Search

This dissertation explores the fan fashion industry and the practice of adapting costumes into everyday clothing from 2010-2020. The 2010s can be seen as the beginnings of a second “golden age of cinema fashions,” when the supply and demand for film and television-inspired clothing started to peak. As a result of cultural and industrial shifts throughout the 2000s due to the rise of digital technologies and social media, transmedia franchises became the norm, while licensed merchandise and brand partnerships gained renewed importance as ways to make up for profit losses from streaming sites and an overcrowded content marketplace. The prevalence of social media catalyzed the mainstreaming of fan practices in addition to making it easier for the media industry to capitalize on the labor of online fan communities. Convergence culture and the influence of neoliberal ideals form the context for an exploration of costume designers’ and fans’ creative labor, personal identity, and the meaning and value of fan fashion.Fan fashion provides a space for costume designers and fans to play with IP and offer personalized contributions to the transmedia story world. However, work-for-hire contracts and strict licensing guidelines ensure that IP owners maintain legal and economic control. Although many media workers and fans view the system as exploitative, they are forced to operate within it. So, while they continue to push for proper compensation for their labor, costume designers and fans often focus on the symbolic rewards they receive, like press, experience, and a social network. Through a series of case studies, I illuminate the different ways fan fashion manifests itself, the exploitative aspects of the industry, and the tactics used by costume designers, fans, and their supporters to advocate for change.

By examining independent film distribution between 2010 and 2020, this dissertation argues that a new cycle of precarity in independent film history led to the rise of digital distribution methods such as self-distribution, the day-and-date release, and the acquisition and distribution of independent films by streaming platforms. After observing the rise of digital distribution, independent films can be seen in retrospect as one of the initial products exploited in the negotiation of power between theatrical and digital distribution. This negotiation of power is not only economic, but also cultural, with issues of legitimacy, curation, and inclusion at its forefront. Streaming has since triggered an entirely new definition of what it means to be an independent film in the online era, one defined less by theatrical exhibition, a culture of prestige, and an “art house” niche audience, and more so by an “anytime, anywhere” viewing culture, new structures and qualifications at film festivals and awards ceremonies, and algorithm-based viewer targeting methods that further narrow the “art house” audience from niche to individual. However, this dissertation challenges the notion that Netflix and Amazon are “disruptors,” and instead argues that streaming platforms adopted practices already implemented by independent filmmakers and distributors in the decade prior. Advancement in technological capabilities, and with it, the symbolic value of digital distribution, allowed technology companies to capitalize on simultaneous or exclusively digital release methods and target independent film properties because of the evidence that digital delivery was already successful for these products. Through interviews with independent filmmakers and distributors, a critical reading of industry trade press, analysis of the algorithms and interfaces that deliver these films, and a close look at the distribution of films like Four Eyed Monsters (2005), Margin Call (2011), Manchester By The Se

By examining independent film distribution between 2010 and 2020, this dissertation argues that a new cycle of precarity in independent film history led to the rise of digital distribution methods such as self-distribution, the day-and-date release, and the acquisition and distribution of independent films by streaming platforms. After observing the rise of digital distribution, independent films can be seen in retrospect as one of the initial products exploited in the negotiation of power between theatrical and digital distribution. This negotiation of power is not only economic, but also cultural, with issues of legitimacy, curation, and inclusion at its forefront. Streaming has since triggered an entirely new definition of what it means to be an independent film in the online era, one defined less by theatrical exhibition, a culture of prestige, and an “art house” niche audience, and more so by an “anytime, anywhere” viewing culture, new structures and qualifications at film festivals and awards ceremonies, and algorithm-based viewer targeting methods that further narrow the “art house” audience from niche to individual. However, this dissertation challenges the notion that Netflix and Amazon are “disruptors,” and instead argues that streaming platforms adopted practices already implemented by independent filmmakers and distributors in the decade prior. Advancement in technological capabilities, and with it, the symbolic value of digital distribution, allowed technology companies to capitalize on simultaneous or exclusively digital release methods and target independent film properties because of the evidence that digital delivery was already successful for these products. Through interviews with independent filmmakers and distributors, a critical reading of industry trade press, analysis of the algorithms and interfaces that deliver these films, and a close look at the distribution of films like Four Eyed Monsters (2005), Margin Call (2011), Manchester By The Se

