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Articles 1 - 30 of 43
Full-Text Articles in American Popular Culture
Sacred Connections In Cartoonish Places: Exploring The Implications Of Teotl In Avatar: The Last Airbender (2008), Makenzie P. Morrison
Sacred Connections In Cartoonish Places: Exploring The Implications Of Teotl In Avatar: The Last Airbender (2008), Makenzie P. Morrison
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Taking Avatar: The Last Airbender (2008) seriously, Sacred Connections in Cartoonish Places explores the animated children’s series and how it is understood through the monistic Nahua (Aztec) concept of teotl. Relying on James Maffie’s text Aztec Philosophy: Understanding a World in Motion (2014), this thesis determines that Avatar: The Last Airbender benefits from monistic analysis. This analysis results in a breakdown of the show into four body chapters. These chapters respectively explore Aang’s role as a monistic representative, the differences between the physical and spirit worlds presented in the show, the kind of relationships that appear in the series, and …
Gender, Age, Class And Racial Stereotypes, And Power Relations In Television Ads: 2011-13 Vs 2021-22, Thomas D. Clark, Julie Stewart
Gender, Age, Class And Racial Stereotypes, And Power Relations In Television Ads: 2011-13 Vs 2021-22, Thomas D. Clark, Julie Stewart
Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy
This article demonstrates how faculty and DEI experts can use resources included in this paper to highlight how a range of stereotypes are created and reinforced in television ads, and it identifies several topics for future analysis. To understand how depictions of gender, class, age, and race intersect in 8 television ads featuring the relationship between the race of individuals depicted in romantic and platonic relationships this article examines 4 pairs of commercials from 2011-2013 and 2021-2022. Drawing on concepts of intercategorical complexity, it describes product, setting, characters and relationships to help gain a deeper understanding of how various stereotypes …
Bad Girls: Agency, Revenge, And Redemption In Contemporary Drama, Courtney Watson
Bad Girls: Agency, Revenge, And Redemption In Contemporary Drama, Courtney Watson
Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy
Cultural movements including #TimesUp and #MeToo have contributed momentum to the demand for and development of smart, justified female criminal characters in contemporary television drama. These women are representations of shifting power dynamics, and they possess agency as they channel their desires and fury into success, redemption, and revenge. Building on works including Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl and Netflix’s Orange is the New Black, dramas produced since 2016—including The Handmaid’s Tale, Ozark, and Killing Eve—have featured the rise of women who use rule-breaking, rebellion, and crime to enact positive change.
A Gendered Perspective On Policing Violence In Happy Valley And Fargo, T. Allen Culpepper
A Gendered Perspective On Policing Violence In Happy Valley And Fargo, T. Allen Culpepper
Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy
Portrayal of a police officer determined to fight crime and execute justice in a harsh, isolated environment has become a television and film subgenre, often featuring women facing gender-related challenges. The issues raised in Sally Wainwright’s British television series Happy Valley, can be made more accessible, particularly to American undergraduate students, via its commonalities with the Coen brothers film Fargo. In both, a tough but compassionate policewoman pursues the more sociopathic of a pair of criminals involved in a botched kidnapping attempt instigated by an inept businessman, taking on the case for personal and professional honor, and as …
“If You Want To Be The Man, You’Ve Got To Beat The Man”: Masculinity And The Rise Of Professional Wrestling In The 1990s, Marc A. Ouellette
“If You Want To Be The Man, You’Ve Got To Beat The Man”: Masculinity And The Rise Of Professional Wrestling In The 1990s, Marc A. Ouellette
Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy
This paper traces the relationship between the shifting representations of masculinity in professional wrestling programs of the 1990s and the contemporaneous shifts in conceptions of masculinity, examining the ways each of these shifts impacted the other. Most important among these was a growing sense that the biggest enemy in wrestling and in day-to-day life is one’s boss. Moreover, the corporate corruption theme continues to underscore the WWE's on-screen and off-screen coverage, well into the second decade of the twenty-first century. Thus, the paper provides a template for considering a widely consumed popular cultural form in ways that challenge the determinism …
The Gentle Tongue: How Language Affected The World Of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Louisa Danielson
The Gentle Tongue: How Language Affected The World Of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Louisa Danielson
Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy
Although new episodes of the program ceased to be recorded in 2004, the Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood show is still recalled by many today as an iconic childhood staple—the right show to watch if you are a young child or a parent looking for something wholesome to view on television. This is as Fred Rogers, the creator of the program, wished, but what exactly were the goals behind the Mister Rogers’ program? What were the shaping forces that inspired Rogers’ theory for children’s educational television? These are questions explored in “The Gentle Tongue: How Language Affected the World of Mister Rogers’ …
