{"title":"Revolting Animation: The Hierarchy of Masculinities in the Representation of Race and Male Same-Sex Desire in Adult Cartoons","authors":"Irene Fubara-Manuel","doi":"10.31165/NK.2017.103.517","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31165/NK.2017.103.517","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the representations of race and male same-sex desire portrayed by black gay male characters on the adult animated television show, The Boondocks (2005). Centralizing its analysis of The Boondocks as a canonical text of black gay representation within animation, this paper highlights the signs of the male matriarch, booty warrior, and homothug and their iterations in three other animated TV shows—The Cleveland Show (2009), American Dad! (2005), and Chozen (2014). This article posits that these signs connote the ideology of hegemonic masculinity and its racial ordering. Drawing on Halberstam’s (2011) ‘revolting animation’, Ngai’s (2005) ‘animatedness’, and Wells’ (1998) ‘hierarchies of masculinities’, this article addresses these contradicting signs of black gay masculinities within the aforementioned animated television shows, situating them within respective sexual and racial politics in the United States.","PeriodicalId":299414,"journal":{"name":"Networking Knowledge: Journal of the MeCCSA Postgraduate Network","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114922394","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Camping Outside the Magic Kingdom’s Gates: The Power of Femslash in the Disney Fandom","authors":"Kodi Maier","doi":"10.31165/NK.2017.103.514","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31165/NK.2017.103.514","url":null,"abstract":"Walt Disney Studios has long been considered the curator and creator of the American fairy tale canon, establishing the tacit narratives that reflect the United States’ unique set of values, which are then disseminated throughout the Western world. As such, the fairy tales, myths, and legends the studio chooses to animate have enormous influence in arbitrating who does and does not belong in Western society. Because Disney’s canon representation of queer women in these narratives has been non-existent, many queer female fans feel they are othered, obscured, and erased in real life. Not content to simply wait for such recognition, these Disney fans have rallied together to create their own positive representation, lovingly cutting and stitching characters from Disney’s animated texts to create femslash narratives that satisfy their desire to see themselves reflected in the films they love. In other words, in a society that rejects and discriminates against queer female relationships, Disney femslash fans poach Disney’s animated canon in order to create a space that validates their queer identities.","PeriodicalId":299414,"journal":{"name":"Networking Knowledge: Journal of the MeCCSA Postgraduate Network","volume":"30 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126922784","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"‘We Are Not Things’: Infertility, Reproduction, and Rhetoric of Control in Avengers: Age of Ultron and Mad Max: Fury Road","authors":"E. Rowson","doi":"10.31165/NK.2017.103.515","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31165/NK.2017.103.515","url":null,"abstract":"Pregnancy occupies an uncertain position in Hollywood cinema, and discussions of infertility are notably absent. Indeed, two blockbusters (Avengers: Age of Ultron and Mad Max: Fury Road) invested in the politics and rhetoric of reproduction met with disparate critical and popular opinion. This article will examine the potential reasons for this, whilst establishing ideological parity between the films.","PeriodicalId":299414,"journal":{"name":"Networking Knowledge: Journal of the MeCCSA Postgraduate Network","volume":"44 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129695260","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Hidden Sex: Representations of Intersex People in Circus and Sideshow Novels","authors":"N. Frisby","doi":"10.31165/NK.2017.103.512","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31165/NK.2017.103.512","url":null,"abstract":"Despite being the hidden sex in society, intersex people with ambiguous genitalia are visible in a number of circus and sideshow novels. These characters are often used as plot devices, performing a stable gender identity whilst concealing their intersex status for the sake of the plot. They are portrayed as deceptive and licentious, their identities placing them outside of the sex and gender binaries and leaving them dehumanised. It is only in Pantomime by Laura Lam that the possibility of an alternative portrayal is glimpsed, although questions regarding the sex and gender binaries and non-normative sexuality remain.","PeriodicalId":299414,"journal":{"name":"Networking Knowledge: Journal of the MeCCSA Postgraduate Network","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123318809","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sex and Sexualities in Popular Culture: A Networking Knowledge Special Issue","authors":"M. Popova, Bethan Jones","doi":"10.31165/NK.2017.103.513","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31165/NK.2017.103.513","url":null,"abstract":"In November 2015, we held a symposium on the theme of Sex & Sexualities in Popular Culture at the Watershed, Bristol. Having met at a conference on popular music fandom and the public sphere, earlier that year, the symposium was a result of our shared interest in, and work on, sex and sexualities in popular culture. Bethan has worked extensively on antifandom of Fifty Shades of Grey and the moral panics surrounding the ‘irrational’ behavior of One Direction and Twilight fans. Milena’s research focuses on sexual consent in erotic fan fiction, and they have a keen interest in how media and culture interact with the discursive construction of sex, sexualities, and consent. Through the symposium, then, we wanted toafford a platform for postgraduate researchers and creative practitioners exploring the nuances of sex and sexualities within popular culture to meet and share ideas. Of course, the terms ‘sex’, ‘sexualities’ and ‘popular culture’ are not fixed or immutable and while we included suggestions for what papers might examine, the abstracts we received covered a range of topics, from literature and computer games to social media and fan fiction, and advertising to social activism. The symposium was well received both in person and online. We encouraged attendees to live tweet using the hashtag #popsex15, and discussions took place both at the Watershed and on Twitter about consent, the normative depictions of sex andrelationships in popular culture, misogynistic hate speech and intersex characters in literature. The amount of engagement with the ideas and themes coming out of the symposium suggested that a deeper analysis was needed, and this special issue of Networking Knowledge - Journal of the MeCCSA-PGN attempts to engage in more detail with some of these.","PeriodicalId":299414,"journal":{"name":"Networking Knowledge: Journal of the MeCCSA Postgraduate Network","volume":"33 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117223378","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Honey, You Know I Can’t Hear You When You Aren’t