disintegration Of Marriage In Ryusuke Hamaguchi’S Happy Hour (2015), Afra Nariman

Film and Media Studies (MA) Theses

By using Happy Hour as a case study, this thesis argues Ryusuke Hamaguchi's approach to the Japanese home drama genre presents a changing perspective on the institution of marriage in contemporary Japanese society, reflecting shifts in gender roles and the growing trend of singlehood amongst Japanese youth. This perspective contrasts with the values portrayed in Ozu's films, which emphasize the vitality of marriage and the necessity of forming a family for happiness. The thesis analyzes the thematic and narrative elements of Happy Hour, focusing on the portrayal of marriage as a source of alienation and loneliness. It also discusses the …

Desire For Transformation: The Actualization Of Self-Identity Through Change In The Films Raw And Titane, Owen Bradford

Film and Media Studies (MA) Theses

The aim of this thesis is to illustrate a distinction between the films of The New French Extreme and Ducournau’s Raw and Titane, in their handling of gender and identity, primarily in regard to how these films handle transformation and self-identification. Ducournau explores themes of cannibalism, the linking of desire and violence, and transformation in order to disrupt hegemonic conceptions of sex and gender binaries. the disruptions to these binaries are initially perceived as monstrous, due to the implementation of genre conventions, they play on perception of the monstrous feminine, to reveal cultural perceptions that these transgressions are dangerous, …

Serious Play: Campus Humor In Precarious Times, Kevin Howley

Communication & Theatre Faculty Publications

The article explores the use of campus humor as a crisis intervention approach in higher education as of 2023. Topics discussed include the production of campus humor as a subversive form of play within the corporatized university, and three case studies of humorous media that examine discrete but highly intertextual forms of mediated humor to address campus crises before and during the pandemic. Also noted are these studies' transmedia adaptation to the university in crisis.

Lars Gustaf Sellstedt: Art In Buffalo And The Buffalo Fine Art Academy, Shannon N. Gilmartin

History Theses

This Master’s Thesis Project researches the life of a forgotten Buffalo artist, Lars Gustaf Sellstedt. He was born in Sundsvall, Sweden and started his life as a sailor when he became a cabin boy as an early teenager. For most of his young life until his mid-twenties, Sellstedt was a sailor traveling to all corners of the world. He started his journey as an artist while in between sailing jobs. Over many decades he portraits locally and abroad mainly in the Caribbean Islands. Sellstedt was one of the few artists in 19th century Buffalo, sharing the profession with William J. …

“Block Island Stories”: Preserving And Showcasing Block Island’S Rigorous History Through Virtual Adaptation, Alexander Pretorius

Senior Honors Projects

No abstract provided.

Libby In Limbo, Moriah Claire Hall

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Libby in Limbo is a scripted narrative podcast that follows Libby as she moves back to her small hometown, gets a job as a librarian, and learns to navigate life in a small, tight-knit community. This podcast serves two main purposes: to create entertainment media about a library that does not promote harmful stereotypes about libraries and to create awareness and accessibility of scripted podcasts.

Representations Of Time In Time-Based Media: An Exploration Of The Human Experience Of Temporality In Film And Tv, Nelea Fong

Honors Thesis

Time is an aspect of the human experience that fascinates us but eludes our understanding. Humans have turned to science, philosophy, and theology in our endeavor to understand time, but our shared love and history of storytelling drives us to explore temporality through visual medias that have a structural foundation in time. Expanding our understanding of the human experience of time through time-based media such as movies and TV can point us toward comprehending various forms of time and how each person can perceive said time differently. Using film and TV theory, informed by scientific and philosophical explorations in the …

Commodification Of Korean Culture In The West: Orientalism In The Era Of Modern Social Media, Samantha Giudice

International and Global Studies Undergraduate Honors Theses

South Korea, hereafter referred to as Korea, lies within the Korean Peninsula. It currently boasts a population of 53 million people residing within 38,724 square miles and a GDP of 1.811 trillion US dollars, making it the 13^th largest economy in the world. Since the Korean War to today Korea has turned into a major economic and cultural epicenter remaining at the center of technological advancements and pop culture production. While the exportation of this pop culture has allowed the economy grow at unprecedented rates, it has also led to less favorable interactions with Korean culture by people all …

Learning Documentary Film Production By Doing, Erin Lucille Grasty

Journalism

No abstract provided.

