Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2018, Musicology

The films that constitute the Walt Disney Studio's Golden Age represent landmark achievements in the history of American cinema. Through technical and aesthetic developments alike, Disney's Golden Age films indelibly cultivated and expanded the possibilities of the still-nascent medium of animation. Yet these films also signaled the emergence of a new form of expression: the animated musical. As an aesthetic mode that negotiates the tensions between speech and song within the theoretically limitless medium of animation, the animated musical stands as a distinct medium that carries unique dramatic potential. This project traces Disney's development of this form, examining the expressive properties of song and animation working in tandem while simultaneously locating these films in the landscapes of contemporaneous music-drama. I begin by analyzing the synthesis of music and images that the studio first explored in early shorts such as Steamboat Willie (1928) and The Skeleton Dance (1929). Initially developed as a practical solution for synchronizing sound to animated film, this technique resulted in a unique diegetic space in which musical and visual gestures conjoin in symbiotic harmony. This approach allowed the studio to find increasingly sophisticated ways to navigate the dramatic dissonances between direct speech and musical performances and facilitated the leap into Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), the world's first feature-length animated musical. I argue that Snow White articulated properties of synthesis that carried robust critical weight at the time, allowing the film to extend beyond mere novelty to position itself as an important contribution to American culture. My study of Pinocchio (1940) turns within the studio walls to illustrate the roles of music and song in the creation of sympathetic, appealing characters. Finally, I consider Dumbo (1941) and Bambi (1942), two of the studio's most dissimilar features, to uncover the ways in which (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Daniel Goldmark (Advisor); Susan McClary (Committee Member); Francesca Brittan (Committee Member); Robert Spadoni (Committee Member) Subjects: Aesthetics; American History; American Studies; Film Studies; Fine Arts; History; Mass Media; Motion Pictures; Music; Performing Arts; Philosophy; Theater History; Theater Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2014, Educational Leadership

This study investigates the representation of mental illness in Hollywood film. Using an approach grounded in Foucauldian theory and media literacy, this study will examine six Hollywood films covering a span of six decades, roughly from the end of World War II through the first decade of the twenty-first century. When writers, directors and producers of films portray characters with psychological disorders/disabilities, these representations may result in negative attitudes and skewed impressions among viewers/consumers. Further, inaccurate and demonizing portrayals in filmic texts serve only to create blueprints of stigmatization that could affect real-world persons with psychological disorders. With the agenda of exploring the hegemonic infrastructures of stigma and othering, this study will employ a theoretical framework of Foucauldian theory, along with critical media literacy perspectives to unpack the discursive power carried by popular visual media, as well as to analyze dominant cultural attitudes toward the normal/abnormal binary. In an attempt to emphasize the need for increased awareness of and sensitivity toward the lived experiences of persons with psychological disorders, this study will also highlight the value of curricularizing films featuring mental health/illness issues, and of recommending ways of striving for social justice for persons with these invisible disabilities.

Committee: Dennis Carlson PhD (Committee Chair); Richard Quantz PhD (Committee Member); Thomas Poetter PhD (Committee Member); Frank Fitch PhD (Committee Member); Sheri Leafgren PhD (Other) Subjects: Curriculum Development; Education; Educational Leadership; Educational Psychology; Educational Sociology; Educational Theory; Gender Studies; Literature

