Journal articles: 'Little Critter (Fictional character)' – Grafiati (2024)

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Author: Grafiati

Published: 4 June 2021

Last updated: 28 July 2024

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1

McDonald, Jared, and Jaclyn Piatak. "Penalties for Going Against Type: How Sexism Shapes Voters’ Perceptions of Candidate Character." Behavioral Science & Policy 8, no.2 (October 2022): 47–56. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/237946152200800205.

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Although women are increasingly represented in elected office, little is known about how a female candidate's gender influences voter approval when her messaging emphasizes her strong leadership ability—a character trait generally regarded as masculine. Drawing from theories of social cognition and gender stereotypes, we examine in this article how citizens react to male and female politicians who emphasize particular character traits. After synthesizing relevant literature, we report on a study conducted to see whether women lose public support for emphasizing their leadership ability—thus “going against type.” In a survey of more than 800 American adults, we found that respondents penalized a fictional woman running for Congress when her messaging to voters emphasized the core character trait of leadership, as opposed to compassion (a trait traditionally associated with women) or no character trait at all. In contrast, respondents viewed a fictional man more favorably when his messaging to voters went against type by highlighting compassion than when he emphasized leadership. These findings suggest that female candidates have fewer options than men do when selecting which personal characteristics to present in their messaging to gain the approval of the voting public. This result underscores the need for policies and programs that promote female leadership in all walks of life, thereby leading the public to associate leadership skill with both genders equally.

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Abraham, Anna, D.YvesvonCramon, and RicardaI.Schubotz. "Meeting George Bush versus Meeting Cinderella: The Neural Response When Telling Apart What is Real from What is Fictional in the Context of Our Reality." Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 20, no.6 (June 2008): 965–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/jocn.2008.20059.

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A considerable part of our lives is spent engaging in the entertaining worlds of fiction that are accessible through media such as books and television. Little is known, however, about how we are able to readily understand that fictional events are distinct from those occurring within our real world. The present functional imaging study explored the brain correlates underlying such abilities by having participants make judgments about the possibility of different scenarios involving either real or fictional characters being true, given the reality of our world. The processing of real and fictional scenarios activated a common set of regions including medial-temporal lobe structures. When the scenarios involved real people, brain regions associated with episodic memory retrieval and self-referential thinking, the anterior prefrontal cortex and the precuneus/posterior cingulate, were more active. In contrast, areas along the left lateral inferior frontal gyrus, associated with semantic memory retrieval, were implicated for scenarios with fictional characters. This implies that there is a fine distinction in the manner in which conceptual information concerning real persons in contrast to fictional characters is represented. In general terms, the findings suggest that fiction relative to reality tends to be represented in more factual terms, whereas our representations of reality relative to fiction are colored by personal subjectivity. What modulates our understanding of the relative difference between reality and fiction seems to be whether such character-type information is coded in self-relevant terms or not.

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Soto-Rincón,CarlosA., SergioA.Castillo-Torres, DiegoA.Cantú-García, Ingrid Estrada-Bellmann, Beatriz Chávez-Luévanos, and Alejandro Marfil. "The poor insane Ophelia: reconsidering Ophelia syndrome." Arquivos de Neuro-Psiquiatria 77, no.11 (November 2019): 828–31. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/0004-282x20190105.

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ABSTRACT The association between memory loss and Hodgkin's lymphoma has been given the eponym of Ophelia syndrome, in memory of Shakespeare's character in The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Nevertheless, there are differences between the disease and the character. Objective: To review the origins and uses of the eponym through an original article by pathologist Ian Carr, its relation to the character Ophelia, and the related autoantibodies. Methods: Historical narrative review. Results: Besides an eloquent description in the original article, Carr presaged the presence of autoantibodies, before they had been thoroughly researched. Since then, five different autoantibodies (mGluR5, Hu, NMDAR, SOX, PCA2) have been associated with Hodgkin's disease. It is interesting to note the divergent outcomes of Shakespeare's character and the patient in the original description by Carr, the latter recovering to lead a normal life, and the former deceased. Conclusions: Although there is little relationship between the fictional character and the syndrome, both imply the unintentional trigger of self-harm (suicide in one case, autoimmunity in the other), thus remaining associated.

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Wright, Matthew. "The scripted audience in Roman comedy." Trends in Classics 16, no.1 (July1, 2024): 144–69. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/tc-2024-0006.

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Abstract Despite the prevalence of audience-centred drama criticism, very little is actually known about the composition or nature of theatre audiences in antiquity. Metatheatrical passages in Plautus’ and Terence’s comedies in which the audience is described or addressed are usually treated as historical evidence for real-life theatre audiences in Republican Rome. This article argues that it is preferable to treat the comic audience as a fictional character. The scripted audience is recurrently portrayed by the comedians in a far-fetched and anti-realistic manner: it can be treated as a stereotype, along the other ‘stock’ characters of Roman comedy.

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Szűcs, Orsolya. "Ireland and the Balkans Conflict in Edna O’Brien’s The Little Red Chairs." Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica 12, no.1 (October1, 2020): 110–23. http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/ausp-2020-0009.

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Abstract History has always been a major critical exploration point in Edna O’Brien’s works. Notable for its realistic Irish specificity, her fiction interrogates problems of history, memory, and society with an audacious awareness. In her 2015 novel, The Little Red Chairs, O’Brien goes beyond the familiar Irish cultural context and creates a propitious alternative life-story for Radovan Karadžić, a Serbian war criminal from the Balkans conflict of the 1990s. Attending closely to the novel’s factual-fictional narrative strategies and its visceral language, this essay explores how O’Brien combines stereotypical elements from the Irish contemporary reality with Eastern European sagas as well as history to then create a compelling humanitarian plotline. The novel has a particular rendering of natural elements that act as a mnemonic witness device. The essay also looks at how the landscape functions as a reflective tool, often acting as a separate “character” of the narrative.

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Rebel,G.M. "THE ENCHANTED WANDERER BY LEONID YUZEFOVICH." Bulletin of Udmurt University. Series History and Philology 31, no.3 (July13, 2021): 620–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.35634/2412-9534-2021-31-3-620-627.

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The article analyzes the novel “Philellin” by L.A. Yuzefovich, the main attention is paid to the method of narration, the system of characters, the typological characteristics of the main character and the genre features of the work. The novel is a collection of documents of different genres, which together form a story about the events of the liberation war in Greece in the 20s of the XIX century. Almost all of Yuzefovich's characters act simultaneously as subjects of the narrative and participants in the events. The exception is Alexander I, because he is “silent” (his point of view is broadcast by his secretary Yelovsky) and "inactive". Despite the importance of the figure of the Russian emperor in the plot of the novel, for these reasons, Alexander “gives way” to the place of the main character to a fictional character - Grigory Mossepanov, whose fate forms the plot outline of the novel. Mossepanov is not only an important participant in the events, but also one of the main subjects and objects of the narrative. In literary criticism, the hero is given typological definitions of Don Quixote, Petrushka, “a little man”. This article offers a more appropriate definition of the character and fate of Mossepanov - “enchanted wanderer”, which is confirmed by the comparison of the characters of L. Yuzefovich and N. Leskov. The key plot role of the Russian philhellene, the peculiarities of his character and fate largely determine the genre nature of the work as a historical and mythological novel.

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Bodenheimer, Rosemarie. "GEORGE ELIOT'S LAST STAND: IMPRESSIONS OF THEOPHRASTUS SUCH." Victorian Literature and Culture 44, no.3 (August30, 2016): 607–21. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1060150316000036.

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Let's face it:Impressionsof Theophrastus Such can be a pretty dreary book. It's all too easy to put it down, especially if you happen to be in the middle of a particularly heavy-handed passage in “The Watch-Dog of Knowledge” or “Debasing the Moral Currency.” Some early readers felt that the real George Eliot had abandoned them in her final publication by ceasing to write fiction, while recent critics have gone to some lengths to show that the narrator, allegedly a minimally published bachelor named Theophrastus Such, is a self-reflexive fictional character whose failings and contradictions are the real subject of the book.1 Who is Theophrastus Such? What is his ethical, political, or scientific orientation? How does his character emerge during the course of the volume? These are questions that have occupied recent critical dialogue. In response, I find myself harboring some sympathy for George Saintsbury, who reviewed Impressions in the Academy of 28 June 1879: . . .we feel that there is either too much or too little of Mr Such. The essayist who wishes to utter his opinions through the mouth of a feigned personage must give him at least something of a body for our thoughts to take hold of. Mr Such is little more than a disembodied shadow with a name attached to it, and this being the case we feel that we could do without his shadow and his name altogether. (qtd. in Hutchinson 429–30)

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Jain, Aditya, and Dr Anshu Raj Purohit. "Female characters in the novels of R. K. Narayan." International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research Configuration 4, no.1 (January28, 2024): 27–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.52984/ijomrc4103.

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R.K. Narayan is considered one of the most eminent Indian authors in the English language. Narayan mostly focuses on portraying middle-class folks from Malgudi, a fictional location he created in South India. His writings feature a diverse array of male and female characters. Within each of his novels, there exists a female character that holds a significant role in the narrative. Rosie, in The Guide, is one such female character. She embodies a contemporary woman who is well-educated and driven, who aspires to achieve financial independence based on her own preferences and abilities, despite facing significant sacrifices. Raju's mother and Velan's sister are among the other female characters depicted in the story. Raju's mother embodies the conservative and orthodox ladies who adhere to tradition and culture. She is a conscientious spouse and an affectionate parent. She provides guidance to both Raju and Rosie regarding moral principles and ethical conduct. However, if her advice is ignored, she departs from her residence and accompanies her brother to reside with him. Velan's sister has a little yet significant part in the narrative, as her presence contributes to portraying Raju as a saintly figure. This research aims to investigate this particular component of R.K. in a modest manner. The characterisation of Narayan. Keywords: The role of women, fiction, family, stories, novels, general literature

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Thong, Kenny Gian, and Nugraheni Widianingtyas. "Analysis of Nero’s Insecurities in the Devil May Cry Series." English Language and Education Spectrum 3, no.2 (July28, 2023): 24–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.53416/electrum.v3i2.148.

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In the entirety of human life, the feeling of insecurity has always occurred, even in fictional works. However, little is known about the study of insecurity in a character in a video game series. Therefore, this study is to analyze the insecurity of Nero, a protagonist of the Devil May Cry series gives insights on what are the causes and the types of his insecurities, and finds the true nature of Nero’s insecurity and how he deals with it. Data for the study comprised psychological research on insecurity and its causes, as well as the story of Nero. The data were transcribed and analyzed in qualitative research. The findings revealed that Nero developed his insecurities ever since he was left alone at the orphanage doorstep, being bullied by other children, the death of his adoptive brother, and being insulted by his mentor. As such, Nero develops the tendencies of being impulsive and brash whenever people he loved are in danger, as well as being arrogant and rebellious. The study also revealed that in order to deal with his insecurities, Nero seeks more power and validation that he is indeed capable of saving other people, and he is not powerless.

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Sukhrob, Muminov. "THE IMAGE OF A RUSSIAN INTELLECTUAL IN IMMIGRATION IN THE WORK OF S. DOVLATOV." European International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Management Studies 02, no.11 (November1, 2022): 184–87. http://dx.doi.org/10.55640/eijmrms-02-11-42.

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The primary meaning of a work of art is the personality of the author. Especially if it uses autobiographical material. Sergei Dovlatov (1941-1990) is a special case in this respect. Just as in the mysterious drawing by Maurice Escher two hands draw each other, the writer Dovlatov and the character Dovlatov are interdependent. Which does not mean they are the same. Those who knew him from books seemed to know him. Those who knew him in life understood that they knew him little. A great hoaxer, he knew how to bring the surrounding reality into an unstable state. All the facts in his biography are inaccurate, ambiguous, unclear. This should be remembered when reading his books - almost confessional in form, but mostly fictional in content. In the gravitational field around Dovlatov, reality is distorted, losing its authenticity. However, before getting personal, it would be good to understand the criteria. Humanistic pathos, characteristic of all world literature, can be called the justification of man. How is a person judged by people? The scale for assessing the social significance of each of us is located between two generalizing definitions: a big man and a small man. The megalomania inherent in Russian sovereignty recognized only statesmen as great people. So the tsarist censor was outraged by the inappropriate respect for the personality of Pushkin, expressed in his obituary: what importance can there be in a poet - especially such that he did not glorify sovereign power, but called for mercy for the fallen. It was on the question of the place of man in Russian reality that the state and society diverged in the most decisive way. Russian literature turned its face away from the mighty of this world and turned its heart to poor people, the poor, the unfortunate. Outsiders, seen through the magic crystal of art, turn out to be real people, and the masters of life - existential impostors. The end-to-end character of Dovlatov's prose, the author's alter ego, is a little man... in a country made up of dwarfs. This is the first surprise that confuses our minds: a big little man. It is generally accepted that the main pathos of Dovlatov's work is condescension to human weakness.

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Demidov, Nikita Mikhailovich. ""Little Man" in the context of the narrative structure of the work: "Overcoat" by N. V. Gogol and "Irrepressible Tambourine" by A.M. Remizov." Litera, no.3 (March 2024): 124–35. http://dx.doi.org/10.25136/2409-8698.2024.3.70297.

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The subject of the study is the evolution of the "little man" as a literary phenomenon based on the novels "Overcoat" by Gogol and "Irrepressible Tambourine" by Remizov. It is noted that the content of the term under study is not limited to the semantics of the image, which contains a meaningful characteristic of a certain type of literary hero, but depends on the narrative structure of the work. This position of the "little man" in Gogol and Remizov is at the intersection of interrelated factors: details as a carrier of the grotesque in fictional reality and at the level of narrative instance, as well as modifications of a specific genre form, expressed in the original construction of the composition — Gogol overcoming the genre of physiological essay and Remizov household anecdote, respectively. The study shows that detail plays a key role in the poetics of the works of these authors and determines not only the dynamics of the image in a particular work, but also forms an appropriate aspect of influence. Remizov inherits the indirect characterization of a literary character through the details of the external world, adopted by Gogol, but in another way secures with their help the status of the main character of the "Irrepressible Tambourine" as a small person at the narrative level due to a more open organization of the horizon of readers' expectations. The task required the synthesis of a historical and genetic approach with a genrological (genological) one, which made it possible to consider the category of "little man" as an element of poetics, reinterpreted by Remizov in "Irrepressible Tambourine" under the influence of Gogol's work, and its significance in connection with the transformation of the genre model with an individual author's approach to narration. The study showed that Remizov overcomes the epistemological uncertainty of the narrator in the "Overcoat" and, thanks to the details referring to the mythopoeic context (Ancient Russia, Eros), builds the image of a small man (Stratilatov), whose insignificance and mediocrity are less related to the plot of the "Irrepressible Tambourine" than with archetypal references that are carriers of narrative semantics stories and setting the meaningful direction of the author's thought. Thus, the unknowability of the foundations of being by the character is emphasized at the narrative level of the work, enhanced by the grotesque characterization. The corresponding conclusion, according to the author of the article, is relevant in analyzing the system of images of literary heroes in Remizov and his anticipation of the work of European expressionist prose writers with their emphasis on the existential, rather than social source of human suffering.

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Mizinkina, Olena, and Oleksandra Zozulia. "ORNITHOLOGICAL IMAGES IN THE STORIES OF VASYL POLTAVCHUK." Odessa National University Herald. Series: Philology 28, no.2(28) (December23, 2023): 7–17. http://dx.doi.org/10.18524/2307-8332.2023.2(28).299782.

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The article attempts to analyze the specifics of character creation in the collection «Secrets of Amorous Stories» (2020) by Vasyl Poltavchuk. The significance of the study lies in the fact that the image of a person in a work of art is always central. The study of artistic techniques of character modeling allows us to learn about the artist’s creative laboratory. The artistic heritage of V. Poltavchuk has been little characterized to date, despite the fact that it represents the development of contemporary short fiction in Ukrainian literature, and the writer worked for more than twenty years at the Faculty of Philology of the Odesa I. I. Mechnikov National University. The aim of the article is to study the traditions and innovations in the creation of character images in the stories of the collection «Secrets of Amorous Stories». In order to understand the origins of the poetics of V. Poltavchuk’s works, a brief overview of the author’s scientific and artistic interests is made. The author traces the points of view of literary critics on the features of the short story genre, the distinction between a short story and a novella. It is shown that the writer focuses primarily on the images of women, which appear through their psychologization, individual strokes of portraits, actions, and comparisons with birds. Ornithological motifs also help to emphasize the central images of men. In particular, the stories contain references to the images of a dove, swallow, seagull, lark, and snowbird. The writer resorts to various means of outlining the ornithological features of the characters in the fictional text: intertextuality, onyric space, sound, and movement aspects. The author’s techniques include the poetics of the title («Holubka»), the symbolism of the characters’ names (Snihur, Kazhan), and the concept of the «nest» in V. Poltavchuk’s stories. We believe that this approach to the study of images is promising for further study of contemporary works of Ukrainian literature.

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Batinić, Ana, and Sanja Lovrić Kralj. "“Pieces of life” - Tajana’s growing up in Sunčana Škrinjarić’s trilogy Ulica predaka [The Street of Ancestors], Ispit zrelosti [Test of Maturity] and Bijele strijele [White Arrows]." Nova prisutnost XIX, no.3 (November14, 2021): 629–41. http://dx.doi.org/10.31192/np.19.3.11.

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This paper analyses the growing up of Tajana, a fictional character in unhealthy family surroundings as depicted in Sunčana Škrinjarić’s (1931 – 2004) trilogy: The Street of Ancestors (1980), Test of Maturity (2002), and White Arrows (2004). The main controversy of the trilogy is the presentation of a childhood without didacticism, moral lessons, or idealization; a childhood which is more unhappy than protected and joyful. By breaking settled rules and taboos, Škrinjarić created her own, recognizable style of narration. This study will particularly focus on Tajana’s relationship with her mother and the girl’s emotional development, which can be interpreted in light of childhood trauma. Tajana’s mother is an educated, beautiful, and coquettish woman who does not love her daughter. She sees the girl only as a “redundant little brat”, a reminder of her broken first marriage, and an obstacle to happiness in life. Hitting Tajana, pulling her hair, and essentially ignoring all her needs, she can be labelled a bad mother who fails to fulfil the duties of her role: being present and protective, as well as providing for her daughter’s well-being and upbringing. Tajana’s experience of emotional neglect and emotional and even physical abuse from her mother in her childhood results in the girl’s problems in building firm and healthy relationships in her adult life.

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Geybels, Lindsey. "Shuffling Softly, Sighing Deeply: A Digital Inquiry into Representations of Older Men and Women in Literature for Different Ages." Social Sciences 12, no.3 (February22, 2023): 112. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/socsci12030112.

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When gender is brought into concerns about older people, the emphasis often lies on stereotypes connected to older women, and few comparative studies have been conducted pertaining to the representation of the intersection between older age and gender in fiction. This article argues that not only children’s literature, traditionally considered to be a carrier of ideology, plays a large part in the target readership’s age socialization, but so do young adult and adult fiction. In a large corpus of 41 Dutch books written for different ages, the representation of older men and women is studied through the verbs, grammatical possessions and adjectives associated with the relevant fictional characters, which were extracted from the texts through the computational method of dependency parsing. Older adult characters featured most frequently in fiction for adults, where, more so than in the books for younger readers, they are depicted as being prone to illness, experiencing the effects of a deteriorating body and having a limited social network. In the books for children, little to no association between older adulthood and mortality was found in the data. Ageist stereotypes pertaining to both genders were found throughout the corpus. In terms of characterization, male older adults are associated more with physicality, including matters of illness and mobility, while character traits and emotions show up in a more varied manner in connection to female older characters.

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Elizabeth Mathai, Ziona, and M.Nagalakshmi. "A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY ON THE NOVEL A CLOCKWORK ORANGE." Humanities & Social Sciences Reviews 8, no.1 (February10, 2020): 610–17. http://dx.doi.org/10.18510/hssr.2020.8173.

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Purpose of the study: This paper is a study on the novel A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. It is an analysis of Alex’s psychological condition and a study on the Ludovico experiment in relation to other popular experiments in psychology. The paper brings to light the dark and evil side of adolescence. Methodology: This study uses a psychological approach in analyzing the character of the protagonist Alex. Various psychological theories are applied in this paper to interpret this novel. Main Findings: Examining Alex’s depiction in the novel, he is presumed as a sociopath with a narcissistic personality disorder. The Ludovico experiment which stole the limelight in this novel is a behavioral modification technique, powered by negative reinforcement. Despite being a fictional experiment and a product of Burgess’s imagination, the Ludovico experiment is stemmed out of Ivan Pavlov’s classical conditioning. This experiment also complements Watson and Rayner’s ‘Little Albert’ experiment. The termination of Alex’s free will by the Ludovico experiment is reversed by the flooding method of desensitization. Applications of this study: The novel, A Clockwork Orange is brimming with psychological theories, hence a fascinating book to the psychologists. The protagonist Alex, continues to remain as a case-study amongst the scholars of psychology. Novelty/Originality of this study: The final chapter in the novel has various interpretations. The reversal of Alex’s condition is caused by the flooding method of desensitization. While the cause of reversal holds varied comprehension, the flooding method seems like the fitting one.

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Hussain, Amir. "Me and the Mosque." American Journal of Islam and Society 23, no.2 (April1, 2006): 124–25. http://dx.doi.org/10.35632/ajis.v23i2.1634.

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Zarqa Nawaz is a Canadian Muslim filmmaker who lives with her family inRegina, Saskatchewan. There are any number of comments that could beinserted at this point. Having spent time on both the Saskatchewan andManitoba prairies, I note only that Zarqa is developing a television series forthe Canadian Broadcasting Corporation entitled “Little Mosque on thePrairie.” She has made two earlier short films, BBQ Muslims and DeathThreat. Information about those films, as well as about Zarqa, can be foundon her website, Fundamentalist Films, available at www.fundamentalistfilms.com.Me and the Mosque, her first documentary, is distributed by the NationalFilm Board of Canada. The film is directly related to her own concerns as aMuslim woman, namely, as to space available to her in the mosque. The filmbegins on a light-hearted note (as does her web site, with the tag line of “puttingthe fun back into fundamentalism”) with Muslim comic Azhar Usmanjoking about the lack of appropriate space available in mosques for Muslimwomen.The documentary traverses mosques in Canada and the United States,such including places as Aurora, Illinois; Mississauga, Ontario; Winnipeg,Manitoba; Regina, Saskatchewan; Surrey, British Columbia; and Morgantown,West Virginia. It includes the voices of established scholars, amongthem Asma Barlas, Umar Abd-Allah, and Aminah McCloud, alongside thenewer scholarly voices of Aisha Geissinger, Jasmine Zine, and Itrath Syed.In addition, there is a wide range of interviews with people from the Muslimcommunity, from such activists as Asra Nomani and Aminah Assilmi to suchscholars as Abdullah Adhami and Tareq Suwaidan.As mentioned above, the film begins on a humorous note with the comedyof Azhar Usman (of “Allah Made Me Funny” fame). However, what hejokes about, the nice “dungeons” that many people mention when they talkabout the basements where some mosques give space to women, is no laughingmatter. The film then moves to the mosque in Aurora to begin its discussionof these issues. I would like to think that this is Zarqa’s subtle homageto another Canadian filmmaker, Mike Myers, who bases his fictional character,Wayne Campbell, in Aurora. Zarqa then mentions her upbringing inToronto and contrasts the mosque that she attended (the Jami’ Mosque) while ...

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Tansley, Carole, Ella Hafermalz, and Kristine Dery. "Talent development gamification in talent selection assessment centres." European Journal of Training and Development 40, no.7 (August1, 2016): 490–512. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/ejtd-03-2016-0017.

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between the use of sophisticated talent selection processes such as gamification and training and development interventions designed to ensure that candidates can successfully navigate the talent assessment process. Gamification is the application of game elements to non-game activities through the adoption of gaming tools, and little is known about how candidates (“talent”) struggle to learn about the structural mechanics of gamification as they engage with the hidden rules of talent selection, such as goals, rules, “levelling up”, feedback and engagement in competitive – collaborative activities. The term “talent development gamification” is coined and used as an analytical tool to consider how young talent are supported by development interventions in their inter-subjectivity as they learn how to survive and win in talent selection games. Design/methodology/approach Studying hidden dynamics in development processes inherent in gamified talent selection is challenging, so a cult work of fiction, “Ender’s Game”, is examined to address the questions: “How do candidates in talent selection programmes learn to make sense of the structural mechanics of gamification”, “How does this make the hidden rules of talent selection explicit to them?” and “What does this mean for talent development?” Findings Talent development in selection gamification processes is illustrated through nuanced theoretical accounts of how a multiplicity of shifting and competing developmental learning opportunities are played out as a form of “double-consciousness” by potential organizational talent for them to “win the selection game”. Research limitations/implications Using novels as an aid to understanding management and the organization of work is ontologically and epistemologically problematic. But analysing novels which are “good reads” also has educational value and can produce new knowledge from its analysis. In exploring how “Characters are made to live dangerously, to face predicaments that, as readers, we experience as vicarious pleasure. We imagine, for example, how a particular character may react or, more importantly, what we would do in similar circumstances” (Knights and Willmott, 1999, p. 5). This future-oriented fictional narrative is both illustrative and provides an analogy to illuminate current organisational development challenges. Originality/value The term “talent development gamification in selection processes” is coined to allow analysis and provide lessons for talent development practice in a little studied area. Our case study analysis identifies a number of areas for consideration by talent management/talent development specialists involved in developing talent assessment centres incorporating gamification. These include the importance of understanding and taking account of rites of passage through the assessment centre, in particular the role of liminal space, what talent development interventions might be of benefit and the necessity of appreciating and managing talent in developing the skill of double consciousness in game simulations.

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Mykhailova,O.V. "Background. The diverse experience of artistic culture, refl ected in the established system of genres, appears in a new light from the standpoint of modernity as experts." Aspects of Historical Musicology 15, no.15 (September15, 2019): 119–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.34064/khnum2-15.06.

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from different fi elds of art refer to the same topic. Stable repetition of phenomena, the names of which were originally perceived in the poetic and metaphorical way, indicates the formation of a certain genre branch, little developed in scientifi c research. Genre neoformations of this kind include walks, behind the semantic layer of which a certain set of stylistic means shines through. It is not by chance that attempts are made to comprehend this phenomenon in aesthetic and artistic aspects. Objectives. The purpose of the article is to highlight the phenomena of artistic culture with the most vivid signs of promenade elements, to consider a set of musical instruments used by French composers of the late 19th – early 20th century in the music “walks”. Methods. To determine the role of walks in the genre palette of the music of the 20th century, the historical biographical and the comparative research methods were used. Results. The author of the article reveals the role of walks in the French national life and culture. Their characteristic signs are the following: desire for rest, lightness of being, enjoying the moment. From here, the verbal landscapes from the “In Search of Lost Time” novel by M. Proust take their beginning in, which were inspired by his walking in the Bois de Boulogne forest, in the outskirts of Paris, the province of Illiers-Combray, where the writer took care of fl owers, trees and shrubs. A similar passion for walking and studying the fl ora was also experienced by the enlightener J.-J. Rousseau. He was known to spend a long time feasting eyes on plants, collecting herbariums, often recording his observations. This also explains why C. Monet loved wandering in the wilds. The famous artist, known for his landscape paintings, bought from the local farmers a piece of land that bordered with his estate in order to freely wander around the fi elds in search of the right object, favorable angle or necessary lighting. As a result, promenade walking, being a typical national feature, is often embodied in French music and poetry. This phenomenon is common outside of French art as well. In music, we can refer to “The Walk” by S. Prokofi ev and “The Walk” from the “Pictures at an Exhibition” by M. Mussorgsky; in prose - “The Walk” by N. Karamzin, “Walking in Rome” by G. Morton, “Walking with Pushkin” by A. Tertz, “Six Walks in the Fictional Woods” by U. Eco; in painting – “The Walk” by M. Chagall, “An Evening Walk”, “A Man and a Woman on a Walk in the Forest” by A. Toulouse-Lautrec, “A Walk”, “A Walk” by P. Delvaux, “A Walk” by E. Degas. Quite a few works in the genre of walks revealed such areas of public knowledge as lecture sessions, historical excursions and reviews of art. Thus, the art critic, historian, art historian S. Stavitsky organized a lecture session “Walk as a genre of modern art”, which consisted of three meetings: “Walk Aesthetics”, “Walk and Neo-avant-garde”, and “Actionist Walks”. Polish literary critic Z. Kopech published a collection of articles called “Walks in Modern Polish Literature” devoted to the issues of national prose, poetry and drama. E. Kulikova wrote the work called “Walks in the Lyrics of Anna Akhmatova”, where the author reviews several of her poems , including “The Walks”. B. Godard’s piano cycle “Chemin Faisant” (1880–1881) was analyzed, where each of the pieces appears as a sketch, a “photography” of a walking person. The fi rst three items of the cycle – “Going Over”, “Crying” and “Singing”, form a mini-cycle, since they contrast with each other in terms of image and content, although they remain related in terms of the selected means complex. Among them are: fi gures of movement, repetition, dynamic approach of “moving closer-moving away”, staccato technique in outside pieces. The unifying principle is the direction of all stylistic means to visualize a music image. This explains the presence and individual traits, since the character’s image created by the composer is endowed with a unique identity. The distinctness, tangibility of B. Godard’s musical images makes one ponder over the impact of cinema on musical art: its abilities through the details – expressions of eyes, facial expressions, turns of the head – transmit a change of emotional state, moods, put together a special emotional and psychological plot. A different approach to a descriptive music in “The Walks” (1921) by F. Poulenc is revealed, where the composer does not present a character on a walk, and does not tell stories. Instead, he creates the appropriate surrounding, inspires us with the atmosphere of such different and contrasting walks with the help of harmonic colors, tempos, texture, dynamic and articulation means. His music language is far from being simple, it is full of bizarre rhythms and complex chords, thus putting forward serious technical requirements. Above all, the composer’s targeted attitudes when creating the visible realism of his urban plots are evidenced by numerous text remarks, which are designed to guide a musician as accurately as possible towards the required performance character. They are found everywhere and relate to all components of the music: tempo, sound level, mood, articulation, agogics, pedal usage. A set of various sound and visual means help a performer to implement the composer’s instructions. Conclusions. The universal and wide compositional possibilities of walks as a special artistic genre are proved by its relevance in various types of art and scientifi c knowledge. The authors use different means of declaring their idea, and different way to materialize it. This versatile experience opens the way to comprehending the new and the unexplored, steadily and leisurely, as if you are just a curious walking person.

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19

Đozić, Adib. "Identity and shame – How it seems from Bosniaks perspective. A contribution to the understanding of some characteristics of the national consciousness among Bosniaks." Historijski pogledi 4, no.5 (May31, 2021): 258–88. http://dx.doi.org/10.52259/historijskipogledi.2021.4.5.258.

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The relationship between identity and national consciousness is one of the important issues, not only, of the sociology of identity but of the overall opinion of the social sciences. This scientific question has been insufficiently researched in the sociological thought of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and with this paper we are trying to actualize it. Aware of theoretical-methodological and conceptual-logical difficulties related to the research problem, we considered that in the first part of the paper we make some theoretical-methodological notes on the problems in studying this phenomenon, in order to, above all, eliminate conceptual-logical dilemmas. The use of terms and their meaning in sociology and other social sciences is a very important theoretical and methodological issue. The question justifiably arises whether we can adequately name and explain some of the “character traits” of the contemporary national identity of the Bosniak nation that we want to talk about in this paper with classical, generally accepted terms, identity, consciousness, self-awareness, shame or shame, self-shame. Another important theoretical issue of the relationship between identity and consciousness in our case, the relationship between the national consciousness of Bosniaks and their overall socio-historical identity is the dialectical relationship between individual and collective consciousness, ie. the extent to which the national consciousness of an individual or a particular national group, political, cultural, educational, age, etc., is contrary to generally accepted national values and norms. One of the important factors of national consciousness is the culture of remembrance. What does it look like for Bosniaks? More specifically, in this paper we problematize the influence of “prejudicial historiography” on the development of the culture of memory in the direction of oblivion or memory. What to remember, and why to remember. Memory is part of our identity. The phrase, not to deal with the past but to turn to the future, is impossible. How to project the future and not analyze the past. On the basis of what, what social facts? Why the world remembers the crimes of the Nazis, why the memory of the Holocaust and the suffering of the Jews is being renewed. Which is why Bosniaks would not remember and renew the memory of the genocides committed against them. Due to the Bosniak memory of genocide, it is possible that the perpetrators of genocide are celebrated as national heroes and their atrocities as a national liberation struggle. Why is the history of literature and art, political history and all other histories studied in all nations and nations. Why don't European kingdoms give up their own, queens and kings, princesses and princes. These and other theoretical-methodological questions have served us to use comparative analysis to show specific forms of self-esteem among Bosniaks today. The concrete socio-historical examples we cite fully confirm our hypothesis. Here are a few of these examples. Our eastern neighbors invented their epic hero Marko Kraljevic (Ottoman vassal and soldier, killed as a “Turkish” soldier in the fight against Christian soldiers in Bulgaria) who killed the fictional Musa Kesedzija, invented victory on the field of Kosovo, and Bosniaks forgot the real Bosniak epic heroes , brothers Mujo and Halil Hrnjic, Tala od Orašac, Mustaj-beg Lički and others, who defended Bosniaks from persecution and ethnic cleansing in the Bosnian Krajina. Dozens of schools in Bosnia and Herzegovina have been named after the Serbian language reformer, the Serb Vuk Stefanović Karađić (1787-1864), who was born in the village of Tršić near Loznica, Republic of Serbia. Uskufije (1601 / 1602.-?), Born in Dobrinja near Tuzla. Two important guslars and narrators of epic folk songs, Filip Višnjić (1767-1834) and Avdo Medjedović (1875-1953), are unequally present in the memory and symbolic content of the national groups to which they belong, even if the difference in quality is on the side of the almost forgotten. Avdo Medjedovic, the “Balkan Homer”, is known at Harvard University, but very little is known in Bosnia and Herzegovina. And while we learned everything about the murderer Gavril Princip, enlightened by the “logic of an idea” (Hannah Arendt) symbolizing him as a “national hero”, we knew nothing, nor should we have known, about Muhamed Hadžijamaković, a Bosnian patriot and legal soldier, he did not kill a single pregnant woman , a fighter in the Bosnian Army who fought against the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1878. When it comes to World War II and the fight against fascism are full of hero stories. For one example, we will take Srebrenica, the place of genocidal suffering of Bosniaks. Before the war against Bosnian society and the state 1992-1995. in Srebrenica, the elementary school was called Mihajlo Bjelakovic, a partisan, born in Vidrići near Sokolac. Died in Srebrenica in 1944. The high school in Srebrenica was named Midhat Hacam, a partisan born in the vicinity of Vares. It is not a problem that these two educational institutions were named after two anti-fascists, whose individual work is not known except that they died. None of them were from Srebrenica. That's not a problem either. Then what is it. In the collective memory of Bosniaks. Until recently, the name of the two Srebrenica benefactors and heroes who saved 3,500 Srebrenica Serbs from the Ustasha massacre in 1942, who were imprisoned by the Ustashas in the camp, has not been recorded. These are Ali (Jusuf) efendi Klančević (1888-1952) and his son Nazif Klančević (1910-1975). Nothing was said about them as anti-fascists, most likely that Alija eff. Klančević was an imam-hodža, his work is valued according to Andrić's “logic” as a work that cannot “be the subject of our work” In charity, humanitarian work, but also courage, sacrifice, direct participation in the fight for defense, the strongest Bosniaks do not lag behind Bosniaks, but just like Bosniaks, they are not symbolically represented in the public space of Bosnia and Herzegovina. We had the opportunity to learn about the partisan Marija Bursać and many others, but why the name Ifaket-hanuma Tuzlić-Salihagić (1908-1942), the daughter of Bakir-beg Tulić, was forgotten. In order to feed the muhadjers from eastern Bosnia, Ifaket-hanum, despite the warning not to go for food to Bosanska Dubica, she left. She bravely stood in front of the Ustashas who arrested her and took her to Jasenovac. She was tortured in the camp and eventually died in the greatest agony, watered and fried with hot oil. Nothing was known about that victim of Ustasha crimes. Is it because she is the daughter of Bakir-beg Tuzlić. Bey's children were not desirable in public as benefactors because they were “remnants of rotten feudalism”, belonging to the “sphere of another culture”. In this paper, we have mentioned other, concrete, examples of Bosniak monasticism, from the symbolic content of the entire public space to naming children.

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20

"Aspects of the Unconscious Mind in the Fictional Collection "An Kahi"." TAUSEEQ 3, no.2 (December31, 2022): 14–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.37605/tauseeq.v3i2.33.

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In psychology, there are three parts of the mind that interact together to form behavior and personality of an individual. These are Conscious, unconscious and subconscious. Consciousness is related to awareness and is Submissive to psychology that directly affects the actions, words and character of an individual. It is not possible to directly acknowledge everything from unconsciousness. They are those memories of mind, which usually exists in the intellect of a person as an urge or desires but they do not come up in practical life until they are faced by movement or after getting a hint about it. While sub-consciousness is the intermediate level between consciousness and unconsciousness. It consists of anything that can potentially be brought into the conscious mind with a little effort. Mumtaz Mufti (famous fiction writer) who has left nine fictional collections in his literary life. “Ankahi” is the first fiction collection of Mumtaz Mufti which was published in 1943. It contains seventeen stories in which he tried to express some aspects of the unconscious mind. In this article, the writer has tried to explore many aspects of the unconsciousness.

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21

Möri, Michelle, Dominique Stefanie Wirz, and Andreas Fahr. "Parasocial relationships with morally ambiguous media characters – the role of moral foundations." Studies in Communication Sciences 23, no.3 (December9, 2023). http://dx.doi.org/10.24434/j.scoms.2023.03.3969.

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Parasocial relationships are examined in diverse contexts and with various media characters, from news presenters to fictional movie heroes. A popular character trope in recent productions is the morally ambiguous media character (MAC). MACs disrupt the dichotomy between hero and villain, simultaneously exhibiting moral and immoral behavior. MACs attracted the attention of researchers, but little is known about parasocial relationships with them. This study examines these relationships by applying a multidimensional morality approach. The five moral domains of care, fairness, loyalty, authority, and purity are considered for the media character and the viewers. The role of these moral domains in parasocial relationships with morally ambiguous media characters was examined through an online survey (N = 250). The results show that moral behavior generally and moral behavior in care, fairness, and loyalty increased the strength of parasocial relationships, regardless of the viewer’s moral foundations. The characters’ behavior in authority and purity did not influence the viewers’ general morality perception nor their parasocial relationships with them. The study contributes to the existing literature about MACs by considering viewers’ parasocial relationships, their moral foundations, and the perceived morality in each of the five moral domains.

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22

Shannon,EdwardA. "Becky Thatcher’s Literary Half-life: Appropriating Mark Twain’s Good Girl." Adaptation, September15, 2023. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/adaptation/apad030.

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Abstract Mark Twain’s Becky Thatcher features very little in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. She mostly vanishes after Tom Sawyer, and even in that novel she speaks fewer than a thousand words of dialogue. She disappears from Twain’s work almost completely after Huckleberry Finn, where she receives a single mention. An insignificant character to academics, Becky appears in the scholarly record little more than she had in Twain’s fiction. This essay explores Becky Thatcher’s outsized role in cinematic, literary, and other adaptations across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Becky Thatcher’s literary half-life extends to clothing racks and gift shops, as well as in cinematic and literary adaptations and appropriations. These transformations map racial and sexual anxieties of several American generations. Minor though she may seem, Becky looms large in films, fiction, restaurants, tourist attractions, and all the ephemera produced from the marketing of successful fictional characters in a capitalist media landscape.

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23

Duperray, Max. "Le promeneur londonien au xixe siècle : une excursion dans l’obscur." Cahiers victoriens et édouardiens 61 Printemps (2005). http://dx.doi.org/10.4000/11s99.

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This paper aims at analysing the appearance of a genre : urban wandering and its motives. The emergence of a witness sensitive to effects introduces the field of obscurity, a metaphor which underlies the discourse on poverty but also leads to a generic problem : what kind of text is produced by urban wandering ? The observer disrupts the picture. He is at the heart of a labyrinth and, in the wake of the Gothic tradition, his disorientation combines obscurity and unintelligibility. From Charles Lamb and De Quincey to Arthur Machen and even (a little later) Virginia Woolf, among others, the figure of the invisible bohemian recalls Baudelaire’s flâneur and the fictional character writing fiction. The city is « textualised » and the Peripatetic novelist torn between alienation and contamination becomes the origin of the Sublime, as signs prevail over their referent. The matrix for such texts is Poe’s « Man of the Crowd » with its opening on detection. The city becomes organic ; it turns into the fantastic body of paranoid fictions which amplify and express the poetics of urban peregrinations : an encounter of the Self and its Other.

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24

Durkin, Rachael. "The Adventure of the Stradivarius: Violins in the Work of Arthur Conan Doyle and William Crawford Honeyman." Journal of Victorian Culture, August14, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jvcult/vcaa024.

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Abstract The violin, despite its fleeting appearances in the stories of Sherlock Holmes, has become prominently associated with the character of Sherlock in modern TV and film adaptions. While the violin is never investigated by Holmes in the stories, it is represented in more depth in a precursory detective story by William Crawford Honeyman: a Scottish author-musician, whose work appears to have influenced Arthur Conan Doyle’s tales of Sherlock Holmes. Honeyman’s short story ‘The Romance of a Real Cremona’ (1884) follows detective James McGovan as he traces and returns a stolen Stradivari violin and unravels its complex provenance. The importance of the violin’s inclusion in fictional works has been little discussed in scholarship. Here, the texts of Doyle and Honeyman serve as a lens through which to analyse the meaning of the violin during the Victorian era. By analysing the violin from an organological perspective, this article examines the violin’s prominence in nineteenth-century British domestic music-making, both as a fiscally and culturally valuable object. The final section of the article explores the meaning attached to, and created by, the violin in the stories of Doyle and Honeyman.

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25

Kovács, Gábor, Petra Aczél, and Tamás Bokor. "The portrayal of elderly men and women in Hungarian television news programmes." Ageing and Society, March16, 2020, 1–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0144686x20000227.

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Abstract Mass media research on the portrayal of older people has primarily focused on television series and advertisements. News programmes on television have received little attention. We argue that viewers perceive characters on the news as more direct and more accurate representations of social reality than fictional characters, and therefore portrayals on the news are more likely to be integrated in viewers’ stereotypes about elderly people or used as standards of comparison. In order to explore potential differences in the representation of senior men and women, we conducted a quantitative content analysis on a sample of 754 elderly people who appeared on the evening news programmes of four major Hungarian television channels with high viewership. Each character was coded in terms of 115 qualitative variables. Our results indicate that older men are portrayed significantly more often than women as affluent, elegant, knowledgeable, powerful and actively working. By contrast, women are more commonly shown as kind, family-oriented, in ordinary roles (e.g. as the ‘woman in the street’) and engaged in less-productive activities such as shopping. Based on previous research on the role of mass media in the socialisation process as well as social comparison theory, we discuss how these imbalances in the representation of older men and women may affect viewers of different age groups, genders and social status.

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26

Gardiner, Kelly. "Tomboys: Performing gender in popular fiction." Image & Text 35 (2021). http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2617-3255/2021/n35a2.

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In the nineteenth century, new characters exploded onto the pages of popular novels: forthright, self-reliant and self-aware girls who became known as tomboys. Like Jo March storming through the pages of Little women, these brave and boisterous young women charmed and astonished readers, and profoundly influenced generations of girls. This article examines the impact of the tomboy in literature, its confluence with other, older, archetypes such as the cross-dressing warrior maid, and its development alongside other proto-feminist heroines of the nineteenth century: the Female Gentleman and the Plucky Girl. The article interrogates not only the character traits of fictional tomboys, but also the narrative arcs and tropes with which they were often associated, such as the Tamed Tomboy, who, like Jo March, comes to learn the real meaning of womanhood, as defined through her mother and sisters, in marriage; and the Incorrigible Tomboy, like George in the Famous five books, who resists all efforts to be treated "like a girl". The article further explores the continued relevance of these famous nineteenth- and twentieth-century tomboys, whose performances of gender and sexuality echo in recent fiction for children and young adults through characters such as Katniss Everdeen in the Hunger games trilogy, the genderfluid Micah in Justine Larbelestier's Liar, or overtly queer heroines such as Kaede in Malinda Lo's Huntress. What has the tomboy in literature meant to twenty-first century understandings of gender performativity? And, importantly, what stories about gender - what possible lives - do these characters construct for the young women who read them?

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27

Hodge,DavidR., and PatriciaR.Turner. "Spirituality and people with psychosis: A content analysis of influential primetime television programs." International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine, March27, 2024. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/00912174241240305.

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Objective This mixed methods study examined depictions of spirituality among people with psychosis in influential television programming. Spirituality is a central strength for many people with psychosis. Yet, despite the important role media plays in shaping perceptions, little research has examined the intersection between spirituality and psychosis in popular media. Methods To address this gap, we conducted a content analysis of the 50 most viewed primetime fictional television shows over a 10-year period as determined by the Nielsen rating organization. Characters with psychosis were identified via keyword searches of online sources (wikis, IMDb, etc.) and subsequently independently coded by two individuals. Characters were rated on 18 items in three domains related to demographics, life status, and character framing. Inter-rater reliability ranged from good to excellent across variables. Results Of 120 identified focal characters with psychosis, just 16 percent (n = 19) had a spiritual identity. Analysis revealed few differences between spiritual and secular characters on demographic and life status variables. Conversely, an examination of framing variables revealed spiritual characters were comparatively less attractive, exhibited a greater negative impact on society, and were more likely to be referred to pejoratively (as a psychopath) and engage in criminal activity. Trend analysis indicated portrayals of spiritual characters decreased over time. Conclusions The results suggest media depictions of spirituality contribute to the stigmatization of spirituality among people with psychosis, potentially mitigating access to important coping resources and discouraging professional help-seeking. Primary care physicians should consider incorporating a spiritual assessment into care to operationalize spiritual coping assets.

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Koopman, Eva Maria (Emy), and Frank Hakemulder. "Effects of Literature on Empathy and Self-Reflection: A Theoretical-Empirical Framework." Journal of Literary Theory 9, no.1 (January1, 2015). http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/jlt-2015-0005.

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AbstractVarious scholars have made claims about literature’s potential to evoke empathy and self-reflection, which would eventually lead to more pro-social behav­ior. But is it indeed the case that a seemingly idle pass-time activity like literary reading can do all that? And if so, how can we explain such an influence? Would the effects be particular to unique literary text qualities or to other aspects that literary texts share with other genres (e. g., narrativity)? Empirical research is necessary to answer these questions. This article presents an overview of empirical studies investigating the relationship between reading and empathy, and reading and self-reflection. We reveal those questions in the research that are not addressed as of yet, and synthesize the available approaches to literary effects. Based on theory as well as empirical work, a multi-factor model of literary reading is constructed.With regard to reading and empathy, the metaphor of the moral laboratory (cf. Hakemulder 2000) comes close to a concise summary of the research and theory. Being absorbed in a narrative can stimulate empathic imagination. Readers go along with the author/narrator in a (fictional) thought-experiment, imagining how it would be to be in the shoes of a particular character, with certain motives, under certain circumstances, meeting with certain events. That would explain why narrativity can result in a broadening of readers’ consciousness, in particular so that it encompasses fellow human beings. Fictionality might stimulate readers to consider the narrative they read as a thought experiment, creating distance between them and the events, allowing them to experiment more freely with taking the position of a character different from themselves, also in moral respects. Literary features, like gaps and ambiguous characterization, may stimulate readers to make more mental inferences, thus training their theory of mind. However, apart from literature possibly being able to train basic cognitive ability, we have little indication for the importance ofRegarding self-reflection, while there is no convincing evidence that literary texts are generally more thought-provoking than non-literary texts (either narrative or expository), there is tentative indication for a relation between reading literary texts and self-reflection. However, as was the case for the studies on empathy, there is a lack of systematic comparisons between literary narratives and non-literary narratives. There are some suggestions regarding the processes that can lead to self-reflection. Empirical and theoretical work indicates that the combination of experiencing narrative and aesthetic emotions tends to trigger self-reflection. Personal and reading experience may influence narrative and aesthetic emotions.By proposing a multi-factor model of literary reading, we hope to give an impulse to current reader response research, which too often conflates narrativity, fictionality and literariness. The multi-factor model of literary reading contains (our simplified versions of) two theoretical positions within the field of reader response studies on underlying processes that lead to empathy and reflection: the idea of reading literature as a form of role-taking proposed by Oatley (e. g., 1994; 1999) and the idea of defamiliarization through deviating textual and narrative features proposed by Miall and Kuiken (1994; 1999). We argue that these positions are in fact complementary. While the role-taking concept seems most adequate to explain empathic responses, the defamiliarization concept seems most adequate in explaining reflective responses. The discussion of these two theoretical explanations leads to the construction of a theoret­ical framework (and model) that offers useful suggestions which texts could be considered to have which effects on empathy and reflection.In our multi-factor model of literary reading, an important addition to the previously mentioned theories is the concept »stillness«. We borrow this term from the Canadian author Yann Martel (2009), who suggests reading certain literary texts will help to stimulate self-contemplation (and appreciation for art), moments that are especially valuable in times that life seems to be racing by, and we are enveloped by work and a multitude of other activities. Other literary authors have proposed similar ideas. Stillness is related to, or overlaps with the more commonly used term »aesthetic distance«, an attitude of detachment, allowing for contemplation to take place (cf. Cupchik 2001). Stillness, we propose, allows a space in which slow thinking (Kahneman 2011) can take place. Stillness is not reflection itself, but a precondition for reflection. In our model, stillness is an empty space or time that is created as a result of reading processes: the slowing down of readers’ perceptions of the fictional world, caused by defamiliarization. Our multi-factor model suggests that while role-taking can take place for all types of narratives, literary and fictional narratives may evoke the type of aesthetic distance (stillness) that leads to a suspension of judgment, adding to a stronger experience of role-taking and narrative empathy.

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29

Meakins, Felicity. "Err, New Boundaries for Fiction?! ER's 'Live' Episode." M/C Journal 1, no.1 (July1, 1998). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1698.

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"Ambush", the first episode of ER's fourth season began amid much publicity and excitement. The premiere, though scripted, was filmed 'live' using two handheld cameras and broadcast simultaneously across America's east coast. The episode was then rerecorded for the west coast. The effect of this new format was to capture an incredibly large audience, yet perhaps a more interesting effect was the blurring of the borders between fiction and reality on television. Indeed this episode superimposed documentary techniques onto a fictional genre, causing a lack of distinction. It is interesting to examine "Ambush" in terms of style, narrative and voice to determine the effects of the new format. "Ambush" adopts the camera techniques of cinema verité, a documentary style which emerged in the 1950s. The invention of the 16 mm handheld camera and synchronised sound meant that events could be filmed as they occurred, 'live' . The result of this new technology was shaky camera work, poor framing and focusing which suggested that the camera point of view was an immediate form of 'reality' (Kuhn 73). Since this time, the technology involved in the production of documentary has improved, enabling smoother camera work. Yet the general principles and overall style of cinema verité are still adopted. Kuhn (76) suggests that this camera style has become a naturalised set of codes, a substitute evidence for the 'truth'. ER uses cinema verité camera techniques in the construction of liveness and immediacy. Badly focused scenes and jolting camera shots abound. Yet this style is not jarring, it is strangely suited to the genre of medical television and in fact adds to the sense of momentum and character instability. However a more disturbing effect is also present. As the sense of 'reality' is heightened, the actors in the show who play doctors and nurses move closer to becoming social actors who are doctors and nurses -- the viewer can almost believe that George Clooney is really Doug Ross. One argument which may be posited against the construction of 'reality' in "Ambush" is the use of narrative. ER, though it uses open ended closure, seems to conform to Classical Hollywood narrative structure of goal orientated causality (Bordwell). The 'live' episode is no different. It may be argued that the use of narrative in this episode mitigates the effects of the construction of 'reality'. Yet this does not occur. The audience still understands this episode in terms of its sense of the here and now without being hindered by the scripted plot. Indeed Winston (118) suggests that logical causation is an inherent part of human behaviour and a diluted form of the Classical Hollywood narrative may be projected onto the documentary form without any adverse effects to the perception of reality. Thus it seems that this episode of ER closely follows the documentary form. Even ethical issues, such as the intervention of the filmmaker are considered when the camera operator questions a medical decision made by Dr. Kerry. However the audience is still conscious that this episode is firmly rooted in the realm of fiction. Perhaps this awareness is due to an underlying difference between the documentary and fictional forms -- voice (Nichols 166). Classical Hollywood realism places its emphasis on the process of achieving a goal through narrative, whereas documentary uses voice to produce an ideological argument about the social world (Nichols 166). In this episode, ER does little to form an overriding argument for the narrative. It is merely interested in the narrative goals of making patients better and helping characters overcome emotional struggles. Indeed argument is difficult to produce without voice. Voice, which constructs an argument, is woven into the text by the filmmaker who is often the camera operator. In a sense, ER appears to produce voice, the subjective perspective of the filmmaker. Yet the filmmakers -- two camera operators, Agi and Stuart Orton -- are fictional. Thus these people cannot really produce voice as they have no true perspective on the events and therefore cannot construct a 'real' argument. The true filmmakers are the writers of ER and they produce narrative, not voice. In conclusion, the 'live' episode of ER has transformed the boundaries of fiction by using a naturalised documentary style. This new form may be considered transgressive, "a flagrant flaunting of broken rules, smashed conventions, fragmented surfaces" (Martin 23). Admittedly some programmes such as Homicide: Life on the Street have been using a diluted form of this camera style for some time now. Shows such as these emphasise drama and action and the documentary form can heighten this sense of excitement and liveness, if not actuality. "Ambush" has epitomised this new transgressive form. Thus, even if it did not succeed in producing the true effects of 'reality', ER certainly attained new levels of TV fascination. In the words of one Internet writer: "Wow, that was interesting!" (Hollifield). References Bordwell, David. Narration in Fiction Film. U.S.A.: Wisconsin U.P., 1985. Hollifield, Scott. Summary/review of "Ambush", by Carol Flint. ER. 1997. 16 July 97 <http://www.digiserve.com/er/erambush.htm>. Kuhn, A. "The Camera I, Observations on Documentary." Screen 19.2 (1978): 71-83. Martin, Adrian. "Stretch TV." XPress: Popular Culture 1.1 (1985): 22-3. Nichols, Bill. Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary. Indiana: Indiana U.P., 1991. Winston, Brian. Claiming the Real: The Documentary Film Revisited. London: British Film Institute, 1995. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Felicity Meakins. "Err, New Boundaries for Fiction?! ER's 'Live' Episode." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 1.1 (1998). [your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9807/er.php>. Chicago style: Felicity Meakins, "Err, New Boundaries for Fiction?! ER's 'Live' Episode," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 1, no. 1 (1998), <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9807/er.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Felicity Meakins. (1998) Err, new boundaries for fiction?! ER's 'live' episode. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 1(1). <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9807/er.php> ([your date of access]).

