Screen Studies Quarterly May 2020 Vol 1.1 Screen Studies Program Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema Brooklyn College, City University of New York Property of FGSC. For FGSC use only. Use outside of the school requires permission of the authors.

Table of Contents

A Note from the Editors 2

On On Cinema: Medium-Nihilism and How Postdigital Humor Led to Political Accelerationism 3

Listening to the Metamorphosis of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse 12

“Do you like hurting people?”: Understanding Film Violence 19

From Documentary Realism to Vlogging: The evolution of realism in the YouTube video 27

Breeding Toxicity to Protect Safe Spaces: Exploring the Phenomenon Within the Steven Universe Fandom 35

Bibliography 46

Screen Studies Quarterly 1 A Note from the Editors The idea for the Screen Studies Quarterly was introduced early on into the 2019-2020 academic year at Feirstein. It had become apparent that Screen Studies, as a track, was a small and insular part of the school; where other tracks often had to work together on projects, culminating in something that could proudly be shared with the student body, Screen Studies had nothing of the sort. The initial goals for the quarterly were this: increase our presence within the school and strengthen our community with the pride that comes from having a work published and accessible. This is the first edition of the Screen Studies Quarterly, and with that our initial goals will be accomplished. So, then what next? The track has its thesis, but smaller assignments and extracurricular work go into the æther, to disappear until a source needs to be re-quoted in a new context—cut-and-pasted into the next work in the next class. What the quarterly allows for is peer review, engagement, and investment. Through the peer review process, students create stronger, clearer, and more urgent works. Through being published, accessible to everyone, students find themselves in the period of response and reception— curious professors and peers will inevitably have something to say: opinions; questions; and suggestions. And lastly, we will become familiar with our peers’ areas of interest, and whenever we come across something to participate in (conference; call for paper) or just a relevant article we can send it along, creating a stronger community. With our first edition, we have no unifying theme, only authors willing to take the first step with us. The new goal is to improve the process every quarter. Our first cover features a still from Goodbye, Dragon Inn (dir. Tsai Ming-liang; 2003). It is a film about possibilities in the face of death—the death of cinema. Our track is notably called “Screen Studies” instead of “Film” or “Cinema” Studies because this intangible media formerly encompassed by the latter two terms no longer apply. Perhaps cinema is dead, be it from economic, societal, or technological changes, but there is something quietly romantic about where it lingers on like a ghost; here in the cinema. There on the screen.

Thank you for reading our first issue! Sincerely, Devin Dougherty, ‘21 Claressa Shelton, ‘20 Emily Sobel, ‘20

2 May 2020 Vol. 1.1 On On Cinema: Medium-Nihilism and How Postdigital Humor Led to Political Accelerationism Devin Dougherty ABSTRACT The postdigital age, the combination of the postmodern and digital eras, has bred a certain breed of media-savvy spectators: self-conscious and aware yet ironically detached. Using the transmedia series On Cinema as a case study, this paper defines medium-nihilism: the willful disregard for the traditional boundaries of television, both on the part of the creators and the spectator. The causes and effects of medium- nihilism—the nature of television/information and the proliferation of humor for the former, and a destructive accelerationist attitude for the latter—are explored through and supported by the writings of cultural theorists such as Walter Benjamin, Guy Debord, McKenzie Wark, and Slavoj Žižek, among others. I argue through this framework that this attitude of accelerationism, brought upon by medium-nihilism, has had a concrete effect in the real world with the presidential election of Donald Trump, using monographs by James Poniewozik and Ken Jennings as evidence.

On November 16, 2019, the comedy ever put on screen, one that Museum of the Moving Image (MoMI) requires plenty of background in New York closed out its series “No knowledge from the series. Following Joke: Absurd Comedy as Political this screening, co-creators and stars Reality” with a screening of The Trial, Tim Heidecker and Gregg Turkington a nearly five-hour event in the On video-called in and answered ques- Cinema extended universe, shown in tions from the audience: “This is not its entirety. The director, Eric how we expected this to be viewed… Notarnicola, affectionately referred to at a museum in New York in a single the program as “basically 280 sitting… it’s not a movie, I don’t know 1 minutes of raw court footage.” What what it is, but it’s not a movie.” To followed was one of the most them, it was just another part of the aggressive and difficult pieces of joke; they do not care about the

1 Tim Heidecker, Q&A at Museum of the Moving Image, Queens, NY, November 16, 2019.

Screen Studies Quarterly 3 Dougherty medium or semantic arguments lives of the characters continue on about what is film, they care about into other series, videos, as well as the dispersing the joke into as many comedian-stars’ respective Twitter media as possible. What Ken accounts.2 On Cinema is the Jennings has called Planet Funny, the apotheosis of transmedia as well as its total proliferation of humor into all natural conclusion. When Henry parts of life, works as a specific Jenkins writes that transmedia story- application of what McKenzie Wark telling is “a process where integral calls the disintegrating spectacle. I elements of a fiction get dispersed argue that this proliferation, systematically across multiple chan- epitomized by On Cinema, leads to a nels for the purpose of creating a media-savvy, yet nihilistic audience unified and coordinated enter- willing to accelerate the spectacle to tainment experience,”3 he anticipates capitalism’s natural end. On Cinema. Turkington quipped during the call at MoMI, “the problem The issue here is not what the is we’re running out of medi[a].”4 The next medium is, but that the next problem with Turkington’s half-joke is medium does not matter—the joke is that On Cinema does not explicitly everywhere. On Cinema is ostensibly signify its joke, and yet its content is a satirical movie review webseries on ever-present. Heidecker explained Adult Swim in the ‘basic cable’ style, that a handful of people have come keeping up to date with the actual up to him, praising him for The Trial, films being released to theaters in the and had no idea that it was connected non-fictional world. Beyond that, the in any way to a larger series.5 This

2 Briefly, On Cinema started as a podcast 3 Henry Jenkins, “Transmedia Storytelling reviewing older movies and moved to a 101,” Confessions of an Aca-Fan: The Official weekly webseries reviewing contemporary Weblog of Henry Jenkins, March 21, 2007, ones. The On Cinema hosts (in-character) also http://henryjenkins.org/blog/2007/03/transme create a short movie-series called Decker dia_storytelling_101.html. (airing on Adult Swim). The Trial is a miniseries 4 Gregg Turkington, Q&A at Museum of the about Heidecker’s character going on trial for Moving Image, Queens, NY, November 16, murder, and Mister America is a theatrically 2019. released movie about Heidecker’s character (following his trial) running for District Attorney 5 Heidecker, Q&A. Additionally, my own of San Bernardino county. There are also sibling told me that he watched a portion of supplemental tie-in books. The Trial online without any background knowledge of On Cinema.

4 May 2020 Vol. 1.1 On On Cinema miniseries could theoretically be convey information. Without these viewed by anyone interested in boundaries in place, I argue that the whatever the museum is prog- spectator sees all media with blurred ramming; it is now elevated to boundaries—a postmodern hellscape museum piece, cultural touchstone, where all media has to be decontextualized from the program entertaining, and if it is not, then it can from which it originated. be made entertaining. Guy Debord, in his seminal The Society of the When decontextualization toys Spectacle, writes that “the spectacle with reality in the way that On Cinema cannot be understood as a mere does, it is troubling—not what could visual excess produced by mass- happen to the accidental spectator, media technologies. It is a worldview but what is already happening with that has actually been materialized, a the spectators the show caters to. To view of a world that has become be a fan of On Cinema requires objective.”6 Because of this, mass- effort—it requires work. It is a media that is not entertaining is constant story taking place from consequently ignored—it is more podcast to webseries, from spin-off to than the aesthetic of transmediality event, from the printed word to the being present, more than the Twitter feed, from the courtroom to overwhelming dispersion of trans/ the cinema—it is all a part of the media, it has become how we relate spectacle. To navigate all this, the fan to one another and the world as a must be Internet-savvy, must be able whole. The audience now expects to to keep up with the jokes, must have find entertainment in their a knowledge of all that came before. information, leading not to better Thus, the dedicated spectator information but more and faster ascribes to a mindset of medium- information into more areas of life. “I nihilism, the inevitable conclusion to can guarantee you,” Ken Jennings the ever-expanding transmedia predicts, “that jokes will continue to method of content distribution. squeeze into more and more places I am defining medium-nihilism as where they were once… completely numbness and indifference to the verboten. Ironic eulogies and funny boundaries of the medium used to headstones are coming. Funnier

6 Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle, trans. Ken Knabb (2002), 11.

Screen Studies Quarterly 5 Dougherty appliance manuals, funnier judges other than their separateness.”10 In giving funnier decisions.”7 Evidently, this second statement, Wark theorizes it is the case that we can make court that due to the proliferation of the proceedings funny (and two years spectacle into every part of our lives, later, we expect them to be, with NBC we have become detached from one News claiming that Trump’s another; more frightening, the savvy impeachment hearings lack ‘pizazz’8); spectator is aware of this proliferation The Trial does nothing to make it and has begun to distrust reality itself. seem like the miniseries it is—it is fully The nihilistic retort to president formally consistent with a televised Donald Trump’s “fake news” that “all court proceeding.9 news is fake” does nothing but give one a sense of superiority for seeing Because of medium-nihilism, the the spectacle-as-spectacle—and on search for entertainment has become the surface, supports Trump’s the spectator’s responsibility, which aggravated criticism of media. “In we have gleefully taken. This is the asserting the indiscernibility of fact core of the disintegrating spectacle, and fiction,” Erika Balsom writes, “the “where once the spectacle panicked statement that reality has entertained us, now we must collapsed at times accomplishes little entertain each other…. Spectators but furthering the collapse of reality. are now obliged to make images and Proclaiming the unreality of the stories for each other that do not present lifts the heavy burdens of unite those spectators in anything gravity, belief, and action, effecting a

7 Ken Jennings, Planet Funny: How Comedy 9 At its most aggressive, the last day of the Took Over Our Culture (New York: Scribner, trial opens with a full 12 minutes of 2018), 267. Tellingly, the paperback version uninterrupted near-silence as we watch the changed the book’s subtitle from “How gallery, the attorneys, Tim, and finally the Comedy Took Over Our Culture” to “How judge enter in real-time, with a “LIVE” digital Comedy Ruined Everything.” on-screen graphic in the corner.

8 Jonathan Allen, “Plenty of Substance but 10 McKenzie Wark, The Spectacle of Little Drama on First Day of Impeachment Disintegration: Situationist Passages Out of Hearings,” NBCNews.com (NBC Universal the 20th Century (New York: Verso, 2013), 6. News Group, November 14, 2019), https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump- impeachment-inquiry/plenty-substance-little- drama-first-day-impeachment-hearings- n1081926?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma.

