College Essays . Film Critique
(CW: Frank discussions of sexual assault.) (Feminist Ecocinema; Fall 2023)The trope of the “strong female character” has become almost as tiring as the picture-perfect Mary Sue. For a time it seemed that in lieu of, say, strong writing and dynamic personhood female characters were defined by the level by which they achieved masculine strength. For a […]
A snapshot of 1950s America looks different to different people. An idea floats among public discourse even today that the 1950s sitcom Leave It to Beaver accurately represented life in America, but the external polish of suburbia harshly conflicted with the slowly rotting foundation of “traditional” life. The Cold War took up the mantle of global tensions after World War II introduced the atomic bomb.
Once upon a time, I lived on the cusp of the film industry. My family resided a mere forty-five minutes outside of Hollywood. Weekend trips to Universal Studios weren’t unusual. My dad shared stories of a family friend’s exploits as lead cameraman for a famous director. When I left the state of California and moved to North Idaho, I learned that my childhood wasn’t a “normal” American experience. Like any discourse community—a term defined by Kevin Davis in his “Does Coming to College Mean Becoming Someone New?” essay as “groups of people who share patterns and strategies of communication” (Davis)—Hollywood movie-making culture carries its own definition of reality that’s not easily accessible to people living outside that space. But in spite of the exclusivity of my background, there is one element of the movies that most people are familiar with: The Academy Awards, or the “Oscars.”
In Kevin Davis’ essay, “Does Coming to College Mean Becoming Someone New?” he defines some of the barriers to joining new discourse communities—groups with their own communication styles and values. In response to his attempts at integrating with the academic English world, he says, “I found I didn’t like the someone new I was being asked to become” (Davis, 236). I said this very thing to myself when I finally decided to leave Christian publishing, and I resonated with his struggle to belong.
