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This study of British director Andrea Arnold and her award-winning films addresses auteur theory and its implications for woman filmmakers. I argue that the important difference between men and women in assuming the director's chair has been opportunity – and not a matter of essentialized gender differences. Pivoting to readings of Arnold's films, the analysis addresses the stylistic signatures and thematic motifs that characterize her feature films: Red Road (2006), Fish Tank (2009), Wuthering Heights (2011), American Honey (2016) and the short films Milk (1998) and Wasp (2003). I will discuss the implications of Arnold's film style vis-à-vis gender and the discourse on what constitutes social realist film in the U.K. As for thematic motifs, Arnold's films return to voyeurism, primal scenes and nature's persistence in seemingly denatured environments. The analysis further examines identities (marked by age, class and gender) as motifs that circulate through Arnold's work; a concern with identity that, nonetheless, refuses sentimentality and essentialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This investigation introduces a concept that bookends Herman and Chomsky's seminal theorization of flak. While both Kevlar and flak are deployed on contentious grounds, flak goes on the attack against ideological opponents whereas discursive Kevlar assumes a posture of defense. Kevlar is also distinct from media management strategies that coopt news media and create a Teflon coating around an administration. A case study of National Review's coverage of the first Trump impeachment maps out Kevlar tendencies. The investigation analyzes the array of Trump-affirming defenses that National Review marshaled during the impeachment. Despite its rarefied reputation, National Review's discourses were saturated with punditry that refused considered analysis; exceptions to the rule of Kevlar on behalf of Trump are also discussed. National Review's Kevlar campaign included pervasive attempts to delegitimize the Democratic Party, beginning with vagueness that glossed over the proximal cause of impeachment: Trump's extortive shakedown of Ukraine's government over congressionally-certified funds in an effort to seed news narratives favorable to Trump's 2020 campaign. National Review constructed further Kevlar defenses through "whataboutism" toward Democrats while the publication's misgivings about Trump were tempered by "confirming criticisms." One implication is that Trump's illiberal political project has been immeasurably assisted by elite ("tree-tops") rightwing platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]