in the Room: Key Female Filmmakers Prove the Importance of Having a Female in the Writing Room","authors":"Rosanne Welch","doi":"10.31165/NK.2017.102.509","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31165/NK.2017.102.509","url":null,"abstract":"The need for more diversity in Hollywood films and television is currently being debated by scholars and content makers alike, but where is the proof that more diverse writers will create more diverse material? Since all forms of art are subjective, there is no perfect way to prove the importance of having female writers in the room except through samples of qualitative case studies of various female writers across the history of film. By studying the writing of several female screenwriters – personal correspondence, interviews and their writing for the screen – this paper will begin to prove that having a female voice in the room has made a difference in several prominent films. It will further hypothesise that greater representation can only create greater opportunity for more female stories and voices to be heard. \u0000 Research for my PhD dissertation ‘Married: With Screenplay’ involved the work of several prominent female screenwriters across the first century of filmmaking, including Anita Loos, Dorothy Parker, Frances Goodrich and Joan Didion. In all of their memoirs and other writings about working on screenplays, each mentioned the importance of (often) being the lone woman in the room during pitches and during the development of a screenplay. Goodrich summarised all their experiences concisely when she wrote, ‘I’m always the only woman working on the picture and I hold the fate of the women [characters] in my hand… I’ll fight for what the gal will or will not do, and I can be completely unfeminine about it.’ Also, the rise of female directors, such as Barbra Streisand or female production executives, such as Kathleen Kennedy, prove that one of the greatest assets to having a female voice in the room is the ability to invite other women inside. Therefore, this paper contributes to the scholarship on women in film and to authorship studies.","PeriodicalId":299414,"journal":{"name":"Networking Knowledge: Journal of the MeCCSA Postgraduate Network","volume":"30 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114284621","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Re-Configuring the New Women - Female Screenwriters and Street Films in Weimar Republic","authors":"Juliane Scholz","doi":"10.31165/NK.2017.102.507","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31165/NK.2017.102.507","url":null,"abstract":"This article traces the history of early female screenwriters in Germany and highlights the influence of professional female screenwriter Ruth Goetz and her movie Die Dirnentragodie (also: Women without Men, 1927). It shows how the movie represented certain political, cultural and legal debates on the New Woman and reconfigured the myth by implementing ambivalent gender roles in the plot. Furthermore, the representation of the role of female sex workers in Weimar society in Weimar street films is described and the way of transforming cultural and political discourses about gender equality into silent movies is discussed. Ruth Goetz and her professional screenwriting work is revisited through the lens of New Film History and the importance of the early professional female screenwriters’ contribution in Weimar cinema is underlined.","PeriodicalId":299414,"journal":{"name":"Networking Knowledge: Journal of the MeCCSA Postgraduate Network","volume":"26 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114846394","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Bracketting Noir: Narrative and Masculinity in The Long Goodbye","authors":"K. Barret","doi":"10.31165/nk.2017.102.501","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31165/nk.2017.102.501","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":299414,"journal":{"name":"Networking Knowledge: Journal of the MeCCSA Postgraduate Network","volume":"97 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124703022","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Gender and the Screenplay","authors":"Louise Sawtell, Stayci Taylor","doi":"10.31165/nk.2017.102.502","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31165/nk.2017.102.502","url":null,"abstract":"While plenty has been written about gender representation on screen, much less has been written about gender in regards to screenplays. Emerging scholarly research around screenwriting practice often focuses on questions of the craft – is screenwriting a technical or creative act? – and whether or not the screenplay’s only destiny is to disappear into the film (Carriere, cited in Maras 1999, 147). Thus there might be room for further exploration into screenwriters and their practice – to ask who (in regards to gender) is writing screenplays, especially considering the assertion of Dancyger and Rush that the three-act structure (a dominant screenwriting practice) is ‘designed to suggest the story tells itself’ (2013, 38). Moreover, questions of gender representation on screen might be considered from the perspective of screenwriting practice, given this same ubiquitous structure means that barriers, including those related to gender, ‘are still presented as secondary to the transcendence of individual will’ (Dancyger and Rush 2013, 36). This special issue of Networking Knowledge, then, brings together a collection of scholarly perspectives on screenwriting theory and practice through the lens of gender.","PeriodicalId":299414,"journal":{"name":"Networking Knowledge: Journal of the MeCCSA Postgraduate Network","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128782543","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Hidden a-gender?","authors":"Stayci Taylor","doi":"10.31165/NK.2017.102.508","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31165/NK.2017.102.508","url":null,"abstract":"This article is concerned with the ways in which a screenplay might be ‘gendered’ or gender identified and, more specifically, how screenwriting practice is informed by, and performs, notions of gender. It asks, in what ways might screenplays be gendered? What is the role of gender in the individual screenwriter’s own practice? And how might cultural assumptions around gender be enacted by and within screenwriting practices (especially mainstream script development processes) and discourse? The article discusses the potentially gendered biases of mainstream screenwriting frameworks (and the how-to market disseminating the same), and then the ways in which this impacts, in particular, the practices, perspectives and representations of women coming to the page, and also briefly examines the tactic of writing for gender-blind casting, concluding that this liberal feminist strategy does not address the inherent cultural assumptions at play in script development processes. Ultimately, the article argues that in cultural system that are inherently gendered, then gendered assumptions may underpin the commercial mainstream script development process.","PeriodicalId":299414,"journal":{"name":"Networking Knowledge: Journal of the MeCCSA Postgraduate Network","volume":"27 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121667307","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}