Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Critical and Cultural Studies Commons™
Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Keyword
-
- Video games (6)
- Game studies (4)
- Computer games (2)
- Cultural studies (2)
- Fans (2)
-
- Masculinity (2)
- Media (2)
- 9/11 (1)
- Allegory (1)
- American film (1)
- American myth (1)
- Climate fiction film; ecocinema; environmental futurity; white male injury; white male savior (1)
- Crowd sourcing (1)
- Digital culture (1)
- Digital games (1)
- Directors (1)
- Effects (1)
- Ethics (1)
- Fan agency (1)
- Fan exploitation (1)
- Fan labor (1)
- Feminist ecology (1)
- Film (1)
- Franchises (1)
- Francois Girard (1)
- Game design (1)
- Gaming (1)
- Gender studies (1)
- George A. Romero (1)
- Hero (1)
- Publication Year
- Publication
- Publication Type
Articles 1 - 22 of 22
Full-Text Articles in Critical and Cultural Studies
Imaginative Acts, Environmental Futurity: Re-Envisioning The Heroic White Male Savior In Snowpiercer, Michelle Yates
Imaginative Acts, Environmental Futurity: Re-Envisioning The Heroic White Male Savior In Snowpiercer, Michelle Yates
Green Humanities: A Journal of Ecological Thought in Literature, Philosophy & the Arts
In contrast to many Hollywood climate fiction films, Snowpiercer (2013) offers a more complex representation of the white male savior. In contrast to films like WALL-E (2008) and Interstellar (2014) that recuperate and invest in white masculine privilege, Snowpiercer highlights the more destructive aspects of a patriarchal capitalist system that privileges hegemonic white masculinity. While the ending of Snowpiercer may seem bleak, it also points to the possibility of a new system, an environmental futurity that centers indigenous knowledge and the experiences of women and people of color. Though Snowpiercer is not formally an American film, its casting of recognizable …
Unearthing Montreal’S Past In Hochelaga, Terre Des Âmes, Marla Epp
Unearthing Montreal’S Past In Hochelaga, Terre Des Âmes, Marla Epp
Green Humanities: A Journal of Ecological Thought in Literature, Philosophy & the Arts
[First paragraph] In his 2017 film, Hochelaga, terre des âmes (Hochelaga, Land of Souls), Québécois filmmaker François Girard delves into the complex history of Montreal. When a sinkhole appears in a football stadium, the site becomes an archaeological dig, led by a Mohawk graduate student at the Université de Montréal. The film tracks the progress of the dig, unearthing layers of history and revealing the stories of the generations of people who lived on the land, including the Indigenous peoples who lived there first.1
Society Doesn’T Owe You Anything: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas & Video Games As Speculative Fiction, Marc A. Ouellette
Society Doesn’T Owe You Anything: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas & Video Games As Speculative Fiction, Marc A. Ouellette
English Faculty Publications
Since Donald Trump’s election in 2016, popular and scholarly commentators have been looking for speculative and/or dystopic literary works that might provide analogues for the Trump-era. Perhaps the most famous of these was the renewed popularity of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. In this regard, though, video games remain an underexplored fictional form. With its exaggerated and parodic satire of an America ruled by the corruption and greed of extreme right-wing populism, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004) offers a speculative fiction that players can enact as well as imagine and simulate as well as prepare. Thus, reading the …
The “Science” Of Story Structure, Diana Witt
The “Science” Of Story Structure, Diana Witt
Virginias Collegiate Honors Council Conference
Stories are immensely human. They help us learn and understand cultural and social contexts. The stories that we tell, see, and read have profound effects on our ideas and emotions, causing us to have visceral reactions. Stories are truly at the crux of how people relate to each other. In this talk, I will explore the necessary elements of stories and why they are effective. Storytellers across all mediums build plot and characters to make an audience care and draw them in. Authors and screenwriters have theorized about the main structures into which all stories fall. In modern media, story …
Mediated Merchandise, Merchandisable Media: An Introduction, Elizabeth Affuso, Avi Santo
Mediated Merchandise, Merchandisable Media: An Introduction, Elizabeth Affuso, Avi Santo
Communication & Theatre Arts Faculty Publications
