Film and Media Studies Commons^™

The Coloniality Of Gender In Sports And Education: Colonial Legacies Of The Philippines’ Modern Gender System In Rookie (2023), Hestia Dwi Pratiwi, Darmoko Darmoko

International Review of Humanities Studies

This article discusses the lasting impact of colonial-era policies on the gender system portrayed in the Filipino LGBT coming-of-age movie "Rookie" (2023) by analyzing the gendered notions in sports and education. Rookie, directed by Samantha Lee, tells the story of Maria "Ace" Asuncion who is navigating and exploring life as a transfer student learning to master volleyball. As a rookie or newbie at school and in the sport, Ace comes across gendered notions in sports and education that reveal the state of the gender system. Using the concept of 'Coloniality of Gender' by Maria Lugones, this paper …

Towards The Non-Spectacle: Responses To Necropolitics In The Artwork Of Teresa Margolles And Maya Watanabe, Leslie Anne Condon

Masters Theses

How do we engage with artwork that addresses complicated histories

of colonialism and political violence, specifically intangible and

incomprehensible violence? Mexican artist Teresa Margolles’ 2005 work, Lote

Bravo, is named after and composed of the soil from a mass grave site

discovered in 1995 in the southeastern corner of Ciudad Juárez, a city known

internationally for the femicide that has continued to haunt its streets and

peripheries since the 1990s. Peruvian filmmaker Maya Watanabe’s 2019 film

Liminal cinematically documents the official exhumation of two mass graves

in the Ayacucho and Huánuco regions of the Andes highlands, where

thousands of …

Arenas Of Resistance: How Oklahoma's Black Rodeos Preserved Environmental Wisdom And Community Power, Rorie Johnson

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis explores how Black rodeos in Oklahoma emerged from post-emancipation agricultural labor and ranching traditions, serving as powerful sites of cultural preservation, knowledge transmission, and resistance to dominant narratives of the American West. Through analysis of historical records, photographic evidence, and personal family narratives, this research demonstrates how Black Oklahomans developed unique relationships with land and animals that encompassed both the "ecological burden" of agricultural labor and the "beauty" of cultural expression and community-building. Drawing on theoretical frameworks including Kimberly Ruffin's "ecological burden-and-beauty paradox," George Lipsitz's "Black spatial imaginaries," bell hooks' "oppositional gaze," and Toni Morrison's concept of "rememory," …

Seeing Her, Wanting Her: Postfeminist Desire And Its Contradictions In Zendaya’S Magazine Covers, Sophia Shelley

International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities

This article examines Zendaya’s modelling evolution as a case study to explore how a postfeminist critique and psychoanalysis can illuminate the contradictory nature of women’s advertising. My analysis compares Zendaya’s covers in Seventeen (2012) and Essence (2020), emphasizing the stark differences in aesthetics, where Seventeen conforms to ideals of (white) femininity, and in opposition, Essence centres around Black femininity and desire. By situating Zendaya as both a gendered and racialized ‘other,’ the intricate dynamics of femininity, race, and age in media portrayals are made visible. I argue that Zendaya’s image is sold through postfeminist ideals of empowerment, choice, and sexuality …

Huchum: The Legacy Of Fire Suppression, Indigenous Land Management, And Media Representation, Carolyn Coyne

Pomona Senior Theses

In my thesis, I examine how various forms of news media from the 1900s to present day in Ohlone territory have framed a particular hegemonic ideology around fire that matches early colonial journal entries – an ideology that is fueled by fear, sensationalism, and exclusion and directly commits violence against the Ohlone people. I investigate this time period because this is when modern news corporations, like The New York Times, rose into prominence. Specifically, I question how media representations of fire inform regulations over controlled burns; what are the similarities in discourse between media framing and policy? What tactics are …

Reckoning With The Cowboy: Justice, Trauma, And The Myth Of Freedom In Be The Cowboy, Abbie Oh Arroyo

Scripps Senior Theses

Be the Cowboy interrogates the romanticized myth of the cowboy as a symbol of justice and freedom through the lens of racialized and gendered trauma. Centered on two Korean American sisters, the film explores the aftermath of a sexual assault and the ensuing quest for justice, highlighting the emotional and ethical tensions between retribution and healing. Drawing from postcolonial, trauma, and feminist theory, the project critiques the cowboy archetype’s historical entwinement with white patriarchy, colonial violence, and the aestheticization of marginalized suffering. By reimagining the Western genre through a racialized and gendered perspective, Be the Cowboy challenges dominant cultural narratives …

Feminine Felons: Violent Offenders' Intersectional Experiences In Twentieth-Century Montana, Cassidy Ann Vander Voort

