It's Showtime
The Impact of the Covert “Great Experiment”: Mental Health and Wellness with and through Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Erica Bosque
Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story is a sexy, historical drama that fictionalized the rise of Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Charlotte meets and marries King George only to discover his undiagnosed mental illness. On the surface the series’ dominant focus is love, it also offers representations of intersectional identities. Queen Charlotte addresses issues of race through the concept of "the great experiment". Using subtle language of “otherness” that never mentions race, the series can be seen to distort history and erase the pervasive racism of the time. Yet, when positioned within the context of health, therapeutic practice; the series offers covert stories of race, gender, sexuality, mental health, sexual assault, torture, generational trauma. Like art or play therapy, the show provides a container for processing the past and present complexities of intersectionality, mental health, wellness for clients and practitioners. This research puts media studies in dialogue with human services to explore the potentiality of Queen Charlotte to invite viewers to connect the series to their own identities, experiences and how it can be useful in a therapeutic setting. When thinking through concepts of covertness, layered shows can provide a setting to explore how media impacts mental health and wellness. The research presents qualitative data gathered from surveys, interviews with students in a social work course, where students participate in a group therapeutic learning experience to digest the show’s impact on their own mental health, wellness, identity development, and therapeutic processing. It reveals the challenges and opportunities of covert therapeutic practice through media.
Bursting the Pink Bubble: Capitalism and Feminism in Barbie and Poor Things
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Jessie Olstad
The two Academy Award nominated films, Barbie and Poor Things follow two women, one imagined from plastic, and the other imagined from an amalgamation of parts including the brain of a child, and their journey from sheltered life to the negative reality of women’s treatment in society. Where Barbie was a hyperpop, pink fantasy of imagined girlhood and the lasting impact of capitalism upon adolescent girls, Poor Things was a hypersexual, fish-eye fantasy of a man’s idea of a liberated woman in a capitalist world. Both Bella Baxter and Barbie must come to terms with their identity as women in relation to the world outside of them and the patriarchal subordination women continue to endure. In my presentation, I explore the similarities not only of Bella and Barbie’s journey, but also how both are surface level attempts at a much larger conversation on the continued issues surrounding women’s oppression and objectification, both reaffirming a white, cisgender, heterosexual ideal of womanhood. Using works surrounding white feminism and technocapitalism, Barbie and Poor Things are analyzed and critiqued for their lack of feminist depth and the role media plays in advancing the discussion of women’s rights.
Diversifying News Content: Analysis of News Stories Produced in an Internship Program for Immigrant Journalists
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Reetta Nousiainen
This study examines news articles written by 15 immigrant background journalists during their newsroom internships in Finland. The data consists of about 150 stories that were produced during the internship. Through qualitative content analysis, I examine what kinds of topics, which sources and what kinds of angles the interns chose in their reporting. In addition, I also examine the storytelling of the news stories produced during the internship. My research question is: What unique contributions can journalists with immigrant backgrounds bring to journalism? Preliminary findings suggest that interns’ stories differ significantly from conventional Finnish news stories in terms of topics and sources. The voices of ethnic minorities appear to be particularly emphasized. The data reveals that these journalists tend to prioritize sources with lived experiences, contrasting with the Finnish journalistic tradition, which heavily relies on elite sources such as government and political actors (Seuri et al. 2024, 203). This tendency may derive from the interns’ backgrounds in fragile democracies, where trust in public institutions is low (Hanitzsch & Berganza 2012, 797). Furthermore, storytelling seems to differ from the traditional Finnish news story. Previous research has noted that minority journalists sometimes describe their storytelling style as “long-winding” or “circular”, differing from Western conventions (Thomas 2024, 1666). The study highlights how non-native journalists can enrich Finnish journalism by broadening the range of topics, perspectives and sources, as well as introducing new storytelling structures. It analyses the potential of immigrant background journalists to diversify and deepen news reporting in Finland.
The Rules of Widescreen Composition During the Later Studi Era View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Marshall Deutelbaum
In 1953, the commercial success of The Robe, filmed in the widescreen process of CinemaScope, launched the widescreen era in which a variety of screen formats that were wider than had been normal, previously vied for screen dominance. While the technology of these processes are well understood, their aesthetics have received scant attention. This paper corrects that shortcoming. It defines and describes the previously unrecognized principles that guided the design and composition of widescreen films during the latter years of the Hollywood Studio System. While traditionally thought of as the work of the director and/or cinematographer, the study argues, on the basis of the close examination of 300 films, that both composition and design are determined primarily by the rules that control set design. Frame grabs from many films illustrate and support this argument that adds to our understanding of film aesthetics during the 1950s and early 1960s.
