Movable Type Edition 5.2 - Spring 2018

myths of the screen

Movable Type

Edition 5.2

Spring 2018

MYTHS

SCREEN of the

the pieces featured in this journal uncover and unpack mythS in media representations and media-related dialogues—calling attention to myths of gender norms, critiquing displays of the American Dream and the Frontier Myth, and challenging the myth of digital democracy.

07

Secret Identity

Gender, Queerness, and Superheroes in Pixar’s The Incredibles

By Aiden Carroll, Class of 2020

13

Mexican Twitter and #NoMuro

Twitter as Both a Democratizing Platform and Digitized Reinforcement of the Matrix of Domination

By Caroline Hockenbury, Class of 2018

24

Growing Pains

35

Daughters’ Needs

43

The Road Between Legitimacy and Criminality

White Male Longing in Once Upon A Time in the West

By Natalie Beam, Class of 2018

Fatherhood in HBO’s Girls

By Lindsay Isler, Class of 2019

How the Automobile Subverts the American Dream in The Godfather

By Taylor Marrow, Class of 2018

executive Team

QUESTIONS: • OscarS snub you’re still reeling from • MDST course you’re dying to take • show you're binge watching right now • your most played artist on Spotify for 2017 • Novel/Short story recommendations

CARRIE WEST Media Studies DMP & Government Minor, Class of 2018 • Lady Bird didn’t win ANY Oscars & The Florida Project deserved Best Picture, Best Cinematography, and Best Director noms!

• Shooting the Western • wild, wild country • Valerie June • The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank

CAMILLE SIDES Media Studies & American Studies major, Leadership Minor, Class of 2018 • Lady Bird not winning anything was biggest upset • Sound & Cinema • Broad City • Kesha • Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie DYLAN BEDSAUL Media Studies & American Studies major, Class of 2018 • Call Me By Your Name losing Best Picture / The Florida Project not being nominated for Best Picture • Gangster Film • Timothee Chalamet & St.Vincent interviews • Frankie Cosmos • Native Son because A24 is working on a screen adaptation

NATALIE BEAM Media Studies DMP, Class of 2018 • Jordan Peele not winning best director for Get Out • Gangster Film • Queer Eye For the Straight Guy • SZA • Tenth of December: Stories by George Saunders MADELINE SPEIRS Media Studies & Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Major, Class of 2019 • Greta Gerwig missing out on best director (although Guillermo del Toro is wonderful) • Border Media • Friends • BØRNS • Tenth of December: Stories by George Saunders Peer reviewers Cameron Leventen: Class of 2018 Charlotte Scharfenberg: Class of 2020 Molly Wright: Class of 2020 Hayden Williams: Class of 2019 Mary Geren: Class of 2019 Andre Hirschler: Class of 2021 Claire Mooney: Class of 2019 Jenna DeShayes: Class of 2019 Olivia Jackson:Class of 2018 Alisha Kohli: Class of 2021 Design team Sam Kuo: Class of 2020 Isabella Whitfield: Class of 2020 Andre Hirschler: Class of 2021 Claire Mooney: Class of 2019 Jenna DeShayes: Class of 2019 Faculty Advisor Professor Christopher Ali

the movable type Executive editors would like to thank professor ali for being an incredible resource for us over the past few years, from helping us create our first set of official bylaws to providing donuts to start a 9 am monday meeting off right.

05

Secret Identity: Gender, Queerness, & Superheroes in Pixar’s The Incredibles

by Aiden Carroll, class of 2020

I t’s a bird… it’s a plane… No! It’s… non-binary?

Throughout American

history, superheroes have served as a hallmark of civic duty in their seemingly selfless devotion to preserving the “greater good.” These heroes tend to be cultural landmarks in their ubiquitous acclaim, serving as national signifiers of the ideal citizen. However, as with any long-standing institution, superheroism perpetuates dated social constructs— in this case, a binary based upon ageold perceptions of sex, sexuality, and gender. The world of superheroes is rife with straight, white men—Superman, Batman—and fairly inaccessible to anyone else. Contemporary media, however, is recognizing and refusing this trope. Children’s movies are actively diversifying and expanding upon the notion of what it means to be both superhuman and just-plain human. Per feminist and queer theory, The Incredibles purports a subversion of gender roles within superhero culture and the nuclear family via the emasculation of Mr. Incredible and the use of “super” as queer terminology. In doing so, The Incredibles broadcasts a message regarding the importance of individuality and self-love throughout child- and adulthood alike.

Released in 2004, Pixar’s The Incredibles chronicles the lives of a superhero family forced into hiding their superheroism due to social norm.

To preserve the status quo, Bob Parr (formerly Mr. Incredible) works a desk job, while Helen Parr (Elastigirl) stays home with the children: Violet, Dash, and Jack-Jack. Eventually, however, this quotidienne proves too “normal” for Bob, and he—unbeknownst to Helen— begins to relive his days of being a hero alongside his friend, Lucius (Frozone).

However, when Bob stumbles into more trouble than he can handle, Helen and the kids must set aside their normal lives in order to save Bob and, subsequently, the world.

The film creates a setting comparable to that of an earlySuperman metropolis, using shots of endless skyscrapers and cubicles to further cultivate this atmosphere.

Pixar establishes the time period using aesthetics of the metropolitan 1960s, such as CCTVs, outlandish hairstyles, and imagery of suburbia. In creating this setting, The Incredibles harkens back to the “glory days” of superheroism and humanity, evidenced by Bob’s nostalgic paraphernalia. As the film progresses,

07

however, these establishing shots change to high-tech laboratories and wild jungles, both atypical of early comic aesthetics. Just as new technology is introduced throughout the film, so too is a world warped in its presentation of superheroism. This subversion of the traditional superhero setting within the film creates an opening for The Incredibles to subsequently critique the identity of superheroism today.

A key element of the film lies in the use, secrecy, and purpose of each character’s most unique identifier.

Superpowers—as bestowed upon an individual via birth, mutation, magic, or otherwise—act as an augmentation of an individual’s mortal abilities, thus creating someone who is beyond human, or superhuman. Traditionally, powers tend to reflect the gender binary within which most superhero cultures operate; male heroes typically demonstrate dominant, offensive powers, such as in the case of Superman’s strength or the Human Torch’s pyrokinesis. Alternatively, female heroes possess powers which complement their defensive abilities, such as the Invisible Woman’s invisibility and use of force fields or Hawkgirl’s flight.1 In this way, superpowers serve a twofold purpose: to markedly augment the socially accepted

08

differences between gendered individuals, and to subsequently act as identity markers for said individuals.2

The Incredibles is no exception to this trope: Bob possesses superhuman strength, and in turn demonstrates power and dominance in his heroism. Dash moves at superhuman speed, allowing him to attack quickly. Alternatively, Helen stretches her own body to create defensive shields as well as safety devices, such as parachutes and rafts.

Violet becomes invisible in order to hide from attackers, and can form force fields as a method of protecting both herself and the people around her.

Additionally, The Incredibles reinforces the traditional stereotypes associated with the American nuclear family. Bob, a father figure, utilizes brute strength and masculine aggression as a means of defending his family. Dash’s quick, playful fighting style is reminiscent of young, mischievous boyhood. Helen quite literally stretches herself in order to satisfy and protect her family, while Violet fades into the background. Therefore, just as superpowers augment an individual’s own abilities, so too do they emphasize a person’s social position. Powers aside, this dynamic is apparent even in the names of the characters: Mr. Incredible

(powerful, respected) versus Elastigirl (feminine, youthful, unassuming).

As the film progresses, Pixar begins to slowly subvert this familial trope. Bob initially is successful in using brute strength to defeat his enemies; however, when facing the Omnidroid, he discovers that it is too strong for him to overpower. Only after deducing the weakness of the robot (it’s own strength) is Bob able to defeat the Omnidroid. Not only does this demonstrate an instance of personal growth within the character of Bob, but also foreshadows his eventual downfall: his own strength. Bob’s tragic flaw reveals itself as his own masculinity (i.e. his testosterone-driven love of danger), and his greatest fear becomes apparent—that he will not be strong enough to rescue himself.

The emasculation of Mr. Incredible is a subversion of the masculine superhero via Bob’s discovery that he is too weak to escape his current predicament. Pixar films are notorious for emasculating the alpha male, such as Buzz Lightyear realizing that he is a mere toy in Toy Story, and Lightning McQueen being forced to do charity work for the town he destroyed in Cars.3 This weakening of dominant male figures seeks to both dampen the hegemonic image of the “Hollywood Man” (strong, domineering) and to pave the way for marginalized leading characters within cinema.4 While this new character does not necessarily need to be female, it is often a less domineering, “beta” character who equally acts as a leader and follower.

As Bob discovers limitations in his powers, his fall from the “alpha male” role is almost tangible in its symbolism.

For example, Bob undergoes a physical change from wearing blue (a masculine color) to red (a feminine color). In this way, The Incredibles emasculates Bob in order to welcome a new hero into the story: Elastigirl.

Just as Bob’s fall from power is a subversion of the superhero trope, so too is Helen’s movement from the domestic sphere into the realm of heroism. Helen’s rescue of Bob serves a dual purpose: not only does Helen transcend her role as a feminine character, but she also transcends her role as a feminine superhero.5 Helen uses her powers for both attack and defense, exhibiting a feminist notion of self-sufficiency in her own autonomy. Bob is further emasculated as an “alpha” character when he must be rescued by a “beta” character (i.e. his wife). Despite her position as a hero, however, Helen continues to protect her children, highlighting her maternal nature. By fulfilling her role as a beta hero without forsaking her position as a caregiver, Helen embodies a new type of hero: one in which humanity is not mutually exclusive with superhumanity.

Helen is quite literally a supermom, doing everything in her power to protect herself, her family, and the world.

Some might argue against this feminist reading of Helen’s character; after all, everything she does is an extension of the domestic sphere (e.g. protecting her kids, helping her husband).

However, the feminist reading of Helen’s character is not in her actions, but in the autonomy with which she commits them.

That is to say, although Helen operates as a caregiver, she does so willingly

[the] subversion of the Traditional superhero setting in the film creates an opening for the incredibles to subsequently critique the identity of superheroism today.

and has the capacity to leave this role should she ever choose to do so (e.g. leaving the children at home to find her husband). Furthermore, although Helen’s search for Bob becomes a rescue mission, Helen initially departs with the intention of finding Bob and terminating their marriage. In this way, Helen outright rejects the image of the housewife who remains at home, while also subverting the superheroine trope of the “damsel in distress.” Helen’s superheroism is an augmentation of the traditional

In addition to Bob and Helen’s departure from social norm, Violet and Dash exhibit a clear separation from

10

the superpower binary. While initially possessing staunchly gendered super powers—super speed and invisibility have been male and female, respectively, since the beginning of superheroism itself—Violet and Dash experience a nongendered “coming-of-age” throughout the film. When Dash is finally able to run at full speed, he becomes a “beta” hero within the world of Pixar. Rather than fighting face-to-face, Dash is able to fight via flight, an action typically frowned upon for male heroes. Furthermore, Violet begins to use her invisibility to her advantage, stealing from guards and fighting unsuspecting foes. In this way, Violet partially rejects the stereotypically defensive nature of her powers, once again enforcing a departure from this dichotomy. Thus, Violet and Dash act as a subversion to the gendered superhero binary as a whole, celebrating super identities which are not wholly masculine or feminine. While Bob and Helen simply invert the binary, their children disrupt it altogether: neither is totally masculine or feminine in their superheroism, but a combination of the two. As young characters, Violet and Dash represent the youngest generation’s departure from the institutional notion of the gender binary, using superheroism as a “family-friendly” veil of this movement.6

Just as religion, race, sexuality, gender, and a myriad of other identifiers might define an ordinary person, superpowers act as a complement to these descriptors. A superhero’s individual ability sets them apart from other heroes,

but their possession of superpowers in general segregates them from the greater public. Just as Superman is a young, caucasian, heterosexual male, so too is he superhuman. Thus, a new intersectionality is born out of superheroism, creating an additional identity marker in this departure from the norm (mortality). Via queer theory, the term “super” becomes a queer identifier, marking the Parr family—and all other superheroes— as queer characters.7 The Incredibles grapples with the queer experience in its exhibition of a family who attempts to assimilate within a new culture, but will never fully homogenize. From this, parallels to racial, ethnic, and religious oppression arise within the film, lending themselves to The Incredibles’ central message of pride in identity.8 Via the reversal of gender roles, The Incredibles once again queers the perception of the individual at both the personal (gender identity) and social (gender expression) level.9

What does it mean then that superheroism is queerness? While not all superheroes might be LGBTQ+ identifying, per se, this queerness alludes to their separation from normal society.

Although superheroes might attempt to pass as “straight,” mortal citizens, their true identity exists as a challenge to the status quo. This challenge, however, is not always a negative one: new superhero movies such as Wonder Woman reject the standard trope of masculinity in superheroism, creating a substantial role model for young girls and boys alike.

Films such as The Incredibles utilize this queerness as a form of allegorical teaching. Just as the Parr family is not normal in their superhuman reality, so too do they depart from the norm within their human reality. Bob hates his desk job and is subsequently fired; Violet refuses to talk to boys; Dash is troublesome in his classes. The Incredibles is thus a direct subversion of the ideal, Leave It to Beaver-esque family: they are not perfect, nor do they wish to be.

Thus, The Incredibles shatters one more binary: perfection versus normality. A core value of the film is that humanity is imperfect, and that it is acceptable to be proud of that imperfection. Just as gender roles and the nuclear family are undermined throughout the film, so too is the notion of human perfection. This film speaks to flawed children and adults alike, examining and challenging the status quo. The Incredibles is a reclamation of superhero culture for the outsider: Elastigirl is just as much a hero to the strong, athletic man as she is to the kind, gentle one. Dash is no longer a paragon of athleticism, but an exhibition of adolescent self-discovery.

No longer are superheroes a model of perfection to strive toward, but an instance of imperfection to which the audience can relate. The Incredibles argues that one does not need to be superhuman to change the world—just human.

No longer are superheroes a model of perfection to strive toward, but an instance of imperfection to which the audience can relate.

The Incredibles argues that one does not need to be superhuman to change the world—just human.

"You cannot stop people any longer. You cannot control them any longer. They can bypass your established media; they can broadcast to one another; they can organize as never before."

I n June 2009, the Iranian Revolution was live tweeted. As Evgeny Morozov

details in his book The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom, thousands of young protesters took to Tehran’s streets that month, brandishing smartphones and Bluetooth microphones.

Their goal was simple: they sought to challenge what was widely considered a fraudulent presidential election.

Although other Internet sites were frozen nationally as a governmental response, Twitter managed to surmount the shutdown and stood resolute as protesters linked arms online to centralize and disseminate formerly stifled voices.1 Although the online revolution fizzled quickly, dissipating almost fully in a few months’ span, Western media outlets were quick to hail the social platform as unfailingly democratic—praising the technology to the point where digital optimism dangerously “inflated popular expectations of what [Twitter and competing media sites] could actually achieve.”2 Even Mark Pfeifle, the previous deputy national security advisor under George W. Bush, publicly pushed for Twitter to receive a Nobel Peace Prize

— Andrew Sullivan, The Atlantic

nomination, stating, “without Twitter, the people of Iran would not have felt empowered and confident to stand up for freedom and democracy.”3 Although Twitter did provide a framework through which Iranian protesters could rebut the damaging foundations of a manipulative regime, the “Twitter Revolution revealed the intense Western longing for a world where information technology is the liberator rather than the oppressor, a world where technology could be harvested to spread democracy around the globe rather than entrench existing autocracies.”4 The tremendous amount of excitement Westerners experienced when watching “green-clad youngsters [tweet] in the name of freedom” in Iran, therefore, demonstrated widespread subscription to a preexisting and unbending mental schema—one in which skepticism toward the Internet’s unifying capabilities is not permitted.5 But can anything— especially a technology constructed within a hierarchical industry—really be unfailingly democratic?

As a social media platform, it is true that Twitter grants its users a unique capacity to engage freely in global conversations, without the excessive

filtering of material through a user’s personal social sphere. The structure of sites such as Facebook, for example, encourages the fashioning of rigid digital communities, in which users can easily dispel content directly oppositional to their personal views by deleting “friends” with controversial ideas. As a result, homogenous perspectives multiply and bounce off one another as if in an echo chamber, and users operate within tightly controlled and uniform digital communities. Twitter, however, is opportunistically distinct in that it allows for a cacophony of voices to amalgamate online—regardless of whether or not users share direct social links, cultural knowledge and understanding, or even a common language. Twitter, although structurally imperfect, may therefore be hailed as one of the most democratic existing social media platforms as it permits the traversing of digitized borders — barriers which other sites seek to impose by prompting users to delineate highly concentrated and privatized online communities.

United States President Donald Trump’s recent tweets regarding the expansion and solidification of the Mexican border wall (typically referred to as “el muro” within Mexican Twitter) received both tremendous backlash and enthusiastic applause from American users; citizens initiated sociopolitical discourse by directly responding to Trump’s posts, retweeting his material, and creating or participating in hashtag movements. Scholars have given little time or attention, however, to researching and analyzing Mexican Twitter’s response to these contentious tweets.

For the purposes of this essay, “Mexican Twitter” may be defined as the looselywalled, digitized space within the site in which Mexican users construct, share, and recycle tweets; employ relevant cultural symbols to embed meaning (i.e.

via hashtags and memes); critique larger political narratives and figures; and operate as a unified, albeit heterogeneous, community which champions relatively consistent political perspectives.

Analysis of the wave of tweets which surfaced on Mexican Twitter as a result of Trump’s wall-focused posts revealed a generalized disgust and indignation toward Trump’s foreign policy, the need for a unified digital community which openly contests Trump’s posts, a body of Mexican citizens deeply dissatisfied with their own presidential leadership, and the presence of relatively impermeable language borders online.

Thus, the following research hinges on a central question: Can a social media platform truly maintain a democratizing effect if language barriers semantically fracture its user base, and, secondarily, does Twitter as a technology inherently privilege white, masculinist perspectives so as to reinforce racial hierarchy through the matrix of domination?

NKCs, The Matrix of Domination, and Racial Othering Online

Digital enthusiasts laud the Internet, and social media sites specifically, for having a democratizing effect—pointing to these platforms as unobstructed, neutral spaces in which global discourse may be sparked and varied perspectives may be disseminated without privileging.

In their book Emerging Pedagogies in the Networked Knowledge Society, Binod Gurung and Marohang Limbu posit that networking platforms contribute to the manifestation of Networked Knowledge Communities (NKCs) in which users assume prosumer status as both creators and consumers of digital content. NKCs are revolutionary in that they “interweave global societies into digital villages creating the possibility for instantly

interactive, cross-cultural, and borderless spaces that can facilitate collaborative knowledge construction processes”; therefore, the emergence of NKCs online is anticipated to directly correlate with increased cross-cultural understanding, as local and global narratives begin to coalesce.6

Although this optimistic perspective makes valid claims about the potential for increased global interconnectedness, the stance inherently ignores how language barriers and fractured cultural knowledge capacities combine to complicate exchanges between users with dissimilar backgrounds. Participation within NKCs, therefore, is inherently restricted to only those users who possess the language and cultural proficiency to understand the symbols embedded within Tweets and contribute to the larger conversation by sharing original posts. In some cases, however, individuals are able to traverse these borders by exercising bilingual capabilities. Furthermore, Twitter features

an operational function which allows users to immediately translate tweets to their native language by clicking a line of blue text at the bottom of a given post; however, this function is limited in its ability to directly translate cultural expressions and slang or to maintain the subtleties embedded in wordplay. For this reason, the scope of Mexican Twitter’s response to this specific digital moment is mainly limited to tweets pointed at Trump which are disseminated by bilingual users, conversations held within the “reply” section of third-party news sources’ or Mexican politicians’ tweets, or nonresponsorial posts propelled by slipshod translation and unifying hashtags such as #NoMuro. Therefore, the application’s limited translational capacities, combined with the fact that 34% of its user base— the site’s linguistic majority—tweets in English, contributes to a cultural and digital divide.7

Locating “Mexican Twitter” did not prove to be a simple task. The imposition of language barriers online

Figure 1

15

Figure 2 often necessitates that information be recycled via third-party accounts that perform translation. For example, the tweet posted by @NTelevisa_com (Figure 1) as a translation of a Trump tweet posted the day before (Figure 2) launched a noteworthy discussion on Mexican Twitter, as evidenced by the sheer number of retweets, favorites, and responses the post garnered.

Trump’s tweets themselves, however, received limited responses from Mexican Twitter users, signaling that the majority of political discussions in which these users engage occur within the confines of Spanish-speaking NKCs. This language divide thus directly contributes to racial and cultural othering online; American and Mexican Twitter users, although potentially unified by the messaging of their tweets, are divided into strict locational camps within the site—leaving room for the dominant, Americentric perspective to be privileged and disseminated in an English-centered technological network. This directly evidences the presence of the matrix of domination, a sociological concept proposed by scholar Patricia Hill Collins.

The term refers to an intricate “paradigm of race, class, and gender interlocking systems of oppression”8 in which Eurocentric, masculine perspectives are valued over those of racial “Others.”

As the dominant groups’ interests are privileged over others,’ a clear racial hierarchy is defined and enforced. The matrix, hence, perpetually objectifies and dehumanizes the “Other” so to reinforce “one overarching structure of dominance.”9 The presence of the matrix itself is, in part, responsible for the fact that Mexican Twitter has received such limited attention from media scholars. Research in the field is often centralized around discourse fueled by white, English-speaking users and consistently overlooks the perspectives of individuals regarded as “Others,” including Latino social media users.

Although Twitter’s open, decentralized structure seeks to democratize global discussion by encouraging free and uninhibited discourse, the platform simultaneously fortifies the matrix of domination by privileging perspectives of English speakers and emphasizing tenets of Americentrism.

Therefore, the subsequent research is structured around deciphering whether a social media platform may maintain a truly democratizing effect if language barriers semantically fracture its user base. Furthermore, the analysis addresses how Twitter as a technology inherently privileges white, masculinist perspectives so to reinforce racial hierarchy through the matrix of

domination. After collecting, organizing, and analyzing a series of Tweets from Mexican Twitter written in response to Donald Trump’s flagrancy, research pointed to a less than favorable track record for Twitter as a fully democratic platform. The study revealed that Twitter is not the utopian and globalizing force which digital enthusiasts hail it to be.

Signifyin’ and Subversive Memes within Mexican Twitter

The term “signifyin’,” coined by media scholar Sarah Florini in her essay “Tweets, Tweeps, and Signifyin’: Communication and Cultural Performance on ‘Black Twitter,’” may be defined as a form of linguistic performance in which figurative language, doubleness, and wordplay work conjunctively to encode multiple layers of meaning in online posts.10 In her analysis, Florini motions to Black Twitter as a vehicle through which users can “align themselves with Black oral traditions,” cultural practices, and subjectivities.11 Signifyin’, most commonly employed through hashtag application, requires the presence of “certain forms of cultural knowledge and cultural competencies”12 in order to effectively communicate intended meaning(s). The practice of signifyin’ has not only mobilized group solidarity in online spaces,13 but it has contributed to the creation of culturally impermeable digital spaces — spheres in which Black voices merge on the basis of shared experience, then push toward social reform.

Although the term signifyin’ first emerged as a means of explaining certain linguistic and cultural phenomena within Black Twitter, the concept may be extrapolated to characterize other minority groups’ activity on social media sites—especially as voices within racial

subgroups emerge through interlocking cultural conversations.

Signifyin’, therefore, may be applied to a larger conversation about Latino Twitter’s community-building practices. Latino Twitter users, just like Black users, capitalize upon the site’s prosumer model as a means of casting digital nets within the site to screen, collect, and contain users within a communal, racialized space. This digitized group may then exercise its clout collectively, amplifying movement-central narratives through unifying hashtags.

A prime example of such online activism is the #NoMuro campaign, which emerged in response to Trump’s border wall tweets (see Figure 2). Users within the movement align their voices online by tweeting the hashtag; then, they capitalize upon a position of increased visibility to subvert limiting and damaging perspectives, many of which have long been reinforced by mainstream media outlets. In a sense, such users redefine journalism—reimagining it as the free-flowing dissemination of raw, citizen-produced media. Specifically, users display their personal experiences and ideas to both reclaim and reconstruct outside interpretations of their race as a whole. In the case of Mexican Twitter, online activism is intended to “challenge dominant ideas and images about [Latinos] as criminals, freeloaders, and potential predators by providing firsthand, authentic perspectives”14 which humanize their people. Ensuing political movements within this digitized space therefore hinge on the notion of increased visibility.15Although heightened visibility does not equate to the instant realization of equality,16 the realignment of racial interpretations is a substantial and necessary forward step in the modern movement for civil rights.

In August of 2017, President Trump tweeted from a position of bigotry

Figure 3

Figure 4 once again when he wrote, “With Mexico being one of the highest crime Nations in all the world, we must have THE WALL. Mexico will pay for it through reimbursement/other.”17 His tweet, intended to conjure fear around the concept of Latino immigration, operates from a nationalist ideological framework and capitalizes on the problematic bandido, or bandit, stereotype. This villainizing portrayal of Latinos—specifically Mexicans crossing borders—paints such individuals as outlaws who primarily

concern themselves with vices like “lust, greed, thievery, treachery, rapaciousness, deceit, gambling, and [even] murder.”18 This imagery has been employed by and perpetuated through Hollywood production; border films, drug-trafficking films, urban gang films, and—most significantly—Westerns have each played a role in instilling this damaging mindset nationwide.19 Mexican Twitter, however, seeks to identify, critique, and dismantle this form of stereotyping, and responses to Trump’s posts vary from disapproving

to downright vehement. Many of such tweets, such as that proposed in Figure 5 (left untranslated due to profanity), include slurries of curse words and are even typed in caps lock—each serving as linguistic and typographical embodiments of indignation. When amassing Mexican Twitter’s responsorial posts, the utter detestation the digital community harbors toward Donald Trump and his policy was palpable from the start. Furthermore, the presence of such semantically linked tweets demonstrates a need for a centralized digital community which openly contests racially divisive dialogue.

Similarly to #BlackLivesMatter, which points to how “Black people are deprived of [their] basic human rights and dignity” then “centers those that have been marginalized within... liberation movements,”20 the #NoMuro campaign seeks to reclaim the rights of the most vulnerable—specifically freedom-deprived immigrants fleeing to the United States border. The hashtag movement identifies then criticizes the wall’s function as a blatant xenophobic symbol and, as the direct address to Trump in Figure 4 indicates, serves as a collective call for immigration reform.

Translating to “President Donald Trump is about to head to the Union Congress for the first time @POTUS #NOWALL #IMMIGRATIONREFORM," the tweet

may be viewed as a microcosm of the larger movement, given it amplifies a humanitarian cause, openly and impactfully critiques Trump’s racist policy, and serves to educate others about current events surrounding the wall’s erection. The tweet featured in Figure 3, which is written in response to a teleSUR TV post reading, “#USA | Poll reveals that 64% of Americans repudiate construction of the border wall,” also employs relevant statistical information to educate other users about a specific racial reality.22 Then, as exemplified by the hashtags employed in the user’s original post (“So the training will be grave…We’re coming! #TheyWillNotPass #nomuro #nowall #borderwall”), the tweet seeks to center this qualitative information in the modern movement toward racial equality.

Culturally and racially linked users also expand their activism beyond hashtags, utilizing memes to encode meaning into the content they diffuse.

In his research, scholar Limor Shifman defines memes as groupings of digital items which “share communicative character of content, form, and/or stance,” are created with awareness of one another, and are “circulated, initiated, and/or transformed via the Internet by many users.”23 This technological model requires a sender, symbol, and receiver in order for the dissemination of cultural

Figure 5

19

knowledge to be rendered successful.

Although clips, pictures, and sayings which cycle around Mexican Twitter may seem inconsequential—and sometimes even silly—on the surface, these media elements converge to present mediabased counternarratives. Furthermore, memes have the capacity to challenge racially-based stereotypes, which are regularly reinforced through the practice of “othering,” and to reclaim a portion of an otherwise white-dominated, digitized space.

Professor and scholar Heidi Huntington further contributes to the discussion regarding memes as tools for social reform by identifying their three primary implications: identity building, public discourse, and commentary.24 Huntington points to memes as a form of subversive communication, intended to dismantle and displace hierarchical considerations of race.25 Perhaps the most pivotal aspect of memes, however, is their tendency to “invite participation.”26 The more memes are distributed, the more memes are produced in response; once introduced to the Twittersphere, noteworthy memes expand outward and prompt the creation of similarly subversive media pieces. For this reason, memes are extremely effective tools in propelling the success of social justice movements online.

Figure 6

The majority of responsorial tweets disseminated on Mexican Twitter prompted analysis through the visual rhetoric approach, which “combines elements of the semiotic and discursive approaches to [identify] the persuasive elements of visual texts.”27 Essentially, this lens frames meme analysis around two central tenets: the visual and the linguistic. Analysis in this realm seeks to uncover how certain memes act as visual texts “created to construct meaning”28 while simultaneously emphasizing the divide between dominant communication forms and secondary, subversive modes of discourse.29

The aforementioned tweets, Figures 6 and 7, use a combination of text and imagery to supply distinct forms of subversive messaging. The tweet in Figure 6, whose text may be translated to read, “*Breathes* BOY,” employs a popular and universally identifiable symbol through Spongebob to heighten the post’s understandability and resonance. The additive elements within the picture itself, including the sombrero and facial hair, demonstrate an attempt to reclaim a universally pervasive meme and repurpose it for the sake of benefitting a marginalized community. The presence of Spongebob within the context of the meme also places a lighthearted spin on an otherwise serious critique of Trump’s

Figure 7

messaging; additionally, the inclusion of vernacular through the interjection “CHICO” seeks to draw attention to the community’s disbelief at what they regard as sheer stupidity on Trump’s behalf. In addition to upping the post’s entertainment value, the humorous aspect of the tweet is effective in garnering an uplifting digital environment—one in which users are able to identify the lighter side of their misfortunes, rather than apt to simply spiral into debilitating despair.

Figure 7 likewise is centered around political criticism toward Trump’s policy; however, this meme offers more overt disapproval given it employs an exceedingly more aggressive symbol of abhorrence through the middle finger image. The tweet—which may be translated to read, “Mexico initiates construction of the border wall with USA”—thus demonstrates blatant disgust for American policy. Furthermore, the post’s presence within a thread containing both Donald Trump and the current Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto points to a more complex form of detestation—one which is fueled by

Figure 8

internal governmental corruption just as much as outside leaders’ problematic international policy.

Tweets as Part of a Larger Sociopolitical Discussion

Mexico, a federal republic bordering the southernmost edge of the United States, recently re-initiated its status as a center-left ruled nation under the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). In 2012, the party regained power over the center-right leaning National Action Party with the election of the current president, Enrique Peña Nieto.

Although Peña Nieto has identified economic growth and structural reform as his primary presidential goals, he has neglected to control drug-based crime or eliminate governmental corruption.30 Thus, “increased public dissatisfaction about the effectiveness of anticorruption efforts by weak government institutions”31 has contributed to low presidential approval ratings, plummeting as low as 17% in the aftermath of Trump’s

Figure 9

21

election.32

In relation to the discussion regarding the U.S./Mexico border wall specifically, Mexican Twitter users expose Peña Nieto for what they regard to be collusion with Trump and his corrupt cabinet. Although Peña Nieto has sought to negate rumors of cronyism in his relationship with Trump, Mexican Twitter users have nonetheless been quick to call attention to his shortcomings as a leader and classify his political intentions as tainted.

Specifically, in direct response to Trump’s tweet on September 1, 2016, “Mexico will pay for the wall,”33 Peña Nieto posted the following statement: “Repito lo que dije personalmente, Sr. Trump: México jamás pagaría por un muro”34 (or, “I repeat what I told you personally, Mr. Trump: Mexico will never pay for a wall”). As demonstrated by both Figures 8 and 9, however, Mexican users delivered a dissatisfied response, even going so far as to identify Peña Nieto as a “Liar, liar.”35 Interestingly, some users even went so far as to tag Peña Nieto in direct responses to Trump’s initial tweets— drawing him into a seemingly remote conversation and thus demonstrating how many Mexicans consider Trump’s and Peña Nieto’s political corruption to be inextricably intertwined. Figure 8 acts as a symbolic manifestation of this idea, employing a meme of two men’s interlocking lying-induced long noses. Figure 9, alternatively, uses the mematic image of a skeptical cartoon figure to critique Peña Nieto’s inability to follow through with previously made

22

statements and promises. “You had only one job, Pena… Only one,” the meme wittily laments, pointing out the obvious emptiness in Peña Nieto’s earlier words: “At the beginning of the conversation with Donald Trump, I made it clear that Mexico will not pay for the wall.”3 Thus, an analysis of Mexican Twitter’s response to Trump’s wall-focused tweets demonstrates how deeply governmental dissatisfaction is encoded into hashtags and memes. The response draws attention to the notion that the United States’ and Mexican governments are conspiring to enforce the White-privileging matrix of domination, and—through democratic action—users seek to dismantle the progression of future collusion by publicly and unapologetically exposing politicians’ corrupt intentions.

ConclusionS

Given the preceding research and analysis, it is evident that an answer to the question “Is Twitter truly democratic?” requires a layered response. Although the platform does afford users the opportunity to organize in a culturally homogenous space, expose the corrupt motives of international and domestic politicians, and subvert the damaging messaging that saturates dominant modes of mainstream communication, the structural limitations of the technology itself bar the platform from being holistically democratic.

Elements such as the site’s iconic 140-character limit, the application’s divisively mobile-favoring design, and the inability of the “@” symbol to address

and link to multiple accounts at once each partially hinders the full expansion and dissemination of online movements, such as the #NoMuro campaign. Additionally, racial grouping within this site itself may contribute to the oversimplification of communities with nuanced perspectives, and cultural and linguistic boundaries are often difficult to breach.

Therefore, digital enthusiasts’ unbending praise for digital media platforms—more specifically, Twitter—as purely democratic systems demonstrates devotion to The Google Doctrine: a term conceived by Evgeny Morozov which refers to “the enthusiastic belief in the liberating power of technology accompanied by the irresistible urge to enlist Silicon Valley start-ups in the global fight for freedom.”37 The truth regarding Twitter’s “democrativeness,” however, lies somewhere in the middle of two extremes. Although the platform certainly exhibits shortcomings, especially in regards to its universality, it is crucial not to discount Twitter’s function as an essential force in the Latino quest toward racial justice. As Patricia Hill Collins notes in her acclaimed essay “Black Feminist Thought in the Matrix of Domination,” “empowerment involves rejecting the dimensions of knowledge, whether personal, cultural, or institutional, that perpetuate objectification and dehumanization.”38 Mexican Twitter marks this exact form of empowerment as its central impetus, and this will forever maintain its status as an applause-worthy mission.

Can anything—especially a technology constructed within a hierarchical industry—really be unfailingly democratic?

Growing Pains: White Male Longing in Once Upon a Time in the West

By Natalie Beam, class of 2018

L ike a dream born of a restless mind, the Western film emerges from the

American imaginary as a haze of bullets, blood, dust, and sweat—a repository for the complex tangle of heavy conflicts that have plagued the American people since the time of the country’s origin. One need look no further than Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West to understand that the nature of a white man’s journey into the “Wild West” is anything but simple. Leone’s West is not a space where traditional binaries hold true; no bold, distinguishable line demarcates good from bad, nature from artifice, tame from savage, white man from other.1 Even on the foundational level of the main characters, instead of the Western’s traditional two opposing characters, Leone presents three, deliberately disrupting the traditional delineation between hero and villain. He presents us with Frank, Cheyenne, and Harmonica, who all find themselves struggling to reconcile their personal missions with the brutality of the wilderness around them and the onslaught of industrialization as the railroad inches further west. When ruthless gang leader Frank is hired by a railroad baron to kill off competition, Frank himself becomes caught up in pursuits of white liberal society’s “ambitious expansionism” and sets his sights on the lucrative railroad industry.2 But his quest for capitalist gain does not come without a price, for “at the heart of ambitious expansionism [lies]

the regressive impulse,” the nostalgia for a nurturing, primitively violent connection to the earth.3 At the mercy of Frank’s frustration with his nostalgia for a longed-for past is Jill McBain, a white woman who has set out on her own journey into the west and who finds herself similarly tangled up in the narratives of the other characters. Jill’s significance in the film, however, is not to be likened to the significance of the men, for her role is largely reduced to that of an object of desire. She becomes a mere benchmark for the struggles of the male characters, namely Frank, to cope with varying degrees of disconnection from the maternal, the natural. Throughout the film, Leone presents Jill as an overtly sexualized figure, but, still, beneath all of her objectification on the receiving end of the male gaze, we see traces of resistance in her, or at least awareness of her lack of agency in a world dominated by masculine pursuits of mastery.

Before one can ascertain the role of the woman in the West, more specifically that of Jill in Once Upon a Time in the West, it is first important to understand the convoluted pursuits of the white male. Upon first read, the Myth of the Western is about the western hero’s rejection of dizzyingly fast-paced industrialization in exchange for a perilous journey through the unforgiving, more honest, more natural wilderness.4 This journey will serve as a test of his strength and an opportunity for him to

25

emerge from the savage wilderness with his internal self intact; he must expose himself to his own savage “dark side” and then learn to discipline it.5 “The compleat ‘American’ of the Myth,” writes Richard Slotkin, “was one who had defeated and freed himself from both the ‘savage’ of the western wilderness and the metropolitan regime of authoritarian politics and class privilege.”6 The traditional Western hero thus embodies the prized American virtues of self-reliance and independence.7 But the character of the white man on a quest for self-sufficiency presents a contradiction, for his scorning of modernity and industrialization places him in direct opposition with the driving forces of American expansionism. The western hero functions as a foil of his fellow white man, the industrializationminded capitalist. Yet he is united with the very same group in his contempt for the West’s native inhabitants, a population that threatens both the individual western hero and the force of white, industrial civilization. In keeping with the origins of American westward expansion—the Puritans’ journey across the Atlantic in pursuit of a new world and a new order— American political, social, and economic transformations were seen as beginning with outward movement and physical separation from the original metropolis.8 “City life had always been inferior to country life in American mythology, but the sense of alienation and fear produced in existing residents by the realization that immigrants from different cultures were changing America crystallized in the City, the center of this change. Cities took the place Europe had held in the imaginations of the Puritans,” writes Doug Williams.9 Thus, progress in the form of a return to what was seen as the “authentic” America came to be conflated with westward expansion.10 The role of the traditional western hero then becomes that of mediator. Though he may be

ideologically opposed to industrialization, his experience venturing forth alone into the West makes him qualified to “teach the civilized men how to defeat savagery on its native grounds—the natural wilderness, and the wilderness of the human soul.”11 Situating the Native American as savage reconciles the opposing missions of the various white parties at play.12 If the indigenous Others and the wilderness that they inhabit are savage, then the ideals of civilization and progress arise in opposition. The Western myth serves to mute this controversy by simplifying it to the issue of race: white man versus native other. Thus, we might say, at the very least, that the white male characters of the Western are conflicted.

Others and the wilderness that they inhabit are savage, then the ideals of civilization and progress arise in opposition. The Western myth serves to mute this controversy by simplifying it to the issue of race: white man versus native other. Thus, we might say, at the very least, that the white male characters of the Western are conflicted.

This brings us to the troubled characters of Leone’s rendition of the classic Western. The film opens with a scene at a dilapidated train station. Three imposing outlaws have taken it over, killing time as they wait for the train’s arrival. Still, their motives are unclear.

Finally, the train arrives and, with it, one sole traveller who disembarks on the opposite platform. The lone traveller plays a haunting tune on his harmonica before a showdown ensues. Within seconds, the three men who had been waiting at the station are dead at the hand of the man who has just arrived on the train. That all three of the commanding men in the opening scene die within minutes of the film’s start should hint to the viewer that everything is not quite what it seems, that things will be a little more complicated than the "good versus bad" narrative

the white man on a quest for self-sufficiency presents a contradiction, for his scorning of modernity and industrialization places him in direct opposition with the driving forces of American expansionism. that we are used to. In a later scene, this mysterious, gun-slinging traveller will reappear and will come to be one of the film’s three main male characters. He will be dubbed “Harmonica” for his penchant for playing tunes on his namesake instrument.

In the following scene we are introduced to another of the three leading men when Frank emerges from the desert with his gang and murders a man named Brett McBain along with McBain’s daughter and two sons at their home in a remote part of the desert.

This scene too, much like the opening confusion of gunshots and unknown motives, is puzzling. We do not yet know the background of the family that has just been killed nor why the McBains have been killed in the first pace. What complicates the scene further is that, unbeknownst to the viewer, Frank and his men are disguised in the trademark duster jackets of a different notorious outlaw: Cheyenne (the third of the three leading men). Already the viewer is bombarded with a mysterious series of murders, opposing outlaws, disguises, and on top of it all, the eerie Harmonica who seems to play his harmonica more than he talks.

It’s a dreamlike confusion of jumbled appearances and unfamiliar sounds. It is only later, when Jill appears, that we might find some sort of order, for she is central to the plotlines of all three men and provides a sort of mirror upon which the anxieties of the three male characters might be projected.

Jill McBain has traveled from New Orleans to join her new husband, Brett McBain, and his three children. That she hails from an eastern metropolis with

the word “new” in its name is telling of the world from which she travels. She is no westerner at heart. When she emerges from the train upon arrival in the West, she might as well be on another planet.

It’s a barren landscape of dust and sky.

It should come as no surprise that her time in the West will come to be defined by sexual objectification, for, from the moment she steps foot off the train, she is an object of the male gaze. We see a herd of cattle being led off the train before we even lay eyes on Jill, who emerges from a car further up. “I saw some mighty fine stock down South,” we overhear one man say to another on the train platform before glancing up at Jill. “And the prices are real good,” says the other man in response. This appraisal of the livestock down South might be read as an appraisal of Jill, who is essentially swiftly reduced to the status of a docile and impotent cow. The analogy becomes all the more concrete when we later find out that Jill worked as a prostitute in New Orleans.

What Leone seems to be suggesting is that, just as cattle are bought and sold for their meat, Jill is paid for what her body has to offer white men. This sort of reductionist alignment of women with livestock is not confined to the bounds of Once Upon a Time in the West.

“Invariably,” writes Virginia Wexman, “the presence of domestic animals ties the figures of the European intruders into the landscape in a bucolic portrait of people whose activities are harmoniously integrated with nature. By such strategies the empty landscape is personified; it becomes the metaphorical ‘face of the country’—a more tractable face that returns the European’s gaze,

echoes his words, and accepts his caress.”13 Though, at this point in the film, we have not seen Jill interact with any of the main male characters, we see indications of her function in the film as one similar to that of the domestic animals and personified land that function in the film as one similar to that of the domestic animals and personified land that Wexman describes. Jane Tompkins similarly points out that cattle “are only seen from the viewpoint of their utility for humans: as factors in a heroic undertaking, or as the contested prize in an economic struggle.”14 Williams, too, draws out the link between female and land in the Western: “The Western draws its symbols from European culture, in which the woman represents land, immanent fecundity awaiting the male’s animating spirit and will to awaken her power of life.”15 Thus, the scene at the train station in which Jill disembarks alongside the cattle functions as a grim foreshadowing of her role in the remainder of the film.

She will eventually (it seems, Leone is telling us, almost inevitably) be sexually harassed or assaulted by all three of the main male characters. Jill is reduced to a mere powerless object, manipulated at the mercy of the internal hopes and fears of the men who take advantage of her, specifically Frank who will come to treat her the most viciously of all three men.

Wexman’s suggestion that white men venturing west saw the western landscape as something to be manipulated and molded to their benefit echoes Laura Mulvey’s ideas about film’s objectification of ideas about film’s objectification of women. “In a world ordered by sexual imbalance,” she writes, “pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female.

The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure, which is styled accordingly.”16 We see traces of this male gaze before we even encounter

Jill on screen. In a scene prior to Jill’s arrival at the train station (this is the scene that will end in the McBain family’s murder), we see the McBain household, Sweetwater, where Patrick McBain, the eldest McBain son readies to go pick Jill up from the train station. He asks his father how he will recognize Jill, for he has never seen his new stepmother. “You can’t make no mistake,” says his father.

“She’s, uh, she’s young and, uh, she’s, uh, pretty and uh, uh…” He struggles to pull Jill’s note from his pocket. Young and pretty. This is how Jill is described by her new husband. Not only do these two descriptors do little to differentiate her for Patrick, but they also reduce her to her erotic impact from the perspective of a desiring male. It would have been simpler and much more helpful for Brett McBain to tell his son that Jill has red hair, yet instead he turns her into an erotic object, proposing descriptors that reveal his own sexual attraction to her.17 “For traveling, I’ll be wearing a black dress and the same straw hat I was wearing when we met,” Jill has written in her letter to Brett. It seems, then, that Jill has styled herself according to Brett’s experience of her, according to his memories of her. In doing so, she plays to male desire, understanding the sexual gaze.18 The function of the woman as an element of spectacle in film is defined by her visual presence, which tends to work against the development of the plot-line, and freezes the flow of action in, what Mulvey calls “moments of erotic contemplation.”19 Mulvey’s assertion about the woman as object of a man’s moment of erotic contemplation perhaps explains Brett McBain’s moment of reverie upon re-reading Jill’s letter to his son. He adopts a wistful expression and his voice trails off as he reads the line about the straw hat. The camera zooms in on him as he looks up from the letter into empty space as if lost in his memory of that moment of their first meeting.

Meanwhile over at the train station, alone in the confusion of travelers, Jill glances at the station clock and then looks down at her own watch, which reflects a different time. She looks up and slowly turns her head, looking around as if only just now seeing her surroundings for the first time, as if she’s caught in a dream. The time change comes as a product of the railroad, but Jill’s apparent confusion suggests that she feels lost in this new place, where even the familiar face of the clock betrays her.20 She realizes that she knows nothing about the world into which she has just entered and already she is powerless to the movement of her environment. Nothing here, not even the time, is familiar. And she finds herself stuck at the station waiting to be picked up by Patrick, who never comes because he and his family have just been killed by Frank. When she enters the building at the train station, the camera doesn’t follow her inside, but instead holds back and views her from outside through the open window. The viewer in this moment becomes a voyeur, while Jill becomes the object of our curious gaze.21

In a scene a few moments later, after Jill has hired someone to drive her to Sweetwater, her driver stops for a drink at a saloon that seems to double as a butcher shop, welding space, and barn. When Jill steps through the saloon doors, all eyes turn to rest on her. She is an outsider because she is dressed expensively, but she also turns heads because she is

a beautiful woman. The butcher stops chopping whatever piece of meat he is butchering and steps toward Jill, not bothering to conceal his expression of pure desire. His eyes widen and his mouth extends in a hungry grin. Jill steps forward deliberately, eyes scanning to her left and right as if highly aware that she is being watched from all angles.

When she makes it to the bar, the butcher, who is still standing behind the counter, unabashedly leans over and rakes his gaze up the length of Jill’s body, from feet to breasts where his gaze lingers, his cigarette drooping lazily from his lips as if forgotten in the excitement of this new thrill. Finally his gaze makes it up to Jill’s face and he asks what he can get for her.

Just seconds later after a confusion of horse whinnies and gunshots outside, a man enters through the saloon doors, face shrouded in shadow and hands hanging at his hips connected by a set of handcuffs.

This is Cheyenne, the newly escaped outlaw.

This scene is also our second encounter with the haunting twang of the harmonica, for tucked into a shadowy corner of the saloon is the man who will come to be known as Harmonica. In the following moments Cheyenne tries to understand the strange Harmonica who insists upon playing his instrument in lieu of speaking. Cheyenne and Harmonica are particularly notable in this scene for their focus upon each other. These two men seem to be the only ones in the

saloon immune to the Jill’s seductive visual appeal. Their lack of attention paid to Jill is important for the contrast they provide to Frank, whose mistreatment of Jill will come to reveal his latent desires to be more like Cheyenne and Harmonica in their connection with nature.

A few scenes later, after finally making it to Sweetwater and finding her new family dead, Jill enters the Sweetwater house. After frantically searching it (for gold? for insight into a motive for her husband’s murder?), she sits down dejectedly on the edge of the bed. She places her hands on the small of her back and massages, leaning back so as to stretch her torso, which is constrained in a tight corset. Oddly, despite her clear physical discomfort and fatigue, she does not undress or remove her corset. Instead she lies back on the bed fully dressed, as if aware that the viewer is still with her in the house even if none of the other characters are present. The camera focuses on her from a bird’s eye view above the canopy bed. We see Jill splayed face up on the bed through the gauzy, filigree lace of the canopy top. Though she stares up at the camera, there is the film of the lace between her gaze and the viewer’s. “[T] his moment,” writes M. Hunter Vaughan, “when we see her but do not see her, when her beauty and her thoughts— alongside the film’s narrative and logic— are masked, frozen momentarily…this is seduction at play.”22 This moment in the film is about looking, it’s about the visual.23 Leone has positioned the viewer

as the scopophilic voyeur, such that the viewer finds pleasure in viewing Jill as an object of sexual stimulation through sight just as the on-screen male characters do.24 Her choice to remain “done up” despite her aloneness suggests her awareness of her function as an object of the male gaze and, further, suggests her character’s uncanny suspicion of the viewer’s gaze.

She connotes what Mulvey calls “tobe-looked-at-ness,” acceptance of and playing to the sexual gaze.25

In a scene that takes place the following morning, Jill stares at herself in a dusty mirror. The camera is positioned just to the left of her left shoulder, angled in such a way it that allows us to see her reflection staring back at her face.

Suddenly, though, she shifts her gaze and directs it towards the camera. She is staring right at the viewer, it seems. Her gaze lingers on the lens for an unusually long stretch of time. The sequence is reminiscent of Andy Warhol’s famous Screen Tests, in which he would have subjects sit and stare directly at the camera for the entirety of a three-minute film reel.26 Jonathan Flatley cites David James in his exploration of Warhol’s Screen Tests: “Warhol’s tape-recording ‘makes performance inevitable’ and ‘constitutes being as performance.’"27 While long, lingering close-up shots of faces are characteristic of Leone’s film style, this is perhaps the only one in which the viewer is directly engaged in the lingering of the lens. This connection is unique to Jill’s experience, perhaps indicative of her--

and, by extension, Leone’s--awareness of the viewer’s male-aligned gaze.

Shortly thereafter we are transported to the interior of a lavishly decorated train car, where, finally, nearly hallway through the film, we are properly introduced to Frank. “Tell me, was it necessary to kill all of them? I only told you to scare them!” says Morton, an older, primly dressed man seated behind a large desk. “People scare better when they’re dyin,” Frank responds. Finally, the viewer is provided a semblance of an explanation for the McBain murders.