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This paper explores the treatment of violent female offenders in Montana in both the media and prison system from 1900-1960. Women of all races faced gender discrimination from both the carceral system and popular media. Local newspapers sensationalized crimes committed by female offenders, portraying them as women who lived outside of the expectations of womanhood in the twentieth century. Newspapers and courts placed women into two categories: “mad/sad” female offenders, who received forgiveness for their crimes; or unforgivable, “bad” offenders. Crime did not determine these categorizations; instead, gender expectations of the white middle class shaped female criminals’ treatment. If these …

Creating An Ofrenda, Sara Hinojos

Open Educational Resources

You do not need to be Mexican to celebrate Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). What you need however is a deep and thoughtful cultural understanding of the practice. This lesson plan teaches students what Dia de los Muertos is, the influence of colonialism (past and present), how mainstream media understands the celebration in the U.S., and how local communities honor the celebration. This approach is from a media studies perspective and a particular focus on art, specifically altar making or making an ofrenda. Writer, philosopher, tejana Gloria E. Anzaldúa details that altars are “‘the sanctuary of the …

Liner Notes On Black Trans Girlhood: Afrofuturist Affect & Black Popular Music As A Praxis Of Self-Fashioning, Shawn J. Williams

Theses and Dissertations

Liner Notes on Black Trans Girlhood: Afrofuturist Affect & Black Popular Music as a Praxis of Self-Fashioning interprets Black musical performance in identity-making, with a focus on how music and Black trans identity intersect and informs Black trans girlhood. As such, Black trans girls render ourselves legible, i.e. understood without shame or judgment, by constructing our identities through the music by Black women we listen and dance to, or watch and sing. These musical connections affirm the possibilities of Black femme expression. This expression of Black femininity is due to what I call an Afrofuturist affect, by which I refer …

Mirrors Of The Reel: Black Women's Identity In American Cinema (2009-2024), Melanie-Penny Harrison

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This study investigates whether white supremacy structures, embodied in Hollywood’s predominantly white leadership, drive negative portrayals of Black women in 31 mainstream American films from 2009 to 2024. Employing a mixed-methods approach—quantitative content analysis, qualitative content analysis (QCA), and narrative methodology—I code portrayals for racism, patriarchy, heterosexism, colorism, and internalized racism, classifying them as progressive (e.g., empowered roles), regressive (e.g., subservient stereotypes), or hybrid. Guided by Critical Race Theory and intersectionality, the analysis examines narrative structures, character agency, symbolism, and dialogue to uncover intersectional patterns (e.g., race, gender, class) across three periods: 2009–2013, 2014–2018, and 2019–2024. Across these periods, cultural …

Mixed Race Futurity Through Contemporary Archetypes: Mutants, Cyborgs And Dhampirs, Kobe Jackson

Masters Theses

Analysis of Enlightenment philosphes reveals how the contemporary archetypes, mutants, cyborgs and dhampirs may be situated as sources for understanding mixed race positionality. Arranged on a trajectory of hybrid mythology reaching from ancient times into the present day, their contemporary relevance is put into context. Through modern speculative fiction, historical mythology and the theoretical frameworks of sociology, and philosophy, two tropes are revealed to be imposed roles for mixed race people. The first one, the tragic hybrid is a term which references a character specific to the context of American colonial slavery, the tragic mulatto. By reframing the term, tragic …

Maka: Un Processo Collaborativo Raccontato A Tre Voci, Simone Brioni Dr., Geneviève Makaping, Elia Moutamid

Department of English Faculty Publications

The documentary Maka offers an account of Makaping’s journey of migration from Cameroon, her arrival in Italy in 1982 following the tragic death of her partner, her success as a journalist and television host, and her more recent relocation to Mantua. Maka focuses on questions of national belonging, and it reflects on how the perception of migration and race has changed since Makaping first came to Italy in the 1990s. This contribution includes a short article in which the protagonist, the writer and the director of the film reflect upon their collaboration. It also includes a video recording of the …

Señoritas On And Off The Silver Screen: How Chicana Women Organized For Equality And Challenged The Cultural Prison Of Sexualized Media Representations In The First Half Of The Twentieth-Century, Rossandra Paloma Martinez

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This research is personal for me due to lived experience and day-to-day situations where I have felt the pressures of unattainable beauty standards and society’s fluid definition of beauty and femininity surrounding Chicana, Latinas, Mexican, and Mexican-American women. What inspired me to pursue these issues and topics was the work of Dr. Vicki Lynn Ruiz in her book From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in Twentieth-Century America. This research focuses on rival and contested images of Chicana, Mexican, Mexican-American and Latina labor advocates and activists from the early twentieth as opposed to sexualized and eroticized packaged caricatures that Hollywood …

