Christopher Olson (Seems Obvious to Me) and I have been working on a project analyzing the portrayal of exorcism in cinema for the past several years. That project is about to reach fruition with the publication of our book Possessed Women, Haunted States: Cultural Tensions in Exorcism Cinema from Lexington Books this November 15th (https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498519090). In the book we argue that the 1973 film The … Continue reading The Exorcist on Fox
In the twenty-eighth episode of The Pop Culture Lens podcast, Christopher Olson and I welcome back friend of the podcast and unofficial fourth co-host Clelia Sweeney to discuss the classic iconography of Frank Sinatra. In this episode, the conversation considers how Sinatra’s identity changed through the various stages of his career, but also how those changes were under his control as he worked to create a … Continue reading The Pop Culture Lens on Frank Sinatra
I presented this study at my first International Communication Association conference in May 2005. It was the first major study I did by myself in graduate school. I remember making these slides to show on a projector — there was no PowerPoint! I should probably revisit it. Identification with Favorite Media Personae: A phenomenologically-informed conceptualization of audience viewers’ reasons for identifying with mediated fictional and real … Continue reading Identification with Favorite Media Personae
In the twenty-seventh episode of The Pop Culture Lens podcast, Christopher Olson and I welcome back friend of the podcast Joe Belfeuil to discuss Akira Kurosawa’s samurai classic Yojimbo (1961). In this episode, the conversation focuses on the film’s position as a transnational and transcultural pop culture text that acts as a link in a chain connecting different cultures, nations and time periods. Inspired by … Continue reading The Pop Culture Lens on Yojimbo (1961)
I wrote this reflection paper back in 2007 to consider how theories about subjectivation occurs in fandom. Which is to say, how fans of something willingly become identified with that thing they are a fan of. Subjectivation would argue that people passively become something through external ideological forces — that they have no say in becoming that something. I argue that fans have that choice … Continue reading A Subject by Choice: The Agency of Fans
Written in October of 2005… I started researching fan fiction, the creation of stories centered on characters or storylines of preexisting media texts, after I came upon a website for such creators and consumers. Recently one particular phenomenon has attracted my attention: heterosexual relationships wherein a character, depicted in her “home-text” as a strong, independent, modern woman, is willingly submitting to a relationship with a … Continue reading Thoughts on Sex in FanFic
In the twenty-sixth episode of The Pop Culture Lens podcast, Christopher Olson and I welcome friend of the podcast and return guest, Aaron Kashtan, to discuss the immensely popular hit from the early 21st century, Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005-2008). In this episode – which at times features poor audio due to issues with Skype, for which the co-hosts apologize – Aaron and I address … Continue reading The Pop Culture Lens on Avatar: The Last Airbender