Morton, the wealthy railroad baron had hired Frank to scare Brett McBain (for business-related reasons that have yet to be revealed), but Frank, unable to control his more savage impulses, has simply killed them all. Morton is displeased. He gets up from his seat and it becomes clear that he is disabled. He needs crutches to walk and has installed a system of handlebars on the ceiling of the car. “I got on board in sight of the Atlantic, and before my eyes rot, I want to see the blue of the Pacific out that window,” he says.

Morton is the prototypical businessman.

Unable even to walk without the help of man-made, constructed technology, he is positioned as the antithesis of the rugged outlaw seated beside him, whom he has hired to do his dirty work in the wild, unfamiliar landscape of the West.

We might read Morton, who seeks to expand the railroad across the country, as an emblem of the industrialized city, the cutthroat efficiency of capitalism, and white liberal society’s quest for ambitious expansionism.28 Michael Paul Rogin explores the defining ideologies of white liberal expansionism and the contradictions that lay beneath the surface of white America’s endeavors to civilize the West. He proposes that “at the core of liberalism lay the belief that such human connections to each other and to the land [as exhibited by

the Native Americans who inhabited the West] were dreams only, subjects of nostalgia or sentimentalization but impossible in the existing adult world.

By suggesting the reality of the dream, Indian societies posed a severe threat to liberal identity.”29 Though the film does not prominently feature a clash between the white man and the Native American, we certainly see internal conflict arise in Morton as he gazes longingly at a painting of ocean waves. On a more overt level, Morton hopes to make contact with the Pacific Ocean because it will mean that he has achieved the pinnacle of capitalist, industrial success: building a railroad from coast to coast. “To push back the Indian, “ Rogin writes, “was to prove the worth of one’s own mission, to make straight in the desert a highway for civilization.”30 Thus, Morton’s railroad endeavors are inherently tied up with the ravaging of Native American populations.

“For Native Americans,” writes Lynne Kirby, “the railroad represented a brutal invasion of their lands and the destruction of traditional ways of life.”31 As Rogin suggests, to justify such violent expulsion of the West’s native inhabitants, the white man infantilized the Native American.

American statesmen adopted a theory of evolution: “The evolution of societies was identical to the evolution of individual men,” Rogin explains. “‘Barbarism is to civilization what childhood is to maturity.’”32 In this equation proposed by the white man, the Native American was stuck at the infant stage of social evolution, while the white man, having grown out of the Oral stage of infancy, was the mature benefactor and guardian.33 The Native Americans became a symbol for a something lost, a stage from which the white man had grown, a stage inevitably left behind in the process of growing up.34 We might then understand on a deeper level Morton’s desire to see the ocean as a nostalgic longing for

the childlike dependence on maternal nature. He pines for the stripping away of artifice, for the unrestrained connection to nature, for a return to Freud’s Oral stage of bliss, a stage that white liberal society has ascribed disparagingly to Native Americans.35 Despite Morton’s rather obvious associations with the expansionist arm of white liberal society, the convoluted underpinnings of white liberalism—the white man’s nostalgia for a connection with nature as a response to rapid industrialization—appears most prominently throughout the film in (and is perhaps even embodied by) Frank.36

“I’d say you’ve changed, Frank,” says Moron in the train car. “You used to take care of certain things personally.

Now, you’re keeping in the background.

You’ll end up giving orders.” Morton’s suggestion that Frank no longer does things “personally” reveals that Frank has perhaps lost his edge as a brutal killer in the Wild West. The change that Morton describes seeing in Frank is significant for it reveals that even Frank, ruthless, rugged outlaw that he is, falls victim to the temptations of industrial efficiency— outsourcing, hiring others to do his work, keeping his hands clean while he sits back and sips whiskey (which is exactly what we see Frank doing as Morton tells him this). The use of the term “personal” in particular indicates a loss of direct connection with the job, a characteristic feature of the modern industrial factory system in which the worker is alienated from his product as he completes repetitive tasks again and again on an assembly line. Here, Morton seems to be suggesting that this sort of industrial system is rubbing off on Frank, detaching him from his natural surroundings.

Frank does not deny Morton’s assertion, but instead supports it by insinuating that he would like to become Morton’s business partner and potentially take over the operation altogether.

Morton rebuffs him by telling Frank that he will never understand the true power of money, the capitalist’s equivalent to a gun. Thus we see Frank caught between two opposing worlds: that of lucrative, industrial civilization ruled by the laws of capitalism and that of lawless, unconquerable Mother Nature.

His attraction to the railroad business reveals Frank’s repression of his anxiety about his own premature separation from the warmth and maternal protection of nature.37 His own nostalgia for infant dependence on the mother, which the white man ascribes to savage Native Americans, is manifested as overcompensation in the form of utter annihilation of the Native Americans via the expansion of the railroad and joining forces with the white expansionists.38 “Those experiencing separation anxiety do not simply want union with the mother; they want to express primitive rage against her as well.”39 The Native Americans serve as scapegoats upon whom aggression is projected. They provide relief for the white man’s vengeful fantasies.40

Frank’s anxieties about his lost connection to the natural world is manifested in his treatment (or mistreatment) of Jill. Their stories intertwine when it is discovered that it was Frank who killed Brett McBain and family, not Cheyenne. As mentioned above, Morton had hired Frank to “scare” McBain into releasing the rights to the Sweetwater land, for the railroad’s trajectory had made it incredibly valuable.

Jill poses a threat to Frank because, after her husband’s death, she is now owner of the Sweetwater farm, which will soon be a full rail-side town. This sort of ownership of lucrative land by a woman is not typical of Western film.

“Westerns either push women out of the picture completely or assign them roles in which they will exist only to serve the needs of men,” writes Tompkins.41 As a

new landowner, Jill resists being “pushed out of the picture” by Morton and by the increasingly capitalist Frank. But, still, Jill is relatively powerless because, while she is indeed legal owner of a lucrative tract of land, it is only in her flimsy, accidental acquisition of that land that she achieves any form of agency. Therefore Jill presents a complex challenge to Frank. She is an easily targeted object of his sexual desire and her femininity provides a surrogate “return to the maternal,” but at the same time she is the owner of the land that he most desires. She represents something akin to a castration threat, a threat to his ownership of private property, an affront to his masculinity.42 To cope with this conflict, we see, again, Frank compensating with efforts to devour, to incorporate the identities that are out of his control. Just as he has expressed a desire to devour the infantilized Native American via ownership of the railroad, he seeks to devour Jill. He strives to regain the “dual-unity of the primal infant-mother connection from a position of strength instead of infant helplessness, by devouring and incorporating.”43 In objectifying Jill, Frank is able to rob her of agency, reducing her to her sexual potential, and stripping her of any form of respect as an equal. After raping her, he indicates plans to kill her—the final step in the project of incorporation.44 “The failure to achieve an integrated paternal figure who could accept responsibility for his actions recalls the failure to integrate childhood experience into the adult world,” Rogin explains.45 Frank’s longing to return to a lost childhood experience of connection with nature manifests itself in savage aggression towards those who most remind him of his lost innocence— the woman and the Native American.

Thus, Jill becomes the bearer of Frank’s misplaced frustration with his own increasing detachment from earthly paradise and its association with

the maternal. She suffers the aggressive manifestations of his most latent fears and desires: his separation anxiety about having become detached from the natural and his simultaneous desire to obliterate reminders of this anxiety. But the further Frank departs from the natural world (from doing his work “personally” as Morton puts it) the more savage he becomes as he struggles to cope with his repressed desire to recover his connection to the maternal. The more he commits himself to the railroad—white liberal expansionism and obliteration of Native Americans—the more brutal and violent he becomes. His exterminatory aggression provides a false sense of security, a false sort of compensation for a lost innocence.

33

Daughters' needs:

Fatherhood in HBO'S GIRLS

By Lindsay Isler, Class of 2019

Ｈ BO’s Girls, directed and produced by Lena Dunham, has received considerable

attention from a wide expanse of critics.

The show has been strongly criticized for its blatant lack of racial and economic diversity in addition to its portrayals of sex, STDs, and postfeminist stances.

Conversation surrounding the fatherdaughter relationships, however, has been scant at best. In an age largely saturated with feminist and postfeminist discourse, the patriarchy is quickly demonized and cast down. Unfortunately, in the pursuit of maternal empowerment and female equality, feminism has, in general, overlooked crucial discussion of healthy masculinity as it specifically pertains to fatherhood. Girls depicts an example of a healthy father-daughter relationship through the character of Hannah Horvath and her father while simultaneously juxtaposing it with the unhealthy relationship Jessa Johansson possesses with her father.

The need to be taken care of by a nurturing figure extends beyond that of babies and children. In “Women Read the Romance,” Janice Radway reports women as preferring the types of romance novels that included a male protagonist who was simultaneously

masculine and nurturing.1 Women seek out literary, indulgent forms of escape in order to address their needs beyond the unsatisfying spheres of reality.2 Here, Radway focuses on the needs of the self within the context of a romantic other, but this desire is foremost evocative of an unfilled longing from childhood. In reference to Nancy Chodorow’s The Reproduction of Mothering, Radway comments, “Chodorow maintains that women often continue to experience a desire for intense affective nurturance and relationality well into adulthood as a result of an unresolved separation from their primary caretaker.”3

Hannah Horvath’s relationship with her parents, and specifically her father, develops as the series progresses; initially over-nurturing, her father eventually assumes a healthier role in Hannah’s life. The audience is first introduced to this relationship in the pilot’s opening scene as her family discusses issues of finance. The episode ends with Hannah’s father and mother contemplating her financial state whilst she lies, high from opium tea, passed out on the floor. In this particular scene, the camera’s angles place the audience inside the room with the parents, while Hannah

35

knocks on the door, waiting for her mom to open it. This viewpoint situates Hannah as the outsider entering into Tad and Loreen’s parental space. As Hannah thrusts her story into their hands, the camera flicks back and forth between her face and those of her parents.

They are sitting across from her on an elevated bed giving the appearance of an interview and thus casting Hannah in a belittling light. Hannah’s infantile state is also emphasized by fact that Marnie and Jessa are arguing over Marnie’s maternal tendencies towards Hannah in the interspersed, adjoining scene. Loreen and Tad’s reactions to Hannah’s request for financial support belie the roles each parent has assumed in relation to their daughter. While Loreen laughs outright in disbelief and calls her spoiled, Tad responds with less opposition while eyeing his wife warily. As a father, he is much less willing than his wife to sever Hannah monetarily. Meanwhile, a passed-out Hannah proceeds to enact her own form of temper tantrum. Her childish reaction bolsters the notion of her own inability to be autonomous.

Despite this obvious conclusion, Tad still says, “It’s hard for me to watch her struggle!” He defends Hannah’s opiuminduced breakdown and eventually accuses his wife of being too harsh on her. Tad is occupying his paternal role at the far end of the nurturing spectrum.

He has not learned yet to see Hannah as an independent twenty-four-year-old.

His perception is partially due to his own shortcomings and partially due to Hannah’s continuous juvenile behavior.

If father and daughter are to develop a

36

healthier relationship, both must learn to balance independence with the need to nurture or be nurtured.

In the sixth episode, “The Return,” Tad’s disposition towards his daughter shifts from its overbearing nature to a healthier view of Hannah’s necessary independence. The scene in which Tad collapses while having shower sex with Loreen catalyzes this development. A reversal of parent-child roles persists for the duration of the situation. Unlike the scene where the audience viewed Hannah’s entrance from the parents’ perspective, the transition into this scene is shot from behind Hannah as she walks down the hallway.

Knocking on the bathroom door, she immediately enters without waiting for her mom to open it. Hannah does not ask for permission to enter but merely announces her presence before entering.

She is asserting herself into the space once dominated by her parents and claiming her right to it. Additionally, Tad is now the one collapsed on the floor; he has subsequently replaced his daughter as the helpless one from the aforementioned scene. Her father’s displacement allows Hannah to also take up a maternal role while talking to Loreen. For instance, when asked what happened, Loreen sheepishly responds, “we were having sex” and whispers the last word as if it were naughty or embarrassing to say aloud—not unlike a teenager caught in disobedience. Meanwhile, Hannah holds a position in the doorway, denoting a level of control. Her body is blocking the entrance and exit of this room and, in this regard, is controlling the variables of the

bathroom. Her father is lying completely exposed and naked in the center of the floor. A part of his penis can be seen resting limp between his thighs, barely distinguishable due to its small size.

Not only is the patriarchy symbolically displaced in this scene, but Tad is also reduced to a seemingly infantile state. The camera zooms back, leaving Tad looking like a swaddled child, enwrapped in the towel Hannah placed on him, as wife and daughter lean over his outstretched body.

