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OSCARS WATCH 2025 – The Substance: Youth, Body, Women, Success (Part Two)

This post is part of a series of critical responses to the films nominated for Best Picture at the 97th Academy Awards.

In this in-conversation piece, Do Own (Donna) Kim, Utsav Gandhi, and Gabrielle Roitman exchange critical, intercultural, and personal readings of The Substance (2024). In Part One, Donna opens the conversation with the “love yourself :(“ South Korean (henceforth Korean) Internet meme. In Part Two, Gabrielle and Utsav expand on her reading by exploring other connections, from American pop culture to immigrant experiences and queer bodies. “Have you ever dreamt of a better version of yourself? Younger. More beautiful. More perfect….The one and only thing not to forget: you are one. You can’t escape from yourself.” (excerpt from “The Substance” product introduction video) Is “love yourself” the solution? Can we? How? We welcome you to join our conversation.

Donna:

What do you think? Is “love yourself” the solution? (Can we? How?) I’m curious about what came to your mind while watching The Substance. 

Gabrielle:

Generations of Americans have come into contact with the “This is your brain on drugs” PSA. The Substance’s opening and continual return to a similar shot of an egg invokes this cultural staple. The 2024 film suggests, ‘this is your brain on internalized misogyny’ in the form of the literal drug that Demi Moore’s Elisabeth takes, known in the movie as The Substance.

“This is your brain on drugs” (Up: NYTimes; Down: @trythesubstance Instagram). The Substance’s egg imagery invokes the cultural staple.

The Substance is now a Best Picture Academy Award-nominated, campy, patriarchy-addressing film, like Barbie before it in 2023. Notably, both films take place in different but highly satirized Hollywoods and employ strong visual references and practical effects that celebrate the medium of film. Importantly, though, American audiences have generally interpreted both movies as if they are meant to encapsulate womanhood.

By this standard, these movies, which address issues related to feminist ideas, will inevitably fail. Womanhood is vast and varied and obviously cannot be summarized in a tight 2 hours. However, the team behind Barbie never set out to define womanhood. That movie, in an interesting turn of phrase, is self-aware. The Substance is, too.

With reproductive rights on the line in a way they have not been since 1973 and politicians overly interested in policing the boundaries of womanhood, it can feel like media (more broadly) have a job to perform, to provide guidance for living in patriarchy. I wonder, though, if it’s fair to expect a simple how-to guide from cultural products that have taken years of work and luck to get to the point where we can consume them on our variously sized screens.

The Substance can be boiled down to its commentary on beauty standards and how they harm our selves. Critiques of the movie often put forward that it did not do enough. Enough of what? Enough for advancing feminism in the mid-2020s? And in our current political moment, I understand the urge to want more, but a movie is not a leader. It cannot change anything about our political wellbeing in and of itself.

“And it turns out in fact that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything is your fault” (America Ferrera’s monologue in Barbie), gif from Tumblr

I return again to Barbie – a doll, like a movie, is an inanimate object; it can take on feminist and misogynistic projections, but it can never take action. Because it is not a living participant in our society. But people are.

In the pivotal bathroom mirror makeup scene, when it becomes clear Elisabeth will spiral inwards toward her demise, she becomes paralyzed by the threat of perfection. The clever visual cue of the devil on her shoulder in the form of Sue’s billboard looms large as a reminder that there will always be something better. Elisabeth covers up more and more each time she goes outside and continues to keep herself stuck in her apartment. She gives up her willingness to interact with the world because she believes she is no longer perfect and consumable.

When a movie centers on a female experience, is it nothing but a vessel to spoonfeed The Audience a lesson? The Substance provides metaphors depicting “your brain on internalized misogyny,” but is it perfect? Does it need to be?

Elisabeth Sparkle’s Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (official Instagram).

Utsav:

I’m generally interested in why audiences place this burden of expectations and interpretations on what is ultimately just a two-hour trip to the movies. There may be some complex structural factors at play here of where we see and identify role models in society. Or perhaps it is the long-standing chokehold that the film industry has on audiences as an audio-visual medium with broad exposure and inroads into society (especially with the rise of streaming platforms and the ubiquity of short-form movie clips on YouTube and social media).  

“This Barbie has a Nobel Prize in physics” (official website).

However, there is also a thread here about how movies are marketed. The case of Barbie is more understandable – a first-time major motion picture based on what is well-ingrained intellectual property, popular movie stars/director combo, a blitzkrieg marketing campaign promoting a variety of “unique” Barbies (such as physicist Barbie), and of course the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon that ultimately helped both films. I wonder if there was anything similar in the marketing for The Substance that may have set up these expectations and interpretations from the public. What do you think, Gabrielle?

Gabrielle:

Like you said, there are definitely societal factors at play with the reverence we give movies and how we think about their impact to change culture. With fear stemming from failures in political leadership, many people are also looking for someone/thing to show the way forward or to scapegoat what’s gone wrong so we can wise up and avoid these pitfalls in our continued fight. The marketing side also surely plays a role in how much time we think about these films. When we’re continually exposed to hyperbole either from marketing campaigns or from social media posts that gain traction, it can build expectations about how life-changing a movie will really be.

Interestingly, some of the critiques I’ve read of The Substance bemoan its lack of tackling social media’s role in our struggles with self-loathing and beauty standards. I did not have this issue. Elisabeth’s purchasing of The Substance from a faceless entity and the packaging it arrived in felt eerily similar to TikTok Shop ads promising products that will change your life. Additionally, the movie hones in on the specificity of self-loathing as it exists in our own heads and bodies. When we buy products that will supposedly smooth our skin or cut bloating, we’re dreaming of a better, upgraded self, with our flaws fixed. 

A movie cannot address all of our thoughts and feelings about body image, patriarchy, what it is to be a woman. I think it’s reductive to think that all of that could be addressed in one movie. What it can do is capture a snapshot of a cultural phenomenon. The reaction to these so-called “flashy feminist” movies in a way demonstrates an argument they try to make. The Substance as a drug does not effect a change that “fixes” anything for Elisabeth, but it reflects the culture in which she exists.

Utsav:

Yes, super insightful thoughts! I agree that I also did not have an issue about the lack of social media’s role. I attributed that to the movie not having a timestamp for when it is based–it is pretty timeless in that sense. The New Year's Eve production at the end actually makes it seem like it could be the 1970s! On that final note, the production also reminded me of another subtly feminist movie I watched recently, also set in the showbiz of 1970s Los Angeles, Anna Kendrick’s Woman of the Hour (on Netflix). No reverse aging or bold pink feminism in that one, but gritty, real-life psychological horror about patriarchal violence – except that it flips the usual narrative by focusing on the women, not on the perpetrator.  

“It changed my life” ( official Instagram ).

Donna:

Living through our bodies is a shared yet differently experienced pan-human phenomenon (see Kim (2025) on gay bodily experiences in Seoul, Korea). What can be some other ways to read Elisabeth and Sue’s relationship? 

Utsav:

“She left. I’m the new tenant.”

Think of an immigrant’s journey over time. We leave a place behind and enter a new one, slowly attempting to redefine home and understand our position in our new environment. Even if some immigrants might materially leave everything behind, much colloquial (sometimes literal) “baggage” gets moved across. However, possessions aren’t the only items in flux as this journey continues. So are various aspects of identity. In the 1950s, linguist Einar Haugen coined the term “code-switch” to describe people’s propensity to transition between languages, accents, and self-presentation in the face of changing societal norms and expectations. These expectations can vary across contexts, but as an immigrant I have felt them more strongly while navigating everyday conversations or attempting to make acquaintances in my new country. I, too, have engaged in a fair bit of code-switching over my fifteen years of being an immigrant, such as “rolling my R’s” or “enunciating my V’s and my W’s” whilst speaking to Americans. However, I have always seen my code-switching as an exercise in assimilation – not in replacement or substitution. I think it bears repeating, especially in today’s politically fraught times and populist uprising against immigrants, that I have never heard an immigrant talk about “replacing” someone by taking over their spot at a place of work or residence, even if they attempt to blend in. On the contrary, in The Substance, Sue is brazen about being “the new tenant” after replacing Elisabeth.

Sue announces that Elisabeth has left ( TikTok ).

There are other allegories between the immigrant experience and Elisabeth/Sue’s story in the movie. When Elisabeth tries to control and wrestle back access she has left to The Substance as a function of how much extra is being consumed by Sue, Elisabeth gets told on the phone, “What has been used on one side is lost on the other. There is no going back.” There is a clear parallel here to immigrants losing time due to leaving their community or loved ones behind for a new home. What is also “lost” are the immigrant’s talents, successes, growth, and individual development, which are in limited supply and can’t be used to service their previous community (or the idea popularly known as “brain drain.”) Time is relentless, and choices and decisions can seem irreversible – in economic terms, I also conceptualize them as “sunk cost.”

“There is no "she" and "you." You both are one,” both Sue and Elisabeth get told at different times as they try to extricate themselves from their alter-egos. Again, this feels like a parallel with an immigrant's changing sense of self and identity. Immigrants contain multitudes, but they are also, in many ways, blends of their old and new selves. As the movie’s tagline says: “You can’t escape from yourself.” 

Elisabeth becomes Sue for the first time ( Official Instagram ).

Apart from the feminist, neoliberal, and immigrant lenses discussed above, the movie has also been described in detail as an allegory for queer and transgender experience – writer Emily Cameron in Gay Times points out that “an injectable that brings to life a gorgeous version of you that you are happier with is extremely familiar for trans people.”

Gabrielle:

Could you speak more about the ideas surrounding time as a finite resource when moving between places? It is interesting that many people will only know the “you” where you are from and others the “you” where you are now. Internally, though, you have to contend with both “yous.” Do you think this will always exist as some form of loss? Or is there an inner peace regarding this double existence for immigrants that Elisabeth/Sue was never able to exemplify?   

Utsav:

Yes, of course. That is actually a deeply moving and poignant question; thank you. The inner peace feels more like a decision, not a “given.” You must move beyond the “grass is greener on the other side” mentality and be at peace with where you are, the product of choices within and outside your control. You’re right: Elisabeth/Sue couldn’t exemplify that what they were going through was directly a product of their own decisions. They even seemed to have lost track of their larger goal (to maintain fame and adulation with their audience and fanbase). Instead, they got swept into a vicious circle of immediate gameswomanship – or trying to rescue themselves from their alter egos. They never seemed to simultaneously contend with their “yous,” perhaps because they were two entirely different physical bodies.  

Biographies

Do Own (Donna) Kim is an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois Chicago's Department of Communication. Donna studies everyday, playful digital cultures and mediated social interactions. She is particularly interested in norms, hybridity, and what being human/artificial means in emerging technological contexts. She has written about topics like video games, virtual influencers, mobile technologies, and Korean digital feminism. Her work can be found in journals such as New Media &Society, Communication Monographs, International Journal of Communication, Lateral, and Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction. Donna received her Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. You can find her on doowndonnakim.com or @doowndonnakim.bsky.social.

Gabrielle Roitman is a second year master’s student in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois Chicago, where she studies social media, culture, and identity. She is interested in the intersection of the emerging influencer industry with more established creative industries such as film and the performing arts. You can follow her at @gtroitman.bsky.social

Utsav Gandhi is a first-year Ph.D. student in Communications and Media Studies at the University of Illinois Chicago, where he is broadly interested in business models and regulation of social media, news media, and generative AI. Originally from Mumbai, India, Gandhi was previously a pre-doctoral Research Professional at the University of Chicago’s Stigler Center. You can follow him on the Fediverse at @utsavpgandhi.bsky.social or on Letterboxd at utsavpg (for his amateur movie reviews and activity).

OSCARS WATCH 2025 – The Substance: Youth, Body, Women, Success (Part One)

This post is part of a series of critical responses to the films nominated for Best Picture at the 97th Academy Awards.

The Substance posters (IMDB). Left: white capital letters against a black background. “Have you ever dreamt a better version of yourself?”

The Substance posters (IMDB). Right: a woman with back stitches is lying down on her side in a white bathroom. In capital letters, “Absolutely f***ing insane”.

In this in-conversation piece, Do Own (Donna) Kim, Utsav Gandhi, and Gabrielle Roitman exchange critical, intercultural, and personal readings of The Substance (2024). After briefly introducing the film, Donna opens the conversation with the “love yourself :(“ South Korean (henceforth Korean) Internet meme. Then, Gabrielle and Utsav expand on her reading by exploring other connections, from American pop culture to immigrant experiences and queer bodies. “Have you ever dreamt of a better version of yourself? Younger. More beautiful. More perfect….The one and only thing not to forget: you are one. You can’t escape from yourself.” (excerpt from “The Substance” product introduction video) Is “love yourself” the solution? Can we? How? We welcome you to join our conversation.

Donna:

The Substance (2024), written and directed by Coralie Fargeat, centers on a 50-year-old fading star Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) and her “better version” Sue (Margaret Qualley)—her “younger, more beautiful, more perfect” self unlocked by the black market drug, “The Substance” (but “not to forget: [Elisabeth/Sue] are one [and she] can’t escape from [her]self”). Despite being an R-rated, less mainstream “body horror” genre film, The Substance has been a global critical and commercial success. Accolades include wins and nominations for various prestigious awards, such as Cannes Film Festival (Best Screenplay), Golden Globes (Best Performance – Musical or Comedy; Moore’s first major acting award in her 45-year career), and the upcoming Oscars (5 nominations). In Korea, it has been touted as one of the most successful foreign indie·art films in the past year. According to the Korean Film Council, it is approaching 500,000 audiences (February 19, 2025). This ranks it within the top 30 most popular foreign indie·art films in the country’s history, which is an impressive feat as the list also includes major films like Avatar (2009) and Titanic (1997).

VIDEO: The Substance official trailer (YouTube).

When thinking about The Substance and its reception, my mind keeps returning to the “love yourself :(“ meme. It can look something like this: “OMG embrace your natural beauty😭 Love yourself❤️🙏”. This is a comment-based meme you can easily find on the Korean Internet, often coupled with sarcastic statements about plastic surgery, skin tone, or body shape written in an intentionally English-to-Korean translation-like tone. It parodies the common “love yourself” type of foreigner reactions to Korea’s beauty cultures, particularly toward Korean women. Globally, Korea is known as one of the plastic surgery capitals in the world, if not the capital (cf., National Evidence-based Healthcare Collaborating Agency (2014); International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (2023)). Korean skincare and makeup, characterized by their naturalistically youthful, “dewy” aesthetics, have even gained their own name: K-beauty. A rising local and tourist attraction is “personal color analysis” image consulting, where you can get expert evaluation of the colors that best boost your appearance and some matching style recommendations. Perhaps it is to no one’s surprise that a country with such a thriving beauty industry suffers from lookist cultural norms, particularly harsher toward women (or heaven forbid, older(-looking) women (!)). As a Korean woman myself, I can unfortunately speak from experience. I recall being twelve or so when I shamefully dropped my head to look down at my no-kids-size-fit-me-anymore chubby belly and legs upon a friend’s perhaps innocuous “Why are you wearing ajumma pants?” Ajumma in Korean translates to middle-aged or married women, and I was literally wearing my mom’s pants—a perfectly fine light bluish-grey pair, normally worn by the coolest person I know on the earth. Yet, I was deeply ashamed. Ajumma did not simply mean a middle-aged married woman, which my mom technically was. What I heard was that I looked uncool, outdated, unappealing, unfeminine, uncouth, and all other things associated with the “unattractive older women” stereotype.

A little twist here is that while this exchange was in Korean, it did not happen in Korea. This was in Canada, and my friend was a Korean Canadian gyopo who spoke English more fluently than Korean, if I remember correctly. Despite the country’s infamy, Koreans in Korea are not the only people who suffer from such gendered, ageist norms: the above-linked report by the “International” Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery indeed reported internationally, and K-beauty is a term that helps make certain goods, services, and content appealing to the overseas consumers, to whom an image consulting Korean tour package may also seem alluring. The intersection of age and gender has been studied in various global media and communication contexts. Maria Edström’s 2018 study of the Swedish media buzz across three decades (1994, 2004, 2014) found that older women are still particularly invisible. Even in the “executive” category where older people were relatively more represented, women still appeared younger than men (not to mention that the category itself generally followed hegemonic masculinity aesthetics). In the “beauty” category, 90% of the persons were women and none were over 60, and youth was depicted as an essential quality. Annenberg Inclusion Initiative’s study (Smith et al., 2024) of a total of 1,700 top-grossing films in North America from 2007 to 2023 also found a persisting comparative lack of adult (over 40) women to men on screen (1 to 3). The study specified the limited role-wise opportunities for older women. Films with female-identified leads and co-leads over 45 years old amounted to a mere 4.8%, and 1.2% when only counting women of color over 45 (cf., girls & women: 31.2%; girls & women of color: 7.2%). Moreover, women tended to appear more in a caregiving role than men (46.7% versus 38.6%). Behind-the-scene composition is part of this picture: women made up only 6.5% out of 1,900 directors, 13% out of 4,930 writers, and 22.1% out of 17,446 producers. These studies not only show the global pervasiveness of the gendered, ageist pressure but also help us understand the interconnection between what we see, what we come to expect, and how opportunities and imaginations get confined.

Elisabeth and Sue (IMDB). Up: Elisabeth is blowing a kiss in her show “Sparkle Your Life”. Down: Sue is making the same pose in her replacement show “Pump it Up”.

My mind returns to the “love yourself :(“ meme because The Substance, including its success, shares the collective sarcastic exasperation expressed by the meme. Its satire suggests that the tropey urges to simply love oneself are patronizing, unhelpful, and even harmful on several levels, which can be boiled down to “you just don’t know how it is.” On one hand, it points out how accompanying exotifying misdescriptions (e.g., “I heard everyone must get work done there”) and prejudiced misunderstandings (e.g., “they just don’t want to look Korean”) hijack the phenomenon from Koreans’ everyday experiences. The suggested antidote—i.e., love yourself—additionally simplifies the complex cultural processes into a simple single-issue matter of looks that can be resolved with an individual-level positive outlook. On the other, the intercultural “mirrorings” of other countries’ beauty standards (e.g., curves, tan) call attention to the ironic transnational presence and deep-rootedness of similarly operating norms. That is, the urges to “love yourself” in the absence of a concerted critical societal interrogation of “can” and “how” may only serve as exacerbating dismissals. The situation is infuriating because it’s not just about looks (but it kind of is too), and it’s not just about the individual and what they can do about themself (but it kind of seems to be). It is maddening because what stands between the person and loving themself is not just knowing, but being able to survive existing as their loving self. ‘What in the world (and where) are we supposed to do?!’

Similarly, The Substance lets out a comically deep sigh. The horrendous story of Elisabeth Sparkle’s self-abuse and fall revolves around her body(ies). Thus, as the “love yourself :(“ trope goes, it may seem that much of it could have been prevented with some good old realization and self-acceptance, especially as the film takes progressively absurdist, “absolutely f***ing insane” (poster caption) turns. However, like how the mesmerizing glittery snowglobe reminds Elisabeth, The Substance’s transfixing spectacles constantly prod us with the not-so-simple question: what made Elisabeth sparkle—or perhaps what made “Elisabeth Sparkle”? According to Fred, a high school acquaintance she ran into, Elisabeth has “not changed a bit” and is “still the most beautiful girl in the whole wide world.” We don’t get to know what this means. We only get to know Elisabeth Sparkle as a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. We learn about Elisabeth’s talents and hard work: her beauty, her fitness, her charisma, her wit, her knowledge, her drive, and her life-long regimen.

