Paper Proposal for PCA/ACA National Conference
The Costume Loves the Superhero: The Essential Nature of the Costume to Identity in the Symbolic World
Because culture and society exists as a complex web of symbolic interactions determined by language, outer wear actually exists as a direct equivalent to the identity of the person wearing the costume. In other words, a person is exactly what he or she appears to be. The uniforms people wear declare who they are within society and further grant the subject a level of social power otherwise unattainable. In order for a person to enjoy any sense of status or power in the symbolic world the donning of a uniform or costume is required.
Today, the effect of the costume exists most obviously in superhero comic books.
Through an examination of Alan Moore’s graphic novel, Watchmen, the fetishistic concept of mask will be shown to reveal identity, deception and ultimately power. The paper will conduct an examination of various degrees of power in relation to the mask centering on three characters from Watchmen: Rorschach who sees his mask as his true face, Nite Owl who believes his mask hides his “true” identity, and Dr. Manhattan who - as a naked superhero - is omnipotent.
Proposal for Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference
Tease Me: The Postmodern Movie Trailer
Theatre-goers flock to the movies early in order to catch the latest trailer flashing across the screen. Movie trailers are the ultimate persuasive text; alive with genre, narrative and star appeal, trailers advertise the latest coming attractions in cinema. Trailers consistently tease and titillate, the two minute structures packed with images from the film spliced with music, dialogue and written text to ultimately persuade the viewer. While the postmodern teaser trailer retains the essence of a traditional trailer (that is to promote an upcoming film), it violently breaks from the defining characteristics comprised mainly of montage and persuasion. I argue that teaser movie trailers embody and exhibit a postmodern rhetorical approach much like the movie poster, ambiguous and vague at best. Postmodern trailers do not suspend disbelief of the diegesis; instead, postmodern trailers are an expression with their own internal logic not directly related to the film’s narrative. The postmodern movie preview (as seen through the teaser trailer) is generally exemplified as unresolved, non-persuasive, and unexplained. Thus, postmodern previews cannot be defined as explicit advertisements or persuasive texts, although they persuade through non-persuasion. Additionally, postmodern previews are aggressively self-reflexive, exercise “high concept” techniques, are not fine tuned and are not concerned with “the edit.” I shall explore how the postmodern movie trailer correlates to a cinephilic, pleasure-obsessed society. With access to nearly any visual element on the Internet, immediate gratification concerning the postmodern trailer is not simple, though; the ephemeral nature of the trailer only adds to the elusive and attractive quality making it the ultimate cinematic tease. This dilemma places the postmodern trailer in a problematic category of cultural and screen studies that I plan to expose through detailed contextual analysis of specific postmodern teaser trailers.
Paper Proposal for a session on Malory at the International Congress on Medieval Studies
Bold Bawdry: A look at Malory's blend of Christianity and pragmatism in his treatment of sexual infidelity
Le Morte D' Arthur has infamously been called, "A tale of bold bawdry and open manslaughter." A careful look at its sixteen infidelities and adulteries, leads one to agree that there is indeed a great deal of bold bawdry in Malory's tales. The sheer number makes the topic into one of the work's major themes.
Malory's treatment of sexual betrayal is consistent throughout his tales, however, it is at odds with the rest of medieval literature. In Le Morte D'Arthur, if a betrayed character is vengeful then he or she is punished in some way. If instead, the character shows mercy to the erring couple, then he or she comes to no harm and usually regains the lost paramour or spouse.
Since this is such an atypical treatment of the subject for the fifteenth century, the questions that require answers are:
By examining the stories of betrayal in Le Morte D'Arthur, the Suite du Merlin, Morte Artu, and the stanzaic "Le Morte Arthur" it becomes apparent that Malory's treatment of infidelity, which is irrespective of rank or gender, is his own. He consistently emphasizes and adds additional infidelities to his original sources. A search for the meaning and causation of these changes leads to an examination of Malory's blend of Christianity and raw pragmatism—a blending of codes familiar to the careful reader of Le Morte D'Arthur.