6 May 2020 Vol. 1.1 On On Cinema great leveling whereby all statements to get himself kicked out of the float by, cloaked in doubt.”11 gallery during The Trial when Gregg tells Star Trek film writer/director In On Cinema, the primary joke is Nicholas Meyer that he is confused that the spectacle is celebrated; when about his own movie. If anyone can it is not, it is often personal. claim expertise, that puts the burden Throughout the webseries, con- of proof on the inaccessible—the temporary new film releases are truth. “reviewed” by giving the most basic knowledge about the film (cast, A major part of On Cinema is that director, and plot summary), to which the “characters” respond to the Tim and Gregg, who usually have viewers on Twitter. But here we have obviously not seen the movie, the blurring of boundaries with reality attempt to give a brief review, nearly itself; the characters of Tim and always giving the film five “popcorn Gregg post from their respective bags” (their version of stars) out of actor’s actual Twitter profiles. Tim, five (and occasionally more—another the character, demagogues right- boundary that can be blurred based wing propaganda while Heidecker, on the whims of the creator). This the actor, defends himself from his satirical condemnation of “expert alt-right detractors. But often these opinions” never provides an personae are not signified, existing in alternative; it utilizes the same the blurred space between narrative language as political leaders who find and meta-narrative—irony and themselves beyond critique due to sincerity. When a Twitter user asks their so-called expertise. One long- about a visual gag in a recent Oscar running gag in the show is that Special (an annual live-streamed Gregg, the self-proclaimed resident commentary aired alongside the expert, fully believes that Star Trek II: Oscars), @timheidecker responds, The Wrath of Khan takes place in San “You can’t just meander into the Francisco, when it is actually Star Trek Oscar Special without trudging IV: The Voyage Home, going so far as through The Trial.”12 Indeed, both

11 Erika Balsom, "The Reality-Based 12 Tim Heidecker (@timheidecker), Twitter, Community," e-flux Journal 83 (June 13, Mar 8, 2018, 9:29 a.m., 2017): https://www.e- https://twitter.com/timheidecker/status/97175 flux.com/journal/83/142332/the-reality-based- 4671772610560. community/.

Screen Studies Quarterly 7 Dougherty

The Trial and the Oscar Special exist extra step into that blurred boundary both in reality and within the fiction of to interact with the platform (the the show, so is the joke from in- “blue-checked” on Twitter) directly. character-Tim or actor-Tim? This is Trump rallies play on the same the core of postdigital humor—the experience, like a participatory rock idea of the wink—where the humorist concert, where Trump might point to (using the term extremely lightly) can you—aggressively or affectionately, say one thing with a wink and have or somewhere in between.14 This was the spectator react however they truly also mirrored by On Cinema live feel about the topic. This wink has appearances and the show’s own similarly become the bread-and- convention, Deckercon, where one butter of Donald Trump’s persona(e), can talk in person with the characters, the demagogue/businessman—the fully embodied in flesh-and-blood celebrity/politician. before you. Poniewozik writes, “Getting retweeted, for a Trump In his monograph on Donald follower, was like getting called from Trump and the media, James the studio audience to play on The Poniewozik explains this dichotomy Price Is Right…: it was the promise of as necessary for Trump’s candidacy, transitioning, even for a moment, “when you are always in a from spectator to spectacle…. Schrödinger’s-cat paradox of joking Someday it could be you.”15 and not joking, the same message can send different meanings to Interacting with the spectator was different audiences: I mean it but I the spectacle itself, not as a human don’t really mean it but I do. being, but as an entity of (Wink.)”13 Further, the idea that one entertainment—an entity that could become part of this spectacle creates/is created through the act of by interacting with Tim or the searching for it. The medium-nihilist, president or anyone on Twitter is then, treats all interaction with media extremely enticing; it only takes an (including actual people who have

13 James Poniewozik, Audience of One: 14 See: Donald Trump, Television, and the Fracturing https://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2016/06/03/tr of America (United States: Liveright, 2019), 80. ump-look-at-my-african-american-over-here.

15 Poniewozik, Audience of One, 190-191.

8 May 2020 Vol. 1.1 On On Cinema become like media) like television— level, is already an ironic medium—by an accelerating sequence of adding picture (the image) to sound overwhelming events that accumulate (the audio/text), ironic juxtaposition without end—the Benjaminian becomes easily possible—so to add concept of “information.”16 Before the un-signified detached humor of the advent of cable, information postmodern writing instills numbness flowed into the house in a single in the spectator.17 stream—the spectator had the choice This aggressive numbness, I to simply turn the faucet on or off— argue, is part of the reason why On Cinema, indeed the whole world, Donald Trump was elected. The demands that you connect the pipes cynicism brought upon by the yourself by subjecting yourself to the numbness has led to a form of stream. To be a part of this endless accelerationism, "the insistence that spectacle is simply exhausting; yes, the only radical political response to the form of On Cinema is clever in its capitalism is not to protest, disrupt, meta-commentary on the pro- critique, or détourne it, but to liferation of information into every accelerate and exacerbate its medium, but then we go back to the uprooting, alienating, decoding, wink and remember that the [and] abstractive tendencies.”18 postdigitalist spirit exists between Deeply felt in a community of media- narrative and meta-narrative. savvy younger people, they are Audiovisual media (at least in the U.S.) looking for a radical stance to take was not able to create an ironic within the means of their control. The language of its own beyond horrifying underside to accel- pastiching the modernists’ written erationism is that the already- language. David Foster Wallace underprivileged (probably not the writes that television, on a technical accelerationists feeding into the

16 Walter Benjamin, "The storyteller: 17 David Foster Wallace, "E unibus pluram: Observations on the works of Nikolai Leskov," Television and US fiction," The Review of in Selected Writings: 1935-1938, trans. Contemporary Fiction 13, no. 2 (1993): 160. Edmund Jephcott, ed. Howard Eiland and 18 Robin Mackay and Armen Avanessian, Michael W. Jennings (Cambridge: Belknap “Introduction” in #ACCELERATE: The Press, 2002), 361-378. Accelerationist Reader, ed. Robin Mackay and Armen Avanessian (Falmouth: Urbanomic, 2014), 4.

Screen Studies Quarterly 9 Dougherty annihilating machine) will be drained, the “Numb Spiral,” being “the point harmed, and likely liquidated in an at which consciousness negates attempt to keep control of being, and a cruel illusion maintains capitalism—or worse, as a direct control of the flailing senses. What result of accelerationistic action. The begins as apathy, surreptitiously election of Trump is, sadly, not the devolves into solipsism and nihilism, end-result for the more misanthropic until the infected succumbs to the anarchist or total political-atheist, but perception of total illusion. The a marker on the way to chaos/an end Digital Sickness... marches onwards of some sort (depending on which towards the eradication of the accelerationist you ask). real….”19 Woods’s description of the spectacle of mediated representation This numbness is a result of the (this persistent transmedial unfurling saturation of transmedial storytelling of appearances) leading to apathy in the contemporary media and later nihilism, where landscape—the medium-nihilist is “consciousness negates being” anxious and overwhelmed because (where reality has collapsed, as stories no longer have ends, they Balsom sneeringly points out), is expand and become necessary absolutely the result of our information. On Cinema has no end in unconscious, accelerated medium- sight and is a longform kayfabe nihilism. There is an argument to be performance for its co-creators, who made about Trump’s appeal to have accepted this blurred boundary nihilism as having fascist precedence. between their fictional lives and their According to Slavoj Žižek, mass real lives. The concept of Donald demonstrations (rallies) rarely stir the Trump has been relevant for decades emotions necessary to become and surely will not be posthumously fascist, but what fascism does is forgotten, and as explained above— convince the masses that they already he is in a blurred boundary of his own: agree with it.20 Trump, the spectacle he is dually the entertainer and that we unconsciously seek, appeals politician. Artist M. Woods refers to

19 M. Woods, “Disassociative Productions,” 20 Slavoj Žižek, Living in the End Times, Rev. Disamedia, accessed December 4, 2019, ed. (New York: Verso, 2018), 372. http://disamedia.squarespace.com/?fbclid=Iw AR1lNn1VNV_S1bCgphl2esLhouVUIPGtlfiVKQ FDByaHX9RUeU-f3gzThbU.

10 May 2020 Vol. 1.1 On On Cinema to the nihilists because he embodies to medium-nihilism, an indifference the accelerationist attitude brought for the boundaries between media upon by the spectacle of and ultimately between the real and disintegration. the performed. Medium-nihilism, combined with Wark’s disintegrating Jennings wrote that “Donald spectacle, has led to a disturbing Trump was supposed to be the end of feeling of accelerationism in the satire, but that was only true if by “the media-savvy—those who can keep up end of satire” you meant “an with the increasing speed of content, incredible proliferation of satire.””21 who can interact, and ultimately who Truthfully, it could not have been any can perform. When the performance other way, with SNL on air in New never ends, when the content and the York City two weeks following the information never end, where do we 9/11 attacks, there is no reason to go to escape? When whole imagine the death of parody. On friendships are based around sitting Cinema had been parodying Trump down and sharing quotes from shared in the months leading up to his media consumed, performing jokes election and continue to today. This already heard, talking about what saturation of transmedial storytelling, Donald Trump has done today—what apotheosized by On Cinema, has led is next? It’s all so funny until it’s not.

BIO Devin Dougherty is a graduate student in Screen Studies. Her areas of interest are in documentary theory, Marxism, nihilism, postmodernism, and situationist theory. She has her bachelor’s degree in screenwriting from Brooklyn College and she continues to work on screenplays in her free time. She drinks a lot of iced coffee.

21 Jennings, Planet Funny, 267.

Screen Studies Quarterly 11 Listening to the Metamorphosis of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Rhea Lyons ABSTRACT In this essay, I examine how and why Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse is a successful adaptation due to its sound design. I employ Michel Chion’s concepts of synchresis, added value, and points of synchronization outlined in The Audiovisual Contract to show how sound functions as an important tool that links Spider-Man’s legacy and history to this character’s latest iteration in Miles Morales, and allows the film to communicate the at once traumatizing and beautiful process of adaptation itself. I examine how important moments of synchresis establish the stakes that arise from the process, and primes the audience to pay attention to mutation as a concept and as a threat to the main character. The added value of realistic sound further anchors the visually layered diegetic world to the real world of the viewer, evoking a grounded experience to enhance a conceptual situation. Finally, certain points of synchronization pair Spider-Man’s comic book origins with a character that otherwise feels very much a product of contemporary society. All told, these artistic choices help distinguish this from superhero reboots we have seen before and herald it as a true adaptation.

Since his first comic book appearance context of Spider-Man’s rich history, in 1962, Spider-Man has captured the but at the same time stand apart as its imagination of audiences in every own independent work, it can be generation, in almost every media considered a successful adaptation format. Sony’s 2018 animated film, (Bortolotti, 444) rather than a Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, franchise reboot. was the seventh Spider-Man movie The term “adaptation” applies since 2002. However, the character of both to the product and the process Miles Morales in Spider-Man: Into The of retelling stories within a new Spider-Verse, is a radical break from cultural context (Hutcheon, xvi). what audiences would normally There’s so much that could be written expect. Instead of yet another by examining Spider-Man: Into The iteration of Peter Parker, Miles is an Spider-Verse as a product. In this entirely new character with a distinct essay, however, I isolate a few of the history and background. As the film artistic choices made by award- can both be examined within the winning sound designers Geoff Rubay

12 Spring 2020 Vol 1.1 Listening to the Metamorphosis of Spider-Man and Curt Schulkey that contribute to embody key elements from the the process itself, in order to examine source material and at the same time, how this film becomes a successful reveal something new and poised to adaptation. I show how the often- endure into the future. As phrased by overlooked element of sound and Bortolotti and Hutcheon, “the sound design function as a driving ‘source’ could perhaps be more force behind the process of productively viewed as the ‘ancestor’ adaptation—specifically looking at from which adaptations derive Michel Chion’s principles of directly by descent. As in biological synchresis, added value, and points of evolution, descent with modification synchronization outlined in The is essential” (446). The process Audiovisual Contract—and how it behind this, in narrative and in contributes to the meaning-making of biology, can be both beautiful and the text as a whole. painful. This concept—how the clash between past and present is essential for growth—is introduced to the Synchresis and Mutation audience in the formatting and sound In terms of biology, “adaptation” design of the opening title credits. refers to how a living creature In The Audiovisual Contract, changes its nature according to Michael Chion states that sound pressures from its surrounding “interprets the meaning of the image environment by way of mutation. and makes us see in the image what According to Robert Stam, “…if we would not otherwise see, or would mutation is the means by which the see differently” (34). He introduces evolutionary process advances, then the word “synchresis” to describe we can also see filmic adaptations as “the spontaneous and irresistible ‘mutations’ that help their source weld produced between a particular material ‘survive’” (3). A living thing auditory phenomenon and visual that has undergone a mutation phenomenon when they occur at the straddles two histories: the world of same time” (63). These moments its origins (its biological ancestry), and create new bits of information, which the world of its future (its new genetic cannot be communicated simply by makeup), in which it is now better the image or by audio alone. equipped to survive. In terms of narrative, an adaptation straddles the The audience is introduced to a same two histories: it must at once crucial synchresis before the narrative of the film begins: during the opening

Screen Studies Quarterly 13 Lyons title credits. As the logos for like, as one passer-by says, “modern Columbia Pictures, Marvel, Sony art.” Geoff Rubay and Curt Schulkey Pictures Animation, and Pascal referred to these moments as Pictures flick by, each morph from a “Picasso” moments, and styled the familiar typeface to different, bold, accompanying sound so it would contrasting animation style. A “convey ‘force of nature’ and ‘hard discordant bubbling sound accom- edges,’” without being “explosive, panies each abrupt visual change. loud or gritty. Ultimately, it was a very The sound is the same every time, multi-layered sound event: some even though each logo shifts into a ‘real’ sounds teamed with extreme different visual style. This connects a synthesis” (“Spider-Man: Into The sound to a visual action, showing that Spider-Verse: Sound Editors Talk this bubbling noise occurs as a result “Magical Realism””). of an abrupt, random, colorful, The significance here is twofold. unpredictable shift in what is seen. First is the fact that the audience has This sudden and “irresistible weld” already been introduced to this between noise and visual is linked as synchresis as a unit of meaning from a single phenomenon that exists the opening title credits, so by the within the diegesis of the film. time it occurs within the diegetic The audience encounters this world of the film, the audience synchresis once more when Miles experiences a rush of insight: that the Morales stumbles on what is morphing of the title credits was not established as the “real” Spider-Man, just artistic interpretation to set the Peter Parker, trying to stop a villain tone of the film, it’s linked to a very from turning on an atomic super- real threat that becomes Miles collider. The supercollider goes into Morales’s main problem to solve. The overdrive, causing parallel universes second layer of significance is how the to collide. Suddenly, distinctly nature of the sound paired against recognizable features of the streets of the image gives it a very specific Brooklyn experience a disorienting, quality. Even though this chaotic dramatic visual shift paired with a mutation is shown to be threatening, bubbling noise. Pedestrians witness a it’s also visually beautiful, evoking a regular lamp buckle and then expand striking and thoroughly modern feel as brightly-colored and wildly- (evocative of Picasso). The more textured boxes seem to grow from its organic quality of the sound grounds base up towards the top until it looks these explosive images, communi-

14 Spring 2020 Vol 1.1 Listening to the Metamorphosis of Spider-Man cating “force of nature” rather than image what we would not otherwise complete annihilation. This specific see, or would see differently” (34). sound choice allows this visual to The added value is that the realistic further embody the process of origins of the sound allows us to mutation itself, as it straddles two perhaps more fully accept that conflicting concepts anchored in something as theoretical as a ancestry (in this case, both nature and supercollider (and in turn, something the natural world) and the future as theoretical as the existence of the (imagined spaces, animation). multiverse) could actually exist within (and originates from) familiar territory. The Added Value of Realistic While it could be argued that this Sound is no different from what Foley artists have done to create effects since the Where the sound of these birth of sound in film, the use of “Picasso” moments is based on real realistic sound in this case is not only world sounds and synthesized to used to bring a fictional supercollider create something new, the rest of the to life, but is also used to tie Miles sound used in the film is purely Morales’s Brooklyn to the real-life, realistic. For example, the ambient, lived world of the audience. The foreboding noise of the supercollider songs featured within the film are is made from “repurposed recordings used to bridge the gap between the of mechanical things, winding things, Brooklyn of the past and the Brooklyn electrical charges and computer of the future, by placing the classic monitors… [and a] hand-drill” (Rubay, anthem “Hypnotize,” by The “The Sound of Spider-Man: Into The Notorious B.I.G. within the same Spider-Verse”), among other things. context as “Sunflower,” by Post While what is seen in this film is Malone and Swae Lee, Soundcloud animation, and therefore a artists who belong to listeners of constructed world that exists purely in Miles’s generation. Ambient city an imagined space, the sound is sounds, like the rattling of the subway derived from recognizable, house- and honking of car horns further hold items. Chion calls this the places this animated world in reality. “added value” of sound, writing, Schulkey and Rubay also “created “through the phenomenon of added voices for crowds, onlookers and the value, [sound] interprets the meaning normal ‘general’ wash of voices for of the image, and makes us see in the New York City,” taking a “very

Screen Studies Quarterly 15 Lyons realistic approach to crowd activity.” added value of realistic sound to an As Miles Morales himself is “a brilliant animation that is simultaneously African-American/Puerto Rican Broo- referencing its own ancestry as a klyn teenager trying to find his way in comic book, evokes the real life his multicultural world,” the designers experience of reading a comic book – “took special care to show his Puerto not the described sounds within a Rican background with added comic book, but instead, the feeling Spanish-language dialogue from of standing on a New York City Miles and his friends. That required subway platform, reading a comic dialect coaches, special record book, waiting for your train, perhaps sessions and thorough review” imagining that you could one day be (“Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse: Spider-Man (a key theme of the Sound Editors Talk “Magical movie). In this film’s mutation from Realism””). Rubay and Schulkey also ancestry to progeny, the sound carefully engineered the quality and carries the weight of signifying that depth of sound to make everything Spider-Man’s ancestry originates not feel like it was recorded on a live- only from the pages of a comic, but action set, rather than in a recording from the experience of reading and studio. To do this, they included what enjoying that comic as part of daily would otherwise be characterized as routine in the world we live in. errors: for example, they edited dialogue to sound like it was picked Bagel! The Evolution of the Punch up by a slightly off-center boom mic. The actors contributed to this A moment where a single sound “realism” as well—Mahershala Ali and image are deliberately combined recorded Uncle Aaron’s death scene is termed a “point of synchronization” while lying on the floor (“The Sound (Chion, 58). In these moments, “the of Spider-Man: Into The Spider- effect of synchresis is particularly Verse”). prominent, rather like a chord in music,” and marks the place where All the while, this is paired with an “the audiovisual ‘arch’ meets the animation style that evokes the ground before taking off again” (59). feeling of reading a cheaply-printed, In Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, mass-produced comic book from the a common point of synchronization 1970s in the use of off-register occurs whenever any character throws coloring and proliferation of Ben-Day a punch. dots. The bridge created here by the

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According to Chion, a punch is an style. It subverts audience ex- interesting point of synchronization pectations and creates a humorous already because in reality, when one moment that’s perfect material for is punched, it doesn’t necessarily today’s meme culture to co-opt and make a sound, whereas in film, a use in any context outside of the film. sound is “well-nigh obligatory” (60). In fact, this moment of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse synchronization as a method of takes this traditional point of communicating humor is first intro- synchronization one step further. duced to the viewer during the Since the film has been deliberately opening title credits. After seeing all styled to evoke the feeling of reading of the logos morph due to a bubbling a comic book, on-screen blows are mechanical sound, the sound of a sometimes accompanied by a written punch breaks the tension as the sound effect. In comic books, the way Comic Code Authority logo appears written sound effects (“blam,” “pow,” in the middle of an all-black screen. etc.) appear on the page is meant to Comic book superfans know that Stan evoke the quality, depth, severity, Lee famously published Amazing and sound of the punch. Generally, in Spider-Man Nos. 96 and 97 without this film, the sound chosen to the seal on the cover in a gesture of accompany the text and the actual protest against this organization’s punch makes logical sense: a “pow” goal of censorship, and this move sounds like a “pow.” However, when “struck a blow large enough that the Peter B. Parker throws a bagel at a Authority was essentially rendered scientist who is chasing after him, the largely without authority” (Gvozden). sound the bagel makes when it hits The punctuated appearance of this the scientist is “Bagel!” Where seal in the film pokes fun at the idea audiences expect a synch point of the of authority and censorship, provides image of someone receiving a blow— the film’s first inside joke to superfans, the word “pow” and something that and helps set the tone for the entire sounds like “pow” —we are instead movie to follow. This first moment of treated to “bagel.” This moment synchronization also provides the first perfectly evokes something familiar punctuation of humor in a comb- about Spider-Man’s signature sense ination of image, sound, and text that of humor, which is goofy and slightly is repeated throughout the whole self-deprecating, and yet, feels movie. The meta quality of this joke unique to this film’s sensibility and (which is self-referential to the Spider

Screen Studies Quarterly 17 Lyons

Man legacy which crosses multiple the viewer to look to the future while formats over many years) and the way keeping one foot in reality. it’s delivered (by combining tropes According to Linda Hutcheon, from sound, film, and written text) “stories do get retold in different signifies a leap forward for the ways in new material and cultural character by nature of its own environments; like genes, they adapt mutation. to those new environments by virtue of mutation—in their ‘offspring’ or Conclusion their adaptations. And the fittest do more than survive; they flourish” (32). Spider-Man: Into The Spider- As a character whose very roots are Verse is ultimately a film about how based in mutation (Peter Parker gets mutation leads to evolution, and his superhero powers after being sound plays an important role in bitten by a mutant spider, becomes a making sure this is fully comm- mutant himself, and also, his unicated. By examining how sound character’s arc is classically a coming- functions according to Michel Chion’s of-age story, that all-important concepts of synchresis, added value, mutation from childhood to adult- and points of synchronization, further hood), it is fitting that this film is both insight can be drawn into how this directly and indirectly about the adaptation takes shape within this process of transformation. Spider- film. The effects of sound in this film Man is constantly evolving and is now allow the character of Miles Morales once again poised to flourish for far to find a new path while carrying on into the future. only the most enduring aspects of Spider-Man’s legacy, by encouraging

BIO Rhea Lyons is a part time Screen Studies student at Feirstein, and full time literary agent at HG Literary. Her research focuses on the intersection between literature and film, especially in terms of authorship and labor. She has been enduring this pandemic by mainlining TV shows and learning how to bake.

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“Do you like hurting people?”: Understanding Film Violence Michael Piantini ABSTRACT Depictions of violence in contemporary cinema face a misunderstanding in their usage. There is a lack of regarding violence as anything more than an expression rather than an artistic tool by filmmakers to articulate the inexplicable mannerisms violence can mean. This essay aims to survey how a film’s violent aesthetics can be a tool for meaningful discourse. Building on the existing work of the aesthetics of violence, it asks: What are the applications that informed violence can mean to articulate a certain theme within a film? In this context, informed violence is defined as a distinguished style of violence that can be understood as having a particular meaning in relation to the film’s intent and the audience. Based on the ideas and definitions used by Margaret Bruder, Devin McKinney, and psychiatrist Fredric Wertham, four different modes of violence are examined to determine how their violence is used. In each case, there is an iteration on a dialogue concerning violence and pleasure, exploitation, empathy, as well as indexical reflection. This indicates that violence is an artistic tool capable of countless applications of use. The philosophical question hinted at, if consumers of violent media then enjoy violence, is a question that requires further research beyond the medium of film.

immoral and gross and should be censored to keep our minds pure. Even now, most violence produced in a film is deemed as a gratuitous spectacle. And although that sentiment is not wrong, it subdues any potential conversation regarding the nuances of a filmmaker’s use of Figure 1 Ichi the Killer: "Kakihara (Tadanobu Asano) looking at the leftovers. (Ichi the violence. There is a lot of grey area to Killer, 2001) be explored! Within recent memory, the This essay aims to understand concept of violence in film has gone film violence as a tool to express (or through significant change in regard keep distance from) some type of to style and content. Historically, meaningful discussion. In some cases, filmic violence was understood as the films start a dialogue with the

Screen Studies Quarterly 19 Piantini viewer to acknowledge the desire to metaphor centers the nature of indulge in screen violence to begin certain film directors in how they with, while others are sincere approach violence as a tool to further testaments to the craft of filmmaking. the technique of filmmaking, pointing These films, with their different towards the apparatus. Well-known modes of violence, will be explored in cinephile Quentin Tarantino has this essay by examining their made a whole career on stylizing relationship with the spectator. Using violence; this type of violence is the films Kill Bill: Volume 1 (Quentin clearest in Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003). Tarantino), Ichi the Killer (Takashi For instance, the film utilizes “weak” Miike), Funny Games (Michael violence in the iconic scene near the Haneke), and Nightcrawler (Dan end. There are the “Crazy 88s” Gilroy), I will discuss the aesthetics of fighting the Bride (Uma Thurman) in a violence portrayed, its implication on restaurant with glass floors and a the meaning of the film, and the effect grand staircase, all making for a it may have on the spectator. spectacular battlefield. The hench- men swing their swords in useless abandon as the Bride slays them all SPECTACULAR VIOLENCE effortlessly. Weak violence does not To begin understanding our hold significant affective qualities. perception of violence, it is important McKinney continues, “the violence of to note the different modes of its these pictures simply doesn’t last; it depiction on screen. In his essay aptly gets left on the floor with the candy called, “Violence: The Strong and the wrappers.”2 Every swing of the Bride’s Weak,” culture writer Devin McKinney sword is accompanied with a swift describes two types of violence. “The swoosh as though she is cutting paradoxes of strong violence are rich through air. The cinematography, like and maze like. But weak violence the Hattori Hanzo blade she holds, is thrives on a sterile contradiction: it masterful in its craft to produce reduces bloodshed to its barest bloodshed. Kill Bill is a success in components, then inflates them with making the spectacle of violence a 1 hot, stylized air. McKinney’s celebration of the process of

1 Devin McKinney, “Violence: The Strong and 2 McKinney, “Violence.” the Weak.” Film Quarterly, vol. 46, no. 4, 1993, pp. 16–22.

20 Spring 2020 Vol 1.1 “Do you like hurting people?” filmmaking. Film scholar Margaret psychologically traumatizing games. Bruder describes this “formal Eventually, the wife (Naomi Watts) reflexivity, this calling attention to the kills one of the abductors, enraging possibilities available only to the Paul (Michael Pitt) to find the cinematic mechanism, [as] often television remote and rewind to combined with an unmotivated de- moments earlier attempting to stop gree of intertextuality.”3 There is a her violent acts. Haneke uses his celebration of the apparatus and characters to disrupt and address the craft, not the content itself, because audience directly in the service of what Tarantino does capture is subversion. The film is only under the analogous to watching an Olympic guise of a domestic-hostage thriller. gymnast: very impressive. And just In classical fashion there would be like the Olympics, what the spectator violence and death, but the is positioned to do is passively watch protagonist will win in the end. and enjoy. Subverting that cliché, the film Such inconsequential violence actively uses its own apparatus (linear exists to satisfy fantasies. However, if editing and fourth wall breaking) to films like Kill Bill are made to gratify work against the protagonists, and a bloodlust, then Michael Haneke’s happy ending becomes uncertain. Funny Games (2007) is made to Haneke’s violence provides confront the desire for bloodlust. gravity to bloodshed; after all it is Funny Games uses a deliberate expected, right? There is a focus on “strong” violence to reevaluate provoking the spectator to feel a Western audiences’ expectations of disruption in the tropes of filmed violence. It is a violence that “comm- violence, what is expected to happen unicates intensely the sense a person most of the time. Funny Games (and who in one moment is fully alive has the 1997 iteration) swerves from a been reduced to God’s garbage.”4 In conversation on the nature of the film, a husband, wife, and son go violence, more so asking if those who to the country for vacation, but not-so are watching the film enjoy seeing friendly strangers force them to play people get hurt. Further asking if the

3 Bruder, Margaret Ervin. “Aestheticizing 4 McKinney, “Violence.” violence, or how to do things with style.” Diss. Indiana University, 2003.

Screen Studies Quarterly 21 Piantini lineage of violent cinema is one that however, Ichi shows some restraint is not passive, but participatory. compared to Kakihara who shows However, it is important to note, almost no remorse for his actions. Haneke’s film(s) is neither subtle nor Kakihara’s morbid dedication is on the first of its kind; many have display when he horizontally sus- criticized the overtly moralizing pends a man with multiple hooks and nature of his work. But it is in the has needles jammed in his face. metanarrative of violence where one Initially read as deeply disturbing (yet finds a nuanced thesis in his film. perhaps not in relation to the rest of What if there was an inverse of any the film), the scene embodies the nuance with a pure uncompromising pleasure for spectacular pain. Bruder vision? wrestles with film violence: Yet to avoid the problematic VIOLENCE AS IRONIC involved in asserting any ontology of MEDITATION the film image, it might be safer to simply acknowledge that film Two words come to mind when violence, as a number of film critics thinking about Takashi Miike’s films: ranging from David Thomson to Linda textured and intense. His films like Williams have noted, has its own Audition (1999), Gozu (2003), and 13 special form of beauty. In that violent Assassins (2010) all feature brutal images encourage us to take pleasure images that are more akin to a in the spectacular representation of pornographic murder than most other people's pain, our fascination action films. More importantly, his with them may be difficult to justify. films share a distinguished quality of However, if recent movie attendance making physical pain formally serves as evidence, it seems that we understood. Miike’s Ichi the Killer do manage in one way or another to (2001) is about a violent yakuza, get around our moral qualms, not just Kakihara (Tadanobu Asano), going on in the United States, in that "most a violent killing spree to find his violent of Western societies," but in kidnapped boss from the semi- the rest of the world as well superhero Ichi (Nao Omori). Both Ichi (Hammerman 79).5 and Kakihara are set up to be equally as destructive in their ability;

5 Bruder, “Aestheticizing violence.”

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Within the narrative, the scene is be described as relatable or realistic. important because the man who is However, the brokenness of his being tortured is under suspicion for characters and their outlets to hiding the missing yakuza boss. On a reconcile with these flaws are quite visual level, there is an anxiety- human. inducing horror in the quality of Miike’s films have an escapist empathy produced by seeing a appeal, similar to anime or person in this situation. The man’s pornography, but they become bleak skin is being stretched to an when the film’s violence is used to unbelievable length where it appears meditate on the suffering of others. about to rip apart. He hollers to plead For example, witnessing a body get for his life, but Kakihara has no dismantled limb by limb brings out indication that he will stop; deep-rooted curiosities surrounding information is incidental to his sadistic what the body is capable of. An fun. examination of feeling pain is applied Miike has noted in interviews that to make Miike’s film induce physical his idea of violence is that it comes reactions from the spectator in out naturally by instinct. In a 2015 creative ways. interview with SHOCK, Miike says, The issue is not whether the film “the goal is never merely to make a makes violence believable or violent film. That is not the point, suggests it be condoned; there is an really. The violence is just a result of obvious tongue-in-cheek playfulness how the characters evolve through in constructing such violence. There 6 the process of filmmaking.” Violence are always graphic depictions of comes out through a character’s violence in Miike’s films, but it is motivations and then is exaggerated consistently notable how painful and for good measure to vividly paint the extreme they are. What can sincerely character’s psyche. Generally, the be taken away from Ichi the Killer is an excessiveness of his films would not appreciation for suffering and a

6 Brown, Phil. “Extreme Cinema King Takashi Miike Talks YAKUZA APOCALYPSE.” SHOCK, 6 Oct 2015. https://www.comingsoon.net /horror/news/747341-interview-extreme- cinema-king-takashi-miike-talks-yakuza- apocalypse.

Screen Studies Quarterly 23 Piantini curiosity about the multiple ways pain violence of Ichi the Killer is not a can be inflicted. It would be a byproduct of humanity making a film, disservice to the craft of production to arriving naturally, but is a deliberate simply say that films like Miike’s are inclusion. Violence is a man-made just a spectacle of violence. Ichi the invention and it is not one that is Killer plays on an increasingly savage natural to our behavior. Wertham wave of attempts to raise the level of continues with three general types of what is depicted in empathetic moviegoers in regard to violence: graphic imagery. those unpleasantly moved, those amused, and those ambivalent. It is an interesting position to hold a INDEXICAL VIOLENCE neutral stance on film violence Violence has a precedent of because it puts a person as neither for being a signal of truth. Blood and nor against violence, but offers that innards spewing, pain and misery; violence is simply a given. “Many these are some of the worst things excuses are offered to justify the any being could ever go through, and proliferation of fictional violence. One they are used as indicators for a kind is that to depict the most gruesome of realism. In his article “IS SO MUCH details is a requirement of realism.”8 VIOLENCE IN FILMS NECESSARY?” With this attitude in consideration, Fredric Wertham, a champion against Dan Gilroy’s Nightcrawler (2014) violence in media, thoroughly goes serves as a heavy anchor to draw through the many avenues to distinction between real and film understand why violence is depicted violence. The film’s main character, and justified in film, with realism Louis “Lou” Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal), being a key factor. Wertham presents a man willing to do anything to be the case that “human violence is not successful, can be thought of as the inevitable; that it is not a biological embodiment of the ambivalent instinct like sex or the desire for food; filmgoer. He records footage from and that it can be greatly reduced and crime scenes and sells the footage to 7 even eventually abolished.” By a local news station for show the next Wertham’s definition, the absurd day. Lou crosses police lines, finds

7 Wertham, Fredric. “IS SO MUCH VIOLENCE 8 Wertham, “IS SO MUCH.” IN FILMS NECESSARY?” Cinéaste, vol. 2, no. 1 (5), 1968, pp. 4–36.

24 Spring 2020 Vol 1.1 “Do you like hurting people?” people in pain, and even tampers in the armed suspects lay bleeding. Rick investigations to conjure the most is then shot multiple times by one of thrilling footage. the barely alive suspects; meanwhile, Gilroy has stated that the film is Lou records it all. This is when the about journalism and sensational “strong” violence is solidified and media. The news media “show brief, recognized for taking a life. The violent images, a breath of narrative gunshots that go off into Rick are loud of fear and drama, a brief interview and shocking. Cinematic technique at with passersby or victims who convey its peak found in Miike or Tarantino is that this violence has somehow found replaced with a didactic style of the them. There is a string of similar real. Much like our real world, incidents and then you go to Nightcrawler has a tone of real world commercial.”9 Nightcrawler can be “crunch.” Sound design makes the read as a behind-the-scenes look at already indexical cinematography of how real-world violence is doc- Los Angeles feel all the more grave umented and used by news when Lou’s breathing is crispy sharp; organizations. Violence is taken into the abrupt silence that follows the car account in the real world and the crash and the echo of gunshots into consequence of said violence is profit Rick remain unresolved. Lack of and television ratings. sound is the key in highlighting the realism of violence in Nightcrawler Lou is made an antihero with his because the metanarrative of the unflinching drive to get the job done. media industry’s empire is built on That drive becomes mechanical to the point of horror in the film’s climax, when Lou and his employee Rick (Riz Ahmed) are following two house burglars after they kill the residents. The duo is filming everything up until a high-speed car chase leads to a big collision. Lou orders Rick to get footage of the wrecked vehicle where Figure 2 Lou (Jake Gyllenhaal) records real- life violence. (Nightcrawler, 2014)

9 Fleming, Mike. “Dan and Tony Gilroy of ‘Nightcrawler’ Talk Media Ugliness In The Digital Age: Q&A.” DEADLINE. 2 Nov 2014.

Screen Studies Quarterly 25 Piantini just that: real violence. Unlike Miike’s it is also important to ask why that attention to the body being explored, aspect is desirable to begin with. Gilroy’s film gives attention to the There are people outside of film body on display for profit. The film utilizing violence in interesting ways makes it clear that it acts with realist unable to be discussed here. In 2012, aesthetics, which are quite familiar to Hotline Miami was released. Hotline the audience. Coupled with a Miami is a game with a type of narrative about real violence being positive sensory violence however, it broadcasted by mass media is contextualized. The player is tasked companies, the filmic representation to perform brutal violence on every of strong violence enables the level and is then interrogated by what audience's personal lives to play an could only be described as the active role. player's psyche. In one of these sessions, one of these interrogating CONCLUSION figures asks, “Do you like hurting people?” Due to the player character While too brief to be exhaustive, being mute, it is likely this question is this essay underscores the various addressed to the player directly. The methods in which violence is utilized question of violence being a given by filmmakers. To speak in analogy, if objective in most video games must a director is a puppet master, the film mean that the player must enjoy is their strings, and the viewer is the hurting people, digital or otherwise. puppet, seeing how the strings attach While I have shown in this essay that to the audience gives insight to the violence is more meaningful than director’s desires for their film. superficial, it is important to ask if this Understanding this intent can give violence is based on a desire to cause more ground in the realm of violence pain or to bear witness to it. as a tool of art. In part with understanding violence and its usage,

BIO Michael Piantini is a graduate student of Screen Studies at Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema. His work focuses on film aesthetics and the cultural context media lives in to understand their thematic relevance. His current favorite pastime is watching the Smite Pro League, rooting for Spacestation Gaming.

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From Documentary Realism to Vlogging: The evolution of realism in the YouTube video Samah Ali ABSTRACT YouTubers are the new celebrity. They penetrate our lives on every device and offer an aesthetic that is somewhat familiar, but nuanced. With the rise of "Clean With Me" and "Shop With Me" videos, I draw a direct line between this trend and realism, popularized by the Soviet Montage, that brings us to where we are today in popular on-screen media. In this paper I discuss how realism in documentaries evolve into the contemporary YouTube aesthetic where creators feature themselves, brands, and cleaning routines and achieve millions of views and dollars. To understand where we are today, I will reference different times in history where documentary realism was used as a format to generate viewer identification, admiration, and relationships. I will then discuss how YouTubers influence creates a naive viewership that believes what they are seeing is real and who they are watching is their friend. This relationship causes viewers to opt into subliminal marketing as vloggers boost and recommend different products through sponsorships. I will end off this paper by drawing a relation between documentary realism offering the perfect aesthetic for YouTubers to exploit their everyday routines as a site of capital gain allowing advertisers to penetrate forged relationships between the vlogger and viewer.

Dziga Vertov’s Man With a Movie depiction of nature or of Camera (1929) is arguably one of the contemporary life,” (Moon 44). most recognizable films defining Realism feels like transparency to the Soviet Montage in film scholarship. film viewers — where we feel as if This seminal film features long shots everything we are seeing is and wide angles capturing everyday objectively true. This style of life in a bustling Russian town. Never filmmaking manifests in different focusing too long on one character, iterations of documentary and fiction, the film shows flashes of various lives but what I am interested in exploring and occupations in the city as is how the same shots and angles ordinary tasks and processes are used in Man With a Movie Camera are showcased on-screen. This key film seen in a new, popular YouTube also exhibits the documentary format trend. known as realism, defined as “the YouTubers called “vloggers,” accurate, detailed, unembellished producers of video blogs instead of

Screen Studies Quarterly 27 Ali written blogs, document their Tube trends where YouTubers feature everyday lives. In the past few years, themselves, brands, and their they began capturing their cleaning cleaning routines, ultimately amass- routines. This trend caught wildfire as ing millions of views and dollars. To more YouTubers gained exposure by understand where we are today, I will posting multiple videos documenting reference different times in history how they clean up their house, where documentary realism is used as kitchen, bathroom, car, and more. a format to generate viewer iden- Many use the same format as Vertov’s tification, admiration, and relation- films, where the camera holds a wide- ships. I will then discuss how a format angle shot capturing a room in full that presumes veracity creates a naive view as they clean up, wash, and walk viewership that believes what they are around over an accelerated time seeing is real and who they are period. The new edition that made watching is their friend. This this YouTube “Clean With Me” trend relationship, which I will explain as a different from Man With a Movie parasocial relationship, allows viewers Camera was the voice-over narration to unwittingly opt into subliminal from the vlogger explaining what they marketing as vloggers boost and were doing, why they were doing it, recommend different products and in most cases the products they through sponsorships. I will end off used. In my perspective, they use the this paper by drawing a relation same cinematic aesthetics to capture between documentary realism and this specific kind of vlog that differs advertising, offering the perfect from the rest of their content. “Clean aesthetic for YouTubers to exploit With Me” videos make viewers think their everyday routines as a site of they are witnessing everything in real capital gain allowing advertisers to time with no editing or strategic penetrate forged relationships decisions of product placement, a between the vlogger and viewer. level of transparency that makes this trend an exceptional marketing tool Documentary Realism: a history for advertisers and a neoliberal tactic for vloggers to profit off of their I want to start off by introducing authenticity as “normal” people. Won-Leep Moon’s article "Docu- mentary and Its Realism,” where he In this paper, I am most interested dissects documentary realism. He in how realism in documentary states that documentary realism feels transitions into contemporary You-