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2003, History

After World War I, the American film industry achieved international dominance and became a principal promoter of American cultural expansion, projecting images of America to the rest of the world. Japan was one of the few countries in which Hollywood lost its market control to the local industry, but its cultural exports were subjected to intense domestic debates over the meaning of Americanization. This dissertation examines the interplay of economics, culture, and power in U.S.-Japanese film trade before the Pacific War. Hollywood's commercial expansion overseas was marked by internal disarray and weak industry-state relationships. Its vision of enlightened cooperation became doomed as American film companies hesitated to share information with one another and the U.S. government, while its trade association and local managers tended to see U.S. officials as potential rivals threatening their positions in foreign fields. The lack of cooperation also was a major trade problem in the Japanese film market. In general, American companies failed to defend or enhance their market position by joining forces with one another and cooperating with U.S. officials until they were forced to withdraw from Japan in December 1941. Culturally, Hollywood was signified as a major change agent for promoting a new world of capitalist modernization, interdependence, and peace unified by the universal influence of democratic, non-political American values and ideals. Domestic divisions characterized the Japanese film market and reception of American films. On the one hand, Japanese films came to control a large part of the domestic market, and Hollywood was increasingly criticized as a tool of cultural imperialism, a major source of ideological pollution corrupting Japanese traditions and national identities. Such critiques, underlying the growing campaign to impose official controls on American movies after the mid-1930s, were embedded within the nationalist discourses that helped to (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Michael Hogan (Advisor) Subjects:

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2006, Theatre and Film

With the end of the Hollywood studio era, big budget blockbuster musicals had to find ways to compete in the economic and cultural marketplace. Historical events such as the rise of television, the Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War, and the Watergate scandal influenced the way American audiences saw, and continue to see, the world. Film, theatre, and other artistic disciplines helped audiences understand, cope, and criticize societal changes. As audience perceptions changed, the film musical faced a crisis. In an attempt to maximize profits, Hollywood business practices forced an evolutionary branch in the development of the musical. One fork took the genre towards the embodiment of capitalistic and cultural excess as pointed to by Altman, Dyer, and others. These film musicals attempt to present Utopia. Film musicals such as Grease (1978), Beauty and the Beast (1991), and Evita (1996) are large spectacles that utilize the high concept business model, as outlined by Justin Wyatt, to please audience expectations by managing conflict at the expense of presenting the story world as a utopia. The other branch of film musical exemplified in the films of Cabaret (1972) and All That Jazz (1979) criticize the price paid by an individual in pursuit of ideals that lie beyond dominant social values. The dystopic film musical connects with audiences and critics by drawing on the cynicism and skepticism of contemporary historic and cultural events to forward a clearly dystopic view of society. This study utilizes an interdisciplinary approach to analyze the connection between selected film musicals and the American culture for which they were produced. The study shows that from 1970-2002 film musicals promoted and marketed visions of Utopia that were reflective of specific historical moments rather than ahistorical utopia ideals. While a film like Grease shows that Utopia is the ideal high school experience, later films like Moulin Rouge! (2001) and Chicago (2002) depict i (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Cynthia Baron (Advisor) Subjects:

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2023, American Culture Studies

Good Times? is an examination of the American film industry of the 1990s, with a focus on how both the major studios and independent distributors capitalized on cultural recycling of the 1970s. On the side of the major Hollywood studios, intellectual property became increasingly important as established brands could effectively be revived and resold to audiences. In independent cinema, filmmakers sampled the music, stars, and their own personal experiences from the 1970s, in line with larger aesthetic trends of postmodernism. The films studied in this project essentially mark a meeting point between these multiple trends. An appeal to nostalgia, broadly defined, for the 1970s provided a useful strategy for both reviving brands of that time and using them in the new ways afforded by postmodernism (such as parody and sampling) and the diverse perspectives of multiculturalism. My central argument is that, in the 1990s, both Hollywood and independent cinema utilized “the seventies” as a product to be sold and the past as something to be marketed. The primary way studio and independent films achieved this was through marketing tactics that made the seventies into a brand on multiple synergistic channels. Chapter one surveys the industrial landscape impacting the entertainment industry of the time, while chapter two covers the cultural trends of multiculturalism and postmodernism. Chapter three shows how ‘70s-set coming-of-age films from Gen X filmmakers had a rather serious take on growing up while their distributors glossed over these elements to highlight elements associated with nostalgia. Chapter four analyzes the studios' role in the nostalgia wave through recycling brands via synergy, as Paramount/Viacom did with The Brady Bunch. Chapter five examines independents' sampling of imagery and stars associated with blaxploitation to promote their films and ancillary products. Employing an industry studies perspective, the project uses a diverse collection of text (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Cynthia Baron Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Cortland Rankin Ph.D. (Committee Member); Andrew Schocket Ph.D. (Committee Member); Melissa Burek Ph.D. (Other) Subjects: American Studies; Film Studies

