Browsing by Author "Beaty, Bart"

Now showing 1 - 13 of 13
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    Beyond Subcultural Community: A Sociological Analysis of Japanese Animation Fans and Fandoms
    (2019-04-05) Robles Bastida, Nazario; Young, Kevin M.; McLean, Scott; McCoy, Liza; Beaty, Bart; Atkinson, Michael F.; Whaley, Ben
    The study of media fandom has emphasized the subcultural nature of fans’ practices and relationships. The work of Henry Jenkins (2013) was especially influential in this regard. Proposing that media fans constituted both a subculture and an interpretive community, Jenkins reified fandoms as bounded, subcultural groups composed of nomadic readers. The current dissertation constitutes a powerful critique of this traditional approach to the study of media fandom. Through ethnographic research on Japanese animation fans in Mexico and Canada and a theoretical framework informed by the oeuvre of Pierre Bourdieu, I propose that Japanese animation fandom is not a bounded group, but rather a field of consumption, that is, a space of consumer positions articulated around particular tastes relating to Japanese animation and its associated texts and characters. While some of these positions correspond to local and trans-local communities, individual media consumers occupy others. From this perspective, in a similar manner to Bourdieu’s “field of cultural production”, Japanese animation fandom is much more complex and fluid than implied by the fandom-as-community paradigm. To approach this complexity, this dissertation explores knowledges, practices, localities and objects that are appropriated and deployed by Japanese animation fans in order to be closer to their favorite narratives and characters. In doing so, fans’ tastes and consumption practices become the core of a new approach to the study of media fandom.
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    Canadian Television Today
    (University of Calgary Press, 2006) Beaty, Bart; Sullivan, Rebecca
    What's on TV? Canadian Television Today explores the current challenges and issues facing the English-language television industry in Canada. Television in Canada has long been one of the principal conduits of national identity. But has it kept pace with the rapidly changing landscape of Canadian culture? After presenting an overview of the main issues and debates surrounding the Canadian small screen, Beaty and Sullivan offer their suggestions for the future of the medium. They argue that in today's globalized world, Canadian television should be a more fitting reflection of Canada's multicultural society, embracing a broader range of languages, cultures, and viewing strategies. Visualizing the potential reach of a revitalized industry, Beaty and Sullivan illustrate the promise and possibility of Canadian television that serves the cultural needs of all its citizens.
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    Cyborg Bodies, Human Minds: Robert Venditti's The Surrogates, Yukito Kishiro's Battle Angel Alita and the Great Myth of Posthumanism
    (2015-12-22) Massey, Samantha; Beaty, Bart; Blue, Gwendolyn; Camara, Anthony
    The topic of humans altered and improved through advanced cyborg technology—technology that amalgamates animal and machine—has long been of interest in science fiction, gaining popularity in most Western countries and Japan. This paper examines two graphic novel series, Robert Venditti’s The Surrogates and Yukito Kishiro’s Battle Angel Alita, in relation to cyborg humans and the theoretical concept of posthumanism, defined as a state that transcends the limitations of human existence with the help of cutting-edge technologies. The posthuman theory of Donna Haraway suggests that the cyborg has the potential to change humanity for the better, to challenge essentialist dichotomies and harmful identity politics. However, theorists like Katherine Hayles warn about the dangers inherent in technologies that allow humanity to “master” the body—and mortality—completely. This paper critically examines both perspectives and, ultimately, the viability of a utopic posthuman state.
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    In a Panel, Darkley: Reflections and Refractions of Gendered Trauma in Marvel's Alias and DC Comics' Batwoman: Elegy
    (2015-11-03) Beatty, Garrett; Beaty, Bart
    This thesis seeks to address a crucial gap in Academic criticism that overlooks the depiction of violence and trauma against female characters who populate the predominantly male space of the superhero genre. Guided through the trauma theory lens of Cathy Caruth, my analysis will consider how the female superheroic identity forms after a traumatic event. I examine two case studies, Marvel's Alias (2001) and DC Comics' Batwoman: Elegy (2010), which emerge out of a trend in contemporary comics culture that resists the depiction of female characters as either victim or supporting player in their own traumatic narrative. I connect this contemporary trend to fan culture, which in recent years has demanded greater creative responsibility in the treatment of female characters. Through these case studies, this thesis therefore examines the evolution of the female superhero as well as the ethical relationship between creator, character, and fan.