28 Spring 2020 Vol 1.1 From Documentary Realism to Vlogging as though we are watching characters 45). So, the images and actions we through a transparent lens almost as see are in fact real and have if we are there, but this aesthetic is happened, however, we mistake it as more like an illusion on what is a an authentic moment of reality, not staged shot and moment. I want to considering the set up and calculation unpack this style by defining what we that determines what will be in the understand as a subjective reality, scene. Moon continues to expand on allowing us to accept content as an this idea by writing: authentic scene, film, or video when it These feelings appear and feel real may be constructed for the sake of to audiences at any rate, performing realism. documentary realism is (a version of) the feeling that accompanies actual Documentaries bring out an seeing. Thus, if I say, ‘I seem to see undeniable voyeurism to watch real X’, it means not that it seems true life depicted on screen. Documentary that I see X, but that the experience of seeing X is there. The realism realism further underlines this with consists of the feeling of real seeing, films inviting us into the everyday of not the thought (right or wrong) of another person as their life is exposed real seeing. As embodied creatures to us. In Man With a Movie Camera, we live, not just watch, the world. Documentary realism comes from we are welcomed with wide shots and the psychology of this living in the close ups of various lives in a busy world. Experiencing this realism in Russian city. The film transitions long-gone scenes may be irrational, between different environments to but it is a fact of human psychology. (Moon 45) gain a greater picture of the We rely on the accuracy and atmosphere of a room, family, or intentions of what we are watching person. These shots are captured as because we know it is a documentary “moments in time” or “flashes of the — understood to be film truth. The average person,” but Moon rejects realist aesthetic is what keeps us in this saying the realness we feel as this viewing experience despite viewers is actually an illusion. He refers to Richard Allen’s illusion whether we watch Man With a Movie theory saying: “the illusion theory […] Camera or other documentary pro- takes seriously the fact that ‘we grams, such as the talk show, that emotionally respond to those follow this structure. depictions with an immediacy that is Television shows that feature on a par with the way that we respond celebrity hosts and comedians to actual objects and people” (Moon evolved from this aesthetic and have

Screen Studies Quarterly 29 Ali enhanced the “realness” by breaking the fourth wall, an essential addressing their viewers through the component in the content strategy of fourth wall. Evolving from variety these shows. shows and late-night specials, these As an example, I will dissect the shows create a branch between general format of The Oprah Winfrey documentary films to the con- Show. Running over 25 seasons from temporary YouTube video be-cause 1986 to 2011, Oprah Winfrey’s show they introduce an essential element built a strong relationship with of realism: parasocial relationships. viewers every day for 25 years. As a According to Arienne Ferchaud, result, viewers watched Oprah for a parasocial relationships are defined dedicated amount of months, years, as the closeness viewers feel when and decades fostering a strong bond television hosts of talk shows and with her content and messages. In any soap operas address the viewer as an given episode, Oprah would directly active participant in the room address the audience by saying “you” (Ferchaud et al. 90). In "Parasocial and “you at home.” She would also Attributes and YouTube Personalities: have candid moments with the Exploring Content Trends across the audience in the room as the cameras Most Subscribed YouTube Chan- pan from different people and their nels,” Ferchaud et al. argue that these expressions. These moments make relationships welcome audiences into viewers feel like they are in the studio what feels like a real life experience audience, experiencing what is where they can identify with the host unfolding during the show. It is as their friend, and additional important to note that these characters or featured guests as moments are what continue to build people they are getting to know with audience relationships with her over their best friend. The ongoing the years. In certain episodes the presence of the host in viewers’ lives audience calls out for Oprah, saying also means that this is a person “they love her,” wanting to capture viewers believe they have an actual her attention because they feel close relationship with, making the show to her after decades of watching her more exciting because they have a as “their friend.” This relationship and confidant experiencing the same assumed closeness outline the emotions and feelings as they are in building blocks to Ferchaud’s under- this very “authentic moment.” This standing of parasocial attri-butes, or relationship is heightened by core styles that influence parasocial

30 Spring 2020 Vol 1.1 From Documentary Realism to Vlogging relationships (Ferchaud et al. 89). that matches a documentary realist Attributes like personality, content, or aesthetic evolving from Man With a a niche in the subject matter is what Movie Camera and the talk show. sets up the likeness to TV hosts; the Ferchaud and her team accurately language and approach to the sum up the perceived difference from camera is friendly and inviting, the traditional celebrity versus a welcoming viewers into their lives as YouTuber, saying: if they belong there. This blueprint Contrary to the ways in which was shaped on television, but it was celebrity status develops with movie perfected on YouTube because of the stars or famous singers, YouTube celebrity status seems to arise from a undeniable distance viewers felt from blurring between the creator's celebrities. At the end of the day, private and public life, and a sense of audiences knew that Oprah, and authenticity that arises from other television hosts like her, were perceived amateur status (Jerslev, 2016). This curated authenticity, billionaires that did not lead the same along with personal appeals to like, lives. There was a lifestyle difference subscribe, or otherwise participate in that would always make them the community surrounding the different, no matter how close they YouTuber, is seemingly part of an effort to increase sociability — or the felt. YouTubers, on the other hand, sense that the experience is both appear accessible and “normal,” interactive and social. (Ferchaud et making viewers feel like they are more al. 89) approachable than the average They recognize that viewers are celebrity. However, with views in the more invested online compared to millions it is clear that YouTubers viewership of traditional talk shows mastered the parasocial attributes to because audiences need to create a forge relationships that extend past YouTube account to actively sub- the screen as they began to monetize scribe and engage with a YouTube their content. video. This interaction mimics a personal relationship where people exhibit and watch a person’s Documentary Realism and the Vlog behaviours before determining if they I now want to bring in a case are worth starting a relationship. study of the YouTuber’s influence, Ferchaud et al. study this non- their parasocial relationships with reciprocal relationship by exploring their viewers, and the financial returns what attributes certain YouTubers they gain all while producing content bring to the screen to inspire more

Screen Studies Quarterly 31 Ali connections with their viewers. Some kitchen sink then moves onto baking may be more explicit about their bread for a holiday party. Typically, shortcomings to seem more “real” 20-30 minutes in length, her “Clean while others may produce a With Me” videos ignite viewers with glamourized version of themselves to the initiative and inspiration to clean attract aspirational parasocial rela- their living spaces because they see tionships. The results from their study one of their “friends” or “favourite support that YouTubers who had vloggers” doing the same. Knowing more viewers had strong parasocial the influence of her views, interaction — referring to “illusionary AprilAthena7 curates specific playlists interaction” with a media persona — for her respective “Get Ready With and engagement with their audiences Me,” “Shop With Me,” and “Clean by addressing them, keeping people With Me” videos where she secures involved in their lives, or what seemed sponsorships from different cleaning to be involvement, by vlogging or and makeup brands that pay her to sharing every moment of their day. recommend their products organ- Sharing the ordinary became an ically in her videos. ultimate example of averageness, Receiving thousands of dollars to where YouTubers can cement their make promotional videos under the relationships with a “Get Ready with guise of her “everyday life,” these Me” video, vlog, or the hyper trendy popular vlogs take on the aesthetic of example I mentioned at the top of this documentary realism and rely on paper, “Clean With Me” videos. An viewer identification and parasocial example of this is YouTuber relations for financial payoff. In a AprilAthena7, a channel with over study done by Juha Munnukka et al. 675,000 subscribers and viewership in called "Thanks for Watching,” the the millions. April’s page features team examines the effectiveness of numerous “Clean” and “Get Ready brand endorsements from vloggers With Me” videos after building a relying on their parasocial relation- brand of her busy lifestyle where she ships and interactions. Recognizing takes care of her family, balancing that the ongoing face-to-face motherhood and upkeep in between. relationship and familiarity viewers Her videos keep up the relationship have with YouTubers, Munnukka et al. with her viewers by adding in the state that viewers feel a type of voiceover that overshares intimate ownership over the person or objects details in her life as she scrubs her they have in a video. In turn, this

32 Spring 2020 Vol 1.1 From Documentary Realism to Vlogging affects their self-interest in the Theater of Suffering,” Anna McCarthy vlogger (Munnukka 228). Viewers are talks about reality television’s reliance more likely to invest in a product, on identity and cultural groups for object, or idea because they feel like attraction, viewership, and adver- they can trust AprilAthena7, or any tisements. In the same way, YouTuber they have a parasocial YouTubers typically have a niche, relationship with, making this cultural group, or identity that marketing the most strategic with welcomes their audiences into their greater returns than the traditional world. Parasocial attributes are commercial advertisement. manipulated for capital gains by This contemporary example of pushing endorsements that may or documentary realism is far from may not appeal to the viewers and where we started in its early days of because of their influence, YouTubers Soviet montage. However, such gain millions of views for an economic YouTube videos stay true to the same payout. Munnukka et al. discovered editing styles, camera angles, and that the majority of their study ordinary lives on screen. The “Clean participants who knew a YouTuber in With Me” video trend relies on the the study were more interested and illusion Moon talks about: where trusting of a brand endorsement. This viewers really feel like what they are was because of their parasocial seeing is real, authentic, and relationships and interactions, like happening true to life. In actuality, subscribing with an account, liking the these videos use realism’s format as video, or writing a comment an innovative iteration of marketing (Munnukka 228). By using a realist with a vlogger audiences identify with aesthetic, audiences think what they and love because of their per- are seeing is real, trusting the sonalities and parasocial bonds. YouTuber more, and indirectly providing them with financial

compensation. Conclusion As mentioned earlier, this is an On a final note, I want to talk unexpected fate for documentary about how YouTuber investment and realism and yet, we are here. The film branded items make this iteration of format relies on viewership documentary realism a neoliberal identification through banal life theater of success for the vlogger. In processes, but is turned into indirect “Reality Television: A Neoliberal investment through fake relationships

Screen Studies Quarterly 33 Ali and authenticity. YouTubers monetize stay true to the craft and keep up the this content through their elusive illusion of the everyday. Where we are intimacy, allowing brand partnerships now opens up the question: if realism to push products to people already is simply a fake staging of reality, can dedicated to listening to the vlogger. we ever see real life unfold on-screen The contemporary usage of doc- without any strategies, set-ups, or umentary realism is nuanced and sponsorships working elusively in the unexpected, and yet YouTube videos background?

BIO Samah Ali is a producer, distributor, and film programmer supporting organizations like DOC NYC, Nantucket Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, and Black Femme Supremacy Film Festival. She is the founder of Sisterhood Media, a production and distribution organization streaming films about community and identity on Sisterhood Media TV. As a master’s candidate of Screen Studies at Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema in Brooklyn College, Samah is researching how virtual reality cinema will change the cinematic experience and offer new technologies for ethnic and Indigenous futurisms. You can interact with her online on twitter @sistersamah.

