Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2022, American Culture Studies

This dissertation utilizes the videographic essay method to visually analyze the queer aesthetic that distinguishes certain American film and television programs in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The salient features of the queer aesthetic, which includes strategies ranging from lighthearted farcical camp to intense graphic violence, emerged as a critical response to homophobic depictions in mainstream Hollywood horror films of the 1980s and early 1990s and as an aesthetic expression of social protests by queer activists of the time. The empowerment of proudly claiming queer identity led to the development of the independent New Queer Cinema movement. I examine the visual techniques utilized in this politicized film movement to illustrate how queer filmmakers incorporated visual tropes from the horror film genre to convey the terror of the AIDS epidemic as well as ongoing political repression and violent homophobia. To illuminate the notable features of the aesthetic that coalesced in New Queer Cinema films, I analyze the films of gay filmmaker Gregg Araki, who is known for combining stylized camp and violence with tropes of the horror genre. This study shows how queer filmmakers subsequently began to incorporate the queer aesthetic into contemporary horror films and television productions. I closely examine Ryan Murphy's application of the queer aesthetic in his television series American Horror Story following the queering of the horror tropes in the New Queer Cinema films. Mobilizing moving images and sound in analyses makes it possible to demonstrate aesthetic choices in ways that are not possible in a traditional written dissertation, even one featuring still images. By using videographic essays, the dissertation concretely illustrates the evolution of the queer aesthetic and how it has merged in some instances with horror genre conventions. This dissertation also illuminates the increasingly nuanced depiction of queer identities wi (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Cynthia Baron Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Lubomir Popov Ph.D. (Other); Bill Albertini Ph.D. (Committee Member); Mark Bernard Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Film Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2020, French and Italian

Over the last decade, the production of horror films in Italy has surged. Oscar-nominated director Luca Guadagnino recently contributed to the genre's revival with his 2018 film Suspiria—a remake of Dario Argento's world-renowned 1977 slasher. However, the extensive contemporary corpus of Italian horror cinema remains largely unexplored even though, according to Guadagnino, “the most transgressive work in cinema right now is being done in horror” (Roxborough, 5). While much Italian horror cinema scholarship has focused on past waves of the genre, few studies assess the contemporary era (Baschiera and Hunter, 2016). As such, this project showcases a popular movie genre, revived with a new urgency in recent years, as a privileged site for socio-cultural work and nonnormative imagination. My dissertation, “Female Leads: Negotiating Minority Identities in Contemporary Italian Horror Cinema,” analyzes eight key films released between 2006-2018 that feature women who are `othered' because of their pregnancy status (Ch 1), their LGBTQ+ identity (Ch 2), their status as migrants (Ch 3) disabled persons (Ch 4), or their religious beliefs (Conclusion). Using textual and socio-historical analysis, I situate my project in the fields of Film Studies, Italian Studies, and Feminist Cultural Studies. This dissertation expands and develops horror scholar Carol Clover's theorization of the `final girl,' or, the protagonist and survivor in slasher films of the 1970s and 80s. As Clover contends, the qualities of the final girl “enable her, of all the characters, to survive what has come to seem unsurvivable” (85). While elements such as gender, sexual promiscuity, race, or sexual orientation would have ensured death for a character in a 1970s slasher movie, the social prejudices that warrant death in the films of this dissertation have evolved to manifest differently. This project registers not only anxieties about gender (as Clover originally argued) but also reveals anxieties about (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Dana Renga (Advisor); Linda Mizejewski (Committee Member); Jonathan Combs-Schilling (Committee Member); Treva Lindsey (Committee Member) Subjects: Film Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2017, Arts Administration, Education and Policy

This doctoral study concerns itself with the visual representations of The Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival (a.k.a. Reeling) with specific attention paid to their marketing campaign materials, as exemplified by the annually created festival POSTER. It is my aim to situate these posters alongside the historical contexts of queer identity, socio-political advocacy, and LGBTQ+ cinema. This analysis will navigate the 36-year period of the festival organization's existence, providing key, in-depth interrogations into the decades, images, and trends both visual and narrative. My unpacking and theoretical discussions of the festival's visual culture has been informed by the practices of semiotics and film genre theory. These methods were employed to answer the primary research question: How have the POSTER advertisements, as visual signifiers for The Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival, symbolized their organization's mission, represented queer identities, and engaged with the politically contested history of queer cinematic representation? Through the analytical process, a series of emergent sub-questions materialized: 1) How have visual representations of The Chicago Lesbian and Gay International Film Festival changed over time? 2) How does the festival POSTER, as a promise of subsequent programming, reflect and/or resist the historical, generic, trajectory of LGBTQ+ cinema? 3) How has the festival organization and its corresponding representations responded to fluctuating political movements and their gradual commercialization? Each of the preceding questions provided a distinct vantage point, and allowed me to examine the problems of representation from varying perspectives. This result serves to elucidate the value and significance of such images for the greater LGBTQ+ community which the Reeling event presumes to serve. The film festival as a cultural institution (re)produces visual histories which can have a crucial effect (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: James H. Sanders (Advisor) Subjects: Art Education; Film Studies; Glbt Studies

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2006, American Culture Studies/Popular Culture

This dissertation examined five films with queer female characters who perform on stage: When Night is Falling, Better than Chocolate, Tipping the Velvet, Slaves to the Underground, and Prey for Rock and Roll. These films were divided into “glossy” and “gritty” categories. “Glossy” films, like When Night is Falling, Better than Chocolate, and Tipping the Velvet, follow formats similar to Classical Hollywood Cinema—they include beautiful lighting, falling in love, and happy endings. In contrast, the “gritty” films, like Slaves to the Underground and Prey for Rock and Roll, more closely follow formats found in New Queer Cinema—the lighting is harsh, conflicts are not smoothly resolved, and the endings are not necessarily happy. The objective of this project was to speculate on the extent of performativity in queer identity. Jill Dolan's theory of the utopian performative provided a framework to talk about how cultural productions can function as venues for change. Richard Dyer's work on queer film provided a lens through which the form and content of the case study films were scrutinized. Judith Halberstam's theory of queer time and space and Terry Goldie's comparison between queerness and national identity provided a way to talk about how queer-themed cultural productions are unique and vital to many queers' sense of identity. The five case study films were thoroughly analyzed through these and other theories of cinema, performance, and sexuality. In addition to this textual analysis, a survey was administered through several queer- and lesbian-themed websites and magazines, asking women to answer questions about their experiences with these films. The survey yielded seventy-four responses over four months. They revealed that queer women recognize the ways in which they perform queerness in everyday life, and they recognize the same signifiers in others. The surveys also suggested that queer women enjoy “glossy” films more than “gritty” films. I conclude that for som (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Cynthia Baron (Advisor) Subjects: