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Rural Hysteria: Genre of the Reimagined Past, Spectacle of AIDS, and Queer Politics in Diana Lee Inosanto's The Sensei

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2013, Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, Popular Culture.

Diana Inosanto reimagines the 1980s AIDS epidemic in her film, The Sensei (2008) and implements cultural issues on rurality, sexuality, and tolerance within the overall narrative structure. Finding it important to use the works of Rick Altman, John G. Cawelti, and Fredric Jameson, I theorize how postmodernism affects film genres and their evolution through pastiche and historical events. Within this genre cycle, The Sensei fits into several other film genre types that include the queer film, AIDS film, and martial arts film. Drawing from the works of Richard Dyer, B. Ruby Rich, Kylo-Patrick Hart, and David West, I place The Sensei into each category to develop thoughts on how hybrid genres work into film creation. Analyzing the works on myths of the small town and rurality, assumptions about queer migration, and stigmatizations about AIDS, I attempt to disprove these myths and assumptions through the works of Bud W. Jerke, Judith Halberstam, Michael Kennedy, and Emily Kazyak. My overall goal is to project social awareness about queer cultural geography, issues with AIDS in rural areas, and the vitalization of anti-bullying issues that have saturated our media landscape within the last two decades using Inosanto's The Sensei as a vehicle to evoke thought.

Becca Cragin, PhD (Advisor)
Jeffrey Brown, PhD (Committee Member)
Marilyn Motz, PhD (Committee Member)
69 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Binder, K. J. (2013). Rural Hysteria: Genre of the Reimagined Past, Spectacle of AIDS, and Queer Politics in Diana Lee Inosanto's The Sensei [Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1367081027

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Binder, Kendall. Rural Hysteria: Genre of the Reimagined Past, Spectacle of AIDS, and Queer Politics in Diana Lee Inosanto's The Sensei . 2013. Bowling Green State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1367081027.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Binder, Kendall. "Rural Hysteria: Genre of the Reimagined Past, Spectacle of AIDS, and Queer Politics in Diana Lee Inosanto's The Sensei ." Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1367081027

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)