This thesis examines how contemporary femme fatales operate under patriarchal notions and expectations of gender and femininity to get away with their crimes. Whereas classic femme fatales were relegated to a tragic fate—either through death, incarceration or other forms of subjugation—contemporary femme fatales now have the narrative possibility of using their sexuality, intellect and agency to get away with their crimes at the expense of the male hero. Breaking with the traditional analysis centering around the femme fatale in her relation to men and male anxieties regarding feminine sexual difference, I propose a queer reading of the contemporary femme fatale that accredits the femme fatale for her active cunning and independence through an examination of her enhanced characteristics which make it possible for her to succeed under the continuous constraints of the patriarchy. The films examined are: The Last Seduction (1994), Gone Girl (2014), Body Heat (1981), Nightmare Alley (2021), Bound (1996) and Basic Instinct (1992). While the popularity of the femme fatale continues, there are still relatively few examples of femme fatales who get away with their crimes as well as a continued lack of scholarship that discusses the intricacies of the femme fatale absent from her theorization as a beacon of male anxieties. However, this project remains hopeful and advocates for a more diverse representation and an in increase scholastic conversation surrounding femme fatales in contemporary cinema.

<p> This study examines how women are portrayed in <i>Pillow Talk</i> and <i>When Harry Met Sally,</i> two iconic romantic comedies from different time periods, 1959 and 1989, respectively. The analysis relies primarily on three film scholars, Tamar Jeffers McDonald, Mark Rubinfeld, and Hilary Radner. With the sex comedy <i>Pillow Talk</i> and the neo-traditional comedy <i>When Harry Met Sally</i> highlighting different time periods, and reflecting a society&rsquo;s desires, anxieties, and assumptions, these different romantic comedy subgenres deliver male and female gazes, which lead us on a historical journey. The romantic story is comically entertaining, while supporting traditional gender roles, family values, and a patriarchal ideology. Through an examination of the narrative elements, an overriding theme emerges in both time periods; females are seeking fulfillment through marriage. Contributing factors in both plots are race, social class, work, friendship, male/female communication, intimacy, and sexual mores. This work creates a paradigm for analyzing other romantic comedies and genres of film in order to understand what they say about social values.</p>

<p> Given the increased public enthusiasm for the genres of Horror and Science Fiction, as well as the renewed and ever-evolving interest in indie horror films (propelling them into the mainstream), there is a noticeable increase of public eagerness to consume films that toy with the ideas of anxiety and the body. While many of these films seem to fit the rubric of heteronormative and mainstream Hollywood productions that occupy a neat world of perfectly defined gender identities, we can still excavate bodies that fall outside of such neat definitions. On the one hand, we are presented with a defined female or male character, thrust into a chaotic situation through which they must endure tremendous anxiety and pain and strive to survive. On the other, these bodies seem to survive and thrive despite not fitting in with the simple heteronormative worlds in which they dwell. </p><p> The purpose of this thesis is not to provide a stand-in or voice for the queer body, nor is its purpose to create an index of films that fall under the sub-genre of &lsquo;Body Horror,&rsquo; but to explore how films in this genre that seem to privilege performances of able-bodiedness and heteronormativity actually treat queerness and queer topics in very different ways. This thesis wishes to explore these bodies as they cruise through their respective dystopian technofetishistic worlds; as their bodies are infected, their figures transformed, and their psyches liberated as they attain physical, sexual or psychological release. </p><p> To facilitate both observation and maintain its central focus, this paper will be divided into three main parts. The first chapter will define key terms and phrases that are the central focus of this paper. The second chapter will explore the concept of &lsquo;Infestation,&rsquo; which will focus on the queer and disabled bodies as they are occupied, annexed, and attacked by external forces or internal strife. This chapter will consider the concept of &lsquo;Transformation&rsquo; and further examine the manner through which the &ldquo;monstrous queer&rdquo; emerges through the definition of normalcy and the anomalous. Lastly, the final chapter will revolve around the concept of &lsquo;Liberation,&rsquo; and review these observations in terms of how these performances reconcile and imagine their own respective ideas of queer futures. This final chapter will expand the narrative of queer futurity while also dwelling on notions of the inevitable &ldquo;queer dystopia&rdquo; in &lsquo;Body Horror&rsquo; films. The voices and scholarship in the fields of Queer and Disability Studies, Psychoanalysis, and Film Studies will guide this reading as it seeks out these bodies and unearths the deeply affective, psychological, and physical states of transformation they undergo.</p>

<p> The purpose of this research is to critically analyze Orange is the New Black (OITNB) by conducting an intersectional analysis of seasons 1 and 2. Imprisoned women are excluded from discussions about their oppression. Incarcerated women lack: 1) the four domains of power, which are hegemonic, interpersonal, disciplinary, and structural; and 2) control of their representations. Media&rsquo;s representations about imprisoned women are accessible through movies, television news, television shows, and newspapers; which have consistently depicted women in prison inaccurately as &ldquo;bad&rdquo;, violent, and sexually insatiable. The women who write prison narratives books are not representative of the female prison system, often reflecting their personal experience. </p><p> OITNB is an internationally famous and award-winning show with a readily accessible and influential platform (Netflix). OITNB is relevant to the current discussion of imprisoned women and their representation of females; thus, it is important to ask how the show presents and depicts the women&rsquo;s Federal prison system. An intersectional analysis will examine how women of different racial/ethnic groups and criminal offenses are represented in OITNB. To establish whether OITNB is disrupting or reinforcing these images for women imprisoned as a whole, or for specific racial/ethnic groups, or criminal offense types.</p>

