Challenging Race and Gender Roles, One Photo at a Time
Florestine Perrault Collins escaped the bounds of prescribed gender roles and racial segregation to run a successful photography studio in 1920s New Orleans.
Can Fan Hashtag Campaigns Stop the “Bury Your Gays” Trope?
Organized fan hashtag campaigns put pressure on the entertainment industry to improve their writing for and treatment of LGBTQ+ characters.
The Living Dead Embody Our Worst Fears
Zombie movies are scary fun, but they also help us examine our anxieties about contagious disease and unstoppable chaos.
Film and TV Ratings in the Streaming Age
We've got Netflix, AppleTV, YouTube, and Prime literally in the palms of our hands. Do conventional movie and television rating systems matter to us?
How “Talkies” Disrupted Movies for Deaf People
The years of silent films are sometimes described as a "golden era" in the cultural history of the American Deaf community.
How Tumblr Helps Youth Continue to Be Seen And Heard
Tumblr may be obsolete for the first generation or two of Internet users, but Gen Z has taken it on as a platform for representation online.
Batman: A Hero or a New ‘Mr. Hyde’?
The parallels between Bruce Wayne/Batman and Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde are examined through the lenses of Gothic literature and psychological symbolism.
The Laugh Track: Loathe It or Love It
The use of a laugh track began with radio, and was taken up by the new medium of television in 1950. Both viewers and critics have loathed it ever since.
How Film Ads Were Part of the Fight Against Segregation
In the Jim Crow era, Black film theaters were left out of the "first-run" distribution channels. Theater owners used creativity to attract their audiences.
The Slap That Changed American Film-Making
When Sidney Poitier slapped a white murder suspect on screen, it changed how the stories of Black Americans were portrayed on film.