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2022, History

In 1928, Clara Bow was the most famous actress in Hollywood, receiving over 33,727 fan letters in the month of May alone. By 1933, however, she had left Hollywood forever amid a flurry of scandal for a quiet domestic life with her new husband in the desert town of Searchlight, Nevada, never to return to the spotlight on-screen. Bow's incredibly short but productive career highlights the difficulties of being a woman in the Hollywood Studio System. Through a mix of digital and physical sources, this thesis illustrates the way the burgeoning studio system controlled its female stars in an attempt to craft the most marketable possible woman: primarily through film fan magazines writing about Bow and her scandals, contractual agreements about morality, and tailoring on-screen roles for women.

Committee: Kimberly Hamlin (Advisor); Erik Jensen (Committee Member); Bruce Drushel (Committee Member) Subjects: Film Studies; Gender; History

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2020, English

This dissertation analyzes the cinematic allusions that appear in the novels of four postwar American writers: Jack Kerouac, Walker Percy, Elmore Leonard, and Joan Didion. I argue that these novelists employ cinematic allusions to comment on the ways that audiences interact with narrative texts. My definition for “allusions” is intentionally broad, including references to particular films, stars, tropes, viewing spaces, and productions. I argue that such allusions afford reflection for the readers of these novels, giving them a chance to pause and consider the differences between reading a book and watching a movie. Many scholars have theorized the differences between novels and films, but my project takes a new approach by considering how novelists can comment on these questions directly. All of the authors in my study find the cinema to be manipulative, and their cinematic allusions suggest that they believe the novel to be a more reflective, and therefore morally responsible, medium than film. However, this can lead to uncertainty for readers when their books simultaneously denounce and rely on the cinema's affective possibilities.

Committee: William Marling (Committee Chair); Robert Spadoni (Committee Member); Christopher Flint (Committee Member); Daniel Goldmark (Committee Member) Subjects: American Literature

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2016, American Culture Studies

While popular movies are often overlooked in film studies, the action-adventure genre in the 1980s has drawn considerable academic attention. The consensus among the literature is that a conservative backlash (spurred on by Ronald Reagan's two terms in office) against a resurgent equality movement gave rise to hypermasculine movies like First Blood and Predator and hypermasculine stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. While this still holds true, a closer look at the movies and the era reveals a much more nuanced picture. A thorough examination of the culture, the movies, and the male bodies on-screen in the 1980s—through the lens of affect theory, cinematography, and spectacle, among others—uncovers a number of significant cultural phenomena that have the potential to shape future academic work. This study not only elucidates and reconstructs the conception of filmic spectacle to include the male body on-screen, it also identifies two types of male bodies on-screen in the 1980s—the muscle-bound, aesthetically spectacular body and the lithe, kinesthetically spectacular body. Additionally, this study argues that filmic spectacle (as experienced by viewers) is actually made up of two discrete dimensions, a physical dimension composed of massive scale and explosions and a physiological one composed of affect and emotion. Unpacking spectacle in this way ultimately produces a number of new tools for film scholars while reimagining, in a significant way, American culture in the 1980s, the action-adventure movies of the decade, and the greater cultural currents in the Reagan era.