Upon putting him into bed, Hannah begins to close the door when Tad confesses, “Just realizing I’m growing older.” This comment marks a moment of paternal realization. His daughter is not solely dependent on his care anymore and, in reverse, he must now receive care from her. The scene has transformed daughter as well as father — Hannah refuses Loreen’s offer to help financially support her, thereby recognizing she is not a little girl anymore. This whole exchange serves to loosen not only Tad’s protective grip on Hannah’s life, but also Hannah’s clinging clasp on her parents’ bank account. It is worth noting too the contrasting tones in the scenes from “The Return” versus the pilot. While the latter is characterized by tension and disagreement, the bathroom scene holds a comedic, loving tone. The righting of Hannah’s relationship with her father softens past tensions and “The Return” closes with an intimate moment shared between daughter and parent.

Hannah’s relationship with her father is one of the few father-daughter relationships that is truly present in the show. While the series premieres with Tad as overly caring, he eventually

develops a healthier disposition towards his daughter. This cannot be said of the other protagonists’ parents. Shosh’s parents seem non-existent, though her fully furnished apartment suggests otherwise. Marnie’s father is mentioned negatively for a brief moment during a tension-saturated conversation with her mother. The show does, however, give the audience a glimpse into Jessa’s relationship with her father, but that does not mean he can necessarily be considered “present.”

In season two’s “Video Games,” a hesitantly hopeful Jessa returns home to visit her father only to leave with fresh wounds and reopened scars. The episode is set amidst rural lands and well-worn houses. The most salient scene takes place on a rusty swing set in an exchange between father and daughter. A mixture of camera shots depicting framed paintings of houses in the Johansson’s home precedes the scene. As the camera flashes to each painting, folksy, comfortable guitar plucking plays in the background while birds chirp cheerily. The scene transitions to Mr. Johansson and Jessa sitting on the swings and the music falls to a gentle hum. However, upon Mr. Johansson’s exclamation, “Oh, it’s so fucking boring. I thought I’d enjoy moving to the country, but it’s boring,” the country soundtrack abruptly disappears; the innocent family interaction the music seemed to foreshadow dissolves. Jessa’s exchange with her father framed by the rusty swing set presents the audience with a distant, dilapidated impression of childhood. Like the rest of the house, the swing set has not been tended to—a

“Why can’t you do a single thing you say you’re gonna do?”

concept Mr. Johansson’s daughter is quite familiar with. Wearing a flowing, pink dress and sitting hunched over on the swings with her hair half-braided, Jessa faintly resembles a young girl waiting for her father. For the duration of their interaction, the camera angles are alternately shot from behind either Jessa or her father. The resulting effect prevents the audience from ever seeing both of their faces straight on in a single frame, furthering a sense of fragmentation.

Additionally, their bodies are situated on the swings in opposite orientations and, while Jessa often turns her head towards her father, he mostly looks straight ahead or down at his hands. When she asks, “Why can’t you do a single thing you say you’re gonna do?” he merely stares down and nibbles on his fingernails. There is also a naturally occurring space between them, formed by the two separate swings.

All of these aspects lend towards a sense of separation and disconnect. In the same way that Jessa and her father are physically oriented in different directions, their bodies facing outwards, they are also facing away from each other relationally.

Jessa’s father has the opportunity to make up lost time with his daughter, but he doesn’t take it. In a rare, vulnerable moment, Jessa offers her true self to her father and lays her core hurts and desires before him. She tells him, “You have… no idea how much time I’ve spent waiting for you.” His sole response is to sigh loudly and look the other direction.

Just this gesture alone speaks loudly to his indifference and detachment in their relationship. The camera then pans in to a close up of Jessa’s face as she says, “And you act like you want me to come see you, but you don’t know how to have me here.” Like his inability to look Jessa in the eyes while she talks about her pain, Mr. Johansson does not know how to even host his daughter. But, rather than admitting his shortcomings as a father, he retorts, “Oh, and you think I can rely on you?” Jessa, on the verge of tears, replies, “You shouldn’t have to. I’m the child. I’m the child.” Embedded within these lines is Jessa’s cry to be taken care of and seen by her father. Unlike Hannah’s father, Mr. Johansson does not understand what it means to be nurturing. Always absent,

he is neither physically nor emotionally available to Jessa. The scene ends with him avoiding her questions; by the end of the episode he will have abandoned her yet again. The consequence is a daughter left starving for the nurturing care of another human. In the words of Dr. John Sowers, “fatherlessness creates an appetite in the soul that demands fulfillment.”4 Because Jessa knows she cannot find fulfillment in her father, she learns to look elsewhere.

Jessa’s erratic and addictive behavior is prompted by her need for intimacy; she desires to be known in a way her father never knew her. Her escapades with older men are one manifestation of this unmet need. Dr. Sowers writes, The underlying desire for affirmation and approval means many fatherless daughters have trouble making decisions, unable to distinguish between the strong feelings they have and common sense. Young girls may become emotionally promiscuous with any man who pays attention to them. Wandering blindly, they are driven by a need for Dad.5

Jessa enters the show already pregnant and is high by the first episode, setting a precedent for her character as one of spontaneity and carefreeness. For example, she quickly develops a sort of bond with a dad, Jeff, for whom she babysits. The relationship wanders into inappropriate territory whereupon Jeff asks her to sleep with him. In a moment of painful self-realization, Jessa refuses and says, “I’m sick. I can’t do this kind of thing anymore.” She sees how her habitual behavior with men is unhealthy and pushes back against her normal tendencies. While this instance does not redirect all her future habits and decisions, it does reflect an internal struggle to seek out intimacy in the wrong ways and places. The diegesis, however, will continue to challenge her in this context.

For instance, directly following her visit

home, Jessa checks in to a rehab center where she forms a relationship with Jasper, an older fellow patient. He has a daughter the same age as Jessa and offers her the kind of advice one might expect to hear from a father. He also tells her blatantly in one scene, “We all have daddy issues.”

In the following episode, “Truth or Dare,” Jasper tells her a tidbit of wisdom and confesses, “I feel the utmost sympathy for my daughter. I did everything I could to make the world a less gargantuan place for her.” His conversations, such as this one, with Jessa seem to suggest a sort of paternal mentorship (relatively speaking as he also is in rehab). Jessa finds a level of consolation in his presence and often retreats to his room to complain after counseling sessions. Jasper and the space he occupies represent security for her— she clings to it. Like Jessa, the audience starts to wonder if Jasper could potentially serve as a substitutionary, father-like figure for the absent Mr. Johansson.

Unfortunately, the show takes an abrupt, yet somehow not unforeseen turn. Jasper runs into her room prior to her departure and says, “I’ve been pants-shittingly scared that you’d departed already before we’d had the chance to properly fuck.”

While this interaction is prompted by Jasper’s drug withdrawal, the scene is no less atrocious and disheartening.

Jessa is affronted by his statement and explains they were never going to “fuck.” Other moments in the series do showcase Jessa’s sexual relations with older men, but in this instance, she was not trying to manipulate Jasper; she was simply looking for a comrade in rehab.

Unfortunately, some aspect of how she is accustomed to interacting with men has prompted Jasper to assume they would sleep together. The show utilizes this relationship to paint a disturbing picture of the consequences of fatherlessness.

Jessa is not only left floundering for a father figure, but is taken advantage of by

one.

The presence or absence of a father in the life of his daughter can hold extensive implications. In an additional study conducted by E. Mathis Hetherington, the effect of absent fathers on adolescent girls was observed through a series of recorded behavioral interactions with male and female interviewers. One testing group of girls with divorced fathers yielded results indicating the direct correlation between absent father figures and deviated sexual interactions with men.6 Hetherington further summarized his findings by stating, “It might be proposed that for both groups of father-absent girls, the

40

lack of opportunity for constructive interaction with a loving, attentive father has resulted in apprehension and inadequate skills in relating to males.�7 Jessa was never appropriately taught how to healthily interact with males because Mr. Johansson left when she was young.

The interaction between Jasper and Jessa is discouraging for both Jessa and the audience; Jessa is trying to teach herself, subconsciously, how to interact with males, but the diegesis is plotted against her.

Girls uses the characters of Hannah and Jessa to address questions surrounding the significance of absent versus present fathers and the resulting

implications. Radway found certain women were drawn to romance novels that included a male protagonist who was simultaneously masculine and nurturing.

This suggests an unmet need to be cared for, which, according to Chodorow and Dr. Sowers, begins in adolescence and remains with women into adulthood.

The importance of a father who is both nurturing and uninvolved when necessary is demonstrated through the developing relationship of Hannah and her father.

While not perfect, their relationship is sustainable and Hannah feels supported by him. Jessa, on the other hand, does not have a functional relationship with her dad. She cannot rely on him, though she desires to be in relationship with him, and so she seeks out intimacy elsewhere, coping through drugs or casual escapades with (often older) men. Jessa has been taught, from an early age, to think that something about her is not good enough to keep her father around. In a raw moment on the swing set, she courageously voices to her father her desire to be his beloved child. He avoids her urgent longing and does not return her desire. Once again she arms herself with flippancy and apathy to protect her from future disappointments.

THE IMPORTANCE OF A FATHER WHO IS BOTH NURTURING AND UNINVOLVED WHEN NECESSARY IS DEMONSTRATED THROUGH THE DEVELOPING RELATIONSHIP OF HANNAH AND HER FATHER.

the Road Between Legitimacy & Criminality: How the Automobile Subverts the American Dream in The Godfather

By Taylor Marrow, Class of 2018

A

merica’s obsession with the automobile is deeply rooted in the myth of the American Dream, often depicted as a representation of upward mobility and boundless opportunity.

Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather effectively subverts this myth, strategically using the automobile as a symbol of the contradictions inherent in the ideology of the American Dream. Specifically, the story of Michael Corleone challenges the prospect of achieving both capitalist success and moral legitimacy as an ethnic “other” in America. When the host culture fails to deliver on its promises of success through legitimacy, the gangster modifies their vehicles in order to travel down a different route. Close analysis of the automobiles present throughout Michael’s transition to criminality reveals a darker version of the American Dream, masked by shiny chrome surfaces and tinted windows.

I Believe in America

The American Dream was first defined in 1931 by historian James Adams, who claimed, “the dream is not of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which every individual shall be able to attain

the fullest stature … regardless of the fortuitous circumstance of birth.”1 Under the pretense of this dream, the playing field has been leveled so that the intersections of one’s identity cannot deter them from achieving success. Capitalism increasingly suggested that one could achieve the American Dream through consumption, with mass-produced goods claiming to transform their buyers and set them apart from the crowd. No other product promised this individuality and social mobility more than the automobile, which unsurprisingly became a popular symbol of the most extravagant consumer, the gangster.

Michael Corleone is first introduced as a clean-cut college graduate and war veteran, a “civilian” when compared to the rest of his family’s criminal status. From his uniform to his White Anglo-Saxon Protestant girlfriend Kay, Michael has clearly adopted the practice of assimilation. His words, “that’s my family Kay, not me,” are an attempt to distinguish himself from both his criminal and Sicilian familial roots. As Munby states, “The project of assimilation encouraged a splitting of identity among groups targeted for top down Americanization.”2 As a “hyphenated American,” Michael is positioned in between his Italian and

American identities, unable to fully identify with either one. This leads to an “alienation from both roots in the old world and the projected future in the new,” setting up a theme of struggle and contradiction as he tries to find his place within his family and the host culture.3 For now, Michael’s actions affirm the first spoken words of the film, “I believe in America.”

The Lady in Red

Michael’s pursuit of the American Dream is projected onto his pursuit of Kay, his Anglo-American girlfriend. Kay is depicted visually as an outsider to Michael’s family, associated with colors and automobiles that stand in stark contrast to the Corleones during the first half of the film. While the Corleone family is primarily driven around in their expensive black cars, Kay is shown in or around a red and yellow taxi.

The taxi first shows up outside of a department store during Christmas season. The bright cab stands in stark contrast to the grey tones of the city, but is also surrounded by smaller red elements including Christmas decorations and an American flag. The scene begins with non-diegetic sound in the background; the song “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” plays while the cab drives away. The camera shifts to a medium shot of Kay and Michael leaving the store, carrying a large stack of newly bought presents. This scene shows Michael “buying” into host culture, as gift giving on Christmas is a prime example of American consumerism. All of the red icons that surround him in this scene, including Kay’s attire throughout the film, reaffirm his pursuit of the American Dream.

Another notable scene involving Kay and the taxi occurs when she arrives at the Corleone house in a desperate

attempt to contact Michael. The same red and yellow cab is shown pulling up to a large gate surrounded by men in suits, symbolic of the barrier between Kay and Michael’s family. When she steps out of the taxi, the color red is brilliantly used once again, as her hat and outfit match the vibrancy of the taxi. Both Kay and the taxi stand at a painfully obvious contrast again to their surroundings, where every shade around the Corleone mansion is a variant of grey or brown. As the cab pulls away, two more men are revealed on the other side of the gate with their hands in their pockets, creating a sense of intimidation as she approaches it. She is clearly a stranger to their world, and Tom shows great reluctance in inviting her to cross over onto their property.