A Field Guide To Teaching Agency And Ethics: The West Wing And American Foreign Policy, Kayce Mobley, Sarah Fisher
A Field Guide To Teaching Agency And Ethics: The West Wing And American Foreign Policy, Kayce Mobley, Sarah Fisher
Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy
Though political science undergraduate courses reflect a rich theoretical tradition, they typically lack opportunities for students to express intangible concepts through the interpretation of creative works, a standard exercise of critical analysis. Educators can address this dearth in many ways, such as through utilization of popular culture texts. We employ the television series The West Wing to ground debates in American politics, specifically American foreign policy. Although this show has been on air since 2006, Netflix and Amazon have recently released the entire series for streaming, significantly reducing the hassle and monetary cost of using this source in the classroom. …
See Me Show Me: Black Women Representation In Television Sitcoms, Lauryn Jennings
See Me Show Me: Black Women Representation In Television Sitcoms, Lauryn Jennings
Master's Theses
Television is a commonplace item within the households of America. It brings the family together as well teaching people about other people. With this Black women have been shown in one-dimensional images that are harmful. Although these stereotypes are old they are still present within modern television sitcoms.
Bozo The Clown: An Icon As American As An Apple Pie In The Face, Gregory Kent Oswald
Bozo The Clown: An Icon As American As An Apple Pie In The Face, Gregory Kent Oswald
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
There is no single path toward the creation of an American icon, a person or item with resonance to all in the country as well as having an ability to serve as a symbol of America itself for those outside the borders. This thesis considers certain elements that propelled the journey of the entertainment for children, Bozo the Clown, into a representational figure in the minds of young and old. Like all things American, his roots include many elements from outside the country: the name derives from foreign tongues mostly in derisory terms, but in at least one instance as …
The Reflective Age: Nostalgia At The End Of History, Zachary Griffith
The Reflective Age: Nostalgia At The End Of History, Zachary Griffith
Theses and Dissertations--English
This project investigates the ways in which nostalgic American media of the last decade reflects the sociopolitical conditions of the end of history. It begins with the assertion that the end of history represents a confounded, contradictory moment in which large-scale political change is relatively scarce, and belief in a progressive future has largely been abandoned, while cultural change has also accelerated at a pace never before seen––spurred on, in particular, by the constant return of dead styles and dormant IP. In other words, it seems as if nothing is changing and everything is changing simultaneously. The recent boom in …
The Cultivation Theory And Reality Television: An Old Theory With A Modern Twist, Jeffrey Weiss
The Cultivation Theory And Reality Television: An Old Theory With A Modern Twist, Jeffrey Weiss
Capstone Showcase
George Gerbner, a Hungarian-born professor of communication, founded the cultivation theory, one of the most popular and regarded theories in the communications world. Developed in the mid 20th century, the theory focus on the long-term effects of television on people. Longer exposure to signs, images and people on television cultivates their perception of reality in the real world. The television became a household staple during this time. Families often spent time together watching programming together, however, it played out different effects for each person. Television's constant visual and auditory stimulation on a person made it easier to cultivate certain messages, …
How A Psychopathic Serial Killer Becomes An American Favorite: An Analysis Of Dexter Morgan, Joanna Dunn
How A Psychopathic Serial Killer Becomes An American Favorite: An Analysis Of Dexter Morgan, Joanna Dunn
Augsburg Honors Review
In a society where the selling of serial killers' personal items is a profitable business and killers are the focus of many facets of entertainment such as biopics, crime novels, films, and the television network TruTV it is not surprising that a series about a killer debuting in 2006 would be the highest rated premiere of its home network Showtime, or that its viewership would increase by 84% between the pilot and season one finale. The series Dexter does, after all, follow the everyday routine of a serial killer, even giving the audience a glimpse into his innermost thoughts. However, …
Brrap Brrap Pew Pew: Representations Of Abortion In Adult Animated Television Comedy, Erika A. Byrnison
Brrap Brrap Pew Pew: Representations Of Abortion In Adult Animated Television Comedy, Erika A. Byrnison
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
This thesis documents and analyzes representation of abortion in American adult animated comedy, charging that it is under-examined and significant because representation on television in other genres has traditionally been absent or misleading. It covers theories on how pop culture communicates social norms, and posits that greater truthful representation of abortion in popular culture may be effective in reducing prevalent abortion stigma in the U.S. amongst the young by normalizing and more accurately representing the procedure. It reviews why our culture should be concerned about reducing abortion stigma in the U.S. It also identifies the “taboo ratings paradox,” wherein television …