T. Hanks For Nostalgia: The Power Of Tom Hanks And Film Branding, Jacob Higgs

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In March 2020, Tom Hanks announced he had contracted COVID-19 while shooting the Elvis Presley Biopic in Australia. On Instagram, he encouraged fans to take the disease seriously and be aware of how severe of a disease it was. Character brands and nostalgia have been found to foster trust in products and encourage relationships with those brands. Using the lens of nostalgia and uses and gratification to examine Tom Hanks as a character brand, the researcher analyzed five blockbuster films with Tom Hanks as the lead character. The study used narrative thematic analysis to observe Hanks and the depictions of …

The Gray Area: Sexuality And Gender In Wartime Reevaluated, Natalie Pendergraft

War, Diplomacy, and Society (MA) Theses

These three works, two academic papers and one screenplay, challenge traditional notions of gender and sexuality during wartime. Queer Vietnam service members did not all experience oppression, all the time, but rather carved out a space for themselves amongst their peers. Female nurses in the early cold war could keep their careers in the medical field due to its unique gendered history despite demobilization efforts across the country in different industries. Finally, through the medium of historical fiction, a Civil War soldier’s fears and desires are questioned as he experiences the phenomenon of the Angel’s Glow, a blue light that …

A Screenplay With Critical Preface: 5150 Tarot Canyon, Jacob B. Phillips

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

5150 Tarot Canyon—a screenplay/dreamplay—anonymous twenty something, X, has left a deadend job, spent savings, and gone, in a last-ditch effort to follow a dream, to art school (in the middle of the desert and a pandemic) but struggles to cope once there with high stress and heavy deadlines. Exhaustion, fear, and loneliness begin to creep in—and, along with them, a stranger, a Walking Sam (possibly X’s double) always at a distance, but never far away. X can’t be sure, but it’s almost like someone’s started stalking them. X tries to ignore it, tries to focus, to grow—but things aren’t coming …

Depiction Of American Litigation In Movies, Bryson Reeves

Honors Theses

The legal profession is a crucial institution of American society that impacts the lives of millions of Americans each day. Films act as an agent of socialization that can shape the public’s expectations of the legal field and its lawyers. Therefore, this study focuses on the levels of accuracy, impact, and quality of the representations that are found in films portraying the legal profession. It does so through two methods. More specifically, practicing attorneys reviewed film clips and completed a survey indicating their perceptions of the accuracy and impact of film representations. Second, a content analysis was performed to determine …

The Meaning Of The Mask: Darth Vader On The Screen And The Page, Brenna Renfroe

Honors Theses

Masks can be found throughout popular culture, and their roots trace back through history. Whether on the screen, the page of a comic book, the stage, or in the halls of a Comic-Con, masked faces are intriguing. Among the numerous masked faces that populate our imagination, few are as iconic and instantly recognizable as Darth Vader from Star Wars. Despite his popularity, most of the research devoted to masked characters has been interested in why heroes such as Batman wear masks. There is little research on why a tragic hero turned villain does so, since the connotation of masks seems …

Ga(Y)Zing Backward: Queer Desire In Ovid, Shakespeare, And Scaimma, Falynn Blayre Brickler

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

As Ovidian myth is a central influence on queer stories throughout time, I am interested in how the female/sapphic gaze impacts the retellings of these narratives. In this thesis, I analyze the action of the gaze as an expression of desire and discuss its multiple meanings in both text and performance. Through tracing the gaze within the queer/sapphic narratives of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire, I show that the gaze is an intersecting act through which non-normative desire is conveyed. In constructing the gaze as an ephemeral action of queer desire in practice, I …

Adapting Cultural Storytelling Styles To Modern Media, Julie Huang

All Theses

In the face of modern media, it is inevitable that certain cultural art forms will fade in popularity. Some may even fade out of existence altogether. However, there are continuous efforts to reframe these cultural gems in contemporary forms to preserve them for the younger generations. Digital media, such as animation and video games, provide the perfect vehicle to bridge the gap between traditional and contemporary. This paper investigates how storytelling practices have been carried through time and the creative ways they have evolved in the face of an ever-changing mediascape.

To support this research, I present a narrative in …

Using Visual Effects As A Means Of Establishing Or Reinforcing Scale In 3d Visual Works, Eric Dinicolantonio

All Theses

In 3D animation, visual effects help to establish and reinforce the scale of different characters and objects that are otherwise unclear. In the Fall of 2022, I taught a class about visual effects to several students. At the time, I had difficulty explaining the importance of properly scaling your 3D effects in order to add realism. With physically based effects, we must respect the laws of physics to create a visually realistic and understandable visual effect. Going through several of my previous projects, I found that I had made mistakes with scaling several of my effects. With this paper, I …

Pedagogy, Sexual Violence, And Contemporary Extremist Films: Baise-Moi (2000), Irréversible (2002), And Promising Young Woman (2020), Olivia Harris

All Theses

Baise-moi (dir. Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trinh Thi, 2000), Irréversible (dir. Gaspar Noé, 2002), and Promising Young Woman (dir. Emerald Fennell, 2020) embody characteristics of the extreme. Working from James Quandt’s formative writing in 2004, I define extremism as the purposeful inclusion of transgressive themes and situations. However, each of the selected films portrays the extreme under different production styles, aesthetics, and modes of storytelling. My connections to early exploitation film (a precursor to extremist cinema) demonstrate the genre’s important history of teaching and educating. Similar to the original intent of classical exploitation films, which taught spectators about taboo topics …

