In The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Boromir refers to the lands of Mordor as the place where evil never sleeps. Cinematic evil itself never sleeps, always arising in new forms, to the extent that there exist as many types of evil as there are films. This thesis examines this constantly shifting construction of evil in American popular cinema between 1989 and 2002 - roughly, the period between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the attack on the World Trade Center - and how this cinema engaged with representations of enemies and of evil per se. The thesis uses content and thematic analysis on a sample of the 201 most successful films at the U.S. box office during the period. In these films, cinematic evil is constructed according to a visual aesthetic that attempts to engage with societal values, but fails to do so due to the emphasis on its visual construction and its commodification. As Baudrillard argues, evil has become a hollow concept devoid of meaning, and this is especially so for cinematic evil. It is recognised, and is recognisable, by the visual excessiveness of its violence (or potentiality for violence), and by certain codes that are created in reference to intertextual patterns and in relationship to discourses of paranoia and malaise. But cinema in this period failed to engage with the concept of evil itself in any meaningful way. Cinematic evil mirrors the descent into the chaos and disorder of a postmodern society. All cinematic evil can do is to connect with this sense of unease in which the 'reality of evil' cannot be represented. Instead, it draws on earlier icons and narratives of evil in a conflation of narrative and spectacle that produces a cinema of nostalgia. Moreover, stripped of narrative causality, these films express a belief, unproved and unprovable, that evil things and evil people may arise in any form, in any place and at any time: a cinema of paranoia. Together, these factors produce a cinema of malaise, perpetually confronting an evil it is unable to define or locate.

El presente trabajo de investigación está enfocado en la representación de la mujer en la narrativa de películas de comedia romántica en el cine comercial peruano en los últimos 10 años cuya relevancia radica en la difusión de visiones del mundo a través de las historias. (Ríos y Martinez, 2011, p.1) El objetivo principal del estudio es analizar la representación que se genera de la mujer, para lo que se plantearon tres objetos de estudio. En primer lugar, reconocer como es la construcción de los personajes de la mujer basándonos en películas peruanas de comedia romántica estrenadas en los últimos 10 años. Por otro lado, describir el contexto en el que se desarrollan dentro de la narrativa. Por último, reconocer las acciones y el desenvolvimiento del personaje a lo largo de la historia. A través de esta investigación se quiere responder al desafío metodológico que implica el análisis de un conjunto de películas de comedia romántica estrenadas en los últimos 10 años y realizada por cineastas peruanos que tengan como protagonistas mujeres. Se quiere reconocer que existe una narrativa que pone a la representación de ser mujer, en historias de contenido cinematográfico, bajo ciertos conceptos que la alejan de la realidad y refuerzan estereotipos negativos. / The present research work is focused on the representation of women in the narrative of romantic comedy films in peruvian commercial cinema in the last 10 years whose relevance lies in the diffusion of visions of the world through stories. (Ríos and Martinez, 2011, p.1) The main objective of the study is to analyze the representation generated for women, for which three objects of study were raised. First, recognize how it is the construction of women’s characters based on peruvian romantic comedy films released in the last 10 years. On the other hand, describe the context in which they develop within the narrative. Finally, recognize the actions and development of the character throughout the Peruvian romantic comedy films released in the last 10 years. On the other hand, describe the context in which they develop within the narrative. Finally, recognize the actions and development of the character throughout the story. This research aims to respond to the methodological challenge that involves the analysis of a set of romantic comedy films released in the last 10 years and made by Peruvian filmmakers with women as protagonists. We want to recognize that there is a narrative that puts the representation of being a woman, in stories with cinematographic content, under certain concepts that distance it from reality and reinforce negative stereotypes. / Trabajo de investigación

La thèse examine la relation entre le mouvement ouvrier français et le cinéma au début du XXe siècle, plus précisément de 1895 à 1914. Elle s'articule autour de l'expérience spécifique de la coopérative Cinéma du Peuple, qui a duré d'octobre 1913 à juillet 1914. La coopérative Cinéma du Peuple participa à l'adhésion d'une partie des militants aux ressources du cinéma, sensible à partir de 1909, date à laquelle le processus d'industrialisation du film en France était déjà très avancé. Transmise au-delà de 1914, l'expérience du Cinéma du Peuple, première tentative ouvrière organisée d'appropriation du cinéma, a posé les fondements d'un nouveau terrain d'intervention en vue d'une hégémonie dans le champ culturel prolongée jusqu'à nos jours. L'hypothèse est que le public -catégorie d'analyse dans une échelle alternative de celle de masse, ou de spectateur -a montré, avec l'expérience du Cinéma du Peuple, qu'il n'est pas, par nature et de façon in-évocable, prisonnier des films commerciaux et des intérêts des distributeurs. À partir des notions de répertoire d'action, et de l'expérience de la domination idéologique par le cinéma commercial, nous nous efforçons de cerner les contours de ce public, pour partie confondu avec celui du mouvement ouvrier, notamment au moyen des trajectoires collectives et individuelles des initiateurs, propagandistes du Cinéma du Peuple et de ses spectateurs. En même temps, nous nous proposons de montrer à partir de l'analyse des films du Cinéma du Peuple le début de la formation d'un nouveau mode de représentation du monde ouvrier. / The thesis examines the relationship between the French working class movement and the cinema at the beginning of the 20th century, specifically from 1895 to 1914. 1t focuses on the specific experience of the cooperative Cinéma du Peuple, which lasted from October 1913 to July 1914. The cooperative Cinéma du Peuple took part of militant cinema in France, which was barely begun from 1909 on when the industrialization process of the film in France was already advanced. Transmitted beyond 1914, the experience of the Cinéma du Peuple, first working class movement organized attempt to film appropriation, laid the foundations of a new ground of intervention in a prolonged hegemony in the cultural field until the present days. The assumption is that the public - a category of analysis in an alternative scale than mass or spectator - showed, with the experience of Cinéma du Peuple, that it is not by nature and so irrevocable way a prisoner of the commercial films and the interests of distributors. From the concepts of repertoire of contention, and the experience of the ideological domination of commercial cinema, we strive to identify the contours of that public, partly coïncident with the working class movement, mostly through collective and individual militants' trajectories, propagandists of the Cinéma du Peuple and its public. At the same time, we intend to bring from the analysis of the Cinéma du Peuple's films the beginning of the formation of a new mode of representation of the working class.