Tag: Peter Alilunas

Ice Cube’s Star Text: Rejecting the Hip-Hop “Gangsta”

Presenter: Kenneth Mullins

Mentors: Priscilla Ovalle, Cinema Studies; Peter Alilunas, Journalism

Oral Presentation

Majors: Cinema Studies and Journalism

For many rappers, hip-hop gives them an outlet to express their masculinity, using a combination of braggadocio, misogyny, and violence to demonstrate their “hardness.” For others, hip-hop is an outlet for teaching, a way for them to speak out against the culture of violence that they have chosen to reject. The goal of this project is to explore how black masculinity is defined and depicted by hip-hop music, particularly in the creation and rejection of the “gangsta” stereotype; in a time when racial politics are at the forefront of the national discussion, understanding how these stereotypes are created and how they operate is more important than ever. By analyzing the film and music career of rapper Ice Cube, we can see how he has simultaneously contributed to and criticized this stereotypical depiction of black masculinity. As both a film and music star, Ice Cube provides a rich body of work to analyze this form of black racial identity. Through a close reading of his film appearances in Boyz n the Hood (1991) and Friday (1995), as well as his 1993 solo album The Predator, we can see how Ice Cube negotiated the “gangsta” stereotype, subverting it in a way that made his transition from hardcore gangster rapper to children’s film star seem natural.

Pepe the Frog: Challenging Cultural Hegemony with Internet Memes

Presenter(s): Ben Pettis − Media Studies, Cinema Studies

Faculty Mentor(s): Peter Alilunas

Oral Session 2C

Research Area: Humanities

This thesis examines Internet memes as a unique medium that has the capability to easily and seamlessly transfer ideologies between groups, and potentially enable subcultures to challenge, and possibly overthrow, hegemonic power structures that maintain the dominance of a mainstream culture. Dick Hebdige provides a model by which a dominant culture can reclaim the images and symbols used by a subculture through the process of commodification. Using the Pepe the Frog meme as a case study, I argue that Hebdige’s commodification model does not apply to Internet memes, because traditional concepts of ownership and control affect Internet memes differently. As such, the medium enables subcultures to claim and redefine an image to challenge a dominant culture. I trace the meme from its creation by Matt Furie in 2005 to its appearance in the 2016 US Presidential Election and examine how its meaning has changed throughout its history. I define the difference between a meme instance and the meme as a whole, and conclude that the meaning of the overall meme is formed by the sum of its numerous meme instances. This structure is unique to the medium of Internet memes and is what enables subcultures to use them to easily transfer ideologies in order to challenge the hegemony of dominant cultures. Unlike with other forms of media, it is difficult for the dominant culture to exert its power or control over Internet memes. Internet memes, therefore, have significant real-world implications and potential to empower subcultures.

The Cinema 7 History

Presenter(s): Katherine Wilson—English

Faculty Mentor(s): Peter Alilunas, Stephen Rust

Session 1: Flicks and Pics

Cinema 7 was a unique “art house” movie theater in Eugene, Oregon, 1974–87 . It was part of Oregon’s emerging film culture in the early 70s; showcasing the films of Poetic Cinema Filmmakers Ron Finne, Sharon Genasci and Don Cato, among others; and was partially funded and staffed by Oregon Film’s Pioneer Film Crew member Katherine Wilson, a professional Location Scout and Casting Director . The cinema boasted attendance by such notables as cast and crew from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Animal House, and Stand By Me; as well as local icon Ken Kesey .

Curious about what the venue looked like, U of O Cinema Studies Professor Alilunas discovered in 2020 that one of the students in his class, filmmaker Katherine Wilson, had worked there; and an opportunity arose to learn more about the theater’s special place in history .

Only a single photograph from the Eugene Register Guard Newspaper (of the hidden projector room) and one polaroid image of a corner of the lobby existed, so Katherine made the decision to make a diorama from the blueprints Dr . Alilunas had found at Eugene’s City Planning Department .

The interior design itself was inspired by the great former movie and opera houses of Eugene (the ornate theater seats were reused and recycled from the demolished Heilig Theater in 1973) as it mimicked The Egyptian Theater and The Bagdad Theater in the Art Deco/ Egyptian Revival style popular in the 1920s .

Therefore, it became more important than ever to somehow preserve the theater’s history for students who were studying how and why Art Houses were so important beginning in the early 70s; as these “underground” artistic filmmakers helped create Cinema as we know it today .

Additional photos were later found and printed from negatives by the Cinema’s Interior Designer and Graphic Artist Lynn Peterson, who also designed all the Cinema 7 posters starting 46 years ago . Lynn had donated many of them along with Katherine’s to the Katherine Wilson Special Collection at the Knight Library in 2016 . Video link: https://vimeo .com/401805694/0167ee0cc3

Disrupting the Cyclical Narrative of Castration in Rape Revenge; distinguishing violence from vengeance

Presenter(s): M. Joelle Ahler—Cinema, Womens, Gender & Sexuality Studies/Ethnic Studies Minor

Faculty Mentor(s): Peter Alilunas

Session 3: Beyond a Melody

Rape revenge films have been heralded as feminist iconography since their conception despite many controversial points, as the agency they award their protagonists stands out in film history . This thesis dissects the relation of gendered violence and bodily autonomy presented in traditional rape revenge films to disrupt the narrative of castration as a form of feminized vengeance . Rape revenge films from the male gaze construct female agency and castration as retributive justice, creating cyclical narratives that perpetuate binary understandings of bodily autonomy in relation to gendered power . By dissecting several classic rape revenge films through the lens of hegemonic power and social constructions of gender, this thesis will examine how the rape is represented in the film and how the avenger’s relationship to the victim—self, family member or community member—affects the severity of the revenge . These films utilize binary systems of gender and heteronormativity to dictate sexual violence and reciprocal vengeance as ‘naturalized’ forms of female agency . Conflating the relationship of castration and rape presented in these scenes, the autonomy of the victim and the assaulter are equalized as vengeance is assumedly served . This thesis finds that rape revenge narratives construct castration as a tool for vengeance and reclamation of bodily autonomy to perpetuate binary understandings of sexual violence and patriarchal systems of power within these narratives .