This thesis examines the various "signature" threads that are present within the "oeuvre" of the Hollywood filmmaker Adrian Lyne. The goal of this thesis is to showcase both how and why Lyne can be thought of as an auteur and to open up his films to new and previously unexplored meanings. Lyne's eight feature films are analyzed in-depth individually and in comparison to one another from a variety of theoretical frameworks and points of focus in each of the body chapters.

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.

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.

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. …

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) is a massive ongoing franchise that began as a 1984 self-published comic book created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. Its history is intertwined with the creators' rights movement and the Creator's Bill of Rights (CBR), which rejected work-for-hire contracts, wherein creative laborers—creative authors—cede authorial control of their labor. Because the production of comic books and their franchises is highly collaborative, intellectual property (IP) rights are often consolidated in a single rights holder—a corporate author—via work-for-hire contracts. Eastman and Laird, as both creative and corporate authors, initially maintained strict control of TMNT licensees, but allowed their employees to retain IP rights over creative contributions to TMNT. However, in 1992, Eastman and Laird sent retroactive work-for-hire contracts to all current and former employees. This TMNT case study illustrates how the CBR represented the conflicting interests of publishers and creative laborers and ultimately reinforced the individualistic view of authorship that undergirds work-for-hire doctrine. Additionally, because IP legal infrastructure uses individualistic discourse to consolidate control of media franchises in one entity that allows authorized individuals access to a shared database of creative expressions that workers can borrow from or add to, media franchises resemble folklore and are made …

The relationship between France and Hollywood is rooted in a deep history that dates to the late 1800s. French Cultural elites and policymakers have regulated Hollywood to prevent the American ideals that are depicted in Hollywood movies from infringing on French culture, restricting free trade distribution practices to limit audiences' accessibility of imported, non-French media. These import regulations have strengthened French exceptionalism, which is an ideal that recognizes France as being superior to any other culture, region, or market. Yet, the impacts of globalization and the rise of technology have shifted media consumption habits and forced France to regulate new modes of distribution, like digital streaming platforms, to continue to protect the French culture, film industry, and commerce. In 2014, when Silicon Valley-based streaming platform Netflix, entered France, the principles of French exceptionalism impacted the reception of the Hollywood-focused platform. Policymakers imposed a tax system which requires internationally based streamers to invest in the French media industry. Netflix invested their tax into local language, teen productions to target a demographic whose ideals were less rooted in French exceptionalism. Additionally, Netflix utilized the affordances of Instagram to visually appeal to teen users when marketing the local language productions Mortel (2019-2021) and …