There are many reasons why film and media scholars ought to take merchandise seriously. That filmrelated merchandise is a lucrative part of the film business is only a starting point, but still a good place to start. In 2018, character and entertainment licensing accounted for 44.7% of retail sales of licensed merchandise, generating $121.53 billion in sales. [1] [#N1] This earned entertainment companies approximately $6.2 billion in royalties. [2] [#N2] Not surprisingly, five of the top ten licensors are entertainment companies, with Disney positioned at the top with $53 billion in merchandise sales. Universal Studios is ranked 4th ($7.3 billion), …
He Scores Through A Screen: Mediating Masculinities Through Hockey Video Games, Marc A. Ouellette, Steven Conway
He Scores Through A Screen: Mediating Masculinities Through Hockey Video Games, Marc A. Ouellette, Steven Conway
English Faculty Publications
Hockey video games highlight the ways in which the video game medium shapes and conditions the experience of producing and/or performing the sport “in real life.” Indeed, the accumulation of advanced statistics in and through the constant evaluation, measurement, and surveillance which are inherent to video games—and increasingly seen as foundational for sport—reveals important contradictions not only in the way the embodied sport is played and understood, but also in terms of the proofs of masculinity upon which the sport is built. It then becomes clear that the building of masculinity and the empowerment of the character become one and …
Brüno Is So Gay, Thomas Duering
Brüno Is So Gay, Thomas Duering
OUR Journal: ODU Undergraduate Research Journal
Few comedians are as willing to confront American culture‟s greatest taboos for the sake of a joke as Sacha Baron Cohen. Baron Cohen originally gained popularity in America with his adorably ignorant and bumbling character, Borat. According to Biography.com, “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan was a surprise smash, bringing in more than $128 million at the box office”. Because of Borat‟s success, Baron Cohen is now known for a unique style of filmmaking in which his characters present themselves to people under false premises in an attempt to catch funny reactions on …
Veronica Mars Kickstarter And Crowd Funding, Bertha Chin, Bethan Jones, Myles Mcnutt, Luke Pebler
Veronica Mars Kickstarter And Crowd Funding, Bertha Chin, Bethan Jones, Myles Mcnutt, Luke Pebler
Communication & Theatre Arts Faculty Publications
This conversation among Bertha Chin, Bethan Jones, Myles McNutt, and Luke Pebler about the Veronica Mars (2004–7) Kickstarter campaign to fund a film assesses the implications of crowd sourcing and fan labor.
From Fandom To Franchise: Generational Discourse Among Fans And Producers, Nicholas C. Benson
From Fandom To Franchise: Generational Discourse Among Fans And Producers, Nicholas C. Benson
Communication & Theatre Arts Theses
Generational discourse surrounding fandom has been an understudied area of media studies. Using Disney's TRON franchise as a case study, this thesis looks at that discourse as it exists in two areas. The first chapter draws on interviews with several actual TRON fans and looks at how the concept of generation is imagined within the TRON fan community. The second chapter draws from promotional interviews done with TRON creator Steven Lisberger to analyze the way the concept of generation functions within the decision making practices and formation of career capital within Hollywood. Ultimately, this paper concludes that the concept of …
Zombies As A Generational Metaphor: Connections Between George A. Romero, Zombies And Fandom -- A Critical Study, Alfredo Torres
Zombies As A Generational Metaphor: Connections Between George A. Romero, Zombies And Fandom -- A Critical Study, Alfredo Torres
Communication & Theatre Arts Theses
Since the creation of the modern day zombie by George A. Romero in his directorial debut with the genre altering film Night of the Living Dead in 1968, zombie have been associated with becoming a metaphoric representation of social and cultural issues surrounding the times these films were released, with Romero's films being at the forefront of this phenomenon. A review of Romero's career including his influences was examined as well as the film history of the zombie subgenre, the connections it has to its fans and how the fans influenced the development of the genre. A survey was connected …
Introduction: A Game's Study Manifesto, Jason C. Thompson, Marc A. Ouellette
Introduction: A Game's Study Manifesto, Jason C. Thompson, Marc A. Ouellette
English Faculty Publications