Committee: Theodore F. Rippey Ph.D. (Advisor); Thomas A. Mascaro Ph.D. (Other); Andrew E. Hershberger Ph.D. (Committee Member); Jeffrey A. Brown Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Aesthetics; American Studies; Cinematography; Comparative; Ethnic Studies; Film Studies; Gender; Gender Studies; Mass Media; Motion Pictures

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2016, Film Studies (Fine Arts)

This thesis discusses the increasing visibility of masculine identity in contemporary Hollywood comedies. I examine how shifting developments in economic, societal, cultural, and gender relations impacted the perception of cinematic masculinity. The men, more specifically white and heterosexual, in these films position themselves as victims and, as a result, turn to alternative outlets to ease their frustrations and anxieties. In order to broadly survey the genre of the past two decades, I focus on three consistently popular character tropes in Hollywood comedies: slackers, office workers, and bromantic friendships. All the male characters discussed throughout the thesis are plagued by their innermost anxieties and desires that compromise their gendered identities. However, these films resort to a regressive understanding of masculinity and functions within the dominant heteronormative structures. This thesis demonstrates how Hollywood comedies present a contradictory and multifaceted image of modern masculinity.

Committee: Ofer Eliaz (Committee Chair) Subjects: Film Studies

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2016, East Asian Languages and Literatures

Over the years, the topic of Hollywood's influence on China has received much attention and research, however very few people have formally studied the influence that China has on Hollywood. Along with China's continuous development and increasing international status, China's film market has also undergone rapid growth. Chinese box office revenue has maintained consistent growth rates, surpassing the growth rate of the North American box office. At the same time, Hollywood is becoming more reliant on the international box office. With China ranked as the second largest film market in the world and quickly surpassing North America to become the first, their impact over Hollywood is increasing. Under this context, this thesis plans to research the development of the Chinese film market as well as its influence on Hollywood.

Committee: Xiaobin Jian (Advisor); Galal Walker (Committee Member) Subjects: Asian Studies

PHD, Kent State University, 2016, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of History

More than any other group of people, Native Americans have had their public identity established and shaped by motion pictures. While the cultural construct of the Indian was created during the earliest years of European settlement in North America, Hollywood widely disseminated it across the nation, and the globe, during the twentieth century, appropriating the image of the Indian for its own ends. This dissertation examines a number of American Indian films produced between 1930 and the early-1970s, exploring the movies, themselves, their production, and their reception by critics and audience members. It argues that white filmmakers deployed the image of the Indian in various ways, but always did so for their own purposes, and thus these movies tell us much about the issues preoccupying the United States when they were made, but little to nothing about Native Americans, themselves. During the 1930s, for instance, Hollywood used Indians as background figures in nostalgia-heavy stories that encouraged Americans to return their country to greatness, while in the 1950s, it utilized Indians to promote postwar conformity in films that extolled the virtues of the nuclear family and the assimilation of minorities into mainstream society, and during the 1960s, it presented Indians as virtuous Others whose decency stood in stark contrast to the corruption that appeared to be inherent in Vietnam-era America. Over the course of the four decades examined in this dissertation, Indians emerged from out of the background of these films, eventually becoming prominent characters and even protagonists, and yet the films they occupied were never actually about them. Whether they presented Indians as minor characters or major ones, bloodthirsty monsters or paragons of nobility, American Indian films were always about white, not Native, America. Thus, Hollywood took what it wanted from the image of the Indian, deploying that image in whatever way it required, while leaving Nat (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Kenneth Bindas (Committee Chair); Clarence Wunderlin (Advisor); James Seelye (Committee Member); Bob Batchelor (Committee Member); Paul Haridakis (Committee Member) Subjects: History

