Union College Union | Digital Works Honors Theses Student Work 6-2013 Acting the Part: How Audience Problematizes Butlerian Performativity in the Films of Darren Aronofsky Kathryn Bigelow and Lars Van Trier Ryan Semerad Union College - Schenectady, NY Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalworks.union.edu/theses Part of the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, and the Film and Media Studies Commons Recommended Citation Semerad, Ryan, "Acting the Part: How Audience Problematizes Butlerian Performativity in the Films of Darren Aronofsky Kathryn Bigelow and Lars Van Trier" (2013). Honors Theses. 724. https://digitalworks.union.edu/theses/724 This Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Work at Union | Digital Works. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of Union | Digital Works. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Semerad i Acting the Part: How ‘Audience’ Problematizes Butlerian Performativity in the Films of Darren Aronofsky, Kathryn Bigelow, and Lars von Trier By Ryan Semerad ************** Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Honors in the Department of English UNION COLLEGE June, 2013 Semerad ii ABSTRACT SEMERAD, RYAN Acting the Part: How ‘Audience’ Problematizes Butlerian Performativity in the Films of Darren Aronofsky, Kathryn Bigelow, and Lars von Trier ADVISORS: Prof. Andrew Burkett and Prof. Katherine Lynes Feminist and gender studies critics laud Judith Butler’s theory of the performative construction of identity because of its capacity to liberate gender from the biological essentialism entailed by previous identity theories. In this thesis, I show how six twenty- first century films demonstrate the importance and problematic nature of ‘audience’ in the performative construction of identity.