This dissertation explores the intersection between social media and traditional media, focusing on Hollywood studios’ increasing adoption of social media platforms—including Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter—to promote their films. In an age when a YouTube trailer or celebrity Instagram post regularly receives more views than a feature film, we cannot understand a movie’s cultural influence without interrogating its digital, promotional surround. Situating my work within the emerging field of critical media industry studies, I draw on interviews with marketing professionals, ethnographic research at industry conferences, trade journals, and textual analysis to uncover the recent history of social media marketing at the Hollywood studios. Innovative digital promotional campaigns for The Blair Witch Project (1999) and The Lord of the Rings (2001) highlighted the early promise of internet marketing. Yet, with studio bosses burned by early internet investments and nervous about online file sharing, most film marketers approached social media with caution, even as consumers embraced the new platforms. As I illustrate, the turning point came when mini-major studios Summit and Lionsgate harnessed social media’s precision, efficiency, and unpaid user labor to build Twilight (2008) and The Hunger Games (2012) into major studio franchises, without major marketing budgets. Finally, Summit’s and Lionsgate’s success inspired the Big Six studios to expand their social media efforts, a phenomenon I explore with a detailed marketing case study of Universal’s Jurassic World (2015). By tracing the studios’ slow embrace of social media marketing, this dissertation reveals the cultural, industrial, and scholarly significance of the uneasy but increasingly unshakable marriage between Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Social media has shifted the power balance in Hollywood production. Today’s connected social media platforms obscure the algorithms, data collection, and advertising r

This dissertation explores the intersection between social media and traditional media, focusing on Hollywood studios’ increasing adoption of social media platforms—including Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter—to promote their films. In an age when a YouTube trailer or celebrity Instagram post regularly receives more views than a feature film, we cannot understand a movie’s cultural influence without interrogating its digital, promotional surround. Situating my work within the emerging field of critical media industry studies, I draw on interviews with marketing professionals, ethnographic research at industry conferences, trade journals, and textual analysis to uncover the recent history of social media marketing at the Hollywood studios. Innovative digital promotional campaigns for The Blair Witch Project (1999) and The Lord of the Rings (2001) highlighted the early promise of internet marketing. Yet, with studio bosses burned by early internet investments and nervous about online file sharing, most film marketers approached social media with caution, even as consumers embraced the new platforms. As I illustrate, the turning point came when mini-major studios Summit and Lionsgate harnessed social media’s precision, efficiency, and unpaid user labor to build Twilight (2008) and The Hunger Games (2012) into major studio franchises, without major marketing budgets. Finally, Summit’s and Lionsgate’s success inspired the Big Six studios to expand their social media efforts, a phenomenon I explore with a detailed marketing case study of Universal’s Jurassic World (2015). By tracing the studios’ slow embrace of social media marketing, this dissertation reveals the cultural, industrial, and scholarly significance of the uneasy but increasingly unshakable marriage between Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Social media has shifted the power balance in Hollywood production. Today’s connected social media platforms obscure the algorithms, data collection, and advertising r

