Visual Studies Commons^™

Age Of Exploitation: Teen Sex Comedy Films Of The 1980s, Thyra Chaney

The Downtown Review

The teen sex comedy film genre is representative of dominant cultural factors which influenced the film industry in the 1980s. Films in this genre have been traditionally described as mindless, dumb, and exploitative. This article seeks to understand the distinction between teen sex comedy and traditional teen films, as well as the social and cultural influences which lead to the development and popularity of the teen sex comedy genre. Teen sex comedies are a document of mainstream society and popular culture in the 1980s.

This Must Be The Place: A Short Film, Reagan Shull

Honors Projects

This Must Be The Place is a short film categorized as a Coming of Age Mystery with strong narrative ties to Magical Realism set in the heart of small town America. The key thematic ideas are identity, female relationships, isolation, friendship, and loss. This story emphasizes each person’s struggle for identity, and the isolation that can be brought upon themselves when they do not know who they are. Further, the difficulties regarding the search for one’s dreams without a strong sense of identity are also discussed in this narrative. Ultimately, this story is about dealing with isolation as we grow …

Influential Storytelling At Its Finest: Why The Postwar West Took Notice Of Yasujirō Ozu’S Tokyo Story, Abigail Deveney

Japanese Society and Culture

Tokyo Story (1953) came to fame in 1958, when Yasujiro Ozu’s postwar film about a fragmenting family won the Sutherland prize at the London Film Festival – or so cinematic scholarship suggests. There is, however, a much more complex tale to be told. In fact, director Ozu’s shomingeki-genre film was being discussed and promoted internationally long before what is considered that watershed moment.

This dissertation explores why the western world took note. It argues that Tokyo Story’s nuanced and humanist narrative was a unique form of soft power, attracting and persuading decades before that concept was formally articulated. Tokyo Story’s …