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    "My only mistake is I'm hoping": Monty, Morrissey, and the importance of being mediatized
    (2002) Snowsell, Colin David; Mitchell, David; Beaty, Bart
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    "Old people are useless": representations of aging on "The Simpsons"
    (2004) Blakeborough, Darren Dean; Beaty, Bart
    This paper looks at how the Simpson’s representations of aging considered ageist and stereotypical to some, can be used as a positive look at the elderly that attempts to subvert the same stereotypes that it seemingly employs. The Baby Boomer cohort is now seen as an attractive economic group and as they continue their journey through the life cycle, they are drawing increased attention. A current scholarship that investigates the ways that the “aged” are seen, catered to, advertised at, seemingly marginalized, and represented in the larger context of the mass media. Relying primarily on the theoretical musings of Frederic Jameson and Linda Hutcheon, a bridge is constructed that places the Simpsons squarely within a Postmodern aesthetic and using this rubric, shows how the inherent political nature of parodic irony can help to create an inversion of meaning.
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    Realizing the real: the evolution of immersion in videogames
    (2011) Davis, Theron; Beaty, Bart
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    Spirits in the Gutters: The British Invasion and the Haunting of the Twentieth Century
    (2023-01-27) Sewel, Tom; Beaty, Bart; Xie, Shaobo; Lai, Larissa; Mason, Derritt; Murray, Chris; Beaty, Bart
    In this dissertation, I analyze the significant artistic and literary shifts initiated in mainstream US superhero comics by the British Invasion authors Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Warren Ellis (among others), and argue that their restless curiosity in exploring how the comics page can come to make meaning is part of a tradition of literary production whose roots run back through the disruptive US/UK modernisms of the early twentieth century, the fragmented spiritual affects of Romanticism, and the dissonant overcomplications of Baroque art. I argue that that the impact of this group of writers instigated a sea change of generational proportions in the direction of American comics writing from the late 1980s to the early 2000s. This change began with an increased focus on textuality and the tropes of literary storytelling (such as unreliable narrators, non-linear narratives, and biting political allegory) but was always accompanied by and generative of an innovative and experimental approach to the mechanics of visual storytelling in terms of the manipulation of layouts, panelling, guttering, and other concrete elements of the comics page. US superhero comics written and illustrated by US creators published subsequent to the British Invasion and up to the present day, continue to reflect the deep shifts in aesthetic and literary preoccupations inaugurated by the authors of the British Invasion, with Moore, Morrison, and Ellis chief among them. At stake in this sea change is the figure of the unreconstructed, all-American superhero as a symbol of hope, justice, morality, and honour. I argue that the British Invasion authors brought a critical, intellectualized cynicism to their own superhero writing, which worked to create and sustain new audiences of more mature comics readers whose taste for overtly political or philosophical comics remains a powerful market force in the comics industry today. The Invasion writers changed the way that stories could be told in superhero comics, and while they may not have been successful in recouping the radical potential of the superhero as a figure of collective liberation, they heralded an enduring shift in the kinds of stories that mainstream comics were allowed to tell.
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    Traumatic Appropriation in Maus and In The Shadow of No Towers
    (2015-11-18) Nolan, Liam; Beaty, Bart
    There are immense ethical concerns surrounding depicting another’s trauma and turning another’s trauma into a commodity for sale in the marketplace. Of these problems, competition and the denigration of the narratives of trauma sufferers are two of the most pervasive problems. Though comics are often considered low art – unfit for serious themes – through an examination of Art Spiegelman’s In the Shadow of No Towers and Maus, this thesis explores how one can utilize structural qualities of comics to create a moral depiction of trauma by embracing intertextuality and duplicating the structures of trauma. Intertextuality can allow an artist to deploy the cultural capital of certain traumatic events towards the recognition of other traumatic events.