Sue’s immediate rise only further proves that Elisabeth’s stardom was from who she has been. She is a seasoned accomplice. She expertly wields Sue’s drop-dead gorgeousness, including through her “innocent” and lovely big smiles despite her disgust toward White Men in Power™, personified through the evidently disgusting television executive “Harvey” and his various extensions (e.g., younger male casting directors) and iterations (e.g., fellow Old White Men in Suit caricatures) (further readings: Andreasen (2022); Durham (2021)). As Sue, she makes perfect-for-late-night-show saucy remarks to distance herself from “old” Elisabeth’s irrelevance, associating Elisabeth with Sue’s mom’s—older women’s—generation. We learn about the “love” that has surrounded Elisabeth. She currently lives alone in a big, expensive penthouse, and seemingly has no close personal relationships. Other than the hired cleaner who remains obscured in the background, we do not see anyone in pre-Substance Elisabeth’s apartment. After getting fired on her 50th birthday, she drinks angrily at an exquisite bar, elegantly dressed but alone. We subsequently see her throwing up and struggling from a hangover by herself at her home. The only posts Elizabeth seems to have received since her forced retirement are a generic rose bouquet with a generic note from her former job (the exact kind she receives later as Sue before Sue’s big break/Elisabeth’s true grand retirement), bills, and food delivery fliers (sushi of course). As Sue, she gets visitors: invited lovers (the first leaves a cute sticky note message in her apartment) and an uninvited admirer who covet and seek her, whose tenderness quickly switches to disregard, hostility, and even fear at non-Sue-bodied Elisabeth. The contrasting treatment she experiences at her job similarly depicts the love that had surrounded her in her professional life, culminating in the “tunnel vision” scene toward the end. Now monstrously merged, all “Elisasue” sees through the single eyehole of her mask are the flashes of an adoring crowd cheering her as she walks down the long hallway toward her final stage: “There she is, so beautiful!” “We love you!”

Elisabeth is more than her looks, but it had been presumably what enabled Elisabeth to sparkle/be Sparkle in her daily and professional life. If we can guess from watching the movie, she knows this even better from living and building her life as Elisabeth. ‘What in the world (and where) is she supposed to do now?!’ We must witness all the absurdity, discomfort, and pain. We are also to witness the youthful glow of Sue. Both the gore and beauty shots are prolonged and descriptive. They resist cleaner, faster outcome-oriented retelling of Elizabeth’s achievements and abuse and ground her story in the texture and rhythm of her everyday life—the details that cumulated to experiences and then to life, the moments that she had to (re)live in their time. This invites the audiences to fill in the jumps, gaps, and inclarities in the movie with the details and moments they have lived, and fill in those in their own narratives with Elizabeth’s life. A powerful example would be the scene where Elizabeth does and re-does her styling while preparing for her date with Fred, who probably would have been struck by her in any look. I remember being physically frozen for a moment at her first bathroom mirror reflection. I found her and her styling to be so breathtakingly beautiful. I loved the satisfied little smile that she had. She is just about to leave but sees the giant billboard sign of Sue across her window. She hurries back to the bathroom. She applies more makeup and fixes her hair. She is now running out of time but is unable to leave, haunted by Sue. Each time she returns, she covers herself with more products and items, and each time, she sparkles less. I got sad because I caught myself thinking “she looks older now,” a thought that I have hurled at myself in front of mirrors before. She ends up smearing her red makeup all over her face as she cries and angrily tries to erase her face. She messes up her hair. She stays at home.

Elisabeth’s date preparation scene (YouTube). Elisabeth looks unhappily at her mirror reflection.

The Substance’s increasing absurdity reflects the baffling complexity of our collective exasperation. As the film reminds us, we “are one” and we “can’t escape from [our]self”. Elisabeth becomes a witch, an attempted self-murder, and a monster. According to Cohen’s (1996) seven monster theses, monsters ask us why we have created them. ‘What in the world are we supposed to do to survive existing as our loving selves?’ The bloody metal concert-esque ending scene to Anna von Hausswolff’s “Ugly and Vengeful” felt like a good cathartic scream. All, not just Elisabeth, are now smeared and drenched in red. The audiences—both the characters and us (see “mirroring-effect” in art-horror (Carroll, 1990))—cannot just selectively gaze on their own accord, but must now witness every detail and moment of the disfigured, entwined, and regenerating “beautiful creation” “that had been shaped for success” (Harvey’s quote). The Substance does not answer the question for Elisabeth. Once her New Year’s Eve show is over, she gets further deformed as she grunts and staggers to her star on the Walk of Fame, eventually drying up without a speck of dust left behind. Truly, “how-to” is a complex societal challenge. Consider my anecdote: What does loving yourself look like for an otherwise happy and confident twelve-year-old who, according to the limiting common retail sizes, only has a single pair of apparently “ajumma” pants that she can fit into? How should she navigate her loving relationship with herself and her mom (the actual owner of the pants who technically is a middle-aged married woman) from this incredible social threat, especially now with her already ajumma-associated socio-physical self?

