This research seeks to unpack the narrative of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend using semiotics, particularly through Roland Barthes' work in Mythologies and A Lover's Discourse. The goal of this research is to demonstrate long-form storytelling's ability to interrogate and revisit criticism through consideration of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend's role as an ongoing satire of romantic comedies. This research culminated in a thesis discussing the semiotic myths that Crazy Ex-Girlfriend interrogates, and the process of deconstruction that occurs within the text. The thesis applied the "fragments" identified in Barthes' A Lover’s Discourse to corresponding scenes in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, with a focus on the musical nature of the show. This research also analyzed Crazy Ex-Girlfriend's role as a deconstruction of the romantic comedy genre, and its position as either upholding or subverting the myth of the "crazy ex-girlfriend." Through applying A Lover's Discourse to an hour-long television drama (in this case Crazy Ex-Girlfriend), this research contributes to the field of cultural studies by considering network entertainment media from a critical perspective, and utilizing A Lover's Discourse in an innovative manner.

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Over fifteen years since the September 11 terrorist attacks, the United States is still fighting the nebulous “War on Terror” – a conflict that includes ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as covert operations around the world (including the homeland). American cinema responded to the War on Terror in fits and starts, with many filmmakers wary of tackling such a controversial topic. For a War on Terror film to be financially successful, it would need to appeal to both supporters and detractors of the war effort. To do so, the War on Terror film genre builds on the narrative, characterization, and aesthetic frameworks of the war films of World War II and the Vietnam War to develop a set of conventions that recall the ideological projects of the films of those previous wars. By examining the combat film, espionage film, and returning soldier film subgenres, this thesis will demonstrate how the War on Terror film genre formally and ideologically represents the divisive ongoing war to appeal to both pro-war and anti-war viewers.

Notre thèse s’intéresse à des pratiques expérimentales et contemporaines du cinéma qui explorent la matière de l’image cinématographique (argentique ou numérique) via des altérations visuelles. Les œuvres sélectionnées supposent un travail de captation, d’enregistrement d’espaces naturels, produit en amont de l’expérimentation matérielle. Les textures et les effets visuels représentent le point de départ de nos analyses filmiques ainsi que de nos recherches théoriques, dont l’altération représente le cœur battant. Nous réfléchissons un ensemble d’œuvres matérialistes de nature, exprimant la nature par l’intermédiaire de la matière cinématographique, en leur adressant la question suivante : comment le cinéma se ferait-il l’expression écocentrique de la nature ? En replaçant ces œuvres dans notre contexte environnemental, nous questionnons aussi l’engagement écologique qu’elles suscitent : que peut exprimer le cinéma de notre nature anthropocène ? Comment adresse-t-il ces enjeux naturels, environnementaux ? Réciproquement, nous interrogeons aussi l’influence des espaces naturels filmés dans cette expression : comment leurs caractéristiques esthétiques, leur topographie, leur état actuel, conditionnent-ils cette expressivité cinématographique ? À ces questions, le postulat tenu est le suivant : les altérations visuelles de l’image en mouvement développent une expression plus directe de la nature, une mise en présence. L’expérimentation altérante de certaines caractéristiques du cinéma (mouvement, couleur, durée) accorde cette expression médiale sensorielle à la nature filmée qui propose d’en faire l’expérience, de façon sensible. Elle s’appuie sur la sensorialité et l’esthétique initiales de ces espaces naturels, que les artistes démultiplient à travers les altérations. Cette expression naît donc de la complémentarité entre les potentiels esthétiques des lieux naturels filmés et de ceux du cinéma. Cette expressivité de la nature se constitue selon nous à travers trois principales actions altérantes, chaque film en présentant au moins l’une d’entre elles : 1- les altérations de l’image décrivent les espaces filmés ; 2- elles composent un milieu à/dans l’image, un milieu à la fois naturel et filmique (s’appuyant sur les caractéristiques de la nature filmée et sur les possibilités du média) ; 3- elles renouvellent l’attention à la nature, en sensibilisant notamment à sa dimension anthropocène. L’altération de l’image témoigne donc de notre expérience vécue de la modification d’environnements en captant leurs transformations et en en figurant la trace visible (l’altération). Présenter, par l’image altérée, l’actualité de cette nature contemporaine soulève ainsi les enjeux complexes et pluriels du contexte qui a fait advenir cet état dégradé de la nature. L’espace de l’image travaillé par l’altération renvoie métaphoriquement à celui que nous occupons dans le monde naturel, et à la façon dont nous l’investissons (à l’altération que nous engendrons dans ces espaces). Une expression écocentrique de la nature en ressort et nous sensibilise, nous engage dans sa condition dégradée, ruinée. / Our thesis focuses on experimental and contemporary cinema practices that explore the materiality of the cinematographic image (analog or digital cinema) via visual alterations. The artworks selected presuppose an effort of capturing and recording natural spaces, produced upstream of material experimentation. Textures and visual effects are the starting point for our filmic analysis and theoretical research, of which alteration is the beating heart. We reflect on a range of materialist artworks of nature, expressing nature through the medium of cinematic material, addressing the following question to them: how can cinema become the ecocentric expression of nature? By placing these artworks in our environmental context, we also question the ecological commitment they engender: what can cinema express about our anthropocenic nature? How does it address these natural, environmental issues? Reciprocally, we also question the influence of the natural spaces filmed in this expression: how do their aesthetic characteristics, their topography, their current state, condition this cinematic expressivity? To these questions, our postulate is the following: visual alterations to the moving image develop a more direct expression of nature, a mise en présence. The altering experimentation of certain characteristics of cinema (movement, color, duration) grants this sensory medial expression to the filmed nature which offers to experience it, in a sensitive way. It draws on the initial sensoriality and aesthetics of these natural spaces, which the artists multiply through alteration. This expression is born of the complementarity between the aesthetics potentials of filmed natural sites and those of cinema. According to us, this expressiveness of nature is constituted through three main altering actions, with each film presenting at least one of them: 1- the alterations to the image describe the filmed spaces; 2- they compose a setting in/within the image, a setting that is both natural and filmic (drawing on the characteristics of the nature filmed and on the possibilities of the media); 3- they renew our attention to nature, notably by raising awareness of its anthropocenic dimension. The alteration of the image therefore bears witness to our lived experience of changing environments by capturing their transformations and representing their visible trace (alteration). Presenting the actuality of contemporary nature through altered images raises the complex and plural issues of the context that brought about this degraded state of nature. The space of the image worked by alteration metaphorically refers to the space we occupy in the natural world, and to the manner we invest it (to the alteration we generate in these spaces). An ecocentric expression of nature emerges, sensitizing us and engaging us in its degraded, ruined condition.

