TikTok Digital Ethnography: The Algorithm Knows You’re Gay

Consumerism, Merchandising, and Ludo-Capitalism in Nintendo’s Animal Crossing FRANCHISE

The Cardinals Sins of Queer Representation in 2000s Television: Baiting, Burying, and Bashing

The Queering of Juvenile Bodies in The Works of Céline Sciamma: Transition, Illusion, and Embodiment

Potatoes as an omen of life and death in Claudia Llosa’s The Milk of Sorrow: motherhood and rape anxiety

How Men Look: The Redefined Male Gaze in the Works of Alfonso Cuarón: Y Tu Mamá También (2001) and Roma (2018)

Jumping off from Laura Mulvey’s “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, as well as Steve Neale’s “Masculinity as Spectacle”, I wanted to shape a new working definition of the male gaze with regards to male bodies and male spectators. In order to do this, I conducted an in-depth visual analysis of the characters and visual language in Alfonso Cuarón’s Y Tu Mamá También (2001) and Roma (2018), in order to show how he employs gendered forms of gazing in an innovative way. By doing this, I hoped to propose a new way for men to gaze cinematically in the future, both as spectators and directors.

Gynecological Violence: An Ethnographic Collection

In this project that incorporates academic theory and photography, I used the theoretical and artistic frameworks produced by Emilia Sanabria in Plastic Bodies, and A.K Summers in Pregnant Butch to look into the often-taboo subject of gynecological violence. To take on this topic, I collected stories from various individuals regarding their negative experiences with gynecology and medical professionals, and created a photo series of different objects that illustrate these stories, accompanied by a theoretical essay that aimed to dissect the ways in which medical spaces are often ill-equipped to assist individuals facing gynecological issues. Through this project, I hope to highlight the taboo often associated with gynecology, and to shed light onto some of the issues that occur behind closed doors in the medical sphere.

Queer Temporality and Queer History-making: Call Me by Your Name (2017) & Carol (2015)

Queer narratives have long been denied the right to exist in film history, and many filmmakers are now taking on the task of putting this history at the forefront of cinema. In films like Call Me by Your Name (2017) & Carol (2015), both works portray queer relationships as their central plots, and explore the possibilities and limitations of queer identity in their respective time periods, through the eyes of filmmakers who exist in the queer present. This essay examines the different ways in which Call Me by Your Name and Carol portray elements of queer temporality through their stylistic conventions and principal themes, in order to understand how this allows these films to redefine their existence in queer history.

“Leave Britney Alone!”: An Analysis of Straight Female Pop Artists’ Appeal to Queer Audiences

“Gay icons” are identified as female pop performers who appeal widely to queer audiences. These icons frequently use queer support as a kind of queer currency that they can turn to in order to achieve commercial success. To do this, they often actively display themes in their lyrics and music videos that will appeal to queer audiences, even if they are not queer themselves, which is referred to as queerbaiting. Through this research, we aim to understand how these artists appeal to queer audiences, and if these queerbaiting practices are actually effective in helping them achieve greater commercial success. To answer this, we looked at the case study of Britney Spears, and assessed how her use of queer themes influences her commercial success on the Billboard charts and her popularity in Spotify streams.