In the epigraph to this collection, we return to a foundational text of the western literary canon, Homer’s Odyssey, and see in Penelope’s “bow contest” an illustrative moment in the history of game culture. Having fought in the Trojan War and having survived his ten-year trek home, the weary Odysseus cannot simply show up—the returning hero must rout the odious suitors whom Penelope has forestalled. In order to buy more time for vengeance, Odysseus disguises himself as an old beggar; in order to buy more time for deferral, Penelope creates an unwinnable game: she will marry the suitor able …
Gay For Play: Theorizing Lgbtq Characters In Game Studies, Marc A. Ouellette
Gay For Play: Theorizing Lgbtq Characters In Game Studies, Marc A. Ouellette
English Faculty Publications
Despite, and perhaps because of, popular press reactions to stereotypical depictions of beefy boys and busty babes in video games, the realm of gender, sex, and sexuality remains a lacuna in the emerging field of game studies. Of particular interest is the notion of performance and the ways this impacts both on gender and on game play. The combination might be expected to offer a very interesting way of approaching LGBTQ characters in digital games, especially given the recent inclusion of such characters in some popular and well-studied game franchises, including Grand Theft Auto (Rockstar 1997-present), Jade Empire (BioWare 2005-08) …
Gaming Matters: Art, Science Magic And The Computer Game Medium [Book Review], Marc Ouellette
Gaming Matters: Art, Science Magic And The Computer Game Medium [Book Review], Marc Ouellette
English Faculty Publications
The singular—maybe more aptly put as the pre-eminent—image that occurs when reading Gaming Matters is that of duelling dualisms. While this is a tried-and-true method of covering a topic, from the dissoi logoi to “The Owl and the Nightingale” and beyond, it is the site and the subject of these apposites that makes for an intriguing if (intentionally) unsettling read. The very title of the book makes the exercise of reading (and likely of writing) a part of and apart from this process. Gaming Matters stands as both call and catalogue. Gaming matters, most certainly, in terms of its audience, …
Editor's Introduction: Playing For Keeps: Games And Cultural Resistance [Special Issue], Marc A. Ouellette, Jason Thompson
Editor's Introduction: Playing For Keeps: Games And Cultural Resistance [Special Issue], Marc A. Ouellette, Jason Thompson
English Faculty Publications
This edition is as much about Game Studies as it about the games being studied. At its heart there are really two impulses behind the collection of critical thought we have been fortunate enough to gather for this issue of Reconstruction. First, there is the sense that games can’t do anything. Second, there is the sense that games don’t do anything. Their origin (and the underlying biases) makes these sentiments particularly intriguing. In the simplest terms, these premises delineate competing camps, as well. Roger Ebert notoriously asserts that video games will never be art (Ebert). Similarly, and yet quite differently, …
Remember The Titans, Historical Fact Or Fiction?, Amy S. Tate
Remember The Titans, Historical Fact Or Fiction?, Amy S. Tate
OUR Journal: ODU Undergraduate Research Journal
In the late 1990s, screen writer Gregory A. Howard wrote a screen play called Remember the Titans, based on the true story of T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia. Jerry Bruckheimer and Walt Disney Pictures bought the script based on the fact that it is a true story, but much of the film‟s content is fictional. Gregory Howard admitted to ESPN writer Jeff Merron that “he made some big assumptions when writing his script” (qtd. in Merron 5). Though the film is not entirely historically accurate, it is successful because it appeals to Americans through its intense emotional …
“I Hope You Never See Another Day Like This”: Pedagogy & Allegory In “Post 9/11” Video Games, Marc A. Ouellette
“I Hope You Never See Another Day Like This”: Pedagogy & Allegory In “Post 9/11” Video Games, Marc A. Ouellette
English Faculty Publications
Although critics and scholars have considered the extent to which the terror attacks of 11 Sept. 2001 influenced subsequent media productions, video games comprise a largely unexamined form. This oversight also applies to related forms of media production and among those who study video games is in part attributable to the ongoing debate regarding the relationship(s) between narrative and play. Even so, as early as 1997, JC Herz was investigating the role of video games in the military-entertainment complex. That said, the focus of this paper will not be the obvious games which draw settings and plots directly from the …