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Nairn, Angelique, and Lorna Piatti-Farnell. "The Power of Chaos." M/C Journal 26, no.5 (October2, 2023). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.3012.

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In 2019, Netflix released the first season of its highly anticipated show The Witcher. Based on the books of Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski, the fantasy show tells the intersecting stories of the Witcher Geralt of Rivia (Henry Cavill), the princess of Cintra Ciri (Freya Allan), and sorceress Yennefer of Vengerberg (Anya Chalotra), who is commonly referred to as a ‘mage’. Although not as popular among critics as its original book incarnations and adapted game counterparts, the show went on to achieve an 89% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and was subsequently renewed for more seasons. Although the general success of the show is clear among viewers, The Witcher was not without its detractors, who accused creator Lauren Hissrich of developing a woke series with a feminist agenda (Worrall), especially because of her desire to emphasise strong female characters (Crow). The latter is, of course, a direction that the Netflix series inherited from the video game version of The Witcher – especially The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – even if the portrayal is often considered to be biased and “problematic” (Heritage). Supporting the view that the show focusses on the character trajectories of independent and capable women is the analysis offered by Worrow (61), who attests that “the female representations in season one of The Witcher offer prominent female characters who are imbued with agency, institutional power and well-developed narrative arcs”. Although Worrow’s analysis offers a clear critical account of Yennefer’s story arc – among the other female characters – what it does not consider is the relationship between women and magic, which has historically seen the mistreatment and ostracising of women as practitioners, and which tacitly informs representation in The Witcher by providing a gendered view of magical power. In response to this, the purpose of our article is to consider how Yennefer’s pursuit of magic both maintains and challenges gender stereotypes, particularly as they pertain to sorceresses and witches. The analysis will focus primarily on the episodes of Season One. Through the course of Season One, audiences are introduced to the character of Yennefer as she transitions from a deformed woman into a ‘beautiful’ sorceress. Alienated by her community because of a hunched back and cleft palate, Yennefer remains mistreated until she exhibits magical tendencies – or “the ability to conduct Chaos” (Guimarães). This is an aptitude that will later be revealed to be a direct outcome of her Elvin heritage (Worrow). Having gained the attention of Tissaia (MyAnna Buring), the Rectress of the magical school Aretuza, Yennefer is purchased from her family and relocated to Aretuza to train as a mage. Initially, Yennefer struggles with the magic training, where magic itself is referred to as “chaos”. In particular, she specifically finds it hard to “control [her] chaos”, as the series puts it, because of her emotional tendencies. After a short period of time, however, Yennefer develops into a strong, talented sorceress who is later instrumental in the final battle of Season One against the Nilfgaardian forces that are at war with the city-state of Cintra (Chitwood); the conflict with the kingdom of Nilfgaard is a central plot development in The Witcher, running across multiple seasons of the series. Throughout Season One, audiences view Yennefer’s character development, as she sheds her kind, naïve personality in favour of becoming an agent of chaos, who is fully immersed in the political intrigue that influences the Continent – the broader geographical land where the events of The Witcher take place. What It Means to Be a Sorceress For the purpose of this article, we will be using the terms “sorceress” and “witch” interchangeably (Stratton). It is important to mention here that several strands of anthropological research contend that the two terms are not synonymous, with “sorcery” referring to the ability to “manipulate supernatural forces for malicious or deviant purposes” (Moro, 2); the term “witch”, on the other hand, would preferably be used for “people suspected of practising, either deliberately or unconsciously, socially prohibited forms of magic“ (Moro, 1). Nonetheless, historians and sociologists have long equated the two because of their prepotency to describe magic users who channel power for productive and nefarious purposes (Godsend; Lipscomb). We cite our understanding of these important terminologies in the latter critical area, seeing the important social, cultural, and political interconnections concomitantly held by the terms “sorceress” and “witch” in the context of magical practices within The Witcher series. ‘Mage’, for its part, seems to be used in the series as a gender-neutral term, openly recalling a well-known narrative trajectory from both fantasy novels and games. Regardless of whether they were deemed witches, sorceresses, mages, or enchantresses, and despite historical records that prove the contrary, practitioners of magic, as such, have predominantly been gendered as female (Godwin; Stratton). Such a misconception has meant that stereotypes and representations of magic and witchcraft in popular culture have continued to show a penchant for depicting witches not only as female but also as powerful and intimidating beings that continuously challenge hegemonic power structures (Burger & Mix; Stratton). Historically, and especially so in the Western context, individuals labelled as witches and sorceresses have been ostracised, in some instances eradicated through mass killings, to ostensibly contain their power and remove the threat of the evil they inevitably embodied and represented (Johnson). This established historical framework is tacitly embedded in the narrative structure of The Witcher, with examples such as Yennefer often being portrayed as out of control because of her magical powers. The series, however, acknowledges unspoken historical truths and reinforces its own canon, as it is made clear throughout that men can also be magic users; indeed, the show includes a variety of male druids, sorcerers, and mages. Where a potential gender divide exists, however, is in reference to the Brotherhood of Sorcerers, who seemingly control the activities and powers of magical practitioners. Although there is a female equivalent in Sapkowski’s novels, called the Lodge of Sorceresses, the first season of The Witcher does not openly engage with it. Such an omission could be construed as a gender concern in the Netflix show, as a patriarchal group seemingly oversees the activities of mages. As Worrow argues, the show implies that “The Brotherhood controls and legitimizes the use of magic” (66), and by being referred to as a ‘brotherhood’, creates a gender imbalance within the series. This interpretation is not unexpected, bearing in mind that gender studies scholars have consistently pointed out how structural inequalities exist, even in fictitious offerings. In social, cultural, and media contexts alike, these offerings subordinate women in favour of maintaining ideologies that advantage hegemonic masculinity (Connell; Butler). Where the stereotypes of women diverge in The Witcher, however, is in the general characterisation of these powerful witches and sorceresses as empathetic and compassionate individuals. Across the history of representation, witches have been portrayed as cruel, evil, manipulative, and devious, making witches one of the most recognisable tropes of evil women in storytelling, from fairy tales to film, TV, novels, and games (Zipes). While a number of notable exceptions exist – one should only think here of Practical Magic, both in its book and film adaptations (1995/1998), as examples of texts exploring the notion of the good witch – the representational stereotype of witches as wicked and malevolent creatures has held centrally true. A witch’s activities are generally focussed on controlling and bringing misfortune upon others, in favour of their own gain (Moro). As Schimmelpfennig puts it, the recurrent image of the witch is that of someone who is “envious” of others: “nobody loves, likes, or pities her. She seems to have brought disaster upon herself and lives on the margins of society, [often] visualised by her residence in the woods” (31). The common perception, as cemented in fictional contexts, has been that witches have nefarious and villainous intents, and their magical actions (especially) are perpetually motivated by this. Although she was initially alienated by both her magical and non-magical communities, Yennefer’s character development does not adhere exactly to the broadly established characterisation of witches. Admittedly, she does act in morally ambiguous ways. For example, in the episode “Bottled Appetites”, her desire to have children leads her to attempt to control a jinn regardless of the dangerous costs to herself and others. And yet, in the following episode, "Rare Species", Yennefer changes her mind about trying to slay a dragon whose magical properties could help her, and instead works with Geralt to defend the Dragon and its family from Reavers. She also confronts injustices by helping to defend the territory of Sodden Hill which is threatened by Nilfgaardian forces ("Much More"). Rather than being purely evil, as witches have long been considered to be, Yennefer offers a more nuanced and relatable depiction, as both a witch and, arguably, a woman character. The moral complexity of Yennefer as a magical figure, then, not only makes for compelling viewing – with such magical characters often being an expected presence in mainstream programming (Greene) – but her continued growth, and the attention given to her identity development by showrunners, challenge gender stereotypes. On screen, female characters have often been treated as auxiliaries to their male counterparts (Taber et al.); they have fulfilled roles as mother, lover, or damsel in distress, reducing any potential for growth (Nairn). The Witcher Season One gives Yennefer her own arc and, in doing so, becomes a series that elevates the status of women rather than treating them as, to borrow Simone de Bauvoir’s famous words, ‘the second sex’. Power & Empowerment Differentiating Yennefer from the stereotypes of female characters, and witches/sorceresses more specifically within the broader popular media and culture landscape, is her obvious agency within The Witcher series. Gammage et al. argue that agency can be understood as “the capacity for purposive action, the ability to make decisions and pursue goals free from violence, retribution, and fear, but it also includes a cognitive dimension” (6). Throughout The Witcher, Yennefer does not act subserviently and will even oppose the will of those around her. For example, in the episode “Before the Fall”, she gives advice to young girls training to be mages to ignore the instructions of their tutors and "to think for themselves" (26:19-26:20). She follows up by later telling the young mages about how Aretuza takes away their opportunity to bear children, to ensure the mages stay loyal to the cause. As she puts it: "Even if you do everything right, follow their rules, that's still no guarantee you will get what you want" (29:42-29:51). This exposes her character as not tied to traditional patriarchal notions of subservience. And while personal motivations may laterally aid the conception of witches as egotistical, her actions still stand out as being propelled by individual agency. Female characters on screen have often been portrayed as submissive and passive, and this includes iconic on-screen witches from Samantha in Bewitched to the titular character in Sabrina the Teenage Witch. It is not uncommon to see good witches in popular media and culture, in particular, as still defined by male relationships in terms of cultural and social value (for instance, Sally Owens in Practical Magic, and Wanda Maximoff in the Marvel Cinematic Universe). As Godwin puts it, these characters embody the expected gender roles of a patriarchal society, with storylines, for example, that favour love potions or keeping house. As far as The Witcher is concerned, being submissive and passive is often in direct contrast with Yennefer’s preferences. For example, in “Betrayer Moon”, she intentionally ignores the decision of the Brotherhood to act as the mage in Nilfgaard by intentionally catching the eye of the King of Aedirn: the King then asks for Yennefer to be his mage. Fringilla (Mimi Ndiweni), who was supposed to be the mage in Aedirn, is forced to go to Nilfgaard instead. Yennefer's behaviour not only defies The Brotherhood in favour of her own interests but also demonstrates her unwillingness to conform to the expectations placed on her. Such depictions of Yennefer acting with agency make her, arguably, relatable to audiences. Female characters and witches such as Yennefer become emblematic of independent, competent women who use magic to take control of their own destiny (Burger and Mix) and can be praised for opposing “oppressive societal norms” and instead advocating for “independent thought” (Godwin 92). It is possible to argue here that what drives Yennefer appears to be her sense of Otherness, as an intrinsic difference that is central to her being, both physically and emotionally. Although initially her othered nature is seemingly the product of her deformities and ethnic background (with elves being socially, culturally, and politically ostracised on the Continent), she openly admits to feeling othered throughout the series, even after her physical disfigurement is cured by magic. Her individualised agency makes her inevitably stand out and becomes a marker of difference. This representation is not dissimilar to the feelings expressed by women across First, Second, and Third-wave Feminism (Butler; Connell). Indeed, Worrow observes that “The Witcher encodes female characters with power as ‘other’, enhancing this otherness through magical abilities” (61). It would seem that, in essence, the show surreptitiously gives voice to the plight of minority groups through the hard work, dedication, and determination of Yennefer as an Othered character, as she struggles and defies expectations in pursuit of her goal of becoming a powerful sorceress. Her independence and agency tell a story of empowerment because, like other fictional witches of the last decade in the twenty-first century, Yennefer “refuses to pretend to be someone or something they are not, eschewing the lie to instead embody the truth of themselves, their identity's, and their unapologetic strength” (Burger and Mix 14). This profoundly diverges from other representations where being the ‘other’ was seen as a justification for punishment, marginalisation, or mistreatment, and amply seen across the historicised media spectrum, from Disney films to horror narratives and beyond. Nonetheless, although it appears as if Yennefer has agency and is empowered, there is the argument that she is a conduit of magic, and as such, lacks real power and influence without a capacity to control the chaos. As Godwin contends, witches are often limited in their capacity to be influential and to have true autonomy by the fact that they do not possess magic but are often seemingly controlled by it. At various times in Season One, Yennefer struggles to control the chaos magic. For example, while being beaten up, she inadvertently portals for the first time. During her magical training, she can't manage a number of magical tasks ("Four Marks"). Here, the suggestion is that she is not completely free to act as she chooses because it can produce unintentional consequences or no consequences at all; this conceptual enslavement to magic as the source of her power and individuality seemingly dilutes some of her agency. Furthermore, instances of her trying to control the chaos within the show also conform to stereotypes of women being ruled by emotions and prone to hysterical outbursts (Johnson). Aesthetics & Sexuality Stereotypically, and in keeping with fictional tropes in literature, media, and film, witches have been described as “mature” women, “with bad skin, crooked teeth, foul breath, a cackling laugh, and a big nose with a wart at the end of it” (Henderson 66). Classic examples include the witches depicted in the works of the Brothers Grimm, Disney’s instances of Madam Mim in The Sword in the Stone and the transformed Evil Queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), the witches of Roald Dahl’s eponymous novel (1983), and (even more traditionally and iconically) the hags of Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1623). Yet, more recently the witch aesthetic has altered significantly in the media spectrum with an increased focus on young, alluring, and enchanting women, such as Rowan Fielding in Mayfair Witches (2023 –), Sabrina Spellman of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (2018–2020), Freya Mikealson of The Originals (2013–2018), and of course, Yennefer in The Witcher. These examples emphasise that female magic users, much like a significant ratio of female characters in popular culture, are sexualised, with the seductive nature of the witch taking precedence and, in some cases, detracting from the character's agency as she becomes objectified for the male gaze (Mulvey). The hiring of actress Chaltora as Yennefer, although designed to challenge racialised beauty standards (Kain), does not dispel the treatment of women as sex objects as she is filmed nude during some magic rituals and in intimate scenes. Importantly, and as briefly mentioned above, when Yennefer’s back story is told, she is introduced as a young woman with physical deformities. As part of her ascension to a sorceress, she is required to undergo a physical transformation to make her beautiful, as conventional beauty and allure appear to be requirements for mages. As Worrow (66) attests, she is seen “undergoing an invasive, painful, magical metamorphosis which remakes her in the image of classical feminine beauty”. Unsurprisingly, the makeover received backlash for being ableist (Calder), but the magical change also enforced stereotypical views of women needing to be “manicured and coiffed” (Eckert, 530) to have relevancy and value. Yennefer’s beautifying procedure could also be interpreted as paralleling current cultural currents in contemporary society, where cosmetic interventions and physical transformations, often in the form of plastic surgery, are encouraged for women to be accepted. Indeed, Yennefer is shown as being much more accepted by human and mage communities alike after her transformation, as both her political and magical influence grows. In these terms, the portrayal of Yennefer maintains rather than challenges gender norms, making for a disappointing turn in the plotline of The Witcher. The decision to submit to the transformation also came at a cost to Yennefer. She was forced to forfeit her uterus and by extension her potential to become a mother. Such a storyline conforms to Creed’s long-standing perspective that “when a woman is represented as monstrous it is almost always in relation to her mothering and reproductive functions” (118). Here, even after achieving the expected beauty standards, Yennefer is still treated as abject because she can no longer “fulfil the function dictated by patriarchal and phallocentric hegemony” (Worrow 68), which further contributes to the widespread ideological perspective that women’s roles are to be nurturing and child-rearing (Bueskens). Of course, motherhood remains a contentious topic for Yennefer as, although she made the decision to forgo her uterus in pursuit of power and beauty, she later comes to regret that decision. In the episode “Rare Specifies”, Yennefer admits to Geralt that she feels loss and sadness over her inability to reproduce, which contributes to the complexity and inner turmoil of her character, while equally reinforcing the perception that women should be mothers. Her initial independence and choice are undermined by her attempts to regain her uterus and later, in Season 3, by her adopting the role of mother figure to Ciri. Conclusion In many respects, the story arc of sorceress Yennefer of Vengerberg conforms to what McRobbie describes as female individualism, and Gill considers post-feminist. That is, Yennefer has choice and agency. She makes decisions out of a sense of entitlement, and privileges her desire for power, beauty, and freedom, sometimes above all else. Much like other post-feminist icons, Yennefer is empowered and challenges gender stereotypes that charge women with being passive and submissive. Yet, despite the fact that 60% of the writing credits are held by women on The Witcher (Worrow), Yennefer’s character is still objectified. Although the male gaze might not always be privileged, there are examples where her sexuality is exploited; by being portrayed as physically attractive, desirable, and promiscuous, she still conforms to gender norms about ideal beauty standards. The sexuality of her character maintains perceptions of witches and sorceresses as seducers, and while she is not cavorting with Satan, as many witches have historically claimed to be (Stratton), her depiction maintains the adage that sex sells – at least as far as media production goes. Ultimately, the character of Yennefer in The Witcher appears to be an attempt to respond to a tacit cultural desire for strong female characters with relatable storylines, without ostracising male fans. Despite the desire to include empowered female characters in the show, however, Yennefer is also depicted as a continuously unhappy and unfulfilled character, as her value becomes entangled with notions of motherhood. The balancing of these competing adages continues to simultaneously maintain and challenge stereotypes of witches and sorceresses, as representational exemplifications of women’s experiences in media and culture. References “Before a Fall.” The Witcher. Created by Lauren Hissrich. Season 1, episode 7. Netflix. Little Schmidt Productions, 2019. “Betrayer Moon.” The Witcher. Created by Lauren Hissrich. Season 1, episode 3. Netflix. Little Schmidt Productions, 2019. “Bottled Appetites.” The Witcher. Created by Lauren Hissrich. Season 1, episode 5. Netflix. Little Schmidt Productions, 2019. Bueskens, Petra. Modern Motherhood and Women’s Dual Identities: Rewriting the Sexual Contract. London: Routledge, 2018. Burger, Alissa, and Stephanie Mix. “Something Wicked This Way Comes? Power, Anger, and Negotiating the Witch in American Horror Story, Grimm and Once Upon a Time.” Buffy to Batgirl: Essays on Female Power, Evolving Femininity and Gender Roles in Science Fiction. Eds. Julie M. Still and Zara T. Wilkinson. North Carolina: McFarland, 2019. Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge, 2006. Calder, Lily. “Still a Trope, Still Tired: Ableism in ‘The Witcher’.” <https://medium.com/@paperstainedink/still-a-trope-still-tired-ableism-in-the-witcher-9570eef962fb>. Chitwood, Adam. “’The Witcher’ Season 1 Recap: The Refresher You Need Before Watching Season 2.” The Wrap, 17 Dec. 2021. 5 Aug. 2023 <https://www.thewrap.com/the-witcher-season-1-recap/>. Connell, Raewyn. Masculinities. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1995. Creed, Barbara. The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis. Routledge, 1993. Crow, David. “The Witcher: Netflix Series Brings Magic and Feminism to Fantasy.” Den of Geek, 23 July 2019. 5 Aug. 2023 <https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/the-witcher-netflix-series-magic-feminism-fantasy/>. De Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex. France: Vintage, 1949. Eckert, Penelope. “The Problem with Binaries: Coding for Gender and Sexuality.” Language and Linguistics Compass 8.11 (2014): 529-535. “Four Marks.” The Witcher. Created by Lauren Hissrich. Season 1, episode 2. Netflix. Little Schmidt Productions, 2019. Gammage, Sarah, Nalia Kabeer, and Yana van der Meulen Rodgers. “Voice and Agency: Where Are We Now?” Feminist Economics 22.1 (2016): 1-29. Gill, Rosalind. “Postfeminist Media Culture: Elements of a Sensibility.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 10.2 (2007): 147-166. Godsend, Chris. The History of Magic: From Alchemy to Witchcraft, from the Ice Age to the Present. London: Penguin, 2020. Godwin, Victoria L. “Love and Lack: Media, Witches, and Normative Gender Roles.” Media Depictions of Brides, Wives, and Mothers. Ed. Alena Amato Ruggerio. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2012. Greene, Heather. Lights, Camera, Witchcraft: A Critical History of Witches in American Film and Television. Woodbury: Llewellyn Worldwide, 2021. Guimarães, Elisa. “The Witcher: Yennefer’s Magic Explained – How Does It Work & Where Does It Come From?” Collider, 30 Dec 2021. 5 Aug. 2023 <https://collider.com/the-witcher-yennefer-magic-explained/>. Henderson, Lizanne. Witchcraft and Folk Belief in the Age of Enlightenment: Scotland 1670-1740. Hampshire: Palgrave MacMillan, 2016. Heritage, Frazer. “Magical Women: Representations of Female Characters in the Witcher Video Game Series.” Discourse, Context & Media 49 (2022). <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2022.100627>. Hudspeth, Christoper. “What Happens in ‘The Witcher’ Season One? Let’s Go Back to the Continent.” Netflix Tudum, 23 June 2023. 5 Aug. 2023 <https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/the-witcher-season-1-recap>. Johnson, Forrest. “Reanimating Witchcraft: Creating a Feminist Embodied Experience in Marvel’s Scarlet Witch.” The Superhero Multiverse: Readapting Comic Book Icons in Twenty-First-Century Film and Popular Media. Ed. Lorna Piatti-Farnell. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2022. Kain, Erik. “’The Witcher’ Casting Director Says Yennefer Casting Was to ‘Challenge Beauty Standards’ Which Is Completely Insane.” Forbes, 27 July 2023. 5 Aug. 2023 <https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2023/07/27/the-witcher-casting-director-says-yennefer-casting-was-to-challenge-beauty-standards-which-is-completely-insane/?sh=23ceb8bf55f1>. Lipscombe, Elizabeth. A History of Magic, Witchcraft and the Occult. London: Dorling Kindersley Publishing, 2020. McRobbie, Angela. “Post-Feminism and Popular Culture.” Feminist Media Studies 4.3 (2004): 255-264. Moro, Pamela A. “Witchcraft, Sorcery and Magic.” The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Eds. Hilary Callan and Simon Coleman. New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell, 2018. “Much More.” The Witcher. Created by Lauren Hissrich. Season 1, episode 8. Netflix. Little Schmidt Productions, 2019. Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Screen 16.3 (1975): 6-18. Nairn, Angelique. “Super-Heroine Objectification: The Sexualization of Black Widow across Comic and Film Adaptations.” The Superhero Multiverse: Readapting Comic Book Icons in Twenty-First-Century Film and Popular Media. Ed. Lorna Piatti-Farnell. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2022. “Rare Species.” The Witcher. Created by Lauren Hissrich. Season 1, episode 6. Netflix. Little Schmidt Productions, 2019. Rotten Tomatoes. The Witcher. 8 Aug. 2023. <https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the_witcher/s01>. Stratton, Kimberly B. “Interrogating the Magic-Gender Connection.” Daughters of Hecate: Women and Magic in the Ancient World. Eds. Kimberly B. Stratton and Dayna S. Kalleres. New York: Oxford UP, 2014. Taber, Nancy, Vera Woloshyn, Caitlin Munn, and Laura Lane. “Exploring Representations of Super Women in Popular Culture.” Adult Learning 25.4 (2014): 142-150. Talukdar, Indrayudh. “How Did Yennefer Turn into a Motherly Figure for Ciri in ‘The Witcher’ Season 3?” Film Fugitives, 30 June 2023. 5 Aug. 2023 <https://fugitives.com/the-witcher-season-3-character-yennefer-explained-2023-fantasy-series/>. The Witcher. Created by Lauren Hissrich. Netflix, 2019-present. Worrall, William. “Netflix’s The Witcher Finds Universal Acclaim on Twitter Despite Criticism over ‘Feminist Agenda’.” CCN, 23 Sep. 2020. 5 Aug. 2023 <https://www.ccn.com/netflix-the-witcher-finds-universal-acclaim-twitter/>. Worrow, Kirsty. “’Pretty Ballads Hide Bastard Truths’: Patriarchal Narratives and Female Power in Netflix’s The Witcher.” Gender and Female Villains in 21st Century Fairy Tale Narratives: From Evil Queens to Wicked Witches. Eds. Natalie Le Clue and Janelle Vermaak-Griessel. Bingley: Emerald, 2022. Zipes, Jack. The Irresistible Fairy Tale: The Cultural and Social History of a Genre. New Jersey: Princeton UP, 2013.

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Franks, Rachel, and Simon Dwyer. "Build." M/C Journal 20, no.2 (April26, 2017). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1236.

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Rowan Moore, in his work Why We Build: Power and Desire in Architecture, notes that “most people know that buildings are not purely functional, that there is an intangible something about them that has to do with emotion” (16). Emotion is critical to why and how we build. Indeed, there is a basic human desire to build—to leave a mark on the landscape or on our society. This issue of M/C Journal unpacks this idea of emotion, examining the functional and the creative in the design process, for a range of building projects, from the tangible: building transport infrastructure, exhibition centre, or a new-style museum; to those building projects that are more difficult to define: building an artwork, a community, or a reputation. In addition, this issue looks at how we also ‘unbuild’ the world around us. In the feature article Aleks Wansbrough critically takes up ideas of ‘build’ and ‘unbuild’ through an examination of how the role that the death of Man, which follows the death of God, has had on the idea of creation, and how Man is unbuilt in three works by three different artists: Francis Bacon’s “Study of a Baboon” (1953), Jan Švankmajer’s Darkness, Light, Darkness (1989) and Patricia Piccinini’s “The Young Family” (2002). In the first article, Ella Mudie also looks at ‘unbuild’. This is achieved with a review of how the Sydney Metro—a major transport infrastructure project—requires demolition work that will inevitably result in a reconfiguration of the character of Sydney’s inner city and the suburbs it intersects. Mudie questions unbuilding and rebuilding, drawing on literary texts in which demolition and infrastructure development are key preoccupations. In the second article on construction and destruction, Sarah Morley, looks at one of Sydney’s earliest iconic buildings. The Garden Palace—a purpose built facility designed to house the Colony’s first International Exhibition in 1879—was a famous, and favourite, building of New South Wales, prior to its destruction by fire in 1882. Morley explores the loss of the building and its contents; which included many Australian Aboriginal objects and ancestral remains.Simon Dwyer looks at building a story with light. Drawing upon a range of historical documents, this article investigates how world-renowned architect Jørn Utzon envisaged the use of natural and artificial light. In this way, he showed how light could contribute to the final build of the Sydney Opera House, through giving additional expression to the traditional building elements that he had carefully selected. Nadine Kozak highlights much smaller structures in her qualitative analysis of comments made by stewards about their Little Free Libraries. This, increasingly popular, movement offers opportunities for reading and to build community networks as people come together to build, maintain and stock Little Free Libraries. Kozak’s work also acknowledges some of the resistance to this movement and how communities are strengthened in their efforts to protect what they have built. The earliest detectives were forced to overcome significant resistance from a suspicious public. Rachel Franks investigates the efforts of Charles Dickens to change the perception of policing. Focusing on letters written about capital punishment and articles aimed at promoting the role of the detective, Franks unpacks how one of the great novelists of the Victorian age also assisted in building the reputation of a fledging detective branch. Moving forward in time, Hazel Ferguson also interrogates ideas of reputation. This work looks at the activities of early career researchers on social media which is increasingly being used to build communities around mutual support and professional development. Ferguson’s analysis, of the #ECRchat group on Twitter, aims to contribute to emerging discussions about academic labour and online reputation. In noting how the babble of a crowd can indicate the presence of others constructing ephemeral emergent communities where the voice of an individual is often lost, Rebecca Collins, identifies how sound informs our experience of space. In this article, she discusses the potential of sound to construct fictional spaces, build individual identities and evoke the presence of a crowd in relation to two artistic installations. Ben Egliston takes on another type of creative output with videogames. Egliston’s work considers how players build ingame competencies by engaging with media beyond the game itself; such as walkthrough guides or YouTube videos. This article provides a re-framing of the relationship between gameplay (and the development of competency) and the elements of games existing beyond the screen. Creativity is also central to George Jaramillo’s article which focuses on the relationship between Ionad Hiort and the Glasgow School of Art’s Institute of Design Innovation as a case study for understanding how design innovation can engender and build community capabilities. This work studies the development of a new type of heritage centre on the western coast of the Isle of Lewis in Scotland and the idea of a “place of interpretation” as an alternative to the “visitor centre”, to go “beyond the museum”. We bookend this issue with another piece on building infrastructure in the city of Sydney. Nicholas Richardson interrogates the New South Wales Government’s ‘making it happen’ campaign. This research explores whether the current build-at-any-cost mentality behind ‘making it happen’ is in either the long-term interest of the New South Wales constituency or the short-term interest of a political party.To build is to embark on a multi-disciplinary and multi-faceted project. These articles demonstrate the wide-ranging potential of exploring how different interpretations of, and ways to, build impacts our cultural, emotional, intellectual, private, and public lives. AcknowledgementsOur sincere thanks to our enthusiastic contributors, to those who gave their expertise and time in the blind peer review process, and to Axel Bruns. ReferenceMoore, Rowan. Why We Build: Power and Desire in Architecture. New York: HarperCollins, 2013.

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Knowles, Claire Elizabeth. "A Woman’s Place Is in the Morgue: Understanding Scully in the Context of 1990s Feminism." M/C Journal 21, no.5 (December6, 2018). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1465.

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SCULLY: I said, I got the lab to rush the results of the Szczesny autopsy, if you're interested.MULDER: I heard you, Scully.SCULLY: And Szczesny did indeed drown, but not as the result of the inhalation of ectoplasm as you so vehemently suggested.MULDER: Well, what else could she possibly have drowned in?SCULLY: Margarita mix, upchucked with about 40 ounces of Corcovado Gold tequila which, as it turns out, she and her friends rapidly consumed in the woods while trying to reenact the Blair Witch Project.MULDER: Well, I think that demands a little deeper investigation, don't you?SCULLY: No, I don't.— The X-Files, “All Things” (0717) IntroductionMikel J. Koven argues that “The X-Files [1993-2002, films 2005, 2010, revived 2016-2018] was the American television series that defined the zeitgeist of the 1990s” (337) by tapping into “pre-millenium paranoia and the collapse of traditional beliefs” (338). In each episode, “True Believer” and FBI agent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and his partner, the skeptical and rational Dr Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), travel through a post-Cold War American landscape that is manifesting varying levels of anxiety about the century to come. The series is preoccupied with a series of questions that have, by the second decade of the twenty-first century, come to be answered fairly definitively. Have aliens visited Earth? (Well, if you believe a team of Harvard scientists, maybe [see Freeman], but there is no evidence of alien colonisation just yet.) Does the US government have its citizens’ best interests at heart? (In its current incarnation, no.) Will climate change have monstrous consequences? (Yes, we’re seeing them.) What do we do about the shady forces operating in post-Soviet Union Russia? (God knows, but they seem to be doing a good job of changing the shape of “democracy” in an increasing number of countries.)These broader socio-political aspects of The X-Files have been explored in a number of studies (see Koven; Moses; Wildermuth). In this article, I focus in more closely on some of the ways in which the character of Scully can be read as a complex engagement with a particularly 1990s version of third-wave feminism. I suggest that the type of feminism embodied in the character of Scully taps into the zeitgeist of the 1990s, a decade characterised not only by a growing media-driven “backlash” against feminism (see Faludi), but also by emergent third wave of feminism driven by movements such as “Riot Grrrl” (centred on openly feminist bands like Bikini Kill and Huggy Bear) and the various, and often contested, feminisms endorsed by a new generation of writers like Susan Faludi, Naomi Wolf, and even Katie Roiphe. Part of Scully’s longevity as a feminist icon can be attributed to the fact that while she is not without her own contradictions and complexities, she emerged from a televisual landscape dominated by particularly insipid representations of professional women. Scully, with her combination of lively wit and serious scientific mind, represented a radical imagining of professional femininity in the 1990s.Working against the Backlash: Scully and the Power of ProfessionalismBy the late 1980s, the political gains made by the second-wave feminism in the 1960s and early 1970s had come increasingly under fire in a “backlash” that “worked to revoke the gains made by the feminist movement” (Genz and Brabon 53). L.S. Kim argues this backlash is reflected in the fact that while strong female characters had always been a feature of US television (e.g. Mary Tyler Moore), in the 1990s televisual landscape feminism was often made popular in a type of “postfeminist discourse in which it is acceptable to be pro-woman but not to be feminist” (319). The quintessential example of this trend was David E. Kelley’s series about a Boston lawyer, Ally McBeal (1997-2002), in which McBeal’s primary dilemma is presented as being that she has “too many choices, too much freedom, and too much desire” which leads to “never-ending searching and even to depression and dysfunction” (Kim 319). McBeal’s professional success never seems to compensate for her various romantic disappointments and these remain the focal point of Kelley’s series.Part of what sets Scully apart from a character like McBeal is her unerring professionalism, and her strong commitment to equality in her relationship with Mulder. Scully displays none of McBeal’s neuroses, and she is unapologetically feminist in her disposition. She also understands implicitly the pivotal role she plays in the partnership at the heart of the X-Files. Scully is, then, a capable, professional woman who not only remains professional at all times, but who also works as a powerful grounding force to her partner’s more outlandish approaches and theories. As series creator Chris Carter has been forced to concede on numerous occasions, without the rational and practical figure of Scully in the morgue to (usually) prove and (sometimes) disprove Mulder’s theories, The X-Files as we know them would cease to exist. In fact, and somewhat paradoxically, in order to best understand Scully as a character, one needs to recognise the significance of the relationship between Scully and Mulder that lies at the heart of the series. The sheer force of Scully’s professionalism, and its resistance to being conscripted straightforwardly into a traditional romantic plot, becomes an important contributor to the powerful sexual tension between Mulder and Scully that came to define the series. Scully also, as critics and commentators were quick to point out, takes on the traditionally masculine role of skeptical scientist on the series, with Mulder positioned in the typically feminine role of intuitive “believer” (in, among other things, aliens, Chupacabra, big foot, and psychic powers). There are, of course, problems with this approach, but for now it is enough to simply point out that this positioning of Mulder and Scully is an important feature of the internal structure of The X-Files and speaks to an awareness of, and desire to challenge, the traditional association of women with intuition and men with rationality. Indeed, Linda Badley points out that the relationship between the two agents is “remarkably egalitarian, challenging traditional gender roles as portrayed on television” (63).Scully and Mulder’s relationship, a relationship that is at once personal and professional, is also grounded in genuine equality and respect. Mulder never undermines Scully, he (occasionally) knows when to bow to her superior scientific reasoning, and his eventual love for his partner is based in his understanding that Scully’s skepticism offers the perfect counterpart to his openness to the paranormal. In fact, one might say that Mulder, at least in part, falls in love with Scully’s professionalism and with her commitment to scientific reasoning. Mulder admits as much himself in the film The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998): “as difficult and frustrating as it’s been sometimes, your goddamn strict rationalism and science have saved me a thousand times over. You kept me honest. You made me a whole person.” In this calculation, Scully is not only Mulder’s equal, she is his missing piece. While she might sometimes grumble about merely playing Watson to Mulder’s Holmes (see “Fight Club” [0720]), Scully’s role is much more important than this, and Mulder (and the viewer) knows it.In the context of the televisual landscape of the 1990s, this representation of Scully as a character who is every bit as intelligent and as integral to the action of the series as her male partner, was incredibly powerful. It marked Scully as a third-wave feminist character in an era dominated by women who seemed to conform to the kind of problematic post-feminism embodied by Ally McBeal. In a recent interview, Gillian Anderson acknowledged the significant role Scully played in opening up possibilities for the representation of women on television in the 1990s. She observed, “a lot of women felt that they saw something recognisable for the first time [in Scully and] there were a lot of young women whose eyes were opened to feeling like they were finally represented in some way on television” (Anderson in Idato n.p.) Many women saw themselves in this character, and there can be little doubt The X-Files spearheaded a shift towards a more representative approach to the writing of female roles in US television in which layered and complex characters such as Scully became the norm rather than the exception. Rosalind Gill, for example, notes that “quality television” has “evolved since the 1990s into a site of rich and complex representations of gender including Homeland, Veep, House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, Transparent, and The Good Wife” (620).One of the other pervasive positive effects associated with the character of Scully is that she functioned, and indeed continues to function, as a role model for women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). A recent report commissioned by 21st Century Fox, the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, and J. Walter Thompson Intelligence found that “Scully’s media depiction of a high-achieving woman in STEM asked a generation of girls and women to imagine new professional options… Scully also influenced a generation of young women to study and pursue careers in STEM” (3). Although this report is not entirely impartial (21th Century Fox owns The X-Files), it found that “among women who are familiar with Scully’s character, 91% say she is a role model for girls and women” (5). This finding tallies with those of a variety of earlier online observers who noticed Scully had become a touchstone character “who inspired an entire generation of young women to pursue medical, scientific, and law enforcement degrees as positions” (Consalvi). To an extent not seen before in the history of television, Scully became an important role model for young women in the STEM professions. Scully’s fictional professionalism helped to create a new generation of real-life female STEM professionals.But it is worth remembering that in other respects, Scully is a complicated feminist heroine. This is largely because The X-Files’ production team’s own feminist credentials were often less-than-inspiring. The series was created by a man, and was written and directed predominantly by men in all of its various filmic and televisual incarnations. As Anderson herself pointed out on her Twitter feed for 29 June 2017, of the 207 episodes of X-Files produced, only 2 were directed by women (fig. 1). Famously, when the X-Files began in the early 1990s, Anderson was paid far less than her co-star Duchovny and was even asked to stand behind him on camera. The actor agitated successfully for equal pay after three years in the role, and for the right to stand beside her televisual partner, rather than behind him, even if, somewhat astonishingly, Twenty First Century Fox also offered Anderson less than Duchovny to reprise her famous role in 2016. (Anderson eventually received equal pay for equal billing.)Fig. 1: Gillian Anderson tweet, 29 June 2017.It ought to be remembered, then, that Scully’s feminism is predominantly a construction of men, overlaid with the undoubted feminine empowerment brought to the role by Anderson. As far back as 1998, Linda Badley noticed that for Scully/Anderson “the transference of ‘feminist’ characteristics between character and star is unusually strong—to the extent that a discussion of one must refer to the other. And Anderson/Scully is instantly recognisable as an icon of popular feminism” (62). But in more recent years, Anderson has made even clearer her own feminist leanings. She has done this through the publication (with Jennifer Nadel) of the explicitly feminist We: The Uplifting Manuel for Women Seeking Happiness (2017); by taking up more explicitly feminist roles, such as that of Stella Gibson in the acclaimed BBC series The Fall (2013-present); and through her Twitter feed. The significance of Anderson’s online feminist presence is highlighted by Lauren Modery, who notes: “the next time you’re having a day where you’re not sure if you’re being the best feminist you can be, just ask yourself “what would Gillian Anderson do?” and go to her Twitter account” (Modery). Scully’s 1990s Feminism in a Twenty-First Century ContextFor much of the series, Scully’s feminism can be viewed as a form of the “New Feminism” that Stephanie Genz and Benjamin Brabon associate with the late 1990s and with Natasha Walter’s book The New Feminism (1998). This “New Feminism” attempts to break from second-wave feminism by decoupling the personal from the political (64). Badley, for example, points out that Scully’s feminism is strictly based on individual empowerment: “rather than challenge patriarchy directly or join forces with women activists, Scully channels her anger/ambition into fitting into the system” (70). But equally, Scully’s feminism could be seen as a prototype of the kind of “neo-liberal” feminism that theorists such as Angela McRobbie associate with the present moment, a feminism which “discards the older, welfarist and collectivist feminism of the past, in favour of individualist striving” (4). Certainly, over the course of the 25 years, The X-Files has been in existence, we have seen little evidence that Scully has female friends (or indeed, that she interacts with anyone much outside of Mulder and her family).When other women do enter the picture, such as when Mulder’s one-time lover and co-founder of the X-Files, Diana Fowley appears in the fifth season of the series (see “The End” [0520]), Scully is often positioned in an antagonistic relationship with them. In this context, it is notable that “All Things,” a seventh-season episode directed and written by Anderson, places Scully’s interaction with Colleen Azar, a woman from the American Taoist Healing Centre, at the centre of the narrative. Azar’s exhortations to Scully to “slow down” are presented as the wise words of a female ally in this episode, and Scully does well to heed them. This episode, consciously I think, works as a counter to the more typical representation of Scully as being in competition with women for Mulder’s interest, evident in episodes like “Alpha” (0616) and “Syzygy” (0313). In this respect, Anderson appears to be aligning Scully with a feminism that is much more inclusive than it appears in other, male-written, episodes.From the vantage point of the second decade of the twenty-first century, one of the more problematic elements The X-Files has to do with its representation of sex and sexuality. Sex, in the world of The X-Files, is very 1990s in orientation. In fact, it echoes the way in which sex operated in the Clinton impeachment: denial, denial, denial, even in the face of clear evidence it took place. We see this most obviously in “All Things,” which begins with a shot of Scully getting dressed in front of a mirror, that pans to a shot of an undressed Mulder in bed. This opening seems to suggest the two had spent the night together, but nothing overtly sexual actually takes place in the episode. Indeed, any sexual activity that ever takes place in the X-Files happens off camera, but it is nonetheless worth pointing out that while the equally solitary Mulder is repeatedly characterised in the series by his porn fetish, Scully’s sexuality is repeatedly denied or diminished in the series. Moreover, any overt expression of Scully’s sexuality (such as in “Milagro,” [0618] where she falls for a writer living next door to Mulder) typically ends badly, with Scully placed in peril by her sexual desires.Scully’s continued presence in the twenty-first century, however, means that while her character is rooted in what we might call a “1990s feminist disposition” (she prides herself on being a “woman in a man’s world”; she demonstrates little interest in stereotypically feminine pursuits such as shopping or make up; her focus is on work, rather than romance), she has also been allowed the room to grow and develop. Perhaps most notably, the 2018 Scully is allowed to embrace her sexuality. Sexual activity still appears off screen, of course, but in “Plus One” (1103), we see her actively pursue sex with Mulder (twice!), while her vibrator makes an unapologetic cameo appearance in “Rm9sbG93ZXJz” (1107). Given that we live in a decade saturated in sexual imagery, it makes no sense for 2018 Scully to be as chaste and buttoned up as she was in the 1990s.Finally, in a series in which the wild speculation of the conspiracy theories is almost always true, Scully’s feminist commitment to rationality, science and the power of logic might appear to be undermined at every turn. Badley, for example, reminds us that while Scully may “have medicine and the law on her side ... Mulder’s vision is validated by Chris Carter, as the prologue to nearly every episode reminds us” (67). This is highlighted in “Field Trip” (0621) when Scully wonders, “Mulder, can’t you just for once, just ... for the novelty of it, come up with the simplest explanation, the most logical one instead of automatically jumping to UFOs or Bigfoot or…” Mulder simply counters with:Scully, in six years, how … how often have I been wrong? No seriously, I mean, every time I bring you a case we go through this perfunctory dance. You tell me that I’m not being scientifically rigorous and that I’m off my nut, and then in the end who turns out to be right like 98.95 of the time? I just think I’ve ... earned the benefit of the doubt here.Interestingly enough, however, it is Scully who solves the mystery at the heart of this particular episode of X-Files—Mulder and Scully are indeed trapped inside a giant fungus, being slowly digested by its gooey secretions.And while Mulder’s viewpoint is most often endorsed in the series, the chaos of the Trump administration illustrates perfectly the dangers behind the valorisation of the irrational over the rational. In a decade in which rationality itself is coming under increasing threat—by “fake news”; through a hostility towards the science of climate change; in the desire to wind back further the gains of the feminist movement—we need to remember the importance of the strong and abiding relationship between rationality and feminism. This is a relationship that goes at least as far back as Mary Wollstonecraft’s (1759-1797) Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), is at the heart of the feminist gothic writings of women like Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823) and Mary Shelley (1797-1851). This commitment to the power of rationality lives on in the character of Dana Scully.Conclusion: Scully as Twenty-First-Century Feminist IconI have argued throughout this article that there are limitations of the kind of feminism embodied in Scully, but it is clear that she has come to represent a type of woman who refuses to let men dictate her behaviour, and who maintains her professionalism even under the most difficult of circumstances. A host of Scully memes now circulating on the web celebrate the character’s competence, intelligence, and compassion (figs. 2, 3, and 4). The character of Scully now exists far beyond the confines of the television screen and the imaginations of her predominantly male authors. Scully’s continuing relevance to twenty-first century feminists is reflected in this meme recently placed by Anderson on her Twitter account in response to the allegations of sexual misconduct directed at US Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanagh (fig. 5). Rarely have the 1990s seemed so relevant to the present moment.Fig. 2: Scully meme, Meme Generator.Fig. 3: Rustnsplinters, “Scully Motivational.” Deviant Art.Fig. 4: E.H. Redlum, “Scully: Meme Style.” Deviant Art.Fig. 5: Gillian Anderson tweet.ReferencesBadley, Linda. “Scully Hits the Glass Ceiling: Postmodernism, Postfeminism, Posthumanism, and The X-Files.” Fantasy Girls: Gender in the New Universe of Science Fiction and Fantasy Television. Ed. Elyce Rae Helford. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000. 61-90.Consalvi, Sydney. “The Scully Effect Continues: How The X-Files’ Dana Scully Changed Television Forever.” Odyssey. 9 Aug. 2016. 1 Dec. 2018 <https://www.theodysseyonline.com/scully-effect>.Faludi, Susan. Backlash: The Undeclared War against Women. London: Vintage, 1991.Freeman, David. “Scientists Say Mysterious ‘Oumuamua’ Object Could Be an Alien Spacecraft: Harvard Researchers Raise the Possibility That It’s a Probe Sent by Extraterrestrials.” NBCNews.com. 6 Nov. 2018. 1 Dec. 2018 <https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/scientists-say-mysterious-oumuamua-object-could-be-alien-spacecraft-ncna931381>.Genz, Stéphanie, and Benjamin A. Brabon. Postfeminism: Cultural Texts and Theories. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2009.Gill, Rosalind. “Post-Postfeminism? New Feminist Visibilities in Postfeminist Times.” Feminist Media Studies 16.4 (2016): 610-30.Idato, Michael. “Gillian Anderson on Why She’s Closing The X-Files after 25 Years.” The Sydney Morning Herald. 15 Jan. 2018. 1 Dec. 2018 <https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/times-up-gillian-anderson-on-why-shes-closing-the-xfiles-after-25-years-20180115-h0iapf.html>.Kim, L.S. “‘Sex and the Single Girl’ in Postfeminism: The F Word on Television.” Television and New Media 2.4 (Nov. 2001): 319-334.Koven, Mikel J. “The X-Files.” Essential Cult TV Reader. Ed. David Lavery. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2010. 337-343.McRobbie, Angela. “Notes on the Perfect: Competitive Femininity in Neoliberal Times.” Australian Feminist Studies 30:83 (2015): 3-20.Modery, Lauren. “Gillian Anderson Is the Feminist Twitter Hero We Need Right Now.” Birth. Movies. Death. 25 Jan. 2018. 1 Dec. 2018 <https://birthmoviesdeath.com/2018/01/25/gillian-anderson-is-the-feminist-twitter-hero-we-need-right-now>.Moses, Michael Valdez. “Kingdom of Darkness: Autonomy and Conspiracy in The X-Files and Millenium.” The Philosophy of TV Noir. Eds. Steven M. Sanders and Aeon J. Skoble. Lexington: U. of Kentucky P., 2008. 203-228.21stCentury Fox, the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, and J. Walter Thompson Intelligence. The ‘Scully Effect’: I Want to Believe… in STEM. 2018. <https://impact.21cf.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/03/ScullyEffectReport_21CF_1-1.pdf>.Wildermuth, Mark E. Gender, Science Fiction Television, and the American Security State: 1958-Present. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.X-Files: Fight the Future. Dir. Rob Bowman. Perf. Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny. 20th Century Fox. 1998.

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Burns, Belinda. "Untold Tales of the Intra-Suburban Female." M/C Journal 14, no.4 (August18, 2011). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.398.

