In a media landscape that continues to be characterized by heteronormativity, queer female audiences are continuously finding ways to make popular texts their own. Previous scholarship on queer female reception has largely approached queer meaning-making as a text-audience relationship, a perspective which disregards the position of films as commodities surrounded by an extensive promotional network. This thesis investigates the role of commodification in the process of queer meaning-making in popular film through a reception study of the film Ocean’s 8 (Gary Ross, 2018). Using a netnographic method that places social media reception in dialogue with the film and its promotional materials, it challenges the idea that queer meaning is always either embedded in the film text or brought in by the audience “(in)appropriating” the text. Rather, the film and its promotional context create an ambiguity that allows queer readings to flow freely, and actively interacts with a pre-existing Cate Blanchett-as-lesbian fantasy amongst audiences to steer those readings in particular directions. Queer female meaning-making, then, is far from a one-directional action, but rather a complex and constant renegotiation of queerness between commercial actors and audiences alike.

Personer har genom YouTube-videos och andra sociala medier uppmärksammat och gjort nytt material av äldre mockbustersfilmer. Den här studien granskar och analyserar vilka faktorer som möjliggjort för en sådan utveckling på internet. Metoden som använts för att kunna svara på studiens syfte och frågeställningar var varit mottagandeteori, som bland annat har använts för att granska mottagandet av en mockbustersfilm. Studien har analyserat materialet: YouTube-videon Felix Recenserar – Djurens Konung, fans kommentarer till videon och YouTube som plattform. Resultatet visade att YouTube-videon omvandlade mockbusterfilmen som fenomen till en mer lättillgänglig, underhållande och mer samtidsanpassad version för YouTube-kanalens målgrupp. Fans har också varit betydande och har på flera sätt bidragit till att mockbustersfilmen utvecklats och spridits. YouTube som plattform har haft en betydande roll i hur mockbusters kunnat utvecklats på internet och tilltala en ny publik.

Jaws(Universal Studios, 1975) set a new standard for Hollywood film production byintroducing the concept of “summer blockbuster,” for a film that changed the way inwhich people thought about sharks. 37 years after the release of the movie, the idea of sharks as ferocious man-hunters still looms large in public opinion. Thisconceptualization of sharks as ruthless killers is mythical rather than factual, and thisresearch tracks the mechanisms that propelled the idea deep into popular culture.The dissertation addresses the problematics of media constructions through a casestudy of the movie Jawsdeparting from its production process, and by applyingBarbara Klinger’s interpretation of “epiphenomena.” The thesis studies how cinematravels into popular culture, by following the traces of the movie into other media, andits dialogue with the surrounding texts generated by PR, marketing andmerchandising; simultaneously, the thesis seek to demonstrate the connection between the movie as mythmaker and the stigmatized portrayal of sharks.