Browsing by Subject "Popular Culture"
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Item "Are you getting angry Doctor?" : Madea, strategy and the fictional rejection of black female containment(2014-05) Faust, Mitchell R.; Richardson, Matt, 1969-Within the scope of this thesis, I provide close textual and visual readings of director/actor/producer Tyler Perry's most well-known character, Mable "Madea" Simmons -- a performance he does in full female drag attire -- focusing on his mainstream hit film, Madea Goes to Jail (2009). My reading of the character of Madea veers against the common narrative her existence being just another recycled trope of men disguised as women only to perform in stereotypical and demonizing behavior. I argue Madea represents what I refer to as a "trans*female character", within the space of Perry's popular film that feature her. Read through the lens of being trans*female character, I propose this shift in analysis and critique of cinematic displays of drag helps to transgress beyond male/female binaries of acceptable and possible visual gender representations. More in-depth, using the theoretical concept of Gwendolyn Pough's "bringing wreck", I make the argument that while ostensibly representing the "angry black woman" stereotype, Madea's characterization and actions within the film represent strategies and efforts to not be contained within hegemonic ideals of black female respectability politics and the law efforts to put her behind bars. By "bringing wreck", Madea's fictional acts of violence and talking back are read as a strategy that reflects a historical trend of misrecognition that renders black women's concerns and discontent with marginalization as irrational anger.Item Beyond Neuromantics and Mirrorshades: Cyberpunk and Its Global Implications(2020) Butschek, Blake; Garza, Thomas J.This independent research seeks to analyze the socio-political elements surrounding the formation and aspects of cyberpunk, drawing parallels between the twentieth-century fiction and the twenty-first-century reality. Cyberpunk refers to the science fiction subgenre encompassing a high tech, low life world which fuses advanced technologies with a dark, broken near-future dystopia. The genre initially sought to move beyond the utopian, idealistic science fiction of the early to the mid-twentieth century into a more realistic depiction of what technological developments and socio-political realities of the time would lead to in the near future. The three sections of this research allow for an in-depth analysis of what brought forth the creation of the genre, what defines its works and texts, and how the genre’s commentaries apply to society and culture at large. First, a foundational analysis exploring the influencing factors on the early visionaries of the genre will contextualize the origins of this ideology. Then, the exploration of two seminal texts of cyberpunk, Ridley Scott's 1982 Blade Runner and Mamoru Oshii's 1995 Ghost in the Shell, through a close textual reading will illuminate commentary from their creators on their perceptions of the world at that time and in a possible future. Lastly, the application of distillations from the second section of this research will draw parallels to twenty-first-century society and culture, including topics such as the globalization of digital media, mass-market availability of products, the widespread usage of social media, and the role of cyberspace in every facet of official and private life. Manifestations of the cyberpunk vision have not only occurred but exist to the point where one could consider the early works of the genre as prophetic for the world of today. Through analysis and observation of elements that derive from cyberpunk, individuals can appreciate the influence of the genre on even the smallest aspects of daily life and what lies in the world of tomorrow.Item Step Up Now, Step Back Later: The Politics of Gender, Consumerism, and Female Sacrifice, 1941-1945(2021-05) Cardenas, OliviaTraditional histories of women’s lives during World War II have stressed the dramatic changes that dominated the war period. This thesis offers a revisionist argument analyzing the ways government and private industry collaborated to promote continuity in women’s lives during and after the war. A close analysis of internal government memos, archived communications between the government and Madison Avenue, advertisements, women’s magazine articles, and wartime fiction offers insight into the ways propaganda and popular culture pressured women to preserve pre-war gender relations. The doyens of culture and the warlords of Washington insisted that the ideal, patriotic woman remain devoted to homemaking, motherhood, and beauty above all else. Emphasizing these pillars of traditional womanhood and femineity, propaganda and policy makers demanded wartime women adapt to the harsh realities of the homefront while pretending as if nothing had changed. Government and private interests extracted significant sacrifice from the wartime woman while offering her little lasting autonomy or power in return. Incorporating oral histories of women’s lived experiences during the war period, this thesis explores the complicated interplay between popular media and private belief. A central focus of this study is the ways women reinforced, reflected, and resisted propaganda during the war and beyond.