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Australian suburbia, historically and culturally, has been viewed as a feminised domain, associated with the domestic and family, routine and order. Where “the city is coded as a masculine and disorderly space… suburbia, as a realm of domesticity and the family, is coded as a feminine and disciplinary space” (Wilson 46). This article argues how the treatment of suburbia in fiction as “feminine” has impacted not only on the representation and development of the character of the “suburban female”, but also on the shape and form of her narrative journeys. Suburbia’s subordination as domestic and everyday, a restrictive realm of housework and child rearing, refers to the anti-suburban critique and establishes the dichotomy of suburbia/feminine/domesticity in contrast to bush or city/masculine/freedom as first observed by Marilyn Lake in her analysis of 1890s Australia. Despite the fact that suburbia necessarily contains the “masculine” as well as the “feminine”, the “feminine” dominates to such an extent that positive masculine traits are threatened there. In social commentary and also literature, the former is viewed negatively as a state from which to escape. As Tim Rowse suggests, “women, domesticity = spiritual starvation. (Men, wide open spaces, achievement = heroism of the Australian spirit)” (208). In twentieth-century Australian fiction, this is especially the case for male characters, the preservation of whose masculinity often depends on a flight from the suburbs to elsewhere—the bush, the city, or overseas. In Patrick White’s The Tree Of Man (1955), for example, During identifies the recurrent male character of the “tear-away” who “flee(s) domesticity and family life” (96). Novelist George Johnston also establishes a satirical depiction of suburbia as both suffocatingly feminine and as a place to escape at any cost. For example, in My Brother Jack (1964), David Meredith “craves escape from the ‘shabby suburban squalor’ into which he was born” (Gerster 566). Suburbia functions as a departure point for the male protagonist who must discard any remnants of femininity, imposed on him by his suburban childhood, before embarking upon narratives of adventure and maturation as far away from the suburbs as possible. Thus, flight becomes essential to the development of male protagonist and proliferates as a narrative trajectory in Australian fiction. Andrew McCann suggests that its prevalence establishes a fictional “struggle with and escape from the suburb as a condition of something like a fully developed personality” (Decomposing 56-57). In this case, any literary attempt to transform the “suburban female”, a character inscribed by her gender and her locale, without recourse to flight appears futile. However, McCann’s assertion rests on a literary tradition of male flight from suburbia, not female. A narrative of female flight is a relatively recent phenomenon, influenced by the second wave feminism of the 1970s and 1980s. For most of the twentieth century, the suburban female typically remained in suburbia, a figure of neglect, satire, and exploitation. A reading of twentieth-century Australian fiction until the 1970s implies that flight from suburbia was not a plausible option for the average “suburban female”. Rather, it is the exceptional heroine, such as Teresa in Christina Stead’s For Love Alone (1945), who is brave, ambitious, or foolish enough to leave, and when she does there were often negative consequences. For most however, suburbia was a setting where she belonged despite its negative attributes. These attributes of conformity and boredom, repetition, and philistinism, as presented by proponents of anti-suburbanism, are mainly depicted as problematic to male characters, not female. Excluded from narratives of flight, for most of the twentieth-century the suburban female typically remained in suburbia, a figure of neglect, satire, and even exploitation, her stories mostly untold. The character of the suburban female emerges out of the suburban/feminine/domestic dichotomy as a recurrent, albeit negative, character in Australian fiction. As Rowse states, the negative image of suburbia is transferred to an equally negative image of women (208). At best, the suburban female is a figure of mild satire; at worst, a menacing threat to masculine values. Male writers George Johnston, Patrick White and, later, David Ireland, portrayed the suburban female as a negative figure, or at least an object of satire, in the life of a male protagonist attempting to escape suburbia and all it stood for. In his satirical novels and plays, for example, Patrick White makes “the unspoken assumption… that suburbia is an essentially female domain” (Gerster 567), exemplifying narrow female stereotypes who “are dumb and age badly, ending up in mindless, usually dissatisfied, maternity and domesticity” (During 95). Feminist Anne Summers condemns White for his portrayal of women which she interprets as a “means of evading having to cope with women as unique and diverse individuals, reducing them instead to a sexist conglomerate”, and for his use of women to “represent suburban stultification” (88). Typically “wife” or “mother”, the suburban female is often used as a convenient device of oppositional resistance to a male lead, while being denied her own voice or story. In Johnston’s My Brother Jack (1964), for example, protagonist David Meredith contrasts “the subdued vigour of fulfillment tempered by a powerful and deeply-lodged serenity” (215) of motherhood displayed by Jack’s wife Shelia with the “smart and mannish” (213) Helen, but nothing deeper is revealed about the inner lives of these female characters. Feminist scholars identify a failure to depict the suburban female as more than a useful stereotype, partially attributing the cause of this failure to a surfeit of patriarchal stories featuring adventuresome male heroes and set in the outback or on foreign battlefields. Summers states how “more written words have been devoted to creating, and then analysing and extolling… [the] Australian male than to any other single facet of Australian life” (82-83). Where she is more active, the suburban female is a malignant force, threatening to undermine masculine goals of self-realisation or achievement, or at her worst, to wholly emasculate the male protagonist such that he is incapable of escape. Even here the motivations behind her actions are not revealed and she appears two-dimensional, viewed only in relation to her destructive effect on the weakened male protagonist. In her criticism of David Ireland’s The Glass Canoe (1976), Joan Kirkby observes how “the suburbs are populated with real women who are represented in the text as angry mothers and wives or simply as the embodiment of voraciously feral sexuality” (5). In those few instances where the suburban female features as more than an accessory to the male narrative, she lacks the courage and inner strength to embark upon her own journey out of suburbia. Instead, she is depicted as a victim, misunderstood and miserable, entrapped by the suburban milieu to which she is meant to belong but, for some unexplored reason, does not. The inference is that this particular suburban female is atypical, potentially flawed in her inability to find contentment within a region strongly designated her own. The unhappy suburban female is therefore tragic, or at least pitiable, languishing in a suburban environment that she loathes, often satirised for her futile resistance to the status quo. Rarely is she permitted the masculine recourse of flight. In those exceptional instances where she does leave, however, she is unlikely to find what she is looking for. A subsequent return to the place of childhood, most often situated in suburbia, is a recurrent narrative in many stories of Australian female protagonist, but less so the male protagonist. Although this mistreatment of the suburban female is most prevalent in fiction by male writers, female writers were also criticised for failing to give a true and authentic voice to her character, regardless of the broader question of whether writers should be truthful in their characterisations. For example, Summers criticises Henry Handel Richardson as “responsible for, if not creating, then at least providing a powerful reinforcement to the idea that women as wives are impediments to male self-realisation” with characters who “reappear, with the monotonous regularity of the weekly wash, as stereotyped and passive suburban housewives” (87-88). All this changed, however, with the arrival of second wave feminism leading to a proliferation of stories of female exodus from the suburbs. A considered portrait of the life of the suburban female in suburbia was neglected in favour of a narrative journey; a trend attributable in part to a feminist polemic that granted her freedom, adventure, and a story so long as she did not dare choose to stay. During the second wave feminism of the 1970s and 1980s, women were urged by leading figures such as Betty Friedan and Germaine Greer to abandon ascribed roles of housewife and mother, led typically in the suburbs, in pursuit of new freedoms and adventures. As Lesley Johnson and Justine Lloyd note, “in exhorting women to ‘leave home’ and find their fulfillment in the world of work, early second wave feminists provided a life story through which women could understand themselves as modern individuals” (154) and it is this “life story” which recurs in women’s fiction of the time. Women writers, many of whom identified as feminist, mirrored these trajectories of flight from suburbia in their novels, transplanting the suburban female from her suburban setting to embark upon “new” narratives of self-discovery. The impact of second wave feminism upon the literary output of Australian women writers during the 1970s and 1980s has been firmly established by feminist scholars Johnson, Lloyd, Lake, and Susan Sheridan, who were also active participants in the movement. Sheridan argues that there has been a strong “relationship of women’s cultural production to feminist ideas and politics” (Faultlines xi) and Johnson identifies a “history of feminism as an awakening” at the heart of these “life stories” (11). Citing Mary Morris, feminist Janet Woolf remarks flight as a means by which a feminine history of stagnation is remedied: “from Penelope to the present, women have waited… If we grow weary of waiting, we can go on a journey” (xxii). The appeal of these narratives may lie in attempts by their female protagonists to find new ways of being outside the traditional limits of a domestic, commonly suburban, existence. Flight, or movement, features as a recurrent narrative mode by which these alternative realities are configured, either by mimicking or subverting traditional narrative forms. Indeed, selection of the appropriate narrative form for these emancipatory journeys differed between writers and became the subject of vigorous, feminist and literary debate. For some feminists, the linear narrative was the only true path to freedom for the female protagonist. Following the work of Carolyn G. Heilbrun and Elaine Showalter, Joy Hooton observes how some feminist critics privileged “the integrated ego and the linear destiny, regarding women’s difference in self-realization as a failure or deprivation” (90). Women writers such as Barbara Hanrahan adopted the traditional linear trajectory, previously reserved for the male protagonist as bushman or soldier, explorer or drifter, to liberate the “suburban female”. These stories feature the female protagonist trading a stultifying life in the suburbs for the city, overseas or, less typically, the outback. During these geographical journeys, she is transformed from her narrow suburban self to a more actualised, worldly self in the mode of a traditional, linear Bildungsroman. For example, Hanrahan’s semi-autobiographical debut The Scent of Eucalyptus (1973) is a story of escape from oppressive suburbia, “concentrating on that favourite Australian theme, the voyage overseas” (Gelder and Salzman, Diversity 63). Similarly, Sea-green (1974) features a “rejection of domestic drabness in favour of experience in London” (Goodwin 252) and Kewpie Doll (1984) is another narrative of flight from the suburbs, this time via pursuit of “an artistic life” (253). In these and other novels, the act of relocation to a specific destination is necessary to transformation, with the inference that the protagonist could not have become what she is at the end of the story without first leaving the suburbs. However, use of this linear narrative, which is also coincidentally anti-suburban, was criticised by Summers (86) for being “masculinist”. To be truly free, she argued, the female protagonist needed to forge her own unique paths to liberation, rather than relying on established masculine lines. Evidence of a “new” non-linear narrative in novels by women writers was interpreted by feminist and literary scholars Gillian Whitlock, Margaret Henderson, Ann Oakley, Sheridan, Johnson, and Summers, as an attempt to capture the female experience more convincingly than the linear form that had been used to recount stories of the journeying male as far back as Homer. Typifying the link between the second wave feminism and fiction, Helen Garner’s Monkey Grip features Nora’s nomadic, non-linear “flights” back and forth across Melbourne’s inner suburbs. Nora’s promiscuity belies her addiction to romantic love that compromises her, even as she struggles to become independent and free. In this way, Nora’s quest for freedom­—fragmented, cyclical, repetitive, impeded by men— mirrors Garner’s “attempt to capture certain areas of female experience” (Gelder and Salzman, Diversity 55), not accessible via a linear narrative. Later, in Honour and Other People’s Children (1980) and The Children’s Bach (1984), the protagonists’ struggles to achieve self-actualisation within a more domesticated, family setting perhaps cast doubt on the efficacy of the feminist call to abandon family, motherhood, and all things domestic in preference for the masculinist tradition of emancipatory flight. Pam Gilbert, for instance, reads The Children’s Bach as “an extremely perceptive analysis of a woman caught within spheres of domesticity, nurturing, loneliness, and sexuality” (18) via the character of “protected suburban mum, Athena” (19). The complexity of this characterisation of a suburban female belies the anti-suburban critique by not resorting to satire or stereotype, but by engaging deeply with a woman’s life inside suburbia. It also allows that flight from suburbia is not always possible, or even desired. Also seeming to contradict the plausibility of linear flight, Jessica Anderson’s Tirra Lirra by the River (1978), features (another) Nora returning to her childhood Brisbane after a lifetime of flight; first from her suburban upbringing and then from a repressive marriage to the relative freedoms of London. The poignancy of the novel, set towards the end of the protagonist’s life, rests in Nora’s inability to find a true sense of belonging, despite her migrations. She “has spent most of her life waiting, confined to houses or places that restrict her, places she feels she does not belong to, including her family home, the city of Brisbane, her husband’s house, Australia itself” (Gleeson-White 184). Thus, although Nora’s life can be read as “the story of a very slow emergence from a doomed attempt to lead a conventional, married life… into an independent existence in London” (Gelder and Salzman, Diversity 65), the novel suggests that the search for belonging—at least for Australian women—is problematic. Moreover, any narrative of female escape from suburbia is potentially problematic due to the gendering of suburban experience as feminine. The suburban female who leaves suburbia necessarily rejects not only her “natural” place of belonging, but domesticity as a way of being and, to some extent, even her sex. In her work on memoir, Hooton identifies a stark difference between the shape of female and male biography to argue that women’s experience of life is innately non-linear. However, the use of non-linear narrative by feminist fiction writers of the second wave was arguably more conscious, even political in seeking a new, untainted form through which to explore the female condition. It was a powerful notion, arguably contributing to a golden age of women’s writing by novelists Helen Garner, Barbara Hanrahan, Jessica Anderson, and others. It also exerted a marked effect on fiction by Kate Grenville, Amanda Lohrey, and Janette Turner Hospital, as well as grunge novelists, well into the 1990s. By contrast, other canonical, albeit older, women writers of the time, Thea Astley and Elizabeth Jolley, neither of whom identified as feminist (Fringe 341; Neuter 196), do not seek to “rescue” the suburban female from her milieu. Like Patrick White, Astley seems, at least superficially, to perpetuate narrow stereotypes of the suburban female as “mindless consumers of fashion” and/or “signifiers of sexual disorder” (Sheridan, Satirist 262). Although flight is permitted those female characters who “need to ‘vanish’ if they are to find some alternative to narrow-mindedness and social oppression” (Gelder and Salzman, Celebration 186), it has little to do with feminism. As Brian Matthews attests of Astley’s work, “nothing could be further from the world-view of the second wave feminist writers of the 1980s” (76) and indeed her female characters are generally less sympathetic than those inhabiting novels by the “feminist” writers. Jolley also leaves the female protagonist to fend for herself, with a more optimistic, forceful vision of “female characters who, in their sheer eccentricity, shed any social expectations” to inhabit “a realm empowered by the imagination” (Gelder and Salzman, Celebration 194). If Jolley’s suburban females desire escape then they must earn it, not by direct or shifting relocations, but via other, more extreme and often creative, modes of transformation. These two writers however, were exceptional in their resistance to the influence of second wave feminism. Thus, three narrative categories emerge in which the suburban female may be transformed: linear flight from suburbia, non-linear flight from suburbia, or non-flight whereby the protagonist remains inside suburbia throughout the entire novel. Evidence of a rejection of the flight narrative by contemporary Australian women writers may signal a re-examination of the suburban female within, not outside, her suburban setting. It may also reveal a weakening of the influence of both second wave feminism and anti-suburban critiques on this much maligned character of Australian fiction, and on suburbia as a fictional setting. References Anderson, Jessica. Tirra Lirra by the River. Melbourne: Macmillan, 1978. Astley, Thea. “Writing as a Neuter: Extracts from Interview by Candida Baker.” Eight Voices of the Eighties: Stories, Journalism and Criticism by Australian Women Writers. Ed. Gillian Whitlock. St Lucia, Qld: U of Queensland P, 1989. 195-6. Durez, Jean. “Laminex Dreams: Women, Suburban Comfort and the Negation of Meanings.” Meanjin 53.1 (1994): 99-110. During, Simon. Patrick White. Melbourne: Oxford UP, 1996. Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1965. Garner, Helen. Honour and Other People’s Children. Ringwood, Vic.: Penguin, 1982. ———. The Children’s Bach. Melbourne: McPhee Gribble, 1984. ———. Monkey Grip. Camberwell, Vic.: Penguin, 2009. Gelder, Ken, and Paul Salzman. The New Diversity. Melbourne: McPhee Gribble, 1989. ———. After the Celebration. Melbourne: UP, 2009. Gerster, Robin. “Gerrymander: The Place of Suburbia in Australian Fiction.” Meanjin 49.3 (1990): 565-75. Gilbert, Pam. Coming Out from Under: Contemporary Australian Women Writers. London: Pandora Press, 1988. Gleeson-White, Jane. Australian Classics: 50 Great Writers and Their Celebrated Works. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2007. Goodwin, Ken. A History of Australian Literature. Basingstoke: Macmillan Education, 1986. Greer, Germain. The Female Eunuch. London: Granada, 1970. Hanrahan, Barbara. The Scent of Eucalyptus. St Lucia, Qld: U of Queensland P, 1973. ———. Sea-Green. London: Chatto & Windus, 1974. ———. Kewpie Doll. London: Hogarth Press, 1989. Hooton, Joy. Stories of Herself When Young: Autobiographies of Childhood by Australian Women Writers. Melbourne: Oxford UP, 1990. Ireland, David. The Glass Canoe. Melbourne: Macmillan, 1976. Johnson, Lesley. The Modern Girl: Girlhood and Growing Up. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1993. ———, and Justine Lloyd. Sentenced to Everyday Life: Feminism and the Housewife. New York: Berg, 2004. Johnston, George. My Brother Jack. London: Collins/Fontana, 1967. Jolley, Elizabeth. “Fringe Dwellers: Extracts from Interview by Jennifer Ellison.” Eight Voices of the Eighties: Stories, Journalism and Criticism by Australian Women Writers. Ed. Gillian Whitlock. St Lucia, Qld: U of Queensland P, 1989. 334-44. Kirkby, Joan. “The Pursuit of Oblivion: In Flight from Suburbia.” Australian Literary Studies 18.4 (1998): 1-19. Lake, Marilyn. Getting Equal: The History of Australian Feminism. St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 1999. McCann, Andrew. “Decomposing Suburbia: Patrick White’s Perversity.” Australian Literary Studies 18.4 (1998): 56-71. Matthews, Brian. “Before Feminism… After Feminism.” Thea Astley’s Fictional Worlds. Eds. Susan Sheridan and Paul Genoni. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2006. 72-6. Rowse, Tim. Australian Liberalism and National Character. Melbourne: Kibble Books, 1978. Saegert, Susan. “Masculine Cities and Feminine Suburbs: Polarized Ideas, Contradictory Realities.” Signs 5.3 (1990): 96-111. Sheridan, Susan. Along the Faultlines: Sex, Race and Nation in Australian Women’s Writing 1880s–1930s. St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 1995. ———. “Reading the Women’s Weekly: Feminism, Femininity and Popular Culture.” Transitions: New Australian Feminisms. Eds. Barbara Caine and Rosemary Pringle. St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 1995. ———. "Thea Astley: A Woman among the Satirists of Post-War Modernity." Australian Feminist Studies 18.42 (2003): 261-71. Sowden, Tim. “Streets of Discontent: Artists and Suburbia in the 1950s.” Beasts of Suburbia: Reinterpreting Cultures in Australian Suburbs. Eds. Sarah Ferber, Chris Healy, and Chris McAuliffe. Melbourne: Melbourne UP, 1994. 76-93. Stead, Christina. For Love Alone. Sydney: Collins/Angus and Robertson, 1990. Summers, Anne. Damned Whores and God’s Police. Melbourne: Penguin, 2002. White, Patrick. The Tree of Man. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1956. ———. A Fringe of Leaves. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1977. Wolff, Janet. Resident Alien: Feminist Cultural Criticism. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995.

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34

Lerner, Miriam Nathan. "Narrative Function of Deafness and Deaf Characters in Film." M/C Journal 13, no.3 (June28, 2010). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.260.

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Introduction Films with deaf characters often do not focus on the condition of deafness at all. Rather, the characters seem to satisfy a role in the story that either furthers the plot or the audience’s understanding of other hearing characters. The deaf characters can be symbolic, for example as a metaphor for isolation representative of ‘those without a voice’ in a society. The deaf characters’ misunderstanding of auditory cues can lead to comic circumstances, and their knowledge can save them in the case of perilous ones. Sign language, because of its unique linguistic properties and its lack of comprehension by hearing people, can save the day in a story line. Deaf characters are shown in different eras and in different countries, providing a fictional window into their possible experiences. Films shape and reflect cultural attitudes and can serve as a potent force in influencing the attitudes and assumptions of those members of the hearing world who have had few, if any, encounters with deaf people. This article explores categories of literary function as identified by the author, providing examples and suggestions of other films for readers to explore. Searching for Deaf Characters in Film I am a sign language interpreter. Several years ago, I started noticing how deaf characters are used in films. I made a concerted effort to find as many as I could. I referred to John Shuchman’s exhaustive book about deaf actors and subject matter, Hollywood Speaks; I scouted video rental guides (key words were ‘deaf’ or ‘disabled’); and I also plugged in the key words ‘deaf in film’ on Google’s search engine. I decided to ignore the issue of whether or not the actors were actually deaf—a political hot potato in the Deaf community which has been discussed extensively. Similarly, the linguistic or cultural accuracy of the type of sign language used or super-human lip-reading talent did not concern me. What was I looking for? I noticed that few story lines involving deaf characters provide any discussion or plot information related to that character’s deafness. I was puzzled. Why is there signing in the elevator in Jerry Maguire? Why does the guy in Grand Canyon have a deaf daughter? Why would the psychosomatic response to a trauma—as in Psych Out—be deafness rather than blindness? I concluded that not being able to hear carried some special meaning or fulfilled a particular need intrinsic to the plot of the story. I also observed that the functions of deaf characters seem to fall into several categories. Some deaf characters fit into more than one category, serving two or more symbolic purposes at the same time. By viewing and analysing the representations of deafness and deaf characters in forty-six films, I have come up with the following classifications: Deafness as a plot device Deaf characters as protagonist informants Deaf characters as a parallel to the protagonist Sign language as ‘hero’ Stories about deaf/hearing relationships A-normal-guy-or-gal-who-just-happens-to-be-deaf Deafness as a psychosomatic response to trauma Deafness as metaphor Deafness as a symbolic commentary on society Let your fingers do the ‘talking’ Deafness as Plot Device Every element of a film is a device, but when the plot hinges on one character being deaf, the story succeeds because of that particular character having that particular condition. The limitations or advantages of a deaf person functioning within the hearing world establish the tension, the comedy, or the events which create the story. In Hear No Evil (1993), Jillian learns from her hearing boyfriend which mechanical devices cause ear-splitting noises (he has insomnia and every morning she accidentally wakes him in very loud ways, eg., she burns the toast, thus setting off the smoke detector; she drops a metal spoon down the garbage disposal unit). When she is pursued by a murderer she uses a fire alarm, an alarm/sprinkler system, and a stereo turned on full blast to mask the sounds of her movements as she attempts to hide. Jillian and her boyfriend survive, she learns about sound, her boyfriend learns about deafness, and she teaches him the sign for orgasm. Life is good! The potential comic aspects of deafness may seem in this day and age to be shockingly politically incorrect. While the slapstick aspect is often innocent and means no overt harm or insult to the Deaf as a population, deafness functions as the visual banana peel over which the characters figuratively stumble in the plot. The film, See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989), pairing Gene Wilder with Richard Pryor as deaf and blind respectively, is a constant sight gag of lip-reading miscues and lack-of-sight gags. Wilder can speak, and is able to speech read almost perfectly, almost all of the time (a stereotype often perpetuated in films). It is mind-boggling to imagine the detail of the choreography required for the two actors to convince the audience of their authenticity. Other films in this category include: Suspect It’s a Wonderful Life Murder by Death Huck Finn One Flew over the Cuckoo’s NestThe Shop on Main StreetRead My Lips The Quiet Deaf Characters as Protagonist Informants Often a deaf character’s primary function to the story is to give the audience more information about, or form more of an affinity with, the hearing protagonist. The deaf character may be fascinating in his or her own right, but generally the deafness is a marginal point of interest. Audience attitudes about the hearing characters are affected because of their previous or present involvement with deaf individuals. This representation of deafness seems to provide a window into audience understanding and appreciation of the protagonist. More inferences can be made about the hearing person and provides one possible explanation for what ensues. It is a subtle, almost subliminal trick. There are several effective examples of this approach. In Gas, Food, Lodging (1992), Shade discovers that tough-guy Javier’s mother is deaf. He introduces Shade to his mother by simple signs and finger-spelling. They all proceed to visit and dance together (mom feels the vibrations on the floor). The audience is drawn to feel ‘Wow! Javier is a sensitive kid who has grown up with a beautiful, exotic, deaf mother!’ The 1977 film, Looking for Mr. Goodbar presents film-goers with Theresa, a confused young woman living a double life. By day, she is a teacher of deaf children. Her professor in the Teacher of the Deaf program even likens their vocation to ‘touching God’. But by night she cruises bars and engages in promiscuous sexual activity. The film shows how her fledgling use of signs begins to express her innermost desires, as well as her ability to communicate and reach out to her students. Other films in this category include: Miracle on 34th Street (1994 version)Nashville (1975, dir. Robert Altman)The Family StoneGrand CanyonThere Will Be Blood Deaf Characters as a Parallel to the Protagonist I Don’t Want to Talk about It (1993) from Argentina, uses a deaf character to establish an implied parallel story line to the main hearing character. Charlotte, a dwarf, is friends with Reanalde, who is deaf. The audience sees them in the first moments of the film when they are little girls together. Reanalde’s mother attempts to commiserate with Charlotte’s mother, establishing a simultaneous but unseen story line somewhere else in town over the course of the story. The setting is Argentina during the 1930s, and the viewer can assume that disability awareness is fairly minimal at the time. Without having seen Charlotte’s deaf counterpart, the audience still knows that her story has contained similar struggles for ‘normalcy’ and acceptance. Near the conclusion of the film, there is one more glimpse of Reanalde, when she catches the bridal bouquet at Charlotte’s wedding. While having been privy to Charlotte’s experiences all along, we can only conjecture as to what Reanalde’s life has been. Sign Language as ‘Hero’ The power of language, and one’s calculated use of language as a means of escape from a potentially deadly situation, is shown in The River Wild (1996). The reason that any of the hearing characters knows sign language is that Gail, the protagonist, has a deaf father. Victor appears primarily to allow the audience to see his daughter and grandson sign with him. The mother, father, and son are able to communicate surreptitiously and get themselves out of a dangerous predicament. Signing takes an iconic form when the signs BOAT, LEFT, I-LOVE-YOU are drawn on a log suspended over the river as a message to Gail so that she knows where to steer the boat, and that her husband is still alive. The unique nature of sign language saves the day– silently and subtly produced, right under the bad guys’ noses! Stories about Deaf/Hearing Relationships Because of increased awareness and acceptance of deafness, it may be tempting to assume that growing up deaf or having any kind of relationship with a deaf individual may not pose too much of a challenge. Captioning and subtitling are ubiquitous in the USA now, as is the inclusion of interpreters on stages at public events. Since the inception of USA Public Law 94-142 and section 504 in 1974, more deaf children are ‘mainstreamed’ into public schools than ever before. The Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in 1993, opening the doors in the US for more access, more job opportunities, more inclusion. These are the external manifestations of acceptance that most viewers with no personal exposure to deafness may see in the public domain. The nuts and bolts of growing up deaf, navigating through opposing philosophical theories regarding deaf education, and dealing with parents, siblings, and peers who can’t communicate, all serve to form foundational experiences which an audience rarely witnesses. Children of a Lesser God (1986), uses the character of James Leeds to provide simultaneous voiced translations of the deaf student Sarah’s comments. The audience is ushered into the world of disparate philosophies of deaf education, a controversy of which general audiences may not have been previously unaware. At the core of James and Sarah’s struggle is his inability to accept that she is complete as she is, as a signing not speaking deaf person. Whether a full reconciliation is possible remains to be seen. The esteemed teacher of the deaf must allow himself to be taught by the deaf. Other films in this category include: Johnny Belinda (1949, 1982)Mr. Holland’s OpusBeyond SilenceThe Good ShepherdCompensation A Normal Guy-or-Gal-Who-Just-Happens-to-Be-Deaf The greatest measure of equality is to be accepted on one's own merits, with no special attention to differences or deviations from whatever is deemed ‘the norm.’ In this category, the audience sees the seemingly incidental inclusion of a deaf or hearing-impaired person in the casting. A sleeper movie titled Crazy Moon (1986) is an effective example. Brooks is a shy, eccentric young hearing man who needs who needs to change his life. Vanessa is deaf and works as a clerk in a shop while takes speech lessons. She possesses a joie de vivre that Brooks admires and wishes to emulate. When comparing the way they interact with the world, it is apparent that Brooks is the one who is handicapped. Other films in this category include: Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (South Korea, 1992)Liar, LiarRequiem for a DreamKung Fu HustleBangkok DangerousThe Family StoneDeafness as a Psychosomatic Response to Trauma Literature about psychosomatic illnesses enumerates many disconcerting and disruptive physiological responses. However, rarely is there a PTSD response as profound as complete blockage of one of the five senses, ie; becoming deaf as a result of a traumatic incident. But it makes great copy, and provides a convenient explanation as to why an actor needn't learn sign language! The rock group The Who recorded Tommy in 1968, inaugurating an exciting and groundbreaking new musical genre – the rock opera. The film adaptation, directed by Ken Russell, was released in 1975. In an ironic twist for a rock extravaganza, the hero of the story is a ‘deaf, dumb, and blind kid.’ Tommy Johnson becomes deaf when he witnesses the murder of his father at the hands of his step-father and complicit mother. From that moment on, he is deaf and blind. When he grows up, he establishes a cult religion of inner vision and self-discovery. Another film in this category is Psych Out. Deafness as a Metaphor Hearing loss does not necessarily mean complete deafness and/or lack of vocalization. Yet, the general public tends to assume that there is utter silence, complete muteness, and the inability to verbalize anything at all. These assumptions provide a rich breeding ground for a deaf character to personify isolation, disenfranchisement, and/or avoidance of the harsher side of life. The deafness of a character can also serve as a hearing character’s nemesis. Mr. Holland’s Opus (1995) chronicles much of the adult life of a beleaguered man named Glenn Holland whose fondest dream is to compose a grand piece of orchestral music. To make ends meet he must teach band and orchestra to apparently disinterested and often untalented students in a public school. His golden son (named Cole, in honor of the jazz great John Coltrane) is discovered to be deaf. Glenn’s music can’t be born, and now his son is born without music. He will never be able to share his passion with his child. He learns just a little bit of sign, is dismissive of the boy’s dreams, and drifts further away from his family to settle into a puddle of bitterness, regrets, and unfulfilled desires. John Lennon’s death provides the catalyst for Cole’s confrontation with Glenn, forcing the father to understand that the gulf between them is an artificial one, perpetuated by the unwillingness to try. Any other disability could not have had the same effect in this story. Other films in this category include: Ramblin’ RoseBabelThe Heart Is a Lonely HunterA Code Unkown Deafness as a Symbolic Commentary on Society Sometimes films show deafness in a different country, during another era, and audiences receive a fictionalized representation of what life might have been like before these more enlightened times. The inability to hear and/or speak can also represent the more generalized powerlessness that a culture or a society’s disenfranchised experience. The Chinese masterpiece To Live (1994) provides historical and political reasons for Fenxi’s deafness—her father was a political prisoner whose prolonged absence brought hardship and untended illness. Later, the chaotic political situation which resulted in a lack of qualified doctors led to her death. In between these scenes the audience sees how her parents arrange a marriage with another ‘handicapped’ comrade of the town. Those citizens deemed to be crippled or outcast have different overt rights and treatment. The 1996 film Illtown presents the character of a very young teenage boy to represent the powerlessness of youth in America. David has absolutely no say in where he can live, with whom he can live, and the decisions made all around him. When he is apprehended after a stolen car chase, his frustration at his and all of his generation’s predicament in the face of a crumbling world is pounded out on the steering wheel as the police cars circle him. He is caged, and without the ability to communicate. Were he to have a voice, the overall sense of the film and his situation is that he would be misunderstood anyway. Other films in this category include: Stille Liebe (Germany)RidiculeIn the Company of Men Let Your Fingers Do the ‘Talking’ I use this heading to describe films where sign language is used by a deaf character to express something that a main hearing character can’t (or won’t) self-generate. It is a clever device which employs a silent language to create a communication symbiosis: Someone asks a hearing person who knows sign what that deaf person just said, and the hearing person must voice what he or she truly feels, and yet is unable to express voluntarily. The deaf person is capable of expressing the feeling, but must rely upon the hearing person to disseminate the message. And so, the words do emanate from the mouth of the person who means them, albeit self-consciously, unwillingly. Jerry Maguire (1996) provides a signed foreshadowing of character metamorphosis and development, which is then voiced for the hearing audience. Jerry and Dorothy have just met, resigned from their jobs in solidarity and rebellion, and then step into an elevator to begin a new phase of their lives. Their body language identifies them as separate, disconnected, and heavily emotionally fortified. An amorous deaf couple enters the elevator and Dorothy translates the deaf man’s signs as, ‘You complete me.’ The sentiment is strong and a glaring contrast to Jerry and Dorothy’s present dynamic. In the end, Jerry repeats this exact phrase to her, and means it with all his heart. We are all made aware of just how far they have traveled emotionally. They have become the couple in the elevator. Other films in this category include: Four Weddings and a FuneralKnowing Conclusion This has been a cursory glance at examining the narrative raison d’etre for the presence of a deaf character in story lines where no discussion of deafness is articulated. A film’s plot may necessitate hearing-impairment or deafness to successfully execute certain gimmickry, provide a sense of danger, or relational tension. The underlying themes and motifs may revolve around loneliness, alienation, or outwardly imposed solitude. The character may have a subconscious desire to literally shut out the world of sound. The properties of sign language itself can be exploited for subtle, undetectable conversations to assure the safety of hearing characters. Deaf people have lived during all times, in all places, and historical films can portray a slice of what their lives may have been like. I hope readers will become more aware of deaf characters on the screen, and formulate more theories as to where they fit in the literary/narrative schema. ReferencesMaltin, Leonard. Leonard Maltin’s 2009 Movie Guide. Penguin Group, 2008.Shuchman, John S. Hollywood Speaks. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1988. Filmography Babel. Dir. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. Central Films, 2006. DVD. Bangkok Dangerous. Dir. Pang Brothers. Film Bangkok, 1999. VHS. Beyond Silence. Dir. Caroline Link. Miramax Films, 1998. DVD. Children of a Lesser God. Dir. Randa Haines. Paramount Pictures, 1985. DVD. A Code Unknown. Dir. Michael Heneke. MK2 Editions, 2000. DVD. Compensation. Dir. Zeinabu Irene Davis. Wimmin with a Mission Productions, 1999. VHS. Crazy Moon. Dir. Allan Eastman. Allegro Films, 1987. VHS. The Family Stone. Dir. Mike Bezucha. 20th Century Fox, 2005. DVD. Four Weddings and a Funeral. Dir. Mike Newell. Polygram Film Entertainment, 1994. DVD. Gas, Food, Lodging. Dir. Allison Anders. IRS Media, 1992. DVD. The Good Shepherd. Dir. Robert De Niro. Morgan Creek, TriBeCa Productions, American Zoetrope, 2006. DVD. Grand Canyon. Dir. Lawrence Kasdan, Meg Kasdan. 20th Century Fox, 1991. DVD. Hear No Evil. Dir. Robert Greenwald. 20th Century Fox, 1993. DVD. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. Dir. Robert Ellis Miller. Warner Brothers, 1968. DVD. Huck Finn. Stephen Sommers. Walt Disney Pictures, 1993. VHS. I Don’t Want to Talk about It. Dir. Maria Luisa Bemberg. Mojame Productions, 1994. DVD. Knowing. Dir. Alex Proyas. Escape Artists, 2009. DVD. Illtown. Dir. Nick Gomez. 1998. VHS. In the Company of Men. Dir. Neil LaBute. Alliance Atlantis Communications,1997. DVD. It’s a Wonderful Life. Dir. Frank Capra. RKO Pictures, 1947. DVD. Jerry Maguire. Dir. Cameron Crowe. TriSTar Pictures, 1996. DVD. Johnny Belinda. Dir. Jean Nagalesco. Warner Brothers Pictures, 1948. DVD. Kung Fu Hustle. Dir. Stephen Chow. Film Production Asia, 2004. DVD. Liar, Liar. Dir. Tom Shadyac. Universal Pictures, 1997. DVD. Looking for Mr. Goodbar. Dir. Richard Brooks. Paramount Miracle on 34th Street. Dir. Les Mayfield. 20th Century Fox, 1994. DVD. Mr. Holland’s Opus. Dir. Stephen Hereck. Hollywood Pictures, 1996. DVD Murder by Death. Dir. Robert Moore. Columbia Pictures, 1976. VHS. Nashville. Dir. Robert Altman. Paramount Pictures, 1975. DVD. One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Dir. Milos Forman. United Artists, 1975. DVD. The Perfect Circle. Dir. Ademir Kenovic. 1997. DVD. Psych Out. Dir. Richard Rush. American International Pictures, 1968. DVD. The Quiet. Dir. Jamie Babbit. Sony Pictures Classics, 2005. DVD. Ramblin’ Rose. Dir. Martha Coolidge. Carolco Pictures, 1991. DVD. Read My Lips. Dir. Jacques Audiard. Panthe Films, 2001. DVD. Requiem for a Dream. Dir. Darren Aronofsky. Artisan Entertainment, 2000. DVD. Ridicule. Dir. Patrice Laconte. Miramax Films, 1996. DVD. The River Wild. Dir. Curtis Hanson. Universal Pictures, 1995. DVD. See No Evil, Hear No Evil. Dir. Arthur Hiller. TriSTar Pictures,1989. DVD. The Shop on Main Street. Dir. Jan Kadar, Elmar Klos. Barrandov Film Studio, 1965. VHS. Stille Liebe. Dir. Christoph Schaub. T and C Film AG, 2001. DVD. Suspect. Dir. Peter Yates. Tri-Star Pictures, 1987. DVD. Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. Dir. Park Chan-wook. CJ Entertainments, Tartan Films, 2002. DVD. There Will Be Blood. Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson. Paramount Vantage, Miramax Films, 2007. DVD. To Live. Dir. Zhang Yimou. Shanghai Film Studio and ERA International, 1994. DVD. What the Bleep Do We Know?. Dir. Willam Arntz, Betsy Chasse, Mark Vicente. Roadside Attractions, 2004. DVD.

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Starrs, Bruno. "Hyperlinking History and Illegitimate Imagination: The Historiographic Metafictional E-novel." M/C Journal 17, no.5 (October25, 2014). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.866.

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‘Historiographic Metafiction’ (HM) is a literary term first coined by creative writing academic Linda Hutcheon in 1988, and which refers to the postmodern practice of a fiction author inserting imagined--or illegitimate--characters into narratives that are intended to be received as authentic and historically accurate, that is, ostensibly legitimate. Such adventurous and bold authorial strategies frequently result in “novels which are both intensely self-reflexive and yet paradoxically also lay claim to historical events and personages” (Hutcheon, A Poetics 5). They can be so entertaining and engaging that the overtly intertextual, explicitly inventive work of biographical HM can even change the “hegemonic discourse of history” (Nunning 353) for, as Philippa Gregory, the author of HM novel The Other Boleyn Girl (2001), has said regarding this genre of creative writing: “Fiction is about imagined feelings and thoughts. History depends on the outer life. The novel is always about the inner life. Fiction can sometimes do more than history. It can fill the gaps” (University of Sussex). In a way, this article will be filling one of the gaps regarding HM.Forrest Gump (Robert Zemeckis, 1994) is possibly the best known cinematic example of HM, and this film version of the 1986 novel by Winston Groom particularly excels in seamlessly inserting images of a fictional character into verified history, as represented by well-known television newsreel footage. In Zemeckis’s adaptation, gaps were created in the celluloid artefact and filled digitally with images of the actor, Tom Hanks, playing the eponymous role. Words are often deemed less trustworthy than images, however, and fiction is considered particularly unreliable--although there are some exceptions conceded. In addition to Gregory’s novel; Midnight’s Children (1980) by Salman Rushdie; The Name of the Rose (1983) by Umberto Eco; and The Flashman Papers (1969-2005) by George MacDonald Fraser, are three well-known, loved and lauded examples of literary HM, which even if they fail to convince the reader of their bona fides, nevertheless win a place in many hearts. But despite the genre’s popularity, there is nevertheless a conceptual gap in the literary theory of Hutcheon given her (perfectly understandable) inability in 1988 to predict the future of e-publishing. This article will attempt to address that shortcoming by exploring the potential for authors of HM e-novels to use hyperlinks which immediately direct the reader to fact providing webpages such as those available at the website Wikipedia, like a much speedier (and more independent) version of the footnotes in Fraser’s Flashman novels.Of course, as Roland Barthes declared in 1977, “the text is a tissue of quotations drawn from innumerable centres of culture” (146) and, as per any academic work that attempts to contribute to knowledge, a text’s sources--its “quotations”--must be properly identified and acknowledged via checkable references if credibility is to be securely established. Hence, in explaining the way claims to fact in the HM novel can be confirmed by independently published experts on the Internet, this article will also address the problem Hutcheon identifies, in that for many readers the entirety of the HM novel assumes questionable authenticity, that is, the novel’s “meta-fictional self-reflexivity (and intertextuality) renders their claims to historical veracity somewhat problematic, to say the least” ("Historiographic Metafiction: Parody", 3). This article (and the PhD in creative writing I am presently working on at Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia) will possibly develop the concept of HM to a new level: one at which the Internet-connected reader of the hyperlinked e-novel is made fully (and even instantly) aware of those literary elements of the narrative that are legitimate and factual as distinct from those that are fictional, that is, illegitimate. Furthermore, utilising examples from my own (yet-to-be published) hyperlinked HM e-novel, this article demonstrates that such hyperlinking can add an ironic sub-text to a fictional character’s thoughts and utterances, through highlighting the reality concerning their mistaken or naïve beliefs, thus creating HM narratives that serve an entertainingly complex yet nevertheless truly educational purpose.As a relatively new and under-researched genre of historical writing, HM differs dramatically from the better known style of standard historical or biographical narrative, which typically tends to emphasise mimesis, the cataloguing of major “players” in historical events and encyclopaedic accuracy of dates, deaths and places. Instead, HM involves the re-contextualisation of real-life figures from the past, incorporating the lives of entirely (or, as in the case of Gregory’s Mary Boleyn, at least partly) fictitious characters into their generally accepted famous and factual activities, and/or the invention of scenarios that gel realistically--but entertainingly--within a landscape of well-known and well-documented events. As Hutcheon herself states: “The formal linking of history and fiction through the common denominators of intertextuality and narrativity is usually offered not as a reduction, as a shrinking of the scope and value of fiction, but rather as an expansion of these” ("Intertextuality", 11). Similarly, Gregory emphasises the need for authors of HM to extend themselves beyond the encyclopaedic archive: “Archives are not history. The trouble with archives is that the material is often random and atypical. To have history, you have to have a narrative” (University of Sussex). Functionally then, HM is an intertextual narrative genre which serves to communicate to a contemporary audience an expanded story or stories of the past which present an ultimately more self-reflective, personal and unpredictable authorship: it is a distinctly auteurial mode of biographical history writing for it places the postmodern author’s imaginative “signature” front and foremost.Hutcheon later clarified that the quest for historical truth in fiction cannot possibly hold up to the persuasive powers of a master novelist, as per the following rationale: “Fact is discourse-defined: an event is not” ("Historiographic Metafiction", 843). This means, in a rather simplistic nutshell, that the new breed of HM novel writer is not constrained by what others may call fact: s/he knows that the alleged “fact” can be renegotiated and redefined by an inventive discourse. An event, on the other hand, is responsible for too many incontrovertible consequences for it to be contested by her/his mere discourse. So-called facts are much easier for the HM writer to play with than world changing events. This notion was further popularised by Ansgar Nunning when he claimed the overtly explicit work of HM can even change the “hegemonic discourse of history” (353). HM authors can radically alter, it seems, the way the reader perceives the facts of history especially when entertaining, engaging and believable characters are deliberately devised and manipulated into the narrative by the writer. Little wonder, then, that Hutcheon bemoans the unfortunate reality that for many readers the entirety of a HM work assumes questionable “veracity” due to its author’s insertion of imaginary and therefore illegitimate personages.But there is an advantage to be found in this, the digital era, and that is the Internet’s hyperlink. In our ubiquitously networked electronic information age, novels written for publication as e-books may, I propose, include clickable links on the names of actual people and events to Wikipedia entries or the like, thus strengthening the reception of the work as being based on real history (the occasional unreliability of Wikipedia notwithstanding). If picked up for hard copy publication this function of the HM e-novel can be replicated with the inclusion of icons in the printed margins that can be scanned by smartphones or similar gadgets. This small but significant element of the production reinforces the e-novel’s potential status as a new form of HM and addresses Hutcheon’s concern that for HM novels, their imaginative but illegitimate invention of characters “renders their claims to historical veracity somewhat problematic, to say the least” ("Historiographic Metafiction: Parody", 3).Some historic scenarios are so little researched or so misunderstood and discoloured by the muddy waters of time and/or rumour that such hyperlinking will be a boon to HM writers. Where an obscure facet of Australian history is being fictionalised, for example, these edifying hyperlinks can provide additional background information, as Glenda Banks and Martin Andrew might have wished for when they wrote regarding Bank’s Victorian goldfields based HM novel A Respectable Married Woman. This 2012 printed work explores the lives of several under-researched and under-represented minorities, such as settler women and Aboriginal Australians, and the author Banks lamented the dearth of public awareness regarding these peoples. Indeed, HM seems tailor-made for exposing the subaltern lives of those repressed individuals who form the human “backdrop” to the lives of more famous personages. Banks and Andrew explain:To echo the writings of Homi K. Bhaba (1990), this sets up a creative site for interrogating the dominant, hegemonic, ‘normalised’ master narratives about the Victorian goldfields and ‘re-membering’ a marginalised group - the women of the goldfields, the indigenous [sic], the Chinese - and their culture (2013).In my own hyperlinked short story (presently under consideration for publishing elsewhere), which is actually a standalone version of the first chapter of a full-length HM e-novel about Aboriginal Australian activists Eddie Mabo and Chicka Dixon and the history of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra, entitled The Bullroarers, I have focussed on a similarly under-represented minority, that being light-complexioned, mixed race Aboriginal Australians. My second novel to deal with Indigenous Australian issues (see Starrs, That Blackfella Bloodsucka Dance), it is my first attempt at writing HM. Hopefully avoiding overkill whilst alerting readers to those Wikipedia pages with relevance to the narrative theme of non-Indigenous attitudes towards light-complexioned Indigenous Australians, I have inserted a total of only six hyperlinks in this 2200-word piece, plus the explanatory foreword stating: “Note, except where they are well-known place names or are indicated as factual by the insertion of Internet hyperlinks verifying such, all persons, organisations, businesses and places named in this text are entirely fictitious.”The hyperlinks in my short story all take the reader not to stubs but to well-established Wikipedia pages, and provide for the uninformed audience the following near-unassailable facts (i.e. events):The TV program, A Current Affair, which the racist character of the short story taken from The Bullroarers, Mrs Poulter, relies on for her prejudicial opinions linking Aborigines with the dealing of illegal drugs, is a long-running, prime-time Channel Nine production. Of particular relevance in the Wikipedia entry is the comment: “Like its main rival broadcast on the Seven Network, Today Tonight, A Current Affair is often considered by media critics and the public at large to use sensationalist journalism” (Wikipedia, “A Current Affair”).The Aboriginal Tent Embassy, located on the lawns opposite the Old Parliament House in Canberra, was established in 1972 and ever since has been the focus of Aboriginal Australian land rights activism and political agitation. In 1995 the Australian Register of the National Estate listed it as the only Aboriginal site in Australia that is recognised nationally for representing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and their political struggles (Wikipedia, “The Aboriginal Tent Embassy”).In 1992, during an Aboriginal land rights case known as Mabo, the High Court of Australia issued a judgment constituting a direct overturning of terra nullius, which is a Latin term meaning “land belonging to no one”, and which had previously formed the legal rationale and justification for the British invasion and colonisation of Aboriginal Australia (Wikipedia, “Terra Nullius”).Aboriginal rights activist and Torres Strait Islander, Eddie Koiki Mabo (1936 to 1992), was instrumental in the High Court decision to overturn the doctrine of terra nullius in 1992. In that same year, Eddie Mabo was posthumously awarded the Australian Human Rights Medal in the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Awards (Wikipedia, “Eddie Mabo”).The full name of what Mrs Poulter blithely refers to as “the Department of Families and that” is the Australian Government’s Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (Wikipedia, “The Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs”).The British colonisation of Australia was a bloody, murderous affair: “continuous Aboriginal resistance for well over a century belies the ‘myth’ of peaceful settlement in Australia. Settlers in turn often reacted to Aboriginal resistance with great violence, resulting in numerous indiscriminate massacres by whites of Aboriginal men, women and children” (Wikipedia, “History of Australia (1788 - 1850)”).Basically, what is not evidenced empirically with regard to the subject matter of my text, that is, the egregious attitudes of non-Indigenous Australians towards Indigenous Australians, can be extrapolated thanks to the hyperlinks. This resonates strongly with Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s assertion in 2012 that those under-represented by mainstream, patriarchal epistemologies need to be engaged in acts of “reclaiming, reformulating and reconstituting” (143) so as to be re-presented as authentic identities in these HM artefacts of literary research.Exerting auteurial power as an Aboriginal Australian author myself, I have sought to imprint on my writing a multi-levelled signature pertaining to my people’s under-representation: there is not just the text I have created but another level to be considered by the reader, that being my careful choice of Wikipedia pages to hyperlink certain aspects of the creative writing to. These electronic footnotes serve as politically charged acts of “reclaiming, reformulating and reconstituting” Aboriginal Australian history, to reuse the words of Smith, for when we Aboriginal Australian authors reiterate, when we subjugated savages wrestle the keyboard away from the colonising overseers, our readers witness the Other writing back, critically. As I have stated previously (see Starrs, "Writing"), receivers of our words see the distorted and silencing master discourse subverted and, indeed, inverted. Our audiences are subjectively repositioned to see the British Crown as the monster. The previously presumed rational, enlightened and civil coloniser is instead depicted as the author and perpetrator of a violently racist, criminal discourse, until, eventually, s/he is ultimately eroded and made into the Other: s/he is rendered the villainous, predatory savage by the auteurial signatures in revisionist histories such as The Bullroarers.Whilst the benefit in these hyperlinks as electronic educational footnotes in my short story is fairly obvious, what may not be so obvious is the ironic commentary they can make, when read in conjunction with the rest of The Bullroarers. Although one must reluctantly agree with Wayne C. Booth’s comment in his classic 1974 study A Rhetoric of Irony that, in some regards, “the very spirit and value [of irony] are violated by the effort to be clear about it” (ix), I will nevertheless strive for clarity and understanding by utilizing Booth’s definition of irony “as something that under-mines clarities, opens up vistas of chaos, and either liberates by destroying all dogmas or destroys by revealing the inescapable canker of negation at the heart of every affirmation” (ix). The reader of The Bullroarers is not expecting the main character, Mrs Poulter, to be the subject of erosive criticism that destroys her “dogmas” about Aboriginal Australians--certainly not so early in the narrative when it is unclear if she is or is not the protagonist of the story--and yet that’s exactly what the hyperlinks do. They expose her as hopelessly unreliable, laughably misinformed and yes, unforgivably stupid. They reveal the illegitimacy of her beliefs. Perhaps the most personally excoriating of these revelations is provided by the link to the Wikipedia entry on the Australian Government’s Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, which is where her own daughter, Roxy, works, but which Mrs Poulter knows, gormlessly, as “the Department of Families and that”. The ignorant woman spouts racist diatribes against Aboriginal Australians without even realising how inextricably linked she and her family, who live at the deliberately named Boomerang Crescent, really are. Therein lies the irony I am trying to create with my use of hyperlinks: an independent, expert adjudication reveals my character, Mrs Poulter, and her opinions, are hiding an “inescapable canker of negation at the heart of every affirmation” (Booth ix), despite the air of easy confidence she projects.Is the novel-reading public ready for these HM hyperlinked e-novels and their potentially ironic sub-texts? Indeed, the question must be asked: can the e-book ever compete with the tactile sensations a finely crafted, perfectly bound hardcover publication provides? Perhaps, if the economics of book buying comes into consideration. E-novels are cheap to publish and cheap to purchase, hence they are becoming hugely popular with the book buying public. Writes Mark Coker, the founder of Smashwords, a successful online publisher and distributor of e-books: “We incorporated in 2007, and we officially launched the business in May 2008. In our first year, we published 140 books from 90 authors. Our catalog reached 6,000 books in 2009, 28,800 in 2010, 92,000 in 2011, 191,000 in 2012 and as of this writing (November 2013) stands at over 250,000 titles” (Coker 2013). Coker divulged more about his company’s success in an interview with Forbes online magazine: “‘It costs essentially the same to pump 10,000 new books a month through our network as it will cost to do 100,000 a month,’ he reasons. Smashwords book retails, on average, for just above $3; 15,000 titles are free” (Colao 2012).In such a burgeoning environment of technological progress in publishing I am tempted to say that yes, the time of the hyperlinked e-novel has come, and to even predict that HM will be a big part of this new wave of postmodern literature. The hyperlinked HM e-novel’s strategy invites the reader to reflect on the legitimacy and illegitimacy of different forms of narrative, possibly concluding, thanks to ironic electronic footnoting, that not all the novel’s characters and their commentary are to be trusted. Perhaps my HM e-novel will, with its untrustworthy Mrs Poulter and its little-known history of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy addressed by gap-filling hyperlinks, establish a legitimising narrative for a people who have traditionally in white Australian society been deemed the Other and illegitimate. Perhaps The Bullroarers will someday alter attitudes of non-Indigenous Australians to the history and political activities of this country’s first peoples, to the point even, that as Nunning warns, we witness a change in the “hegemonic discourse of history” (353). If that happens we must be thankful for our Internet-enabled information age and its concomitant possibilities for hyperlinked e-publications, for technology may be separated from the world of art, but it can nevertheless be effectively used to recreate, enhance and access that world, to the extent texts previously considered illegitimate achieve authenticity and veracity.ReferencesBanks, Glenda. A Respectable Married Woman. Melbourne: Lacuna, 2012.Banks, Glenda, and Martin Andrew. “Populating a Historical Novel: A Case Study of a Practice-led Research Approach to Historiographic Metafiction.” Bukker Tillibul 7 (2013). 19 Sep. 2014 ‹http://bukkertillibul.net/Text.html?VOL=7&INDEX=2›.Barthes, Roland. Image, Music, Text. Trans. Stephen Heath. London: Fontana Press, 1977.Booth, Wayne C. A Rhetoric of Irony. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1974.Colao, J.J. “Apple’s Biggest (Unknown) Supplier of E-books.” Forbes 7 June 2012. 19 Sep. 2014 ‹http://www.forbes.com/sites/jjcolao/2012/06/07/apples-biggest-unknown-supplier-of-e-books/›.Coker, Mark. “Q & A with Smashwords Founder, Mark Coker.” About Smashwords 2013. 19 Sep. 2014 ‹https://www.smashwords.com/about›.Eco, Umberto. The Name of the Rose. Trans. William Weaver, San Diego: Harcourt, 1983.Forrest Gump. Dir. Robert Zemeckis. Paramount Pictures, 1994.Fraser, George MacDonald. The Flashman Papers. Various publishers, 1969-2005.Groom, Winston. Forrest Gump. NY: Doubleday, 1986.Gregory, Philippa. The Other Boleyn Girl. UK: Scribner, 2001.Hutcheon, Linda. A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction, 2nd ed. Abingdon, UK: Taylor and Francis, 1988.---. “Intertextuality, Parody, and the Discourses of History: A Poetics of Postmodernism History, Theory, Fiction.” 1988. 19 Sep. 2014 ‹http://ieas.unideb.hu/admin/file_3553.pdf›.---. “Historiographic Metafiction: Parody and the Intertextuality of History.” Eds. P. O’Donnell and R.C. Davis, Intertextuality and Contemporary American Fiction. Baltimore, Maryland: John Hopkins UP, 1989. 3-32.---. “Historiographic Metafiction.” Ed. Michael McKeon, Theory of the Novel: A Historical Approach Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins UP, 2000. 830-50.Nunning, Ansgar. “Where Historiographic Metafiction and Narratology Meet.” Style 38.3 (2004): 352-75.Rushdie, Salman. Midnight’s Children. London: Jonathan Cape, 1980.Starrs, D. Bruno. That Blackfella Bloodsucka Dance! Saarbrücken, Germany: Just Fiction Edition (paperback), 2011; Starrs via Smashwords (e-book), 2012.---. “Writing Indigenous Vampires: Aboriginal Gothic or Aboriginal Fantastic?” M/C Journal 17.4 (2014). 19 Sep. 2014 ‹http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/viewArticle/834›.Tuhiwai Smith, Linda. Decolonizing Methodologies. London & New York: Zed Books, 2012.University of Sussex. “Philippa Gregory Fills the Historical Gaps.” University of Sussex Alumni Magazine 51 (2012). 19 Sep. 2014 ‹http://www.scribd.com/doc/136033913/University-of-Sussex-Alumni-Magazine-Falmer-issue-51›.Wikipedia. “A Current Affair.” 2014. 19 Sep. 2014 ‹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Current_Affair›.---. “Aboriginal Tent Embassy.” 2014. 19 Sep. 2014 ‹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboriginal_Tent_Embassy›.---. “Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs.” 2014. 19 Sep. 2014 ‹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Department_of_Families,_Housing,_Community_Services_and_Indigenous_Affairs›.---. “Eddie Mabo.” 2014. 19 Sep. 2014 ‹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Mabo›.---. “History of Australia (1788 – 1850).” 2014. 19 Sep. 2014 ‹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Australia_(1788%E2%80%931850)#Aboriginal_resistance›.---. “Terra Nullius.” 2014. 19 Sep. 2014 ‹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_nullius›.

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Ford, Jessica. "Rebooting Roseanne: Feminist Voice across Decades." M/C Journal 21, no.5 (December6, 2018). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1472.