A Matter Of Life And Def: Poetic Knowledge And The Organic Intellectuals In Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry, Anthony Blacksher
A Matter Of Life And Def: Poetic Knowledge And The Organic Intellectuals In Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry, Anthony Blacksher
CGU Theses & Dissertations
This dissertation unpacks the poetry, performances, and the production of Def Poetry Jam to explore how a performative art embodied and confronted racial discourses, including stereotypes and also, addressed the racism, patriotism, and imperialist discourses that circulated after 9/11. Def Poetry Jam contributes to the intellectual capacity of spoken word and performance poetry, and poets as intellectuals, where poets produce and disseminate knowledge, ideas, and data, in the form of narratives, that contribute to critical consciousness. The effectiveness of the series lay in the consistent blurring of entertainment, knowledge, anti-capitalism, and capitalism. This research demonstrates how Def Poetry Jam provided …
Narratives Of Miami In Dexter And Burn Notice, Myles Mcnutt
Narratives Of Miami In Dexter And Burn Notice, Myles Mcnutt
Communication & Theatre Arts Faculty Publications
In popular discourse around television, a series’ relationship with place is often marked through the suggestion its setting is “like a character in the show”, but this article argues against adopting this as a framework for analyzing television’s relationship with space and place. It articulates the relationship between this discourse of “spatial capital” and hierarchies of cultural capital within the television industry, limiting the types of series that are deemed to warrant closer investigation regarding issues of space and place and lacking nuanced engagement with place’s relationship with television narrative in particular. After breaking down the logic under which these …
"If You Want To Be The Man, You've Got To Beat The Man": Masculinity And The Rise Of Professional Wrestling In The 1990'S, Marc Ouellette
"If You Want To Be The Man, You've Got To Beat The Man": Masculinity And The Rise Of Professional Wrestling In The 1990'S, Marc Ouellette
English Faculty Publications
This paper traces the relationship between the shifting representations of masculinity in professional wrestling programs of the 1990s and the contemporaneous shifts in conceptions of masculinity, examining the ways each of these shifts impacted the other. Most important among these was a growing sense that the biggest enemy in wrestling and in day-to-day life is one’s boss. Moreover, the corporate corruption theme continues to underscore the WWE’s on-screen and off-screen coverage, well into the second decade of the twenty-first century. Thus, the paper provides a template for considering a widely consumed popular cultural form in ways that challenge the determinism …
It's A Bird! It's A Plane! It's...Cultural Anxiety? Using Detective Comics' Three Biggest Heroes To Identify And Explore Cultural Anxieties As Depicted Through Television, Jonathan Vander Lugt
It's A Bird! It's A Plane! It's...Cultural Anxiety? Using Detective Comics' Three Biggest Heroes To Identify And Explore Cultural Anxieties As Depicted Through Television, Jonathan Vander Lugt
Media and Communication Studies Honors Papers
This collection of essays uses the mythic nature of superheroes to examine and discuss specific cultural anxieties as they’re navigated and alleviated in superhero television texts. First, I examine the way that anxiety over feminism and the women’s rights movement manifested itself in Wonder Woman, the 70s television series starring Lynda Carter. Next, I use Smallville and its depictions of a teenaged Superman to explore its handling of anxieties over the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Finally, I performed a content analysis of six different series of Batman cartoons to examine the way they respond to national concerns over …
Transferential Poetics, From Poe To Warhol, Adam Frank
Transferential Poetics, From Poe To Warhol, Adam Frank
Literature
Transferential Poetics presents a method for bringing theories of affect to the study of poetics. Informed by the thinking of Silvan Tomkins, Melanie Klein, and Wilfred Bion, it offers new interpretations of the poetics of four major American artists: Edgar Allan Poe, Henry James, Gertrude Stein, and Andy Warhol. The author emphasizes the close, reflexive attention each of these artists pays to the transfer of feeling between text and reader, or composition and audience— their transferential poetics. The book’s historical route from Poe to Warhol culminates in television, a technology and cultural form that makes affect distinctly available to perception. …
Got Lost Behind The Scenes: Underexposed Television Producers In Magazines, Jordan King
Got Lost Behind The Scenes: Underexposed Television Producers In Magazines, Jordan King
Pell Scholars and Senior Theses
Award-winning television shows are popularly depicted through digital media and magazine coverage. However, the strenuous efforts of TV producers are hidden behind the publicity of celebrities and plotlines of the show. Using Eugene Shaw's agenda-setting theory and Robert Entman's framing theory as a basis, the author created a case study analyzing how the producers of Lost and Game of Thrones are portrayed in magazines. The research shows that reporters tend to perpetuate the anonymity of these producers, which in effect, leads an audience to deem them as unimportant.