Master of Fine Arts, The Ohio State University, 2015, Art

The purpose of this paper is to document the costume design and production process for Larry Gelbart, Cy Coleman, and David Zippel's musical City of Angels, a co-production of The Ohio State University's Department of Theatre and School of Music, directed by A. Scott Parry, the School of Music's Director of Opera and Lyric Theatre. The musical was presented in the Thurber Theatre at The Ohio State University campus in Columbus, Ohio, October 30, 2014 through November 9, 2014. City of Angels is a fast-paced musical comedy that weaves together two reflexive plots set in the heart of the Los Angeles film industry, one in the `real world' of the writer as his book becomes a screenplay, “City of Angels”, and the other in the `reel world' of the fictional film on the big screen. The musical is in homage to the film noir genre and relies heavily on American jazz elements from the same period during World War II. Designs for the production are to be derived from film noir movies such as Sunset Boulevard, in addition to contemporary movies reflecting life in Hollywood's `Golden Age', such as Sin City and Gangsterland. The scenic design will illustrate the change between the many locales of the `reel world' and `real world'. The lighting design will aid the production in creating hard angled shadows of light for the film noir `reel world' and vibrant `full' colors for the everyday `real world'.

Committee: Kristine Kearney (Advisor); Janet Parrott (Committee Member); A. Scott Parry (Committee Member) Subjects: Theater

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2015, Communication and Development Studies (International Studies)

Products have been placed in films since the appearance of Sunlight soap in a 1896 film. However, in-film placement has started to gain much traction in recent decades due to technological advances, such as the internet, Digital Video Recorders, and over-the-top providers that have been lessening the impact of traditional marketing. Product placement expenses in the American media have risen from $190 million in 1974 to around $3.5 billion in 2004 (Lehu, 2007). The practice is also existent in major regional film centers such as Bollywood, Korea, and Egypt. This study examined the in-film placement trends in Hollywood and Egypt through a quantitative content analysis of the top earning films between 2010 and 2013. Results show that the average number of placements was 35.30 and 27.65 per Hollywood and Egyptian films respectively. The practice was aligned in both in terms of modality, product category, scene setting, and character association.

Committee: Gregory Newton Associate Professor (Committee Chair); Lawrence Wood Associate Professor (Committee Member); Drew McDaniel Professor (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication; Comparative; Film Studies; Mass Communications; Mass Media

Master of Science (MS), Ohio University, 2014, Journalism (Communication)

This thesis investigates the changes in film reviews published by Photoplay magazine, considered by many as one of the most significant and high-quality fan magazines, after the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA, the predecessor of today's Motion Picture Association of America, MPAA) started to censor fan magazine content on August 10, 1934. Two constructed years were made from issues published from 1930 to 1939 and the overlapping 10 years of the golden age of Hollywood (1930 to 1949) and the golden age of fan magazines (1920 to 1939). A total of 723 film reviews (every single review in the issues selected) were studied. Although it was not clear based on MPPDA's censorship pronouncement whether film reviews were included in the censorship, content analysis results, supported also by historical analysis, suggested that film reviews published from 1935 to 1939 covered a significantly larger portion of movies made by big studios, including MGM, Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO), Paramount, 20th Century-Fox and Warner Bros, Universal, Columbia and United Artists, than those published between 1930 and 1934. The results also showed that film reviews published after MPPDA's censorship pronouncement were significantly more positive both in general tone and when it came to big studio films. Considering that today studios still try to influence film criticism in multiple ways, this study, within the framework of newswork theory, may provide insights into how reviews may change under influences on the extramedia and media routines level.

Committee: Hans Meyer (Advisor); Aimee Edmondson (Committee Member); Cary Frith (Committee Member) Subjects: Mass Media

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2014, Media and Communication

This qualitative study explores the relationship between Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and Hollywood's cross-border film productions by examining the strategies that these islands use to facilitate the filming of big-budget foreign films within their borders. The dissertation also analyzes the inherent implications of transnational film production practices from the perspective of the host location and reviews extant theories of international film production to explore whether they adequately explain the peculiar dynamics and experiences of filmmaking in SIDS countries by heavily financed, non-resident film producers. The study blends relevant strands of political economy of media and critical cultural studies to construct a customized theoretical backbone. From this critical standpoint, it engages theories of globalization, development, cultural industries, post-colonialism, and policymaking to analyze the interaction between SIDS nations and international satellite film productions. Adopting a grounded theory methodological framework, it uses interviewees, focus groups, participant observation and document analysis to collect data from the island of Dominica in the Caribbean, which hosted two films in Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. The study found that these foreign film producers received unprecedented levels of concessions and amassed huge savings from their ability to manipulate governmental authorities and local elites and exploit the weak institutional capacity of the state and its poor systems of accountability. It also revealed the relative incapacity of the host location to extend the inherent benefits of accommodating these big-budget film products from temporary economic activities to more lasting and sustainable development projects.