This study sought to determine what factors could impact career development pathways for postsecondary film studies through survey research. The selected determining factors that offered eventual success as a filmmaking professional were students' personality characteristics and unique, innate abilities. The survey questions polled film study educators whose primary contact with film students was at college-level classrooms and could offer significant opinions about the factors measured. Only those educators with demographic characteristics that dealt with actual filmmaking procedures of production and post-production gave a measurable statistical result related to a single dependent variable. The differentiator between filmmaking disciplines was distinguished by those with direct interaction with the practical procedures of filmmaking, i.e., Screenwriting, Production, and Post-Production in contrast to those without, i.e., Theory, Critique, History, and Audiences. Of these seven film studies specialties represented, 37.5% agreed, 33.9% disagreed, and 26.7% neither agreed nor disagreed. The implications for future research suggest polling educators with direct practical film education activity at a secondary school level whose student/teacher relationships are significantly more intimate. Additionally, their presence is at a time when students are beginning to consider what college career studies they will follow. These participants could offer survey data to understand the suggested phenomenon more accurately. A more accurate study would further clarify the current dilemma that film students face when selecting their most appropriate career path for film studies.

The power of losing control: Deconstructing Elfreth’s Alley documentary archive-based aesthetics using image-making experimentation is an interdisciplinary and multimodal media dissertation based on the experience of collecting, transforming, and validating archival information that is the foundation of history: its creation, interpretation, and recording. This research includes a manuscript or monograph, a series of lectures about the investigation, a physical multimedia exhibit of modified archival material from the Alley, and the publication of a creative journal that involves the processes and results of the exhibit in Elfreth’s Alley Museum. Observers have built most public records based on what is present and absent in the assemblage of documents, images, and found objects in particular settings. An example of these processes is the record of traditional and historical sites like Elfreth's Alley in Philadelphia, PA. This Alley is a traditional historical residential street considered a National Historic Landmark for its structures built between 1720 and 1830. This street has been home to everyday Philadelphians for three centuries, and its museum celebrates the working class of America who helped build the country through sweat and commerce. The Alley is still a thriving residential community that is home to artists and artisans, educators, entrepreneurs, and everything in between. While this research starts in this neighborhood, it explores connections that can take us across the city, the nation, and around the globe. In this dissertation, the record of the Alley life has been deconstructed to expose the understanding and perception of personal narratives that offer alternative views of collective memory and public history. The processes and results that deconstruct Elfreth’s Alley archival documentation have been used to analyze and question ideas of presence and absence of ethnic groups, the exercise of power and control, patterns of privilege assigned to race, gender and ethnicity, as well as concerns of domestic and child labor, environment, gentrification, and social networks, offering a rich description of the Alley. The methodology of this work, through its five chapters, is based on the study of analog experimental photographic processes and digital Artificial Intelligence (AI) new media creations with uncontrolled and unpredictable results, their relationship with archival studies from the Alley, and the impact of new contemporary archival creations in the construction of public history and collective memory. These mechanisms were applied to documents, archival and found materials (taken from different sources around the city and the nation) in various experimental artworks. The objects created for the exhibit and the analysis of these archives use pinhole cameras, expired paper, lumen prints and cyanolumens, panoramas with polaroids and chemigrams, stereoscopes and anaglyphs, augmented reality, and AI-algorithmic editions, as well as the existent sources and interdisciplinary collaborative work of the historians and museum professionals of the Alley. The multiple intellectual, theoretical, and creative layers involved in this work build a different record of the Alley. The artworks prepared in this study are a contemporary archival record of the interaction with the community and scholars of this historical place. This interaction, collaborative work, open access to the public, and reflections —consequences from this experimental artistic-creative process— constitute an academic record that expands the studies of historians, ethnographers, and academics, and contribute to an exhaustive analysis in the construction of public history and the collective memory of the city. / Media & Communication

