Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection

The recent films of both Spike Lee and Adam McKay have been explicitly political in their respective thematic focuses. The former’s Chi-Raq (2015) adapted an ancient Greek comedy into a commentary on the state of violence in America’s inner-cities and more recent BlacKkKlansman (2018) adapted the memoir of a black police officer’s infiltration into a local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. The latter’s The Big Short (2015) adapted Michael Lewis’ bestselling book on the 2008 Financial Crisis into a farcical satire of economic greed, while his next film, Vice (2018), took a similarly scathing approach in depicting the life of former vice president Dick Cheney. While both McKay and Lee have their own unique filmmaking styles, their approach in these four films reveals both filmmakers to be working in the ideological tradition of postmodernism. These directors’ revival of postmodern aesthetic strategies in the 21st century has resulted in sophisticated artistic statements that cut through the political apathy and nihilism of our day. Their fast-paced films, saturated with paradoxes, allusions, and meta-commentaries, manage to keep today’s media-savvy audiences on edge and in a state of unstable equilibrium. This project argues that while both directors are fascinated by the deconstructionist potential that postmodern aesthetic strategies present, a key difference emerges when analyzing their respective political projects: while Lee fully embodies the postmodern mindset in both his narrative structures and thematic insights, McKay’s desire to persuade the audience to take a passionate stand ultimately makes his art transcend the traditional postmodernist stance of neutral, non-judgmental, or ironic acceptance of multiple truths. By comparing Lee’s approach to one of the most popular filmmakers of the day in McKay, this project situates Lee’s canonical style in the modern, ultra-partisan moment.

The portrayal of those with mental health disorders in film and television, particularly those with disorders that label them as psychopaths, have often been overlooked. It is all too common for mental health disorders to be romanticized, dramatized, or simply depicted incorrectly. The historical fiction films Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile and My Friend Dahmer depict serial killers Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer respectively, and while depict historical events to a degree of accuracy, still take creative liberties. The proper definition of psychopathy must be analyzed more and the reason why films about psychopaths are popular with audiences must be as well.

Recreating the Magic of Studio Ghibli is a creative project dedicated to recreating the imagery (and magic) of iconic Studio Ghibli films using costuming, props, set design, illustration, and photography.The project melds professional and personal interests, photography and cosplay, to create a gallery of nearly 200 images, with 80 or so direct recreations, inspired five films: Howl’s Moving Castle, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Ponyo, the Cat Returns, and Spirited Away. These images were shared in print (in a photo book) and in a digital gallery (ghofer.myportfolio.com/home).

This thesis evaluates how films from Western Europe portray the social, political and economic degradation that allows the American influence to rise leading up to the Cold War. Specifically, this thesis evaluates classic films from Weimar Germany, the Soviet Union, post-fascist Italy and post-Vichy France as historical and cultural artifacts that depict the harsh conditions of postwar life and how American influence revitalized daily European life. While the American influence (defined as the support of democracy, technological modernization and a capitalist economy) was supported by many struggling Europeans who looked to the United States as a standard to rebuild, critics from each country viewed American influence as a threat to the stability of national independence which they sought to maintain as recovery balanced postwar society.

An entire decade of films that emerged from the Hollywood system during the blockbuster era of the 1980s is often summed up as one marked by a “curious and disturbing phenomenon of children’s films conceived and marketed largely for adults — films that construct the adult spectator as a child, or, more precisely, as a childish adult, an adult who would like to be a child.” If it is possible, as film theorist Siegfried Kracauer proposed, that “in recording the visible world — whether current reality or an imaginary universe — films … provide clues to hidden mental processes,” what are we to deduce about the mental processes of the American public who would pay to sit in a movie theater and watch Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) or Rambo: First Blood (1982) for multiple viewings? In addressing this questions it may be helpful to turn again to Krakauer, who reminds us that a box office “hit may cater only to one of many co-existing [mass] demands, and not even a very specific one,” and that even if one could draw conclusions about the “peculiar mentality of a nation” by analyzing the “pictorial and narrative motifs” of box office hits, this “by no means implies a fixed national character.” This is a key insight because it implies a diverse national character composed of mass demands that remain unmet by the “children’s films” produced for adults which remain emblematic of Hollywood during the 1980s. In this thesis, I argue that the mainstream Hollywood film Beverly Hills Cop contradicts this notion because it employs sophisticated strategies to work as resistance against the dominant American cultural ideologies of the mid-1980s. I briefly contextualize the film in its historical and cultural setting. Then, I analyze three narrative aspects of the film. First, I begin with the various interactions Eddie Murphy’s character Axel Foley has with several “gatekeepers” throughout the film. Next, I analyze a scene in which Foley is assaulted by Sgt. Taggart of the Beverly Hills Police Department. Finally, I analyze Foley’s relationships with the supporting characters Mikey and Jenny. Beverly Hills Cop is one of the most popular and successful American films of the 1980s. Its subversiveness suggests the possibility that a host of other popular films from the decade are similarly sophisticated. This points to the need for a reexamination of a decade of American cinema that has been cast as “children’s films conceived and marketed largely for adults.”

A Conversation on Stuttering is a documentary film that is aimed at raising awareness about stuttering. Still not fully understood by modern research, stuttering (stammering in the UK) is a diagnosis often accompanied by years of ridicule, shame, and misconceptions. We set out to interview people who stutter, researchers, and clinicians alike to gain insight into the impact stuttering can have. Our participants in this documentary included four people who stutter, two clinicians, and 2 researchers (one of them being a person who stutters). The questions asked ranged from topics of physical and emotional aspects of stuttering to therapy experiences and research on what causes stuttering. From the mix of genuine, sometimes emotional, responses, the film captures flowing conversation on a range of experiences had by our interviewees. Through these responses, we hope to open further dialogue about the themes of identity, understanding our differences, and perspectives that can make a more accepting world.