The ‘91 Roos is a sports documentary focused in Killeen, Texas. exploring the 1991 Killeen Kangaroos high school football team and their journey to their city's one and only state championship in football. Killeen is a small central Texas town that is directly adjacent and provides support to Ft Hood, one of the world's largest military bases. With the Persian Gulf War raging in 1991, soldiers that lived in Killeen were being sent off to fight, leaving the city almost like a ghost town. In October 1991, the Luby's Massacre occurred in Killeen, bringing the already depleted city further down by tragedy. At the time, this was the worst mass shooting in US history. This high school football team went on a fairy tale type of run during their 1991 season, resulting in winning a state title and bringing big hope back to a small town in need. Using direct interviews, narration and archival footage, this film provides an emotional yet inspirational look at a small town football team and their improbable season.

"The Great Hanging" is a documentary film that tells the story of the largest extra-legal mass hanging in U.S. History. This story is told through stage play recital of "October Mourning" written by historian and professor Dr. Pat Ledbetter. Using the stage play as a vehicle, the film showcases cinematic re-enactments based in the events in Gainesville, Texas during October 1862. These events show how a small community became overwhelmed by the fog of war and delved into madness as the Civil War crept closer and closer to their doorstep.

The intention of this thesis is to identify and analyze the cat woman archetype as a contemporary extension of the transgressive witch archetype, which rampantly appears over the course of cinema history, working as a signifier of a patriarchal society's fear of autonomous and subversive women. The character of Catwoman is the ultimate representation for this archetype on grounds of her visibility, longevity, and ability to return again and again. More importantly, Catwoman and her sisterhood of cat women work against male creators as a means of female empowerment through trickery. Within this thesis, key films of varying genres are drawn from throughout cinema history and analyzed in order to demonstrate the intertextual network of characters that make up the cat woman archetype, and the importance of the Catwoman character in her many forms.

Many evangelical Christians distance themselves from the mainstream commercial culture, because they perceive mainstream media and popular culture to promulgate immoral messages through representations such as sex and violence. This disconnect from Hollywood have made evangelicals a tough audience to market. Sony, however, has been able to connect with the evangelical market by producing a line of contemporary Christian films through their in-house division Affirm Films. By prioritizing the narratives of their films Heaven is for Real, War Room, and Miracles From Heaven to focus on contemporary Christian characters, conflicts, and settings, Sony is able to attract the evangelical audience with films that align with their conservative belief system.

The intention of this thesis is to identify and analyze the precise shift from an exploitative archetype to an empowered representation of women warriors, to identify the arena in which male and female characters are given equal agency in the context of war, and finally explore the key characteristics that make up an empowered female hero. This thesis also addresses the sociocultural nature of the warrior woman archetype as it pertains to the current role of women in the military. The films analyzed in this thesis are all post 9/11 films; a fact that links them culturally to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In recent years, numerous milestones have been reached for women in the armed services, especially for those women in combat positions. For the first time in American history women are being recognized for their active role as soldiers in combat. Therefore, it is valid to consider the correlation between seeing women as military professionals, fighting alongside male soldiers in these films, and the cultural impact of female combat soldiers. This aspect of the thesis also imbues the female just-warrior archetype with a legitimate history, mythology, and current cultural reference; which is essential to the visibility of …

The Age of Trump witnessed the visible rise of intense culture wars and polarization in the United States. While culture wars are not new phenomena, the current iteration has digital media acting as new discursive structures and mediating battlegrounds for all sides of the cultural conflict. This project chronicles these online culture wars, demonstrating how within a neoliberal and postmodern socio-cultural condition, the rise of ambivalent, profit-driven digital technologies and platforms structure affect and mediate newly networked neo-reactionary populist (sub)cultural ideologies and discourses. The resulting online ecosystems afforded the digital formations of obscure reactionary subcultures (trolls, antifeminists, the alt-right, etc.) with particular personalized and affectively driven memetic communicative logics. These reactionary affective publics eventually began converging under perceived common ideological and social interests as online actions and reactionary discursive (re)formations and (re)networkings were catalyzed by (sub/cross)cultural conflicts and moments of sentimental activation. This led to the emergence of affectively charged and informally networked reactionary publics which began spilling out into the offline world alongside Trump's ascendancy to the White House. The increasing progressive reactions during the Trump Era also faced limitations in combatting reactionary politics due to structural dynamics of digital media and the larger culture war filtering of politics. …

This paper looks at the history of WBAP while examining how programming has changed from 1922-2014 and how WBAPs audience helped shape programming at the station. This paper reveals four formatting changes throughout the stations history and provides in-depth statistical analysis of how WBAPs audience changed during the stations 90 plus years of existence.

Living the vast majority of my life in an area that celebrates diversity but thrives because of illegal cross-border activities (undocumented workers, drug imports) at times the distance between the United States and Mexico is in fact as thin as the width of a fence. Though it is typical for a filmmaker to hope to present a unique take on a subject, given how I have seen the topics of immigration and the perspective of the purpose of homeland security portray, I am confident that there is an opportunity to show these issues in a more personal, less aggressive light with the use of first person accounts instead of a dependence on the most violent aspects of these topics. The main subject will give character to this agency by blurring the lines of his life as an agent and as a citizen.

