This paper explores the intersection of female madness and Gothic space in four pieces of Gothic media: Jane Eyre written By Charlotte Brontë, "The Yellow Wallpaper" written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Carrie (1976) directed by Brian De Palma, and Midsommar (2016) directed by Ari Aster. In these texts, female characters find themselves driven “mad,” either by their own design or from outside influences. While the madness presents itself differently in each text, they all share common elements, especially in terms of Gothic space. Each text sees its madwoman affected by the environment around them whether it is explicitly stated in-text or not. Gothic space acts as both a metanarrative on the characters’ lives and emotions, and as literal, physical spaces that the characters inhabit and interact with. Oftentimes, what the character cannot express is told through the environment around her. Feelings of suffocation, misery, entrapment, and repression are represented in and through haunted homes, quasi-asylums, closets, schools, attics, and sun-lit fields. In analyzing all four texts individually and in relation to one another, this paper also argues for the presence of a paradox inherent in the cultural formation of female madness. In each text, all written/created across 200+ years, a common theme emerges. Though the expression of madness for the women in each text is a freeing and liberating experience, they also meet tragic and often violent ends. The madness exhibited in each text is both a response to and an expression of trauma - resulting in either victimization or villainization for the women who succumb to it. The end result depicts women who have been physically, mentally, and emotionally destroyed from their own madness. In freeing themselves, they unknowingly and unintentionally subject themselves to further pain and misery.

This paper will analyze the two films Mississippi Burning and BlacKkKlansman, as well as some of the historical contexts surrounding them, in order to unpack the various aspects of police brutality, protest culture, and ideals of reform shown within. Furthermore, it will investigate the impact of diverging from history on the perception of policing units, and the importance of more accurate narratives like BlacKkKlansman in popular culture. <br/> To find evidence that BlacKkKlansman is a much more accurate narrative regarding law enforcement and the effects that sentiments seen in Mississippi Burning have on modern day events, a comprehensive research analysis was conducted. Both films were watched multiple times and analyzed thoroughly, and further research was done to understand not only the narrative elements of the plot, but how the visual aspects strengthen the arguments both films try to make. Scholarly articles on contexts surrounding the subjects of the film were also analyzed, including topics on the FBI, Martin Luther King Jr, and police brutality. Through this, it became evident that Mississippi Burning overlooked most of the reality of the events the film is loosely based upon in order to present a white savior story, whereas BlacKkKlansman addresses the existing prejudices head on while also showing the relation the events have to a more modern context, specifically surrounding the Trump administration.

In recent years, immigration, especially concerning those individuals immigrating from Central America and Mexico, has become increasingly controversial. Within the last five presidents, policies concerning immigration have shifted. Under President Bill Clinton in 1997, the Flores Settlement, an agreement between immigration activist organizations and the government that created standards for detaining accompanied and unaccompanied minors was made. Following 9/11, in 2005, President George W. Bush increased the amount of money spent on immigration enforcement in an effort to deport more immigrants. President Barack Obama increased the number of deportations from President Bush during his first term. However, in 2014, an already imperfect immigration system was disrupted by an influx of child immigrants. As a result, detention centers were at capacity and unable to accommodate the increasing numbers of immigrants. Child migrants were placed in caged-areas, immigration lawyers and courts quickly became overwhelmed with cases, and children were alone and could barely communicate. This thesis explores the various relationships between accompanied and unaccompanied minors from Central America, the American legal system, and the media and broadcast news outlets’ rhetoric concerning child migrants. Focusing on the ways in which immigrant minors are objectified by the legal system and the framing of immigrants in the media, it is evident that their complex interaction allows for the oppression of the child migrants. Since the American legal system and the media influence and respond to each other, the responsibility of the child migrants’ dehumanization is on both the legal system and the rhetoric of the media and broadcast news outlets.

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.