The Transition of Black One-Dimensional Characters from Film to Video Games
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Re-Presenting Black Masculinities in Ta-Nehisi Coates's
Re-Presenting Black Masculinities in Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me by Asmaa Aaouinti-Haris B.A. (Universitat de Barcelona) 2016 THESIS/CAPSTONE Submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS in HUMANITIES in the GRADUATE SCHOOL of HOOD COLLEGE April 2018 Accepted: ________________________ ________________________ Amy Gottfried, Ph.D. Corey Campion, Ph.D. Committee Member Program Advisor ________________________ Terry Anne Scott, Ph.D. Committee Member ________________________ April M. Boulton, Ph.D. Dean of the Graduate School ________________________ Hoda Zaki, Ph.D. Capstone Advisor STATEMENT OF USE AND COPYRIGHT WAIVER I do authorize Hood College to lend this Thesis (Capstone), or reproductions of it, in total or in part, at the request of other institutions or individuals for the purpose of scholarly research. ii CONTENTS STATEMENT OF USE AND COPYRIGHT WAIVER…………………………….ii ABSTRACT ...............................................................................................................iv DEDICATION………………………………………………………………………..v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………….....vi Chapter 1: Introduction…………………………………………………………….…2 Chapter 2: Black Male Stereotypes…………………………………………………12 Chapter 3: Boyhood…………………………………………………………………26 Chapter 4: Fatherhood……………………………………………………………....44 Chapter 5: Conclusion…………………………………………………………...….63 WORKS CITED…………………………………………………………………….69 iii ABSTRACT Ta-Nehisi Coates’s memoir and letter to his son Between the World and Me (2015)—published shortly after the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement—provides a rich and diverse representation of African American male life which is closely connected with contemporary United States society. This study explores how Coates represents and explains black manhood as well as how he defines his own identity as being excluded from United States society, yet as being central to the nation. Coates’s definition of masculinity is analyzed by focusing on his representations of boyhood and fatherhood. -
The N-Word : Comprehending the Complexity of Stratification in American Community Settings Anne V
Union College Union | Digital Works Honors Theses Student Work 6-2009 The N-word : comprehending the complexity of stratification in American community settings Anne V. Benfield Union College - Schenectady, NY Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalworks.union.edu/theses Part of the Race and Ethnicity Commons, Sociology of Culture Commons, and the Urban Studies and Planning Commons Recommended Citation Benfield, Anne V., "The -wN ord : comprehending the complexity of stratification in American community settings" (2009). Honors Theses. 1433. https://digitalworks.union.edu/theses/1433 This Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Work at Union | Digital Works. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of Union | Digital Works. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The N-Word: Comprehending the Complexity of Stratification in American Community Settings By Anne V. Benfield * * * * * * * * * Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Honors in the Department of Sociology UNION COLLEGE June, 2009 Table of Contents Abstract 3 Introduction 4 Chapter One: Literature Review Etymology 7 Early Uses 8 Fluidity in the Twentieth Century 11 The Commercialization of Nigger 12 The Millennium 15 Race as a Determinant 17 Gender Binary 19 Class Stratification and the Talented Tenth 23 Generational Difference 25 Chapter Two: Methodology Sociological Theories 29 W.E.B DuBois’ “Double-Consciousness” 34 Qualitative Research Instrument: Focus Groups 38 Chapter Three: Results and Discussion Demographics 42 Generational Difference 43 Class Stratification and the Talented Tenth 47 Gender Binary 51 Race as a Determinant 55 The Ambiguity of Nigger vs. -
Mammy Figure
Mammy: A Century of Race, Gender, and Southern Memory Kimberly Wallace-Sanders http://www.press.umich.edu/titleDetailDesc.do?id=170676 The University of Michigan Press INTRODUCTION The “Mammi‹cation” of the Nation: Mammy and the American Imagination Nostalgia is best de‹ned as a yearning for that which we know we have destroyed. —david blight The various incarnations of the mammy ‹gure have had a profound in›uence on American culture. There is virtually no medium that has not paid homage to the mammy in some form or another. In his series “Ameri- can Myths,”for example, artist Andy Warhol included both the mammy and Aunt Jemima, along with Howdy Doody, Uncle Sam, Dracula, and the Wicked Witch of the West (‹gs. 1 and 2).1 In the late 1980s, Italian pho- tographer Olivero Toscani created an advertisement for Benetton featuring a close-up of a white infant nursing at the breast of a headless, dark- skinned black