Musicals and the Margins: African-Americans, Women, and Queerness in the 21st Century American Musical (open access)

Musicals and the Margins: African-Americans, Women, and Queerness in the 21st Century American Musical

This thesis provides an overview of the various ways in which select marginalized identities are represented within the twenty-first century American musical film. The first intention of this thesis is to identify, define, and organize the different subgenres that appear within the twenty-first century iterations of the musical film. The second, and principal, intention of this thesis is to explore contemporary representations of African-Americans, women, and queerness throughout the defined subgenres. Within this thesis, key films are analyzed from within each subgenre to understand these textual representations.
Date: December 2018
Creator: Wellborn, Brecken
System: The UNT Digital Library
"Her Name Was" (open access)

"Her Name Was"

Her Name Was is an examination of the oppression of transgender people in a society that is built on the nominalization of cisgender people, those who gender matchers their sex assigned at birth, and how this oppression lends itself to violence. In the summer of 2015, the body of Shade Schuler, an African American transgender woman, was found in a field outside of Dallas, Texas. Ms. Shade is part of an alarming epidemic of escalating levels of targeted violence against the transgender community. This documentary pulls back the curtain as it captures the feelings and struggles of the transgender community as they attempt to navigate and survive in a cis dominating society.
Date: August 2018
Creator: Almendariz, Sergio E
System: The UNT Digital Library
"World Life" (open access)

"World Life"

During this time of interest and uncertainty in immigration, a foreigner seeking an education, home, and career wonders how welcoming America really is. This documentary film focuses on how the organization known as World Life is involved in helping international students in terms of language, accommodation, and religion. It follows an organization that is willing to open up and welcome them into the community.
Date: August 2018
Creator: Ingabire, Cyuzuzo
System: The UNT Digital Library
Hauntology Man (open access)

Hauntology Man

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.
Date: May 2018
Creator: Wright, Adam Michael
System: The UNT Digital Library
Legacy of Love: A Queer Dallas (open access)

Legacy of Love: A Queer Dallas

"Legacy of Love" follows four members of the Dallas LGBTQA+ community and shows their perspectives on the community's past, present and future, focusing on the community has accomplished so far, and the work, especially related to race, that lies ahead.
Date: August 2017
Creator: Schwarz, Jakob
System: The UNT Digital Library
"Don't Frack with Denton" (open access)

"Don't Frack with Denton"

Don't Frack With Denton chronicles the ground-breaking movement to ban hydraulic fracturing in the city of Denton, Texas by combining observational location shooting with extensive sit-down interviews and carefully negotiated subject-filmmaker relationships to create a safe and comfortable space for thoughtful reflection and criticism of a complex social movement who's activities span several years and many individuals. The result is a long-form documentary that is unapologetically in solidarity with this movement's goals while simultaneously maintaining enough editorial independence and critical distance to allow the activists themselves to honestly evaluate their decision-making, tactics and interpersonal relationships in ways that will provide insight and instruction to similar movements around the country and the world.
Date: May 2017
Creator: Graham, Garrett
System: The UNT Digital Library
"The Eviction" (open access)

"The Eviction"

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.
Date: May 2017
Creator: Galloway, Andrew Reynolds
System: The UNT Digital Library
What's on Tap, Texas? Homebrew to Craft Brew (open access)

What's on Tap, Texas? Homebrew to Craft Brew

"What's on Tap, Texas?" is an exploration of the interrelated worlds of the home brewer and the craft brewer in Texas.
Date: December 2016
Creator: Dobson, Mark D.
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Great Hanging (open access)

The Great Hanging

"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.
Date: May 2016
Creator: Martin, Johnathan Paul
System: The UNT Digital Library
Miz Markley (open access)

Miz Markley

Lisa Markley, a.k.a. "Miz Markley", is a genuinely happy person even if she is not particularly financially successful as a musician. In an effort to validate my own choices as an artist, I chose to follow her. What was intended to be a portrait of a working musician, becomes instead a feminist musical essay film about the transformative power of art making.
Date: May 2016
Creator: Vance, Sharie
System: The UNT Digital Library
Mineola (open access)

Mineola

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.
Date: December 2015
Creator: Cater, Lauren
System: The UNT Digital Library
Texas Paranormalists (open access)

Texas Paranormalists

Texas Pararnormalists mixes participatory and observational styles in an effort to portray a small community of paranormal practitioners who live and work in and around North Texas. These practitioners include psychics, ghost investigators, and other enthusiasts and seekers of the spirit world. Through the documentation of their combined perspectives, Texas Paranormalists renders a portrait of a community of outsiders with a shared belief system and an unshakeable passion for reaching out into the unknown.
Date: December 2015
Creator: Goodman, David
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Best Medicine (open access)

The Best Medicine

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.
Date: May 2015
Creator: Lechler, Ron
System: The UNT Digital Library
"Miss Kathy" (open access)

"Miss Kathy"

Miss Kathy is a documentary film that tells the story of Kathy Griffin-Grinan, a lead recovery coach for prostitution and human trafficking with the Harris County Sheriff’s Office. Her non-profit organization —We’ve Been There, Done That – works in conjunction with law-enforcement to offer the survivors of prostitution a chance at rehabilitation. With endless enthusiasm, she mentors survivors as they struggle to escape a destructive lifestyle. This film also explores the relationship between human trafficking and prostitution, while addressing issues of victimization and exploitation.
Date: May 2015
Creator: Alexander, Jeffrey, 1982-
System: The UNT Digital Library
On the Fence (open access)

On the Fence

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.
Date: December 2014
Creator: Medrano, Estevan
System: The UNT Digital Library