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Behind the Mask of the Bechdel Test Constructing a Character Network in Alan Moore’Swatchmen

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Behind the Mask of the Bechdel Test Constructing a Character Network in Alan Moore’Swatchmen BEHIND THE MASK OF THE BECHDEL TEST CONSTRUCTING A CHARACTER NETWORK IN ALAN MOORE’SWATCHMEN Word count: 23,024 Arne Chys Student number: 01205131 Supervisor(s): Prof. Dr. Julie Birkholz, Prof. Dr. Maaheen Ahmed A dissertation submitted to Ghent University in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Linguistics and Literature: language combination: English-Dutch Academic year: 2018 – 2019 Acknowledgements “Never despair. Never surrender.” - Rorschach (Alan Moore, Watchmen) I would like to use this space to express gratitude to my two supervisors. Dr. Julie Birkholz for accepting the proposal for this thesis, for her contagious enthusiasm in this project, and her vast knowledge on social network theory. Dr. Maaheen Ahmed, for her timely feedback, her insight in comics and for her guidance throughout both this thesis as well as my bachelor paper. I thank them both for the considerable amount of time they have invested in my research. Their insights and feedback have proven extremely valuable in the writing process. Moreover, I would like to thank my family and friends; especially my mother, who provided me with the opportunity to pursue the education that I wanted and remained supportive in every step of the way, although never quite understanding what this research was about. Lastly, I would like to thank Karel, who has helped me preserve my sanity during the writing process. i Table of contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................ I LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES ...................................................................................................................................................................................................... III INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... IV CHAPTER 1 THE BECHDEL-TEST .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 GENDER INEQUALITY IN COMICS ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 2 1.1.1 Wonder Women as a debatable feminist icon .......................................................................................................................................................................... 3 1.2 THE BECHDEL TEST AND COMICS ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 4 1.3 CRITICISM OF THE BECHDEL TEST .............................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 5 1.4 ACADEMIC INTEREST IN THE BECHDEL TEST ............................................................................................................................................................................................................ 8 1.5 SOCIAL NETWORKING THEORY AS THE MISSING LINK .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 10 CHAPTER 2 ON SOCIAL NETWORKING THEORY ........................................................................................................................................................... 12 CHAPTER 3 THE CASE OF WATCHMEN .............................................................................................................................................................................. 15 3.1 THE WATCHMEN STORY ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 15 3.2 WATCHMEN’S CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE ................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 19 3.3 FEMALE REPRESENTATION IN WATCHMEN ........................................................................................................................................................................................................... 20 3.4 METHODOLOGY ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 24 3.4.1 Using a social network theories approach ....................................................................................................................................................................... 24 3.4.1.1 Power and influence ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 24 3.4.1.2 Degree Centrality .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 25 3.4.1.3 Closeness centrality ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 26 3.4.1.4 Betweenness centrality ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 27 3.4.2 Developing a strategy for constructing a social network in Watchmen ....................................................................................................... 27 3.4.3 Mapping social events ................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 32 CHAPTER 4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ........................................................................................................................................................................ 34 4.1 DEGREE CENTRALITY ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 35 4.2 CLOSENESS CENTRALITY ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 38 4.3 BETWEENNESS CENTRALITY ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 40 4.4 DISCUSSION ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 42 CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 46 REFERENCE LIST ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 49 APPENDIX ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 54 (23.024 words) ii List of tables and figures Figure 1: The rules of the Bechdel test as explained in "Dykes to watch out for" (Bechdel,1986) ...................................... 1 Figure 2: Most inequal distribution of power (Freeman,1979) ................................................................................................................ 26 Figure 3: President Nixon with Defcon pilot (Moore & Gibbons, 2014) .............................................................................................. 29 Figure 4: unnoticed background character (Moore
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