All posts tagged: ideology

Queer Cinema: Hegemonic Negotiation of Repressive Dominant Ideologies in CALL ME BY YOUR NAME

Since the turn of the 21st century, Hollywood has seen a growing number of queer narratives being produced and marketed to mass audiences. Although these representations are being made, they are still few in comparison to the amount of films that portray the ideals and values that can be considered the dominant ideologies of American culture. That is to say, films that are made largely for individuals who fall within the heterosexual, white, Judeo-Christian, and male populations of American citizens. According to Antonio Gramsci’s concept of cultural hegemony, these ruling forces of influence “must be won and re-won” through a constant “negotiation with subcultural artifacts [such as film], ideas, and/or social movements” that oppose them.[1] So what makes hegemonic negotiation relevant to contemporary queer cinema? Harry Benshoff believes there can be two approaches toward hegemonic negotiation. In this case, it means that even though queer stories are breaking through to mainstream audiences, their content remains partial to the overarching heterosexual ideologies. However, in a more optimistic stance that this paper will take, it also means …

Troy Walker is a graduating senior at Oakland University with a major in Creative Writing and a minor in Cinema Studies. Troy is currently working hard on his first feature-length screenplay and hopes to get it financed and produced soon. After graduation, he plans to pursue a career in both the book publishing and filmmaking industries, as well as write his first novel. He is also the proud father of two adorable cats who (when they're not taking long naps) like to watch movies with him.

On Dragons and Ideals: An Examination of the HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON Franchise and the Aspects of Ideology

Film theory is a subject made fascinating by its layers; for what the methods of analysis reveal about the film to which they are applied. A film—as with any other form of media—can be viewed from multiple angles based on one’s perspective and learning, and with each refraction that results another layer to the film is peeled away, leading to greater understanding of the film as a whole. In some cases, the film in question is not a film, but a series, and the layers that are revealed have layers of their own, and the interactions between concept and film become a microcosm of a larger picture, even as they themselves are created of supporting threads. This in turn allows for surprising depth in the most unlikely of films and film franchises, such as the one examined within this paper. After all, who would expect a beloved animated franchise such as DreamWorks’s How To Train Your Dragon—inspired by Cressida Cowell’s twelve-volume children’s series of the same name—to reflect the concepts of ideology, cultural hegemony, and …

Katherine Purvin is currently a Cinema Studies major a Oakland University, and hopes to someday work in the film industry as an animator. She can often be found at meetings of the Oakland University Filmmaker's Guild.

Film Festivals as Cultural Proxy of Cold War Ideology

Since their inception, film festivals have been a vehicle for nations to display both filmmaking merit as well as political ideologies. The post war film festival boom in Europe initiated a festival culture that praised nationalism and acted as an “Olympics of Films” for countries to gather and celebrate their national cinemas. [1] These newly founded festivals served as perfect stomping grounds for Cold War powerhouses to flaunt their cultural and political prowess and acted as small scale, cultural proxy wars during the height of the Cold War in Europe. This paper will examine the role that film festivals played in Cold War conflicts by examining the festivals that occurred in Cannes, Karlovy Vary, and Berlin. These three festivals act as a cross section of Cold War era festival culture in terms of the geopolitical forces at play in their cities; Cannes being solidly rooted in the West, Karlovy Vary being the major film festival of the Eastern Bloc countries, and Berlin smack in the middle of heated Cold War conflict. Studying film festivals as …