This thesis examines the impact of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution on Egyptian cinema in curating what I call a revolutionary aesthetic. The project also provides an overview of the history of Egyptian cinema and its relationship with politics under different regimes. The artistic space enabled and enhanced by the 2011 Revolution is rooted in the rich cinematic tradition of Egypt and has influenced not only independent cinema but also mainstream and commercial cinema, particularly in terms of visual aesthetics and technical aspects. The films examined are: Dreamaway (El Helm el-Baeid, Marouan Omara and Johanna Domke, 2018), Décor (Ahmed Abdallah, 2014), The Blue Elephant (El Fil el-Azraq, Marwan Hamed, 2014), Sheikh Jackson (Amr Salama, 2017), Withered Green (Akhdar Yabes, Mohammad Hammad, 2016), and Feathers (Reesh, Omar ElZohairy, 2021). This thesis adopts a close textual analysis of the films, to reveal a new avenue for artistic expression, innovation, and transformation in Egyptian cinema. These films employ revolutionary aesthetics in their complex narratives that address political issues and challenge prevailing ideologies. Their cinematography is innovative and transformative, uncovering tensions that are prevalent in the minds of Egyptians but usually concealed by religious and moral standards. The cinematic realism in the mise-en-scène of the films also helps convey issues of corruption, poverty, and radicalization in contemporary Egypt. This thesis argues that Egyptian cinema is transitioning into a new era marked by an artistic approach to exploring societal struggles and complexities.

Society's view on women is a long-debated topic, and there are several studies made to analyze where and how these attitudes toward gender roles arise. This thesis focuses on how women are portrayed and represented in media, especially as female characters in film fiction, to gain insight into what effect this can have on society's view of women. This thesis examines how female characters are portrayed in media by using a qualitative method. The objects chosen to analyze are two female characters that have been identified to be representative of the cool girl trope. A character analysis has been conducted to examine the study objects as a form of qualitative text analysis. The study applies relevant theories such as genre theory, representation theory, and the feministic perspective on the media and the male gaze. The previous research presents earlier studies on the cool girl trope and other perceived devaluating representations of women on screen. The results from this study suggest that women as female characters are portrayed differently than male characters, which can be seen as devaluing of women. In some cases, female characters are used as a treat to the male eye, as something to desire, or as something to laugh at and make fun of. Above all, the portrayal of women as the cool girl creates a distinction between different types of female behavior and gives the male viewers a fake image of women. / Samhällets syn på kvinnor är ett länge omdebatterat ämne, och det finns många studier som syftar till att se hur och vartifrån attityder om könsroller uppstår. Detta arbete fokuserar på hur kvinnor porträtteras och representeras i media, speciellt som kvinnliga karaktärer i film, för att samla insikter om vilka effekter det kan ha på samhällets syn av kvinnor. Målet med denna studie är att genom en kvalitativ metod examinera hur kvinnliga karaktärer porträtteras i media. De valda studieobjekten är två kvinnliga karaktärer som identifierats att passa in på the cool girl trope. En karaktärsanalys har gjorts för att studera studieobjekten i denna form av kvalitativa text analys. Uppsatsen applicerar relevanta teorier såsom genreteori, representationsteori och en feministisk syn på media och the male gaze, tillsammans med tidigare forskning av the cool girl trope och andra uppfattade nedvärderande representation av kvinnor i media. Studiens resultat visar på att kvinnliga karaktärer porträtteras på ett annorlunda sätt än manliga, vilken kan ses som nedvärderande av kvinnor. Kvinnliga karaktärer används i vissa fall för att manliga tittare ska ha något att åtrå, eller som någon vars beteende görs narr av som man istället kan skratta åt. Framförallt så gör representation av kvinnor som the cool girl en distinktion mellan olika sorters kvinnliga beteenden samtidigt som det ger manliga tittare en falsk bild av kvinnor.

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