Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2014, Popular Culture

In this thesis, I explore the ways in which several characters in the anime Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood play with gender, and what impact that gender play has on larger social structures within the narrative. I use a close reading of the text, and of four characters in particular (Lust the Lascivious, Envy the Jealous, and the Armstrong siblings), to deduce how hegemonic patriarchal powers influence and control gender performance for those characters closely related to them, and spur on gender play in characters defying said powers. These characters occupy a liminal space between generations that is vital to their gender play. I argue that views on gender in this particular series are a symptom of shifts in generational understandings of the world overall, not just in relation to gender performance.

Committee: Kristen Rudisill (Committee Chair); Satomi Saito (Committee Member); Becca Cragin (Committee Member) Subjects: Gender; Gender Studies; Mass Media