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In recent years, the US television landscape has been flooded with reboots, remakes, and revivals of “classic” nineties television series, such as Full/er House (1987-1995, 2016-present), Will & Grace (1998-2006, 2017-present), Roseanne (1988-1977, 2018), and Charmed (1998-2006, 2018-present). The term “reboot” is often used as a catchall for different kinds of revivals and remakes. “Remakes” are derivations or reimaginings of known properties with new characters, cast, and stories (Loock; Lavigne). “Revivals” bring back an existing property in the form of a continuation with the same cast and/or setting. “Revivals” and “remakes” both seek to capitalise on nostalgia for a specific notion of the past and access the (presumed) existing audience of the earlier series (Mittell; Rebecca Williams; Johnson).Reboots operate around two key pleasures. First, there is the pleasure of revisiting and/or reimagining characters that are “known” to audiences. Whether continuations or remakes, reboots are invested in the audience’s desire to see familiar characters. Second, there is the desire to “fix” and/or recuperate an earlier series. Some reboots, such as the Charmed remake attempt to recuperate the whiteness of the original series, whereas others such as Gilmore Girls: A Life in the Year (2017) set out to fix the ending of the original series by giving audiences a new “official” conclusion.The Roseanne reboot is invested in both these pleasures. It reunites the original cast for a short-lived, but impactful nine-episode tenth season. There is pleasure in seeing Roseanne (Roseanne Barr), Dan (John Goodman), Jackie (Laurie Metcalf), Becky (Lecy Goranson [seasons one to six, ten], Sarah Chalke [seasons six to nine]), Darlene (Sara Gilbert), and DJ (Michael Fishman) back in the Conner house with the same well-worn couch and afghan. The (attempted) recuperation is of author-star Barr, whose recent politics are in stark contrast to the working-class second-wave feminist politics of her nineties’ persona. This article is particularly interested in the second pleasure, because both the original series and the reboot situate the voice of Barr as central to the series’ narrative and politics.Despite achieving the highest ratings of any US sitcom in the past three years (O’Connell), on 29 May 2018, ABC announced that it was cancelling the Roseanne reboot. This decision came about in the wake of a racist tweet, where Barr compared a black woman (high-ranking Obama aide Valerie Jarrett) to an ape. Barr’s tweet and the cancellation of Roseanne, highlight the limits of nostalgia and Roseanne/Barr’s particular brand of white feminism. While whiteness and a lack of racial awareness are (and always have been) at the centre of Barr’s performance of feminism, the political landscape has shifted since the 1990s, with the rise of third and fourth-wave feminisms and intersectional activism. As such in the contemporary landscape, there is the expectation that white feminist figures take on and endorse anti-racist stances.This article argues that the reboot’s attempt to capitalise on nineties nostalgia exposes the limits of Roseanne/Barr’s feminism, as well as the limits of nostalgia. The feminist legacy of nineties-era Roseanne cannot and does not recuperate Barr’s star-persona. Also, the reboot and its subsequent cancellation highlight how the feminism of the series is embodied by Barr and her whiteness. This article will situate Roseanne and Barr within a feminist tradition on US television, before exploring how the reboot operates and circulates differently to the original series.From Roseanne (1988-1997) to Roseanne (2018)In its original form, Roseanne holds the distinction of being one of the most highly discussed and canonised feminist-leaning television series of all time, alongside The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-1977), Cagney and Lacey (1981-1988), and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2004). Roseanne also enabled and informed many popular feminist-leaning contemporary series, including Girls (2012-2017), Mom (2013-present), Better Things (2016-present), and Dietland (2018). Although it may seem anachronistic today, Roseanne and Barr helped define what it means to be a feminist and speak feminist politics on US television.Roseanne depicts the lives of the Conner family, headed by parents Roseanne and Dan. They live in the fictional blue-collar town of Lanford, Illinois with their three children Becky, Darlene, and DJ. Both Roseanne and Dan experience precarious employment and embark on numerous (mostly failed) business ventures throughout the series’ run. The reboot catches up with the Conner family in 2018, after Roseanne has experienced a health scare and single mom Darlene has moved into her parents’ house with her two children Harris (Emma Kenney) and Mark (Ames McNamara). In the new season, Roseanne and Dan’s children are experiencing similar working conditions to their parents in the 1990s. Becky works at a Mexican restaurant and is eager to act as surrogate mother to earn $50,000, Darlene is recently unemployed and looking for work, and DJ has just returned from military service.A stated objective of reviving Roseanne was to address the contentious US political landscape after the election of President Donald J. Trump (VanDerWerff). Barr is a vocal supporter of President Trump, as is her character in the reboot. The election plays a key role in the new season’s premise. The first episode of season 10 establishes that the titular Roseanne has not spoken to her sister Jackie (who is a Hillary Clinton supporter) in over a year. In both its nineties and 2018 incarnations, Roseanne makes apparent the extent to which feminist politics are indebted to and spoken through the author-star. The series is based on a character that Barr created and is grounded in her life experience. Barr and her character Roseanne are icons of nineties televisual feminism. While the other members of the Conner family are richly drawn and compelling, Roseanne is the centre of the series. It is her voice and perspective that drives the series and gives it its political resonance. Roseanne’s power in the text is authorised by Barr’s stardom. As Melissa Williams writes: “For nearly a decade, Barr was one of the most powerful women in Hollywood” (180).In the late 1980s and into the 1990s, Roseanne (and Barr) represented a new kind of feminist voice on US television, which at that stage (and still today) was dominated by middle-class women. Unlike Mary Richards (Mary Tyler Moore), Claire Huxtable (Phylicia Rashad), or Murphy Brown (Candice Bergen), Roseanne did not have a stable job and her family’s economic situation was often precarious. Roseanne/Barr adopted and used a feminism of personality popularised on television by Mary Tyler Moore and Lucille Ball. Unlike her foremothers, though, Roseanne/Barr was not slender, feminine, or interested in being likeable to men. Roseanne did not choose to work outside of the home, which marked her as different from many of US television’s other second-wave feminists and/or mothers. As Rachael Horowitz writes: “Roseanne’s feminism was for women who have to work because bills must get paid, who assert their role as head of the house despite the degrading work they often do during the day to pay for their kids’ food and clothes” (9).According to Kathleen Rowe, Barr is part of a long line of “female grotesques” whose defining features are excess and looseness (2-3). Rowe links Barr’s fatness or physical excess with her refusal to shut up and subversive speech. The feminism of Roseanne is contained within and expressed through Barr’s unruly white body (and voice). Barr’s unruliness and her unwillingness to follow the social conventions of politeness and decorum are tied to her (perceived) feminist politics.Understandings of Barr’s stardom, however, have shifted considerably in the years since the publication of Rowe’s analysis. While Barr is still “unruly,” her unruliness is no longer located in her body (which has been transformed to meet more conventional standards of western beauty), but rather in her Twitter presence, which is pro-Israel, pro-Trump, and anti-immigration. As Roxane Gay writes of the reboot: “Whatever charm and intelligence she [Barr] brought to the first nine seasons of her show, a show I very much loved, are absolutely absent in her current persona, particularly as it manifests on Twitter.”Feminist Voice and Stardom on US TVRoseanne performs what Julie D’Acci calls “explicit general feminism,” which is defined by “dialogue and scenes that straightforwardly addressed discrimination against women in both public and private spheres, stories structured around topical feminist causes, and the use of unequivocal feminist language and slogans” (147). However, the feminist politics of Roseanne and Barr are (and never were) straightforward or uncomplicated.Studies of feminism on US television have primarily focused on comedies that feature female television stars who function as advocates for feminism and women’s issues (Spigel; Rabinovitz; D’Acci). Much of the critical discussion of feminist voice in US female-led television identifies the feminist intervention as taking place at the level of performance (Dow; Spigel; Spangler). Comedic series such as I Love Lucy (1951-1957), Murphy Brown (1988-1998, 2018-present), and Grace Under Fire (1993-1998), and dramatic series’, such as Cagney and Lacey and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, privilege the articulation of feminist ideas through performance and character.Roseanne is not a series that derives its comedy from a clash of different perspectives or a series where politics are debated and explored in a nuanced a complex way. Roseanne promotes a distinct singular perspective – that of Roseanne Barr. In seasons one to nine, the character Roseanne is rarely persuaded to think differently about an issue or situation or depicted as “wrong.” The series centres Roseanne’s pain and distress when Becky elopes with Mark (Glenn Quinn), or when Jackie is abused by her boyfriend Fisher (Matt Roth), or when Darlene accidently gets pregnant. Although those storylines are about other characters, Roseanne’s emotions are central. Roseanne/Barr’s perspective (as fictional character and media personality) informs the narrative, sensibility, and tone. Roseanne is not designed to contain multiple perspectives.Roseanne is acutely aware of its place in the history of feminist voice and representations of women on US television. Television is central to the series’ articulation of feminism and feminist voice. In season seven episode “All About Rosey,” the series breaks the fourth wall (as it does many times throughout its run), taking the audience behind the scenes where some of US television’s most well-known (and traditional) mothers are cleaning the Conner’s kitchen. June Cleaver (Barbara Billingsley) from Leave It to Beaver (1957-1963), Joan Nash (Pat Crowley) from Please Don’t Eat the Daisies (1965-1967), Ruth Martin (June Lockhart) from Lassie (1958-1964), Norma Arnold (Alley Mills) from The Wonder Years (1988-1993), and Louise Jefferson (Isabel Sanford) from The Jeffersons (1975-1985) at first sit in judgment of Barr and her character Roseanne, claiming she presents “wrong image” for a TV mother. However, Roseanne/Barr eventually wins over the TV mothers, declaring “the important thing is on my show, I’m the boss and father knows squat” (7.19). It is in contrast to more traditional television mothers that Roseanne/Barr’s feminist voice comes into focus.In the ninth and final season of Roseanne’s initial run, the series (arguably) becomes a parody of its former self. By this point in the series, “Barr was seen as the sole cause of the show’s demise, as a woman who was ‘imploding,’ ‘losing the plot,’ or ‘out of control’” (White 234). White argues that depicting the working-class Conners’ social and economic ascension to upper-class diminishes the distinction between Barr and her character (243). White writes that in the series’ finale, the “line between performer and character is irrevocably blurred; it is unclear whether the voice we are hearing is that of Roseanne Conner or Roseanne Barr” (244). This blurring between Roseanne and Barr becomes particularly contentious in season 10.Rebooting Roseanne: Season 10Season 10 redacts and erases most of the events of season nine, which itself was a fantasy, as revealed in the season nine finale. As such, the reboot is not a simple continuation, because in the season nine finale it is revealed that Dan suffered a fatal heart attack a year earlier. The final monologue (delivered in voice-over by Barr) “reveals” that Roseanne has been writing and editing her experiences into a digestible story. The “Conners winning the lottery” storyline that dominated season nine was imagined by Roseanne as an elaborate coping strategy after Dan’s death. Yet in the season 10 reboot, Dan is revealed to be alive, as is Darlene and David’s (Johnny Galecki) daughter Harris, who was born during the events of season nine.The limits of Roseanne/Barr’s feminism within the contemporary political landscape come into focus around issues of race. This is partly because the incident that incited ABC to cancel the reboot of Roseanne was racially motivated, and partly because Roseanne/Barr’s feminism has always relied on whiteness. Between 1997 and 2018, Barr’s unruliness has become less associated with empowering working-class women and more with railing against minorities and immigrants. In redacting and erasing the events of season nine, the reboot attempts to step back the conflation between Roseanne and Barr with little success.In the first episode of season 10, “Twenty Years to Life”, Roseanne is positioned as the loud-mouthed victim of circumstance and systemic inequality – similar to her nineties-persona. Yet in 2018, Roseanne mocks same things that nineties’ Roseanne took seriously, including collective action, community building, and labour conditions. Roseanne claims: “It is not my fault that I just happen to be a charismatic person that’s right about everything” (10.01). Here, the series attempts to make light of a now-outdated understanding of Barr’s persona, but it comes off as tone-deaf and lacking self-awareness.Roseanne has bigoted tendencies in both the 1990s and in 2018, but the political resonance of those tendencies and their relationships to feminisms and nostalgia differs greatly from the original series to the reboot. This is best illustrated by comparing season seven episode “White Men Can’t Kiss” and season 10 episode “Go Cubs.” In the former, Roseanne is appalled that she may have raised a racist son and insists DJ must kiss his black classmate Geena (Rae’Ven Larrymore Kelly) in the school play. Towards the end of this episode, Geena’s father comes by the restaurant where Roseanne and Jackie are closing up. When the tall black man knocks on the locked door, Roseanne refuses to let him inside. She appears visibly afraid. Once Roseanne knows he is Geena’s father, she lets him in and he confronts her about her racist attitude. Roseanne (and the audience) is forced to sit in the discomfort of having her bigotry exposed. While there are no material consequences for Roseanne or DJ’s racism, within the context of the less intersectional 1990s, this interaction does not call into question Roseanne or Barr’s feminist credentials.In season 10, Roseanne tackles similar issues around race, ignorance, and bigotry, but it plays out very differently. In the reboot’s seventh episode, Roseanne suspects her Muslim refugee neighbours Fatima (Anne Bedian) and Samir (Alain Washnevky) are terrorists. Although Roseanne is proven wrong, she is not forced to reckon with her bigotry. Instead, she is positioned as a “hero” later in the episode, when she berates a supermarket cashier for her racist treatment of Fatima. Given what audiences know about Barr’s off-screen politics, this does not counteract the impression of racism, but compounds it. It also highlights the whiteness of the politics embodied by Roseanne/Barr both on-screen and off. Although these are two very different racial configurations (anti-blackness and Islamophobia), these episodes underline the shifting reception and resonance of the feminism Roseanne/Barr embodies.ConclusionIn June 2018, shortly after the cancellation of the Roseanne reboot, ABC announced that it was developing a spin-off without Barr called The Conners (2018-present). In the spin-off Roseanne is dead and her family is dealing with life after Roseanne/Roseanne (Crucchiola). Here, Roseanne suffers the same fate as Dan in season nine (she dies off-screen), but now it is Barr who is fictionally buried. While The Conners attempts to rewrite the story of the Conner family by rejecting Barr’s racist views and removing her financial and creative stake in their stories, Barr cannot be erased or redacted from Roseanne or the story of the Conner family, because it is her story.The reboot and its cancellation illuminate how Barr and Roseanne’s feminist voice has not evolved past its white second-wave roots. The feminism of Roseanne is embodied by Barr in all her unruliness and whiteness. Roseanne/Barr/Roseanne has not taken on the third and fourth-wave critiques of second-wave feminisms, which emphasise the limits of white feminisms. The failure of the Roseanne reboot reveals that the pleasure and nostalgia of seeing the Conner family back together is not enough. Ultimately, Roseanne is without intersectionality, and thus cannot (and should not) be recognised as feminist in the contemporary political landscape.ReferencesBetter Things. Cr. Pamela Adlon and Louis C.K. 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Franks, Rachel. "Cooking in the Books: Cookbooks and Cookery in Popular Fiction." M/C Journal 16, no.3 (June22, 2013). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.614.

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Abstract:

Introduction Food has always been an essential component of daily life. Today, thinking about food is a much more complicated pursuit than planning the next meal, with food studies scholars devoting their efforts to researching “anything pertaining to food and eating, from how food is grown to when and how it is eaten, to who eats it and with whom, and the nutritional quality” (Duran and MacDonald 234). This is in addition to the work undertaken by an increasingly wide variety of popular culture researchers who explore all aspects of food (Risson and Brien 3): including food advertising, food packaging, food on television, and food in popular fiction. In creating stories, from those works that quickly disappear from bookstore shelves to those that become entrenched in the literary canon, writers use food to communicate the everyday and to explore a vast range of ideas from cultural background to social standing, and also use food to provide perspectives “into the cultural and historical uniqueness of a given social group” (Piatti-Farnell 80). For example in Oliver Twist (1838) by Charles Dickens, the central character challenges the class system when: “Child as he was, he was desperate with hunger and reckless with misery. He rose from the table, and advancing basin and spoon in hand, to the master, said, somewhat alarmed at his own temerity–‘Please, sir, I want some more’” (11). Scarlett O’Hara in Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind (1936) makes a similar point, a little more dramatically, when she declares: “As God is my witness, I’m never going to be hungry again” (419). Food can also take us into the depths of another culture: places that many of us will only ever read about. Food is also used to provide insight into a character’s state of mind. In Nora Ephron’s Heartburn (1983) an item as simple as boiled bread tells a reader so much more about Rachel Samstat than her preferred bakery items: “So we got married and I got pregnant and I gave up my New York apartment and moved to Washington. Talk about mistakes [...] there I was, trying to hold up my end in a city where you can’t even buy a decent bagel” (34). There are three ways in which writers can deal with food within their work. Firstly, food can be totally ignored. This approach is sometimes taken despite food being such a standard feature of storytelling that its absence, be it a lonely meal at home, elegant canapés at an impressively catered cocktail party, or a cheap sandwich collected from a local café, is an obvious omission. Food can also add realism to a story, with many authors putting as much effort into conjuring the smell, taste, and texture of food as they do into providing a backstory and a purpose for their characters. In recent years, a third way has emerged with some writers placing such importance upon food in fiction that the line that divides the cookbook and the novel has become distorted. This article looks at cookbooks and cookery in popular fiction with a particular focus on crime novels. Recipes: Ingredients and Preparation Food in fiction has been employed, with great success, to help characters cope with grief; giving them the reassurance that only comes through the familiarity of the kitchen and the concentration required to fulfil routine tasks: to chop and dice, to mix, to sift and roll, to bake, broil, grill, steam, and fry. Such grief can come from the breakdown of a relationship as seen in Nora Ephron’s Heartburn (1983). An autobiography under the guise of fiction, this novel is the first-person story of a cookbook author, a description that irritates the narrator as she feels her works “aren’t merely cookbooks” (95). She is, however, grateful she was not described as “a distraught, rejected, pregnant cookbook author whose husband was in love with a giantess” (95). As the collapse of the marriage is described, her favourite recipes are shared: Bacon Hash; Four Minute Eggs; Toasted Almonds; Lima Beans with Pears; Linguine Alla Cecca; Pot Roast; three types of Potatoes; Sorrel Soup; desserts including Bread Pudding, Cheesecake, Key Lime Pie and Peach Pie; and a Vinaigrette, all in an effort to reassert her personal skills and thus personal value. Grief can also result from loss of hope and the realisation that a life long dreamed of will never be realised. Like Water for Chocolate (1989), by Laura Esquivel, is the magical realist tale of Tita De La Garza who, as the youngest daughter, is forbidden to marry as she must take care of her mother, a woman who: “Unquestionably, when it came to dividing, dismantling, dismembering, desolating, detaching, dispossessing, destroying or dominating […] was a pro” (87). Tita’s life lurches from one painful, unjust episode to the next; the only emotional stability she has comes from the kitchen, and from her cooking of a series of dishes: Christmas Rolls; Chabela Wedding Cake; Quail in Rose Petal Sauce; Turkey Mole; Northern-style Chorizo; Oxtail Soup; Champandongo; Chocolate and Three Kings’s Day Bread; Cream Fritters; and Beans with Chilli Tezcucana-style. This is a series of culinary-based activities that attempts to superimpose normalcy on a life that is far from the everyday. Grief is most commonly associated with death. Undertaking the selection, preparation and presentation of meals in novels dealing with bereavement is both a functional and symbolic act: life must go on for those left behind but it must go on in a very different way. Thus, novels that use food to deal with loss are particularly important because they can “make non-cooks believe they can cook, and for frequent cooks, affirm what they already know: that cooking heals” (Baltazar online). In Angelina’s Bachelors (2011) by Brian O’Reilly, Angelina D’Angelo believes “cooking was not just about food. It was about character” (2). By the end of the first chapter the young woman’s husband is dead and she is in the kitchen looking for solace, and survival, in cookery. In The Kitchen Daughter (2011) by Jael McHenry, Ginny Selvaggio is struggling to cope with the death of her parents and the friends and relations who crowd her home after the funeral. Like Angelina, Ginny retreats to the kitchen. There are, of course, exceptions. In Ntozake Shange’s Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo (1982), cooking celebrates, comforts, and seduces (Calta). This story of three sisters from South Carolina is told through diary entries, narrative, letters, poetry, songs, and spells. Recipes are also found throughout the text: Turkey; Marmalade; Rice; Spinach; Crabmeat; Fish; Sweetbread; Duck; Lamb; and, Asparagus. Anthony Capella’s The Food of Love (2004), a modern retelling of the classic tale of Cyrano de Bergerac, is about the beautiful Laura, a waiter masquerading as a top chef Tommaso, and the talented Bruno who, “thick-set, heavy, and slightly awkward” (21), covers for Tommaso’s incompetency in the kitchen as he, too, falls for Laura. The novel contains recipes and contains considerable information about food: Take fusilli […] People say this pasta was designed by Leonardo da Vinci himself. The spiral fins carry the biggest amount of sauce relative to the surface area, you see? But it only works with a thick, heavy sauce that can cling to the grooves. Conchiglie, on the other hand, is like a shell, so it holds a thin, liquid sauce inside it perfectly (17). Recipes: Dishing Up Death Crime fiction is a genre with a long history of focusing on food; from the theft of food in the novels of the nineteenth century to the utilisation of many different types of food such as chocolate, marmalade, and sweet omelettes to administer poison (Berkeley, Christie, Sayers), the latter vehicle for arsenic receiving much attention in Harriet Vane’s trial in Dorothy L. Sayers’s Strong Poison (1930). The Judge, in summing up the case, states to the members of the jury: “Four eggs were brought to the table in their shells, and Mr Urquhart broke them one by one into a bowl, adding sugar from a sifter [...he then] cooked the omelette in a chafing dish, filled it with hot jam” (14). Prior to what Timothy Taylor has described as the “pre-foodie era” the crime fiction genre was “littered with corpses whose last breaths smelled oddly sweet, or bitter, or of almonds” (online). Of course not all murders are committed in such a subtle fashion. In Roald Dahl’s Lamb to the Slaughter (1953), Mary Maloney murders her policeman husband, clubbing him over the head with a frozen leg of lamb. The meat is roasting nicely when her husband’s colleagues arrive to investigate his death, the lamb is offered and consumed: the murder weapon now beyond the recovery of investigators. Recent years have also seen more and more crime fiction writers present a central protagonist working within the food industry, drawing connections between the skills required for food preparation and those needed to catch a murderer. Working with cooks or crooks, or both, requires planning and people skills in addition to creative thinking, dedication, reliability, stamina, and a willingness to take risks. Kent Carroll insists that “food and mysteries just go together” (Carroll in Calta), with crime fiction website Stop, You’re Killing Me! listing, at the time of writing, over 85 culinary-based crime fiction series, there is certainly sufficient evidence to support his claim. Of the numerous works available that focus on food there are many series that go beyond featuring food and beverages, to present recipes as well as the solving of crimes. These include: the Candy Holliday Murder Mysteries by B. B. Haywood; the Coffeehouse Mysteries by Cleo Coyle; the Hannah Swensen Mysteries by Joanne Fluke; the Hemlock Falls Mysteries by Claudia Bishop; the Memphis BBQ Mysteries by Riley Adams; the Piece of Cake Mysteries by Jacklyn Brady; the Tea Shop Mysteries by Laura Childs; and, the White House Chef Mysteries by Julie Hyzy. The vast majority of offerings within this female dominated sub-genre that has been labelled “Crime and Dine” (Collins online) are American, both in origin and setting. A significant contribution to this increasingly popular formula is, however, from an Australian author Kerry Greenwood. Food features within her famed Phryne Fisher Series with recipes included in A Question of Death (2007). Recipes also form part of Greenwood’s food-themed collection of short crime stories Recipes for Crime (1995), written with Jenny Pausacker. These nine stories, each one imitating the style of one of crime fiction’s greatest contributors (from Agatha Christie to Raymond Chandler), allow readers to simultaneously access mysteries and recipes. 2004 saw the first publication of Earthly Delights and the introduction of her character, Corinna Chapman. This series follows the adventures of a woman who gave up a career as an accountant to open her own bakery in Melbourne. Corinna also investigates the occasional murder. Recipes can be found at the end of each of these books with the Corinna Chapman Recipe Book (nd), filled with instructions for baking bread, muffins and tea cakes in addition to recipes for main courses such as risotto, goulash, and “Chicken with Pineapple 1971 Style”, available from the publisher’s website. Recipes: Integration and Segregation In Heartburn (1983), Rachel acknowledges that presenting a work of fiction and a collection of recipes within a single volume can present challenges, observing: “I see that I haven’t managed to work in any recipes for a while. It’s hard to work in recipes when you’re moving the plot forward” (99). How Rachel tells her story is, however, a reflection of how she undertakes her work, with her own cookbooks being, she admits, more narration than instruction: “The cookbooks I write do well. They’re very personal and chatty–they’re cookbooks in an almost incidental way. I write chapters about friends or relatives or trips or experiences, and work in the recipes peripherally” (17). Some authors integrate detailed recipes into their narratives through description and dialogue. An excellent example of this approach can be found in the Coffeehouse Mystery Series by Cleo Coyle, in the novel On What Grounds (2003). When the central protagonist is being questioned by police, Clare Cosi’s answers are interrupted by a flashback scene and instructions on how to make Greek coffee: Three ounces of water and one very heaped teaspoon of dark roast coffee per serving. (I used half Italian roast, and half Maracaibo––a lovely Venezuelan coffee, named after the country’s major port; rich in flavour, with delicate wine overtones.) / Water and finely ground beans both go into the ibrik together. The water is then brought to a boil over medium heat (37). This provides insight into Clare’s character; that, when under pressure, she focuses her mind on what she firmly believes to be true – not the information that she is doubtful of or a situation that she is struggling to understand. Yet breaking up the action within a novel in this way–particularly within crime fiction, a genre that is predominantly dependant upon generating tension and building the pacing of the plotting to the climax–is an unusual but ultimately successful style of writing. Inquiry and instruction are comfortable bedfellows; as the central protagonists within these works discover whodunit, the readers discover who committed murder as well as a little bit more about one of the world’s most popular beverages, thus highlighting how cookbooks and novels both serve to entertain and to educate. Many authors will save their recipes, serving them up at the end of a story. This can be seen in Julie Hyzy’s White House Chef Mystery novels, the cover of each volume in the series boasts that it “includes Recipes for a Complete Presidential Menu!” These menus, with detailed ingredients lists, instructions for cooking and options for serving, are segregated from the stories and appear at the end of each work. Yet other writers will deploy a hybrid approach such as the one seen in Like Water for Chocolate (1989), where the ingredients are listed at the commencement of each chapter and the preparation for the recipes form part of the narrative. This method of integration is also deployed in The Kitchen Daughter (2011), which sees most of the chapters introduced with a recipe card, those chapters then going on to deal with action in the kitchen. Using recipes as chapter breaks is a structure that has, very recently, been adopted by Australian celebrity chef, food writer, and, now fiction author, Ed Halmagyi, in his new work, which is both cookbook and novel, The Food Clock: A Year of Cooking Seasonally (2012). As people exchange recipes in reality, so too do fictional characters. The Recipe Club (2009), by Andrea Israel and Nancy Garfinkel, is the story of two friends, Lilly Stone and Valerie Rudman, which is structured as an epistolary novel. As they exchange feelings, ideas and news in their correspondence, they also exchange recipes: over eighty of them throughout the novel in e-mails and letters. In The Food of Love (2004), written messages between two of the main characters are also used to share recipes. In addition, readers are able to post their own recipes, inspired by this book and other works by Anthony Capella, on the author’s website. From Page to Plate Some readers are contributing to the burgeoning food tourism market by seeking out the meals from the pages of their favourite novels in bars, cafés, and restaurants around the world, expanding the idea of “map as menu” (Spang 79). In Shannon McKenna Schmidt’s and Joni Rendon’s guide to literary tourism, Novel Destinations (2009), there is an entire section, “Eat Your Words: Literary Places to Sip and Sup”, dedicated to beverages and food. The listings include details for John’s Grill, in San Francisco, which still has on the menu Sam Spade’s Lamb Chops, served with baked potato and sliced tomatoes: a meal enjoyed by author Dashiell Hammett and subsequently consumed by his well-known protagonist in The Maltese Falcon (193), and the Café de la Paix, in Paris, frequented by Ian Fleming’s James Bond because “the food was good enough and it amused him to watch the people” (197). Those wanting to follow in the footsteps of writers can go to Harry’s Bar, in Venice, where the likes of Marcel Proust, Sinclair Lewis, Somerset Maugham, Ernest Hemingway, and Truman Capote have all enjoyed a drink (195) or The Eagle and Child, in Oxford, which hosted the regular meetings of the Inklings––a group which included C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien––in the wood-panelled Rabbit Room (203). A number of eateries have developed their own literary themes such as the Peacocks Tearooms, in Cambridgeshire, which blends their own teas. Readers who are also tea drinkers can indulge in the Sherlock Holmes (Earl Grey with Lapsang Souchong) and the Doctor Watson (Keemun and Darjeeling with Lapsang Souchong). Alternatively, readers may prefer to side with the criminal mind and indulge in the Moriarty (Black Chai with Star Anise, Pepper, Cinnamon, and Fennel) (Peacocks). The Moat Bar and Café, in Melbourne, situated in the basement of the State Library of Victoria, caters “to the whimsy and fantasy of the fiction housed above” and even runs a book exchange program (The Moat). For those readers who are unable, or unwilling, to travel the globe in search of such savoury and sweet treats there is a wide variety of locally-based literary lunches and other meals, that bring together popular authors and wonderful food, routinely organised by book sellers, literature societies, and publishing houses. There are also many cookbooks now easily obtainable that make it possible to re-create fictional food at home. One of the many examples available is The Book Lover’s Cookbook (2003) by Shaunda Kennedy Wenger and Janet Kay Jensen, a work containing over three hundred pages of: Breakfasts; Main & Side Dishes; Soups; Salads; Appetizers, Breads & Other Finger Foods; Desserts; and Cookies & Other Sweets based on the pages of children’s books, literary classics, popular fiction, plays, poetry, and proverbs. If crime fiction is your preferred genre then you can turn to Jean Evans’s The Crime Lover’s Cookbook (2007), which features short stories in between the pages of recipes. There is also Estérelle Payany’s Recipe for Murder (2010) a beautifully illustrated volume that presents detailed instructions for Pigs in a Blanket based on the Big Bad Wolf’s appearance in The Three Little Pigs (44–7), and Roast Beef with Truffled Mashed Potatoes, which acknowledges Patrick Bateman’s fondness for fine dining in Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho (124–7). Conclusion Cookbooks and many popular fiction novels are reflections of each other in terms of creativity, function, and structure. In some instances the two forms are so closely entwined that a single volume will concurrently share a narrative while providing information about, and instruction, on cookery. Indeed, cooking in books is becoming so popular that the line that traditionally separated cookbooks from other types of books, such as romance or crime novels, is becoming increasingly distorted. The separation between food and fiction is further blurred by food tourism and how people strive to experience some of the foods found within fictional works at bars, cafés, and restaurants around the world or, create such experiences in their own homes using fiction-themed recipe books. Food has always been acknowledged as essential for life; books have long been acknowledged as food for thought and food for the soul. Thus food in both the real world and in the imagined world serves to nourish and sustain us in these ways. References Adams, Riley. Delicious and Suspicious. New York: Berkley, 2010. –– Finger Lickin’ Dead. New York: Berkley, 2011. –– Hickory Smoked Homicide. New York: Berkley, 2011. Baltazar, Lori. “A Novel About Food, Recipes Included [Book review].” Dessert Comes First. 28 Feb. 2012. 20 Aug. 2012 ‹http://dessertcomesfirst.com/archives/8644›. Berkeley, Anthony. The Poisoned Chocolates Case. London: Collins, 1929. Bishop, Claudia. Toast Mortem. New York: Berkley, 2010. –– Dread on Arrival. New York: Berkley, 2012. Brady, Jacklyn. A Sheetcake Named Desire. New York: Berkley, 2011. –– Cake on a Hot Tin Roof. New York: Berkley, 2012. Calta, Marialisa. “The Art of the Novel as Cookbook.” The New York Times. 17 Feb. 1993. 23 Jul. 2012 ‹http://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/17/style/the-art-of-the-novel-as-cookbook.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm›. Capella, Anthony. The Food of Love. London: Time Warner, 2004/2005. Carroll, Kent in Calta, Marialisa. “The Art of the Novel as Cookbook.” The New York Times. 17 Feb. 1993. 23 Jul. 2012 ‹http://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/17/style/the-art-of-the-novel-as-cookbook.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm›. Childs, Laura. Death by Darjeeling. New York: Berkley, 2001. –– Shades of Earl Grey. New York: Berkley, 2003. –– Blood Orange Brewing. New York: Berkley, 2006/2007. –– The Teaberry Strangler. New York: Berkley, 2010/2011. Collins, Glenn. “Your Favourite Fictional Crime Moments Involving Food.” The New York Times Diner’s Journal: Notes on Eating, Drinking and Cooking. 16 Jul. 2012. 17 Jul. 2012 ‹http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/16/your-favorite-fictional-crime-moments-involving-food›. Coyle, Cleo. On What Grounds. New York: Berkley, 2003. –– Murder Most Frothy. New York: Berkley, 2006. –– Holiday Grind. New York: Berkley, 2009/2010. –– Roast Mortem. New York: Berkley, 2010/2011. Christie, Agatha. A Pocket Full of Rye. London: Collins, 1953. Dahl, Roald. Lamb to the Slaughter: A Roald Dahl Short Story. New York: Penguin, 1953/2012. eBook. Dickens, Charles. Oliver Twist, or, the Parish Boy’s Progress. In Collection of Ancient and Modern British Authors, Vol. CCXXIX. Paris: Baudry’s European Library, 1838/1839. Duran, Nancy, and Karen MacDonald. “Information Sources for Food Studies Research.” Food, Culture and Society: An International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research 2.9 (2006): 233–43. Ephron, Nora. Heartburn. New York: Vintage, 1983/1996. Esquivel, Laura. Trans. Christensen, Carol, and Thomas Christensen. Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Instalments with Recipes, romances and home remedies. London: Black Swan, 1989/1993. Evans, Jeanne M. The Crime Lovers’s Cookbook. City: Happy Trails, 2007. Fluke, Joanne. Fudge Cupcake Murder. New York: Kensington, 2004. –– Key Lime Pie Murder. New York: Kensington, 2007. –– Cream Puff Murder. New York: Kensington, 2009. –– Apple Turnover Murder. New York: Kensington, 2010. Greenwood, Kerry, and Jenny Pausacker. Recipes for Crime. Carlton: McPhee Gribble, 1995. Greenwood, Kerry. The Corinna Chapman Recipe Book: Mouth-Watering Morsels to Make Your Man Melt, Recipes from Corinna Chapman, Baker and Reluctant Investigator. nd. 25 Aug. 2012 ‹http://www.allenandunwin.com/_uploads/documents/minisites/Corinna_recipebook.pdf›. –– A Question of Death: An Illustrated Phryne Fisher Treasury. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin, 2007. Halmagyi, Ed. The Food Clock: A Year of Cooking Seasonally. Sydney: Harper Collins, 2012. Haywood, B. B. Town in a Blueberry Jam. New York: Berkley, 2010. –– Town in a Lobster Stew. New York: Berkley, 2011. –– Town in a Wild Moose Chase. New York: Berkley, 2012. Hyzy, Julie. State of the Onion. New York: Berkley, 2008. –– Hail to the Chef. New York: Berkley, 2008. –– Eggsecutive Orders. New York: Berkley, 2010. –– Buffalo West Wing. New York: Berkley, 2011. –– Affairs of Steak. New York: Berkley, 2012. Israel, Andrea, and Nancy Garfinkel, with Melissa Clark. The Recipe Club: A Novel About Food And Friendship. New York: HarperCollins, 2009. McHenry, Jael. The Kitchen Daughter: A Novel. New York: Gallery, 2011. Mitchell, Margaret. Gone With the Wind. London: Pan, 1936/1974 O’Reilly, Brian, with Virginia O’Reilly. Angelina’s Bachelors: A Novel, with Food. New York: Gallery, 2011. Payany, Estérelle. Recipe for Murder: Frightfully Good Food Inspired by Fiction. Paris: Flammarion, 2010. Peacocks Tearooms. Peacocks Tearooms: Our Unique Selection of Teas. 23 Aug. 2012 ‹http://www.peacockstearoom.co.uk/teas/page1.asp›. Piatti-Farnell, Lorna. “A Taste of Conflict: Food, History and Popular Culture In Katherine Mansfield’s Fiction.” Australasian Journal of Popular Culture 2.1 (2012): 79–91. Risson, Toni, and Donna Lee Brien. “Editors’ Letter: That Takes the Cake: A Slice Of Australasian Food Studies Scholarship.” Australasian Journal of Popular Culture 2.1 (2012): 3–7. Sayers, Dorothy L. Strong Poison. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1930/2003. Schmidt, Shannon McKenna, and Joni Rendon. Novel Destinations: Literary Landmarks from Jane Austen’s Bath to Ernest Hemingway’s Key West. Washington, DC: National Geographic, 2009. Shange, Ntozake. Sassafrass, Cypress and Indigo: A Novel. New York: St Martin’s, 1982. Spang, Rebecca L. “All the World’s A Restaurant: On The Global Gastronomics Of Tourism and Travel.” In Raymond Grew (Ed). Food in Global History. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1999. 79–91. Taylor, Timothy. “Food/Crime Fiction.” Timothy Taylor. 2010. 17 Jul. 2012 ‹http://www.timothytaylor.ca/10/08/20/foodcrime-fiction›. The Moat Bar and Café. The Moat Bar and Café: Welcome. nd. 23 Aug. 2012 ‹http://themoat.com.au/Welcome.html›. Wenger, Shaunda Kennedy, and Janet Kay Jensen. The Book Lover’s Cookbook: Recipes Inspired by Celebrated Works of Literature, and the Passages that Feature Them. New York: Ballantine, 2003/2005.

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Hackett,LisaJ., and Jo Coghlan. "The History Bubble." M/C Journal 24, no.1 (March15, 2021). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.2752.

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Introduction Many people’s knowledge of history is gleaned through popular culture. As a result there is likely a blurring of history with myth. This is one of the criticisms of historical romance novels, which blur historical details with fictional representations. As a result of this the genre is often dismissed from serious academic scholarship. The other reason for its disregard may be that it is largely seen as women’s fiction. As ‘women’s fiction’ it is largely relegated to that of ‘low culture’ and considered to have little literary value. Yet the romance genre remains popular and lucrative. Research by the Romance Writers of America in 2016 found that the genre represents 23% of the US fiction market and generates in excess of US$1 billion per year (Romance Writers of America). Since the onset of COVID-19, sales of romance novels in the US have soared, increasing by 17% between January and May 2020. The most popular genre was the historical romance genre. In total during that period, 16.2 million romance e-books were purchased by consumers (NPD). Yet despite its popularity, romance fiction remains stuck in the pulp fiction bubble. This article draws upon an international survey conducted in June 2020 by the authors. The study aimed to understand how readers of historical romance novels (n=813) engage with historical representations in popular culture, and how they navigate issues of authenticity. Consuming History through Popular Culture: “Historical Romance Novels Bring History to Life” Popular culture presents a tangible way in which audiences can engage with history and historical practices. “The spaces scholars have no idea about – the gaps between verifiable fact – are the territory for the writer of fictional history” (de Groot 217). Historical romance writer Georgette Heyer, for example, was influenced by her father’s conviction that “the historical novel was a worthy medium for learning about the past” (Kloester 102), and readers of historical romance often echo this view. One participant in this study considered the genre a way to “learn about history, the mores and customs, the food and clothing of that particular era … and how it contrasts to modern times”. For another participant, “most historical romances are set in countries other than my own. I like learning about these other countries and cultures”. The historical romance genre, in some instances, was not the reason for reading the novel: it was the historical setting. The romance itself was often incidental: “I am more interested in the history than the romance, but if the romance is done well … [then] the tensions of the romance illustrate and highlight historical divisions”. While a focus on history rather than romance, it posits that authors are including historically accurate details, and this is recognised by readers of the genre. In fact, one contributor to the survey argued that as a member of a writers’ group they were aware of that the “majority of the writers of that genre were voracious researchers, so much so that writers of other genres (male western writers for one) were going to them for information”. While fiction provides entertainment and relaxation, reading historical romance provides an avenue for accessing history without engaging it in a scholarly environment. Participants offered examples of this, saying “I like learning about the past and novels are an easy and relaxing way to do it” and “I enjoy historical facts but don’t necessarily need to read huge historical texts about Elizabeth Woodville when I can read The White Queen.” Social and political aspects of an era were gleaned from historical romance novels that may be less evident in historical texts. For one respondent, “I enjoy the description of the attire … behaviours … the social strata, politics, behaviours toward women and women who were ahead of their time”. Yet at the same time, historical fiction provides a way for readers to learn about historical events and places that spurred them to access more factual historical sources: “when I read a novel that involves actual historic happenings, it drives me to learn if the author is representing them correctly and to learn more about the topics”. For another, the historical romance “makes me want to do some more research”. Hence, historical fiction can provide new ways of seeing the past: “I enjoy seeing the similarities between people of the past and present. Hist[orical] Fic[tion] brings us hope that we can learn and survive our present.” A consciousness of how ancestors “survived and thrived” was evident among many participants. For one, history is best learned through the eyes of the people who lived through the era. School doesn’t teach history in a way that I can grasp, but putting myself into the shoes of the ordinary people who experienced, I have a better understanding of the time. Being able to access different perspectives on history and historical events and make an emotional connection with the past allowed readers to better understand the lived experiences of those from the past. This didn’t mean that readers were ignoring the fictional nature of the genre; rather, readers were clearly aware that the author was often taking liberties with history in order to advance the plot. Yet they still enjoyed the “glimpses of history that is included in the story”, adding that the “fictional details makes the history come alive”. The Past Represents a Different Society For some, historical romances presented a different society, and in some ways a nostalgia for the past. This from one participant: I like the attention to eloquence, to good speech, to manners, to responsibility toward each other, to close personal relationships, to value for education and history, to an older, more leisurely, more thoughtful way of life. A similar view was offered by another participant: “I like the language. I like the slowness, the courtship. I like the olden time social rules of honour and respect. I like worlds in which things like sword fights might occur”. For these respondents, there is a nostalgia where things were better then than now (Davis 18). Readers clearly identified with the different social and moral behaviours that they experienced in the novels they are reading, with one identifying more with the “historical morals, ethics, and way of life than I do modern ones”. Representations of a more respectful past were one aspect that appealed to readers: “people are civil to each other”, they are “generally kinder” and have a “more traditional moral code”. An aspect of escapism is also evident: “I enjoy leaving the present day for a while”. It is a past where readers find “time and manners [that are] now lost to us”. The genre reflects time that “seemed simpler” but “of course it helps if you are in the upper class”. Many historical romance novels are set within the social sphere of the elites of a society. And these readers’ views clearly indicate this: honestly, the characters are either wealthy or will be by the end, which releases from the day to day drudgeries and to the extent possible ensures an economic “happily ever after” as well as a romantic one … . I know the reality of even the elite wasn’t as lovely as portrayed in the books. But they are a charming and sometimes thrilling fantasy to escape inside … It is in the elite social setting that a view emerges in historical romance novels that “things are simpler and you don’t have today’s social issues to deal with”. No one period of history appears to reflect this narrative; rather, it is a theme across historical periods. The intrigue is in how the storyline develops to cope with social mores. “I enjoy reading about characters who wind their way around rules and the obstacles of their society … . Nothing in a historical romance can be fixed with a quick phone call”. The historical setting is actually an advantage because history places constrictions upon a plot: “no mobile phones, no internet, no fast cars. Many a plot would be over before it began if the hero and heroine had a phone”. Hence history and social mores “limit the access of characters and allow for interesting situations”. Yet another perspective is how readers draw parallels to the historic pasts they read about: “I love being swept away into a different era and being able to see how relevant some social issues are today”. There are however aspects that readers are less enamoured with, namely the lack of sex. While wholesome, particularly in the case of Christian authors, other characters are heroines who are virgins until after marriage, but even then may be virgins for “months or years after the wedding”. Similarly, “I deplore the class system and hate the inequalities of the past, yet I love stories where dukes and earls behave astonishingly well and marry interesting women and where all the nastiness is overcome”. The Problem with Authenticity The results of the international historical romance survey that forms the basis of this research indicate that most readers and writers alike were concerned with authenticity. Writers of historical romance novels often go to great lengths to ensure that their stories are imbued with historically accurate details. For readers, this “brings the characters and locales to life”. For readers, “characters can be fictional, but major events and ways of living should be authentic … dress, diet, dances, customs, historic characters”. Portraying historical accuracy is appreciated by readers: “I appreciate the time and effort the author takes to research subjects and people from a particular time period to make their work seem more authentic and believable”. Georgette Heyer, whose works were produced between 1921 and 1974, is considered as the doyenne of regency romance novels (Thurston 37), with a reputation for exacting historical research (Kloester 209). Heyer’s sway is such that 88 (10.8%) of the respondents to the romance survey cited her when asked who their favourite author is, with some also noting that she is a standard for other authors to aspire to. For one participant, I only read one writer of historical romance: Georgette Heyer. Why? Sublime writing skills, characterisation, delicious Wodehousian humour and impeccable accurate and research into the Regency period. Despite this prevailing view, “Heyer’s Regency is a selective one, and much of the broader history of the period is excluded from it” (Kloester 210). Heyer’s approach to history is coloured by the various approaches and developments to historiography that occurred throughout the period in which she was writing (Kloester 103). There is little evidence that she approached her sources with a critical eye and it appears that she often accepted her sources as historical fact (Kloester 112). Heyer’s works are devoid of information as to what is based in history and what was drawn from her imagination (Kloester 110). Despite the omissions above, Heyer has a reputation for undertaking meticulous research for her novels. This, however, is problematic in itself, as Alexandra Stirling argues: “in trying to recreate Regency patterns of speech by applying her knowledge of historical colloquialism, she essentially created her own dialect” that has come to “dominate the modern genre” (Stirling). Heyer is also highly criticised for both her racism (particularly anti-Semitism), which is reflected in her characterisation of Regency London as a society of “extreme whiteness”, which served to erase “the reality of Regency London as a cosmopolitan city with people of every skin colour and origin, including among the upper classes” (Duvezin-Caubet 249). Thus Heyer’s Regency London is arguably a fantasy world that has little grounding in truth, despite her passion for historical research. Historical romance author Felicia Grossman argues that this paradox occurs as “mixed in with [Heyer’s] research is a lot of pure fiction done to fit her personal political views” (Grossman), where she deliberately ignores historical facts that do not suit her narrative, such as the sociological implications of the slave trade and the very public debate about it that occurred during the regency. The legacy of these omissions can be found in contemporary romances set in that period. By focussing on, and intensifying, a narrow selection of historical facts, “the authentic is simultaneously inauthentic” (Hackett 38). For one participant, “I don’t really put much stock into “historical accuracy” as a concept, when I read a historical romance, I read it almost in the way that one would read a genre fantasy novel, where each book has its own rules and conventions”. Diversifying the Bubble The intertwining of history and narrative posits how readers separate fact from fiction. Historical romance novels have often been accused by both readers and critics of providing a skewed view on the past. In October 2019 the All about Romance blog asked its readers: “Does Historical Romance have a quality problem?”, leading to a strong debate with many contributors noting how limited the genre had developed, with the lack of diversity being a particular strain of discussion. Just a few weeks later, the peak industry body, the Romance Writers Association of America, became embroiled in a racism controversy. Cultural products such as romance novels are products of a wider white heteronormative paradigm which has been increasingly challenged by movements such as the LGBTQI+, Me Too, and Black Lives Matter, which have sought to address the evident racial imbalance. The lack of racial representation and racial equality in historical novels also provides an opportunity to consider contemporary ideals. Historical romance novels for one participant provided a lens through which to understand the “challenges for women and queers”. Being a genre that is dominated by both female writers and readers (the Romance Writers Association claims that 82% of readers are female), it is perhaps no surprise that many respondents were concerned with female issues. For one reader, the genre provides a way to “appreciate the freedom that women have today”. Yet it remains that the genre is fictional, allowing readers to fantasise about different social and racial circumstances: “I love the modern take on historical novels with fearless heroines living lives (they maybe couldn’t have) in a time period that intrigues me”. Including strong women and people of colour in the genre means those once excluded or marginalised are centralised, suggesting historical romance novels provide a way of fictionally going some way to re-addressing gender and racial imbalances. Coupled with romance’s guarantee of a happy ending, the reader is assured that the heroine has a positive outcome, and can “have it all”, surely a mantra that should appeal to feminists. “Historical romance offers not just escape, but a journey – emotional, physical or character change”; in this view, readers positively respond to a narrative in which plots engage with both the positive and negative sides of history. One participant put it this way: “I love history especially African American history. Even though our history is painful it is still ours and we loved just like we suffered”. Expanding the Bubble Bridgerton (2020–), the popular Netflix show based upon Julia Quinn’s bestselling historical romance series, challenges the whitewashing of history by presenting an alternative history. Choosing a colour-blind cast and an alternate reality where racism was dispelled when the King marries a woman of colour and bestowed honours on citizens of all colours, Bridgerton’s depiction of race has generally been met with positive reviews. The author of the series of books that Bridgerton is adapted from addressed this point: previously, I’ve gotten dinged by the historical accuracy police. So in some ways, I was fearful – if you do that, are you denying real things that happened? But you know what? This is already romantic fantasy, and I think it’s more important to show that as many people as possible deserve this type of happiness and dignity. So I think they made the absolutely right choice, bringing in all this inclusivity (Quinn cited in Flood). Despite the critics, and there have been some, Netflix claims that the show has placed “number one in 83 countries including the US, UK, Brazil, France, India and South Africa”, which they credited partly to audiences who “want to see themselves reflected on the screen” (Howe). There is no claim to accuracy, as Howe argues that the show’s “Regency reimagined isn’t meant to be history. It’s designed to be more lavish, sexier and funnier than the standard period drama”. As with the readers surveyed above, this is a knowing audience who are willing to embrace an alternate vision of the past. Yet there are aspects which need to remain, such as costume, class structure, technology, which serve to signify the past. As one participant remarked, “I love history. I love reading what is essentially a fantasy-realism setting. I read for escapism and it’s certainly that”. “The Dance of History and Fiction” What is evident in this discussion is what Griffiths calls the “dance of history and fiction”, where “history and fiction … are a tag team, sometimes taking turns, sometimes working in tandem, to deepen our understanding and extend our imagination” (Griffiths). He reminds us that “historians and novelists do not constitute inviolable, impermeable categories of writers. Some historians are also novelists and many novelists are also historians. Historians write fiction and novelists write history”. More so, “history doesn’t own truth, and fiction doesn’t own imagination”. Amongst other analysis of the intersections and juxtaposition of history and fiction, Griffiths provides one poignant discussion, that of Kate Grenville’s novel The Secret River (2006). According to the author's own Website, The Secret River caused controversy when it first appeared, and become a pawn in the “history wars” that continues to this day. How should a nation tell its foundation story, when that story involves the dispossession of other people? Is there a path between the “black armband” and the “white blindfold” versions of a history like ours? In response to the controversy Grenville made an interesting if confusing argument that she does not make a distinction between “story-telling history” and “the discipline of History”, and between “writing true stories” and “writing History” (Griffiths). The same may be said for romance novelists; however, it is in their pages that they are writing a history. The question is if it is an authentic history, and does that really matter? References Davis, Fred. Yearning for Yesterday: A Sociology of Nostalgia. Free Press, 1979. De Groot, Jerome. Consuming History Historians and Heritage in Contemporary Popular Culture. Florence Taylor and Francis, 2009. Duvezin-Caubet, Caroline. "Gaily Ever After: Neo-Victorian M/M Genre Romance for the Twenty-First Century." Neo-Victorian Studies 13.1 (2020). Flood, Alison. "Bridgerton Author Julia Quinn: 'I've Been Dinged by the Accuracy Police – but It's Fantasy!'." The Guardian 12 Jan. 2021. 15 Jan. 2021 <https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jan/12/bridgerton-author-julia-quinn-accuracy-fantasy-feisty-rakish-artistocrats-jane-austen>. Griffiths, Tom. "The Intriguing Dance of History and Fiction." TEXT 28 (2015). Grossman, Felicia. "Guest Post: Georgette Heyer Was an Antisemite and Her Work Is Not Foundational Historical Romance." Romance Daily News 2021 (2020). <https://romancedailynews.medium.com/guest-post-georgette-heyer-was-an-antisemite-and-her-work-is-not-foundational-historical-romance-fc00bfc7c26>. Hackett, Lisa J. "Curves & a-Lines: Why Contemporary Women Choose to Wear Nostalgic 1950s Style Clothing." Sociology. Doctor of Philosophy, University of New England, 2020. 320. Howe, Jinny. "'Bridgerton': How a Bold Bet Turned into Our Biggest Series Ever." Netflix, 27 Jan. 2021. <https://about.netflix.com/en/news/bridgerton-biggest-series-ever>. Kloester, Jennifer V. "Georgette Heyer: Writing the Regency: History in Fiction from Regency Buck to Lady of Quality 1935-1972." 2004. NPD. "Covid-19 Lockdown Gives Romance a Lift, the NPD Group Says." NPD Group, 2020. 2 Feb. 2021 <https://www.npd.com/wps/portal/npd/us/news/press-releases/2020/covid-19-lockdown-gives-romance-a-lift--the-npd-group-says/>. Romance Writers of America. "About the Romance Genre." 2016. 2 Feb. 2021 <https://www.rwa.org/Online/Romance_Genre/About_Romance_Genre.aspx>. Stirling, Alexandra. "Love in the Ton: Georgette Heyer's Legacy in Regency Romance World-Building." Nursing Clio. Ed. Jacqueline Antonovich. 13 Feb. 2020. <https://nursingclio.org/2020/02/13/love-in-the-ton-georgette-heyers-legacy-in-regency-romance-world-building/>. Thurston, Carol. The Romance Revolution : Erotic Novels for Women and the Quest for a New Sexual Identity. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987.

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Shaw, Janice Marion. "The Curious Transformation of Boy to Computer." M/C Journal 19, no.4 (August31, 2016). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1130.

