Category: Gender Studies
-
The Unborn: Exorcism, the Holocaust, and Twins
Comic book fans will undoubtedly recognize the name David S. Goyer. For better or worse, he has become synonymous with Warner Brothers’ cinematic adaptations of their DC Comics titles. Although he gained notoriety as the writer for a Marvel cinematic adaptation, Blade (1998), his most successful writing gigs have been with Christopher Nolan on the…
-
Pop Culture Lens Podcast Episode 4: Bewitched (1964-1972)
Our fourth episode for the Pop Culture Lens podcast is up, in which we are joined by friend of the podcast Megan Stemm-Wade to discuss the importance of the American TV sitcom Bewitched (1964-1972). In this episode, we cover many aspects of how the series was referencing the beginnings of second wave feminism while also…
-
The Pop Culture Lens Episode 3: Carnival of Souls
Welcome to 2015, the year of Back to the Future II! And to start off the new year, The Pop Culture Lens podcast presents a new episode that takes us back in time to examine how a film made at the beginning of second wave feminism may still be relevant in this third wave feminism…
-
Wrestlers’ Nipples
In the United States, women’s nipples are not allowed to be seen in the media. These natural, life-sustaining features are deemed inappropriate — even to the point where pictures of breastfeeding were banned from Facebook. But men’s nipples, those rather meaningless holdovers from at one point being a female zygote in the womb? Those are…
-
Deliver Us From Evil: The Danger of Possessing Men
As we have repeatedly seen during this project we are calling Tensions in Exorcism Cinema, there appears to be a narrative made popular by the success of The Exorcist (1973). There is a reason we like to say that the 1973 movie is the one that started it all, even though there had been films…
-
5 Things People Believe About Demons, Exorcisms and The Spirit World
As All Hallow’s Eve approaches, and the dark veil between the land of the living and the land of the dead lists, we in the Western world turn to concerns of all things supernatural. But it is not just Halloween that propels people to be worried about how the spiritual plan can impede in this…
-
Legion: Or, the Exorcism Movie that Makes Me Sad for Roddy Piper
I recently came to be interested in professional wrestling. For awhile there — as in most of my life — I thought wrestling to be beneath me, an entertainment that degrades those who do it and those who watch it. I was wrong: there are many layers to this sports entertainment, and it is quite…
-
Feminist Tensions in The Last Exorcism and The Last Exorcism Part 2
At the Midwest Popular Culture Association‘s 2014 conference, Chris and I presented the first analysis from our exorcism cinema project. The presentation is titled: Feminist tensions in exorcism cinema: Case study analysis and comparison of The Last Exorcism and The Last Exorcism Part II. What follows are the notes for the presentation, which constitute an…
-
Sir Anthony Hopkins Performs an Exorcism in The Rite
Sir Anthony Hopkins is one of those interesting actors. Best known as an incredible actor throughout his entire career, sometimes he will do movies that are, for lack of better words, slumming it – doing a movie for a paycheck. Freejack. Alexander. The Edge. The Wolfman. Red 2. To be fair, I cannot really blame…
-
Valhalla Rising and the Demythologization of Male Violence
In a reworking of some analysis from his Master’s thesis, Christopher J. Olson presents his analysis of Nicholas Winding Refn’s existential film Valhalla Rising. In his analysis, Chris argues that Refn portrays a violent version of masculinity in order to critique globalized popular culture’s tendency to portray men in such rigid and limited ways. Read…
It's Playing, Just With Research 