Kitchen Witch: Animated Independent Property Pitch Bible Research And Development, Kelsey Eaves

All Theses

My thesis project centers around the production process for creating an animated program. My paper is a record of the development of my pitch bible and my efforts to raise outside interest in the property. I intend to use my work here to enter the animation industry as a jumping off point in my career. My research materials include various “Art Of” production books, Creating Cartoons with Character by Rocko’s Modern Life creator Joe Murray, and firsthand interviews from present and former television industry personnel. In this text I explore television animation pre production to highlight the creation of an …

“I Found It Again. My Home.”: The Role Of Art In The Mediation Of Trauma And Loss In Station Eleven, Emily Zhong

All Theses

This project examines the role of the fictional graphic novel – “Station Eleven” – at the center of HBO’s Station Eleven as a form of trauma mediation. The graphic novel serves as a central, physical object in the show through which the characters Miranda, Kirsten, and Tyler process trauma, find comfort, and connect with others. I trace the creation process of “Station Eleven,” from Miranda’s original doodles as a child to the surviving physical copies in the hands of Kirsten and Tyler, exploring how each character engages with the artwork. Situating my analysis within a theoretical framework of contemporary trauma …

Making The Subconscious Conscious - Showcasing Unresolved Childhood Trauma Through Animation, Alexis Hunter

All Theses

The focus of this work is to shed light on unresolved childhood trauma that can contribute to mental hardships - whether people are aware of its presence in their lives or not. In this paper, I will discuss childhood trauma, its impact on adult life when left unresolved, self-parenting as a method to manage it, and how it is portrayed in various media. Drawing inspiration from my research on trauma and visual storytelling, I will present a proof-of-concept for a 2D animated short film, Strongholds, which visualizes the internal mental struggles through the character dynamics of the personifications of the …

Rated T For Therapy: How Video Games Portray Mental Illness And Their Effects On Social Stigmas, Christine Wendell

All Theses

Mental illness has always been a tricky subject for us to tackle as a society due to the social stigmas surrounding it. Historically, people with mental illness were seen as violent and unstable and would often need to be committed for public safety; however, a large majority of people with mental illness do not fit that bracket and often don’t reach out for help due to that fear of being “othered” by society. As time went on, these tropes faded to purely entertainment mediums but the stigmas still remain. Many video games specifically hold onto these tropes for shock value …

Nightmares And Hand Grenades: Dreams As A Storytelling Tool, Olivia Felber

All Theses

Dreams and nightmares feature prominently in art, story, and religious practice and tradition throughout history. In this paper I will discuss their prominence throughout these facets in daily life, and the various ways that we, as humans, have tried to elucidate meaning from them. I will study the nature and definition of dreams and nightmares through a scientific, cultural, and historical approach. I will also discuss folklore and the interpretation of nightmarish imagery in the context of an otherworldly adventure through a nightmare. These topics and themes will be shown, explained, and discussed through the methodology of my project- a …

The Student-Teacher Romance Film Genre: Hollywood's Historical Representation Of Abuse Of Power, Darby Gilliland

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Despite vast literature analyzing films that depict romantic and sexual relationships between young students and their teachers, scholarship has yet to explicitly call this category of films and television a genre. The purpose of the present thesis is to define the student-teacher romance film genre and identify patterns that make it up as a means of illuminating the genre’s exploration of abuse of power in the classroom. I use a historical-generic methodology and gaze theory as a framework to conduct this analysis. I identify three distinct eras of the genre and analyze films from each time period. The first era …

Brand-Funded Documentary Films And Climate Change: An Aristotelian Rhetorical Analysis, Matthew Rossetti

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines the concept of brand-funded documentaries that center on the issue of climate change and uses Aristotle’s Rhetorical Triangle to better understand how the films use rhetoric in communicating their message. A rhetorical analysis was conducted using four brand films from Amazon, Corona, Patagonia and REI and the results are intended to demonstrate the best methods of persuasion and the most effective rhetoric utilized in brand-funded documentaries. Because brand-funded documentaries not only make an argument about a particular issue, in this case climate change, but also must communicate a particular brand’s values and commitments, examining the rhetoric in …

Georgia, Lesley Brian Bargo

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

The Vietnam War cast a massive shadow, both home and abroad. Relationships, morality, and humanity hang in the balance.

The Evolution Of Racial Representation In Spider-Man Movies, Janelle Ferraris

Undergraduate Research Symposium Posters

Discusses the current evolution of racial representation in Spider-Man movies using content analysis with qualitative approach. Using plot, quotes, and character interactions, conclusions were made about current film limitations and possible future studies.