Bad Paper follows the lives of former military service members, who have received an other-than-honorable discharge, but also have service-connected post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Due to the "suck it up" culture of the military, many of these veterans would not report any psychological troubles in fear of being labeled "weak" and potentially affecting their promotions. With no outlet for their PTSD, drugs and alcohol became a way of "self-medicating," which led to their dismissal from the service. A dishonorable discharge, commonly called "bad paper," from the military disqualifies veterans from receiving help from the VA. The process to overturn this status is arduous and veterans must navigate the bureaucracy of the Veterans Affairs (VA) administration as well as the individual military branches with virtually no help from either.

The 1980s is a formative decade in American history. America sought to reestablish itself as a global power and to reassert the dominant ideology of white, patriarchal capitalism. Likewise, media producers in the 1980s sought to reassert the dominance of the white, male, muscled body in filmic representations. The identity politics of the 1980s and the depictions of the white, muscled body once prominent in the 1980s have been the site of conservative nostalgia for a young, male-dominated, cult audience that is a subset of a larger cultural trend known as retro film culture. This thesis provides historical context behind the populist 1980s B-action films from Cannon Group, Inc that celebrate violent masculinity in filmic representations with white, male action heroes. Equally important is the revival of VHS collecting and how this 1980s-inspired subculture reinforces white, patriarchal capitalism through the cult films they valorize and their capitalistic trading practices despite their claims of oppositionality against mainstream taste and Hollywood films. Lastly, this thesis reveals how a new cycle of contemporary films primarily produced outside of Hollywood reasserts and celebrates the dominance of the white, male, muscled body in filmic representations despite a postmodern and hyperconscious exterior. Overall, I argue how …

Black Reparations Film Project: Descendants of Slavery and Institutional Racism is a character driven film that sheds light on the consequences of slavery in the U.S. Through a personal narrative, the viewer comes to understand how these consequences support the argument for slavery reparations. The purpose of the film is to bridge the generational gap in awareness of reparation history. The film can be used to enlighten young Americans of all ethnicities to encourage them to find their purpose in this country, help build better race relations, and work towards building a true democracy.

The Godzilla media franchise is one of the longest running media franchises, which means the character himself has gone through many changes throughout the years. However, in American pop culture, the characters of Godzilla is perceived as a hero, a friend of humanity and defender of Earth. This reputation comes from the Showa Era, where Godzilla often fought on the side of humanity, rather than trying to destroy them as depicted in the original Gojira. In recent years, Toho, Godzilla's corporate owners, have been steering the King of the Monsters back into the villain role. Despite this tone shift by Godzilla's owners, American Godzilla paratexts still generally depict Godzilla as a hero. These depictions of Godzilla are used to maintain his status as a family friendly heritage brand and keep a door open for parents to introduce their children to the brand. Such a strategy allows Godzilla to survive into the modern day as an international powerhouse franchise.

Mending the Gaps examines the failures and deficits that have occurred in education both historically and today. These gaps that already existed in learning, equality, opportunity, and technology have all been made worse after two years of a global pandemic. Focusing on students in the state of Texas, which has the 2nd largest economy in the United States, but currently ranks 34th in quality of education, now students face the reality of the COVID 19 health crisis in an already overburdened public education system. People in every area of the community, including local, state, and national policy makers, are questioning if it is time to rethink what is considered a quality education. This documentary project will take viewers from the classroom to the boardroom, as stakeholders from all levels of the educational spectrum have an earnest conversation and answer the hard question, can the current system close the gaps and salvage a generation of students?

This MFA graduate thesis explores the intersection of therapeutic photography, generational trauma, and Christian spirituality in promoting spiritual healing in disabled veterans diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Drawing from personal experience, rigorous biblical training, and extensive research, I argue that incorporating faith-based practices and beliefs can complement existing PTSD support and enhance spiritual and mental well-being. Through the lens of generational trauma, the thesis analyzes the complex interplay between individual and collective trauma. It posits that the healing process is intrinsically linked to the restoration of the individual and community. I present a framework for therapeutic photography that incorporates Christian spiritual principles and offers practical guidelines for implementation in conjunction with therapeutic photography. The thesis concludes with a call to action for faith-based communities, mental health practitioners, and policymakers to recognize and address the spiritual and artistic therapeutic needs of disabled veterans with PTSD.

This thesis argues that textual and historical analysis of The Carol Burnett Show reveals that the program utilized slapstick, women's comedy and feminist humor to create comedic parodies of television commercials, melodramas and women's films, and soap operas. Their television commercial parodies reflect Second Wave feminist critiques of media advertising contemporary with the program. Comparison of the work of early feminist film theorists and media critics to the program's parodies of film and soap opera reveal an interest in texts that address a female audience and that The Carol Burnett Show was making similar critiques to feminist media scholars in the years before it became a field of inquiry.