Committee: Oliver Boyd-Barrett Dr. (Advisor); Federico Chalupa Dr. (Committee Member); Ewart Skinner Dr. (Committee Member); Radhika Gajjala Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Arts Management; Caribbean Studies; Cinematography; Communication; Cultural Resources Management; Ethnic Studies; Film Studies; International Relations; Labor Economics; Labor Relations; Latin American Studies; Mass Communications; Mass Media; Multimedia Communications

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2013, Film (Fine Arts)

This thesis provides a historical approach to the question of how lesbianism is made visible in Hollywood film adaptations of lesbian narratives from the 1930s to 2011. Chapter one examines Code censorship and haunting absences in Rebecca (1940), These Three (1936) and The Children's Hour (1961). Chapter two analyzes ambiguous lesbian representation as a type of dual marketing approach designed to appeal to both heterosexual mainstream audiences and queer audiences in The Color Purple (1985), Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), and Orlando (1992). Chapter three culminates in an examination of the location of queerness in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009, 2011) focusing on the character of Lisbeth Salander as a queer force aimed at destabilizing heterosexist assumption. It is through my examination of the historical shifts in the process translating lesbianism from a verbal description to a visible depiction on screen in Hollywood adaptations that the social and cultural significance and impact of these historical shifts becomes apparent.

Committee: Ofer Eliaz (Committee Chair) Subjects: Film Studies; Gender; History; Literature; Mass Media; Modern Literature; Scandinavian Studies; Womens Studies

Master of Fine Arts, The Ohio State University, 2009, Art

Films, movies, even overly exorbitant, big budget Hollywood films can hold a place in the mind of an artist that is as significant as some of the other sources that artists often use to fuel their work. Movies are sometimes questioned in their validity or place in the studio of an artist, and I believe that for certain reasons, Hollywood films and associated ideas of fame and celebrity can provide a fruitful a place of exploration. Hollywood films, in the minds of certain individuals, myself included, provide a place for the imagination to wander, to escape from daily activities and revel in the nostalgia of childhood or memory: a place to explore the desire associated with dreams, the fame that often comes with being a celebrity, and the endurance behind the idea of work ethic that can fuel such explorations.

Committee: Laura Lisbon (Committee Chair); Amy Youngs (Committee Member); Suzanne Silver (Committee Member) Subjects: Fine Arts

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2007, Political Science (Arts and Sciences)

This thesis explores the impact of Ronald Reagan's presidency on Hollywood films of the 1980s. As America entered the 1980s, a shift was seen in the product being released by Hollywood. Film narratives became very different from those released in the decade before. This project analyzes the correlative connections between changes seen in both Hollywood films and presidential rhetoric during this period. Samples were drawn from both Hollywood films and presidential speeches of the era. Through the employment of content analysis, these samples were coded and analyzed to spot distinct similarities and differences between the two mediums.

Committee: Hector Perla Jr. (Advisor) Subjects: Political Science, General

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2013, Film (Fine Arts)

This thesis deals with the construction of American Indian identity in what I define as Native American cinema. It takes into account issues relating to the representation of American Indians in Hollywood film and television, as well as the idea that Native American cinema functions as a counter cinema in relation to Hollywood. This work examines notions of American Indian identity through the films of Chris Eyre, Sherman Alexie, Kent Mackenzie, Michael Linn, and others.

Committee: Ofer Eliaz Dr. (Committee Chair); Louis Schwartz Dr. (Committee Member); Katherine Jellison Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Film Studies