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Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time has achieved success as “the new Rain Man” or “the new definitive, popular account of the autistic condition” (Burks-Abbott 294). Integral to its favourable reception is the way it conflates the autistic main character, the fifteen-year-old narrator Christopher Boone, with the savant, or individual who exhibits both neurological problems and giftedness, thereby engaging with the way autism is presented in popular culture. In a variety of contemporary films and television series, autism has been transformed from a disability to a form of giftedness by relating it to abilities associated in contemporary media with a genius, in particular by invoking the metaphor of an autistic mind as a type of computer. As a result, the book engages with the current association of giftedness in mathematics and science with social awkwardness and isolation as constructed in popular culture: in idiomatic terms, the genius “nerd” figure characterised by an uncertain, adolescent approach to social contact (Kendall 353). The disablement of the character is, then, lessened so that the idea of being “special,” continually evoked throughout the text, has a transformative function that is related less to the special needs of those with a disability and more to the common element in adolescent fiction of longing for extraordinary power and control through being a special, gifted individual. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time relates the protagonist, Christopher, to Sherlock Holmes and his methods of detection, specifically through the title being taken from a story by Conan Doyle, “Silver Blaze,” in which the “curious incident” referred to is that the dog did nothing in the night. In the original story, that the dog did not bark or react to an intruder was a clue that the person was known to the animal, so allowing Holmes to solve the crime by a process of deduction. Christopher copies these traditional methods of the classical detective to solve his personal mystery, that of who killed a neighbour’s dog, Wellington. The adoption of this title allows a double irony to emerge. Christopher’s attempts to emulate Holmes in his approach to crime are predicated on his assumption of his likeness to the model of the classical detective as he states, “I think that if I were a proper detective he is the kind of detective I would be,” pointing out the similarity of their powers of observation and his ability, like Holmes, to “detach his mind at will” as well as his capacity to find patterns in events (92). Through the novel, these attributes are aligned with his autism, constructing a trope of his disability conferring extraordinary abilities that are predicated on a computer-like detachment and precision in his method of thinking. The accessible narrative of the autistic Christopher gives the reader the impression of being able to understand the perspective of an individual with a spectrum disorder. In this way, the text not only engages with, but contributes to the construction of this disability in current popular culture as merely an extension of giftedness, especially in mathematics, and an associated unwillingness to communicate. Indeed, according to Raoul Eshelman, “one of its most engaging narrative devices is to make us identify with a mentally impaired narrator who is manifestly not interested in identifying either with us or anyone else” (1). The main character’s reference to mathematical and scientific ideas exploits an interest in giftedness already established by popular literature and film, and engages with a transformation effected in popular culture of the genius as autistic, and its corollary of an autistic person as potentially a genius. Such a construction ranges from fictional characters like Sheldon in The Big Bang Theory, Charlie and his physicist colleagues in Numb3rs, and Raymond Babbitt in Rain Man, to real life characters or representative figures in reality series and feature films such as x + y, The Imitation Game, The Big Short, and the television program Beauty and the Geek. While never referring specifically to autism, all the real or fictional representations contribute to the construction of a stereotype in which behaviours on the autistic spectrum are linked to a talent in mathematics and the sciences. In addition to this, detectives in the classical crime fiction alluded to in the novel typically exhibit traits of superhuman powers of deduction, pattern making, and problem solving that engage with the popular notion of genius in general and mathematics in particular by possessing a mind like a computer. Such detectives from current television series as Saga from The Bridge and Spencer Reid from Criminal Minds exhibit distance, coldness, and lack of social awareness or empathy with others, and this is presented as the basis of their extraordinary ability to discern patterns and solve crime. Spencer Reid, for example, has three PhDs in Science disciplines and Mathematics. Charlie in the television series Numb3rs is also a genius who uses his mathematical abilities to not only find the solution to crime but also explain the maths behind it to his FBI colleagues, and, in conjunction, the audience. But the character with the clearest association to Christopher is, naturally, Sherlock Holmes, both as constructed in Conan Doyle’s original text and the current adaptations and transformations of it. The television series Sherlock and Elementary, as well as the films Sherlock Holmes and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows all invoke a version of Holmes in which his powers of deduction are associated with symptoms to be found in a spectrum disorder.Like Christopher, the classical detective is characterised by being cold, emotionless, distant, socially inept, and isolated, but also keenly observant, analytical, and scientific; one who approaches the crime as a puzzle to be solved (Cawelti 43) with computer-like precision. In what is considered to be the original detective story, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, Poe included a “pseudo-mathematical logic in his literary scenario” (Platten 255). In Conan Doyle’s stories, Holmes, too, adopts a mathematical and scientific approach to construct patterns from clues that he alone can discern, and thereby solve the crime. The depiction of investigators in contemporary media such as Charlie in Numb3rs engages with these origins so that he is objective, dispassionate, and able to relate to real-world problems only through the filter of mathematical formulae. Christopher is presented similarly by engaging with the idea of the detective as implied savant and relying on an ability to discern patterns for successful crime solving.The book links the disabling behaviours of autism with the savant, so that the stereotype of the mystic displaying both disability and giftedness in fiction of earlier ages has been transformed in contemporary literature to a figure with extraordinary powers related both to autism and to the contemporary form of mysticism: innate mathematical ability and computer-style calculation. Allied with what Murray terms the “unknown and ambiguous nature” of autism, it is characterised as “the alien within the human, the mystical within the rational, the ultimate enigma” (25) in a way that is in keeping with the current fascination with the nature of genius and its association with being “special,” a term continually evoked and discussed throughout the book by the main character. The chapters on scientific ideas relate to Christopher’s world view, filtered through a mathematical and analytical approach to life and relationships with other people. Christopher examines beliefs such as the concept of humanity as superior to other animals, and the idea of religion and creationism, that is, the idea of humanity itself as special, with a cold and logical approach. He similarly discusses the idea of the individual person as special, linking this to a metaphor of the human mind being a computer (203, 148). Christopher’s narrow perspective as a result of his autism is not presented as disabling so much as protective, because the metaphorical connection of his viewpoint to a computer provides him with distance. Although initially Christopher fails to realise the significance of events, this allows him to be “switched off” (103) from events that he finds traumatising.The transformative metaphor of an autistic individual thinking like a computer is also invoked through Christopher’s explanation of “why people think that their brains are special, and different from computers” (147). Indeed, both in terms of his tendency to retreat or by “pressing CTRL + ALT + DEL and shutting down programs and turning the computer off and rebooting” (178) in times of stress, Christopher metaphorically views himself as a computer. Such a perspective invokes yet another popular cultural reference through the allusion to the human brain as “Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation, sitting in his captain’s seat looking at a big screen” (147). But more importantly, the explanation refers to the basic premise of the book, that the text offers access to a condition that is inherently unknowable, but able to be understood by the reader through metaphor, often based on computers or technology as a result of a popular construction of autism that “the condition is the product of a brain in which the hard drive is incorrectly formatted” (Murray 25).Throughout the novel, the notion of “special” is presented as a trope for those with a disability, but as the protagonist, Christopher, points out, everyone is special in some way, so the whole idea of a disability as disabling is problematised throughout the text, while its associations of giftedness are upheld. Christopher’s disability, never actually designated as Asperger’s Syndrome or any type of spectrum disorder, is transformed into a protective mechanism that shields him from problematic social relationships of which he is unaware, but that the less naïve reader can well discern. In this way, rather than a limitation, the main character’s disorder protects him from a harsh reality. Even Christopher’s choice of Holmes as a role model is indicative of his desire to impose an eccentric order on his world, since this engages with a character in popular fiction who is famous not simply for his abilities, but for his eccentricity bordering on a form of autism. His aloof personality and cold logic not only fail to hamper him in his investigations, but these traits actually form the basis of them. The majority of recent adaptations of Conan Doyle’s stories, especially the BBC series Sherlock, depict Holmes with symptoms associated with spectrum disorder such as lack of empathy, difficulty in communication, and limited social skills, and these are clearly shown as contributing to his problem-solving ability. The trope of Christopher as detective also allows a parodic, postmodern comment on the classical detective form, because typically this fiction has a detective that knows more than the reader, and therefore the goal for the reader is to find the solution to the crime before it is revealed by the investigator in the final stages of the text (Rzepka 14). But the narrative works ironically in the novel since the non-autistic reader knows more than a narrator who is hampered by a limited worldview. From the beginning of the book, the narrative as focalised through Christopher’s narrow perspective allows a more profound view of events to be adopted by the reader, who is able to read clues that elude the protagonist. Christopher is well aware of this as he explains his attraction to the murder mystery novel, even though he has earlier stated he does not like novels since his inability to imagine or empathise means he is unable to relate to their fiction. For him, the genre of murder mystery is more akin to the books on maths and science that he finds comprehensible, because, like the classical detective, he views the crime as primarily a puzzle to be solved: as he states, “In a murder mystery novel someone has to work out who the murderer is and then catch them. It is a puzzle. If it is a good puzzle you can sometimes work out the answer before the end of the book” (5). But unlike Christopher, Holmes invariably knows more about the crime, can interpret the clues, and find the pattern, before other characters such as Watson, and especially the reader. In contrast, in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, the reader has more awareness of the probable context and significance of events than Christopher because, like a computer, he can calculate but not imagine. The reader can interpret clues within the plot of the story, such as the synchronous timing of the “death” of Christopher’s mother with the breakdown of the marriage of a neighbour, Mrs Shears. The astute reader is able to connect these events and realise that his mother has not died, but is living in a relationship with the neighbour’s husband. The construction of this pattern is denied Christopher, since he fails to determine their significance due to his limited imagination. Such a failure is related to Simon Baron-Cohen’s Theory of Mind, in which he proposes that autistic individuals have difficulty with social behaviour because they lack the capacity to comprehend that other people have individual mental states, or as Christopher terms it, “when I was little I didn’t understand about other people having minds” (145). Haddon utilises fictional licence when he allows Christopher to overcome such a limitation by a conscious shift in perspective, despite the specialist teacher within the text claiming that he would “always find this very difficult” (145). Christopher has here altered his view of events through his modelling both on the detective genre and on his affinity with mathematics, since he states, “I don’t find this difficult now. Because I decided that it was a kind of puzzle, and if something is a puzzle there is always a way of solving it” (145). In this way, the main character is shown as transcending symptoms of autism through the power of his giftedness in mathematics to ultimately discern a pattern in human relationships thereby adopting a computational approach to social problems.Haddon similarly explains the perspective of an individual with autism through a metaphor of Christopher’s memory being like a DVD recording. He is able to distance himself from his memories, choosing “Rewind” and then “Fast Forward” (96) to retrieve his recollection of events. This aspect of the precision of his memory relates to his machine-like coldness and lack of empathy for the feelings of others. But it also refers to the stereotype of the nerd figure in popular culture, where the nerd is able to relate more to a computer than to other people, exemplified in Sheldon from the television series The Big Bang Theory. Thus the presentation of Christopher’s autism relates to his giftedness in maths and science more than to areas that relate to his body. In general, descriptions of inappropriate or distressing bodily functions associated with disorders are mainly confined to other students at Christopher’s school. His references to his fellow students, such as Joseph eating his poo and playing in it (129) and his unsympathetic evaluation of Steve as not as clever or interesting as a dog because he “needs help to eat his food and could not even fetch a stick” (6), make a clear distinction between him and the other children, who despite being termed “special needs” are “special” in a different way from Christopher, because, according to him, “All the other children at my school are stupid” (56). While some reference is made to Christopher’s inappropriate behaviour in times of stress, such as punching a fellow student, wetting himself while on the train, and vomiting outside the school, in the main the emphasis is on his giftedness as a result of his autism, as displayed in the many chapters where he explains scientific and mathematical concepts. This is extrapolated into a further mathematical metaphor underlying the book, that he is like one of the prime numbers he finds so fascinating, because prime numbers do not fit neatly into the pattern of the number system, but they are essential and special nevertheless. Moreover, as James Berger suggests, prime numbers can “serve as figures for the autistic subject,” because like autistic individuals “they do not mix; they are singular, indivisible, unfactorable” yet “Mathematics could not exist without these singular entities that [. . .] are only apparent anomalies” (271).Haddon therefore offers a transformation by confounding autism with a computer-like ability to solve mathematical problems, so that the text is, as Haddon concedes, “as much about a gifted boy with behavior problems as it is about anyone on the autism spectrum” (qtd. in Burks-Abbott 291). Indeed, the word “autism” does not even appear in the book, while the terms “genius,” (140) “clever,” (32, 65, 252) and the like are continually being invoked in descriptions of Christopher, even if ironically. More importantly, the reader is constantly being shown his giftedness through the reiteration of his study of A Level Mathematics, and his explanation of scientific concepts. Throughout, Christopher explains aspects of mathematics, astrophysics, and other sciences, referring to such well-known puzzles in popular culture as the Monty Hall problem, as well as more obscure formulae and their proofs. They function to establish Christopher’s intuitive grasp of complex mathematical and scientific principles, as well as providing the reader with insight into both his perspective and the paradoxical nature of an individual who is at once able to solve quadratic equations in his head, yet is incapable of understanding the simple instruction, “Take the tube to Willesden Junction” (211).The presentation of Christopher is that of an individual who displays an extension of the social problems established in popular literature as connected to a talent for mathematics, therefore engaging with a depiction already existing in popular mythology: the isolated and analytical nerd or genius social introvert. Indeed, much of Christopher’s autistic behaviour functions to protect him from unsettling or traumatic information, since he fails to realise the significance of the information he collects or the clues he is given. His disability is therefore presented as not limiting so much as protective, and so the notion of disability is subsumed by the idea of the savant. The book, then, engages with a contemporary representation within popular culture that has transformed spectrum disability into mathematical giftedness, thereby metaphorically associating the autistic mind with the computer. ReferencesBaron-Cohen, Simon. Mindblindness: An Essay on Autism and Theory of Mind. Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 1995. Berger, James. “Alterity and Autism: Mark Haddon’s Curious Incident in the Neurological Spectrum.” Autism and Representation. Ed. Mark Osteen. Hoboken: Routledge, 2007. 271–88. Burks-Abbott, Gyasi. “Mark Haddon’s Popularity and Other Curious Incidents in My Life as an Autistic.” Autism and Representation. Ed. Mark Osteen. Hoboken: Routledge, 2007. 289–96. Cawelti, John G. Adventure, Mystery, and Romance: Formula Stories as Art and Popular Culture. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1976. Eshelman, Raoul. “Transcendence and the Aesthetics of Disability: The Case of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.” Anthropoetics: The Journal of Generative Anthropology 15.1 (2009). Haddon, Mark. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. London: Random House Children’s Books, 2004. Kendall, Lori. “The Nerd Within: Mass Media and the Negotiation of Identity among Computer-Using Men.” Journal of Men’s Studies 3 (1999): 353–67. Murray, Stuart. “Autism and the Contemporary Sentimental: Fiction and the Narrative Fascination of the Present.” Literature and Medicine 25.1 (2006): 24–46. Platten, David. “Reading Glasses, Guns and Robots: A History of Science in French Crime Fiction.” French Cultural Studies 12 (2001): 253–70. Rzepka, Charles J. Detective Fiction. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2005.

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Campbell, Sian Petronella. "On the Record: Time and The Self as Data in Contemporary Autofiction." M/C Journal 22, no.6 (December4, 2019). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1604.

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In January of this year, artist Christian Marclay’s 24-hour video installation The Clock came to Melbourne. As Ben Lerner explains in 10:04, the autofictional novel Lerner published in 2014, The Clock by Christian Marclay “is a clock: it is a twenty-four hour montage of thousands of scenes from movies and a few from TV edited together so as to be shown in real time; each scene indicates the time with a shot of a timepiece or its mention in dialogue, time in and outside of the film is synchronized” (52). I went to see The Clock at ACMI several times, with friends and alone, in the early morning and late at night. Each time I sank back into the comfortable chairs and settled into the communal experience of watching time pass on a screen in a dark room. I found myself sucked into the enforced narrative of time, the way in which the viewer – in this case myself, and those sharing the experience with me – sought to impose a sort of meaning on the arguably meaningless passing of the hours. In this essay, I will explore how we can expand our thinking of the idea of autofiction, as a genre, to include contemporary forms of digital media such as social media or activity trackers, as the authors of these new forms of digital media act as author-characters by playing with the divide between fact and fiction, and requiring their readers to ascertain meaning by interpreting the clues layered within. I will analyse the ways in which the meaning of autofictional texts—such as Lerner’s 10:04, but also including social media feeds, blogs and activity trackers—shifts depending on their audience. I consider that as technology develops, we increasingly use data to contextualise ourselves within a broader narrative – health data, media, journalistic data. As the sociologist John B. Thompson writes, “The development of the media not only enriches and transforms the process of self-formation, it also produces a new kind of intimacy which did not exist before … individuals can create and establish a form of intimacy which is essentially non-reciprocal” (208). New media and technologies have emerged to assist in this process of self-formation through the collection and publication of data. This essay is interested in analysing this process of self-formation, and its relationship to the genre of autofiction.Contemporary Digital Media as AutofictionWhile humans have always recorded themselves throughout history, with the rise of new technologies the instinct to record the self is increasingly becoming an automatic one; an instinct we can tie to what media theorist Nick Couldry terms as “presencing”: an “emerging requirement in everyday life to have a public presence beyond one’s bodily presence, to construct an objectification of oneself” (50). We are required to participate in ‘presencing’ by opting-in to new media; it is now uncommon – even unfavourable – for someone not to engage in any forms of social media or self-monitoring. We are now encouraged to participate in ‘presencing’ through the recording and online publication of data that would have once been considered private, such as employment histories and activity histories. Every Instagram photo, Snapchat or TikTok video contributes to an accumulating digital presence, an emerging narrative of the self. Couldry notes that presencing “is not the same as calling up a few friends to tell them some news; nor, although the audience is unspecific, is it like putting up something on a noticeboard. That is because presencing is oriented to a permanent site in public space that is distinctively marked by the producer for displaying that producer’s self” (50).In this way, we can see that in effect we are all becoming increasingly positioned to become autofiction authors. As an experimental form of literature, autofiction has been around for a long time, the term having first been introduced in the 1970s, and with Serge Doubrovsky widely credited with having introduced the genre with the publication of his 1977 novel Fils (Browning 49). In the most basic terms, autofiction is simply a work of fiction featuring a protagonist who can be interpreted as a stand-in for its author. And while autofiction is also confused with or used interchangeably with other genres such as metafiction or memoir, the difference between autofiction and other genres, writes Arnaud Schmitt, is that autoficton “relies on fiction—runs on fiction, to be exact” (141). Usually the reader can pick up on the fact that a novel is an autofictional one by noting that the protagonist and the author share a name, or key autobiographical details, but it is debatable as to whether the reader in fact needs to know that the work is autofictional in the first place in order to properly engage with it as a literary text.The same ideas can be applied to the application of digital media today. Kylie Cardell notes that “personal autobiographical but specifically diaristic (confessional, serial, quotidian) disclosure is increasingly positioned as a symptomatic feature of online life” (507). This ties in with Couldry’s idea of ‘presencing’; confession is increasingly a requirement when it comes to participation in digital media. As technology advances, the ways in which we can present and record the self evolve, and the narrative we can produce of the self expands alongside our understanding of the relationship between fact and fiction. Though of course we have always fabricated different narratives of the self, whether it be through diary entries or letter-writing, ‘presencing’ occurs when we literally present these edited versions of ourselves to an online audience. Lines become blurred between fiction and non-fiction, and the ability to distinguish between ‘fake’ and ‘real’ becomes almost impossible.Increasingly, such a distinction fails to seem important, and in some cases, this blurred line becomes the point, or a punchline; we can see this most clearly in TikTok videos, wherein people (specifically, or at least most typically, young people—Generation Z) play with ideas of truth and unreality ironically. When a teenager posts a video of themselves on TikTok dancing in their school cafeteria with the caption, “I got suspended for this, don’t let this flop”, the savvy viewer understands without it needing to be said that the student was not actually suspended – and also understands that even less outlandish or unbelievable digital content is unreliable by nature, and simply the narrative the author or producer wishes to convey; just like the savvy reader of an autofiction novel understands, without it actually being said, that the novel is in part autobiographical, even when the author and protagonist do not share a name or other easily identifiable markers.This is the nature of autofiction; it signals to the reader its status as a work of autofiction by littering intertextual clues throughout. Readers familiar with the author’s biography or body of work will pick up on these clues, creating a sense of uneasiness in the reader as they work to discern what is fact and what is not.Indeed, in 10:04, Lerner flags the text as a work of autofiction by sketching a fictional-not-fictional image of himself as an author of a story, ‘The Golden Vanity’ published in The New Yorker, that earned him a book deal—a story the ‘real’ Ben Lerner did in fact publish, two years before the publication of 10:04: “a few months before, the agent had e-mailed me that she believed I could get a “strong six-figure” advance based on a story of mine that had appeared in The New Yorker” (Lerner 4).In a review of 10:04 for the Sydney Review of Books, Stephanie Bishop writes:we learn that he did indeed write a proposal, that there was a competitive auction … What had just happened? Where are we in time? Was the celebratory meal fictional or real? Can we (and should we) seek to distinguish these categories?Here Lerner is ‘presencing’, crafting a multilayered version of himself across media by assuming that the reader of his work is also a reader of The New Yorker (an easy assumption to make given that his work often appears in, and is reviewed in, The New Yorker). Of course, this leads to the question: what becomes of autofiction when it is consumed by someone who is unable to pick up on the many metareferences layered within its narrative? In this case, the work itself becomes a joke that doesn’t land – much like a social media feed being consumed by someone who is not its intended audience.The savvy media consumer also understands that even the most meaningless or obtuse of media is all part of the overarching narrative. Lerner highlights the way we try and impose meaning onto (arguably) meaningless media when he describes his experience of watching time pass in Marclay’s The Clock:Big Ben, which I would come to learn appears frequently in the video, exploded, and people in the audience applauded… But then, a minute later, a young girl awakes from a nightmare and, as she’s comforted by her father (Clark Gable as Rhett Butler), you see Big Ben ticking away again outside their window, no sign of damage. The entire preceding twenty-four hours might have been the child’s dream, a storm that never happened, just one of many ways The Clock can be integrated into an overarching narrative. Indeed it was a greater challenge for me to resist the will to integration. (Lerner 52-53)This desire to impose an overarching narrative that Lerner speaks of – and which I also experienced when watching The Clock, as detailed in the introduction to this essay – is what the recording of the self both aims to achieve and achieves by default; it is the point and also the by-product. The Self as DataThe week my grandmother died, in 2017, my father bought me an Apple Watch. I had recently started running and—perhaps as an outlet for my grief—was looking to take my running further. I wanted a smart watch to help me record my runs; to turn the act of running into data that I could quantify and thus understand. This, in turn, would help me understand something about myself. Deborah Lupton explains my impulse here when she writes, “the body/self is portrayed as a conglomerate of quantifiable data that can be revealed using digital devices” (65). I wanted to reveal my ‘self’ by recording it, similar to the way the data accumulated in a diary, when reflected upon, helps a diarist understand their life more broadly. "Is a Fitbit a diary?”, asks Kylie Cardell. “The diary in the twenty-first century is already vastly different from many of its formal historical counterparts, yet there are discursive resonances. The Fitbit is a diary if we think of diary as a chronological record of data, which it can be” (348). The diary, as with the Apple Watch or Fitbit, is simply just a record of the self moving through time.Thus I submitted myself to the task of turning as much of myself into digital data as was possible to do so. Every walk, swim, meditation, burst of productivity, lapse in productivity, and beat of my heart became quantified, as Cardell might say, diarised. There is a very simple sort of pleasure in watching the red, green and blue rings spin round as you stand more, move more, run more. There is something soothing in knowing that at any given moment in time, you can press a button and see exactly what your heart is doing; even more soothing is knowing that at any given time, you can open up an app and see what your heart has been doing today, yesterday, this month, this year. It made sense to me that this data was being collected via my timepiece; it was simply the accumulation of my ‘self,’ as viewed through the lens of time.The Apple Watch was just the latest in a series of ways I have tasked technology with the act of quantifying myself; with my iPhone I track my periods with the Clue app. I measure my mental health with apps such as Shine, and my daily habits with Habitica. I have tried journaling apps such as Reflectly and Day One. While I have never actively tracked my food intake, or weight, or sex life, I know if I wanted to I could do this, too. And long before the Apple Watch, and long before my iPhone, too, I measured myself. In the late 2000s, I kept an online blog. Rebecca Blood notes that the development of blogging technology allowed blogging to become about “whatever came to mind. Walking to work. Last night’s party. Lunch” (54). Browning expands on this, noting that bloggingemerged as a mode of publication in the late ’90s, expressly smudging the boundaries of public and private. A diaristic mode, the blog nonetheless addresses (a) potential reader(s), often with great intimacy — and in its transition to print, as a boundary-shifting form with ill-defined goals regarding its readership. (49)(It is worth noting here that while of course many different forms of blogging exist and have always existed, this essay is only concerned with the diaristic blog that Blood and Browning speak of – arguably the most popular, and at least the most well known, form of blog.)My blog was also ostensibly about my own life, but really it was a work of autofiction, in the same way that my Apple Watch data, when shared, became a work of autofiction – which is to say that I became the central character, the author-character, whose narrative I was shaping with each post, using time as the setting. Jenny Davis writes:if self-quantifiers are seeking self-knowledge through numbers, then narratives and subjective interpretations are the mechanisms by which data morphs into selves. Self-quantifiers don’t just use data to learn about themselves, but rather, use data to construct the stories that they tell themselves about themselves.Over time, I became addicted to the blogging platform’s inbuilt metrics. I would watch with interest as certain posts performed better than others, and eventually the inevitable happened: I began – mostly unconsciously – to try and mould the content of my blogs to achieve certain outcomes – similar to the way that now, in 2019, it is hard to say whether I use an app to assist myself to meditate/journal/learn/etc, or whether I meditate/journal/learn/etc in order to record myself having done so.David Sedaris notes how the collection of data subconsciously, automatically leads to its manipulation in his essay collection, Calypso:for reasons I cannot determine my Fitbit died. I was devastated when I tapped the broadest part of it and the little dots failed to appear. Then I felt a great sense of freedom. It seemed that my life was now my own again. But was it? Walking twenty-five miles, or even running up the stairs and back, suddenly seemed pointless, since, without the steps being counted and registered, what use were they? (Sedaris, 49)In this way, the data we collect on and produce about ourselves, be it fitness metrics, blog posts, Instagram stories or works of literature or art, allows us to control and shape our own narrative, and so we do, creating what Kylie Cardell describes as “an autobiographical representation of self that is coherent and linear, “excavated” from a mass of personal data” (502).Of course, as foregrounded earlier, it is important to highlight the way ideas of privacy and audience shift in accordance with the type of media being consumed or created. Within different media, different author-characters emerge, and the author is required to participate in ‘presencing’ in different ways. For instance, data that exists only for the user does not require the user, or author, to participate in the act of ‘presencing’ at all – an example of this might be the Clue app, which records menstruation history. This information is only of interest to myself, and is not published or shared anywhere, with anyone. However even data intended for a limited audience still requires participation in ‘presencing’. While I only ‘share’ my Apple Watch’s activity with a few people, even just the act of sharing this activity influences the activity itself, creating an affect in which the fact of the content’s consumption shapes the creation of the content itself. Through consumption of Apple Watch data alone, a narrative can be built in which I am lazy, or dedicated, an early riser or a late sleeper, the kind of person who prefers setting their own goals, or the kind of person who enjoys group activities – and knowing that this narrative is being built requires me to act, consciously, in the experience of building it, which leads to the creation of something unreal or fictional interspersed with factual data. (All of which is to admit that sometimes I go on a run not because I want to go on a run, but because I want to be the sort of person who has gone on a run, and be seen as such: in this way I am ‘presencing’.)Similarly, the ephemeral versus permanent nature of data shared through media like Snapchat or Instagram dictates its status as a work of autofiction. When a piece of data – for instance, a photograph on Instagram – is published permanently, it contributes to an evolving autofictional narrative. The ‘Instagrammed’ self is both real and unreal, both fictional and non-fictional. The consumer of this data can explore an author’s social media feed dating back years and consume this data in exactly the way the author intends. However, the ‘stories’ function on Instagram, for instance, allows the consumption of this data to change again. Content is published for a limited amount of time—usually 24 hours—then disappears, and is able to be shared with either the author’s entire group of followers, or a select audience, allowing an author more creative freedom to choose how their data is consumed.Anxiety and AutofictionWhy do I feel the need to record all this data about myself? Obviously, this information is, to an extent, useful. If you are a person who menstruates, knowing exactly when your last period was, how long it lasted and how heavy it was is useful information to have, medically and logistically. If you run regularly, tracking your runs can be helpful in improving your time or routine. Similarly, recording the self in this way can be useful in keeping track of your moods, your habits, and your relationships.Of course, as previously noted, humans have always recorded ourselves. Cardell notes that “although the forms, conditions, and technology for diary keeping have changed, a motivation for recording, documenting, and accounting for the experience of the self over time has endured” (349). Still, it is hard to ignore the fact that ultimately, we seem to be entering some sort of age of digital information hoarding, and harder still to ignore the sneaking suspicion that this all seems to speak to a growing anxiety – and specifically, an anxiety of the self.Gayle Greene writes that “all writers are concerned with memory, since all writing is a remembrance of things past; all writers draw on the past, mine it as a quarry. Memory is especially important to anyone who cares about change, for forgetting dooms us to repetition” (291). If all writers are concerned with memory, as Greene posits, then perhaps we can draw the conclusion that autofiction writers are concerned with an anxiety of forgetting, or of being forgotten. We are self-conscious as authors of autofictional media; concerned with how our work is and will continue to be perceived – and whether it is perceived at all. Marjorie Worthington believes that that the rise in self-conscious fiction has resulted in an anxiety of obsolescence; that this anxiety in autofiction occurs “when a cultural trope (such as 'the author' is deemed to be in danger of becoming obsolete (or 'dying')” (27). However, it is worth considering the opposite – that an anxiety of obsolescence has resulted in a rise of self-conscious fiction, or autofiction.This fear of obsolescence is pervasive in new digital media – Instagram stories and Snapchats, which once disappeared forever into a digital void, are now able to be saved and stored. The fifteen minutes of fame has morphed into fifteen seconds: in this way, time works both for and against the anxious author of digital autofiction. Technologies evolve quicker than we can keep up, with popular platforms becoming obsolete at a rapid pace. This results in what Kylie Cardell sees as an “anxiety around the traces of lives accumulating online and the consequences of 'accidental autobiography,' as well as the desire to have a 'tidy,' representable, and 'storied' life” (503).This same desire can be seen at the root of autofiction. The media theorist José van Dijck notes thatwith the advent of photography, and later film and television, writing tacitly transformed into an interior means of consciousness and remembrance, whereupon electronic forms of media received the artificiality label…writing gained status as a more authentic container of past recollection. (15)Autofiction, however, disrupts this tacit transformation. It is a co-mingling of a desire to record the self, as well as a desire to control one’s own narrative. The drive to represent oneself in a specific way, with consideration to one’s audience and self-brand, has become the root of social media, but is so pervasive now that it is often an unexamined, subconscious one. In autofiction, this drive is not subconscious, it is self-conscious.ConclusionAs technology has developed, new ways to record, present and evaluate the self have emerged. While an impulse to self-monitor has always existed within society, with the rise of ‘presencing’ through social media this impulse has been made public. In this way, we can see presencing, or the public practice of self-performing through media, as an inherently autofictional practice. We can understand that the act of presencing stems from a place of anxiety and self-consciousness, and understand that is in fact impossible to create autofiction without self-consciousness. As we begin to understand that all digital media is becoming inherently autofictional in nature, we’re increasingly required to force to draw our own conclusions about the media we consume—just like the author-character of 10:04 is forced to draw his own conclusions about the passing of time, as represented by Big Ben, when interacting with Marclay’s The Clock. By analysing and comparing the ways in which the emerging digital landscape and autofiction both share a common goal of recording and preserving an interpretation of the ‘self’, we can then understand a deeper understanding of the purpose that autofiction serves. ReferencesBishop, Stephanie. “The Same but Different: 10:04 by Ben Lerner.” Sydney Review of Books 6 Feb. 2015. <https://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/10-04-ben-lerner/>.Blood, Rebecca. "How Blogging Software Reshapes the Online Community." Communications of the ACM 47.12 (2004): 53-55.Browning, Barbara. "The Performative Novel." TDR: The Drama Review 62.2 (2018): 43-58. Davis, Jenny. “The Qualified Self.” Cyborgology 13 Mar. 2013. <http://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2013/03/13/the-qualified-self/>.Cardell, Kylie. “The Future of Autobiography Studies: The Diary.” a/b: Auto/Biography Studies 32.2 (2017): 347-350.Cardell, Kylie. “Modern Memory-Making: Marie Kondo, Online Journaling, and the Excavation, Curation, and Control of Personal Digital Data.” a/b: Auto/Biography Studies 32.3 (2017): 499-517.Couldry, Nick. Media, Society, World: Social Theory and Digital Media Practice. Great Britain: Polity Press, 2012.Greene, Gayle. “Feminist Fiction and the Uses of Memory.” Signs 16.2 (1991): 290-321.Lerner, Ben. 10:04. London: Faber and Faber, 2014.Lerner, Ben. “The Golden Vanity.” The New Yorker 11 June 2012. <https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/06/18/the-golden-vanity>.Lupton, Deborah. “You Are Your Data: Self-Tracking Practices and Concepts of Data.” Lifelogging. Ed. Stefan Selke. Wiesbaden: Springer, 2016. 61-79.Schmitt, Arnaud. “David Shields's Lyrical Essay: The Dream of a Genre-Free Memoir, or beyond the Paradox.” a/b: Auto/Biography Studies 31.1 (2016): 133-146.Sedaris, David. Calypso. United States: Little Brown, 2018.Thompson, John B. The Media and Modernity: A Social Theory of the Media. California: Stanford University Press, 1995.Van Dijck, José. Mediated Memories in the Digital Age. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2007.Worthington, Marjorie. The Story of "Me": Contemporary American Autofiction. Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 2018.

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Nolan, Huw, Jenny Wise, and Lesley McLean. "The Clothes Maketh the Cult." M/C Journal 26, no.1 (March15, 2023). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.2971.

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Abstract:

Introduction Many people interpret the word ‘cult’ through specific connotations, including, but not limited to, a community of like-minded people on the edge of civilization, often led by a charismatic leader, with beliefs that are ‘other’ to societal ‘norms’. Cults are often perceived as deviant, regularly incorporating elements of crime, especially physical and sexual violence. The adoption by some cults of a special uniform or dress code has been readily picked up by popular culture and has become a key ‘defining’ characteristic of the nature of a cult. In this article, we use the semiotic framework of myth, as discussed by Barthes, to demonstrate how cult uniforms become semiotic myths of popular culture. Narratively, the myth of the cult communicates violence, deviance, manipulation, and brainwashing. The myth of on-screen cults has derived itself from a reflexive pop culture foundation. From popular culture inspiring cults to cults inspiring popular culture and back again, society generates its cult myth through three key mechanisms: medicalisation, deviance amplification, and convergence. This means we are at risk of misrepresenting the true nature of cults, creating a definition incongruent with reality. This article traces the history of cults, the expectations of cult behaviour, and the semiotics of uniforms to start the discussion on why society is primed to accept a confusion between nature and the semiotic messaging of “what-goes-without-saying” (Barthes Mythologies 11). Semiotics and Myth Following the basic groundwork of de Saussure in the early 1900s, semiotics is the study of signs and how we use signs to derive meaning from the external world (de Saussure). Barthes expanded on this with his series of essays in Mythologies, adding a layer of connotation that leads to myth (Barthes Mythologies). Connotation, as described by Barthes, is the interaction between signs, feelings, and values. The connotations assigned to objects and concepts become a system of communication that is a message, the message becomes myth. The myth is not defined by the object or concept, but by the way society collectively understands it and all its connotations (Barthes Elements of Semiology 89-91). For scholars like Barthes, languages and cultural artifacts lend themselves to myth because many of our concepts are vague and abstract. Because the concept is vague, it is easy to impose our own values and ideologies upon it. This also means different people can interpret the same concept in different ways (Barthes Mythologies 132). The concept of a cult is no exception. Cults mean different things to different people and the boundaries between cults and religious or commercial organisations are often contested. As a pop culture artifact, the meaning of cults has been generated through repeated exposure in different media and genres. Similarly, pop culture (tv, films, news, etc.) often has the benefit of fiction, which separates itself from the true nature of cults (sensu Barthes Mythologies). Yet, through repeated exposure, we begin to share a universal meaning for the term and all the behaviours understood within the myth. Our repeated exposure to the signs of cults in pop culture is the combined effect of news media and fiction slowly building upon itself in a reflexive manner. We hear news reports of cults behaving in obscure ways, followed by a drama, parody, critique, or satire in a fictitious story. The audience then begins to see the repeated narrative as evidence to the true nature of cults. Over time the myth of the cult naturalises into the zeitgeist as concretely as any other sign, word, or symbol. Once the myth is naturalised, it is better used as a narrative device when affixed to a universally recognised symbol, such as the uniform. The uniform becomes an efficient device for communicating meaning in a short space of time. We argue that the concept of cult as myth has entered a collective understanding, and so, it is necessary to reflect on the mechanisms that drove the correlations which ultimately created the myth. Barthes’s purpose for analysing myth was “to track down, in the decorative display of what-goes-without-saying, the ideological abuse which, in my view, is hidden there” (Barthes Mythologies 11). For this reason, we must briefly look at the history of cults and their relationship with crime. A Brief History of Cults ‘Cult’ derives from the Latin root, cultus, or cultivation, and initially referred to forms of religious worship involving special rituals and ceremonies directed towards specific figures, objects, and/or divine beings. Early to mid-twentieth century sociologists adopted and adapted the term to classify a kind of religious organisation and later to signal new forms of religious expression not previously of primary or singular interest to the scholar of religion (Campbell; Jackson and Jobling; Nelson). The consequences were such that ‘cult’ came to carry new weight in terms of its meaning and reception, and much like other analytical concepts developed an intellectual significance regarding religious innovation it had not previously possessed. Unfortunately, this was not to last. By the early 1990s, ‘cult’ had become a term eschewed by scholars as pejorative, value-laden, and disparaging of its supposed subject matter; a term denuded of technical and descriptive meaning and replaced by more value-neutral alternatives (Dillon and Richardson; Richardson; Chryssides and Zeller). Results from well-published surveys (Pfeifer; Olson) and our own experience in teaching related subject matter revealed predominantly negative attitudes towards the term ‘cult’, with the inverse true for the alternative descriptors. Perhaps more importantly, the surveys revealed that for the public majority, knowledge of ‘cults’ came via media reportage of particularly the sensational few, rather than from direct experience of new religions or their members more generally (Pfeifer). For example, the Peoples Temple, Branch Davidian, and Heaven’s Gate groups featured heavily in news and mass media. Importantly, reporting of each of the tragic events marking their demise (in 1978, 1993, and 1997 respectively) reinforced a burgeoning stereotype and escalated fears about cults in our midst. The events in Jonestown, Guyana (Peoples Temple), especially, bolstered an anticult movement of purported cult experts and deprogrammers offering to save errant family members from the same fate as those who died [there]. The anticult movement portrayed all alleged cults as inherently dangerous and subject only to internal influences. They figured the charismatic leader as so powerful that he could take captive the minds of his followers and make them do whatever he wanted. (Crockford 95) While the term ‘new religious movement’ (NRM) has been used in place of cults within the academic sphere, ‘cult’ is still used within popular culture contexts precisely because of the connotations it inspires, with features including charismatic leaders, deprogrammers, coercion and mind-control, deception, perversion, exploitation, deviance, religious zealotry, abuse, violence, and death. For this reason, we still use the word cult to mean the myth of the cult as represented by popular culture. Representations of Cults and Expectations of Crime Violence and crime can be common features of some cults. Most NRMs “stay within the boundaries of the law” and practice their religion peacefully (Szubin, Jensen III, and Gregg 17). Unfortunately, it is usually those cults that are engaged in violence and crime that become newsworthy, and thus shape public ‘knowledge’ about the nature of cults and drive public expectations. Two of America’s most publicised cults, Charles Manson and the Manson Family and the Peoples Temple, are synonymous with violence and crime. Prior to committing mass suicide by poison in Jonestown, the Peoples Temple accumulated many guns as well as killing Congressman Leo Ryan and members of his party. Similarly, Charles Manson and the Manson Family stockpiled weapons, participated in illegal drug use, and murdered seven people, including Hollywood actor Sharon Tate. The high-profile victims of both groups ensured ongoing widespread media attention and continuous popular culture interest in both groups. Other cults are more specifically criminal in nature: for example, the Constanzo group in Matamoros, while presenting as a cult, are also a drug gang, leading to many calling these groups narco-cults (Kail 56). Sexual assault and abuse are commonly associated with cults. There have been numerous media reports worldwide on the sexual abuse of (usually) women and/or children. For example, a fourteen-year-old in the Children of God group alleged that she was raped when she disobeyed a leader (Rudin 28). In 2021, the regional city of Armidale, Australia, became national news when a former soldier was arrested on charges of “manipulating a woman for a ‘cult’ like purpose” (McKinnell). The man, James Davis, styles himself as the patriarch of a group known as the ‘House of Cadifor’. Police evidence includes six signed “slavery contracts”, as well as 70 witnesses to support the allegation that Mr Davis subjected a woman to “ongoing physical, sexual and psychological abuse and degradation” as well as unpaid prostitution and enslavement (McKinnell). Cults and Popular Culture The depiction of cults in popular culture is attracting growing attention. Scholars Lynn Neal (2011) and Joseph Laycock (2013) have initiated this research and identified consistent stereotypes of 'cults’ being portrayed throughout popular media. Neal found that cults began to be featured in television shows as early as the 1950s and 1960s, continually escalating until the 1990s before dropping slightly between 2000 and 2008 (the time the research was concluded). Specifically, there were 10 episodes between 1958-1969; 19 in the 1970s, which Neal attributes to the “rise of the cult scare and intense media scrutiny of NRMs” (97); 25 in the 1980s; 72 in the 1990s; and 59 between 2000 and 2008. Such academic research has identified that popular culture is important in the formation of the public perception, and social definition, of acceptable and deviant religions (Laycock 81). Laycock argues that representations of cults in popular culture reinforces public narratives about cults in three important ways: medicalisation, deviance amplification, and convergence. Medicalisation refers to the depiction of individuals becoming brainwashed and deprogrammed. The medicalisation of cults can be exacerbated by the cult uniform and clinical, ritualistic behaviours. Deviance amplification, a term coined by Leslie Wilkins in the 1960s, is the phenomenon of ‘media hype’, where the media selects specific examples of deviant behaviour, distorting them (Wilkins), such that a handful of peripheral cases appears representative of a larger social problem (Laycock 84). Following the deviance amplification, there is then often a 'moral panic' (a term coined by Stanley Cohen in 1972) where the problem is distorted and heightened within the media. Cults are often subject to deviance amplification within the media, leading to moral panics about the ‘depraved’, sexual, criminal, and violent activities of cults preying on and brainwashing innocents. Convergence “is a rhetorical device associated with deviance amplification in which two or more activities are linked so as to implicitly draw a parallel between them” (Laycock 85). An example of convergence occurred when the Branch Davidians were compared to the Peoples Temple, ultimately leading the FBI “to end the siege through an aggressive ‘dynamic entry’ in part because they feared such a mass suicide” (Laycock 85). The FBI transferred responsibility for the deaths to ‘mass suicide’, which has become the common narrative of events at Waco. Each of the three mechanisms have an important role to play in the popular culture presentation of cults to audiences. Popular media sources, fictional or not, are incentivised to present the most diabolical cult to the audience – and this often includes the medicalised elements of brainwashing and manipulation. This presentation reinforces existing deviance amplification and moral panics around the depraved activities of cults, and in particular sexual and criminal activities. And finally, convergence acts as a 'cultural script’ where the portrayal of these types of characteristics (brainwashing, criminal or violent behaviour, etc.) is automatically associated with cults. As Laycock argues, “in this way, popular culture has a unique ability to promote convergence and, by extension, deviance amplification” (85). The mechanisms of medicalisation, deviance amplification and convergence are important to the semiotic linking of concepts, signs, and signifiers in the process of myth generation. In efficiently understanding the message of the myth, the viewer must have a sign they can affix to it. In the case of visual mediums this must be immediate and certain. As many of the convergent properties of cults are behavioural (acts of violence and depravity, charismatic leaders, etc.), we need a symbol that audiences can understand immediately. Uniforms achieve this with remarkable efficiency. Upon seeing a still, two-dimensional image of people wearing matching garb it can be made easily apparent that they are part of a cult. Religious uniforms are one of the first visual images one conjures upon hearing the word cult: “for most people the word ‘cult’ conjures up ‘60s images of college students wearing flowing robes, chanting rhythmically and spouting Eastern philosophy” (Salvatore cited in Petherick 577; italics in original). The impact is especially pronounced if the clothes are atypical, anachronistic, or otherwise different to the expected clothes of the context. This interpretation then becomes cemented through the actions of the characters. In Rick and Morty, season 1, episode 10, Morty is imprisoned with interdimensional versions of himself. Despite some morphological differences, each Morty is wearing his recognisable yellow top and blue pants. While our Morty’s back is turned, five hooded, robed figures in atypical garb with matching facial markings approach Morty. The audience is immediately aware that this is a cult. The comparison between the uniform of Morty and the Morty cult exemplifies the use of cult uniform in the myth of Cults. The cult is then cemented through chanting and a belief in the “One true Morty” (Harmon et al.). Semiotics, Clothes, and Uniforms The semiotics of clothes includes implicit, explicit, and subliminal signs. The reasons we choose to wear what we wear is governed by multiple factors both within our control and outside of it: for instance, our body shape, social networks and economic status, access to fashion and choice (Barthes The Fashion System; Hackett). We often choose to communicate aspects of our identity through what we wear or what we choose not to wear. Our choice of clothing communicates aspects of who we are, but also who we want to be (Hackett; Simmel; Veblen) Uniforms are an effective and efficient communicative device. Calefato’s classification of uniforms is not only as those used by military and working groups, but also including the strictly coded dress of subcultures. Unlike other clothes which can be weakly coded, uniforms differentiate themselves through their purposeful coded signalling system (Calefato). To scholars such as Jennifer Craik, uniforms intrigue us because they combine evident statements as well as implied and subliminal communications (Craik). Theories about identity predict that processes similar to the defining of an individual are also important to group life, whereby an individual group member's conceptualisation of their group is derived from the collective identity (Horowitz; Lauger). Collective identities are regularly emphasised as a key component in understanding how groups gain meaning and purpose (Polletta and Jasper). The identity is generally constructed and reinforced through routine socialisation and collective action. Uniforms are a well-known means of creating collective identities. They restrict one’s clothing choices and use boundary-setting rituals to ensure commitment to the group. In general, the more obvious the restriction, the easier it is to enforce. Demanding obvious behaviours from members, unique to the community, simultaneously generates a differentiation between the members and non-members, while enabling self-enforcement and peer-to-peer judgments of commitment. Leaders of religious movements like cults and NRMs will sometimes step back from the punitive aspects of nonconformity. Instead, it falls to the members to maintain the discipline of the collective (Kelley 109). This further leads to a sense of ownership and therefore belonging to the community. Uniforms are an easy outward-facing signal that allows for ready discrimination of error. Because they are often obvious and distinctive dress, they constrain and often stigmatise members. In other collective situations such as with American gangs, even dedicated members will deny their gang affiliation if it is advantageous to do so (Lauger Real Gangstas). While in uniform, individuals cannot hide their membership, making the sacrifice more costly. Members are forced to take one hundred percent of the ownership and participate wholly, or not at all. Through this mechanism, cults demonstrate the medicalisation of the members. Leaders may want their members to be unable to escape or deny affiliation. Similarly, their external appearances might invite persecution and therefore breed resilience, courage, and solidarity. It is, in essence, a form of manipulation (see for instance Iannaccone). Alternatively, as Melton argues, members may want to be open and proud of their organisation, as displayed through them adopting their uniforms (15). The uniform of cults in popular media is a principal component of medicalisation, deviance amplification, and convergence. The uniform, often robes, offers credence to the medicalisation aspect: members of cults are receiving ‘treatment’ — initially, negative treatment while being brainwashed, and then later helpful/saving treatment when being deprogrammed, providing they survive a mass suicide attempt and/or, criminal, sexual, or violent escapades. Through portraying cult members in a distinctive uniform, there is no doubt for the audience who is receiving or in need of treatment. Many of the cults portrayed on screen can easily communicate the joining of a cult by changing the characters' dress. Similarly, by simply re-dressing the character, it is communicated that the character has returned to normal, they have been saved, they are a survivor. In Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, while three of the four ‘Mole women’ integrate back into society, Gretchen Chalker continues to believe in their cult; as such she never takes of her cult uniform. In addition, the employment of uniforms for cult members in popular culture enables an instant visual recognition of ‘us’ and ‘them’, or ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’, and reinforces stereotypical notions of social order and marginalised, deviant (religious) groups (Neal 83). The clothing differences are obvious in The Simpsons season 9, episode 13, “Joy of Sect”: ‘Movementarian’ members, including the Simpsons, don long flowing robes. The use of cult uniform visualises their fanatical commitment to the group. It sets them apart from the rest of Springfield and society (Neal 88-89). The connection between uniforms and cults derives two seemingly paradoxical meanings. Firstly, it reduces the chances of the audience believing that the cult employed ‘deceptive recruiting’ techniques. As Melton argues, because of the association our society has with uniforms and cults, “it is very hard for someone to join most new religions, given their peculiar dress and worship practices, without knowing immediately its religious nature” (14). As such, within popular media, the presence of the uniform increases the culpability of those who join the cult. Contrarily, the character in uniform is a sign that the person has been manipulated and/or brainwashed. This reduces the culpability of the cult member. However, the two understandings are not necessarily exclusive. It is possible to view the cult member as a naïve victim, someone who approached the cult as an escape from their life but was subsequently manipulated into behaving criminally. This interpretation is particularly powerful because it indicates cults can prey on anyone, and that anyone could become a victim of a cult. This, in turn, heightens the moral panic surrounding cults and NRMs. The on-screen myth of the cult as represented by its uniform has a basis in the real-life history of NRMs. Heaven’s Gate members famously died after they imbibed fatal doses of alcohol and barbiturates to achieve their ‘final exit’. Most members were found laid out on beds covered in purple shrouds, all wearing matching black shirts, black pants, and black and white Nike shoes. The famous photos of Warren Jeffs’s polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the subject of Netflix’s Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey, depict multiple women in matching conservative dresses with matching hairstyles gathered around a photo of Jeffs. The image and uniform are a clear influence on the design of Unbreakable’s ‘Mole women’. A prime example of the stereotype of cult uniforms is provided by the Canadian comedy program The Red Green Show when the character Red tells Harold “cults are full of followers, they have no independent thought, they go to these pointless meetings ... they all dress the same” (episode 165). The statement is made while the two main characters Red and Harold are standing in matching outfits. Blurring Nature and Myth Importantly, the success of these shows very much relies on audiences having a shared conception of NRMs and the myth of the cult. This is a curious combination of real and fictional knowledge of the well-publicised controversial events in history. Fictional cults frequently take widely held perspectives of actual religious movements and render them either more absurd or more frightening (Laycock 81). Moreover, the blurring of fictional and non-fictional groups serves to reinforce the sense that all popular culture cults and their real-world counterparts are the same; that they all follow a common script. In this, there is convergence between the fictional and the real. The myth of the cult bleeds from the screen into real life. The Simpsons’ “The Joy of Sect” was televised in the year following the suicide of the 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate group, and the storyline in part was influenced by it. Importantly, as a piercing, satirical critique of middle-class America, the “Joy of Sect” not only parodied traditional and non-traditional religion generally (as well as the ‘cult-like’ following of mass media such as Fox); scholars have shown that it also parodied the ‘cult’ stereotype itself (Feltmate). While Heaven’s Gate influenced to a greater or lesser extent each of the TV shows highlighted thus far, it was also the case that the group incorporated into its eschatology aspects of popular culture linked primarily to science fiction. For example, group members were known to have regularly watched and discussed episodes of Star Trek (Hoffmann and Burke; Sconce), adopting aspects of the show’s vernacular in “attempts to relate to the public” (Gate 163). Words such as ‘away-team’, ‘prime-directive’, ‘hologram’, ‘Captain’, ‘Admiral’, and importantly ‘Red-Alert’ were adopted; the latter, often signalling code-red situations in Star Trek episodes, appeared on the Heaven’s Gate Website in the days just prior to their demise. Importantly, allusions to science fiction and Star Trek were incorporated into the group’s self-styled ‘uniform’ worn during their tragic ritual-suicide. Stitched into the shoulders of each of their uniforms were triangular, Star Trek-inspired patches featuring various celestial bodies along with a tagline signalling the common bond uniting each member: “Heaven’s Gate Away Team” (Sconce). Ironically, with replica patches readily for sale online, and T-shirts and hoodies featuring modified though similar Heaven’s Gate symbolism, this ‘common bond’ has been commodified in such a way as to subvert its original meaning – at least as it concerned ‘cult’ membership in the religious context. The re-integration of cult symbols into popular culture typifies the way we as a society detachedly view the behaviours of cults. The behaviour of cults is anecdotally viewed through a voyeuristic lens, potentially exacerbated by the regular portrayals of cults through parody. Scholars have demonstrated how popular culture has internationally impacted on criminological aspects of society. For instance, there was a noted, international increase in unrealistic expectations of jurors wanting forensic evidence during court cases after the popularity of forensic science in crime dramas (Franzen; Wise). After the arrest of James Davis in Armidale, NSW, Australia, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that Davis was the patriarch of the “House of Cadifor” and he was part of a “cult” (both reported in inverted commas). The article also includes an assumption from Davis's lawyer that, in discussing the women of the group, “the Crown might say ‘they’ve been brainwashed’”. Similarly, the article references the use of matching collars by the women (Mitchell). Nine News reported that the “ex-soldier allegedly forced tattooed, collared sex slave into prostitution”, bringing attention to the clothing as part of the coercive techniques of Davis. While the article does not designate the House of Cadifor as a cult, they include a quote from the Assistant Commissioner Justine Gough, “Mr Davis' group has cult-like qualities”, and included the keyword ‘cults’ for the article. Regrettably, the myth of cults and real-world behaviours of NRMs do not always align, and a false convergence is drawn between the two. Furthermore, the consistent parodying and voyeuristic nature of on-screen cults means we might be at fault of euphemising the crimes and behaviours of those deemed to be part of a ‘cult’. Anecdotally, the way Armidale locals discussed Davis was through a lens of excitement and titillation, as if watching a fictional story unfold in their own backyard. The conversations and news reporting focussed on the cult-like aspects of Davis and not the abhorrence of the alleged crimes. We must remain mindful that the cinematic semiology of cults and the myth as represented by their uniform dress and behaviours is incongruent with the nature of NRMs. However, more work needs to be done to better understand the impact of on-screen cults on real-world attitudes and beliefs. Conclusion The myth of the cult has entered a shared understanding within today’s zeitgeist, and the uniform of the cult stands at its heart as a key sign of the myth. Popular culture plays a key role in shaping this shared understanding by following the cultural script, slowly layering fact with fiction, just as fact begins to incorporate the fiction. The language of the cult as communicated through their uniforms is, we would argue, universally understood and purposeful. The ubiquitous representation of cults portrays a deviant group, often medicalised, and subject to deviance amplification and convergence. When a group of characters is presented to the audience in the same cult dress, we know what is being communicated to us. Fictional cults in popular culture continue to mirror the common list of negative features attributed to many new religious movements. Such fictional framing has come to inform media-consumer attitudes in much the same way as news media, reflecting as they do the cultural stock of knowledge from which our understandings are drawn, and which has little grounding in the direct or immediate experience of the phenomena in question. In short, the nature of NRMs has become confused with the myth of the cult. More research is needed to understand the impact of the myth of the cult. However, it is important to ensure “what-goes-without-saying” is not obfuscating, euphemising, or otherwise misrepresenting nature. References Barthes, Roland. Elements of Semiology. London: Jonathon Cape, 1967. ———. The Fashion System. U of California P, 1990. ———. Mythologies. Trans. Annette Lavers. New York: Hill and Wang, 1972. Calefato, Patrizia. "Clothing as Jargon: On the Sociosemiotics of the Uniform." Zeitschrift für Semiotik 27.3 (2005): 241-52. Campbell, Bruce. "A Typology of Cults." Sociological Analysis 39.3 (1978): 228-40. Chryssides, George D., and Benjamin E. Zeller. "Opposition to NRMs." The Bloomsbury Companion to New Religious Movements. Eds. George D. Chryssides and Benjamin E. Zeller. London: Bloomsbury, 2014. 163-78. "Close Rick-counters of the Rick Kind." Rick and Morty. Dir. Stephen Sandoval. Cartoon Network. 7 Apr. 2014. Cohen, Stanley. Folk Devils and Moral Panics. Routledge, 2011. Craik, Jennifer. "The Cultural Politics of the Uniform." Fashion Theory 7.2 (2003): 127-47. Crockford, Susannah. "How Do You Know When You’re in a Cult? The Continuing Influence of Peoples Temple and Jonestown in Contemporary Minority Religions and Popular Culture." Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 22.2 (2018): 93-114.. “Cult Visit, The.” The Red and Green Show. S&S Production. 1998. De Saussure, Ferdinand. "Nature of the Linguistic Sign." Course in General Linguistics 1 (1916): 65-70. Dillon, Jane, and James Richardson. "The ‘Cult' Concept: A Politics of Representation Analysis." SYZYGY: Journal of Alternative Religion and Culture 3 (1994): 185-97. Feltmate, David. "The Humorous Reproduction of Religious Prejudice: 'Cults' and Religious Humour in the Simpsons, South Park, and King of the Hill." The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture 24.2 (2012): 201-16. Franzen, R. "CSI Effect on Potential Jurors Has Some Prosecutors Worried." San Diego Union-Tribune 16 (2002). Hackett, Lisa J. "‘Biography of the Self’: Why Australian Women Wear 1950s Style Clothing." Fashion, Style & Popular Culture 9.1-2 (2022): 1-2. Heavens Gate. How and When "Heaven's Gate" May Be Entered: An Anthology of Our Materials. Mill Spring, NC: Wild Flower P, 1997. Hoffmann, Bill, and Cathy Burke. Heaven's Gate: Cult Suicide in San Diego. HarperCollins, 1997. Horowitz, Ruth. Honor and the American Dream: Culture and Identity in a Chicano Community. Rutgers UP, 1983. Iannaccone, Laurence R. "Why Strict Churches Are Strong." American Journal of Sociology 99.5 (1994): 1180-211. Jackson, John A., and R. Jobling. "Toward an Analysis of Contemporary Cults." A Sociological Yearbook of Religion in Britain. Ed. David Martin. London: SCM, 1968. "The Joy of Sect." The Simpsons. Dir. S.D. Moore. Fox, 1998. Kail, Tony M. Narco-Cults: Understanding the Use of Afro-Caribbean and Mexican Religious Cultures in the Drug Wars. CRC Press, 2017. Kelley, Dean M. Why Conservative Churches Are Growing: A Study in Sociology of Religion. New York: Harper and Row, 1972. Lauger, Timothy R. "Gangs, Identity, and Cultural Performance." Sociology Compass 14.4 (2020): e12772. ———. Real Gangstas: Legitimacy, Reputation, and Violence in the Intergang Environment. Ithaca, NY: Rutgers UP, 2012. McKinnell, Jamie. "Alleged Sex 'Cult' Leader James Davis's Trial Will Hear from 70 Witnesses, Court Hears." ABC News 2021. Melton, J. Gordon. Encyclopedic Handbook of Cults in America. Routledge, 2014. Mitchell, Georgina. "James Davis Refused Bail over ‘Holding Woman as Slave, Coercing Her into Sex Work’." The Sydney Morning Herald 17 Mar. 2021. <https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/james-davis-refused-bail-over-holding-woman-as-slave-coercing-her-into-sex-work-20210317-p57bn7.html>. Nelson, Geoffrey K. "The Spiritualist Movement and the Need for a Redefinition of Cult." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 8.1 (1969): 152-60. Nine News. "Ex-Soldier Allegedly Forced Tattooed, Collared Sex Slave into Prostitution." Nine News Mar. 2021. <https://www.9news.com.au/national/james-davis-house-of-cadifor-alleged-slave-forced-into-sex/48738435-74cd-403d-acc9-e998f7cad08c>. Olson, Paul J. "The Public Perception of 'Cults' and 'New Religious Movements'." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 45.1 (2006): 97-106. Petherick, Wayne. "Chapter 20 – Cults." The Psychology of Criminal and Antisocial Behavior. Eds. Wayne Petherick and Grant Sinnamon. Academic Press, 2017. 565-88. Pfeifer, Jeffrey E. "The Psychological Framing of Cults: Schematic Representations and Cult Evaluations." Journal of Applied Social Psychology 22.7 (1992): 531-44. Polletta, Francesca, and James M. Jasper. "Collective Identity and Social Movements." Annual Review of Sociology 27 (2001): 283-305. Richardson, James T. "Definitions of Cult: From Sociological-Technical to Popular-Negative." Review of Religious Research 34.4 (1993): 348-56.. Rudin, Marcia R. "The Cult Phenomenon: Fad or Fact." NYU Rev. L. & Soc. Change 9 (1979): 17. Salvatore, D. "Soul Searching: Cults Targeting an Older Pool of Recruits." Ladies Home Journal, Chicago Sun Times 1987. Sconce, Jeffrey. "Star Trek, Heaven’s Gate, and Textual Transcendence." Cult Television (2004): 199-222. Simmel, Georg. "Fashion." International Quarterly 10.1 (1904): 136. Szubin, Adam, Carl J. Jensen III, and Rod Gregg. "Interacting with Cults: A Policing Model." FBI L. Enforcement Bull. 69 (2000): 16. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Netflix, 2020. Veblen, Thorstein. The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions. London: Allen & Unwin, 1924. Wilkins, Leslie T. Social Deviance: Social Policy, Action and Research. Routledge, 2013. Wise, Jenny. "Providing the CSI Treatment: Criminal Justice Practitioners and the CSI Effect." Current Issues in Criminal Justice 21.3 (2010): 383-99.