woman wearing a red Shetland sweater (‹g. 3). The adver- tisement was met with unbridled criticism from African Americans, yet it won more advertising awards than any other image in Benetton’s advertis- ing history.2 Today, tourists visiting Lancaster, Kentucky, can tour the for- mer slave plantation of Governor William Owsley, ironically called Pleas- ant Retreat. The restored home features many remnants of the Old South, including a “charming mammy bench,” a combination rocking chair and cradle designed to allow mammies to nurse an infant and rock an additional baby at the same time.3 Diminutive mammy “nipple dolls” made in the 1920s from rubber bottle nipples with tiny white baby dolls cradled in their arms are both a “well-kept secret”and an excellent investment by collectors of southern Americana (‹g. -
African American Contributions to the American Film Industry”
Curriculum Units by Fellows of the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute 1996 Volume III: Race and Representation in American Cinema In Their Own Words: African American Contributions to the American Film Industry” Curriculum Unit 96.03.14 by Gerene Freeman I believe it is safe to say that a large majority of my high school students are avid movie-goers. Most of them, if not all have a VCR in their homes. Amazingly many students are quite sagacious concerning matters pertaining to the blaxploitation films generated in the Sixties. Few, however, realize that African American involvement in film making had its inception as early as 1913. Through this curriculum unit it is my intention to provide high school students, at Cooperative High School for the Arts and Humanities, with an overview of two African American filmmakers and their contributions to film. Oscar Micheaux will be utilized as an example of African American contributions made to the silent era by African American pioneers in the film industry. Matty Rich will be used as an example of contemporary contributions. I have decided to look at Matty Rich as opposed to Spike Lee, John Singleton and/or Julie Dash for very specific reasons. First because he was so close to the age (18) many of my high school students are now when he made his first movie Straight Out of Brooklyn. Secondly, he emerged from an environment similar to that in which many of my student find themselves. Lastly, I believe he could represent for my students a reason to believe it is very possible for them to accomplish the same thing. -
Making Mandingo: Racial Archetypes, Pornography, and Black Male Subjectivity
Making Mandingo: Racial Archetypes, Pornography, and Black Male Subjectivity By Phillip Samuels © 2019 M.A., University of Kansas, 2007 B.A., Emporia State University, 2004 Submitted to the graduate degree program in Communication Studies and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Chair: Dr. Dorothy Pennington Dr. Scott Harris Dr. Beth Innocenti Dr. Jeffery Jarman Dr. Randal Maurice Jelks _____________________________ Dr. Robert McDonald Date Defended: 6 December 2019 ii Acceptance Page Making Mandingo: Racial Archetypes, Pornography, and Black Male Subjectivity The dissertation committee for Phillip Samuels certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Chair: Dr. Dorthy Pennington Date Approved: iii Abstract Mandingo is a reference to a longstanding myth in American culture, that black men have an unquenchable desire for white woman. I will argue that Mandingo is an example of a racial archetype. Racial archetypes are specific images of a long-standing stereotypes. Mandingo is one such archetype. Mandingo conjures up an entire history of the rhetoric of miscegenation. For some it is the excitement of the big black cock (BBC) and crossing the color line, but for most blacks it invokes images of lynching, slavery, and police brutality brought on by the fear of black men while at the same time trafficking in a prurient landscape of American racial and sexual relations. Whether through words, pictures or movies, the Mandingo has become a dominant archetype in the pantheon of the African American experience. Charting the Mandingo emergence and articulation is critical project to discern how these rhetorical markers are part of a larger mythic narrative. -
People Need Protecting from Violent Lyrics, Films and Video Games” the MEDIA Violence Debate in Context 2 of 7 NOTES