This dissertation examines the relationship between Hollywood and American Christianity from 1998 to the present—a time frame that encompasses the recent rise of the “Christian blockbusters.” This period saw unprecedented interaction between Hollywood and what has been called the “Christian film industry,” or “Holywood”—a loose and ever-changing assortment of Christian film companies and independent filmmakers that have operated in one form or another since the silent era and whose productions were, until recently, primarily relegated to local theatrical markets, church screenings, and Christian television. Although historically unprecedented, this new interaction between Hollywood and “Holywood” can be understood as a clear extension of the rise of both new media technology and transmedia industries. This dissertation argues that a once not-for-profit filmmaking exercise by Christian filmmakers, for the purposes of inner-church ministry, has now become a huge business built upon selling films to churches as resources for both inner-church ministry and outer-church evangelism. Indeed, the business has grown so profitable that Hollywood studios now regularly market their mainstream wares to Christian audiences as well, utilizing the rise of middle-men marketing firms to reach faith-based demographics and speak a Christian sales language unfamiliar to most studios.My dissertation is structured around six chapters: an introduction and conclusion, two contextual chapters, and two case study chapters. Chapter 1 sets the stage for the historical and cultural roots of “Holywood” since the silent era, the modern model for “Holywood” marketing established by Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (2004), and the ways “Holywood” filmmakers have continued to adopt and adapt this model and earn great financial rewards in the process. Conversely, Chapter 2 establishes Hollywood’s modern relationship to Christian audiences. Little has been written on the Hollywood/Christian relat

This dissertation examines the relationship between Hollywood and American Christianity from 1998 to the present—a time frame that encompasses the recent rise of the “Christian blockbusters.” This period saw unprecedented interaction between Hollywood and what has been called the “Christian film industry,” or “Holywood”—a loose and ever-changing assortment of Christian film companies and independent filmmakers that have operated in one form or another since the silent era and whose productions were, until recently, primarily relegated to local theatrical markets, church screenings, and Christian television. Although historically unprecedented, this new interaction between Hollywood and “Holywood” can be understood as a clear extension of the rise of both new media technology and transmedia industries. This dissertation argues that a once not-for-profit filmmaking exercise by Christian filmmakers, for the purposes of inner-church ministry, has now become a huge business built upon selling films to churches as resources for both inner-church ministry and outer-church evangelism. Indeed, the business has grown so profitable that Hollywood studios now regularly market their mainstream wares to Christian audiences as well, utilizing the rise of middle-men marketing firms to reach faith-based demographics and speak a Christian sales language unfamiliar to most studios.My dissertation is structured around six chapters: an introduction and conclusion, two contextual chapters, and two case study chapters. Chapter 1 sets the stage for the historical and cultural roots of “Holywood” since the silent era, the modern model for “Holywood” marketing established by Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (2004), and the ways “Holywood” filmmakers have continued to adopt and adapt this model and earn great financial rewards in the process. Conversely, Chapter 2 establishes Hollywood’s modern relationship to Christian audiences. Little has been written on the Hollywood/Christian relat

In this dissertation, I will examine the formal interchange between American film and American comic books from 1978-2009. Building upon the theory of remediation defined by Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, I describe a contemporary facet of the relationship between these two media forms as exemplifying stylistic remediation, or the representation of one medium's stylistic characteristics within another medium. Through the following chapters, I will investigate the complex and ever evolving formal relationship between these two media forms, which are also experiencing convergence at the levels of the industries which produce them and the customers who consume them. Moreover, I will also offer commentary upon the potential economic future of stylistic remediation and what new hybrid forms of media these trends in form and conglomeration have begun to produce. To this end, this study applies theories of form out of Comic Studies, Film Studies, and New Media Studies to analyses of texts in both media. Moreover, in order to fully contextualize these stylistic developments, I will draw upon an analysis of the industrial and popular presses representing both industries that I will elaborate upon with subject interviews.

In this dissertation, I will examine the formal interchange between American film and American comic books from 1978-2009. Building upon the theory of remediation defined by Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, I describe a contemporary facet of the relationship between these two media forms as exemplifying stylistic remediation, or the representation of one medium's stylistic characteristics within another medium. Through the following chapters, I will investigate the complex and ever evolving formal relationship between these two media forms, which are also experiencing convergence at the levels of the industries which produce them and the customers who consume them. Moreover, I will also offer commentary upon the potential economic future of stylistic remediation and what new hybrid forms of media these trends in form and conglomeration have begun to produce. To this end, this study applies theories of form out of Comic Studies, Film Studies, and New Media Studies to analyses of texts in both media. Moreover, in order to fully contextualize these stylistic developments, I will draw upon an analysis of the industrial and popular presses representing both industries that I will elaborate upon with subject interviews.