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Servais, Olivier, and Sarah Sepulchre. "Towards an Ordinary Transmedia Use: A French Speaker’s Transmedia Use of Worlds in Game of Thrones MMORPG and Series." M/C Journal 21, no.1 (March14, 2018). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1367.

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Game of Thrones (GoT) has become the most popular way of referring to a universe that was previously known under the title A Song of Ice and Fire by fans of fantasy novels. Indeed, thanks to its huge success, the TV series is now the most common entry into what is today a complex narrative constellation. Game of Thrones began as a series of five novels written by George R. R. Martin (first published in 1996). It was adapted as a TV series by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss for HBO in 2011, as a comic book series (2011—2014), several video games (Blood of Dragons, 2007; A Game of Thrones: Genesis, 2011; Game of Thrones, 2012; Game of Thrones Ascent, 2013; Game of Thrones, 2014), as well as several prequel novellas, a card game (A Game of Thrones: The Card Game, 2002), and a strategy board game (2003), not to mention the promotional transmedia developed by Campfire to bring the novels’ fans to the TV series. Thus, the GoT ensemble does indeed look like a form of transmedia, at least at first sight.Game of Thrones’ UniverseGenerally, definitions of transmedia assemble three elements. First, transmedia occurs when the content is developed on several media, “with each new text making a distinctive and valuable contribution to the whole. … Each franchise entry needs to be self-contained so you don’t need to have seen the film to enjoy the game, and vice versa” (Jenkins 97-98). The second component is the narrative world. The authors of Transmédia Dans Tous Ses États notice that transmedia stories “are in some cases reduced to a plain link between two contents on two media, with no overall vision” (Collective 4). They consider these ensembles weak. For Gambarato, the main point of transmedia is “the worldbuilding experience, unfolding content and generating the possibilities for the story to evolve with new and pertinent content,” what Jenkins called “worldmaking” (116). The third ingredient is the audience. As the narrative extends itself over several platforms, consumers’ participation is essential. “To fully experience any fictional world, consumers must assume the role of hunters and gatherers, chasing down bits of the story across media channels” (Jenkins 21).The GoT constellation does not precisely match this definition. In the canonical example examined by Jenkins, The Matrix, the whole was designed from the beginning of the project. That was not the case for GoT, as the transmedia development clearly happened once the TV series had become a success. Not every entry in this ensemble unfolds new aspects of the world, as the TV series is an adaptation of the novels (until the sixth season when it overtook the books). Not every component is self-contained, as the novels and TV series are at the narrative system’s centre. This narrative ensemble more closely matches the notion of “modèle satellitaire” conceived by Saint-Gelais, where one element is the first chronologically and hierarchically. However, this statement does not devalue the GoT constellation, as the canonical definition is rarely actualized (Sepulchre “La Constellation Transmédiatique,” Philipps, Gambarato “Transmedia”), and as transmedia around TV series are generally developed after the first season, once the audience is stabilized. What is most noticeable about GoT is the fact that the TV series has probably replaced the novels as the centre of the ensemble.Under the influence of Jenkins, research on transmedia has often come to be related to fan studies. In this work, he describes very active and connected users. Research in game studies also shows that gamers are creative and form communities (Berry 155-207). However, the majority of these studies focused on hardcore fans or hardcore gamers (Bourdaa; Chen; Davis; Jenkins; Peyron; Stein). Usual users are less studied, especially for such transmedia practices.Main Question and MethodologyDue to its configuration, and the wide spectrum of users’ different levels of involvement, the GoT constellation offers an occasion to confront two audiences and their practices. GoT transmedia clearly targets both fiction lovers and gamers. The success of the franchise has led to heavy consumption of transmedia elements, even by fans who had never approached transmedia before, and may allow us to move beyond the classical analysis. That’s why, in that preliminary research, by comparing TV series viewers in general with a quite specific part of them, ordinary gamers of the videogame GOT Ascent, we aim to evaluate transmedia use in the GOT community. The results on viewers are part of a broader research project on TV series and transmedia. The originality of this study focuses on ordinary viewers, not fans. The goal is to understand if they are familiar with transmedia, if they develop transmedia practices, and why. The paper is based on 52 semi-structured interviews conducted in 2012 (11) and 2013 (41). Consumers of fictional extensions of TV series and fans of TV series were selected. The respondents are around twenty years old, university students, white, mostly female (42 women, 10 men), and are not representative outside the case study. Therefore, the purpose of this first empirical sample was simply to access ordinary GOT viewers’ behaviours, and to elaborate an initial landscape of their use of different media in the same world.After that, we focused our analysis on one specific community, a subset of the GOT’s universe’s users, that is, players of the GoT Ascent videogame (we use “gamers” as synonym for “players” and “users”). Through this online participative observation, we try to analyse the players’ attitudes, and evaluate the nature of their involvement from a user perspective (Servais). Focusing on one specific medium in the GOT constellation should allow us to further flesh out the general panorama on transmedia, by exploring involvement in one particular device more deeply. Our purpose in that is to identify whether the players are transmedia users, and so GoT fans, or if they are firstly players. During a three month in-game ethnography, in June-August 2013, we played Aren Gorn, affiliated to House Tyrell, level 91, and member of “The Winter is Dark and Full of Terrors” Alliance (2500 members). Following an in-game ethnography (Boellstorff 123-134), we explored gamers’ playing attitudes inside the interface.The Users, TV Series, and TransmediaThe respondents usually do not know what transmedia is, even if a lot of them (36) practice it. Those who are completely unaware that a narrative world can be spread over several media are rare. Only ten of them engage in fan practices (cosplay, a kind of costuming community, fan-fiction, and fan-vidding, that is fans who write fiction or make remix videos set in the world they love), which tends to show that transmedia does not only concern fans.Most of the ordinary viewers are readers, as 23 of them cite books (True Blood, Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, Les Piliers de la Terre), one reads a recipe book (Plus Belle la Vie), and seven consume comics (The Walking Dead, Supernatural). They do not distinguish between novelisation (the novel adapted from a TV series) and the original book. Other media are also consumed, however a lot less: animation series, special episodes on the Internet, music, movies, websites (blogs, fictional websites), factual websites (about the story, the production, actors), fan-fiction, and cosplay.Transmedia does not seem to be a strong experience. Céline and Ioana respectively read the novels adapted from Plus Belle la Vie and Gossip Girl, but don’t like them. “It is written like a script … There’s no description, only the dialogues between characters” (Ioana). Lora watched some webisodes of Cougar Town but didn’t find them funny. Aurélie has followed the Twitter of Sookie Stackouse (True Blood) and Guilleaume D. sometimes consumes humoristic content on 9gag, but irregularly. “It’s not my thing” (Aurélie). The participants are even more critical of movies, especially the sequels of Sex and the City.That does not mean the respondents always reject transmedia components. First, they enjoy elements that are not supposed to belong to the world. These may be fan productions or contents they personally inject into the universe. Several have done research on the story’s topic: Alizée investigated mental disorders to understand United States of Tara; Guilleaume G. wandered around on Google Earth to explore Albuquerque (Breaking Bad); for Guilleaume D., Hugh Laurie’s music album is part of the character of Gregory House; Julie adores Peter Pan and, for her, Once Upon A Time, Finding Neverland, and Hook are part of the same universe. Four people particularly enjoy when the fictional characters’ couples are duplicated by real relationships between actors (which may explain all the excitement surrounding Kit Harrington and Rose Leslie’s real-life love story, paralleling their characters’ romance on GOT). If there is a transmedia production, it seems that there is also a kind of “transmedia reception,” as viewers connect heteroclite elements to build a coherent world of their own. Some respondents even develop a creative link to the world: writing fan-fiction, poetry, or building scale models (but that is not this paper’s topic, see Sepulchre “Les Constellations Narratives”, “Editorial”).A second element they appreciate is the GOT TV series. Approximately half of the respondents cite GoT (29/52). They are not fundamentally different from the other viewers except that more of them have fan practices (9 vs. 1), and a few more develop transmedia consumption (76% against 61%). To the very extent that there is consensus over the poor quality of the novels (in general), A Song of Ice and Fire seems to have seduced every respondent. Loic usually hates reading; his relatives have pointed out to him that he has read more with GoT than in his entire lifetime. Marie D. finds the novels so good that she stopped watching the TV series. Marine insists she generally reads fan-fiction because she hates the novelisations, but the GoT books are the only good ones. The novels apparently allow a deeper immersion into the world and that is the manifest benefit of consuming them. Guilleaume G. appreciates the more detailed descriptions. Céline, Florentin, Ioana, and Marine like to access the characters’ thoughts. Julie thinks she feels the emotions more deeply when she reads. Sometimes, the novels can change their opinions on a character. Emilie finds Sansa despicable in the TV series, but the books led her to understand her sensibility.Videogames & TransmediaThe vast majority of transmedia support from the GoT universe primarily targets “world lovers,” that is, users involved in media uses because they love the fantasy of the universe. However, only video games allow a personalized incarnation as a hero over a long term of time, and thus a customized active appropriation. This is in fact undoubtedly why the GoT universe’s transmedia galaxy has also been deployed in video games. GOT Ascent is a strategy game edited by Disruptor Beam, an American company specialising in TV games. Released in February 2013, the franchise attracted up to 9,000,000 players in 2014, but only 295,107 monthly active users. This significant difference between the accumulated number of players and those actually active (around 3 %) may well testify that those investing in this game are probably not a community of gamers.Combining role playing and strategy game, GoT Ascent is designed in a logic that deeply integrates the elements, not only from the TV series, but also from books and other transmedia extensions. In GoT Ascent, gamers play a small house affiliated to one of the main clans of Westeros. During the immersive game experience, the player participates in all the GoT stories from an insider’s point of view. The game follows the various GoT books, resulting in an extension whenever a new volume is published. The player interacts with others by PVE (Player versus Environment) or PVP (Player versus Player) alliances with a common chat and the possibility of sending goods to other members. With a fair general score (4,1 on 10), the game is evaluated weakly by the players (JeuxOnLine). Hence a large majority of them are probably not looking for that kind of experience.If we focus on the top players in GoT Ascent, likely representing those most invested, it is interesting to examine the names they choose. Indeed, that choice often reveals the player’s intention, either to refer to a gamer logic or the universe of GoT. During our research, we clearly distinguished two types of names, self-referential ones or those referring to the player’s general pseudonym. In concrete terms, the name is a declination of a pseudonym of more general avatars, or else refers to other video game worlds than GoT. In GoT Ascent, the second category of names, those very clearly anchored in the world of Martin, are clearly dominant.Is it possible to correlate the name chosen and the type of player? Can we affirm that people who choose a name not related to the GoT universe are players and that the others are GoT fans? Probably not obviously, but the consistency of a character’s name with the universe is, in the GoT case, very important for an immersive experience. The books’ author has carefully crafted his surnames and, in the game, assuming a name is therefore very clearly a symbolically important act in the desire to roleplay in that universe. Choosing one that is totally out of sync with the game world clearly means you are not there to immerse yourself in the spirit of GoT, but to play. In short, the first category is representative of the gamers, but the players are not restricted to those naming their avatar out of the world’s spirit.This intuition is confirmed by a review of the names related to the rank of the players. When we studied high-level players, we realized that most of them use humorous names, which are totally out of the mood of the GoT universe. Thus, in 2013, the first ranked player in terms of power was called Flatulence, a French term that is part of a humorous semantics. Yet this type of denomination is not limited to the first of the list. Out the top ten players, only two used plausible GoT names. However, as soon as one leaves the game’s elite’s sphere, the plausible names are quickly in the majority. There is a sharp opposition between the vast majority of players, who obviously try to match the world, and pure gamers.We found the same logic for the names of the Alliances, the virtual communities of players varying from a few to hundreds. Three Alliances have achieved the #1 rank in the game in the game’s first two years: Hear Me Roar (February 2013), Fire and Blood (January 2014), and Kong's Landing (September 2014). Two of those Alliances are of a more humoristic bent. However, an investigation into the 400 alliances demonstrates that fewer than 5 % have a clear humoristic signification. We might estimate that in GoT Ascent the large majority of players increase their immersive experience by choosing a GoT role play related Alliance name. We can conclude that they are mainly GoT fans playing the game, and that they seek to lend the world coherence. The high-level players are an exception. Inside GOT Ascent, the dominant culture remains connected to the GoT world.ConclusionA transmedia story is defined by its networked configuration, “worldmaking,” and users’ involvement. The GoT constellation is clearly a weak ensemble (Sepulchre, 2012). However, it has indeed developed on several platforms. Furthermore, the relationship between the novels and the TV series is quite unprecedented. Indeed, both elements are considered as qualitative, and the TV series has become the main entry for many fans. Thus, both of them acquire an equal authority.The GoT transmedia storyworld also unfolds a fictional world and depends on users’ activities, but in a peculiar way. If the viewers and gamers are analysed from fan or game studies perspectives, they appear to be weak users. Indeed, they do not seek new components; they are mainly readers and do not enjoy the transmedia experience; the players are not regular ones; and they are much less creative and humorous than high-level gamers.These weak practices have, however, one function: to prolong the pleasure of the fictional world, which is the third characteristic of transmedia. The players experiment with GoT Ascent by incarnating characters inserted into Alliances whose names may exist in the original world. This appears to be a clear attempt to become immersed in the universe. The ordinary viewers appreciate the deeper experience the novels allow. When they feed the world with unexpected elements, it is also to improve the world.Thus, transmedia appropriation by users is a reality, motivated by a taste for the universe, even if it is a weak consumption in comparison with the demanding, creative, and sometimes iconoclastic practices gamers and fans usually develop. It is obvious, in both fields, that they are new TV series fans (they quote mainly recent shows) and beginners in the world of games. For a significant part of them, GoT was probably their first time developing transmedia practices.However, GoT Ascent is not well evaluated by gamers and many of them do not repeat the experience (as the monthly number of gamers shows). Likewise, the ordinary viewers neglect the official transmedia components as too marketing oriented. The GoT novels are the exception proving the rule. They demonstrate that users are quite selective: they are not satisfied with weak elements. The question that this paper cannot answer is: was GoT a first experience? Will they persevere in the future? Yet, in this preliminary research, we have seen that studying ordinary users’ weak involvement (series viewers or gamers) is an interesting path in elaborating a theory of transmedia user’s activities, which takes the public’s diversity into account.ReferencesBerry, Vincent. L’Expérience Virtuelle: Jouer, Vivre, Apprendre Dans un Jeu Video. Rennes: UP Rennes, 2012.Boellstorff, Tom. “A Typology of Ethnographic Scales for Virtual Worlds.” Online Worlds: Convergence of the Real and the Virtual. Ed. William Sim Bainbridge. London: Springer, 2009.Bourdaa, Mélanie. “Taking a Break from All Your Worries: Battlestar Galactica et Les Nouvelles Pratiques Télévisuelles des Fans.” Questions de Communication 22 (2012) 2014. <http://journals.openedition.org/questionsdecommunication/6917>.Chen, Mark. Leet Noobs: The Life and Death of An Expert Player Group in World of Warcraft. New York: Peter Lang, 2012.Collective. Le Transmédia Dans Tous Ses États: Les Cahiers de Veille de la Fondation Télécom. Paris: Fondation Télécom, 2012. 29 Dec. 2017 <https://www.fondation-mines-telecom.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/2012-cahier-veille-transmedia.pdf\>.Davis, C.H. “Audience Value and Transmedia Products.” Media Innovations. Eds. T. Storsul and A. Krumsvik. Gothenburg: Nordicom, 2013. 179-190.Gambarato, Renira. “How to Analyze Transmedia Narratives?” Conference New Media: Changing Media Landscapes. Saint Petersburg, 2012. 2017 <http://prezi.com/fovz0jrlfsn0/how-to-analyze-transmedia-narratives>.Gambarato, Renira. “Transmedia Storytelling.” Serious Science, 2016. 2017 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thZnd_K8Vfs>.Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture. Where Old and New Media Collide. Updated ed. New York: New York UP, 2006.JeuxOnLine. “Game of Thrones Ascent.” 2013. <http://www.jeuxonline.info/jeu/Game_of_Thrones_Ascent>.Peyron, David. Culture Geek. Limoges: FYP Editions, 2013.Philipps, Andrea. A Creator’s Guide to Transmedia Storytelling: How to Captivate and Engage Audiences across Multiple Platforms. New York: McGraw-Hill Education, 2012.Saint-Gelais, Richard. Fictions Transfuges. La Transfictionnalité et Ses Enjeux. Paris: Seuil, 2011.Sepulchre, S. Le Transmédia Dans Tous Ses États: Les Cahiers de Veille de la Fondation Télécom. Paris: Fondation Télécom, 2012. 29 Dec. 2017 <https://www.fondation-mines-telecom.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/2012-cahier-veille-transmedia.pdf>.———. “La Constellation Transmédiatique de Breaking Bad: Analyse de la Complémentarité Trouvée entre la Télévision et Internet.” ESSACHESS-Journal for Communication 4.1 (2011). 29 Dec. 2017 <http://www.essachess.com/index.php/jcs/article/view/111>. ———. “Les Constellations Narratives: Que Font les Téléspectateurs des Adaptations Multimédiatiques des Séries Télévisées?” TV/Series 3 (2013). 29 Dec. 2017 <http://journals.openedition.org/tvseries/729>. ———. “Editorial.” Inter Pares: Revue Électronique de Jeunes Chercheurs en Sciences Humains et Sociales 6 (2016). 29 Dec. 2017 <https://epic.univ-lyon2.fr/medias/fichier/inter-pares-6-maquette-v8web_1510576660265-pdf>.Servais, Olivier. “Funerals in the “World of Warcraft”: Religion, Polemic, and Styles of Play in a Videogame Universe.” Social Compass 62.3 (2015): 362-378.Stein, Louisa Ellen, and Kristina Busse. Sherlock and Transmedia Fandom: Essays on the BBC series. Jefferson: McFarland, 2014.

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Kaspi, Niva. "Bill Lawton by Any Other Name: Language Games and Terror in Falling Man." M/C Journal 15, no.1 (March14, 2012). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.457.

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“Language is inseparable from the world that provokes it”-- Don DeLillo, “In the Ruins of the Future”The attacks of 9/11 generated a public discourse of suspicion, with Osama bin Laden occupying the role of the quintessential “most wanted” for nearly a decade, before being captured and killed in May 2011. In the novel, Falling Man (DeLillo), set shortly after the attacks of September 11, Justin, the protagonist’s son, and his friends, the two Siblings, spend much of their time at the window of the Siblings’ New York apartment, “searching the skies for Bill Lawton” (74). Mishearing bin Laden’s name on the news, Robert, the younger of the Siblings, has “never adjusted his original sense of what he was hearing” (73), and so the “myth of Bill Lawton” (74) is created. In this paper, I draw on postclassical, cognitive narratology to “defamiliarise” processes undertaken by both narrator and reader (Palmer 28) in order to explore how narrative elements impact on readers’ and characters’ perceptions of the terrorist. My focus on select episodes within the novel “pursue[s] the author’s means of controlling his reader” (Booth i), and I refer to a generic reader to identify a certain intuitive reaction to the text. Assuming that “the written text imposes certain limits on its unwritten implications” (Iser 281), I trace a path from the uttered or printed word, through the reading act, to the process of meaning-making. I demonstrate how renaming the terrorist, and other language games, challenge the notion that terror can be synonymous with a locatable, destructible source by activating a suspicion towards the text in particular, and towards language in general.Falling Man tells the story of Keith who, after surviving the attacks on the World Trade Centre, shows up injured and disoriented at the apartment of his estranged wife, Lianne, and their son, Justin. The narrative, set at different periods between the day of the attacks and three years later, focuses on Keith’s and Lianne’s lives as they attempt to deal, in their own ways, with the trauma of the attacks and with the unexpected reunion of their small family. Keith disappears into games of poker and has a brief relationship with another survivor, while Lianne searches for answers in the writings of Alzheimer sufferers, in places of worship, and in conversations with her mother, Nina, and her mother’s partner, Martin, a German art-dealer with a questionable past. Each of the novel’s three parts also contains a short narrative from the perspective of Hammad, a fictional terrorist, starting with his early days in a European cell under the leadership of the real terrorist, Mohamed Atta, through the group’s activities in Florida, to his final moments aboard the plane that crashes into the World Trade Centre. DeLillo’s work is noted for treating language as central to society and culture (Weinstein). In this personalised narrative of post-9/11, DeLillo’s choices reflect his “refusal to reproduce the mass media’s representations of 9/11 the reader is used to” (Grossinger 85). This refusal is manifest not so much in an absence of well-known, mediated images or concepts, but in the reshaping and re-presenting of these images so that they appear unexpected, new, and personal (Apitzch). A notable example of such re-presentation is the Falling Man of the title, who is introduced, surprisingly, not as the man depicted in the famous photograph by Richard Drew (Leps), but a performance artist who uses the name Falling Man when staging his falls from various New York buildings. Not until the final two sentences of the novel does DeLillo fully admit the image into the narrative, and even then only as Keith’s private vision from the Tower: “Then he saw a shirt come down out of the sky. He walked and saw it fall, arms waving like nothing in this life” (246). The bin Laden/Bill Lawton substitution shows a similar rejection of recycled concepts and enables a renewed perspective towards the idea of bin Laden. Bill Lawton is first introduced as an anonymous “man” (17), later to be named Bill Lawton (73), and later still to be revealed as bin Laden mispronounced (73). The reader first learns of Bill Lawton in a conversation between Lianne and the Siblings’ mother, Isabel, who is worried about the children’s preoccupation at the window:“It has something to do with this man.”“What man?”“This name. You’ve heard it.”“This name,” Lianne said.“Isn’t this the name they sort of mumble back and forth? My kids totally don’t want to discuss the matter. Katie enforces the thing. She basically inspires fear in her brother. I thought maybe you would know something.”“I don’t think so.”“Like Justin says nothing about any of this?”“No. What man?”“What man? Exactly,” Isabel said. (17)If “the piling up of data [...] fulfils a function in the construction of an image” (Bal 85), a delayed unravelling of the bin Laden identity distorts this data-piling so that by the time the reader learns of the Bill Lawton/bin Laden link, an image of a man is already established as separate from, and potentially exclusive of, his historical identity. The segment beginning immediately after Isabel’s comment, “What man? Exactly” (17), refers to another, unidentified man with the pronoun “he” (18), as if to further sway the reader’s attention from the subject of that man’s identity. Fludernik notes that “language games” are a key feature of the postmodern text (Towards 221), adding that “techniques of linguistic emasculation serve implicitly to question a simple and naive view of the representational potential of language” (225). I propose that, in Falling Man, bin Laden is emasculated by the Bill Lawton misnomer, and is thereby conceptualised as two entities, one historical and one fictional. The name-switch activates what psychologists refer to as a “dual-process,” conscious and unconscious, that forms the reader’s experience of the narrative (Gerrig 37), creating a cognitive dissonance between the two. Much like Wittgenstein’s duck-rabbit drawing, bin Laden and Bill Lawton exist as two separate entities, occupying the same space of the idea of bin Laden, but demanding to be viewed singularly for the process of recognition to take place. Such distortion of a well-known figure conveys the sense that, in this novel, “all identities are either confused [...] or double [...] or merging [...] or failing” (Kauffman 371), or, occasionally, doing all these things simultaneously.A similar cognitive process is triggered by the introduction of aliases for all three characters that head each of the novel’s three parts. Ernst Hechinger is revealed as Martin Ridnour’s former, ‘terrorist’ identity (DeLillo, Falling 86), and performance artist David Janiak (180) as the Falling Man’s everyday name. But the bin Laden/Bill Lawton switch offers an overt juxtaposition of the historical with the fictional or, as Žižek would have it, “the Raw real” with the “virtual” (387), and allows the mutated bin Laden/Bill Lawton figure to shift, in the mind of the reader, between the two worlds, as well as form a new, blended entity.At this point, it is important to notice that two, interconnected, forms of suspicion exist in the novel. The first is invoked in the story-level towards various terrorist-characters such as Bill Lawton, Hammad, and Martin. The second form is activated when various elements within the narrative prompt the reader to treat the text itself as suspicious, triggering in the reader a cognitive reaction that mirrors that of the narrated character. One example is the “halting process” (Leps) that is forced on the reader when attempting to manoeuvre through the narrative’s anachronical arrangement that mirrors Keith’s mental perception of time and memory. Another such narrative device is the use of “unheralded pronouns” (Gerrig 50), when ‘he’ or ‘she’ is used ambiguously, often at the beginning of a chapter or segment. The use of pronouns in narrative must adhere to strict grammatical rules (Fludernik, Introduction) and when these rules are ignored, the reading pattern is affected. First, the reader of Falling Man is immersed within an element in the story, then becomes puzzled about the identity of a character, and finally re-reads the passage to gain clarity. The reader, after a while, distances somewhat from the text, scanning for alternative possibilities and approaching interpretation with a tentative sense of doubt.The conversation between the two mothers, the Bill Lawton/bin Laden split, and the use of unheralded pronouns also destabilises the relationship between person and name, and appears to create a world in which “personality has disintegrated into a mere semiotic mark” (Versluys 21). Keith’s obsession with correcting the spelling of his surname, Neudecker, “because it wasn’t him, with the name misspelled” (DeLillo, Falling 31), Lianne’s fondness of the philosopher Kierkegaard, “right down to the spelling of his name. The hard Scandian k’s and lovely doubled a” (118), her consideration of “Marko [...] with a k, whatever that might signify” (119), and Rumsey, who is told that “everything in his life would be different [...] if one letter in his name was different” (149), are a few examples of the text’s semiotic emphasis. But, while Versluys sees this tendency as emblematic of the novel’s portrayal of a decline in humanity, I suggest that the text’s preoccupation with the shape and constitution of words may work to “de-automatise” (Margolin 66) the relationship between sign and perception, rather than to denigrate the signified human. With the renamed terrorist, the reader comes to doubt not only the printed text, but also his or her automatic response to “bin Laden” as a “brand, a sort of logo which identifies and personalises the evil” (Chomsky, September 36). Bill Lawton, according to Justin, speaks in monosyllables (102), a language Justin chooses, for a time, for his own speech (66), and this also contributes to the de-automatisation of the text. The language game, in which a speaker must only use words with one syllable, began as a classroom activity “designed to teach the children something about the structure of words and the discipline required to frame clear thoughts” (66). The game also gives players, and readers, an embodied understanding of what Genette calls the gap between “being and saying” (93) that is inevitable in the production of language and narrative. Justin, who continues to play the game outside the classroom, because “it helps [him] go slow when [he] thinks” (66), finds comfort in the silent pauses that are afforded by widening the gap between thought and utterance. History in Falling Man is a collection of the private narratives of survivors, families, terrorists, artists, and the host of people that are affected by the attacks of 9/11. Justin’s character, with the linguistic and psychic code of a child, represents the way in which all participants, to some extent, choose their own antagonist, language, plot, and sequence to personalise this mega-public event. He insists that the towers did not collapse (72), but that they will, “this time coming” (102); Bill Lawton, for Justin, “has a long beard [...] speaks thirteen languages but not English except to his wives [and] has the power to poison what we eat” (74). Despite being confronted with the factual inaccuracies of his narrative, Justin resists editing his version precisely because these inaccuracies form his own, non-mediated, authentic account. They are, in a sense, a work of fiction and, paradoxically, more ‘real’ because of that. “We want to pass beyond the limits of safe understandings”, thinks Lianne, “and what better way to do it than through make-believe” (63). I have so far shown how narrative elements create a suspicion in the way characters operate within their surrounding universe, in the reader’s attitude towards the text, and, more implicitly, in the power of language to accurately represent a personal reality. Within the context of the novel’s historical setting—the period following the 9/11 attacks—the narration of the terrorist figure, as represented in Bill Lawton, Hammad, Martin, and others, may function as a response to the “binarism” of Bush’s proposal (Butler 2), epitomised in his “either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists” (Silberstein 14) approach. Within the novel’s universe, its narration of terrorist-characters works to free discourse from superficial categorisations and to provide “a counterdiscourse to the prevailing nationalistic interpretations” (Versluys 23) of the events of 9/11 by de-automatising a response to “us” and “them.” In his essay published shortly after the attacks, DeLillo notes that “the sense of disarticulation we hear in the term ‘Us and Them’ has never been so striking, at either end” (“Ruins”), and while he draws distinctions, in the same essay, with technology on ‘our’ side and religious fanaticism on ‘their’ side, I believe that the novel is less settled on the subject. The Anglicisation of bin Laden’s name, for example, suggests that Bush’s either-or-ism is, at least partially, an arbitrary linguistic construct. At a time when some social commentators have highlighted the similarity in the definitions of “terror” and “counter terror” (Chomsky, “Commentary” 610), the Bill Lawton ‘error’ works to illustrate how easily language can destabilise our perception of what is familiar/strange, us/them, terror/counter-terror, victim/perpetrator. In the renaming of the notorious terrorist, “the familiar name is transposed on the mass murderer, but in return the attributes of the mass murderer are transposed on one very like us” (Conte 570), and this reciprocal relationship forms an imagined evil that is no longer so easily locatable within the prevailing political discourse. As the novel contextualises 9/11 within a greater historical narrative (Leps), in which characters like Martin represent “our” form of militant activism (Duvall), we are invited to perceive a possibility that the terrorist could be, like Martin, “one of ours […] godless, Western, white” (DeLillo, Falling 195).Further, the idea that the suspect exists, almost literally, within ‘us’, the victims, is reflected in the structure of the narrative itself. This suggests a more fluid relationship between terrorist and victim than is offered by common categorisations that, for some, “mislead and confuse the mind, which is trying to make sense of a disorderly reality” (Said 12). Hammad is visited in three short separate sections; “on Marienstrasse” (77-83), “in Nokomis” (171-178), and “the Hudson corridor” (237-239), at the end of each of the novel’s three parts. Hammad’s narrative is segmented within Keith’s and Lianne’s tale like an invisible yet pervasive reminder that the terrorist is inseparable from the lives of the victims, habituating the same terrains, and crafted by the same omniscient powers that compose the victims’ narrative. The penetration of the terrorist into ‘our’ narrative is also perceptible in the physical osmosis between terrorist and victim, as the body of the injured victim hosts fragments of the dead terrorist’s flesh. The portrayal of the body, in some post 9/11 novels, as “a vulnerable site of trauma” (Bird, 561), is evident in the following passage, where a physician explains to Keith the post-bombing condition termed “organic shrapnel”:The bomber is blown to bits, literally bits and pieces, and fragments of flesh and bone come flying outwards with such force and velocity that they get wedged, they get trapped in the body of anyone who’s in striking range...A student is sitting in a cafe. She survives the attack. Then, months later, they find these little, like, pellets of flesh, human flesh that got driven into the skin. (16)For Keith, the dead terrorist’s flesh, lodged under living human skin, confirms the malignancy of his emotional and physical injury, and suggests a “consciousness occupied by terror” (Apitzch 95), not unlike Justin’s consciousness, occupied from within by the “secret” (DeLillo, Falling 101) of Bill Lawton.The macabre bond between terrorist and victim is fully realised in the novel’s final pages, when Hammad’s death intersects, temporally, with the beginning of Keith’s story, and the two bodies almost literally collide as Hammad’s jet crashes into Keith’s office building. Unlike Hammad’s earlier and clearly framed narratives, his final interruption dissolves into Keith’s story with such cinematic seamlessness as to make the two narratives almost indistinguishable from one another. Hammad’s perspective concludes on board the jet, as “something fell off the counter in the galley. He fastened his seatbelt” (239), followed immediately by “a bottle fell off the counter in the galley, on the other side of the aisle, and he watched it roll this way and that” (239). The ambiguous use of the pronoun “he,” once again, and the twin bottles in the galleys create a moment of confusion and force a re-reading to establish that, in fact, there are two different bottles, in two galleys; one on board the plane and the other inside the World Trade Centre. Victim and terrorist, then, share a common fate as acting agents in a single governing narrative that implicates both lives.Finally, Žižek warns that “whenever we encounter such a purely evil on the Outside, [...] we should recognise the distilled version of our own self” (387). DeLillo assimilates this proposition into the fabric of Falling Man by crafting a language that renegotiates the division between ‘out’ and ‘in,’ creating a fictional antagonist in Bill Lawton that continues to lurk outside the symbolic window long after the demise of his historical double. Some have read this novel as offering a more relative perspective on terrorism (Duvall). However, like Leps, I find that DeLillo here tries to “provoke thoughtful stillness rather than secure truths” (185), and this stillness is conveyed in a language that meditates, with the reader, on its own role in constructing precarious concepts such as ‘us’ and ‘them.’ When proposing that terror, in Falling Man, can be found within ‘us,’ linguistically, historically, and even physically, I must also add that DeLillo’s ‘us’ is an imagined sphere that stands in opposition to a ‘them’ world in which “things [are] clearly defined” (DeLillo, Falling 83). Within this sphere, where “total silence” is seen as a form of spiritual progress (101), one is reminded to approach narrative and, by implication, life, with a sense of mindful attention; “to hear”, like Keith, “what is always there” (225), and to look, as Nina does, for “something deeper than things or shapes of things” (111).ReferencesApitzch, Julia. "The Art of Terror – the Terror of Art: Delillo's Still Life of 9/11, Giorgio Morandi, Gerhard Richter, and Performance Art." Terrorism, Media, and the Ethics of Fiction: Transatlantic Perspectives on Don DeLillo. Eds. Peter Schneck and Philipp Schweighauser. London: Continuum [EBL access record], 2010. 93–110.Bal, Mieke. Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narratology. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1985.Bird, Benjamin. "History, Emotion, and the Body: Mourning in Post-9/11 Fiction." Literature Compass 4.3 (2007): 561–75.Booth, Wayne C. The Rhetoric of Fiction. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1961.Butler, Judith. Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. New York: Verso, 2004.Chomsky, Noam. "Commentary Moral Truisms, Empirical Evidence, and Foreign Policy." Review of International Studies 29.4 (2003): 605–20.---. September 11. Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 2002.Conte, Joseph Mark. "Don Delillo’s Falling Man and the Age of Terror." MFS Modern Fiction Studies 57.3 (2011): 557–83.DeLillo, Don. Falling Man. London: Picador, 2007.---. "In the Ruins of the Future." The Guardian (22 December, 2001). ‹http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2001/dec/22/fiction.dondelillo›.Duvall, John N. & Marzec, Robert P. "Narrating 9/11." MFS Modern Fiction Studies 57.3 (2011): 381–400.Fludernik, Monika. An Introduction to Narratology. Taylor & Francis [EBL access record], 2009.---. Towards a 'Natural' Narratology. Routledge, [EBL access record], 1996.Genette, Gerard. Figures of Literary Discourse. New York: Columbia U P, 1982.Gerrig, Richard J. "Conscious and Unconscious Processes in Reader's Narrative Experiences." Current Trends in Narratology. Ed. Greta Olson. Berlin: De Gruyter [EBL access record], 2011. 37–60.Grossinger, Leif. "Public Image and Self-Representation: Don Delillo's Artists and Terrorists in Postmodern Mass Society." Terrorism, Media, and the Ethics of Fiction: Transatlantic Perspectives on Don DeLillo. Eds. Peter Schneck and Philipp Schweighauser. London: Continuum [EBL access record], 2010. 81–92.Iser, Wolfgang. "The Reading Process: A Phenomenological Approach." New Literary History 3.2 (1972): 279–99.Kauffman, Linda S. "The Wake of Terror: Don Delillo's in the Ruins of the Future, Baadermeinhof, and Falling Man." Modern Fiction Studies 54.2 (2008): 353–77.Leps, Marie-Christine. "Falling Man: Performing Fiction." Terrorism, Media, and the Ethics of Fiction: Transatlantic Perspectives on Don DeLillo. Eds. Peter Schneck and Philipp Schweighauser. London: Continuum [EBL access record], 2010. 184–203.Margolin, Uri. "(Mis)Perceiving to Good Aesthetic and Cognitive Effect." Current Trends in Narratology. Ed. Greta Olson. Berlin: De Gruyter [EBL access record], 2011. 61–78.Palmer, Alan. "The Construction of Fictional Minds." Narrative 10.1 (2002): 28–46.Said, Edward W. "The Clash of Ignorance." The Nation 273.12 (2001): 11–13.Silberstein, Sandra. War of Words : Language Politics and 9/11. Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004.Versluys, Kristiaan. Out of the Blue: September 11 and the Novel. New York: Columbia U P, 2009.Weinstein, Arnold. Nobody's Home: Speech, Self and Place in American Fiction from Hawthorne to DeLillo. Oxford U P [EBL Access Record], 1993.Žižek, Slavoj. "Welcome to the Desert of the Real!" The South Atlantic Quarterly 101.2 (2002): 385–89.

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44

Turnock, Julie. "Painting Out Pop." M/C Journal 2, no.4 (June1, 1999). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1764.

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Abstract:

Film directors in American cinema have used the artist (painter, singer, thespian, writer, etc.) as a vehicle for auteurist identification in feature bio-pics for decades. The portrayal of the protagonists in these films usually falls victim to the "Van Gogh" syndrome, that is, the insistance on the creative inner turmoil, the solitary, misunderstood genius, and brave rebellion of its central character. This approach, however, breaks down completely when confronted with the void that is the historical figure known as "Andy Warhol." The popular image of Warhol, his studied superficiality, unapologetic commercialism, and outright catatonic demeanour, is completely disruptive to the traditional humanist artist biography. It is unsurprising, then, that recent film protagonists within the more traditional bio-pic framework found Warhol a figure that needed to be contained, neutralised, discredited, and even shot. Mainstream cinematic narrative has added little to the conventions of the artist biography since the Renaissance. Renaissance painter and biographer Giorgio Vasari appropriated the Petrarchian edifying "Great Lives" model to ennoble and sanitise the often problematic and distasteful personalities who populated the Italian art world. This approach prevailed over the next several hundred years, and was expanded upon by the intellectual figures of the Romantic period (who were very aware of Vasari's work). The Romantics contributed to the profile of a proper artist the following traits: misunderstood intellectual fury, dark psychological depths, and flouting of social convention. The bio-pic genre, especially as it relates to biographies of artists, also lauds humanistic "greatness" as its standard of significance. The bio-pic absolutely relies on a strong central figure, who can be shown in about two hours to have some substantial educational value, worthy of the expense of the film-makers and the attention of the viewer. In the mid-1990s, not long after his unexpected death in 1987, a character called "Andy Warhol" appeared in supporting roles in a number of feature films. The Doors (1991), Basquiat (1996), and I Shot Andy Warhol (1996) all feature an Andy Warhol character grounded squarely in various popular myths. All of the three 90s feature films which include Warhol in a substantial speaking role explicitly contrast him against another artist-figure. This other artist is presented as somehow preferable to Warhol, whether in conviction, authenticity, or validity of vision. The artist in question, Basquiat/Morrison/Solanas, predictably serves as the film-makers' lens through which the past is refracted (though more problematically in the case of Solanas). Warhol is outward sign of Basquiat's slide, the danger of fame-mongering for Morrison, and Valerie Solanas's misogynist nemesis. In each case, the more valorised figure is at first twinned with Warhol when drawn into his orbit. Eventually, the film's narrative contrasts the main subject against what the diegetic Warhol represents. In each case, Warhol becomes a metonymic representation of a larger organising factor: the economic/personality-driven entertainment industry, phallocentric hegemony, art's dead end, etc. The demonisation of Warhol in recent bio-pics is a good starting point for examining how his image is being interpreted by the mainstream media. It is clear that in this particular forum, Warhol's impact is understood only negatively. The purpose of this study will be to demonstrate how uncomfortable the creative arts world in general, and narrative film-making in particular, is with the "empty" legacy of Warhol and his Factory, and how the reactions against it illustrate a fear of Warhol's anti-humanist, subject-less project. It is fascinating that in the feature films, Warhol appears solely as a character in other people's stories rather than as the focus of biographical treatment. Warhol's very conscious emptying-out project has made nearly impossible any effort to deal with him and his legacy in any traditional narrative manner. Warhol's public persona -- simple, boring, derivative, and unheroic -- is directly at odds with the conventional "artist-hero" subjects necessary to the bio pic genre. This type is seen most typically in the old potboilers The Agony and the Extasy, about Michelangelo, and Lust for Life, about Van Gogh, as well as the more recent Artemisia about Artemisia Gentileschi. The very fact of Andy's posthumous film career fits neatly into his performative œuvre as a whole, and is easily interpreted as an extension of his life-long project. Warhol's entire self-imaging stratagem steadfastly affirmed that there is no center to illuminate -- no "real" Andy Warhol behind the persona. Warhol constantly disavowed any "meaning" beyond the surface of his art works, and ascribed it no value beyond market price. He preferred methods and forms (advertising, silk-screening, and film-making) that were easy for his Factory workers to execute and endlessly duplicate after his vague orders. Further, he ascribed no importance to his own bodily shell as "artist Andy Warhol". In an act of supreme self-branding, Warhol sent actors to impersonate him at lectures (most famously at University of Utah, who demanded he return the lecture fee), since he was only a packaged, reproducible product himself. In Warhol's art, there is no hand-made integrity, no originality, no agonised genius in a garret. He displays none of the traits that traditionally have allowed artists to be called geniuses. Warhol's studio's automation, the laying bare of the cheapest and slickest aspects of the culture industry, has long been the most feared facet of Warhol's artistic legacy. It is beside the point to argue that Warhol's meaninglessness is thematised to the degree that it has meaning. Warhol's erasure of all humanistic "aura" clearly remains threatening to a great number of artists, who rely heavily on such artistic stereotypes. Basquiat In 1996's Basquiat, painter/director Julian Schnabel used the dead painter as a proxy for telling his "I was there" version of the 80s New York art scene. In Schnabel's rather heavy-handed morality tale, young African-American painter Jean-Michel Basquiat's meteoric burn-out career is treated as a metaphor for the 80s art world as a whole. Schnabel clearly knows his Vasari. His film's scenario is a barely modified adaptation of humanist/romantic artist mythology. Traces of Vasari's tale of Cimabue's discovery of Giotto, as well as Van Gogh's various misunderstood artist scenarios are laboriously played out. In fact, the first words in the film invoke the Van Gogh cliché, foregrounding Schnabel's myth-making impulse. They are art critic Rene Ricard's, speaking over Basquiat waking up in a cardboard box in Central Park: "everyone wants to get on the Van Gogh boat. ... No one wants to be part of a generation that ignores another Van Gogh, ... When you first see a new picture, you have to be very careful. You might be staring at Van Gogh's ear." This quote sets the tone for Basquiat's art world experience narrative, trotting out every single Van Gogh-inspired legend (with heroin abuse standing in for the cut-off ear) to apply to Basquiat. In fact, the film veritably thematises Romantic cliché. The film's main project is the mythologisation of Jean-Michel and by extension Schnabel. However, by foregrounding the Van Gogh/Basquiat connection in such self-conscious terms, it seems the viewer is supposed to find it "ironic". (The irony is really that this po-mo window dressing is otherwise deeply at odds with the rest of the film's message.) The film suggests that Basquiat is both worthy of the allusion to the great humanistic tradition, and that his special case ("the first great black painter") changes all the rules and makes all clichés inapplicable. Schnabel's art, which is usually described as "Neo-Abstract Expressionist", and particularly his market value, relies heavily on the aura created by previous artists in the macho heroic mold. His paintings take up Pollock's "all over" effect but with de Kooning's jauntier color. He also fastens found objects, most famously broken plates, in a pastiche of Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. Like Warhol, Schnabel often borrows recognisable motifs. However, instead of advertising and popular culture, Schnabel's come from a more elevated tradition; Old Master paintings appropriated from "legitimate" art history. Needless to say, Julian Schnabel himself has much invested in reaffirming the artist-genius myth that is threatening to be deconstructed by a good number of art critics and historians. Schnabel's agenda is specifically art historical, though no less political. Schnabel, through Basquiat, restores the artist to his proper place as individual creator challenging the outmoded conventions of established art. Warhol, portrayed as the quintessential post-modern artist, represents all that has gone wrong in the art world: superficiality, mass production, commodification, popular culture influence, and the erasure of art history and deep significance. In spite of the film's self-consciousness about the phoniness of the gallery scene, Basquiat's lionisation by it validates a retrograde concept of "pure" artist's vision. Schnabel is attacking what he sees as the deadening effect of post-modernism that threatens Schnabel's own place in art history. Basquiat's escalating drug problem and alliance late in the film with Warhol signals that he has followed the wrong direction, that he is hitting a dead end. The character Milo (Gary Oldman), the Schnabel manqué, sets up the contrast to illustrate Basquiat's slide. Milo is aligned with all that is exemplary in establishment virtues of hearth and home (doting fatherhood, settled domesticity, good living). The wholesome hand-made integrity of Milo/Schnabel's art, in line with traditional definitions of artistic greatness, is deeply at odds with the affected commercialism of Warhol's work. Schnabel's artistic influences show up clearly in his very marked progressive view of art history and clearly named privileged pantheon. In the film, Schnabel is at pains to insert Basquiat and himself into this tradition. The very first scene of the film sees Jean-Michel as a child with his mother at the MOMA, where she is in tears in front of Picasso's Guernica. In the narrative, this is quickly followed by Ricard's Van Gogh quote above. As an adult, Jean-Michel enacts Rauschenberg's edict, to "narrow the gap between art and life". This is illustrated by Jean-Michel not restricting his artistic output to work on canvas in a studio. He graffitis walls, signs table tops à la Rauschenberg, and makes designs on a diner countertop in maple syrup. Later, Jean-Michel is shown painting in his studio walking around the canvas on the floor, in an all-over technique, mirroring the familiar Hans Namuth film of Jackson Pollock. Aligning Jean-Michel with the pre-Warhol, and especially Abstract Expressionist artists, positions Basquiat and Schnabel together against the "dead end" of Warhol's version of Pop. Basquiat and the director have inherited the "right" kind of art, and will be the progenitors of the next generation. Warhol as a "dead end" leads to a discussion of the relationship between artists' procreative sexuality and their art. In the film, Warhol is assumed to be asexual (rather than homosexual), and this lack of virility is clearly linked to the sterility, transitoriness, and barrenness of his art. Schnabel/Milo and Basquiat, in their marked heterosexuality, are the "fathers" of the next generation. In Basquiat's collaboration with Warhol, even Andy understands his own impotence. Warhol says, "I can't teach you anything, you're a natural, are you kidding me?", and most importantly, "you paint out everything I do, Jean-Michel". By privileging Jean-Michel's art (and his own) over Warhol's, Schnabel is clearly trying to paint out the mutation of the Warholisation of art, and paint in his own art historical eugenics. The Doors In a less substantial role but in a similar vein, Warhol also appears briefly in Oliver Stone's 1991 The Doors, as part of a brief "rising fame" montage of New York incidents. Like Schnabel, Stone has a lot to lose from investment in Warhol's spiritual and aesthetic emptiness. Though brief, Warhol's appearance in the film, like in Basquiat, serves as a cautionary tale for its hero. The contrast made between the vacuous Factory crowd and the "authentic" Doors presages the dominant trope for the Warhol character that Schnabel would expand upon later. The Factory sequence dramatises the glamour and seductiveness of the hollow side of fame that may lead Morrison off his spiritual-quest path. The Native American shaman who Jim sees at pivotal points in his life appears at the Factory, warning him not to take the wrong path represented by Warhol. The Doors are at a pivotal moment, the onset of fame, and must act carefully or risk ending up as meaningless as Warhol. Stone's chronicling of the 60s relies heavily on what could be called the humanist ideal of the power of the individual to effect change, raise consciousness, and open minds. Via Stone's simple reductiveness, Warhol represents here the wrong kind of counter-culture, the anti-hippie. By emulating Warhol, the Doors follow the wrong shaman. To Stone, Warhol's superficiality represents all that is dangerous about celebrity and entertainment: the empty, mind-destroying cocaine high of the masses. I Shot Andy Warhol The film I Shot Andy Warhol (1996) problematises the idea put forth in the other films of Warhol as artistic anti-Christ, simply because the film's subject is much more difficult to heroise, and like Warhol does not fit snugly into bio-pic conventions. Like Basquiat, the film also takes the point of view of a protagonist at the edge of Warhol's sphere of influence, here radical feminist and S.C.U.M. (the Society for Cutting Up Men) Manifesto scribe Valerie Solanas, in order to criticise what Warhol represents. Unlike the previous films, here Warhol's character is central to the narrative. Although Warhol clearly represents something very negative to the Solanas character, the film never fully endorses its subject's point of view. That Warhol deserved and needed to be shot for any reason beyond Solanas's personal demons is never established. Perhaps this ambivalence is a flaw of the film, but it is also telling about the problematic legacies of feminism and Pop, two movements that have led to challenges of the hero-artist ideal. In this film, the relationship between Warhol and the main protagonist is extremely complex. Andy and his crowd are presented as clearly odious. Though Valerie comes off as more interesting and sympathetic, she is also still clearly an unhinged oddball spewing specious ideology. Within the film, Valerie's attraction to the Factory scene seems to stem from something her friend, transvestite Candy Darling, says: "if anyone can make you a star, Andy Warhol can". Valerie desperately wants attention for her radicalism (and likely for other psychological reasons, which make radicalism attractive to her, as well), and sees Andy's power for "star-making", especially among the more marginal of society, as something from which she can profit. Valerie's mistake seems to be in confusing the artistic avant-garde with the politically radical. Valerie finds kinship in Warhol's androgyny and lack of enthusiasm for sex, but does not realise immediately that Andy is interested in her play Up Your Ass primarily for its titillation and shock value, and is entirely uninterested in it from a content standpoint. The content/emptiness conflict in Valerie and Andy's "artistic visions" becomes one of the major thematics in the film. Though like Solanas, he finds community with margin-dwellers, Andy is portrayed as far too implicated in and dependent on the so-called culture industry in order to be "Andy Warhol -- Superstar". Andy's interest in the low-life that Valerie represents is, of course, wholly superficial, which enrages her. She sees no worthy theoretical position in the banal contentlessness of Andy's circle. Valerie's manifesto and dramatic works have almost an excess of content. They work to kick people in the balls to get them to open their eyes and see the appalling conditions around them. The Warhol here, like in The Doors, wants people to see empty banality, but has no interest in effecting change. Valerie's play, as read simultaneously in the lesbian coffee shop and at Andy's studio, dramatises this divergence. When Warhol and crowd read the script with dull inflection, inert on the couch, one can imagine the very words being put to use in a Warhol film. When Valerie and friends perform those same words, the passionate engagement and deep meaningfulness -- at least to Valerie -- capture her urgent commitment to her ideas. As Valerie gets more desperate to disseminate her ideas, and thus begins to further alienate the Factory crowd, she starts to see Andy as in fact the bodily symbol of the "man" she wants cut up. Not only does he represent the patriarch of the art world who has dismissed her and has invalidated her vision, but also more broadly the hierarchy and deep structure of Andy's world parallels the consumeristic and image-driven society at large. If Valerie wants to live with integrity within her own code, the "man" must be deposed. On top of the personal gratification she would receive in this act, Solanas would also finally find a world-wide audience for her views. Now we can understand why, when asked by the press why she shot Andy, Valerie tells them "he had too much control over my life." Unhappily, instead of women rising up against their male oppressors to take up their rightful place of superiority, Solanas gets labeled a "lunatic" by the same media and larger establishment which (in this film) proclaim Warhol a genius. Solanas dissolves into a bit-player in the Andy Warhol story. One of the major interests of this film is that it excerpts a player from the limits of that "master narrative" story and allows them their own subjecthood. I Shot Andy Warhol, with its assertive quotational title, seems to want to reinscribe subjecthood to one of the most truly radical of Andy's superstars, reclaiming the value of Valerie's polemics from the emptiness of her anecdotal role in Warhol's biography. Though Valerie clearly sees Andy as her nemesis, the film constructs him as a boring, ineffectual, self-absorbed effete. The great weakness of the film is that their conflict begins to look like a midget wrestling contest. Since both are competing for higher freakdom, the broader implications of either of their projects are only rarely glimpsed. It should be clear by now that for so many, fictional Warhol is not just a problematic figure, but nearly a monstrous one. The film-makers clearly show what elements of Warhol's representative strategy they find so threatening. Schnabel and Stone have the most to lose in the replacement of their value systems (genius investment and 60s macho spirituality) by what they perceive as postmodern de-centredness, and therefore need to attack that threat the most forcefully. Less conservatively, for Harron, Warhol's Pop objectification of everyone, including women, seems to threaten women's hard-won subjectivity through feminism. Warhol, Morrison, Basquiat and Solanas were all artists who played heavily on their roles as outsiders to mainstream society. These films build the film-makers' soapbox on the "right" way to be alienated, bourgeois-hating, and rebellious, and the films assume a sympathetic viewing audience. Even though the interest in Warhol and his flashy milieu probably got at least two of these films made in the first place, it seems clear that even the more independently-minded film establishment would rather align themselves with the romanticised artist bio-pic subject than the black hole they fear Warhol personifies. Perhaps the character Andy Warhol is put to most appropriate use when he is only glimpsed, such as in the films Death Becomes Her, where he appears as one of the party guests for people who have taken the magic potion to live forever, and as part of the 70s glam wallpaper in 54. This kind of "product placement" use of Warhol most succinctly encapsulates the vacant banality he espoused. In these films, Warhol is unburdened by other artists' attempts to fill him up with meaning. Warhol is taken at his word. His easily recognisable and reproducible bodily shell is hollow and superficial, just as he said it was. Warhol, Morrison, Basquiat and Solanas were all artists who played heavily on their roles as outsiders to mainstream society. These films build the film-makers' soapbox on the "right" way to be alienated, bourgeois-hating, and rebellious, and the films assume a sympathetic viewing audience. Even though the interest in Warhol and his flashy milieu probably got at least two of these films made in the first place, it seems clear that even the more independently-minded film establishment would rather align themselves with the romanticised artist bio-pic subject than the black hole they fear Warhol personifies. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Julie Turnock. "Painting Out Pop: "Andy Warhol" as a Character in 90s Films." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2.4 (1999). [your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9906/warhol.php>. Chicago style: Julie Turnock, "Painting Out Pop: "Andy Warhol" as a Character in 90s Films," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2, no. 4 (1999), <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9906/warhol.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Julie Turnock. (1999) Painting out pop: "Andy Warhol" as a character in 90s films. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2(4). <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9906/warhol.php> ([your date of access]).

