Spartan Daily, November 2, 2017

Volume 149, Issue 31https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartan_daily_2017/1072/thumbnail.jp

Too Soon Forgot: The Ethics of Remembering in Richard III, NOW, and House of Cards

Three interconnected performances of Shakespeare\u27s Richard III display the extreme hermeneutical volatility of representation when remediated through a celebrity\u27s personal history. The film NOW: In the Wings on a World Stage (dir. Jeremy Whelehan, 2014) documents the Bridge Project Company\u27s Richard III directed by Sam Mendes and starring Kevin Spacey (2011-12), a production launched at London\u27s Old Vic and transferred to twelve cities across the globe. Just prior to the distribution of NOW, Netflix released its first season of House of Cards (2013) with Spacey as the politician, Francis Underwood, at the center of its seamy landscape. Spacey insists in multiple interviews, The truth is Frank [of House of Cards] wouldn\u27t exist without Richard III. The House of Card\u27s indebtedness goes deeper than the Mendes production since both Michael Dobbs\u27s original book trilogy (1989-1995) and the Andrew Davies-BBC television adaptations of Dobbs\u27s work (1990; 1993; 1995) acknowledge Shakespeare\u27s history play as inspiration. This web of Richard III performances and slant appropriations does not simply chronicle literary indebtedness but also prompts questions about epistemological ethics and hermeneutical instability. As of October 2017, these three performances of Richard — the Mendes staged instantiation, the Spacey-as-Richard of NOW, and Richard as Frank Underwood — are haunted by the revelation of Spacey\u27s career-long sexual predation. All three Richards began their artistic journey trading on the capital of Spacey\u27s notoriety and deploying a curated history as remediative strategy for producing the 400-year-old play. Now the intersection between celebrity biography and performance confronts the responsibilities of knowing and challenges the affective pleasure viewers take in witnessing the unfettered agency and appetitive voracity of the powerful. The destructive intrusion of Spacey\u27s celebrity biography on the memory and meaning of this suite of Richard III performances provokes heightened ethical scrutiny not just of the institutions that protect predatory artists but also of audiences who must acknowledge their own complicity with Richard\u27s seductive immorality and the stars who play his part

Not just a joke : rape culture in Internet memes about #MeToo

This thesis provides a critical account of the discursive construction of sexual violence in humorous Internet memes about #MeToo. Applying an interdisciplinary lens, the thesis combines feminist scholarship on discourse, affect, humour, rape culture and online misogyny in order to provide a contribution to the field of feminist digital media studies.;I employ a case study approach to my data set of 866 Internet memes collected from three social media platforms, 9gag, Reddit and Imgur, between October and December 2017 using the four search terms: #MeToo, Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, and Louis C.K.;Applying discourse analysis to Internet memes generated by these specific search terms enables me to investigate how sexual violence is portrayed in different ways depending on who the perpetrators and the victims are. The three social media platforms have been chosen as they encourage users to upload humorous content enabling me to investigate how humorous content constructs sexual violence in specific ways. The thesis demonstrates how certain notions about gender and sexuality are discursively reproduced in online spaces that privilege heterosexual men and exclude women and homosexual men.;The thesis aims to contribute to existing research in feminist media studies by investigating the backlash against #MeToo on specifically humorous discursive spaces thus gaining insight into how sexual violence is discursively constructed in spaces that otherwise might often be overlooked and disregarded as meaningless and harmless. By taking humour seriously the thesis contends this 'just-a-joke' discourse.This thesis provides a critical account of the discursive construction of sexual violence in humorous Internet memes about #MeToo. Applying an interdisciplinary lens, the thesis combines feminist scholarship on discourse, affect, humour, rape culture and online misogyny in order to provide a contribution to the field of feminist digital media studies.;I employ a case study approach to my data set of 866 Internet memes collected from three social media platforms, 9gag, Reddit and Imgur, between October and December 2017 using the four search terms: #MeToo, Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, and Louis C.K.;Applying discourse analysis to Internet memes generated by these specific search terms enables me to investigate how sexual violence is portrayed in different ways depending on who the perpetrators and the victims are. The three social media platforms have been chosen as they encourage users to upload humorous content enabling me to investigate how humorous content constructs sexual violence in specific ways. The thesis demonstrates how certain notions about gender and sexuality are discursively reproduced in online spaces that privilege heterosexual men and exclude women and homosexual men.;The thesis aims to contribute to existing research in feminist media studies by investigating the backlash against #MeToo on specifically humorous discursive spaces thus gaining insight into how sexual violence is discursively constructed in spaces that otherwise might often be overlooked and disregarded as meaningless and harmless. By taking humour seriously the thesis contends this 'just-a-joke' discourse

The Cowl - v.82 - n.10 - Nov 16, 2017

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Volume 82, Number 10 - November 16, 2017. 24 pages

How Donald Trump and the 2016 Presidential Election Eclipsed Frank Underwood’s Election in ‘House of Cards’

In 2016, the U.S. faced a seismic change in national politics and the evolution of the entertainment industry. As the rise of streaming services had finally hit its stride, Netflix, the industry disruptor, had released a steady stream of critically acclaimed series, most notably beginning with the platform’s first original program, House of Cards. The series’ main character, Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) would become a fixture within the television landscape at the time, as both political dramas and anti-hero series were at all-time high, but what the writers of House of Cards did not expect was how their plotlines would come to life mere months after the season four premiere. In March 2016, House of Cards debuted its fourth season chronicling President Frank Underwood’s bid for re-election, all while a populist candidate with no prior public service, Donald Trump would pursue the Oval Office. Donald Trump would then fill the historic election with unfamiliar controversies that voters were not accustomed to. As the real election progressed, the distorted cynical fictionalization of reality in the political thriller began to reflect reality. This thesis examines how the real and fictional presidents handled controversies, interacted with women, and associated with the alt-right movement; and attempts to establish how House of Cards lost its cynical tone as the real world\u27s socio-cultural sphere began to reflect the dark hyperbolic events that occurred in Frank Underwood’s Washington D.C