Where Have All The Good Men Gone? A Psychoanalytic Reading Of The Absent Fathers & Bad Dads On Abc's Lost, Melissa R. Ames
Where Have All The Good Men Gone? A Psychoanalytic Reading Of The Absent Fathers & Bad Dads On Abc's Lost, Melissa R. Ames
Faculty Research & Creative Activity
Fictional fathers in narratives are often allegorical in nature and contemporary television is not immune from this. ABC’s groundbreaking television drama, Lost, offers a multitude of father figures that suggests not only a crisis concerning the role of the father in the 21st century but also the crisis of national security experienced by Americans after the attacks. In particular, the program showcases three specific types of troubled father/child relationships: those in which the father is absent and/or dead, those where the father is portrayed as abusive and/or evil, and those where the father and child are estranged and/or their relationship …
Where Have All The Good Men Gone? A Psychoanalytic Reading Of The Absent Fathers & Bad Dads On Abc's Lost, Melissa R. Ames
Where Have All The Good Men Gone? A Psychoanalytic Reading Of The Absent Fathers & Bad Dads On Abc's Lost, Melissa R. Ames
Faculty Research & Creative Activity
Fictional fathers in narratives are often allegorical in nature and contemporary television is not immune from this. ABC’s groundbreaking television drama, Lost, offers a multitude of father figures that suggests not only a crisis concerning the role of the father in the 21st century but also the crisis of national security experienced by Americans after the attacks. In particular, the program showcases three specific types of troubled father/child relationships: those in which the father is absent and/or dead, those where the father is portrayed as abusive and/or evil, and those where the father and child are estranged and/or their relationship …
#Prettylittleliars: How Hashtags Drive The Social Tv Phenomenon, Melanie Brozek
#Prettylittleliars: How Hashtags Drive The Social Tv Phenomenon, Melanie Brozek
Pell Scholars and Senior Theses
Twitter is used by many TV shows to promote discussion and encourage viewer loyalty. Most successfully, ABC Family uses Twitter to promote the teen drama Pretty Little Liars through the use of hashtags and celebrity interactions. This study analyzes Pretty Little Liars use of hashtags created by the network and by actors from the show. It examines how the Pretty Little Liars official accounts engage fans about their opinions on the show and encourage further discussion. Fans use the network-generated hashtags within their tweets to react to particular scenes and to hopefully be noticed by managers of official show accounts. …
As The World Turns...Gay, Not Queer: Privileging Heteronormalized Representations Of Sexuality In American Soap Operas From 1977 - Present, Brett Edward King
As The World Turns...Gay, Not Queer: Privileging Heteronormalized Representations Of Sexuality In American Soap Operas From 1977 - Present, Brett Edward King
Cultural Studies Capstone Papers
This project argues that American daytime soap operas, since the1970s, have adopted prevailing discursive ideas of queerness, re-articulated them, and introduced new discursive understandings of queerness into popular culture. Most often, these re-articulated representations reflect a heteronormalized model,owing to myriad historically-situated discourses related to human sexuality (e.g.,mental health, AIDS, and gender identity). This point is made through a broad examination of these shifting discourses, coupled with a direct analysis of salient queer characters and storylines that appeared concurrently within daytime serials. Building on Feminist and Media theory, this project includes Queer theory to frame a comprehensive historical-discursive understanding of queerness …
Mike & Molly -- An Other World, Maureen Elizabeth Johnson
Mike & Molly -- An Other World, Maureen Elizabeth Johnson
Theses, Dissertations and Capstones
This thesis explores the impact of the television show Mike & Molly on the modern debate related to fat in America. The thesis uses the work of Michel Foucault as well as disability scholars such as Lennard Davis and feminist scholars such as bell hooks to examine how a comedy show like Mike & Molly can further disenfranchise fat people in society. The thesis shows that fat makes people an Other in society, and television shows and other forms of comedy that mock those who are fat just reinforce that Other status.
