Language

What Does It Mean to Go Super Saiyan: Gender Identity and Fandom in the Toonami Release of Dragon Ball Z (1998-2003) (open access)

What Does It Mean to Go Super Saiyan: Gender Identity and Fandom in the Toonami Release of Dragon Ball Z (1998-2003)

The intention of this thesis is to analyze the representations of masculinity in the anime series Dragon Ball Z as it aired on Cartoon Network's programming block Toonami, specifically the nature in which they were framed and how oppositional interpretations in the fandom became prevalent as a result. The series emphasizes the evolution of its central characters Goku, Vegeta, and Gohan into performing a sensitive masculinity, but there are a prevalence of images in the series that discredit this. Similarly, the way the series was advertised on Toonami placed emphasis on images of superficial violence and reinforced the masculinity that the series was attempting to move beyond. Understanding the ways fans have interpreted Dragon Ball Z on Toonami helps reveal that there is much more to a media text's influence than its themes and representations of gender.
Date: August 2021
Creator: Liverett, Nicholas
System: The UNT Digital Library

The Changing Role of On-Air Women Journalists: Journalists on Local Television News and Digital Influencers on Instagram

This thesis looks at how women journalists are now also digital influencers on Instagram. It analyzes the gendered expectations of women journalists that are also included on their professional Instagram accounts.
Date: August 2021
Creator: Lara, Sarah
System: The UNT Digital Library
Crying for Change: Examining the Use of Period Melodrama and the Melodramatic Mode in Contemporary Queer Representation (open access)

Crying for Change: Examining the Use of Period Melodrama and the Melodramatic Mode in Contemporary Queer Representation

This thesis illustrates how Melodrama and the melodramatic mode have been adapted within contemporary cinema as both a means of commenting on prior LGBTQI representation, and of exposing mainstream audiences to the issues still faced by many within this spectrum. Through my analyses of Carol (2015), Brokeback Mountain (2005), and A Single Man (2009), I examine how filmmakers have drawn on Melodrama as both an aesthetic form, and as a reference to the broader field of generic history and criticism which ground it as a subversive form of societal critique. By focusing specifically on how these three films portray ideological issues of gender, stereotyping, parenthood, aging, and personal shame, my thesis argues that these films are making a commentary on the damaging effects of these discourses on broader society. I also simultaneously question whether the Period Melodrama as a genre can ever fully escape the conservative nature of this form, as well as the implications of continuing to portray those on the LGBTQI spectrum as victims.
Date: August 2021
Creator: Bonthuys, Justin
System: The UNT Digital Library
King of the Merchandise: How Showa Era Paratexts Forever Changed the Godzilla Franchise (open access)

King of the Merchandise: How Showa Era Paratexts Forever Changed the Godzilla Franchise

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.
Date: May 2021
Creator: Cooper, Dalton
System: The UNT Digital Library
Chronicle of the Online Culture Wars: Reactionary Affective Publics in Neoliberal Postmodernity (open access)

Chronicle of the Online Culture Wars: Reactionary Affective Publics in Neoliberal Postmodernity

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. …
Date: May 2021
Creator: Montalvo, David Rafael
System: The UNT Digital Library