Browsing by Subject "film"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    Open Access
    The monsters we deserve: vampires in selected literature & film
    (2013) Tiffin, Jessica
    Vampires have been a staple of horror literature for decades, but recently have emerged strongly in popular culture and are represented in a range of different ways. This audio lecture series by Dr Jessica Tiffin, Student Development Officer, Faculty of Humanities Undergraduate Office, University of Cape Town explores the figure of the vampire in Western culture, from its folkloric roots to modern literature and film.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open Access
    Sunny with a chance: coming of age as coming out and coming into one's own
    (2021) Maharaj, Upasna; Smit, Alexia
    The screenplay (creative production component) follows Sunny, a young South African Indian woman, who relocates to Cape Town to study fine art. She sets her eyes on a significant award, but makes the critical mistake of falling for her greatest rival. Despite facing crippling cultural expectations and biases, Sunny discovers that being different - and loving who she wants to love - is not a crime, but an imperfect truth. The screenplay explores the protagonist's first year at university, complicated by questions of identity, race, gender, sexuality and their intersection with tradition and culture in contemporary South Africa. Taking the form of a coming-of-age Indie drama (with an artistic twist), the main character embarks on a journey of self-discovery and learning, as she confronts these challenges. The reflective creative explication serves as an accompaniment to the screenplay. It is used to expound upon the creative process of writing the screenplay: highlighting key scenes, beats and decisions whilst interrogating the theoretical frameworks surrounding representations of ‘othered' groups - specifically queer womxn of colour - and their perception in society, aided by the lens of personal lived experience. This is followed by a review of the Indie and coming-of-age genres, in which the screenplay operates. The piece acts as a critical reflection intended to contextualise and justify the creative decisions made in the screenplay, so as to provide a means of accessing the larger themes and concerns at hand.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open Access
    The role of nostalgia in reality television’s representation of rural lives
    (2019) Edwards, Abigail; Smit, Alexia
    This dissertation examines the role of nostalgia in reality television’s representation of rural lives. My study merges a theoretical and critical investigation. I take Alaska: The Last Frontier as my case study and argue that the programme responds to social change and urban living conditions in the United States by creating a nostalgic and idealistic representation of preindustrial American life. While the text is largely reactionary and calls upon a restorative nostalgia that imagines ideal American life as rural, white and heteronormative, the show also exhibits elements of reflective nostalgia, using the Kilcher family’s lifestyle to critique contemporary late capitalist lifestyles. Furthermore, I argue that this use of nostalgia conveys a dissatisfaction with post-industrial and urban life by foregrounding an idealistic settler narrative that implies it is not through progressive reform that America will find its nostrum but through a return to conservative values. The chapters in this thesis examine aspects of contemporary urban life that have drastically changed since the onset of America’s industrial revolution. My first chapter argues that nostalgia can manifest in an individual and potentially, a nation. I also argue that reality television plays a significant role in evoking nostalgia and uses it to respond to the sociological conditions of late capitalist urban life. Chapter 2 explores the relationship between the wilderness and nostalgia. In particular, I consider how the 'frontier myth’ structures the show’s nostalgic representation of rural living. In my third chapter I discuss how Alaska: The Last Frontier evokes nostalgia for a lost sense of kinship and community, reminiscent of a preindustrial revolution American culture. This chapter also uses the condition of anomie to further understand how the seemingly disparate relationship between the urban setting in which the programme is largely consumed and the nostalgia for a sense of family and community that the programme evokes, relate. Chapter 4 argues that the representation of labour in Alaska: The Last Frontier constructs a 'fantasy of wholeness’ and that this process potentially evokes nostalgia for an idealised set of labour relations that are perceived to be lost in the late capitalist age. I present a case study from Alaska: The Last Frontier to show how the programme constructs a 'fantasy of wholeness’ through representing idealised labour relations that are in stark contrast to Marx’s theory on how capitalist labour conditions are experienced. Finally, my fifth chapter reflects on the complex and integral role that nostalgia plays in Alaska: The Last Frontier’s representation of rural lives and discusses how the work I have presented in this thesis may provide a basis for future enquiries.