Exorcism Cinema Book Published

Here it is! The Tensions in Exorcism Cinema project began in 2013, when my partner Christopher J. Olson (Seems Obvious to Me) and I watched the film The Possession and noted how common it seemed for women to be the victim of possession who needed to be saved through exorcism. We wondered, is that true of […]

Pop Culture Lens on They Live

In the twenty-third episode of The Pop Culture Lens podcast, Christopher and I welcome back friend of the podcast Joe Belfeuil to discuss John Carpenter’s 1988 cult classic They Live and how the film seems as relevant if not more now. The short story the film is based on can be found on this website. […]

Virtual World Television and Interactive Television

This is the end result of the work I have been doing with Pooky Amsterdam. This paper is the write-up of the presentation Avatars, Audiences and Interactive Television. I do not think there is enough in this paper to make pursuing publication worthwhile, but I do hope to use the categorizations of the three types […]

From Reaffirming to Challenging Traditions: A critical comparison of The Last Exorcism and The Last Exorcism Part II

Christopher Olson and I presented our first analysis for the exorcism cinema project at this year’s Midwest Popular Culture Association conference. We subsequently wrote the presentation as a paper that would go in a book we are developing. We just submitted the book proposal last night, and now this morning you can read this analysis […]

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 […]

In Defense of Fans via Fractured Fandom

In defense of fans and fandom, I want to make clear that I would not argue that fractured fandom happens all the time or involves a majority of the population of any particular fandom. What I would say about fractured fandom is that it reflects a larger social and cultural issue, in the United States […]

Fan Privilege and Fractured Fandom

Lately, almost every day reveals another story that could be related to a phenomenon I have been discussing on this blog: fractured fandom. Just within the past week, we have had stories about Men’s Rights Activists being misogynists in video gaming communities (here and here), a consideration of how the generation gap is causing problems […]

The Fetishistic Turn in My Little Pony

This blog post originally appeared at Clearance Bin Review almost a year ago, in consideration for the then upcoming release of the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic movie Equestria Girls. Given my research on that topic, I decided to bring it here as well, under the umbrella that is the fractured fandom project. Almost […]

The Study of Gendered Media Engagings (Part 2): Defining Gender

This is the second part of my dissertation’s first chapter. The first part was on defining gendered media engagings. Theoretical constructions of gender In order to properly begin a discussion on the theoretical approach being employed in this study, it is necessary to define what is meant by the gendering process. The concept of gender […]

The Rise of Hentai in America, Part 2

[In part 1 of this 2006 women studies paper, I discussed what hentai is and how it has grown in consumption in the United States; so if you are first entering this report via this part, you should pop on over there first. In this part of the report, I compare hentai to live action […]