34 Spring 2020 Vol 1.1

Breeding Toxicity to Protect Safe Spaces: Exploring the Phenomenon Within the Steven Universe Fandom Isabella Scappaticci ABSTRACT This essay seeks to understand why toxic fandoms are conceived and how severe their consequences can be for younger generations through an analysis of the Steven Universe fandom. Steven Universe, an American cartoon targeted toward young children, is a show that teaches empathy, love, and acceptance with an emphasis on LGBTQIA+ themes, garnering a passionate adult following as well. Beginning in 2014, the fandom's presence within various social media platforms has turned sour in its attempt to police people's self-expression in the name of social justice, eventually devolving into death-threats and cyber-bullying. An analysis of the devastating consequences the victims dealt with for their participation in fandom-centered internet culture begs readers to question how such good-natured content could spark such hateful words and actions. The ultimate purpose of this analysis is to explore the nuanced psychological concepts at play within a toxic fandom and shed light upon the insidious issues brewing underneath the surface of popular culture.

Originally coined in 1903 to specific piece of media, usually describe a group of sports fans that leading to abusive behavior. The rise follow one specific team,1 “fandom” of online toxicity surrounding popular has recently become associated with television shows is a phenomenon negativity, referring to fans who take that many journalists and academics a fictional series very seriously, have sought to understand because it sparking Internet fights among online spirals out of control so frequently communities. In fact, the term “toxic that cyber bullying, death threats, and fandom” is one commonly used to gatekeeping among fans is now describe a fanbase that becomes expected. While many adult increasingly possessive about a animated series, such as Rick and

1 “Fandom,” Merriam-Webster, accessed on October 25, 2019, https://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/fandom-adventure- time-universe- 2513303789.html/culture/culture- features/steven-universe-how-rebecca-sugar- turned-tvs-most-empathetic-cartoon-into-an- empire-205732/.

Screen Studies Quarterly 35 Scappaticci

Morty2 or South Park3, have been at standing of why and how they the center of this problematic operate. behavior, children’s cartoons have Steven Universe tells the story of joined the titles within toxic a half-alien, half-human boy named communities. Among the millennial Steven who goes on extraordinary generation, watching children’s adventures in and around his animated series has become widely hometown, Beach City. Because his accepted due to the shows’ ability to mother gave up her physical form to package dark adult themes into light- create him, he is raised by her three hearted, fun stories. The message at best friends — Pearl, Garnet, and the center of most of these shows is Amethyst — along with his father, “it's okay to feel not okay,” a Greg. The show chronicles his sentiment that appeals to viewers of experiences of learning and teaching 4 all ages. To gain a better others how to love, forgive, and understanding of how a cartoon accept change. What really sets this centered around family and empathy show apart though is its fluid leads fans into severe bullying, this depictions of gender and sexuality, as paper will focus on the Steven it boldly depicts lesbian romances Universe (SU) fandom and the and non-binary characters. Queer controversies it has started. The themes are highlighted through its ultimate purpose of this analysis is to emphasis placed on chosen family, explore the nuanced psychological identity, and self-acceptance while concepts at play within a toxic also incorporating mature content fandom to gain a better under- such as domestic abuse, emotional trauma, and anxiety. These are the

2 Sebastian Murial, “Rick and Morty Toxic 3 “The Fandom Police - South Park,” Amino, Fandom Explained,” Medium (blog), October accessed October 23, 2019, 23, 2019, https://aminoapps.com/c/cartoon/page/blog/t https://medium.com/@sebastianmuriel/rick- he-fandom-police-south- and-morty-toxic-fandom-explained- park/42MC_Yu211NdV86ZRz2RXEMw65lX4lQ eedc3716b868. .

4 Scully, Thomas Burns. “Why Do Cartoons Resonate So Well With Millenials?,” Last modified November 29, 2017. https://www.popdust.com/millennial-cartoons- reonate.

36 Spring 2020 Vol 1.1 Breeding Toxicity to Protect Safe Spaces very reasons that the show has behavior is justified due to the way garnered the attention of children, that series’ creator, Rebecca Sugar, adults, and critics alike. has approached the show as a human Given the show’s progressive rights campaign. In her interview with messages of self-love and the Rolling Stone, she describes SU as 5 overwhelming amount of positive “gender expansive,” which is a term attention it has received, where, then, that “classif[ies] youth who [do] not does the series’ toxic following fit in? identify with traditional gender roles For this, we have to begin by but [are] otherwise not confined to understanding the values of the SU one gender narrative or ex- fandom, namely representation and perience…[allowing] us to talk about acceptance. On blogging platforms youth who don’t meet our ‘traditional’ such as Tumblr, the importance of understandings of gender without 6 “calling out” problematic behavior putting their identity in a box.” One within mass media and among fellow primary example of this is Stevonnie, Tumblr users is commonplace. a non-binary, intersex character that is However, this escalated when SU frequently featured throughout the started becoming popular within the series. Though they present feminine mainstream, bringing many Tumblr qualities, the series makes a point to users to claim the show as something show them shaving facial hair and that can only be enjoyed by minority alternating between the pronouns individuals: “Hey men. Steven “we” and “I” in reference to Universe? This show belongs to the themselves. In an interview with women + trans + nonbinary comm- Entertainment Weekly, Sugar spoke unities. We will drag you to the to the importance of telling queer bottom of the sea to defend it. It. Is. stories: “We need to let children Ours” (John Guth 2016, Odyssey know that they belong in this world... Online). You have to tell them while they’re still children that they deserve love While this gatekeeping is and that they deserve support and alarming, the fandom believes this

5 Eric Thrum. “‘Steven Universe’: How 6 “Resources on Gender Expansive Children Rebecca Sugar Turned TV’s Most Empathetic and Youth,” Human Rights Campaign, Cartoon Into an Empire,” Last modified June accessed October 25, 2019, 7, 2017. https://www.rollingstone.com. https://www.hrc.org/resources/resources-on- gender-expansive-children-and-youth.

Screen Studies Quarterly 37 Scappaticci that people will be excited to hear posted a second drawing (Fig. 2), their story.”7 This approach allows depicting Greg, Steven, and Rose fans of all ages to find validation in embracing in a family group hug. This their selfhood by prioritizing time she was accused of fat-shaming acceptance and love above all else. because the Rose she drew looked Despite the show’s fight for much skinnier than the original inclusivity, the possessive behavior cartoon. only worsened online as fans began The thin version of Rose was “the policing each other’s artwork in the straw that broke the camel’s back,” so name of social justice, claiming that to say, unleashing the worst of the certain depictions of main characters bullying due to the fact that the were oppressive and unacceptable. In fandom’s sense of inclusivity felt 2015, Paige Paz, a nineteen-year-old threatened. Body positivity is very fan artist, operating under the Tumblr important to the fandom, and each of username Zamii070, created two the main characters of SU are drawings that brought about designed to look and feel unique immense amounts of bullying. The both in their physicality and their first of these drawings (Fig. 1) personality. Characters such as depicted Sardonyx, a very tall gem Garnet, Amethyst, Jasper, and known for having brown skin and Bismuth all present as female while blonde, afro-like hair. Paz’s version of still having less traditionally feminine this character, however, had thinner, physical qualities due to their less curly hair, making it look like a muscular torsos and wide frames. This wavy bob. Fans on Tumblr accused diversity was so clearly prioritized her of “race-lifting,” a term used to among the show and its viewers that describe the act of removing Dove took notice and partnered with someone’s racial identity in a SU for the Dove Self Esteem Project derivative work, motivating fans to in an attempt to “ensure that the next begin meticulously examining her generation grows up enjoying a posts. A few days later, Zamii070 positive relationship with the way they

7 Nick Romano, “Steven Universe Creator Has Done More for LGBTQ Visibility Than You Might Know,” Last modified August 13, 2018, https://ew.com/tv/2018/08/13/steven- universe-rebecca-sugar-lgbtq-cartoons/.

38 Spring 2020 Vol 1.1 Breeding Toxicity to Protect Safe Spaces look.”8 As Sugar explains, “I think it’s insensitive, to unfollow her, or to really basic: Steven Universe is remain silent if they disagreed with designed to help kids with body their arguments. As the fighting confidence and body image by just escalated, these comments turned showing characters with different into threats of death or rape primarily bodies experiencing happiness.”9 towards Paz. In early 2015, Paz While the many criticisms posted a brief suicide note on Tumblr Zamii070 received were valid, the before attempting to take her own comments and messages became life, stating “I’m going to sleep increasingly abusive. They began by forever. I’m sorry everyone, I’m just pointing out Paz’s insensitivity super tired. This will be the last you’ll towards plus-size bodies, which hear from me. I’m going to be at divided the fandom in half, with some peace now. I’m sorry” (John Guth supporting Zamii070’s right to draw 2016, Odyssey Online). fanart however she pleases and Thankfully, a fan who read the others claiming that her artwork was message found a way to contact her offensive and had no business being parents about it and Paz was rushed on the Internet. This first round of to the hospital to receive physical and aggressive comments mostly con- mental treatment. The online abuse sisted of angry fans demanding didn’t stop there. 10 When she was Zamii070’s supporters take time to released from the hospital, Paz understand why her drawings were uploaded a series of videos

8 “Dove and Cartoon Network: Our 10 Clinton Nguyen, “An Attempted Suicide Episodes,” Dove, accessed November 5, Forced the Tumblr Community to Open Its 2019, Eyes About Bullying,” last modified https://www.dove.com/us/en/stories/campaig November 6, 2015, ns/help-a-girl-you-know-be-a-confident- https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3da838/a girl/dove-and-steven-universe-our- n-attempted-suicide-forced-a-tumblr- episodes.html. community-to-open-its-eyes-about-bullying.

9 Cartoon Network, Dove Self-Esteem Project x Steven Universe: We Deserve to Shine Music Video | Behind the Scenes, Dove, YouTube, July 19, 2018, video, 2:05 duration, https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=cuza_ivea 9M&list=PLg6KfZlgBuDWzY4- AnktLOkt8JGSz47dJ&index=7.

