When Life Imitates Art: Political Messages in Modern Cinema by Sydney Laws, B.A. A Thesis In Political Science Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS Approved Dr. Toby Rider Chair of Committee Dr. Katharine Hayhoe Dr. Seth McKee Mark Sheridan Dean of the Graduate School August, 2019 Copyright 2019, Sydney Laws Texas Tech University, Sydney Laws, August 2019 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It would be a crime to understate the impact of Dr. Toby Rider on my professional development while at Texas Tech. I will be forever grateful for his support and encouragement of my somewhat unconventional research interests. I would also like to thank Dr. Seth McKee and Dr. Katharine Hayhoe for taking the time to be part of my committee amidst their already busy schedules. Each is the type of professor that students wish for and are rarely lucky enough to encounter. To this exceedingly talented and marvelous committee: you will never get back the time you have spent reading, critiquing, and assisting me with my work. I sincerely hope that I have made it worth your while. I would be remiss not to express my appreciation for the friends and family who listened to me complain for months on end and yet still find it within themselves to associate with me. This writing experience has taught me that other people can provide invaluable support, and that even though my cat is my number one cheerleader, verbal communication with another human can come in handy when you realize that those 89 pages really will not write themselves. Special appreciation goes to: Cacy Clements, Kayla Gray, Rowan Lee, Madeline Neely, Kate Spencer, Chi Ha, Danie Vaughn, Aakriti Pyakurel, Emily Acosta, Cheryl Bushey, Rylie Gates, Shivaun Landeros, Dr. Kristina Mitchell, Dr. Iñaki Sagarzazu, Dr. Beverly Pair, and my parents, Sharon and Scott Laws. Thank you for helping me maintain my sanity, because I certainly could not have done it alone. ii Texas Tech University, Sydney Laws, August 2019 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................. ii ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... v LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................... vi CHAPTER I - INTRODUCTION ................................................................................... 1 Literature Review ............................................................................................................. 2 CHAPTER II – THE METHODS ................................................................................. 12 Assumptions .................................................................................................................... 14 Technical Mechanisms .................................................................................................... 15 Narrative Mechanisms .................................................................................................... 21 CHAPTER III - THE CASES ........................................................................................ 24 Race .................................................................................................................................. 24 Get Out .......................................................................................................................... 25 Sorry to Bother You ...................................................................................................... 30 Black Panther ................................................................................................................ 34 BlacKkKlansman .......................................................................................................... 38 Gender .............................................................................................................................. 43 Call Me by Your Name ................................................................................................. 43 Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri ................................................................. 46 Moonlight ...................................................................................................................... 49 Easy A ........................................................................................................................... 55 Climate Change ............................................................................................................... 60 Beasts of the Southern Wild ......................................................................................... 61 Snowpiercer .................................................................................................................. 64 Interstellar ..................................................................................................................... 66 Mad Max: Fury Road .................................................................................................... 69 CHAPTER IV – RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ........................................................ 74 The Mechanisms.............................................................................................................. 74 The Films ......................................................................................................................... 76 iii Texas Tech University, Sydney Laws, August 2019 CHAPTER V - CONCLUSION ..................................................................................... 85 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................... 88 iv Texas Tech University, Sydney Laws, August 2019 ABSTRACT Cinema has long been both a reflection of society and a powerful influence on how people think about and interact with it. Many filmmakers use this power to portray issues of injustice faced in the real world, regardless of how fantastic or otherworldly the setting may be. This paper attempts to draw connections between what we see on the big screen and how that can affect the way we behave, both politically and personally. I discuss a set of twelve films that each send a message related to a social justice issue, evaluating their potential to influence a behavior change in their audience based on how effectively that message was communicated. The resulting case study determines that effectiveness based on a typology which gauges the level of emotional engagement a film creates for its audience, leaving us with two final lists: films that hit the mark and films that fall short. v Texas Tech University, Sydney Laws, August 2019 LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Technical Mechanisms ....................................................................................... 15 Table 2. Narrative Mechanisms ........................................................................................ 21 Table 3. List of Films ........................................................................................................ 24 Table 4. Typology Table ................................................................................................... 75 vi Texas Tech University, Sydney Laws, August 2019 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION “Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life.” -Oscar Wilde, The Decay of Lying Introduction Injustice has always existed, and there have always been those who wish to fight against it. The realities of social injustice are more widely known than ever before, with the rise of the internet and social media connecting people all over the world in the blink of an eye. In a world that is evolving faster than we can keep up with, focus most often lies in analyzing the effects that the mass media formats of news outlets and social media platforms have on public perception of political events. Here, I suggest that this theoretical framework can be applied to a different source of media, one that has been a factor in setting the public agenda since long before the internet and instantaneous communication: the film industry. It is clear that writers and directors regularly draw on real-life experiences and events to inspire their films, and even those with a less obvious concept are often abstract reflections of reality. Films can be utilized as a running social commentary on what is happening or has happened in a certain place at a certain point in history. A plethora of social, cultural, and political issues can be explored from this perspective of reflection in Hollywood. However, I am more interested in the films that are ahead of their time, that pave the way for the above-mentioned issues to become salient and have an effect on the general public’s response to and understanding of events that can have a major political impact. I will discuss films that send messages falling into one of three categories: race, 1 Texas Tech University, Sydney Laws, August 2019 gender, and climate change. This paper will begin with a review of relevant literature from several disciplines, followed by a discussion of the methodological approach chosen to best code the qualitative data. This includes an explanation for how the films were collected and a breakdown of the typology created to evaluate them. Next is a long and arduous trek through the cases, where each film is discussed in great detail to describe how its message