Sim, Gerald

This thesis investigates the role of myth in Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale. Through an analysis of concepts such as the body and nation, I investigate the mythical underpinnings of gender, race, social reproduction, and capitalism in Gilead as well as the veritable history of oppression and imperialism in the United States that informs the Gileadean imaginary. I interrogate myth’s utility in creating nations and worlds, real or imagined, and the mechanisms of myth that make this possible. Using the works of authors such as Roland Barthes, Kalindi Vora, Achille Mbembe, and others, I read The Handmaid’s Tale series as a text that reveals how truth can be distorted by myth but can be demythologized to belie intention, historically contextualize, and inspire resistance. Written in the midst and wake of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, this thesis is also a meditation on auto-ethnographic and textual resistance.

See Her is a found footage montage that identifies the issue of women’s representation in contemporary Hollywood film culture. It analyzes different ways that spectatorship develops through the division of the film into four sections of which three analyze film from the perspective of Laura Mulvey, Mary Ann Doane, and Linda Williams. These three sections also approach the representation of women as a sociological issue of oppression as discussed by sociologist Patricia Hill Collins. The last section serves as a speculative vision of the future of female representation in Hollywood Film Culture. While this film is critical on the current state of representation, it presents hope for a more equal future.