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Pugsley, Peter. "At Home in Singaporean Sitcoms." M/C Journal 10, no.4 (August1, 2007). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.2695.

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The use of the family home as a setting for television sitcoms (situation comedies) has long been recognised for its ability to provide audiences with an identifiable site of ontological security (much discussed by Giddens, Scannell, Saunders and others). From the beginnings of American sitcoms with such programs as Leave it to Beaver, and through the trail of The Brady Bunch, The Cosby Show, Roseanne, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and on to Home Improvement, That 70s Show and How I Met Your Mother, the US has led the way with screenwriters and producers capitalising on the value of using the suburban family dwelling as a fixed setting. The most obvious advantage is the use of an easily constructed and inexpensive set, most often on a TV studio soundstage requiring only a few rooms (living room, kitchen and bedroom are usually enough to set the scene), and a studio audience. In Singapore, sitcoms have had similar successes; portraying the lives of ‘ordinary people’ in their home settings. Some programs have achieved phenomenal success, including an unprecedented ten year run for Phua Chu Kang Pte Ltd from 1996-2007, closely followed by Under One Roof (1994-2000 and an encore season in 2002), and Living with Lydia (2001-2005). This article furthers Blunt and Dowling’s exploration of the “critical geography” of home, by providing a focused analysis of home-based sitcoms in the nation-state of Singapore. The use of the home tells us a lot. Roseanne’s cluttered family home represents a lived reality for working-class families throughout the Western world. In Friends, the seemingly wealthy ‘young’ people live in a fashionable apartment building, while Seinfeld’s apartment block is much less salubrious, indicating (in line with the character) the struggle of the humble comedian. Each of these examples tells us something about not just the characters, but quite often about class, race, and contemporary societies. In the Singaporean programs, the home in Under One Roof (hereafter UOR) represents the major form of housing in Singapore, and the program as a whole demonstrates the workability of Singaporean multiculturalism in a large apartment block. Phua Chu Kang Pte Ltd (PCK) demonstrates the entrepreneurial abilities of even under-educated Singaporeans, with its lead character, a building contractor, living in a large freestanding dwelling – generally reserved for the well-heeled of Singaporean society. And in Living with Lydia (LWL) (a program which demonstrates Singapore’s capacity for global integration), Hong Kong émigré Lydia is forced to share a house (less ostentatious than PCK’s) with the family of the hapless Billy B. Ong. There is perhaps no more telling cultural event than the sitcom. In the 1970s, The Brady Bunch told us more about American values and habits than any number of news reports or cop shows. A nation’s identity is uncovered; it bares its soul to us through the daily tribulations of its TV households. In Singapore, home-based sitcoms have been one of the major success stories in local television production with each of these three programs collecting multiple prizes at the region-wide Asian Television Awards. These sitcoms have been able to reflect the ideals and values of the Singaporean nation to audiences both at ‘home’ and abroad. This article explores the worlds of UOR, PCK, and LWL, and the ways in which each of the fictional homes represents key features of the multi-ethnic, multi-cultural Singapore. Through ownership and regulation, Singaporean TV programs operate as a firm link between the state and its citizens. These sitcoms follow regular patterns where the ‘man of the house’ is more buffoon than breadwinner – in a country defined by its neo-Confucian morality, sitcoms allow a temporary subversion of patriarchal structures. In this article I argue that the central theme in Singaporean sitcoms is that while home is a personal space, it is also a valuable site for national identities to be played out. These identities are visible in the physical indicators of the exterior and interior living spaces, and the social indicators representing a benign patriarchy and a dominant English language. Structure One of the key features of sitcoms is the structure: cold open – titles – establishing shot – opening scene. Generally the cold opening (aka “the teaser”) takes place inside the home to quickly (re)establish audience familiarity with the location and the characters. The title sequence then features, in the case of LWL and PCK, the characters outside the house (in LWL this is in cartoon format), and in UOR (see Figure 1) it is the communal space of the barbeque area fronting the multi-story HDB (Housing Development Board) apartment blocks. Figure 1: Under One Roof The establishing shot at the end of each title sequence, and when returning from ad breaks, is an external view of the characters’ respective dwellings. In Seinfeld this establishing shot is the New York apartment block, in Roseanne it is the suburban house, and the Singaporean sitcoms follow the same format (see Figure 2). Figure 2: Phua Chu Kang External Visions of the Home This emphasis on exterior buildings reminds the viewer that Singaporean housing is, in many ways, unique. As a city-state (and a young one at that) its spatial constraints are particularly limiting: there simply isn’t room for suburban housing on quarter acre blocks. It rapidly transformed from an “empty rock” to a scattered Malay settlement of bay and riverside kampongs (villages) recognisable by its stilt houses. Then in the shadow of colonialism and the rise of modernity, the kampongs were replaced in many cases by European-inspired terrace houses. Finally, in the post-colonial era high-rise housing began to swell through the territory, creating what came to be known as the “HDB new town”, with some 90% of the population now said to reside in HDB units, and many others living in private high-rises (Chang 102, 104). Exterior shots used in UOR (see Figure 3) consistently emphasise the distinctive HDB blocks. As with the kampong housing, high-rise apartments continue notions of communal living in that “Living below, above and side by side other people requires tolerance of neighbours and a respect towards the environment of the housing estate for the good of all” (104). The provision of readily accessible public housing was part of the “covenant between the newly enfranchised electorate and the elected government” (Chua 47). Figure 3: Establishing shot from UOR In UOR, we see the constant interruption of the lives of the Tan family by their multi-ethnic neighbours. This occurs to such an extent as to be a part of the normal daily flow of life in Singaporean society. Chang argues that despite the normally interventionist activities of the state, it is the “self-enforcing norms” of behaviour that have worked in maintaining a “peaceable society in high-rise housing” (104). This communitarian attitude even extends to the large gated residence of PCK, home to an almost endless stream of relatives and friends. The gate itself seems to perform no restrictive function. But such a “peaceable society” can also be said to be a result of state planning which extends to the “racial majoritarianism” imposed on HDB units in the form of quotas determining “the actual number of households of each of the three major races [Chinese, Malay and Indian] … to be accommodated in a block of flats” (Chua 55). Issues of race are important in Singapore where “the inscription of media imagery bears the cultural discourse and materiality of the social milieu” (Wong 120) perhaps nowhere more graphically illustrated than in the segregation of TV channels along linguistic / cultural lines. These 3 programs all featured on MediaCorp TV’s predominantly English-language Channel 5 and are, in the words of Roland Barthes, “anchored” by dint of their use of English. Home Will Eat Itself The consumption of home-based sitcoms by audiences in their own living-rooms creates a somewhat self-parodying environment. As John Ellis once noted, it is difficult to escape from the notion that “TV is a profoundly domestic phenomenon” (113) in that it constantly attempts to “include the audiences own conception of themselves into the texture of its programmes” (115). In each of the three Singaporean programs living-rooms are designed to seat characters in front of a centrally located TV set – at most all the audience sees is the back of the TV, and generally only when the TV is incorporated into a storyline, as in the case of PCK in Figure 4 (note the TV set in the foreground). Figure 4: PCK Even in this episode of PCK when the lead characters stumble across a pornographic video starring one of the other lead characters, the viewer only hears the program. Perhaps the most realistic (and acerbic) view of how TV reorganises our lives – both spatially in the physical layout of our homes, and temporally in the way we construct our viewing habits (eating dinner or doing the housework while watching the screen) – is the British “black comedy”, The Royle Family. David Morley (443) notes that “TV and other media have adapted themselves to the circumstances of domestic consumption while the domestic arena itself has been simultaneously redefined to accommodate their requirements”. Morley refers to The Royle Family’s narrative that rests on the idea that “for many people, family life and watching TV have become indistinguishable to the extent that, in this fictional household, it is almost entirely conducted from the sitting positions of the viewers clustered around the set” (436). While TV is a central fixture in most sitcoms, its use is mostly as a peripheral thematic device with characters having their viewing interrupted by the arrival of another character, or by a major (within the realms of the plot) event. There is little to suggest that “television schedules have instigated a significant restructuring of family routines” as shown in Livingstone’s audience-based study of UK viewers (104). In the world of the sitcom, the temporalities of characters’ lives do not need to accurately reflect that of “real life” – or if they do, things quickly descend to the bleakness exemplified by the sedentary Royles. As Scannell notes, “broadcast output, like daily life, is largely uneventful, and both are punctuated (predictably and unpredictably) by eventful occasions” (4). To show sitcom characters in this static, passive environment would be anathema to the “real” viewer, who would quickly lose interest. This is not to suggest that sitcoms are totally benign though as with all genres they are “the outcome of social practices, received procedures that become objectified in the narratives of television, then modified in the interpretive act of viewing” (Taylor 14). In other words, they feature a contextualisation that is readily identifiable to members of an established society. However, within episodes themselves, it as though time stands still – character development is almost non-existent, or extremely slow at best and we see each episode has “flattened past and future into an eternal present in which parents love and respect one another, and their children forever” (Taylor 16). It takes some six seasons before the character of PCK becomes a father, although in previous seasons he acts as a mentor to his nephew, Aloysius. Contained in each episode, in true sitcom style, are particular “narrative lines” in which “one-liners and little comic situations [are] strung on a minimal plot line” containing a minor problem “the solution to which will take 22 minutes and pull us gently through the sequence of events toward a conclusion” (Budd et al. 111). It is important to note that the sitcom genre does not work in every culture, as each locale renders the sitcom with “different cultural meanings” (Nielsen 95). Writing of the failure of the Danish series Three Whores and a Pickpocket (with a premise like that, how could it fail?), Nielsen (112) attributes its failure to the mixing of “kitchen sink realism” with “moments of absurdity” and “psychological drama with expressionistic camera work”, moving it well beyond the strict mode of address required by the genre. In Australia, soap operas Home and Away and Neighbours have been infinitely more popular than our attempts at sitcoms – which had a brief heyday in the 1980s with Hey Dad..!, Kingswood Country and Mother and Son – although Kath and Kim (not studio-based) could almost be counted. Lichter et al. (11) state that “television entertainment can be ‘political’ even when it does not deal with the stuff of daily headlines or partisan controversy. Its latent politics lie in the unavoidable portrayal of individuals, groups, and institutions as a backdrop to any story that occupies the foreground”. They state that US television of the 1960s was dominated by the “idiot sitcom” and that “To appreciate these comedies you had to believe that social conventions were so ironclad they could not tolerate variations. The scripts assumed that any minute violation of social conventions would lead to a crisis that could be played for comic results” (15). Series like Happy Days “harked back to earlier days when problems were trivial and personal, isolated from the concerns of a larger world” (17). By the late 1980s, Roseanne and Married…With Children had “spawned an antifamily-sitcom format that used sarcasm, cynicism, and real life problems to create a type of in-your-face comedy heretofore unseen on prime time” (20). This is markedly different from the type of values presented in Singaporean sitcoms – where filial piety and an unrelenting faith in the family unit is sacrosanct. In this way, Singaporean sitcoms mirror the ideals of earlier US sitcoms which idealise the “egalitarian family in which parental wisdom lies in appeals to reason and fairness rather than demands for obedience” (Lichter et al. 406). Dahlgren notes that we are the products of “an ongoing process of the shaping and reshaping of identity, in response to the pluralised sets of social forces, cultural currents and personal contexts encountered by individuals” where we end up with “composite identities” (318). Such composite identities make the presentation (or re-presentation) of race problematic for producers of mainstream television. Wong argues that “Within the context of PAP hegemony, media presentation of racial differences are manufactured by invoking and resorting to traditional values, customs and practices serving as symbols and content” (118). All of this is bound within a classificatory system in which each citizen’s identity card is inscribed as Chinese, Malay, Indian or Other (often referred to as CMIO), and a broader social discourse in which “the Chinese are linked to familial values of filial piety and the practice of extended family, the Malays to Islam and rural agricultural activities, and the Indians to the caste system” (Wong 118). However, these sitcoms avoid directly addressing the issue of race, preferring to accentuate cultural differences instead. In UOR the tables are turned when a none-too-subtle dig at the crude nature of mainland Chinese (with gags about the state of public toilets), is soon turned into a more reverential view of Chinese culture and business acumen. Internal Visions of the Home This reverence for Chinese culture is also enacted visually. The loungeroom settings of these three sitcoms all provide examples of the fashioning of the nation through a “ubiquitous semi-visibility” (Noble 59). Not only are the central characters in each of these sitcoms constructed as ethnically Chinese, but the furnishings provide a visible nod to Chinese design in the lacquered screens, chairs and settees of LWL (see Figure 5.1), in the highly visible pair of black inlaid mother-of-pearl wall hangings of UOR (see Figure 5.2) and in the Chinese statuettes and wall-hangings found in the PCK home. Each of these items appears in the central view of the shows most used setting, the lounge/family room. There is often symmetry involved as well; the balanced pearl hangings of UOR are mirrored in a set of silk prints in LWL and the pair of ceramic Chinese lions in PCK. Figure 5.1: LWL Figure 5.2: UOR Thus, all three sitcoms feature design elements that reflect visible links to Chinese culture and sentiments, firmly locating the sitcoms “in Asia”, and providing a sense of the nation. The sets form an important role in constructing a realist environment, one in which “identification with realist narration involves a temporary merger of at least some of the viewer’s identity with the position offered by the text” (Budd et al. 110). These constant silent reminders of the Chinese-based hegemon – the cultural “majoritarianism” – anchors the sitcoms to a determined concept of the nation-state, and reinforces the “imaginative geographies of home” (Blunt and Dowling 247). The Foolish “Father” Figure in a Patriarchal Society But notions of a dominant Chinese culture are dealt with in a variety of ways in these sitcoms – not the least in a playful attitude toward patriarchal figures. In UOR, the Tan family “patriarch” is played by Moses Lim, in PCK, Gurmit Singh plays Phua and in LWL Samuel Chong plays Billy B. Ong (or, as Lydia mistakenly refers to him Billy Bong). Erica Sharrer makes the claim that class is a factor in presenting the father figure as buffoon, and that US sitcoms feature working class families in which “the father is made to look inept, silly, or incompetent have become more frequent” partly in response to changing societal structures where “women are shouldering increasing amounts of financial responsibility in the home” (27). Certainly in the three series looked at here, PCK (the tradesman) is presented as the most derided character in his role as head of the household. Moses Lim’s avuncular Tan Ah Teck is presented mostly as lovably foolish, even when reciting his long-winded moral tales at the conclusion of each episode, and Billy B. Ong, as a middle-class businessman, is presented more as a victim of circumstance than as a fool. Sharrer ponders whether “sharing the burden of bread-winning may be associated with fathers perceiving they are losing advantages to which they were traditionally entitled” (35). But is this really a case of males losing the upper hand? Hanke argues that men are commonly portrayed as the target of humour in sitcoms, but only when they “are represented as absurdly incongruous” to the point that “this discursive strategy recuperates patriarchal notions” (90). The other side of the coin is that while the “dominant discursive code of patriarchy might be undone” (but isn’t), “the sitcom’s strategy for containing women as ‘wives’ and ‘mothers’ is always contradictory and open to alternative readings” (Hanke 77). In Singapore’s case though, we often return to images of the women in the kitchen, folding the washing or agonising over the work/family dilemma, part of what Blunt and Dowling refer to as the “reproduction of patriarchal and heterosexist relations” often found in representations of “the ideal’ suburban home” (29). Eradicating Singlish One final aspect of these sitcoms is the use of language. PM Lee Hsien Loong once said that he had no interest in “micromanaging” the lives of Singaporeans (2004). Yet his two predecessors (PM Goh and PM Lee Senior) both reflected desires to do so by openly criticising the influence of Phua Chu Kang’s liberal use of colloquial phrases and phrasing. While the use of Singlish (or Singapore Colloquial English / SCE) in these sitcoms is partly a reflection of everyday life in Singapore, by taking steps to eradicate it through the Speak Good English movement, the government offers an intrusion into the private home-space of Singaporeans (Ho 17). Authorities fear that increased use of Singlish will damage the nation’s ability to communicate on a global basis, withdrawing to a locally circumscribed “pidgin English” (Rubdy 345). Indeed, the use of Singlish in UOR is deliberately underplayed in order to capitalise on overseas sales of the show (which aired, for example, on Australia’s SBS television) (Srilal). While many others have debated the Singlish issue, my concern is with its use in the home environment as representative of Singaporean lifestyles. As novelist Hwee Hwee Tan (2000) notes: Singlish is crude precisely because it’s rooted in Singapore’s unglamorous past. This is a nation built from the sweat of uncultured immigrants who arrived 100 years ago to bust their asses in the boisterous port. Our language grew out of the hardships of these ancestors. Singlish thus offers users the opportunity to “show solidarity, comradeship and intimacy (despite differences in background)” and against the state’s determined efforts to adopt the language of its colonizer (Ho 19-20). For this reason, PCK’s use of Singlish iterates a “common man” theme in much the same way as Paul Hogan’s “Ocker” image of previous decades was seen as a unifying feature of mainstream Australian values. That the fictional PCK character was eventually “forced” to take “English” lessons (a storyline rapidly written into the program after the direct criticisms from the various Prime Ministers), is a sign that the state has other ideas about the development of Singaporean society, and what is broadcast en masse into Singaporean homes. Conclusion So what do these home-based sitcoms tell us about Singaporean nationalism? Firstly, within the realms of a multiethnic society, mainstream representations reflect the hegemony present in the social and economic structures of Singapore. Chinese culture is dominant (albeit in an English-speaking environment) and Indian, Malay and Other cultures are secondary. Secondly, the home is a place of ontological security, and partial adornment with cultural ornaments signifying Chinese culture are ever-present as a reminder of the Asianness of the sitcom home, ostensibly reflecting the everyday home of the audience. The concept of home extends beyond the plywood-prop walls of the soundstage though. As Noble points out, “homes articulate domestic spaces to national experience” (54) through the banal nationalism exhibited in “the furniture of everyday life” (55). In a Singaporean context, Velayutham (extending the work of Morley) explores the comforting notion of Singapore as “home” to its citizens and concludes that the “experience of home and belonging amongst Singaporeans is largely framed in the materiality and social modernity of everyday life” (4). Through the use of sitcoms, the state is complicit in creating and recreating the family home as a site for national identities, adhering to dominant modes of culture and language. References Blunt, Alison, and Robyn Dowling. Home. London: Routledge, 2006. Budd, Mike, Steve Craig, and Clay Steinman. Consuming Environments: Television and Commercial Culture. New Jersey: Rutgers UP, 1999. Chang, Sishir. “A High-Rise Vernacular in Singapore’s Housing Development Board Housing.” Berkeley Planning Journal 14 (2000): 97-116. Chua, Beng Huat. “Public Housing Residents as Clients of the State.” Housing Studies 15.1 (2000). Dahlgren, Peter. “Media, Citizenship and Civic Culture”. Mass Media and Society. 3rd ed. Eds. James Curran and Michael Gurevitch. London: Arnold, 2000. 310-328. Ellis, John. Visible Fictions: Cinema, Television, Video. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982. Hanke, Robert. “The ‘Mock-Macho’ Situation Comedy: Hegemonic Masculinity and its Reiteration.” Western Journal of Communication 62.1 (1998). Ho, Debbie G.E. “‘I’m Not West. I’m Not East. So How Leh?’” English Today 87 22.3 (2006). Lee, Hsien Loong. “Our Future of Opportunity and Promise.” National Day Rally 2004 Speech. 29 Apr. 2007 http://www.gov.sg/nd/ND04.htm>. Lichter, S. Robert, Linda S. Lichter, and Stanley Rothman. Prime Time: How TV Portrays American Culture. Washington D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 1994. Livingstone, Sonia. Young People and New Media: Childhood and the Changing Media Environment. London: Sage, 2002 Morley, David. “What’s ‘Home’ Got to Do with It? Contradictory Dynamics in the Domestication of Technology and the Dislocation of Domesticity.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 6 (2003). Noble, Greg. “Comfortable and Relaxed: Furnishing the Home and Nation.” Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 16.1 (2002). Rubdy, Rani. “Creative Destruction: Singapore’s Speak Good English Movement.” World Englishes 20.3 (2001). Scannell, Paddy. “For a Phenomenology of Radio and Television.” Journal of Communication 45.3 (1995). Scharrer, Erica. “From Wise to Foolish: The Portrayal of the Sitcom Father, 1950s-1990s.” Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 45.1 (2001). Srilal, Mohan. “Quick Quick: ‘Singlish’ Is Out in Re-education Campaign.” Asia Times Online (28 Aug. 1999). Tan, Hwee Hwee. “A War of Words over ‘Singlish’: Singapore’s Government Wants Its Citizens to Speak Good English, But They Would Rather Be ‘Talking Cock’.” Time International 160.3 (29 July 2002). Taylor, Ella. “From the Nelsons to the Huxtables: Genre and Family Imagery in American Network Television.” Qualitative Sociology 12.1 (1989). Velayutham, Selvaraj. “Affect, Materiality, and the Gift of Social Life in Singapore.” SOJOURN 19.1 (2004). Wong, Kokkeong. Media and Culture in Singapore: A Theory of Controlled Commodification. New Jersey: Hampton Press, 2001. Images Under One Roof: The Special Appearances. Singapore: Television Corporation of Singapore. VCD. 2000. Living with Lydia (Season 1, Volume 1). Singapore: MediaCorp Studios, Blue Max Enterprise. VCD. 2001. Phua Chu Kang Pte Ltd (Season 5, Episode 10). Kuala Lumpur: MediaCorp Studios, Speedy Video Distributors. VCD. 2003. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Pugsley, Peter. "At Home in Singaporean Sitcoms: Under One Roof, Living with Lydia and Phua Chu Kang." M/C Journal 10.4 (2007). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0708/09-pugsley.php>. APA Style Pugsley, P. (Aug. 2007) "At Home in Singaporean Sitcoms: Under One Roof, Living with Lydia and Phua Chu Kang," M/C Journal, 10(4). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0708/09-pugsley.php>.

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Brien, Donna Lee. "Disclosure in Biographically-Based Fiction: The Challenges of Writing Narratives Based on True Life Stories." M/C Journal 12, no.5 (December13, 2009). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.186.

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As the distinction between disclosure-fuelled celebrity and lasting fame becomes difficult to discern, the “based on a true story” label has gained a particular traction among readers and viewers. This is despite much public approbation and private angst sometimes resulting from such disclosure as “little in the law or in society protects people from the consequences of others’ revelations about them” (Smith 537). Even fiction writers can stray into difficult ethical and artistic territory when they disclose the private facts of real lives—that is, recognisably biographical information—in their work, with autoethnographic fiction where authors base their fiction on their own lives (Davis and Ellis) not immune as this often discloses others’ stories (Ellis) as well. F. Scott Fitzgerald famously counselled writers to take their subjects from life and, moreover, to look to the singular, specific life, although this then had to be abstracted: “Begin with an individual, and before you know it, you find that you have created a type; begin with a type, and you find that you have created—nothing” (139). One of the problems when assessing fiction through this lens, however, is that, although many writers are inspired in their work by an actual life, event or historical period, the resulting work is usually ultimately guided by literary concerns—what writers often term the quest for aesthetic truth—rather than historical accuracy (Owen et al. 2008). In contrast, a biography is, and continues to be, by definition, an accurate account of a real persons’ life. Despite postmodern assertions regarding the relativity of truth and decades of investigation into the incorporation of fiction into biography, other non-fiction texts and research narratives (see, for instance: Wyatt), many biographers attest to still feeling irrevocably tied to the factual evidence in a way that novelists and the scriptors of biographically-based fictional television drama, movies and theatrical pieces do not (Wolpert; Murphy; Inglis). To cite a recent example, Louis Nowra’s Ice takes the life of nineteenth-century self-made entrepreneur and politician Malcolm McEacharn as its base, but never aspires to be classified as creative nonfiction, history or biography. The history in a historical novel is thus often, and legitimately, skewed or sidelined in order to achieve the most satisfying work of art, although some have argued that fiction may uniquely represent the real, as it is able to “play […] in the gap between the narratives of history and the actualities of the past” (Nelson n.p.). Fiction and non-fictional forms are, moreover, increasingly intermingling and intertwining in content and intent. The ugly word “faction” was an attempt to suggest that the two could simply be elided but, acknowledging wide-ranging debates about whether literature can represent the complexities of life with any accuracy and post-structuralist assertions that the idea of any absolute truth is outmoded, contemporary authors play with, and across, these boundaries, creating hybrid texts that consciously slide between invention and disclosure, but which publishers, critics and readers continue to define firmly as either fiction or biography. This dancing between forms is not particularly new. A striking example was Marion Halligan’s 2001 novel The Fog Garden which opens with a personal essay about the then recent death of her own much-loved husband. This had been previously published as an autobiographical memoir, “Cathedral of Love,” and again in an essay collection as “Lapping.” The protagonist of the novel is a recently widowed writer named Clare, but the inclusion of Halligan’s essay, together with the book’s marketing campaign which made much of the author’s own sadness, encourages readers to read the novel as a disclosure of the author’s own personal experience. This is despite Halligan’s attempt to keep the two separate: “Clare isn’t me. She’s like me. Some of her experience, terrors, have been mine. Some haven’t” (Fog Garden 9). In such acts of disclosure and denial, fiction and non-fiction can interrogate, test and even create each other, however quite vicious criticism can result when readers feel the boundaries demarking the two are breached. This is most common when authors admit to some dishonesty in terms of self-disclosure as can be seen, for instance, in the furore surrounding highly inflated and even wholly fabricated memoirs such as James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces, Margaret B. Jones’s Love and Consequences and Misha Defonseca’s A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years. Related problems and anxieties arise when authors move beyond incorporating and disclosing the facts of their own lives in memoir or (autobiographical) fiction, to using the lives of others in this way. Daphne Patai sums up the difference: “A person telling her life story is, in a sense, offering up her self for her own and her listener’s scrutiny […] Whether we should appropriate another’s life in this way becomes a legitimate question” (24–5). While this is difficult but seemingly manageable for non-fiction writers because of their foundational reliance on evidence, this anxiety escalates for fiction writers. This seems particularly extreme in relation to how audience expectations and prior knowledge of actual events can shape perceptions and interpretations of the resulting work, even when those events are changed and the work is declared to be one of fiction. I have discussed elsewhere, for instance, the difficult terrain of crafting fiction from well-known criminal cases (Brien, “Based on a True Story”). The reception of such work shows how difficult it is to dissociate creative product from its source material once the public and media has made this connection, no matter how distant that finished product may be from the original facts.As the field of biography continues to evolve for writers, critics and theorists, a study of one key text at a moment in that evolution—Jill Shearer’s play Georgia and its reliance on disclosing the life of artist Georgia O’Keeffe for its content and dramatic power—reveals not only some of the challenges and opportunities this close relationship offers to the writers and readers of life stories, but also the pitfalls of attempting to dissemble regarding artistic intention. This award-winning play has been staged a number of times in the past decade but has attracted little critical attention. Yet, when I attended a performance of Georgia at La Boite Theatre in Brisbane in 1999, I was moved by the production and admiring of Shearer’s writing which was, I told anyone who would listen, a powerfully dramatic interpretation of O’Keeffe’s life, one of my favourite artists. A full decade on, aspects of the work and its performance still resonate through my thinking. Author of more than twenty plays performed throughout Australia and New Zealand as well as on Broadway, Shearer was then (and is) one of Australia’s leading playwrights, and I judged Georgia to be a major, mature work: clear, challenging and confident. Reading the Currency Press script a year or so after seeing the play reinforced for me how distinctive and successful a piece of theatre Shearer had created utilising a literary technique which has been described elsewhere as fictionalised biography—biography which utilises fictional forms in its presentation but stays as close to the historical record as conventional biography (Brien, The Case of Mary Dean).The published version of the script indeed acknowledges on its title page that Georgia is “inspired by the later life of the American artist Georgia O’Keeffe” (Shearer). The back cover blurb begins with a quote attributed to O’Keeffe and then describes the content of the play entirely in terms of biographical detail: The great American artist Georgia O’Keeffe is physically, emotionally and artistically debilitated by her failing eyesight. Living amidst the Navajo spiritual landscape in her desert home in New Mexico, she becomes prey to the ghosts of her past. Her solitude is broken by Juan, a young potter, whose curious influence on her life remains until her death at 98 (Georgia back cover). This short text ends by unequivocally reinforcing the relation between the play and the artist’s life: “Georgia is a passionate play that explores with sensitivity and wry humour the contradictions and the paradoxes of the life of Georgia O’Keeffe” (Georgia back cover). These few lines of plot synopsis actually contain a surprisingly large number of facts regarding O’Keeffe’s later life. After the death of her husband (the photographer and modern art impresario Alfred Steiglitz whose ghost is a central character in the play), O’Keeffe did indeed relocate permanently to Abiquiú in New Mexico. In 1971, aged 84, she was suffering from an irreversible degenerative disease, had lost her central vision and stopped painting. One autumn day in 1973, Juan Hamilton, a young potter, appeared at her adobe house looking for work. She hired him and he became her lover, closest confidante and business manager until her death at 98. These facts form not only the background story but also much of the riveting content for Georgia which, as the published script’s introduction states, takes as its central themes: “the dilemma of the artist as a an older woman; her yearning to create against the fear of failing artistic powers; her mental strength and vulnerability; her sexuality in the face of physical deterioration; her need for companionship and the paradoxical love of solitude” (Rider vii). These issues are not only those which art historians identify as animating the O’Keeffe’s later life and painting, but ones which are discussed at length in many of the biographies of the artist published from 1980 to 2007 (see, for instance: Arrowsmith and West; Berry; Calloway and Bry; Castro; Drohojowska-Philp; Eisler; Eldredge; Harris; Hogrefe; Lisle; Peters; Reily; Robinson).Despite this clear focus on disclosing aspects of O’Keeffe’s life, both the director’s and playwright’s notes prefacing the published script declare firmly that Georgia is fiction, not biography. While accepting that these statements may be related to copyright and privacy concerns, the stridency of the denials of the biography label with its implied intention of disclosing the facts of a life, are worthy of analysis. Although noting that Georgia is “about the American artist Georgia O’Keeffe”, director of the La Boite production Sue Rider asserts that not only that the play moves “beyond the biographical” (vii) but, a few pages later, that it is “thankfully not biography” (xii). This is despite Rider’s own underscoring of the connection to O’Keeffe by setting up an exhibition of the artist’s work adjacent to the theatre. Shearer, whose research acknowledgments include a number of works about O’Keeffe, is even more overtly strident in her denial of any biographical links stating that her characters, “this Juan, Anna Marie and Dorothy Norman are a work of dramatic fiction, as is the play, and should be taken as such” (xiii).Yet, set against a reading of the biographies of the artist, including those written in the intervening decade, Georgia clearly and remarkably accurately discloses the tensions and contradictions of O’Keeffe’s life. It also draws on a significant amount of documented biographical data to enhance the dramatic power of what is disclosed by the play for audiences with this knowledge. The play does work as a coherent narrative for a viewer without any prior knowledge of O’Keeffe’s life, but the meaning of the dramatic action is enhanced by any biographical knowledge the audience possesses. In this way, the play’s act of disclosure is reinforced by this externally held knowledge. Although O’Keeffe’s oeuvre is less well known and much anecdotal detail about her life is not as familiar for Australian viewers as for those in the artist’s homeland, Shearer writes for an international as well as an Australian audience, and the program and adjacent exhibition for the Brisbane performance included biographical information. It is also worth noting that large slabs of biographical detail are also omitted from the play. These omissions to disclosure include O’Keeffe’s early life from her birth in 1887 in Wisconsin to her studies in Chicago and New York from 1904 to 1908, as well as her work as a commercial artist and art teacher in Texas and other Southern American states from 1912 to 1916. It is from this moment in 1916, however, that the play (although opening in 1946) constructs O’Keeffe’s life right through to her death in 1986 by utilising such literary devices as flashbacks, dream sequences and verbal and visual references.An indication of the level of accuracy of the play as biographical disclosure can be ascertained by unpacking the few lines of opening stage directions, “The Steiglitz’s suite in the old mid-range Shelton Hotel, New York, 1946 ... Georgia, 59, in black, enters, dragging a coffin” (1). In 1946, when O’Keeffe was indeed aged 59, Steiglitz died. The couple had lived part of every year at the Shelton Towers Hotel at 525 Lexington Avenue (now the New York Marriott East Side), a moderately priced hotel made famous by its depiction in O’Keeffe’s paintings and Steiglitz’s photographs. When Stieglitz suffered a cerebral thrombosis, O’Keeffe was spending the summer in New Mexico, but she returned to New York where her husband died on 13 July. This level of biographical accuracy continues throughout Georgia. Halfway through the first page “Anita, 52” enters. This character represents Anita Pollitzer, artist, critic and O’Keeffe’s lifelong friend. The publication of her biography of O’Keeffe, A Woman on Paper, and Georgia’s disapproval of this, is discussed in the play, as are their letters, which were collected and published in 1990 as Lovingly, Georgia (Gibiore). Anita’s first lines in the play after greeting her friend refer to this substantial correspondence: “You write beautifully. I always tell people: “I have a friend who writes the most beautiful letters” (1). In the play, as in life, it is Anita who introduces O’Keeffe’s work to Stieglitz who is, in turn, accurately described as: “Gallery owner. Two Nine One, Fifth Avenue. Leader of the New York avant-garde, the first to bring in the European moderns” (6). The play also chronicles how (unknown to O’Keeffe) Steiglitz exhibited the drawings Pollitzer gave him under the incorrect name, a scene which continues with Steiglitz persuading Georgia to allow her drawings to remain in his gallery (as he did in life) and ends with a reference to his famous photographs of her hands and nude form. Although the action of a substantial amount of real time is collapsed into a few dramatic minutes and, without doubt, the dialogue is invented, this invention achieves the level of aesthetic truth aimed for by many contemporary biographers (Jones)—as can be assessed when referring back to the accepted biographical account. What actually appears to have happened was that, in the autumn 1915, while teaching art in South Carolina, O’Keeffe was working on a series of abstract charcoal drawings that are now recognised as among the most innovative in American art of that time. She mailed some of these drawings to Pollitzer, who showed them Steiglitz, who exhibited ten of them in April 1916, O’Keeffe only learning of this through an acquaintance. O’Keeffe, who had first visited 291 in 1908 but never spoken to Stieglitz, held his critical opinion in high regard, and although confronting him over not seeking her permission and citing her name incorrectly, eventually agreed to let her drawings hang (Harris). Despite Shearer’s denial, the other characters in Georgia are also largely biographical sketches. Her “Anna Marie”, who never appears in the play but is spoken of, is Juan’s wife (in real life Anna Marie Hamilton), and “Dorothy Norman” is the character who has an affair with Steiglitz—the discovery of which leads to Georgia’s nervous breakdown in the play. In life, while O’Keeffe was in New Mexico, Stieglitz became involved with the much younger Norman who was, he claimed, only his gallery assistant. When O’Keeffe discovered Norman posing nude for her husband (this is vividly imagined in Georgia), O’Keeffe moved out of the Shelton and suffered from the depression that led to her nervous breakdown. “ Juan,” who ages from 26 to 39 in the play, represents the potter Juan Hamilton who encouraged the nearly blind O’Keeffe to paint again. In the biographical record there is much conjecture about Hamilton’s motives, and Shearer sensitively portrays her interpretation of this liaison and the difficult territory of sexual desire between a man and a much older woman, as she also too discloses the complex relationship between O’Keeffe and the much older Steiglitz.This complexity is described through the action of the play, but its disclosure is best appreciated if the biographical data is known. There are also a number of moments of biographical disclosure in the play that can only be fully understood with biographical knowledge in hand. For instance, Juan refers to Georgia’s paintings as “Beautiful, sexy flowers [... especially] the calla lilies” (24). All attending the play are aware (from the exhibition, program and technical aspects of the production) that, in life, O’Keeffe was famous for her flower paintings. However, knowing that these had brought her fame and fortune early in her career with, in 1928, a work titled Calla Lily selling for U.S. $25,000, then an enormous sum for any living American artist, adds to the meaning of this line in the play. Conversely, the significant level of biographical disclosure throughout Georgia does not diminish, in any way, the power or integrity of Shearer’s play as a literary work. Universal literary (and biographical) themes—love, desire and betrayal—animate Georgia; Steiglitz’s spirit haunts Georgia years after his death and much of the play’s dramatic energy is generated by her passion for both her dead husband and her younger lover, with some of her hopeless desire sublimated through her relationship with Juan. Nadia Wheatley reads such a relationship between invention and disclosure in terms of myth—relating how, in the process of writing her biography of Charmain Clift, she came to see Clift and her husband George Johnson take on a larger significance than their individual lives: “They were archetypes; ourselves writ large; experimenters who could test and try things for us; legendary figures through whom we could live vicariously” (5). In this, Wheatley finds that “while myth has no real beginning or end, it also does not bother itself with cause and effect. Nor does it worry about contradictions. Parallel tellings are vital to the fabric” (5). In contrast with both Rider and Shearer’s insistence that Georgia was “not biography”, it could be posited that (at least part of) Georgia’s power arises from the creation of such mythic value, and expressly through its nuanced disclosure of the relevant factual (biographical) elements in parallel to the development of its dramatic (invented) elements. Alongside this, accepting Georgia as such a form of biographical disclosure would mean that as well as a superbly inventive creative work, the highly original insights Shearer offers to the mass of O’Keeffe biography—something of an American industry—could be celebrated, rather than excused or denied. ReferencesArrowsmith, Alexandra, and Thomas West, eds. Georgia O’Keeffe & Alfred Stieglitz: Two Lives—A Conversation in Paintings and Photographs. Washington DC: HarperCollins and Calloway Editions, and The Phillips Collection, 1992.Berry, Michael. Georgia O’Keeffe. New York: Chelsea House, 1988.Brien, Donna Lee. The Case of Mary Dean: Sex, Poisoning and Gender Relations in Australia. Unpublished PhD Thesis. Queensland University of Technology, 2004. –––. “‘Based on a True Story’: The Problem of the Perception of Biographical Truth in Narratives Based on Real Lives”. TEXT: Journal of Writers and Writing Programs 13.2 (Oct. 2009). 19 Oct. 2009 < http://www.textjournal.com.au >.Calloway, Nicholas, and Doris Bry, eds. Georgia O’Keeffe in the West. New York: Knopf, 1989.Castro, Jan G. The Art and Life of Georgia O’Keeffe. New York: Crown Publishing, Random House, 1985.Davis, Christine S., and Carolyn Ellis. “Autoethnographic Introspection in Ethnographic Fiction: A Method of Inquiry.” In Pranee Liamputtong and Jean Rumbold, eds. Knowing Differently: Arts-Based and Collaborative Research. New York: Nova Science, 2008. 99–117.Defonseca, Misha. Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years. Bluebell, PA: Mt. Ivy Press, 1997.Drohojowska-Philp, Hunter. Full Bloom: The Art and Life of Georgia O’Keeffe. New York: WW Norton, 2004.Ellis, Carolyn. “Telling Secrets, Revealing Lives: Relational Ethics in Research with Intimate Others.” Qualitative Inquiry 13.1 (2007): 3–29. Eisler, Benita. O’Keeffe and Stieglitz: An American Romance. New York: Doubleday, 1991.Eldredge, Charles C. Georgia O’Keeffe: American and Modern. New Haven: Yale UP, 1993.Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Diamond as Big as the Ritz and Other Stories. Harmondsworth, U.K.: Penguin, 1962.Frey, James. A Million Little Pieces. New York: N.A. Talese/Doubleday, 2003.Gibiore, Clive, ed. Lovingly, Georgia. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990.Halligan, Marion. “Lapping.” In Peter Craven, ed. Best Australian Essays. Melbourne: Bookman P, 1999. 208–13.Halligan, Marion. The Fog Garden. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 2001.Halligan, Marion. “The Cathedral of Love.” The Age 27 Nov. 1999: Saturday Extra 1.Harris, J. C. “Georgia O’Keeffe at 291”. Archives of General Psychiatry 64.2 (Feb. 2007): 135–37.Hogrefe, Jeffrey. O’Keeffe: The Life of an American Legend. New York: Bantam, 1994.Inglis, Ian. “Popular Music History on Screen: The Pop/Rock Biopic.” Popular Music History 2.1 (2007): 77–93.Jones, Kip. “A Biographic Researcher in Pursuit of an Aesthetic: The Use of Arts-Based (Re)presentations in “Performative” Dissemination of Life Stories”. Qualitative Sociology Review 2.1 (Apr. 2006): 66–85. Jones, Margaret B. Love and Consequences: A Memoir of Hope and Survival. New York: Riverhead Books, 2008.Lisle, Laurie. Portrait of an Artist: A Biography of Georgia O’Keeffe. New York: Seaview Books, 1980.Murphy, Mary. “Limited Lives: The Problem of the Literary Biopic”. Kinema 17 (Spr. 2002): 67–74. Nelson, Camilla. “Faking It: History and Creative Writing.” TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Courses 11.2 (Oct. 2007). 19 Oct. 2009 < http://www.textjournal.com.au/oct07/nelson.htm >.Nowra, Louis. Ice. Crows Nest: Allen and Unwin, 2008.Owen, Jillian A. Tullis, Chris McRae, Tony E. Adams, and Alisha Vitale. “Truth Troubles.” Qualitative Inquiry 15.1 (2008): 178–200.Patai, Daphne. “Ethical Problems of Personal Narratives, or, Who Should Eat the Last Piece of Cake.” International Journal of Oral History 8 (1987): 5–27.Peters, Sarah W. Becoming O’Keeffe. New York: Abbeville Press, 1991.Pollitzer, Anita. A Woman on Paper. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988.Reily, Nancy Hopkins. Georgia O’Keeffe. A Private Friendship, Part II. Santa Fe, NM: Sunstone Press, 2009.Rider, Sue. “Director’s Note.” Georgia [playscript]. Sydney: Currency Press, 2000. vii–xii.Robinson, Roxana. Georgia O’Keeffe: A Life. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 1990. Shearer, Jill. Georgia [playscript]. Sydney: Currency Press, 2000.Smith, Thomas R. “How Our Lives Become Stories: Making Selves [review]”. Biography 23.3 (2000): 534–38.Wheatley, Nadia. The Life and Myth of Charmian Clift. Sydney: Flamingo, 2001.Wolpert, Stanley. “Biography as History: A Personal Reflection”. Journal of Interdisciplinary History 40.3 (2010): 399–412. Pub. online (Oct. 2009). 19 Oct. 2009 < http://www.mitpressjournals.org/toc/jinh/40/3 >.Wyatt, Jonathan. “Research, Narrative and Fiction: Conference Story”. The Qualitative Report 12.2 (Jun. 2007): 318–31.

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Stauff, Markus. "Non-Fiction Transmedia: Seriality and Forensics in Media Sport." M/C Journal 21, no.1 (March14, 2018). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1372.

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At last year’s Tour de France—the three-week cycling race—the winner of one stage was disqualified for allegedly obstructing a competitor. In newspapers and on social media, cycling fans immediately started a heated debate about the decision and about the actual course of events. They uploaded photographs and videos, which they had often edited and augmented with graphics to support their interpretation of the situation or to direct attention to some neglected detail (Simpson; "Tour de France").Due to their competitive character and their audience’s partisanship, modern media sports continuously create controversial moments like this, thereby providing ample opportunities for what Jason Mittell—with respect to complex narratives in recent TV drama—called “forensic fandom” ("Forensic;" Complex), in which audience members collectively investigate ambivalent or enigmatic elements of a media product, adding their own interpretations and explanations.Not unlike that of TV drama, sport’s forensic fandom is stimulated through complex forms of seriality—e.g. the successive stages of the Tour de France or the successive games of a tournament or a league, but also the repetition of the same league competition or tournament every (or, in the case of the Olympics, every four) year(s). To articulate their take on the disqualification of the Tour de France rider, fans refer to comparable past events, activate knowledge about rivalries between cyclists, or note character traits that they condensed from the alleged perpetrator’s prior appearances. Sport thus creates a continuously evolving and recursive storyworld that, like all popular seriality, proliferates across different media forms (texts, photos, films, etc.) and different media platforms (television, social media, etc.) (Kelleter).In the following I will use two examples (from 1908 and 1966) to analyse in greater detail why and how sport’s seriality and forensic attitude contribute to the highly dynamic “transmedia intertextuality” (Kinder 35) of media sport. Two arguments are of special importance to me: (1) While social media (as the introductory example has shown) add to forensic fandom’s proliferation, it was sport’s strongly serialized evaluation of performances that actually triggered the “spreadability” (Jenkins, Ford, and Green) of sport-related topics across different media, first doing so at the end of the 19th century. What is more, modern sport owes its very existence to the cross-media circulation of its events. (2) So far, transmedia has mainly been researched with respect to fictional content (Jenkins; Evans), yet existing research on documentary transmedia forms (Kerrigan and Velikovsky) and social media seriality (Page) has shown that the inclusion of non-fiction can broaden our knowledge of how storytelling sprawls across media and takes advantage of their specific affordances. This, I want to argue, ensures that sport is an insightful and important example for the understanding of transmedia world-building.The Origins of Sport, the Olympics 1908, and World-BuildingSome authors claim that it was commercial television that replaced descriptive accounts of sporting events with narratives of heroes and villains in the 1990s (Fabos). Yet even a cursory study of past sport reporting shows that, even back when newspapers had to explain the controversial outcome of the 1908 Olympic Marathon to their readers, they could already rely on a well-established typology of characters and events.In the second half of the 19th century, the rules of many sports became standardized. Individual events were integrated in organized, repetitive competitions—leagues, tournaments, and so on. This development was encouraged by the popular press, which thus enabled the public to compare performances from different places and across time (Werron, "On Public;" Werron, "World"). Rankings and tables condensed contests in easily comparable visual forms, and these were augmented by more narrative accounts that supplemented the numbers with details, context, drama, and the subjective experiences of athletes and spectators. Week by week, newspapers and special-interest magazines alike offered varying explanations for the various wins and losses.When London hosted the Olympics in 1908, the scheduled seriality and pre-determined settings and protagonists allowed for the announcement of upcoming events in advance and for setting up possible storylines. Two days before the marathon race, The Times of London published the rules of the race, the names of the participants, a distance table listing relevant landmarks with the estimated arrival times, and a turn-by-turn description of the route, sketching the actual experience of running the race for the readers (22 July 1908, p. 11). On the day of the race, The Times appealed to sport’s seriality with a comprehensive narrative of prior Olympic Marathon races, a map of the precise course, a discussion of the alleged favourites, and speculation on factors that might impact the performances:Because of their inelasticity, wood blocks are particularly trying to the feet, and the glitter on the polished surface of the road, if the sun happens to be shining, will be apt to make a man who has travelled over 20 miles at top speed turn more than a little dizzy … . It is quite possible that some of the leaders may break down here, when they are almost within sight of home. (The Times 24 July 1908, p. 9)What we see here can be described as a world-building process: The rules of a competition, the participating athletes, their former performances, the weather, and so on, all form “a more or less organized sum of scattered parts” (Boni 13). These parts could easily be taken up by what we now call different media platforms (which in 1908 included magazines, newspapers, and films) that combine them in different ways to already make claims about cause-and-effect chains, intentions, outcomes, and a multitude of subjective experiences, before the competition has even started.The actual course of events, then, like the single instalment in a fictional storyworld, has a dual function: on the one hand, it specifies one particular storyline with a few protagonists, decisive turning points, and a clear determination of winners and losers. On the other hand, it triggers the multiplication of follow-up stories, each suggesting specific explanations for the highly contingent outcome, thereby often extending the storyworld, invoking props, characters, character traits, causalities, and references to earlier instalments in the series, which might or might not have been mentioned in the preliminary reports.In the 1908 Olympic Marathon, the Italian Dorando Pietri, who was not on The Times’ list of favourites, reached the finish first. Since he was stumbling on the last 300 meters of the track inside the stadium and only managed to cross the finish line with the support of race officials, he was disqualified. The jury then declared the American John Hayes, who came in second, the winner of the race.The day after the marathon, newspapers gave different accounts of the race. One, obviously printed too hastily, declared Pietri dead; others unsurprisingly gave the race a national perspective, focusing on the fate of “their” athletes (Davis 161, 166). Most of them evaluated the event with respect to athletic, aesthetic, or ethical terms—e.g. declaring Pietri the moral winner of the race (as did Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in The Daily Mail of July 25). This continues today, as praising sport performers often figures as a last resort “to reconstruct unproblematic heroism” (Whannel 44).The general endeavour of modern sport to scrutinize and understand the details of the performance provoked competing explanations for what had happened: was it the food, the heat, or the will power? In a forensic spirit, many publications added drawings or printed one of the famous photographs displaying Pietri being guided across the finish line (these still regularly appear in coffee-table books on sports photography; for a more extensive analysis, see Stauff). Sport—just like other non-fictional transmedia content—enriches its storyworld through “historical accounts of places and past times that already have their own logic, practice and institutions” (Kerrigan and Velikovsky 259).The seriality of sport not only fostered this dynamic by starting the narrative before the event, but also by triggering references to past instalments through the contingencies of the current one. The New York Times took the biggest possible leap, stating that the 1908 marathon must have been the most dramatic competition “since that Marathon race in ancient Greece, where the victor fell at the goal and, with a wave of triumph, died” (The New York Times 25 July 1908, p. 1). Dutch sport magazine De Revue der Sporten (6 August 1908, p. 167) used sport’s seriality more soberly to assess Hayes’ finishing time as not very special (conceding that the hot weather might have had an effect).What, hopefully, has become clear by now, is that—starting in the late 19th century—sporting events are prepared by, and in turn trigger, varying practices of transmedia world-building that make use of the different media’s affordances (drawings, maps, tables, photographs, written narratives, etc.). Already in 1908, most people interested in sport thus quite probably came across multiple accounts of the event—and thereby could feel invited to come up with their own explanation for what had happened. Back then, this forensic attitude was mostly limited to speculation about possible cause-effect chains, but with the more extensive visual coverage of competitions, especially through moving images, storytelling harnessed an increasingly growing set of forensic tools.The World Cup 1966 and Transmedia ForensicsThe serialized TV live transmissions of sport add complexity to storytelling, as they multiply the material available for forensic proliferations of the narratives. Liveness provokes a layered and constantly adapting process transforming the succession of actions into a narrative (the “emplotment”). The commentators find themselves “in the strange situation of a narrator ignorant of the plot” (Ryan 87), constantly balancing between mere reporting of events and more narrative explanation of incidents (Barnfield 8).To create a coherent storyworld under such circumstances, commentators fall back on prefabricated patterns (“overcoming bad luck,” “persistence paying off,” etc.) to frame the events while they unfold (Ryan 87). This includes the already mentioned tropes of heroism or national and racial stereotypes, which are upheld as long as possible, even when the course of events contradicts them (Tudor). Often, the creation of “non-retrospective narratives” (Ryan 79) harnesses seriality, “connecting this season with last and present with past and, indeed, present with past and future” (Barnfield 10).Instant-replay technology, additionally, made it possible (and necessary) for commentators to scrutinize individual actions while competitions are still ongoing, provoking revisions of the emplotment. With video, DVD, and online video, the second-guessing and re-telling of elements—at least in hindsight—became accessible to the general audience as well, thereby dramatically extending the playing field for sport’s forensic attitude.I want to elaborate this development with another example from London, this time the 1966 Men’s Football World Cup, which was the first to systematically use instant replay. In the extra time of the final, the English team scored a goal against the German side: Geoff Hurst’s shot bounced from the crossbar down to the goal line and from there back into the field. After deliberating with the linesman, the referee called it a goal. Until today it remains contested whether the ball actually was behind the goal line or not.By 1966, 1908’s sparsity of visual representation had been replaced by an abundance of moving images. The game was covered by the BBC and by ITV (for TV) and by several film companies (in colour and in black-and-white). Different recordings of the famous goal, taken from different camera angles, still circulate and are re-appropriated in different media even today. The seriality of sport, particularly World Cup Football’s return every four years, triggers the re-telling of this 1966 game just as much as media innovations do.In 1966, the BBC live commentary—after a moment of doubt—pretty soberly stated that “it’s a goal” and observed that “the Germans are mad at the referee;” the ITV reporter, more ambivalently declared: “the linesman says no goal … that’s what we saw … It is a goal!” The contemporary newsreel in German cinemas—the Fox Tönende Wochenschau—announced the scene as “the most controversial goal of the tournament.” It was presented from two different perspectives, the second one in slow motion with the commentary stating: “these images prove that it was not a goal” (my translation).So far, this might sound like mere opposing interpretations of a contested event, yet the option to scrutinize the scene in slow motion and in different versions also spawned an extended forensic narrative. A DVD celebrating 100 years of FIFA (FIFA Fever, 2002) includes the scene twice, the first time in the chapter on famous controversies. Here, the voice-over avoids taking a stand by adopting a meta-perspective: The goal guaranteed that “one of the most entertaining finals ever would be the subject of conversation for generations to come—and therein lies the beauty of controversies.” The scene appears a second time in the special chapter on Germany’s successes. Now the goal itself is presented with music and then commented upon by one of the German players, who claims that it was a bad call by the referee but that the sportsmanlike manner in which his team accepted the decision advanced Germany’s global reputation.This is only included in the German version of the DVD, of course; on the international “special deluxe edition” of FIFA Fever (2002), the 1966 goal has its second appearance in the chapter on England’s World Cup history. Here, the referee’s decision is not questioned—there is not even a slow-motion replay. Instead, the summary of the game is wrapped up with praise for Geoff Hurst’s hat trick in the game and with images of the English players celebrating, the voice-over stating: “Now the nation could rejoice.”In itself, the combination of a nationally organized media landscape with the nationalist approach to sport reporting already provokes competing emplotments of one and the same event (Puijk). The modularity of sport reporting, which allows for easy re-editing, replacing sound and commentary, and retelling events through countless witnesses, triggers a continuing recombination of the elements of the storyworld. In the 50 years since the game, there have been stories about the motivations of the USSR linesman and the Swiss referee who made the decision, and there have been several reconstructions triggered by new digital technology augmenting the existing footage (e.g. King; ‘das Archiv’).The forensic drive behind these transmedia extensions is most explicit in the German Football Museum in Dortmund. For the fiftieth anniversary of the World Cup in 2016, it hosted a special exhibition on the event, which – similarly to the FIFA DVD – embeds it in a story of gaining global recognition for the fairness of the German team ("Deutsches Fußballmuseum").In the permanent exhibition of the German Football Museum, the 1966 game is memorialized with an exhibit titled “Wembley Goal Investigation” (“Ermittlung Wembley-Tor”). It offers three screens, each showing the goal from a different camera angle, a button allowing the visitors to stop the scene at any moment. A huge display cabinet showcases documents, newspaper clippings, quotes from participants, and photographs in the style of a crime-scene investigation—groups of items are called “corpus delicti,” “witnesses,” and “analysis.” Red hand-drawn arrows insinuate relations between different items; yellow “crime scene, do not cross” tape lies next to a ruler and a pair of tweezers.Like the various uses of the slow-motion replays on television, in film, on DVD, and on YouTube, the museum thus offers both hegemonic narratives suggesting a particular emplotment of the event that endow it with broader (nationalist) meaning and a forensic storyworld that offers props, characters, and action building-blocks in a way that invites fans to activate their own storytelling capacities.Conclusion: Sport’s Trans-Seriality Sport’s dependency on a public evaluation of its performances has made it a dynamic transmedia topic from the latter part of the 19th century onwards. Contested moments especially prompt a forensic attitude that harnesses the affordances of different media (and quickly takes advantage of technological innovations) to discuss what “really” happened. The public evaluation of performances also shapes the role of authorship and copyright, which is pivotal to transmedia more generally (Kustritz). Though the circulation of moving images from professional sporting events is highly restricted and intensely monetized, historically this circulation only became a valuable asset because of the sprawling storytelling practices about sport, individual competitions, and famous athletes in press, photography, film, and radio. Even though television dominates the first instance of emplotment during the live transmission, there is no primordial authorship; sport’s intense competition and partisanship (and their national organisation) guarantee that there are contrasting narratives from the start.The forensic storytelling, as we have seen, is structured by sport’s layered seriality, which establishes a rich storyworld and triggers ever new connections between present and past events. Long before the so-called seasons of radio or television series, sport established a seasonal cycle that repeats the same kind of competition with different pre-conditions, personnel, and weather conditions. Likewise, long before the complex storytelling of current television drama (Mittell, Complex TV), sport has mixed episodic with serial storytelling. On the one hand, the 1908 Marathon, for example, is part of the long series of marathon competitions, which can be considered independent events with their own fixed ending. On the other hand, athletes’ histories, continuing rivalries, and (in the case of the World Cup) progress within a tournament all establish narrative connections across individual episodes and even across different seasons (on the similarities between TV sport and soap operas, cf. O’Connor and Boyle).From its start in the 19th century, the serial publication of newspapers supported (and often promoted) sport’s seriality, while sport also shaped the publication schedule of the daily or weekly press (Mason) and today still shapes the seasonal structure of television and sport related computer games (Hutchins and Rowe 164). This seasonal structure also triggers wide-ranging references to the past: With each new World Cup, the famous goal from 1966 gets integrated into new highlight reels telling the German and the English teams’ different stories.Additionally, together with the contingency of sport events, this dual seriality offers ample opportunity for the articulation of “latent seriality” (Kustritz), as a previously neglected recurring trope, situation, or type of event across different instalments can eventually be noted. As already mentioned, the goal of 1966 is part of different sections on the FIFA DVDs: as the climactic final example in a chapter collecting World Cup controversies, as an important—but rather ambivalent—moment of German’s World Cup history, and as the biggest triumph in the re-telling of England’s World Cup appearances. In contrast to most fictional forms of seriality, the emplotment of sport constantly integrates such explicit references to the past, even causally disconnected historical events like the ancient Greek marathon.As a result, each competition activates multiple temporal layers—only some of which are structured as narratives. It is important to note that the public evaluation of performances is not at all restricted to narrative forms; as we have seen, there are quantitative and qualitative comparisons, chronicles, rankings, and athletic spectacle, all of which can create transmedia intertextuality. Sport thus might offer an invitation to more generally analyse how transmedia seriality combines narrative and other forms. Even for fictional transmedia, the immersion in a storyworld and the imagination of extended and alternative storylines might only be two of many dynamics that structure seriality across different media.AcknowledgementsThe two anonymous reviewers and Florian Duijsens offered important feedback to clarify the argument of this text.ReferencesBarnfield, Andrew. "Soccer, Broadcasting, and Narrative: On Televising a Live Soccer Match." Communication & Sport (2013): 326–341.Boni, Marta. "Worlds Today." World Building: Transmedia, Fans, Industries. Ed. Marta Boni. Amsterdam: Amsterdam UP, 2017. 9–27."Das Archiv: das Wembley-Tor." Karambolage, 19 June 2016. 6 Feb. 2018 <https://sites.arte.tv/karambolage/de/das-archiv-das-wembley-tor-karambolage>.The Daily Mail, 25 July 1908.Davis, David. Showdown at Shepherd’s Bush: The 1908 Olympic Marathon and the Three Runners Who Launched a Sporting Craze. 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Media of Serial Narrative. Ed. Frank Kelleter. Columbus: The Ohio State UP, 2017. 7–34.Kerrigan, Susan, and J.T. Velikovsky. "Examining Documentary Transmedia Narratives through the Living History of Fort Scratchley Project." Convergence 22.3 (2016): 250–268.Kinder, Marsha. "Playing with Power on Saturday Morning Television and on Home Video Games." Quarterly Review of Film and Television 14 (1992): 29–59.King, Dominic. "Geoff Hurst’s Goal against West Germany DID Cross the Line!" Daily Mail Online. 4 Jan. 2016. 6 Feb. 2018 <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-3384366/Geoff-Hurst-s-goal-against-West-Germany-DID-cross-line-Sky-Sports-finally-prove-linesman-right-award-controversial-strike-1966-World-Cup-final.html>.Kustritz, Anne. "Seriality and Transmediality in the Fan Multiverse: Flexible and Multiple Narrative Structures in Fan Fiction, Art, and Vids." TV/Series 6 (2014): 225–261.Mason, Tony. "Sporting News, 1860-1914." The Press in English Society from the Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries. Eds. Michael Harris and Alan Lee. Associated UP, 1986. 168–186.Mittell, Jason. Complex TV: The Poetics of Contemporary Television Storytelling. New York: NYU Press, 2015.———. "Forensic Fandom and the Drillable Text." Spreadable Media. 17 Dec. 2012. 4 Jan. 2018 <http://spreadablemedia.org/essays/mittell/>.The New York Times 25 July 1908.O’Connor, Barbara, and Raymond Boyle. "Dallas with Balls: Televised Sport, Soap Opera and Male and Female Pleasures." Leisure Studies 12.2 (1993): 107–119.Page, Ruth. "Seriality and Storytelling in Social Media." StoryWorlds: A Journal of Narrative Studies 5.1 (2013): 31–54.Puijk, Roel. "A Global Media Event? Coverage of the 1994 Lillehammer Olympic Games." International Review for the Sociology of Sport 35.3 (2000): 309–330.De Revue der Sporten, 6 August 1908.Ryan, Marie-Laure. Avatars of Story. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006.Simpson, Christopher. 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On Historical Relations of Modern Sport and the Media." Observing Sport: System-Theoretical Approaches to Sport as a Social Phenomenon. Eds. Ulrik Wagner and Rasmus Storm. Schorndorf: Hofmann, 2010. 33–59.Whannel, Garry. Media Sport Stars. Masculinities and Moralities. London/New York: Routledge, 2001.