Profiles Of Selected Mormon Actors, J. Michael Hunter
Profiles Of Selected Mormon Actors, J. Michael Hunter
Faculty Publications
“Profiles of Selected Mormon Actors” provides brief profiles of over 80 Mormon actors and actresses, including some biographical information and career highlights. This chapter appears in the first volume of Mormons and Popular Culture: The Global Influence of an American Phenomenon (Praeger 2013), a comprehensive treatment of Mormons and popular culture, providing an introduction and wide-ranging overview of the topic.
Social Learning Theory In The Frontline Documentary “The Merchants Of Cool”, Alixe A. Wiley
Social Learning Theory In The Frontline Documentary “The Merchants Of Cool”, Alixe A. Wiley
Faculty Curated Undergraduate Works
In the Frontline documentary The Merchants of Cool, the relationship between major media conglomerates and their hedonistic teenage customers is examined through exploring the different tactics industries use to discover and market the next “cool” thing. Industries maintain what the documentary refers to as a “feedback loop” with their customers, which is a cyclic, supply-and-demand relationship that blurs the line between fiction and reality. It has become impossible to tell which side is imitating the other: who do the products and trends that define popular youth culture belong to? What's more, are the sexual and aggressive hormone-fueled behaviors on …
Movie And Television Fathers: A Positive Reflection Of Positive Changes, George J. Mcgowan
Movie And Television Fathers: A Positive Reflection Of Positive Changes, George J. Mcgowan
Master of Liberal Studies Theses
Certain films and television programs depicting fathers have both enduring popularity and have reflected the advances in the institution of fatherhood. This has happened because of a symbiosis that has delivered positive results: popular films and television shows that earn money for producers and advertisers have depicted fathers who have changed to reflect the popular example. These depictions have contributed in their way to mending the family dynamic, specifically related to the father’s essential role in the family. Such family-oriented films and television shows have effectively showed fathers (and men that would become fathers) that they could be much more …
Time In Television Narrative: Exploring Temporality In 21st Century Programming, Melissa R. Ames
Time In Television Narrative: Exploring Temporality In 21st Century Programming, Melissa R. Ames
Faculty Research & Creative Activity
This collection analyzes twenty-first-century American television programs that rely upon temporal and narrative experimentation. These shows play with time, slowing it down to unfold the narrative through time retardation and compression. They disrupt the chronological flow of time itself, using flashbacks and insisting that viewers be able to situate themselves in both the present and the past narrative threads. Although temporal play has existed on the small screen prior to the new millennium, never before has narrative time been so freely adapted in mainstream television. The essayists offer explanations for not only the frequency of time play in contemporary programming, …
Television, Kathleen Collins
Citizen Bunker: Archie Bunker As Working-Class Icon., Kathleen Collins
Citizen Bunker: Archie Bunker As Working-Class Icon., Kathleen Collins
Publications and Research
Archie Bunker, the central character and patriarch of Norman Lear’s “All in the Family,” (1971-1979) has been referred to as an “everyman” and an “angry-man prototype” with “hard had prejudice.” The name Archie Bunker itself has become synonymous with a blue-collar, racially chauvinistic mentality. The title of the show’s pilot and theme song, “Those Were the Days,” emphasized Archie’s dream of a simpler (though idealized) time, a world that he could understand and upon which he could exert some control. In 1970s America, Archie seemed to feel that the world was against him – economically, socially, politically and culturally – …