The main aim of this thesis is to provide a voice to a marginalised community on the island of Inishbofin off the North West coast of Co. Donegal in Ireland. The film’s usefulness lies in its portrayal of a small, indigenous, fragile community that clings to existence and its strength lies in giving voice to this minority in an attempt to correct perceptions of Irishness. This thesis seeks to enrich the discourse surrounding the way Irish identity is reconciled through the moving image. The theme is explored through an investigation of a previously unseen film archive—The Martin Archive—alongside my own documentary film practice. Time within the context of the archive, the nation, the temporality of film, memory and nostalgia is used to structure this thesis exploration. Within my research, the recognition of time and memory and the role these play in the construction of national identity have come to the fore. My documentary film work will intervene within this larger discourse to contribute to another way of thinking about and looking at Irish identity. The ambiguity of historical time and the myth of authenticity are considered through an exploration of how the archive is assembled. My approach correlates with that of certain postcolonial theories, developed through an analysis of the writings of Homi K. Bhabha and Benedict Anderson. In my original approach to this subject I have created a hybrid of two time frames by utilising both The Martin Archive and my own film work, in an attempt to question established notions of Irish national identity. The research is a consideration of the constructed nature of narrative, exploring how a disruption in linear narrative and historical time can provide a new space of performativity, in which the spectator can explore Irish identity anew. By illuminating the multiplicities within the films, the multiple minor voices - that are concurrent in time - can be heard. This process enables the practice to disrupt the time of official history by showing the time of the other. My practice is a temporal bricolage that documents a vulnerable, indigenous, Gaelic speaking community in Co. Donegal. The film work is a poetics of time; memory and fragility, which explores the past, present and future of the community portrayed within the experimental film archive. The structure of the practice as a temporal bricolage displays a fragmented, multiple, jumbled narrative, where chronology itself is disrupted. The fragmentary nature of the practice ensures that no complete meaning can be fixed. The interlocking of historical and personal time enables a plurality of voices to be heard, contesting any dominant historical linear narrative.

<p> <i>Hot House</i> highlights the current evolution of <i>The ManShed</i>, an ongoing solo project that takes the form of a multi-screen video installation and accompanying film set. Beginning in summer 2013, <i>The ManShed</i> refers to an enclosed, two-roomed meeting place built from conjoined panels that plays host to a series of sexual encounters between myself and other men. Under its roof, an infrastructure of hidden cameras documents these interactions between my body, a stranger&rsquo;s, and material forms that interest me. The participating men were solicited through online services used to locate partners for casual sex, like Craigslist and Adam4Adam, as well as through my involvement with the San Diego Fetish Men and the San Diego Gay Pride event. </p><p> In its first iteration, the resulting video and sculptural elements are organized in a minimal, highly staged environment set in adjacent galleries in the University of California, San Diego&rsquo;s Visual Art Department. Presented in flux, this work represents an ongoing investigation of alter kinships that spring up within gay male communities and the unexpected conditions in which they flourish. Modeled artificially in my project, <i>The ManShed </i> acts as a metaphorical &lsquo;hot house&rsquo; of queer experimentation, breeding a &ldquo;rare species&rdquo; of feeling, exchange, and desire, rooted in the sculptural environment. </p><p> Outside the conceptual formations of project, this exhibition unifies my sculptural and performance-based production under the umbrella of a single work and represents my current direction toward constructed, theatrical environments combined with video display.</p>

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<p>This dissertation began as an attempt to understand how biomedical concepts and practices, which undermine the salience of norms drawn from the ?natural order? are relayed through mass media and inform self-understanding, social being, self-care, and practices of everyday life. The project tracks makeover TV?s valorization of the metamorphic or transformative body as an ideal that emerges through, and across, various contexts in science and popular culture. This genre of programming is one of the few sites at which the aesthetics of biotechnology are made visible in non-fiction representations and are depicted as part of everyday life. Each of this dissertation?s televisual case studies is exemplary of how popular culture absorbs and makes visible ideas from biomedicine, and how this relates to public policy, economic conditions, and developments in biomedicine. Harnessing biomedicine has aided in television?s recreation of itself as an essential element of ?new? media. It has done so by presenting itself as a technology for managed health care at a distance, and by presenting the body as a primary medium of self-expression. Television encourages ideas about the body as ?transmedial continuity? or form of media, both physical and symbolic, represented through and across variable sites, objects and platforms. Under the aegis of ?health,? medical makeover programs establish a direct relationship between body-based visual identity and life, promote biomedicine as a ubiquitous means of conceiving of the self and body, and posit biotechnology as a tool for transformation and self-care. In this context, health becomes a visual ideal and an organizing principle for self-care, which are framed as prerequisites for social, economic, and political legibility. Although biomedicine challenges essentialist models of ?natural order? through which misogynist and racist norms have been justified in modern culture, its appearances in narratives of self-transformation are overwhelmingly framed by politically retrogressive ideals of embodiment, which it aids in achieving. Given the pervasiveness of visual media and its centrality in refiguring norms that have social, biological and political significance, media literacy and critical acuity are crucial to preserving both cultural and bio diversity.

<p> Located in South America, and being a post-colonial Dutch colony, Suriname has an ethnically diverse population of transplants. After its independence in 1975, Suriname underwent gruesome civil unrest while ruled by a Militia coup that killed specific ethnic groups for claiming their own identities, juxtaposed to its acceptance of ethnic diversity. The film, <i>Suriname&rsquo;s Identity Construction and Negotiation</i> by Danielle Celeste Castillo, follows a select group of people who claim to be Surinamese and something else, as they reject or claim prescribed forms of identities further negating ethnicity and nationality&rsquo;s relationship with a person&rsquo;s internal and external selves. This project shows identity is fluid and also fixed depending on the context while also expanding anthropological, psychological and sociological works on ethnic and national identities.</p>