Ways Of Decoloniality By The Painted Lady: Avatar: The Last Airbender’S Katara Demonstrates How To Revive A Community In Ecological Distress Brought By The Colonial Expansion Of The Fire Nation, Jose Santos P. Ardivilla

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

In the third episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender’s Book 3: The Book Of Fire, the “Gaang” consisting of Avatar Aang, Toph, Sokka, and Katara chanced upon a fishing village on stilts,ravaged by the pollution of its waterways. The pollution comes from the industrial activity of the Colonial Masters’ Fire Nation which greatly affected the village. This animation is from Nickelodeon, a channel geared for children’s entertainment, thus implicates humorous asides in what purports to be a serious epicurean reclaiming of a lost balance through indigenous visual culture, solidarity, media studies, and ecocriticism. Katara disguises herself as …

Crossing Over: The Migrant “Other” In The Marvel Cinematic Universe, Casey Joe Walker, Anthony Ramirez, Arthur D. Soto-Vásquez

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Two mainstream films from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) reflect anxiety about the alien (migrant) “other” through difference and crisis. In this article, we explore how refugees and “shithole” planets form a major plot point in Captain Marvel (2019). At the most extreme, alien exclusion is articulated in Avengers: Infinity War (2018), from the villain’s perspective, as a Malthusian need for extermination of lives to preserve environmental balance. Seemingly innocuous, these narratives are symbolic of a creeping right-wing discourse that dehumanizes outsiders, refugees, and migrants in popular culture. Inspired by the call to consider how film and new media …

The Many Ways Of Wakanda: Viewpoint Diversity In Black Panther And Its Implications For Civics Education, Justin Frank Martin

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Like many of its superhero film predecessors, Black Panther (2018) achieved widespread popularity both domestically and internationally. Although the film examines the focal character T’Challa’s (Black Panther) attempt to balance his dual responsibilities as king and protector of Wakanda, the viewpoint diversity displayed by its citizens suggests that the film’s central character is Wakandan society. Drawing on events and themes from the film, the essay argues that social domain theory (SDT)—a theory that attempts to explain the development of sociomoral concepts across the lifespan—provides a useful lens to examine Wakandans’ viewpoint diversity as portrayed in the film, specifically with regards …

Visuality Of Race In Popular Culture: Teaching Racial Histories And Iconography In Media, Joni Boyd Acuff, Amelia M. Kraehe

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

The repetition of racist imagery from historical to contemporary popular culture is indicative of a lack of visual culture education among artists, designers, and other creative cultural producers working today. This paper addresses the dearth of resources for teaching visual codes and conventions of racial iconography that are recycled in popular media and contribute to the fabrication of racial differences, maintenance of racial hierarchies, and normalization of white supremacist ideology. Inspired by Critical Race Theory in art and visual culture education, the essay proposes teaching tactics and sites/sights that can support students in developing visual understandings of race in popular …

Human Sacrifice And Propaganda In Popular Media: More Than Morbid Curiosity, Jason Tatlock

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Representations of human sacrifice, whether based upon real or fictitious events, powerfully demonstrate societal norms and fascinations related to the acceptability of slaying humans for religious or national interests, particularly given the divisive and bloody nature of the topic. Readers of eye-witness accounts, newspaper reports, and historical narratives, and viewers of cinematic productions, war posters, and political cartoons come face to face with the beliefs and agendas of the creators of popular media. Such sources represent the slaying of victims in sacred rituals, as individuals attempt to demarcate societal boundaries along the etic/ emic spectrum, be they commentaries on their …

My Father's Daughter, Sherry Coman

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of My Father's Daughter (2024), directed by Egil Pedersen.

Science Fiction, Eng 2420, Syllabus And Course Outline, Jason W. Ellis

Open Educational Resources

This Science Fiction, ENG2420 syllabus and course outline was written for an online, asynchronous class taught in the Department of English at the New York City College of Technology, CUNY. It was designed to compliment the OER Yet Another Science Fiction Textbook (YASFT) and have a Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) approach with readings and viewings found primarily through the Internet Archive. The course follows a historical approach to the science fiction genre covering the Origins of Science Fiction, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Proto-SF, Pulp SF, SF Film Serials, Golden Age SF, SF Film Through the 1950s, New Wave …

Myth And Monument In Old Town Albuquerque: Southwest Pietà And The War Of Presiding Histories, Eric Castillo

