Browsing by Author "Blue, Morgan Genevieve"
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Item Asking for it : girls' sexual subjectivity in contemporary U.S. cinema(2007-05) Blue, Morgan Genevieve; Kearney, Mary Celeste, 1962-How might American narrative cinema shift from oppressive objectification to positive, healthy female sexual subjectivities in films addressing and depicting adolescent girls? As more women make films both within the Hollywood system and independently, the potential increases for greater creative energy to be devoted to re-imagining and legitimizing girls’ sexuality on film. Fighting Hollywood censors is a significant battle for women filmmakers, but making films independently is also a viable, even powerful, option. It is beneficial to fight both within patriarchal systems and outside them to effect change, and now, more than ever, women and girls have access to the technologies, skills, and understanding to alter public discourse about girls’ sexuality and take control of their own representations. This project aims to point out just a few examples from commercial Hollywood, independent and DIY cinemas in which women have worked to position girl characters as active and desiring rather than as passive and desirable. Through ideological and narrative analyses of Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Smooth Talk, Mary Jane’s Not a Virgin Anymore, and Coming Soon, coupled with discussions of their female directors’ struggles with Hollywood patriarchy and American society’s gendered double standard when it comes to youth sexualities, I hope to shed light on the need for women to make films that offer positive representations of girls’ sexual subjectivities.Item Performing 21st-century girlhood : girls, postfeminist discourse, and the Disney star machine(2013-08) Blue, Morgan Genevieve; Kearney, Mary Celeste, 1962-"Performing 21st-Century Girlhood: Girls, Postfeminist Discourse, and the Disney Star Machine," explores the economic and discursive functions of contemporary girlhood within Disney Channel's talent-driven transmedia franchises. Ideological, discursive, and narrative textual analyses of Disney Channel programs and paratexts are augmented by examination of the corporate motives and dominant discourses reproduced by Disney personnel in annual reports and in popular and trade publications referencing Disney's stars and girl-driven franchises. This exploration of girls' visibility as Disney performers, media producers, and public citizens brings several disciplines into conversation with one another, addressing issues in girls' cultural studies, media industries scholarship, celebrity studies, and theories of postfeminism. I take an intersectional feminist and critical cultural studies approach to media texts and meaning-making, with particular attention to power relations and cultural contexts. The political and economic aspects of this research demand that I also work to illuminate the significance of media industry logics within the production and distribution of media for girl audiences. I argue that the Walt Disney Company has a vested interest in reproducing certain postfeminist and subjectifying discourses of girlhood, which have become integral to its success in an ever-expanding web of media and consumer markets. While Disney Channel's girl-driven franchises constitute the case studies, my analysis reaches beyond the clear focus on gender and age to theorize girls' increasing visibility in the context of contemporary consumer culture and issues of postracism, citizenship, subjectification, and agency--issues that require continued interrogation as Disney distributes and expands its franchise properties globally.