This study of radio news stations adds to the field of Twitter research into broadcasters' use of this social media microblogging platform; previous research has predominantly focused on television. This case study, based on a survey with numerous open-ended questions completed in face-to-face interviews, begins to fill in data on how Twitter is being used in major market radio station newsrooms. Limited in scope, this exploratory study used answers from seven members of two radio newsrooms in trying to find out if there were stated goals for tweets; if separate, unique content was being tweeted or was content tied to the stations' on-air product; how tweets seek to increase station listenership and/or increase station website traffic; what were the most frequently tweeted topics; what hyperlinks were included in tweets for internal or external web content; and were tweets personal and/or opinionated, or kept more professional with just factual material. From a strategic management theory standpoint, there is neither a stated plan nor goals sought with these newsrooms' use of Twitter. Unique tweet content includes sending out photos which add visuals to the pictureless world of radio news and live-tweeting of ongoing news events, while complementary content is promotional to push …

Hauntology Man, a 48-minute documentary, follows former UNT Professor, Dr. Shaun Treat, as he leads a walking ghost tour of downtown Denton, Texas. As the expedition moves from storefront to storefront, each stop elicits a new tale. But, as Dr. Treat points out, the uncertainties of history are the real ghosts. That is, rather than simply presenting a "haunted history" of Denton, it's more accurate to say this movie's center resides at the precipice of a "haunting history." Not all ghost stories need spectres. Sometimes not knowing is ghost enough.

The Best Medicine is an animated documentary that explores the true stories behind the live performances of stand-up comedians. The film juxtaposes live stand-up performances with candid interview footage combined with animation and illustration. Three subjects– Michael Burd, Casey Stoddard, and Jacob Kubon– discuss alcoholism, childhood abuse, and sexual anxiety, respectively. Their candid, intimate interviews reveal personal information, creating a new context with which to understand live stand-up comedy performance. This illustrates themes of finding humor in dark or painful circumstances and the cathartic nature writing and performance.

The Eviction is a film about the forced eviction of a large homeless encampment in Dallas. In an effort to understand the gravity over a month of filming I will capture the stories of people, events, and the trials of those who are trying to offer a hand up.

Employing a textual analysis within an auteur theory framework, this thesis examines Frederick Wiseman's films At Berkeley (2013), National Gallery (2014), and Ex Libris (2017) and the different ways in which they reflect on the theme of time. The National Gallery, University of California at Berkeley, and the New York Public Library all share a fundamental common purpose: the preservation and circulation of "truth" through time. Whether it be artistic, scientific, or historical truth, these institutions act as cultural and historical safe-keepers for future generations. Wiseman explores these themes related to time and truth by juxtaposing oppositional binary motifs such as time/timelessness, progress/repetition, and reality/fiction. These are also Wiseman's most self-reflexive films, acting as a reflection on his past filmmaking career as well as a meditation on the value these films might have for future generations. Finally, Wiseman's reflection on the nature of time through these films are connected to the ideas of French philosopher Henri Bergson.

FLAT! immerses us into the life and mindset of a Flat-earther who eagerly evangelizes the discoveries he and other Flat-earthers claim to have made. With his car clad in flat-earth messages, he travels around the country provoking discussions with curious bystanders and debating scientists. While he thrives in this pursuit, it is not without its costs.

This thesis examines how the concept of an auteur (author of a film) has developed within contemporary Hollywood and popular culture. Building on concepts from Timothy Corrigan, this thesis adapts the ideas of the author and the commercial auteur to examine how director Christopher Nolan's name, and film work, has become branded as "realist" by the Hollywood film industry and by Nolan's consistent self-promotion. Through recurring signatures of "realism," such as, cinematic realism (immersive filmic techniques), technical realism (practical effects and actual locations), subjective realism (spectator access to a character's point of view), psychological realism (relatable motivations) and scientific realism (factual science), Nolan's work has become a recognizable and commoditized brand. Like many modern-day auteurs, Nolan himself has been used as a commodity to generate interest to his working methods and to appeal audiences to his studio films. Analyzing each of Christopher Nolan's films along with the industrial and cultural factors surrounding them, a method for understanding contemporary auteurism in Hollywood is presented. Through a consideration of extra-textual components, including promotional featurette's and journalistic interviews with Nolan, as well as his film crew, this thesis will explore how Nolan might be considered a template for a future of auteur branding.

Mineola is a poetic, observational, immersive documentary centered in the town of Mineola, Texas. The film provides an intimate, first person perspective of different locations in the town as well as underlying subversive beliefs and traditions. The film’s authoritative perspective guides the viewer not only in a direction of observation but personal connection to nostalgia of small communities.

Visual impairment/blindness is not often discussed in a media space, and the community is often left out and forgotten otherwise in the course of history. Through documentary filmmaking, Consider the View (La Vue) provides an artistic exploration of blindness by using the camera as optical power and other forms of art. Viewers experience a new perspective of what it means to be visually impaired.