"Everybody Else Ain't Your Father": Reproducing Masculinity In Cinematic Sports, 1975-2000, Marc A. Ouellette
"Everybody Else Ain't Your Father": Reproducing Masculinity In Cinematic Sports, 1975-2000, Marc A. Ouellette
English Faculty Publications
This essay stems from two cultural strands, which intersect in one cultural form, the sports film. The first of these is the figure of the "star," as opposed to hero, who is interested only in self promotion. The second strand, masculine nurturing, provides a direct counterpoint to the first. Sociologist Robert Connell explains that "In historically recent times, sport has come to be the leading definer of masculinity in mass culture" (54). In North America, sport plays an important and increasing role in our culture. Each of the four major sports leagues added teams in the last decade of the …
Screenplay: Cinema/Videogames/Interfaces [Book Review], Marc Ouellette
Screenplay: Cinema/Videogames/Interfaces [Book Review], Marc Ouellette
English Faculty Publications
Recognizing the growing importance (at least for consumers) of video games as a popular form of narrative fiction, Geoff King and Tanya Krzywinska situate their collection, ScreenPlay: cinema/videogames/interfaces as a text which is corrective, informative and explorative. In the first case, the editors sought essays which would move the critical discourse on video games away from the more familiar but reductive debates surrounding the "effects" of video games (especially on children) and their modes of representation (especially of the female form and violence). Indeed, these have become the sine qua non of video game criticism and one feeds the other …
Film And Television After 9/11 [Book Review], Marc Ouellette
Film And Television After 9/11 [Book Review], Marc Ouellette
English Faculty Publications
One of the necessary compromises a book such as Film and TV After 9/11 must make is the amount and variety of examples it can provide. In order to be the first book to cover the subject, the book sacrifices the types of materials covered and the variety of themes they depict. Although the editor, Wheeler Winston Dixon, does not do so, the book’s twelve essays slot into four basic categories: analogies, productions altered to suit the "post-9/11" mindset, post-9/11 productions with metaphorical rather than literal linkages to the event and pre-9/11 productions whose viewing must now take that day …
Contesting Identities: Sports In American Film [Book Review], Marc Ouellette
Contesting Identities: Sports In American Film [Book Review], Marc Ouellette
English Faculty Publications
Aaron Baker's Contesting Identities: Sports in American Film is an indictment of the key American myth that anyone can succeed through self-reliance. Baker finds that sports films, in general, comprise a site in which the myth is represented and reproduced. Baker's focus, though presented from multiple analytical perspectives, is singular in its purpose. That said, Baker does concentrate on what he considers the four core American sports: football, baseball, basketball and boxing. Approximately ninety movies, from the silent era to the present day, provide the content of the analysis, but several are exemplary and are cited repeatedly in the book's …
Reel Baseball: Essays And Interviews On The National Pastime, Hollywood And American Culture, Marc Ouellette
Reel Baseball: Essays And Interviews On The National Pastime, Hollywood And American Culture, Marc Ouellette
English Faculty Publications
The editors of Reel Baseball begin by acknowledging the roots of their collection, which explores the intersection between movies and baseball. Since 1989 the National Baseball Hall of Fame has hosted the Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture. Since 1997, McFarland has published all papers presented at the symposium. Reel Baseball, then, functions both as a document and as an artifact of the "integral" place of baseball movies in American culture. Indeed, the book not only includes essays presented at the symposium, it has two foreword sections: one written by Hall of Fame President Dale Petroskey and the …
"Two Guns, A Girl And A Playstation™": Gender In The Tomb Raider Series, Marc A. Ouellette
"Two Guns, A Girl And A Playstation™": Gender In The Tomb Raider Series, Marc A. Ouellette
English Faculty Publications
This article considers the combination of game play and narrative which combine to produce cross-gender identifications in video games, a previously underexamined potential for the production of alternate genders, one which calls into question the stability of gender, particularly masculinity, as a construct.