Screen Studies Quarterly 39 Scappaticci explaining what happened and between the two characters that reassuring her fan base that she was many fans were excited about given receiving the attention she needed. that they are frequently “shipped,” or Bullies continued to post abusive romantically envisioned together in comments, claiming that she faked fan art.11 While many were excited to her suicide or that it was a publicity see the sketches, an overwhelming stunt. Eventually, some of the SU staff amount of fans began to attack Zuke members, known to the fandom as for presumed favoritism among the the “crewniverse,” stepped in when fan “ships” and for “queer-baiting” Ian Jones-Quarty posted on twitter, her following. According to fans on a “Fanartists can create whatever art SU Reddit thread, many accused Zuke they want & everyone has the of depicting Lapis and Peridot as an freedom to criticize it for any reason. “old married couple,” creating a joke However, bullying is not criticism.” at the expense of queer folks, though This had followers attacking the she has made it abundantly clear in “crewniverse” for failing to support her responses to fans that it was not the fans who claimed to be fighting her intention. She replied on Twitter for social justice in their attack on multiple times to the harassment she Zamii070. was receiving, but eventually deleted This attack on the creators isn’t a her account completely and has not unique experience given the cyber appeared on the platform since. bullying that storyboard artist Lauren These two instances are merely a Zuke experienced when sketches for couple of the most extreme examples the episode “Beta” were leaked in within a long series of SU-related 2016. This particular episode revolves bullying cases. “Toxic fandom” around the life that characters Peridot occurs when fans that have identified and Lapis have made for themselves with a particular piece of media for so on earth. The leaked sketches long begin to feel as though the story demonstrate a sort of flirtation belongs to them. Their “ownership”

11 Beth Elderkin, “Steven Universe Artist Quits Twitter Over Fan Harassment,” last modified August 13, 2016, https://io9.gizmodo.com/steven-universe- artist-quits-twitter-over-fan-harassmen- 1785242762.

40 Spring 2020 Vol 1.1 Breeding Toxicity to Protect Safe Spaces over the content leads them to In her book The Cultural Politics believe they can dictate what can be of Emotion, Sarah Amhed (2004) done with the story by other fans and expands upon this idea and explains creators. Many journalists have that fear is born of an anticipation of tackled this topic on a variety of pain, a feeling that is held and mainstream media websites such as remembered by the body so that, The New Yorker, Gizmodo, and Reel when one anticipates pain, the body Rundown, and while each has a becomes restricted within its physical theory about how this phenomenon space. This dynamic is frequently occurs, they agree that the cause seen between institutions and the boils down to the fanbase’s extreme people they oppress as it is a way to sense of identification with the subconsciously control the mental content. There is plenty of debate and physical spaces minorities over how this over-identification occupy: happens; some argue it is because of It is no accident that in political identity marketing employed by large rhetoric, freedom and fear are brands or apathetic creators giving increasingly opposed: the new freedom is posited as freedom from into the desires of their fandom out of fear, and as the freedom to move. fear, but journalist Rachel Lefler But which bodies are granted such (2018), treads closest to the source freedom to move? And which bodies when she argues that a “persecution become read as the origin of fear as threatening “our” freedom? (70) complex” spreads among the fandom’s most vulnerable members: In toxic online spaces, fandoms invert this concept by cultivating a Out of fear of being bullied, some people end up preemptively bullying space in which die-hard fans make up others. Or doing disproportionate the majority while everyone else is a things in retaliation. The conflict minority unless they meet the criteria creates a sense of self and of being part of the “in group.” This community that is tied to the in- group, the 'safe haven' of the fan allows a small group of self-identified community...People get addicted to misfits to have a form of power they the attention and validation these are not able to employ in other online niches can give them, spaces. In fact, Amhed argues that especially if the outside world is less friendly. That leads them to extreme “solidarity is based on ‘insecurity’ in-group loyalty and extreme out- rather than ‘need’ in the new group hatred. modernity: it is through the per- ception of shared risk that com-

Screen Studies Quarterly 41 Scappaticci munities become a ‘binding force’” profoundly negative impact upon (72). many of its own members, the way SU Online bullying as a result of a has positively impacted viewers of all collective fear response might seem ages through its representation and as though it would quickly resolve messages of empathy leads me to itself considering the temporality of believe that the good far outweighs other fear responses, such as fight or the bad. For example, utilizing a flight; however, what makes a fandom moment from the episode “Alone truly toxic is the continual Together,” in which Stevonnie flips compounded negativity that festers their hair when they are first until social media platforms are introduced to some Beach City forced to take action. Though residents, a meme was created in bullying usually divides a fandom’s 2016 by adding the caption: “are you members into a typical “us” vs a boy or a girl? I’m an experience.” “them” scenario, the fighting actually This circulated across multiple social bonds each faction of the group in media platforms and frequently solidarity. Not only are the fans closer popped up within online discussions to each other, but they also become about correct pronoun usage and closer to the content they are arguing trans rights. about. According to Amhed: Though online discourse has The turning away from the object of been frequently written off as a poor fear also involves turning towards the form of activism, or lack thereof, object of love, who becomes a scholars such as Henry Jenkins (2016) defense against the death that is apparently threatened by the object have argued otherwise, claiming that of fear....Rather than fear getting in this type of participatory politics is the way of love, we can see that fear what “democracy looks like in the allows the subject to get closer to the 21st century” (1). In fact, Jenkins loved object, though the distance is never quite abolished, and the describes this process as a point object of love as well as fear may yet “where political change is promoted pass by. (68) through social and cultural Considering the toxic relation- mechanisms rather than through ships that can form in any given established political institutions, and fandom, scholars frequently dismiss where citizens can see themselves as obsessive fan culture assuming it capable of expressing their political lacks nuance, however, I argue concerns — often through the otherwise. Despite its toxic fandom’s production and circulation of media”

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(2). This is especially true for the through adversities. For those that young target demographic of SU, as became overwhelmed with emotion it allows young children and teens to and struggled to say what they politically engage with peers before wished to say, panelists always being able to access a ballot box. responded with words of encourage- According to a fan poll from ment like “you’ve got this” or “you’re 2015, the average age of SU viewers doing great,” a sentiment that would 13 is 22, with the youngest participant then echo through the crowd. reporting they were about 11 years At the heart of every fandom is a old and the oldest participant desire for connection. While that reporting they were 50.12 While this desire manifests in various ways, it may seem surprising to those outside provides a truly powerful momentum the fandom, a trip to any of the yearly among fans to enact change and conventions demonstrates this reality. action. As Vivian Lilan Nguyen (2013) As evidenced by footage from 2018’s puts it: San Diego Comic Con, the Q&A There is a desire in individual fan[s] to session with Sugar and the cast create a collective vulnerability with demonstrates the profound impact and among others — a collective catharsis of feelings and emotions, the show has had on the lives of fans: particularly after important, dra- parents of children with special matic, or highly anticipated story- needs; young inspired animators; lines. Viewers in this fandom (and genderqueer individuals; and viewers perhaps any fandom) are at the core fans that wish to feel moved, and to struggling with mental health all have emotional connections to the approached the microphone with content they consume. (64) shaky voices, holding back tears, Considering that their emotional unable to fully feel as though they attachment is their driving force, it could thank the cast and crew enough would be an understatement to say for the way the show has helped them that the SU fandom is emotionally

12 Rae Binstock, “Steven Universe is ‘Purple 13 Cartoon Network, Steven Universe | Live Lesbians from Space.’ It’s Also Love, Pain, Panel From SDCC 2018 | Cartoon Network, Support, and Struggle,” last modified May 8, San Diego Comic Con, YouTube, July 22, 2017, https://slate.com/human- 2018, video, 40:21 duration, interest/2017/05/steven-universe-on-cartoon- https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=YzitaVZZ network-is-about-love-and-all-its- OPM. complications.html.

Screen Studies Quarterly 43 Scappaticci connected to the content. As the entirety of the fandom by the desire for connection is accompanied behavior exhibited by a minority. with a need to be heard and Rather, I focus on this online bullying validated, problems inevitably arise epidemic in order to validate it as a when those who have felt voiceless subject worthy of attention as its realize their ability to affect others in consequences have proven to be virtual spaces. Though toxic fatal. The severity and frequency in engagements will never cease to exist which it occurs throughout most, if within any fandom, it is important not not all, fandoms beg us to question to let the fandom’s potential be how we can learn to teach media eclipsed by bullying. I side with literacy and emotional intelligence Jenkins (1992) in his argument that among the youth navigating the fandom provides a freeing ex- current Internet landscape. The perience allowing members to ultimate irony of this analysis is that engage with textual materials in a Steven Universe attempts to teach more playful manner and in a way that these very lessons. How, then, can we challenges narrow assumptions of begin to address this problem? academic criticism.14 Maybe, entering it into the current While my examination of toxic discourse might be enough to fandom acknowledges it as a serious motivate society to rethink the way problem, I do not wish to define the we incorporate and educate children about media and technology.

BIO Isabella Scappaticci is a second-year Screen Studies student at the Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema in Brooklyn, NY. As a Latina scholar, her studies in film school primarily focus on the representation of minorities within children's cartoons. With a Master of Arts in Teaching degree, her perspective as an educator allows her to approach each topic she addresses with a unique take on how the medium, message, and distribution of media affects children and students. Her goal as an educator and a film scholar is to emphasize the importance of media literacy and equitable technological practices among all students despite their ethnic or socio-economic background.

14 Henry Jenkins, Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture (New York: Routledge), 7.

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Appendix

Fig. 1, Paz, Paige, Untitled, 2015, (www.tumblr.com), https://www.theodysseyonline.com/why-am-no-longer-steven-universe-fan

Fig. 2, Paz, Paige, Untitled, Drawing, 2015 (www.tumblr.com), https://www.theodysseyonline.com/why-am-no-longer-steven-universe-fan

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Filmography AprilAthena7. AAMedia, Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/user/AprilAthena7/featured. Funny Games. Directed by Michael Haneke. Burbank: Warner Independent Pictures, 2007. Ichi the Killer. Directed by Takashi Miike. New York: Media Blasters, 2001. Kill Bill: Volume 1. Directed by Quentin Tarantino. Los Angeles: Miramax, 2003. Man With a Movie Camera. Directed by Dziga Vertov. 1929. Mister America. Directed by Eric Notarnicola. New York: Magnolia Pictures, 2019. Nightcrawler. Directed by Dan Gilroy. Los Angeles: Open Road Films, 2014. On Cinema. Web series. Created by Tim Heidecker. Written by Tim Heidecker and Gregg Turkington. Adult Swim. First episode aired November 2, 2012. On Cinema: The Trial. Miniseries. Directed by Eric Notarnicola. Written by Eric Notarnicola, Tim Heidecker, and Gregg Turkington. Adult Swim, November 15-28, 2017. Steven Universe. Television series. Created by Rebecca Sugar. Burbank: Warner Bros. Television Distribution. First episode aired November 4, 2013. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Directed by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, and Rodney Rothman. Culver City: Sony Pictures Releasing, 2018. The Oprah Winfrey Show. Television series. Created by Oprah Winfrey. Chicago: CBS Television. First episode aired September 8, 1986.

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