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Chronicle of the Online Culture Wars: Reactionary Affective Publics in Neoliberal Postmodernity

Description: The Age of Trump witnessed the visible rise of intense culture wars and polarization in the United States. While culture wars are not new phenomena, the current iteration has digital media acting as new discursive structures and mediating battlegrounds for all sides of the cultural conflict. This project chronicles these online culture wars, demonstrating how within a neoliberal and postmodern socio-cultural condition, the rise of ambivalent, profit-driven digital technologies and platforms str… more
Date: May 2021
Creator: Montalvo, David Rafael
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Crying for Change: Examining the Use of Period Melodrama and the Melodramatic Mode in Contemporary Queer Representation

Description: This thesis illustrates how Melodrama and the melodramatic mode have been adapted within contemporary cinema as both a means of commenting on prior LGBTQI representation, and of exposing mainstream audiences to the issues still faced by many within this spectrum. Through my analyses of Carol (2015), Brokeback Mountain (2005), and A Single Man (2009), I examine how filmmakers have drawn on Melodrama as both an aesthetic form, and as a reference to the broader field of generic history and critici… more
Date: August 2021
Creator: Bonthuys, Justin
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Forbidden Pleasures: Queerness and Cannibalism in Film and Television

Description: The trope of the queer cannibal recurs throughout fiction as well as film and television. While literature scholars such as David Bergman and Caleb Crain have written about this figure in American literature, the queer cannibal remains unstudied in the realm of media studies. This thesis analyzes six media texts that feature queer cannibals: Hannibal (2013-2015), Ravenous (1999), The Terror (2018), Yellowjackets (2021-), Raw (2016), and Bones and All (2022). Through these analyses, this thesis … more
Date: July 2023
Creator: Hadley, Kristen M.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

King of the Merchandise: How Showa Era Paratexts Forever Changed the Godzilla Franchise

Description: The Godzilla media franchise is one of the longest running media franchises, which means the character himself has gone through many changes throughout the years. However, in American pop culture, the characters of Godzilla is perceived as a hero, a friend of humanity and defender of Earth. This reputation comes from the Showa Era, where Godzilla often fought on the side of humanity, rather than trying to destroy them as depicted in the original Gojira. In recent years, Toho, Godzilla's corpora… more
Date: May 2021
Creator: Cooper, Dalton
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

The Mutant Database: Media Franchise Authorship, Creators' Rights, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Description: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) is a massive ongoing franchise that began as a 1984 self-published comic book created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. Its history is intertwined with the creators' rights movement and the Creator's Bill of Rights (CBR), which rejected work-for-hire contracts, wherein creative laborers—creative authors—cede authorial control of their labor. Because the production of comic books and their franchises is highly collaborative, intellectual property (IP) rights a… more
Date: May 2022
Creator: Cardenas, Jen
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

The Netflix Strategy in France: Local Language Productions, Teen Audiences, and Instagram Marketing

Description: The relationship between France and Hollywood is rooted in a deep history that dates to the late 1800s. French Cultural elites and policymakers have regulated Hollywood to prevent the American ideals that are depicted in Hollywood movies from infringing on French culture, restricting free trade distribution practices to limit audiences' accessibility of imported, non-French media. These import regulations have strengthened French exceptionalism, which is an ideal that recognizes France as being… more
Date: May 2023
Creator: Kite, Rachel
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Nine Lives: A History of Cat Women, Subversive Femininity, and Transgressive Archetypes in Film

Description: The intention of this thesis is to identify and analyze the cat woman archetype as a contemporary extension of the transgressive witch archetype, which rampantly appears over the course of cinema history, working as a signifier of a patriarchal society's fear of autonomous and subversive women. The character of Catwoman is the ultimate representation for this archetype on grounds of her visibility, longevity, and ability to return again and again. More importantly, Catwoman and her sisterhood o… more
Date: August 2020
Creator: Barnett, Katrina
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Views from the Beach: Spectator Positions and the American International Pictures Beach Party Films

Description: The American International Pictures (AIP) Beach Party Films were a major American cultural phenomenon in the early 1960s and continue to play a significant role in the American cultural imagination. The AIP Beach Party Films, despite their popularity and influence, have been largely ignored by academia and a thorough academic examination has yet to be written. This thesis attempts to change such an academic precedent. At first glance, the Beach Party Films are frivolous and chaotic (perhaps exp… more
Date: July 2023
Creator: Leavy, Mark
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

What Does It Mean to Go Super Saiyan: Gender Identity and Fandom in the Toonami Release of Dragon Ball Z (1998-2003)

Description: The intention of this thesis is to analyze the representations of masculinity in the anime series Dragon Ball Z as it aired on Cartoon Network's programming block Toonami, specifically the nature in which they were framed and how oppositional interpretations in the fandom became prevalent as a result. The series emphasizes the evolution of its central characters Goku, Vegeta, and Gohan into performing a sensitive masculinity, but there are a prevalence of images in the series that discredit thi… more
Date: August 2021
Creator: Liverett, Nicholas
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
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