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Tear My Life Apart: Truth Through Queerness in The Handmaiden

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This paper compares two related sequences in Park Chan-wook’ 2016 film The Handmaiden using a theoretical lens that reconciles the writings of two preeminent scholars in the field of queer studies. At the start of this film, neither Tamako nor Lady Hideko understands the web of manipulation and lies in which they are entrapped. Both have some key knowledge, but the film’s male characters work hard to safeguard the gates of their knowledge in a desperate bid to prevent females from attaining agency. Yet by the film’s conclusion, it’s the men who realize their hallowed knowledge allowed them to glimpse but a shade of the women’s true capabilities. Thus, when Tamako and Lady Hideko finally embrace queerness to access the truth of the world around them, they also tear down the superficial facade of knowledge that the film’s male characters passed off for truth, even as they build their own identities anew. The film introduces its audience to the gates of male knowledge very early on, ar
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Trump Vindicated, Climate Change Proven A Product of Imagination

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Sunday, April 30 th , 2017 Today marks a monumental day in environmental history. The results of a recent meta-analysis of twenty-seven independent studies have officially been released to the general public, and they prove beyond a reasonable doubt what most of the world has believed all along: climate change is actually a figment of our collective imagination. It turns out that our planet actually operates like a giant sponge; all of the pollutants, toxic smog, and non-biodegradable plastics that humans release into the natural environment are actually safely reabsorbed into the planet on a regular basis. This process, known as hyperbiodegradation, has profound implications that reach all the way down to our fundamental understanding of this planet we call home. Until now, we believed that pollutants lingered around, slowly piled up, and gradually choked the life out of our Earth. However, now we know that hyperbiodegradation kicks in almost immediately upon their submersion into nat
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Ooops

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Hiya, friends! Cass here. It would appear that I posted about three things to this blog and then just stopped. Let me just say that sometimes, appearances aren't deceiving. Yeah, sorry about that. In short, life happened. Between trying to cope with distance learning during COVID-19, all the political and socioeconomic drama that's been plaguing society lately, and my own mental health, it just got a little too much for awhile. I'd be lying if I said things were much better now, but I want get back to posting regardless. Truth is, I never forgot about this blog for more than a day or two at a time; I just couldn't quite force myself to take the leap and return. While most of the media posted here was written long before it's published, it still takes a lot more time than I expected to edit posts, clean them up, and make sure the sources are properly cited. As I always say, you haven't lived until you've had to hunt for the exact edition of the film you refer
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Unknown: The Storytelling of Fun Home via McCloud

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Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel Fun Home uses many of the base concepts from Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics  to create a storytelling engine that imparts deeper meaning through its expression of emotion, use of iconography, and interplay between text and image. On pages 1, 15, 16, 17, and 18 of Fun Home , this engine is geared specifically towards the characterization of Bechdel’s father and his influence over and modulation of the family dynamic. Additionally, through the use of a unique point of view and a recurring theme of contrast, certain characteristics of both the father and family as a whole are expressed in an especially impactful way: we as readers are let into the world of mystique and unsolved puzzles that Bechdel has come to associate with her past. Image from  Fun Home  page 18. A very visible example of the effect of Bechdel’s father on the family dynamic can be found by analyzing emotional expression and how line is used to achieve it. Looking at the faces on pag
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Victory Is Preordained: Player Choice and Destiny in Star Wars: The Old Republic

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This paper aims to offer an interpretative analysis of one of the storylines in Electronic Arts’ and Bioware’s hit MMORPG game, Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR). SWTOR’s Knights of The Fallen Empire storyline utilizes a combination of player choice and thematic elements concerning destiny, fate, and free will to offer a metacommentary on the mechanism and implications of choice in games. This is achieved in a number of different ways. First, characters with opposing beliefs on these issues discuss them in settings in which the player may weigh in. Then, certain characters with advanced awareness provide their thoughts. Finally, these characters indirectly discuss the unique relationship that player choice shares with the hardcoded version of destiny found in video game stories. SWTOR was first released in 2011 by Electronic Arts and Bioware. The game was developed primarily at Bioware’s studio in Austin, Texas, however, teams and individuals from other areas (such as Bioware’s stud
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We Need Each Other: A Close Reading of Metropolis

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This essay analyzes a late sequence in the original release of Fritz Lang’s  Metropolis . A Marxist analysis of this sequence reveals a surprising codependency between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, represented by Johann Fredersen and the workers respectively. Marx himself may not agree with this portrayal, but Althusser’s ideas concerning the lasting power and reproductive needs of a capitalist system bring the interclass relationships in  Metropolis  into focus.  This point in  Metropolis  finds us in the midst of the workers’ revolution. While the workers have been destroying the machines, Maria, Freder Fredersen, and one of Freder’s petit bourgeois allies have been saving their children. The sequence opens with a long shot of the children running up and embracing their three saviors. The main purpose of this shot is to show the compassion of Freder and Maria, as Lang is preparing Freder to assume the mantle of the mediator in a few short minutes. However, this scene does some
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