Film and Television

Readings focus on visual entertainment media: how the TV series The Bear uses food to symbolize class struggles; how several Saturday Night Live sketches written by and featuring Ego Nwodim satirized socioeconomic injustice; how the TV series Abbott Elementary represents different strategies for addressing inequity; using queer intercultural communication studies to explore the Netflix show The Boyfriend , the first same-sex reality show set in Japan; how the TV series The Bachelor perpetuates images of catty women fighting for their man; how gender dynamics are represented as men and women entrepreneurs make “pitches” in the TV series Shark Tank ; showing how audiences can apply the “SCWAMP” framework to deconstruct ideology and power in media, using The Twilight Saga films as a case study; analyzing how two Latina characters in the film Barbie represent differences between third- and fourth-wave feminism and noting the portrayal of these women as ambiguously ethnic; showing how the film The Blackening negotiates Black identity through subtle cultural cues, unspoken communication, and symbolic rituals; and showing how the films I Love You, Man and Get Hard reinforce dominant masculine ideals of aggression, sexual conquest, and avoiding emotion and other qualities often deemed feminine.