Regeneración: A Xicanacimiento Studies Journal

Luis Jiménez’s Southwest Pietà (1984) intended to combat cultural amnesia that obscured Native Americans’ and Mexicans’ contributions to the state. Jiménez’s Pietà sought to counter the iconography that shaped New Mexico’s colonialist heritage. But Old Town Albuquerque shrouds Native American and Mexican contributions to the region. Albuquerque’s public art has often been deployed as a wedge to write and rewrite narratives about land inhabitants, but the city’s public art tells a powerful story about race and place in New Mexico. This essay explores the socio-historical battle of land memorialization in Old Town Albuquerque and provides a geo-racial perspective about the …

Reviving Hysteria: The Nineteenth Century At The End Of The Twentieth, Christina Quintana

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores popular and medical representations of female madness in two time periods: the late nineteenth and late twentieth centuries. I argue that 1990s American culture produced an abundance of texts, images, and narratives that revitalized the iconography and medical discourses of late nineteenth-century hysteria. Analyzing popular texts, films, and cultural touchstones of the 1990s, I explore how Victorian ideas about women’s minds—such as the inherent feebleness of the female brain and nervous system; the fatalistic, life-altering effects of female puberty; the association between hysteria and deviant female sexuality; and the implicit racialization of hysteria and female madness more …

Carceral Liberalism: Feminist Voices Against State Violence, Andrea Michaels

Feminist Pedagogy

The following book review of Shreerekha Pillai’s Carceral Liberalism: Feminist Voices against State Violence (2023) is an expansive and timely collection of essays on the carceral state in its implications for feminist educators. This review focuses on the connections and connectivity of two essays in the collection that attempt to address a minor examination of the person as political.

Thinking Blue / Writing Red: Marxism And The (Post)Human, Stephen C. Tumino

Publications and Research

Thinking Blue/Writing Red interrogates contemporary culture across a range of texts, from the pandemic (‘Covid’ and ‘Trump Speak’) to high theory (Melville's narratives) and popular culture (Beyoncé's ‘Formation’ and Super Bowl performance, Twin Peaks , metamodern ‘cli-fi’ films). Inspired by Derrida’s idea of the secret, Tumino examines the significance of social movements (Black Lives Matter, Occupy, alter-globalization) and naïve art (Darger, Ryden) to argue that these texts speak of the secrets that capitalism cannot speak. Contending that the cultural surfaces narrate only the ‘nonsecret,’ that to see the social logic of the culture one must dig into what Bruno Latour …

Transnational(Izing) African Communication: A Post-/Decolonial Approach To Nollywood And Globalization, Tomide Oloruntobi

Communication ETDs

In this dissertation, I examine culture and communication in transnational Nigeria, focusing on Nollywood and its industrial politics. Through a critical ethnographic examination of Nollywood’s reception among global and transnational audiences, I critique the evolving patterns of difference, power, and politics informing production, distribution, consumption, and performance/communication of otherness. With four composite dimensions of decoloniality: structural, epistemic, personal, and relational as theoretical foundation, I analyzed observations and interviews with 21 transnational Nigerians, online focus group discussions, user reviews, movies/series, and blogposts. I discuss the emergent themes of coloniality of space, mobility, and culture; re-making of racial otherness and hetero-patriarchy/normativity; cultural …

Sans Hommes, On N’Est Pas Rien”: Defying Patriarchy And Reclaiming Voices In Les Rivières, Warisara E. Sawin

Vernacular: New Connections in Language, Literature, & Culture

This article explores Jennifer Solheim’s conceptualization of “the call to listen” in postcolonial Francophone cultural production, as she argues for the importance of engaging with and responding to immigrant and minority narratives within this cultural milieu. This article further explores the dynamic relationship between media consumption and artistic creation, specifically the innovative realms of “accented” and “intercultural” cinema that have emerged from the conditions of globalization and migration. The unique cinematic languages of these forms convey the intricate experiences of those living in exile or as part of post-migratory populations.

An in-depth analysis is presented on Mai Hua’s documentary Les …

La Condition Féminine En Algérie Et Sa Transcription Filmique Chez Nadia Zouaoui, Saïd Adel

Journal of Amazigh Studies

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Review Of Myopia. Akroud, Sanaa, Dir. L’Étoile Du Canada, 2020, Yahya Laayouni

Journal of Amazigh Studies

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Compte Rendu Du Film Argu, Réalisé Par Omar Belkacemi En 2021, Nabil Boudraa

Journal of Amazigh Studies

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Aẓar De Malik Bourkache, Production Mvi (2023). Film Documentaire, Hend Sadi

Journal of Amazigh Studies

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