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Carroll, Richard. "The Trouble with History and Fiction." M/C Journal 14, no.3 (May20, 2011). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.372.

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Historical fiction, a widely-read genre, continues to engender contradiction and controversy within the fields of literature and historiography. This paper begins with a discussion of the differences and similarities between historical writing and the historical novel, focusing on the way these forms interpret and represent the past. It then examines the dilemma facing historians as they try to come to terms with the modern era and the growing competition from other modes of presenting history. Finally, it considers claims by Australian historians that so-called “fictive history” has been bestowed with historical authority to the detriment of traditional historiography. The Fact/Fiction Dichotomy Hayden White, a leading critic in the field of historiography, claims that the surge in popularity of historical fiction and the novel form in the nineteenth century caused historians to seek recognition of their field as a serious “science” (149). Historians believed that, to be scientific, historical studies had to cut ties with any form of artistic writing or imaginative literature, especially the romantic novel. German historian Leopold von Ranke “anathematized” the historical novel virtually from its first appearance in Scott’s Waverley in 1814. Hayden White argues that Ranke and others after him wrote history as narrative while eschewing the use of imagination and invention that were “exiled into the domain of ‘fiction’ ” (149-150). Early critics in the nineteenth century questioned the value of historical fiction. Famous Cuban poet Jose Maria Heredia believed that history was opposite and superior to fiction; he accused the historical novel of degrading history to the level of fiction which, he argued, is lies (cited in de Piérola 152). Alessandro Manzoni, though partially agreeing with Heredia, argued that fiction had value in its “poetic truth” as opposed to the “positive truth” of history (153). He eventually decided that the historical novel fails through the mixing of the incompatible elements of history and fiction, which can lead to deception (ibid). More than a hundred years after Heredia, Georg Lukács, in his much-cited The Historical Novel, first published in 1937, was more concerned with the social aspect of the historical novel and its capacity to portray the lives of its protagonists. This form of writing, through its attention to the detail of minor events, was better at highlighting the social aspects than the greater moments of history. Lukács argues that the historical novel should focus on the “poetic awakening” of those who participated in great historical events rather than the events themselves (42). The reader should be able to experience first-hand “the social and human motives which led men to think, feel and act just as they did in historical reality” (ibid). Through historical fiction, the reader is thus able to gain a greater understanding of a specific period and why people acted as they did. In contrast to these early critics, historian and author of three books on history and three novels, Richard Slotkin, argues that the historical novel can recount the past as accurately as history, because it should involve similar research methods and critical interpretation of the data (225). Kent den Heyer and Alexandra Fidyk go even further, suggesting that “historical fiction may offer a more plausible representation of the past than those sources typically accepted as more factual” (144). In its search for “poetic truth,” the novel tries to create a sense of what the past was, without necessarily adhering to all the factual details and by eliminating facts not essential to the story (Slotkin 225). For Hayden White, the difference between factual and fictional discourse, is that one is occupied by what is “true” and the other by what is “real” (147). Historical documents may provide a basis for a “true account of the world” in a certain time and place, but they are limited in their capacity to act as a foundation for the exploration of all aspects of “reality.” In White’s words: The rest of the real, after we have said what we can assert to be true about it, would not be everything and anything we could imagine about it. The real would consist of everything that can be truthfully said about its actuality plus everything that can be truthfully said about what it could possibly be. (ibid) White’s main point is that both history and fiction are interpretative by nature. Historians, for their part, interpret given evidence from a subjective viewpoint; this means that it cannot be unbiased. In the words of Beverley Southgate, “factual history is revealed as subjectively chosen, subjectively interpreted, subjectively constructed and incorporated within a narrative” (45). Both fiction and history are narratives, and “anyone who writes a narrative is fictionalising,” according to Keith Jenkins (cited in Southgate 32). The novelist and historian find meaning through their own interpretation of the known record (Brown) to produce stories that are entertaining and structured. Moreover, historians often reach conflicting conclusions in their translations of the same archival documents, which, in the extreme, can spark a wider dispute such as the so-called history wars, the debate about the representation of the Indigenous peoples in Australian history that has polarised both historians and politicians. The historian’s purpose differs from that of the novelist. Historians examine the historical record in fine detail in an attempt to understand its complexities, and then use digressions and footnotes to explain and lend authority to their findings. The novelist on the other hand, uses their imagination to create personalities and plot and can leave out important details; the novelist achieves authenticity through detailed description of setting, customs, culture, buildings and so on (Brown). Nevertheless, the main task of both history and historical fiction is to represent the past to a reader in the present; this “shared concern with the construction of meaning through narrative” is a major component in the long-lasting, close relationship between fiction and history (Southgate 19). However, unlike history, the historical novel mixes fiction and fact, and is therefore “a hybrid of two genres” (de Piérola 152); this mixture of supposed opposites of fact and fiction creates a dilemma for the theorist, because historical fiction cannot necessarily be read as belonging to either category. Attitudes towards the line drawn between fiction and history are changing as more and more critics and theorists explore the area where the two genres intersect. Historian John Demos argues that with the passing of time, this distinction “seems less a boundary than a borderland of surprising width and variegated topography” (329). While some historians are now willing to investigate the wide area where the two genres overlap, this approach remains a concern for traditionalists. History’s Dilemma Historians face a crisis as they try to come to terms with the postmodern era which has seen unprecedented questioning of the validity of history’s claim to accuracy in recounting the past. In the words of Jenkins et al., “ ‘history’ per se wobbles” as it experiences a period of uncertainty and challenge; the field is “much changed and deeply contested,” as historians seek to understand the meaning of history itself (6). But is postmodernism the cause of the problem? Writing in 1986 Linda Hutcheon, well known for her work on postmodernism, attempted to clarify the term as it is applied in modern times in reference to fiction, where, she states, it is usually taken to mean “metafiction, or texts which are in some dominant and constitutive way self-referential and auto-representational” (301). To eliminate any confusion with regard to concept or terminology, Hutcheon coined the phrase “historiographic metafiction," which includes “the presence of the past” in “historical, social, and ideological” form (302). As examples, she cites contemporary novels The French Lieutenant’s Woman, The White Hotel, Midnight’s Children and Famous Last Words. Hutcheon explains that all these works “self-consciously focus on the processes of producing and receiving paradoxically fictive historical writing” (ibid). In the Australian context, Peter Carey’s True History of the Kelly Gang and Richard Flanagan’s Gould’s Book of Fish could be added to the list. Like the others, they question how historical sources maintain their status as authentic historical documents in the context of a fictional work (302). However, White argues that the crisis in historical studies is not due to postmodernism but has materialised because historians have failed to live up to their nineteenth century expectations of history being recognised as a science (149). Postmodernists are not against history, White avows; what they do not accept “is a professional historiography” that serves self-seeking governing bodies with its outdated and severely limited approach to objectivity (152). This kind of historiography has denied itself access to aesthetic writing and the imaginary, while it has also cut any links it had “to what was most creative in the real sciences it sought half-heartedly to emulate” (ibid). Furthering White’s argument, historian Robert Rosenstone states that past certitude in the claims of historians to be the sole guardians of historical truth now seem outdated in the light of our accumulated knowledge. The once impregnable position of the historian is no longer tenable because: We know too much about framing images and stories, too much about narrative, too much about the problematics of causality, too much about the subjectivity of perception, too much about our own cultural imperatives and biases, too much about the disjuncture between language and the world it purports to describe to believe we can actually capture the world of the past on the page. (Rosenstone 12) While the archive confers credibility on history, it does not confer the right to historians to claim it as the truth (Southgate 6); there are many possible versions of the past, which can be presented to us in any number of ways as history (Jenkins et al. 1). And this is a major challenge for historians as other modes of representing the past cater to public demand in place of traditional approaches. Public interest in history has grown over the last 20 years (Harlan 109). Historical novels fill the shelves of bookstores and libraries, while films, television series and documentaries about the past attract large audiences. In the words of Rosenstone, “people are hungry for the past, as various studies tell us and the responses to certain films, TV series and museums indicate” (17). Rosenstone laments the fact that historians, despite this attraction to the past, have failed to stir public interest in their own writings. While works of history have their strengths, they target a specific, extremely limited audience in an outdated format (17). They have forgotten the fact that, in the words of White, “the conjuring up of the past requires art as well as information” (149). This may be true of some historians, but there are many writers of non-fiction, including historians, who use the narrative voice and other fictional techniques in their writings (Ricketson). Matthew Ricketson accuses White of confusing “fiction with literariness,” while other scholars take fiction and narrative to be the same thing. He argues that “the use of a wide range of modes of writing usually associated with fiction are not the sole province of fiction” and that narrative theorists have concentrated their attention on fictional narrative, thereby excluding factual forms of writing (ibid). One of the defining elements of creative non-fiction is its use of literary techniques in writing about factual events and people. At the same time, this does not make it fiction, which by definition, relies on invention (ibid). However, those historians who do write outside the limits of traditional history can attract criticism. Historian Richard Current argues that if writers of history and biography try to be more effective through literary considerations, they sometimes lose their objectivity and authenticity. While it is acceptable to seek to write with clarity and force, it is out of the question to present “occasional scenes in lifelike detail” in the manner of a novelist. Current contends that if only one source is used, this violates “the historiographical requirement of two or more independent and competent witnesses.” This requirement is important because it explains why much of the writing by academic historians is perceived as “dry-as-dust” (Current 87). Modern-day historians are contesting this viewpoint as they analyse the nature and role of their writings, with some turning to historical fiction as an alternative mode of expression. Perhaps one of the more well-known cases in recent times was that of historian Simon Schama, who, in writing Dead Certainties (Unwarranted Speculations), was criticised for creating dramatic scenes based on dubious historical sources without informing the reader of his fabrications (Nelson). In this work, Schama questions notions of factual history and the limitations of historians. The title is suggestive in itself, while the afterword to the book is explicit, as “historians are left forever chasing shadows, painfully aware of their inability ever to reconstruct a dead world in its completeness however thorough or revealing their documentation . . . We are doomed to be forever hailing someone who has just gone around the corner and out of earshot” (320). Another example is Rosenstone’s Mirror in the Shrine, which was considered to be “postmodern” and not acceptable to publishers and agents as the correct way to present history, despite the author’s reassurance that nothing was invented, “it just tells the story a different way” ("Space for the Birds to Fly" 16). Schama is not the only author to draw fire from critics for neglecting to inform the reader of the veracity or not of their writing. Richard Current accused Gore Vidal of getting his facts wrong and of inaccurately portraying Lincoln in his work, Lincoln: A Novel (81). Despite the title, which is a form of disclaimer itself, Current argued that Vidal could have avoided criticism if he had not asserted that his work was authentic history, or had used a disclaimer in a preface to deny any connection between the novel’s characters and known persons (82). Current is concerned about this form of writing, known as “fictional history," which, unlike historical fiction, “pretends to deal with real persons and events but actually reshapes them—and thus rewrites the past” (77). This concern is shared by historians in Australia. Fictive History Historian Mark McKenna, in his essay, Writing the Past, argues that “fictive history” has become a new trend in Australia; he is unhappy with the historical authority bestowed on this form of writing and would like to see history restored to its rightful place. He argues that with the decline of academic history, novelists have taken over the historian’s role and fiction has become history (3). In sympathy with McKenna, author, historian and anthropologist Inga Clendinnen claims that “novelists have been doing their best to bump historians off the track” (16). McKenna accuses writers W.G. Sebald and David Malouf of supporting “the core myth of historical fiction: the belief that being there is what makes historical understanding possible.” Malouf argues, in a conversation with Helen Daniel in 1996, that: Our only way of grasping our history—and by history I really mean what has happened to us, and what determines what we are now and where we are now—the only way of really coming to terms with that is by people's entering into it in their imagination, not by the world of facts, but by being there. And the only thing really which puts you there in that kind of way is fiction. Poetry may do so, drama may do so, but it's mostly going to be fiction. It's when you have actually been there and become a character again in that world. (3) From this point of view, the historical novel plays an important role in our culture because it allows people to interact with the past in a meaningful way, something factual writing struggles to do. McKenna recognises that history is present in fiction and that history can contain fiction, but they should not be confused. Writers and critics have a responsibility towards their readers and must be clear that fiction is not history and should not be presented as such (10). He takes writer Kate Grenville to task for not respecting this difference. McKenna argues that Grenville has asserted in public that her historical novel The Secret River is history: “If ever there was a case of a novelist wanting her work to be taken seriously as history, it is Grenville” (5). The Secret River tells the story of early settlement along the Hawkesbury River in New South Wales. Grenville’s inspiration for the story emanated from her ancestor Solomon Wiseman’s life. The main protagonist, William Thornhill (loosely based on Wiseman), is convicted of theft in 1806 and transported to Australia. The novel depicts the poverty and despair in England at the time, and describes life in the new colony where Grenville explores the collision between the colonists and the Aborigines. McKenna knows that Grenville insists elsewhere that her book is not history, but he argues that this conflicts with what she said in interviews and he worries that “with such comments, it is little wonder that many people might begin to read fiction as history” (5). In an article on her website, Grenville refutes McKenna’s arguments, and those of Clendinnen: “Here it is in plain words: I don’t think The Secret River is history…Nor did I ever say that I thought my novel was history.” Furthermore, the acknowledgements in the back of the book state clearly that it is a work of fiction. She accuses the two above-mentioned historians of using quotes that “have been narrowly selected, taken out of context, and truncated” ("History and Fiction"). McKenna then goes on to say how shocked he was on hearing Grenville, in an interview with Ramona Koval on Radio National, make her now infamous comments about standing on a stepladder looking down at the history wars, and that he “felt like ringing the ABC and leaping to the defence of historians.” He accuses Grenville of elevating fiction above history as an “interpretive power” (6). Koval asked Grenville where her book stood in regard to the history wars; she answered: Mine would be up on a ladder, looking down at the history wars. . . I think the historians, and rightly so, have battled away about the details of exactly when and where and how many and how much, and they’ve got themselves into these polarised positions, and that’s fine, I think that’s what historians ought to be doing; constantly questioning the evidence and perhaps even each other. But a novelist can stand up on a stepladder and look down at this, outside the fray, [emphasis in original audio] and say there is another way to understand it. ("Interview") Grenville claims that she did not use the stepladder image to imply that her work was superior to history, but rather to convey a sense of being outside the battle raging between historians as an uninvolved observer, “an interested onlooker who made the mistake of climbing a stepladder rather than a couple of fruit-boxes to get a good view.” She goes on to argue that McKenna’s only sources in his essay, Writing the Past, are interviews and newspaper articles, which in themselves are fine, but she disagrees with how they have been used “uncritically, at face value, as authoritative evidence” ("History and Fiction"), much in contrast to the historian’s desire for authenticity in all sources. It appears that the troubles between history and fiction will continue for some time yet as traditional historians are bent on keeping faith with the tenets of their nineteenth century predecessors by defending history from the insurgence of fiction at all costs. While history and historical fiction share a common purpose in presenting the past, the novel deals with what is “real” and can tell the past as accurately or even in a more plausible way than history, which deals with what is “true”. However, the “dry-as-dust” historical approach to writing, and postmodernism’s questioning of historiography’s role in presenting the past, has contributed to a reassessment of the nature of history. Many historians recognise the need for change in the way they present their work, but as they have often doubted the worth of historical fiction, they are wary of the genre and the narrative techniques it employs. Those historians who do make an attempt to write differently have often been criticised by traditionalists. In Australia, historians such as McKenna and Clendinnen are worried by the incursion of historical fiction into their territory and are highly critical of novelists who claim their works are history. The overall picture that emerges is of two fields that are still struggling to clarify a number of core issues concerning the nature of both the historical novel and historiographical writing, and the role they play in portraying the past. References Brown, Joanne. "Historical Fiction or Fictionalized History? Problems for Writers of Historical Novels for Young Adults." ALAN Review 26.1 (1998). 1 March 2010 ‹http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/ALAN/fall98/brown.html›. Carey, Peter. True History of the Kelly Gang. St Lucia, Qld: U of Queensland P, 2000. Clendinnen, Inga. "The History Question: Who Owns the Past?" Quarterly Essay 23 (2006): 1-72. Current, Richard. "Fiction as History: A Review Essay." Journal of Southern History 52.1 (1986): 77-90. De Piérola, José. "At the Edge of History: Notes for a Theory for the Historical Novel in Latin America." Romance Studies 26.2 (2008): 151-62. Demos, John. "Afterword: Notes from, and About, the History/Fiction Borderland." Rethinking History 9.2/3 (2005): 329-35. Den Heyer, Kent, and Alexandra Fidyk. "Configuring Historical Facts through Historical Fiction: Agency, Art-in-Fact, and Imagination as Stepping Stones between Then and Now." Educational Theory 57.2 (2007): 141-57. Flanagan, Richard. Gould’s Book of Fish: A Novel in Twelve Fish. Sydney: Picador, 2002. Grenville, Kate. “History and Fiction.” 2007. 19 July 2010 ‹http://kategrenville.com/The_Secret_River_History%20and%20Fiction›. ———. “Interview with Ramona Koval.” 17 July 2005. 26 July 2010 ‹http://www.abc.net.au/rn/arts/bwriting/stories/s1414510.htm›. ———. The Secret River. Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2006. Harlan, David. “Historical Fiction and the Future of Academic History.” Manifestos for History. Ed. Keith Jenkins, Sue Morgan and Alun Munslow. Abingdon, Oxon; N.Y.: Routledge, 2007. Hutcheon, Linda. A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory Fiction. New York: Routledge, 1988. Jenkins, Keith, Sue Morgan, and Alun Munslow. Manifestos for History. Abingdon, Oxon; N.Y.: Routledge, 2007. Lukács, György. The Historical Novel. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983. Malouf, David. "Interview with Helen Daniel." Australian Humanities Review (Sep. 1996). McKenna, Mark. “Writing the Past: History, Literature & the Public Sphere in Australia.” Australian Financial Review (2005). 13 May 2010 ‹http://www.afraccess.com.ezp01.library.qut.edu.au/search›. Nelson, Camilla. “Faking It: History and Creative Writing.” TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Courses 11.2 (2007). 5 June 2010 ‹http://www.textjournal.com.au›. Ricketson, Matthew. “Not Muddying, Clarifying: Towards Understanding the Boundaries between Fiction and Nonfiction.” TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Courses 14.2 (2010). 6 June 2011 ‹http://www.textjournal.com.au/oct10/ricketson.htm›. Rosenstone, Robert A. “Space for the Bird to Fly.” Manifestos for History. Eds. Keith Jenkins, Sue Morgan and Alun Munslow. Abingdon, Oxon; N.Y.: Routledge, 2007. 11-18. ———. Mirror in the Shrine: American Encounters with Meiji Japan. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1988. Schama, Simon. Dead Certainties: (Unwarranted Speculations). 1st Vintage Books ed. New York: Vintage Books, 1992. Slotkin, Richard. “Fiction for the Purposes of History.” Rethinking History 9.2/3 (2005): 221-36. Southgate, Beverley C. History Meets Fiction. New York: Longman, Harlow, England, 2009. White, Hayden. “Introduction: Historical Fiction, Fictional History, and Historical Reality.” Rethinking History 9.2/3 (2005): 147-57.

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Nairn, Angelique, and Deepti Bhargava. "Demon in a Dress?" M/C Journal 24, no.5 (October6, 2021). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.2846.

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Abstract:

Introduction The term monster might have its roots in the Latin word monere (to warn), but it has since evolved to have various symbolic meanings, from a terrifying mythical creature to a person of extreme cruelty. No matter the flexibility in use, the term is mostly meant to be derogatory (Asma). As Gilmore puts it, monsters “embody all that is dangerous and horrible in the human imagination” (1). However, it may be argued that monsters sometimes perform the much-needed work of defining and policing our norms (Mittman and Hensel). Since their archetype is predisposed to transgressing boundaries of human integrity (Gilmore), they help establish deviation between human and in-human. Their cognition and action are considered ‘other’ (Kearney) and a means with which people can understand what is right and wrong, and what is divergent from appropriate ways of being. The term monster need not even refer to the werewolves, ogres, vampires, zombies and the like that strike fear in audiences through their ‘immoral, heinous or unjust’ appearance or behaviours. Rather, the term monster can be, and has been, readily applied as a metaphor to describe the unthinkable, unethical, and brutal actions of human beings (Beville 5). Inadvertently, “through their bodies, words, and deeds, monsters show us ourselves” (Mittman and Hensel 2), or what we consider monstrous about ourselves. Therefore, humans acting in ways that deviate from societal norms and standards can be viewed as monstrous. This is evident in the representations of public relations practitioners in media offerings. In the practice of public relations, ethical standards are advocated as the norm, and deviating from them considered unprofessional (Fawkes), and as we contend: monstrous. However, the practice has long suffered a negative stereotypical perception of being deceptive, and with public relations roles receiving less screen time than shows and films about lawyers, accountants, teachers and the like, these few derogatory depictions can distort how audiences view the occupation (Johnston). Depictions of professions (lawyers, cops, journalists, etc.) tend to be cliché, but our contention is that fewer depictions of public relations practitioners on screen further limit the possibility for diverse depictions. The media can have a socialising impact and can influence audiences to view the content they consume as a reflection of the real world around them (Chandler). Television, in particular, with its capacity to prompt heuristic processing in audiences (Shurm), has messages that can be easily decoded by people of various literacies as they become immersed in the viewing experiences (Gerbner and Gross). These messages gain potency because, despite being set in fictional worlds, they can be understood as reflective of the world and audiences’ experiences of it (Gerbner and Gross). Tsetsura, Bentley, and Newcomb add that popular stories recounted in the media have authoritative power and can offer patterns of meaning that shape individual perceptions. Admittedly, as Stuart Hall suggests, media offerings can be encoded with ideologies and representations that are considered appropriate according to the dominant elite, but these may not necessarily be decoded as preferred meanings. In other words, those exposed to stories of monstrous public relations practitioners can agree with such a position, oppose this viewpoint, or remain neutral, but this is dependent on individual experiences. Without other frames of reference, it could be that viewers of negative portrayals of public relations accept the encoded representation that inevitably does a disservice to the profession. When the representations of the field of public relations suggest, inaccurately, that the industry is dominated by men (Johnston), and women practitioners are shown as slick dressers who control and care little about ethics (Dennison), the distortions can adversely impact on the identities of public relations practitioners and on how they are collectively viewed (Tsetsura et al.). Public relations practitioners view this portrayal as the ‘other’ and tend to distance the ideal self from it, continuing to be stuck in the dichotomy of saints and sinners (Fawkes). Our observation of television offerings such as Scandal, Flack, Call My Agent!, Absolutely Fabulous, Sex and the City, You’re the Worst, and Emily in Paris reveals how television programmes continue to perpetuate the negative stereotypes about public relations practice, where practitioners are anything but ethical—therefore monstrous. The characters, mostly well-groomed women, are shown as debased, liars and cheaters who will subvert ethical standards for personal and professional gain. Portrayals of Public Relations Practitioners in Television and Media According to Miller, the eight archetypical traits identified in media representations of public relations practitioners are: ditzy, obsequious, cynical, manipulative, money-minded, isolated, accomplished, or unfulfilled. In later research, Yoon and Black found that television representations of public relations tended to suggest that people in these roles were heartless, manipulative bullies, while Lambert and White contend that the depiction of the profession has improved to be more positive, but nonetheless continues to do a disservice to the practice by presenting female workers, especially, as “shallow but loveable” (18). We too find that public relations practitioners continue to be portrayed as morally ambiguous characters who are willing to break ethical codes of conduct to suit the needs of their clients. We discuss three themes prevalent as popular tropes in television programmes that characterise public relations practitioners as monstrous. To Be or Not to Be a Slick and Skilful Liar? Most television programmes present public relations practitioners as slick and skilful liars, who are shown as well-groomed and authoritative, convinced that they are lying only to protect their clients. In fact, in most cases the characters are shown to not only believe but also advocate to their juniors that ‘a little bit of lying’ is almost necessary to maintain client relationships and ensure campaign success. For example, in the British drama Flack, the main character of Robyn (played by Anna Paquin) is heard advising her prodigy “just assume we are lying to everyone”. The programmes also feature characters who are in dilemma about the monstrous expectations from their roles, struggling to accept that that they engage in deception as part of their jobs. However, most of them are presented as somewhat of an ugly duckling or the modest character in the programme, who is not always rational or in an explicit position of power. For example, Emily from Emily in Paris (played by Lily Collins), while working as a social media manager, regularly questions the approaches taken by the firm she works for. Her boss Sylvie Grateux (played by Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu), who embodies the status quo, is constantly disapproving of Emily’s lack of sophisticated self-presentation, among other aspects. In the episode ‘Faux Amis’, Sylvie quips “it’s not you personally. It’s everything you stand for. You’re the enemy of luxury because luxury is defined by sophistication and taste, not emilyinparis”. Similarly, in the first episode of Call My Agent!, Samuel Kerr (played by Alain Rimoux), the head of a film publicity firm, solves the conundrum faced by his anxious junior Gabriel (played by Grégory Montel) by suggesting that he lie to his client about the real reason why she lost the film. When a modestly dressed Gabriel questions how he can lie to someone he cares for, Samuel, towering over him in an impeccable suit and a confident demeanour, advises “who said anything about lying? Don’t lie. Simply don’t tell her the truth”. However, the subtext here is that the lie is to protect the client from unnecessary hurt and in doing so nurtures the client relationship. So, it lets the audience decide the morality of lying here. It may be argued that moral ambiguity may not necessarily be monstrous. Such grey characters are often crafted because they allow audiences to relate more readily to themselves by encouraging what Hawkins refers to as mental play. Audiences are less interested in the black and white of morality and veer towards shows such as Call My Agent! where storylines hone in on the need to do bad for the greater good. In these ways, public relations practitioners still transgress moral standards but are less likely to be considered monstrous because the impact and effect on others is utilitarian in nature. It is also interesting to note that in these programmes physical appearance is made to play a crucial role in showcasing the power and prestige of the senior public relations practitioner. This focus on attire can tend to further perpetuate unfavourable stereotypes about public relations practitioners being high income earners (Grandien) who are styled with branded apparel but lacking in substance and morals (Fröhlich and Peters). Promiscuous Women The urge to attract audiences to a female character can also lead to developing and cementing unfavourable stereotypes of public relations practitioners as uninhibited women who live on blurred lines between personal and professional. These characters are not portrayed as inherently bad, but instead are found to indulge in lives of excess. In her definition of the monstrous, Arumugam suggests that excess and insatiable appetites direct the monster’s behaviour, and Kearney outlines that this uncontainable excess is what signals the difference between humans and others. Such excess is readily identifiable in the character of Patsy Stone (played by Joanna Lumley) in Absolutely Fabulous. She is an alcoholic, regularly uses recreational drugs, is highly promiscuous, and chain-smokes throughout the series. She is depicted as prone to acting deceptively to maintain her vices. In Flack, Robyn is shown as regularly snorting cocaine and having sex with her clients. Those reviewing the show highlight how it will attract those interested in “its dark, acidic sense of humour” (Greene) while others condemn it because it emphasises the “depraved publicist” trope (Knibbs) and call it “one of the worst TV shows ever made” even though it is trying to highlight concerns raised in the MeToo movement about how men need to respect women (McGurk). Female characters such as Robyn, with her willingness to question why a client has not tried to sleep with her, appear to undermine the empowerment of the movement rather than support it, and continue to maintain the archetypes that those working in the field of public relations abhor. Similarly, Samantha Jones (played by Kim Cattrell) of Sex and the City is portrayed as sexually liberated, and in one episode another character describes Samantha’s vagina as “the hottest spot in town: it’s always open”. In many ways Samantha’s sexual behaviour reflects a post-feminist narrative of empowerment, agency, and choice, but it could also be read as a product of being a public relations practitioner frequenting parties and bars as she rubs shoulders with clients, celebrities, and high-profile businesspeople. To this end, Patsy, Samantha, and Robyn glamourise public relations and paint it as simply an extension of their liberated and promiscuous selves, with little care for any expectation of professionalism or work ethic. This is also in stark contrast to the reality, where women often tend to occupy technical roles that see much of their time spent in doing the hard yards of publicity and promotion (Krugler). Making Others Err Public relations practitioners are not just shown as being morally ambiguous themselves, but often quite adept at making others do deceitful acts on their behalf, thus nonchalantly oppressing others to get their way. For example, although lauded for elevating an African-American woman to the lead role despite the show maintaining misrepresentations of race (Lambert), the main character of Olivia Pope (played by Kerry Washington) in the television programme Scandal regularly subverts the law for her clients despite considering herself one of the “good guys” and wearing a “white hat”. Over the course of seven seasons, Olivia Pope is found to rig elections, plant listening devices in political figures’ offices, bribe, threaten, and conduct an affair with the President. In some cases, she calls on the services of her colleague Huck to literally, and figuratively, get rid of the barriers in the way of protecting her clients. For example, in season one’s episode Crash and Burn she asks Huck to torture a suspect for information about a dead client. Her willingness to request such actions of her friend and colleague, regardless of perceived good motivations, reinforces Mittman’s categorisation that monsters are identified by their effect and impact on others. Here, the impact includes the torturing of a suspect and the revisiting of psychological trauma by Huck’s character. Huck struggles to overcome his past as a killer and spends much of the show trying to curb his monstrous tendencies which are often brought on by PR woman Olivia’s requests. Although she is sometimes striving for justice, Olivia’s desire for results can lead her to act monstrously, which inadvertently contributes to the racist and sexist ideologies that have long been associated with monsters and perceptions of the Other. Across time and space, certain ethnic groups, such as those of African descent, have been associated with the demonic (Cohen). Similarly, all that is feminine often needs to be discarded as the monster to conform to the patriarchal order of society (Creed). Therefore, Olivia Pope’s monstrous behaviour not only does a disservice to representations of public relations practitioners, but also inadvertently perpetuates negative and inaccurate stereotypes about women of African American descent. Striving to be Ethical The majority of public relations practitioners are encouraged, and in some cases expected, to conform to ethical guidelines to practice and gain respect, admiration, and in-group status. In New Zealand, those who opt to become members of the Public Relations Institute of New Zealand (PRINZ) are required to abide by the association’s code of ethics. The code stipulates that members are bound to act in ways that serve public interests by ensuring they are honest, disclose conflict of interests, follow the law, act with professionalism, ensure openness and privacy are maintained, and uphold values of loyalty, fairness, and independence (PRINZ). Similarly, the Global Alliance of Public Relations and Communication Management that binds practitioners together identifies nine guiding principles that are to be adhered to to be recognised as acting ethically. These include obeying laws, working in the public’s interest, ensuring freedom of speech and assembly, acting with integrity, and upholding privacy in sensitive matters (to name a few). These governing principles are designed to maintain ethical practice in the field. Of course, the trouble is that not all who claim to practice public relations become members of the local or global governing bodies. This implies that professional associations like PRINZ are not able to enforce ethics across the board. In New Zealand alone, public relations consultants have had to offer financial reparations for acting in defamatory ways online (Fisher), or have been alleged to have bribed an assault victim to prevent the person giving evidence in a court case (Hurley). Some academics have accused the industry of being engaged in organised lying (Peacock), but these are not common, nor are these moral transgressors accepted into ethical bodies that afford practitioners authenticity and legitimacy. In most cases, public relations practitioners view their role as acting as the moral conscience of the organisations they support (Schauster, Neill, Ferrucci, and Tandoc). Furthermore, they rated better than the average adult when it came to solving ethical dilemmas through moral reasoning (Schuaster et al.). Additionally, training of practitioners through guidance of mentors has continued to contribute to the improved ethical ratings of public relations. What these findings suggest is that the monsters of public relations portrayed on our television screens are exaggerations that are not reflective of most of the practice. Women of Substance, But Not Necessarily Power Exploring the role of women in public relations, Topic, Cunha, Reigstad, Jele-Sanchez, and Moreno found that female practitioners were subordinated to their male counterparts but were found to be more inclined to practice two-way communication, offer balanced perspectives, opt to negotiate, and build relationships through cooperation. The competitiveness, independence, and status identified in popular media portrayals were found to be exhibited more by male practitioners, despite there being more women in the public relations industry than men. As Fitch argues, popular culture continues to suggest that men dominate public relations, and their preferred characteristics end up being those elements that permeate the media messages, regardless of instances where the lead character is a woman or the fact that feminist values of “loyalty, ethics, morality, [and] fairness” are advocated by female practitioners in real life (Vardeman-Winter and Place 333). Additionally, even though public relations is a feminised field, female practitioners struggle to break the glass ceiling, with male practitioners dominating executive positions and out-earning women (Pompper). Interestingly, in public relations, power is not just limited due to gender but also area of practice. In her ethnographic study of the New Zealand practice, Sissons found that practitioners who worked in consultancies were relatively powerless vis-à-vis their clients, and often this asymmetry negatively affected the practitioner’s decision-making. This implies that in stark contrast to the immoral, glamourous, and authoritative depiction of public relations women in television programmes, in reality they are mired by the struggles of a gendered occupation. Accordingly, they are not in fact in a position to have monstrous power over and impact on others. Therefore, one of the only elements the shows seem to capture and emphasise is that public relations is an occupation that specialises in image management; but what these shows contribute to is an ideology that women are expected to look and carry themselves in particular ways, ultimately constructing aesthetic standards that can diminish women’s power and self-esteem. Conclusion Miller’s archetypes may be over twenty years old, but the trend towards obsequious, manipulative, and cynical television characters remains. Although there have been identifiable shifts to loveable, yet shallow, public relations practitioners, such as Alexis Rose on Schitt’s Creek, the appeal of monstrous public relations practitioners remains. As Cohen puts it, monsters reveal to audiences “what a member of that society can become when those same dictates are rejected, when the authority of leaders or customs disintegrates and the subordination of individual to hierarchy is lost” (68). In other words, audiences enjoy watching the stories of metaphorical monsters because they exhibit the behaviours that are expected to be repressed in human beings; they depict what happens when the social norms of society are disturbed (Levina and Bui). At the very least, these media representations can act, much as monster narratives do, as a cautionary tale on how not to think and act to remain accepted as part of the in-group rather than being perceived as the Other. 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Tsetsura, Katerina, Joshua Bentley, and Taylor Newcomb. “Idealistic and Conflicted: New Portrayals of Public Relations Practitioners in Film.” Public Relations Review 41 (2015): 652-61. Vardeman-Winter, Jennifer, and Katie R. Place. “Still a Lily-White Field of Women: The State of Workforce Diversity in Public Relations Practice and Research.” Public Relations Review 43.2 (2017): 326-336. Yoon, Youngmin, and Heather Black. “Learning about Public Relations from Television: How Is the Profession Portrayed?” Communication Science 28.2 (2007): 85-106. You’re the Worst. Created by Stephen Falk. Hooptie Entertainment, 2014-2019.

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50

Dean, Gabrielle. "Portrait of the Self." M/C Journal 5, no.5 (October1, 2002). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1991.

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Abstract:

Let us work backwards from what we know, from personal experience: the photograph of which we have each been the subject. Roland Barthes says of this photograph that it transforms "the subject into object": one begins aping the mask one wants to assume, one begins, in other words, to make oneself conform in appearance to the disguise of an identity (Camera Lucida 11). A quick glance back at your most recent holiday gathering will no doubt confirm his diagnosis. Barthes gives to this subject-object the title of Spectrum in order to neatly join the idea of spectacle with the fearsome spectre, what he calls that "terrible thing which is there in every photograph: the return of the dead" (Camera Lucida 9). Cathy Davidson points out that in "photocentric culture, we can no longer even see that we see ourselves primarily as seen, imaged, the photograph as the evidential proof of existence"; photocentric culture thus generates "a profound confusion of image and afterlife" (669 672). Andre Bazin announces that the medium "embalms time, rescuing it simply from its proper corruption" (242), while Susan Sontag points out that it may "assassinate" (13). What photography mummifies, distorts and murders, among other things, is the sense that the reality of the self resides in the body, the corporeal and temporal boundaries of personhood. The spectral haunting of the photograph is familiar to anyone who has ever looked at snapshots in a family album. How much more present it was to the producers and consumers of early photography who engineered the genre of the memento mori, portraits taken of the dead or in imitation of death. Despite the acknowledged 'eeriness' of our own recorded and vanished pasts, such pictures seem grotesquely morbid to us now -- for what we cannot recover is the absolute novelty of photography in its early days, or the vehicle that it provided in the nineteenth century for a whole set of concerns about selfhood that begin, ironically, with death. Those early photographs bring to mind another death, that of the author. Re-enter Barthes, for it is he who definitively announces the new textual paradigm in which the author disappears. In "Death of the Author," Barthes calls the author tyrannical and adopts liberationist rhetoric in unseating him. But what cult is Barthes actually countering? His essay begins and ends with Balzac, and includes Baudelaire, Van Gogh and Tchaikovsky, while his heroes are Mallarmé, Valéry and Proust. Barthes' notion of the author is implicitly a nineteenth-century construction, to be undone by modernist writing against the grain. And what distinguishes the nineteenth-century author from his predecessors? His portrait, of course. Thanks to the surge of visual and reproductive technologies culminating in the mechanised printing process and photography, the nineteenth-century author is suddenly widely available to readers as an image. The author literally becomes a face hovering above the text; it is this omnipresence that Barthes objects to. Photography gives new momentum to the cult of the author, but this is not mere historical coincidence -- that the photograph is developed at a point in history when authorship is particularly mobile: in between the Romantic individualism that transforms authorship from a craft to a calling, and the modernist interrogation of ontology and representation that explodes such notions from within. However, the opposite is also true. Photography as we know it is a product of the institution of authorship. Photography is founded on and makes available, through the democratisation and dissemination of a certain technology, a concept of public selfhood that hitherto had been reserved for those in charge of textual representation, of themselves as well as of other subjects. Primarily this is because the ideological, technological and material vehicles of the photograph -- identities, characters, scenes, the properties of chemical interaction, the invention of specialised apparatus, poses, props, and photo albums -- were closely related to book culture. How did photography change the notion of the author? It did so by commandeering truth claims -- by serving as the scientific illustration of divinely-ordained natural laws. The art of chemically fixing the image obtained through a camera obscura was perfected in 1839 by Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre and William Fox Talbot, separately, with different techniques.1 Daguerre's method caught on quickly, partly because his daguerreotype recorded such exquisite detail. The daguerreotype surface was reflective and sharply etched; inspection with a magnifying glass disclosed minutiae -- insects, eyelashes, objects in the far distance. The daguerreotype, popularly nicknamed "the pencil of the sun," seemed like a miniaturised and complete mirror of the world, a representation without human intervention.2 In 1839, and throughout the 1840's and '50's, photography transparently supported the notion that the discoveries of science would help reveal God's secrets, not disprove them -- a view that suffered but continued on after the publication of The Origin of the Species in 1859. Its presumed objectivity and comprehensive truthfulness made photography immediately appealing as a scientific and artistic tool. Although it was used to record geologic formations and vegetation, the bulky apparatus of the early photographic methods meant that it was better suited to the indoor studio -- and the portrait, in which the truth of human character could be made visible. It served as a means of defining normality and deviation; it was central to the project of identifying physical characteristics of the insane and the criminal, and of classifying racial features, as in the daguerreotypes made of slaves in the United States by J. T. Zealy in 1850, which the natural scientist Louis Aggasiz used as independent evidence of the natural differences between the races in order to endorse the doctrine of "separate creation" (Trachtenberg 53) So perceptive and penetrating did the photograph seem, it was even deemed capable of revealing vice and virtue, and it was in this way that the photographer moved onto the terrain of the author. The truth-telling properties of photography seemed to corroborate the authorial estimation of character that was a central element of nineteenth-century fiction. In texts where photography is itself on display this property is especially obvious -- in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables, for example, where true and secret characters are only discerned in daguerreotype portraits. But photography did more than divinely and scientifically confirm fictional character; the venerated author's ability to delineate moral qualities made him, or her, an exemplary character as well. The Victorians prized "sincerity," the criterion by which they measured their authors. Especially in the influential pronouncements of Carlyle, the Victorian notion of sincerity "makes man and artist inseparable" (Ball 155). An exemplary moral life was particularly powerful in the form of an author. Indeed, it was through authorship of some kind that such lives could take the public form they needed in order to fulfill their function as models. And so photography appears not just in the text but on its margins, framing and qualifying it: the portrait of the author, already a bibliographic convention, gains additional authority through the objective lens of the camera, in which the author's character is exhibited as a kind of testimony to his or her truth-telling abilities. The frontispiece guarantees the right of the author to moral leadership. As literacy and readership expanded and exceeded former class distinctions, the nineteenth-century author began to need to market himself in order to find and keep an audience. But since the source of the author's authority was sincerity, the commodification of the authorial self presented a dilemma. Some writers, such as Dickens, embraced this role; others withdrew from the task of performing a public self, but their refusal of the public's gaze was itself often dramatised, as for Tennyson, Elizabeth Barret Browning and, after her death, Emily Dickinson. The photograph portrait of the artist, as well as other likenesses of his visage, was a particularly convenient piece of authorial paraphernalia because it sustained the idea of the author as moral exemplar, but in fact it was only one of the many ways in which nineteenth-century readers kept the author before their eyes. Souvenirs such as autographs, original manuscripts and other tokens testifying to the presence of the author's body, as well as gift books and precious editions designed to generate and satisfy fans, were mainstays of Victorian keepsake culture. The photograph as corporeal souvenir signals the point where we must turn around and consider the question of photography and authorship from the other direction: that is, how the institution of authorship constructs photography. Given that photography as an art developed out of the desire to eliminate the human hand, to trace directly from nature, it seems ironic that photography could have an author. And yet it was the notion of a public and visible self, associated primarily with authorship, which accounted for the widespread popularity of photography. When the daguerreotype was introduced in 1839, enterprising amateurs in Europe and the United States transformed it from a tricky chemical procedure into a practical art, a livelihood. Daguerrean saloons appeared in the cities and in rural areas, itinerant daguerreotypists set up temporary headquarters. But every daguerreotype studio had two purposes, whether it was the high-end urban atelier of Southworth and Hawes in Boston or a peddler's rented room: it was the place where one went to have one's picture taken and it was also a public gallery, where the portraits of former customers were displayed. In an urban gallery, those portraits might include the poets, ministers and politicians of the day, but even in a village studio, one could see exhibited the portraits of the local beauties, the town big-wigs. Entering the studio as a customer or a spectator, anyone could imaginatively take his or her place among an assembly of eminent personages. More importantly, the daguerreotype and later forms of photography made portraiture accessible to the middle and working classes for the first time. The studio was a democratic space where one could entertain the fantasy of a different self, and in fact one could literally enact that fantasy through the props and accessories of identity that the studio provided. In borrowed hats and canes, sitting stiffly in chairs or standing against painted backdrops, holding books, flowers, candles, and even other daguerreotypes, the sitter could assume the persona he or she would like others to see. Often the sitter composes an obvious gender performance, other times the sitter exhibits himself as the master of a certain occupation. With the invention of the wet plate collodion process in 1851, which made it possible to reproduce quantities of images from a single negative, the public went in for the carte-de-visite, on which one's very own portrait was imprinted and handed out like a postcard souvenir. The carte-de-visite necessitated a new way of keeping and displaying multiple photographs, and thus the photo album was born. But in fact the paradigm of the book already governed photographic display and the storage of the personal collection. When the Bible was the only book a family might own, it served as the cabinet of memorable dates and events. Other kinds of mementoes were stored in lockets and books: locks of hair, painted miniatures, pressed flowers. Daguerreotypes were kept in small codex-like cases or in hinged lockets. The souvenir and its symbolic connection to the body (one's own or that of a beloved) was of course not limited to the cult of the author but was available as a mode of identity to anybody who read novels. The culture of the souvenir, the keepsake, the personal precious object stored in a book, offered a means of articulating the self that readily accommodated the photograph, and in that context, the photograph took on the properties of a personal talisman. In the wake of photography, the scrapbook, the flower album, the signature album -- all those vehicles for collecting and displaying the ephemera of a lifetime -- flourished. Books were no longer mainly devoted to dense layers of print but could consist of open space to be filled in by their owners, who would thereby become authors of their own works and incidentally of their own identities. The popularity of the album was partly due to developments in printing, which was changing from a text-based industry to one increasingly concerned with images, a shift that culminated in photo-offset printing and photoduplication. But the popularity of the album and other biblioform containers for the personal collection also has something to do with the culture of the souvenir, which prepared the way for the photograph as personal talisman and then accomodated the tremendous expansion photography offered to the self. Via the photograph, a self that was allied with its own mementoes would be transformed: selfhood formerly attached to an object intended for private contemplation was subsequently attached to an object intended for exhibition. Via the photograph, the same publicity attendant on the circulation of the author was incorporated into the stuff of the ordinary subject, who regarded his or her own image and offered it up to history. The reflexive spectacle of visible selfhood brings us back to the return of the dead, that feature of the photograph which seems to persist, and perhaps illuminates the difference between the kind of death it spooks us with now and the kind of 150 years ago. For our ancestors, the photograph was a way to cheat death, to manipulate the strict boundaries of identity, to become memorable, to catch a heady glimpse of absolute truth; but for us it is different. We can see how much we are the creations of photography, and how much we surrender to the public self it burdens us with. Notes 1. The technological history of photography is of course much complicated by issues of competition, technological "prehistory" and intellectual property—for example, there is the matter of the disappearance of Daguerre's partner Niepce. However, Daguerre is generally credited with "inventing" the medium. See Gernsheim, Greenough et al and Newhall. 2. The phrase and others like it were not only popularised by influential critic-practitioners of photography such as Oliver Wendell Holmes, Fox Talbot, in The Pencil of Nature, and Marcus Aurelius Root, in The Camera and the Pencil, but were perpetuated in the everyday language of commerce—for example, the portrait studio that advertised its "Sun Drawn Miniatures" (Gernsheim 106). References Ball, Patricia. The Central Self: A Study in Romantic and Victorian Imagination. London: Athlone Press, 1968. Barthes, Roland. Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. Trans. Richard Howard. New York: Hill and Wang, 1981. ---. "The Death of the Author." Image, Music, Text. Trans. Stephen Heath. New York: Hill and Wang, 1977. Bazin, André. "The Ontology of the Photographic Image." Classic Essays on Photography. Ed. Alan Trachtenberg. New Haven, Conn: Leete's Island Books, 1980. 237-244. Davidson, Cathy N. "Photographs of the Dead: Sherman, Daguerre, Hawthorne." South Atlantic Quarterly 89.4 (Fall 1990): 667-701. Gernsheim, Helmut. The Origins of Photography. London: Thames and Hudson, 1982. Greenough, Sarah, Joel Snyder, David Travis and Colin Westerbeck. On the Art of Fixing a Shadow: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Photography. Boston: Little, Brown, 1989. Newhall, Beaumont. The History of Photography, From 1839 to the Present. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1982. Sontag, Susan. On Photography. New York: Dell, 1977. Trachtenberg, Alan. Reading American Photographs: Images as History, Mathew Brady to the Present. New York: Hill and Wang, 1989. Citation reference for this article Substitute your date of access for Dn Month Year etc... MLA Style Dean, Gabrielle. "Portrait of the Self" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5.5 (2002). [your date of access] < http://www.media-culture.org.au/mc/0210/Dean.html &gt. Chicago Style Dean, Gabrielle, "Portrait of the Self" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5, no. 5 (2002), < http://www.media-culture.org.au/mc/0210/Dean.html &gt ([your date of access]). APA Style Dean, Gabrielle. (2002) Portrait of the Self. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5(5). < http://www.media-culture.org.au/mc/0210/Dean.html &gt ([your date of access]).

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