MOTION: APRIL 2008 MEDIA “PEOPLE NEED VIOLENCE PROTECTING FROM JAMES GLEDHILL VIOLENT LYRICS, FILMS AND VIDEO GAMES” DEBATING MATTERS DEBATOPITING MATTERCS GUIDETOPICS GUIDEwww.debatingmatters.comS CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1 of 7 NOTES What impact does media violence have on the way people act? Introduction 1 Does exposure to violent music lyrics, films and video games lead Key terms 1 to aggressive and violent behaviour? It’s a debate that won’t go away, as the reaction [Ref: BBC News] to the launch of Grand The media violence debate in context 2 Theft Auto IV shows. And it’s a particular concern of politicians, Essential reading 4 as in the wake of headlines about gun and knife crime both Gordon Brown [Ref: Sun] and David Cameron [Ref: Independent] Backgrounders 5 referred to violent video games in calling for greater social responsibility. While it may be too simplistic to suggest a Organisations 5 straightforward copycat effect linking what people see or hear In the news 6 to what they do, many scientific studies have raised concerns about the effects of media violence, particularly on vulnerable and impressionable young people. Such evidence forms the basis of arguments for censorship, with measures ranging from bans on violent material, to the cutting of scenes from films and the classification of films and video games by age limits. The game Manhunt 2 has been banned [Ref: BBC News] and the government’s Byron review recommended that more games be rated. Campaigners for freedom of expression oppose such restriction and dispute the claim that media has a direct effect on behaviour. -
Sparking a Steam Revolution: Examining the Evolution and Impact of Digital Distribution in Gaming
Sparking a Steam Revolution: Examining the Evolution and Impact of Digital Distribution in Gaming by Robert C. Hoile At this moment there’s a Renaissance taking place in games, in the breadth of genres and the range of emotional territory they cover. I’d hate to see this wither on the vine because the cultural conversation never caught up to what was going on. We need to be able to talk about art games and ‘indie’ games the ways we do about art and indie film. (Isbister xvii) The thought of a videogame Renaissance, as suggested by Katherine Isbister, is both appealing and reasonable, yet she uses the term Renaissance rather casually in her introduction to How Games Move Us (2016). She is right to assert that there is diversity in the genres being covered and invented and to point out the effectiveness of games to reach substantive emotional levels in players. As a revival of something in the past, a Renaissance signifies change based on revision, revitalization, and rediscovery. For this term to apply to games then, there would need to be a radical change based not necessarily on rediscovery of, but inspired/incited by something perceived to be from a better time. In this regard the videogame industry shows signs of being in a Renaissance. Videogame developers have been attempting to innovate and push the industry forward for years, yet people still widely regard classics, like Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998), as the best games of all time. As with the infatuation with sequels in contemporary Hollywood cinema, game companies are often perceived as producing content only for the money while neglecting quality. -
Names in Toni Morrison's Novels: Connections
INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality or this reproduction is dependent upon the quaUty or the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely. event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. UMI A. Bell & Howell Information Company 300 North Zeeb Road. Ann Arbor. Ml48106·1346 USA 313!761·4700 8001521·0600 .. -------------------- ----- Order Number 9520522 Names in Toni Morrison's novels: Connections Clayton, Jane Burris, Ph.D. The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 1994 Copyright @1994 by Clayton, Jane Burris. -
Costume Culture: Visual Rhetoric, Iconography, and Tokenism In
COSTUME CULTURE: VISUAL RHETORIC, ICONOGRAPHY, AND TOKENISM IN COMIC BOOKS A Dissertation by MICHAEL G. BAKER Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies Texas A&M University-Commerce in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY May 2017 COSTUME CULTURE: VISUAL RHETORIC, ICONOGRAPHY, AND TOKENISM IN COMIC BOOKS A Dissertation by MICHAEL G. BAKER Submitted to: Advisor: Christopher Gonzalez Committee: Tabetha Adkins Donna Dunbar-Odom Mike Odom Head of Department: M. Hunter Hayes Dean of the College: Salvatore Attardo Interim Dean of Graduate Studies: Mary Beth Sampson iii Copyright © 2017 Michael G. Baker iv ABSTRACT COSTUME CULTURE: VISUAL RHETORIC, ICONOGRAPHY, AND TOKENISM IN COMIC BOOKS Michael G. Baker, PhD Texas A&M University-Commerce, 2017 Advisor: Christopher Gonzalez, PhD Superhero comic books provide a unique perspective on marginalized characters not only as objects of literary study, but also as opportunities for rhetorical analysis. There are representations of race, gender, sexuality, and identity in the costuming of superheroes that impact how the audience perceives the characters. Because of the association between iconography and identity, the superhero costume becomes linked with the superhero persona (for example the Superman “S” logo is a stand-in for the character). However, when iconography is affected by issues of tokenism, the rhetorical message associated with the symbol becomes more difficult to decode. Since comic books are sales-oriented and have a plethora of tie-in merchandise, the iconography in these symbols has commodified implications for those who choose to interact with them. When consumers costume themselves with the visual rhetoric associated with comic superheroes, the wearers engage in a rhetorical discussion where they perpetuate whatever message the audience places on that image. -