When Kay does walk through the gate, the first thing sees is a destroyed vehicle, foreshadowing the destruction of her future with the Corleone family.

Driving all Day and Getting Nowhere

If Kay represents the trying pursuit of the American Dream, there is no better vehicle to tell that story than the taxi. The profession of the taxi driver is heavily associated with immigrant communities, as less than 9% of the Taxi and Limousine Commission workforce was born in America.4 The taxi driver is often at the margins of the economy, but their passengers typically fit Kay’s description. While the taxi appears on the surface as the immigrant’s ticket for upward mobility, the reality is low wages, long hours, and a corrupt system that funnels most of the money to the bosses.

In a revealing pattern, the taxi carries its passenger to a destination, for instance the workplace, literally providing them with a vehicle for social and economic opportunity. However, under the pretense of mobility, its driver is stuck on the same

route in a perpetual cycle of economic oppression, never actually reaching a destination.

Kay’s presence in Michael’s life is a constant reminder that his ethnicity hinders him from complete assimilation.

Unlike the taxi driver, his family traded their legitimacy in for affluence after realizing that America did not allow them to have both. While Michael first rejected his family’s criminality, a series of violent events makes Michael lose faith in America, re-aligning him with his roots.

Not surprisingly, all of these significant events take place around the automobile.

From his father being shot outside his vehicle, to an encounter with a crooked cop surrounded by police cars, these events signal the beginning of Michael’s transformation.

The Point of No Return

The most significant scene in Michael’s transformation begins when Sollozzo and the corrupt cop Captain McClusky pick up Michael in the dark of night. The sleek, black car that appears in the shot resembles the multiple automobiles owned by the Corleones, symbolizing the dark side of the American Dream and the Gangster’s extravagant consumption. Michael is shown standing in front of Jack Dempsey’s Broadway Bar, a famous American restaurant, before stepping into the car. Inside the car, the following shots are engulfed in darkness, their faces dimly lit while suspenseful music creates a feeling of unease. Their destination is an Italian-American restaurant, symbolic of Michael’s identity as a “hyphenated American.” The automobile is what carries Michael from the American restaurant (his old dream), to a place that forces him to confront his ethnic roots and familial ties. These forces are powerful enough to lead him to kill, showing no hesitation as he exits the

vehicle to begin his fall from innocence.

A Car Customized to Kill

The automobile that Michael is picked up in, along with his getaway car after the crime, are examples of how the gangster “illustrates the possibilities for fulfillment and display offered by the new consumer society.”5 All of the vehicles used by the Corleone’s have a significant price tag, acting as a flashy marker of their financial success. While the gangster rejects the moral aspect associated with the American Dream, they adopt the symbolic meaning of the vehicle. The Corleone’s luxurious cars appeared to signify the accomplishment of the American Dream, but their short life span and interiors revealed a much darker version of it. What is said about the gangster’s suave appearance could be said about their cars: “the smooth exterior… could be a powerful tool for deceit.”6 As part of the gangster’s façade, their expensive cars concealed the violent methods that they used to achieve their success.

Every small detail of the gangster’s car illustrates how they take the American Dream and subvert its official schematics. The vehicles in The Godfather have inherent characteristics that serve the family’s criminal purposes, such as the dark color appearing inconspicuous while they carry out hits, and its high speed assisting any getaways from enemies and cops. In addition, the gangster’s car is known more for the customizations that allow them to serve as sites for mobile shootouts and other violent acts. Common modifications of their time included secret compartments for contraband, “police band radio, inch-thick glass, and side windows with holes for Tommy guns. The rear window also could be lowered to allow fellow mobsters to blaze pursuers.”7 These

characteristics were typically invisible to the naked eye of the average citizen, who did not have to consider lining their doors with thousands of pounds of armor. While most individuals seek out a car that will be practical in getting them to their office jobs and holding members of their nuclear family, the gangster is considering if the trunk is large enough to hide bodies. As Michael continues to make the “symbolic passage from innocence into corruption,” the automobiles around him become increasingly associated with extreme violence, resulting in the injuries and deaths of those closest to him.8 A Tragic Awakening

Even as Michael flees to Sicily, violence around the automobile follows him tragically and unexpectedly. In an attempt to reconnect with the motherland and his ethnic roots, Michael marries a Sicilian woman named Apollonia.

Unfortunately, she dies in a rigged car explosion meant for Michael. The violence done unto her and the Italian car she was in represents Michael’s inability to successfully combine the ideologies of both his Italian and American identities.

His father’s old worldview through the lens of Sicilian customs is deemed incompatible with America’s consumer society. Because the automobile is the quintessence of American culture, it is important to note that Apollonia was killed during her attempt to become a “great American wife” by learning how to drive a car.

When Apollonia was murdered, a large part of Michael’s humanity died as well. The romantic veneer of his

46

homeland was shattered, as was his last hope of living a normal life. This tragedy led him to the difficult realization that he could never go back to his old life after killing for his family. Michael’s split identity as a hyphenated American then, was “heightened by corresponding splits in love loyalties,” referring to Kay as the host culture and Apollonia as his ethnic roots.9 To overcome his feelings of defeat, he re-enters the host culture with a plan to protect his family through a discourse of going legitimate, “deepened by the protagonist’s avowed intent to pass as a member of the official culture.”10 This brings us to another pivotal scene that illustrates Michael’s ongoing attempt at achieving happiness and legitimacy in America, while his identity as a criminal and ethnic other follows closely behind him.

Holding onto an Assimilationist Fantasy

A couple years after this tragic event, Michael makes the decision to reunite with Kay. In this scene, Kay is shown with a group of children, the epitome of innocence, as the camera pans right to reveal Michael suddenly emerging from his black vehicle. It is clear that Michael changed significantly; his past warmth completely replaced by a monotone voice and hardened face. He is dressed in a dark suit like the other mob members of the family, and Kay’s old vibrant red palette is toned down to a neutral brown color. As they slowly walk down the street together, his car follows them closely behind. The car’s

presence in this scene appears menacing, like a dark shadow encroaching on the two of them, an unshakable reminder of Michael’s criminality. When she asks why he decided to go back on his word and follow in the footsteps of his father, he replies, “My father is no different than any powerful man.” Kay quickly retaliates, “You know how naïve you sound? Senators and presidents don’t have men killed.” The camera shifts to a close up of Michael as he pauses to scan Kay’s face, posing her the challenging question, “Who’s being naïve, Kay?”

Following up on this statement, Michael unconvincingly promises Kay that in five years, his family will be “completely legitimate.” This quote reveals the ever-present contradiction between Michael’s desired life and his new life as the Godfather. On one level, Michael acknowledges that America has blurred the line between good and bad society. However, on another level, he continues to lie to himself in order to hold on to the remaining pieces of his old life and visions of a future of legitimacy.

With this promise, Michael gives her a dispassionate proposal, saying that he needs her before saying he loves her.

Without waiting for her answer, he calmly motions for the car. When it approaches them, Michael opens the door for Kay and she steps inside. The scene then fades to black as they drive away.

Due to Michael’s bloodstained hands, he realizes that he must attempt to achieve his family’s legitimacy in America through other means. By using Kay, Michael finds a way to marry into the host culture and secure a higher social

standing for his family. The complete lack of passion in this scene sets it up as a business proposition rather than a marriage proposal. “If his first marriage was an attempt at personal happiness and self-fulfillment, his second is a marriage of convenience, an assimilationist fantasy evidently designed to bring him a step closer to his oft-proclaimed dream of making the Corleone family legitimate.”11 Michael’s conversation with Kay reveals a much different view of society than he had in the beginning of the film, offering a more subjective view of legitimacy in America.

An Incompatible Union: Mimicking Legitimacy Challenging the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate society, The Godfather tells a story about the darker side of the American Dream. American values are shown by a faulty justice system that failed Bonasera’s daughter, crooked cops, and the influential members of society that are kept in Vito Corleone’s pocket. At the heart of this issue is the contradiction of the American Dream, where an uneven playing field means you cannot have social and economic success without sacrificing morality. Michael desires to “make it,” in capitalist America, but systems of oppression make it so that he is only allowed to “mimic legitimacy.”12 This mimicry of legitimacy is illustrated in their consumption of fine goods such as their automobiles, which as extensions of their ideal identity and a way to erase class distinctions.

As their conversation begins

As part of the gangster’s façade, their expensive cars concealed the violent methods that they used to achieve their success.

to blur the line between legitimate and illegitimate, the vehicle slowly begins to approach them. It acts as a subversion of the American Dream, a dark and menacing shadow that had already engulfed Michael, and is now about to take Kay as well. Her status as an outsider begins to slightly shift when she steps foot into his car, symbolizing her own fall from innocence. Although she will never be fully a part of the Corleone family, Kay does experience a significant shift in the way she sees Michael and the world.

Their union marries the legitimate and the illegitimate pursuit, just as America does, leading to internal struggle and turmoil because the two are incompatible.

Concealing the Dark Side of the American Dream

Just as America fails to acknowledge this incompatibility on the societal level, Kay and Michael’s turmoil is concealed within, hidden from the public behind tinted windows. On the inside, these modified vehicles tell a story of struggle and contradictions. On the outside, they are markers of high society, resembling the cars driven by senators and presidents that are likely concealing dark secrets of their own. In this reality, “criminal and respectable citizen merged in a single crooked figure…the insider, too, had been rendered amoral by the values of the consumer society.”13

The transformation of the vehicles surrounding Michael throughout The Godfather represent a transformation of the character’s beliefs as he comes to accept his fate within the American Dream. Michael’s story is not unique in the gangster genre, where the protagonist is often characterized as an ethnic “other” who turns to a life of crime after coming to the harsh conclusion that the American Dream is unattainable otherwise. “All that’s left is an alienating personal code of honesty, a code that is hard to maintain when one receives nothing in return, and when the only way to “make do” (let alone “make it”) is through crime.”14 While The Godfather illustrates Michael’s transition into the world of crime, it does not condemn him for it.

Instead of contrasting good and evil, it “reveals the falsity of the opposition itself” showing “the dark side of the apparently good society.”15 This film skillfully and artistically illustrates this idea with the automobile. Michael’s story begins with a taxi, symbolizing his naïve and optimistic outlook on the American Dream, and ends with his inheritance of the symbolically customized family car.

In America, we believe that the cars we drive say a lot about us. The world of The Godfather takes this a step further, where the car’s fate foreshadows their owner’s fate, either violently marred by bullet holes or stained with another’s blood.

WORKS CITED

Secret Identity: Gender, Queerness, and Superheroes in Pixar’s The Incredibles 1

Stabile, Carol A. "‘Sweetheart, This Ain't Gender Studies’: Sexism and Superheroes.” Communication & Critical/Cultural Studies, vol. 6, no. 1, Mar. 2009, pp. 86-92.

2 Baker, Kaysee and Arthur A. Raney. "Equally Super?: Gender-Role Stereotyping of Superheroes in Children's Animated Programs." Mass Communication & Society, vol. 10, no. 1, Winter2007, pp. 25-41.

3 Gillam, Ken and Shannon R. Wooden. "Post-Princess Models of Gender: The New Man in Disney/Pixar." Journal of Popular Film & Television, vol. 36, no. 1, Spring2008, pp. 2-8.

4 Ibid.

5 Baker and Raney. “Equally Super?: Gender-Role Stereotyping of Superheroes in Children's Animated Programs."

6 Scott, Ellen. "Agony and Avoidance: Pixar, Deniability, and the Adult Spectator." Journal of Popular Film & Television, vol.

42, no. 3, July 2014, pp. 150-162.

7 Ringer, Ronald Jeffrey. Queer Words, Queer Images: Communication and the Construction of Homosexuality. NYU Press, 1994.

8 Shugart, Helene. "Supermarginal." Communication & Critical/Cultural Studies, vol. 6, no. 1, Mar. 2009, pp. 98-102.

9 Ringer. Queer Words, Queer Images: Communication and the Construction of Homosexuality.

Images 1 Deadshirt.net. http://deadshirt.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/incredibles-disneyscreencaps.com-1960.jpg.

2 "Jeff Raymond / Portfolio / Elastigirl Personality Poses," JeffRaymond.net.http://www.jeffraymond.net/images/prof/pixar/ helenTrioC.sm.jpg.

Mexican Twitter and #NoMuro: Twitter as Both a Democratizing Platform and Digitized Reinforcement of the Matrix of Domination

Evgeny Morozov. The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom (New York: PublicAffairs, 2012), 1-2.

Morozov, The Net Delusion, 5.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

6 Binod Gurung et al. “Prologue” in Emerging Pedagogies in the Networked Knowledge Society: Practices Integrating Social Media and Globalization (Hershey: Information Science Reference, 2014), xix.