Alternative Spelling and Censorship: the Treatment of Profanities in Virtual Communities Laura-Gabrielle Goudet
Alternative spelling and censorship: the treatment of profanities in virtual communities Laura-Gabrielle Goudet To cite this version: Laura-Gabrielle Goudet. Alternative spelling and censorship: the treatment of profanities in virtual communities. Aspects of Linguistic Impoliteness, 2013. hal-02119772 HAL Id: hal-02119772 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02119772 Submitted on 4 May 2019 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Alternative spelling and censorship: the treatment of profanities in virtual communities Laura-Gabrielle Goudet Université Paris 13, Sorbonne Paris Cité [email protected] [Author’s version of a paper published in Aspects of Linguistic Impoliteness (2013), Cambridge Scholars Publishing] Introduction Discourse on the internet is characterized by the paradoxical ability of users to write and communicate in alternative ways, with minimal supervision or external regularization—in most, not all communities—while new norms arise and are replaced according to users of virtual communities. On most websites, there is no regulating organ, except the Terms of Service that every registered user has to abide by. The standard version (used on websites like Facebook) includes a clause stipulating that the user should not: “use the Services […] to : upload, post, transmit, share, […] any User content [deemed] harmful, threatening, unlawful, defamatory, infringing, abusive, inflammatory, harassing, vulgar, obscene, […] hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable”. -
The Making of a Racist
2 The Making of a Racist My favorite children’s book when I was growing up was entitled Ezekiel, written by a white Floridian named Elvira Garner. This slender volume was published in New York by Henry Holt and Company in 1937, the year I was born (Canadian distribution was by Oxford University Press). The first story in the book opens this way: “Away down in Sanford, Florida dar lives a lil’ cullerd boy, an’ he names Ezekiel. An’ dis boy he live wid he Pappy an’ he Mammy an’ he Sister Emancipation, an’ he brudder Lil’ Plural an’ Assa- fetida, de baby.” I took endless delight in Ezekiel’s adventures on “de St. John’s Ribber,” as he caught a “big ole cat- fish” in this opening story, un- successfully looked for work on a steamboat (“Lil’ nigger boy, you too small,” the “Cap’n” told him), but, through persistence and politeness, landed a job for “he Pappy” on the self-same vessel, “a- rollin’ an’ a- totin’ an’ a- draggin’ things onto ole freight boat.” This opening chapter, like all of the six stories in the book, is illustrated by the author’s watercolor drawings of stick figures with coal black faces acting out passages in the text, such as Eze- kiel “got lil’ ole fishin’ pole outen de shed,” while “Emancipation went ’long pullin’ de baby in lil’ ole cyart” and “Lil’ Plural toten’ de bait can.” Each chapter— each individual story— also ends with a four- line song, also in dialect, such as this one at the end of chapter 1: 33 the making of a racist Ole ribber run norf, an don’ run souf. -
Issue 1 Page 8 FINAL.Indd
PAGE 8 Entertainment ‘Compton’ brings rapper Dr. Dre full circle Compton: A he got in the studio. Elliot Bauman Soundtrack by Dr. Before I noticed anything PRINT EDITOR-IN- Dre. Wow, the day sonically from this project though, CHIEF has finally come. before I even pressed play I was in awe Dre has released by the crazy features list. Dr. Dre is so a new album. For good about taking both superstars and the first time since I was two years old, underground artists and producers and Andre Young from Compton, California melding their talents to make some has produced and released a full-length great music. This is a recurring theme LP. stemming from the respect anyone in As alluded to, Compton is rapper/ the rap game must pay Dr. Dre. Names producer Dr. Dre’s first commercial like Snoop Dogg, XZibit and some release since the widely acclaimed of Compton’s own like The Game, release of his album “2001” in 1999. Kendrick Lamar, Anderson .Paak and, of Contrary to popular belief, it is not course, N.W.A. partner Ice Cube. The list a soundtrack for the movie “Straight is insane but all the credit goes to Dre Outta Compton,” although the two do for figuring out how to manage all of make nice companions. The album is a the egos and truly get the best qualities separate project dealing with Dr. Dre’s from everyone. The result is some of early life in Compton while alluding to the best feature work I’ve heard in 2015.