7 Zoe Fox, “Top 10 Most Popular Languages on Twitter,” (Mashable, 2013).

8 Patricia Hill Collins, “Black Feminist Thought in the Matrix of Domination,” in Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and The Politics of Empowerment (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990), 221.

9 Ibid., 22.

10 Sarah Florini, “Tweets, Tweeps, and Signifyin’: Communication and Cultural Performance on ‘Black Twitter,” in Television & New Media 15, no. 3, (2017): 223.

11 Ibid., 224.

12 Ibid., 227.

13 Ibid., 226.

14 Minh-Ha T. Pham, “'I Click and Post and Breathe, Waiting for Others to See What I See': On #FeministSelfies, Outfit Photos, and Networked Vanity,” in Fashion Theory 19, no. 2 (2015): 238-239.

15 Ibid., 239.

16 Ibid., 231.

17 Donald Trump, Twitter Post, August 27, 2017, 6:44am, twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/901802524981817344?lang=en.

18 Camilla Fojas, Border Bandits: Hollywood on the Southern Frontier (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2008), 5.

19 Ibid., 8.

20 Alicia Garza, “A Herstory of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement,” last modified October 7 2014. http://www.thefeministwire. com/2014/10/blacklivesmatter-2/.

21 Elvira Espinoza, Twitter post, February 28, 2017, 5:58pm, https://twitter.com/phoeniquense.

22 #southsideliberationfront, Twitter post, March 26, 2017, https://twitter.com/RedEnt17.

23 Limor Shifman, Memes in Digital Culture. MIT Press, 2014. www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt14bs14s.

24 Heidi E. Huntington, “Subversive Memes: Internet Memes as a Form of Visual Rhetoric” in Selected Papers of Internet Research, vol. 14 (2013), 1.

25 Ibid.

26 Ibid.

27 Ibid.

28 Ibid., 2.

29 Ibid., 1.

30 “Mexico,” 2017 Index of Economic Freedom, last modified 2018, www.heritage.org/index/country/mexico.

31 Ibid.

32 Laura Tillman, “How Mexico's President Saw His Approval Rating Plummet to 17%,” Los Angeles Times (2017).

33 Donald Trump, Twitter Post, September 1 2016, 3:31pm, https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/ 1 2

49

status/771294347501461504?lang=es.

34 Enrique Peña Nieto, Twitter post, September 1, 2016, 12:06pm, https://twitter.com/epn/status/771423919978913792?lang=es.

35 Marcos Gómez, Twitter post, September 2, 2016, 9:13am, https://twitter.com/GomezMarcos/status/771742736621965313.

36 Enrique Peña Nieto, Twitter post, August 31, 2016, 3:31pm, https://twitter.com/EPN/status/771118159654891520.

37 Morozov, “Introduction” in The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom, xiii.

38 Hill Collins, “Black Feminist Thought,” 227.

Growing Pains: White Male Longing in Once Upon A Time in the West

The character of Harmonica serves as a prime example, here. It is difficult for the viewer to discern his origin based on his appearance. His tan skin color suggests that he might be of a minority group (as in non-white), but with his light blue eyes, Leone seems to be suggesting that the character cannot be so swiftly placed under the label of “Native American.” That Harmonica’s origin is never specified (nor deemed worthy of specification) is important here, as traditional Western film clearly distinguishes the white man from the oppositional native. The traditional native in Hollywood film wears bright paint and feathers, what is essentially a flashing sign proclaiming “I am a Native American and I am different from you white men.” One might look to the Native American character in Meek’s Cutoff to see this differentiation illustrated. (See Kelly Reichardt, et al.

Meek's Cutoff.)

2 Michael Paul Rogin, “Liberal Society and the Indian Question.” Ronald Reagan, the Movie and Other Episodes in Political Demonology (University of California Press, 1988), pp. 134–163.

3 Ibid., 135. Frank is not the only one to fall victim to the polarizing effects of liberal society’s expansionist agenda. Outlaw Cheyenne and mysterious nomad Harmonica also (though to a significantly lesser degree than Frank) experience a nostalgia for the maternal, natural world--a simpler, more primal bliss.

4 In all three of Once Upon a Time In the West’s main male characters we see traces of distaste for the rigidity of industrialized civilization.

5 Richard Slotkin, “Introduction: The Significance of the Frontier Myth in American History.” Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier In Twentieth-Century America (Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 2008), 14.

6 Ibid., 11 7 Virginia Wright Wexman, “Star and Genre: John Wayne, The Western, and the American Dream of the Family on the Land.”

Creating the Couple: Love, Marriage, and Hollywood Performance (Princeton University Press, 1993), 70.

8 Slotkin, “Introduction: The Significance of the Frontier Myth in American History” 11.

9 Doug Williams, “Pilgrims and the Promised Land: A Genealogy of the Western” The Western Reader (Limelight Editions, 2010), 98.

10 Slotkin, “Introduction: The Significance of the Frontier Myth in American History” 11.

11 Ibid., 14.

12 Wexman, “Star and Genre: John Wayne, The Western, and the American Dream of the Family on the Land” 70.

13 Ibid., 78-79.

14 Ibid., 114.

15 Williams, “Pilgrims and the Promised Land: A Genealogy of the Western.” The Western Reader (Limelight Editions, 2010), 97.

1

Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasures and Narrative Cinema.” Visual and Other Pleasures, (Indiana University Press), 19.

Ibid.

Ibid.

19 Ibid.

20 Lynne Kirby, “Inventors and Hysterics.” Parallel Tracks: The Railroad and Silent Cinema, (Univ. of Exeter Press, 1997), 50.

21 Mulvey, “Visual Pleasures and Narrative Cinema” 16.

22 M. Hunter Vaughn, “The Paradox of Film: an Industry of Sex, a Form of Seduction (on Jean Baudrillard’s Seduction and the Cinema).” (Film-Philosophy, vol. 14, no. 2, 2010), 56.

16 17 18

Ibid.

Mulvey, “Visual Pleasures and Narrative Cinema” 18.

25 Ibid.,19. Yet again we see Jill powerless to the seemingly inevitable gaze of others in a scene closely following this one. Jill startled by the sound of a harmonica playing outside the house, but when she goes to the window to discern the source, it is too dark to see anything. She grabs a shotgun and blindly fires a futile shot into the pitch-blackness, but still the tune of the harmonica persists. She is being watched and can do nothing about it. She is not keeper of her own existence it seems, but is merely subject to the whims and desires of the men around her.

26 Jonathan Flatley. “Like: Collecting and Collectivity.” (October, vol. 132, 2010), 92.

27 Ibid., 94.

28 Leo Charney. “Peaks and Valleys.” Empty Moments: Cinema, Modernity, and Drift (Duke University Press, 1998), 74.

29 Rogin. “Liberal Society and the Indian Question” 135.

30 Ibid., 137.

31 Kirby. “Inventors and Hysterics” 28. Just one example: the railroads drove away buffalo, antelope, and other wild game hunted by the Native Americans. See the opening sequence of Dead Man. (Jim Jarmusch, Dead Man (1996), Film.)

32 Rogin. “Liberal Society and the Indian Question” 137.

33 Ibid., 138.

34 Ibid.

35 Ibid., 141.

36 Ibid., 135.

37 Ibid., 138.

23 24

50

Rogin. “Liberal Society and the Indian Question” 139. Harmonica’s potential identity as Native American is important here (again) and there is not proper space nor time in this paper to fully explore his complexities. If he is read as Native American, the trauma inflicted upon him by Frank might be read as Frank’s wrathful response to the Native Americans’ relationship with Mother Nature and Frank’s frustration with his own latent longing to “regain lost attachment to the earth by expanding, swallowing, and incorporating its contents” (See) Frank’s brutal treatment of the young Harmonica revealed at the end of the film is an illustration of Frank’s desire to remove the “Indian menace” and its constant reminders of his lost innocence.

39 Ibid., 145.

40 Ibid.

41 Jane P. Tompkins, West of Everything: The Inner Life of Westerns (Oxford University Press, 2006), 39-40.

42 Mulvey, “Visual Pleasures and Narrative Cinema” 14.

43 Rogin, “Liberal Society and the Indian Question” 139.

44 Ibid., 144.

45 Ibid., 139.

46 Ibid., 149.

38

Images 1 FanArt.TV, https://fanart.tv/movie/335/once-upon-a-time-in-the-west/.

2 “Claudia Cardinale in C'era una volta il West (1968),” IMDb, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064116/mediaviewer/ rm729825024.

3 Cinematheia, last modified November 12, 2013, http://www.cinematheia.com/once-upon-a-time-in-the-west-trivia/.

Daughters’ Needs: Fatherhood in HBO’s Girls

Janice A. Radway, “Women Read the Romance: The Interaction of Text and Content,” Feminist Studies. vol. 9, no. 1 (1983): 62.

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid., 61.

4 Dr. John A. Sowers, Fatherless Generation: Redeeming the Story (Zondervan, 2010), 19.

5 Ibid., 57.

6 E. Mavis Hetherington, “Effects of Father Absence on Personality Development in Adolescent Daughters,” Developmental Psychology. vol. 7, no. 3 (1972): 323.

7 Ibid., 324.

Images 1 “The poster for the final season of girls,” HBO, http://www.vulture.com/2017/04/girls-posters-six-seasons-explained.html.

2 “Girls Recap: Sins of the Father,” TV Line, last modified February 24, 2013, http://tvline.com/2013/02/24/girls-recap-season2-video-games-hbo/.

3 “Girls Season 5 Episode 2 Review: Good Man,” TV Fanatic, last modified February 28, 2016, https://www.tvfanatic. com/2016/02/girls-season-5-episode-2-review-good-man/.

1

The Road Between Legitimacy and Criminality: How the Automobile Subverts the American Dream in The Godfather

Adams James, Truslow, and Schneiderman Howard. “The Epic of America.” The Epic of America, Transaction Publishers, 1931, 214–215.

2 Munby, Jonathan. Public Enemies, Public Heroes: Screening the Gangster from "Little Caesar" to "Touch of Evil". Univ. of Chicago Press, 2003, 49.

3 Ibid.

4 Ball, Anneke. “Behind the Wheel, Chasing the American Dream – Transit New York – Medium.” Medium, Transit New York, 16 Oct. 2017, medium.com/transit-new-york/chasing-the-american-dream-behind -the-wheel-9869fdc76245.

5 Ruth, David E. Inventing the Public Enemy: the Gangster in American Culture, 1918-1934. Univ. of Chicago Press, 1996. 66.

6 Ibid., 79.

7 Chapman, Mary. “Mob Hits: Gangsters Prized Cars for Reasons Other than Performance.” Chicagotribune.com, 17 Feb. 2017, www.chicagotribune.com/classified/automotive/ctgangster-cars-autoshow-0217-story.html.

8 Munby. Public Enemies, Public Heroes, 45.

9 Ibid., 54.

10 Ibid., 58.

11 Leitch, Thomas M. “The Godfather and the Gangster Film.” Crime Films, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2009 (122).

12 Munby. Public Enemies, Public Heroes, 50.

13 Ruth. “Inventing the Public Enemy,” 85.

14 Munby. Public Enemies, Public Heroes, 141.

15 Ibid., 140.

Images 1 “Sonny gets whacked in The Godfather,” Long Island Press, last modified February 22, 2015, https://www.longislandpress. com/2015/02/22/13-movies-filmed-on-long-island-that-won-oscars/.

2 “Emulsional Rescue: Revealing the Godfather,” YouTube, November 22, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=o6LRHfMRcNY. 1

51

Interested in Learning More?

Movable Type seeks to provide vision, opportunity, connection, and reflection.

Vision for undergraduate students to work for more than just a grade or to regurgitate facts. The journal allows students to see value in their work and gives them a greater purpose for exploring topics of interest by understanding that they can share their work with others through a publication.

Opportunity for students by offering them a credible platform to publish their research, granting them status as a published author, and allowing them a wider audience. Students are also afforded the chance to get involved as a member of the journal and learn various skills including peer-reviewing, editing, design, marketing, finance, writing, leadership skills, teambuilding skills, etc.

Connection with students and faculty. Student-faculty: for students and faculty to unite outside the classroom and celebrate work that has been inspired from within the classroom. The journal is able to highlight the growth and development of students’ interests, while giving credit to faculty for planting the seeds. The launch events allow for engagement between professors and students. Student-student: Additionally, the journal works to bring students together by putting their essays in dialogue with one another. It also provides individuals with a number of ways to get involved and learn how to create a publication from the ground up as a team.

Reflection: Movable Type seeks to stand as a platform that can fuel conversations and allow students to inspire, encourage, and challenge one another with their work.

Get involved: Undergraduate students can assist with the production of the journal by becoming peer reviewers or joining the Executive Team in a position of editing, designing, outreach, marketing, and more. Visit movabletypeuva.com for more information.

NOTES

53

NOTES