What is comically exasperating is that somehow the key may be in loving yourself. In Korean female comedian Kang Yumi’s (who has been fan-nicknamed “cultural anthropologist” for her sharp social commentaries) The Substance-inspired absurdist parody of Korea’s gendered ageism Yumistance, just-turned-42—43 in Korean age—“ajumma” Yumi repeats returning to even younger versions of herself only to discover that she has forever been mandated to “jagi gwanli” (manage the self) to stay competitive as an already “too old” aging woman. She abuses the substance (here a high-end beef gogi gift set for New Year’s that sponsored her YouTube video, so she simply grills and eats the sponsored meat over and over again) until she becomes unborn: she finally escapes, but by disappearing from the world! Yumi wakes up from the nightmare and learns that the gogi gift set left at her doorstep is from her mom to make sure her daughter is eating well. Yumi narrates as she grills the gogi: “Whatever the matter, mindset is the most important thing. It is natural for people to age. If one cannot accept it, whatever the age, happiness remains practically the same [gogiseo gogi, a wordplay on geogiseo geogi (literal: “from there to there”; idiomatic: “it’s about the same”) that literally translates to “from meat to meat”]. Please let me age healthily.” Loving yourself is possible and powerful. But we cannot do so whichever “meat suit” we embody if it gets subsumed under the myriad means to competitively jagi gwanli. We must be let age and live healthily. Monstrous concerts can help the inner screams become unignorable chants.

Yumistance (YouTube). Yumi unhappily stares at her bedroom mirror reflection.

Stay tuned for Part Two.

Biographies

Do Own (Donna) Kim is an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois Chicago's Department of Communication. Donna studies everyday, playful digital cultures and mediated social interactions. She is particularly interested in norms, hybridity, and what being human/artificial means in emerging technological contexts. She has written about topics like video games, virtual influencers, mobile technologies, and Korean digital feminism. Her work can be found in journals such as New Media &Society, Communication Monographs, International Journal of Communication, Lateral, and Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction. Donna received her Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. You can find her on doowndonnakim.com or @doowndonnakim.bsky.social.

Gabrielle Roitman is a second year master’s student in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois Chicago, where she studies social media, culture, and identity. She is interested in the intersection of the emerging influencer industry with more established creative industries such as film and the performing arts. You can follow her at @gtroitman.bsky.social

Utsav Gandhi is a first-year Ph.D. student in Communications and Media Studies at the University of Illinois Chicago, where he is broadly interested in business models and regulation of social media, news media, and generative AI. Originally from Mumbai, India, Gandhi was previously a pre-doctoral Research Professional at the University of Chicago’s Stigler Center. You can follow him on the Fediverse at @utsavpgandhi.bsky.social or on Letterboxd at utsavpg (for his amateur movie reviews and activity).

OSCARS WATCH 2025 – Anora

This post is part of a series of critical responses to the films nominated for Best Picture at the 97th Academy Awards.

With this video essay, Green and Red perform a poetic analysis of both the style and content of Best Picture nominee Anora, evoking Kogonada's use of the dotted line and the driving poetic force of Catherine Grant's "Carnal Locomotive."

The following video contains some nudity and references mature content.

For creating a world for a face. For pushing the idea of creating a film for an actor to its limits. For seizing control of the world amidst the uncontrollable guerilla filmmaking. For seeing light in the darkest places, rising from the east. In Farsi, Pomegranate is Anaar انار)), Light is Noor نور)), and this is Anora (آنورا).

Green and Red: Kasra Karbasi and Amin Komijani.

Audiovisual essayists, writers, cinephiles. Based in Iran.

OSCARS WATCH 2025 – A Complete Unknown: A Conversation With Jonathan Taplin

This post is part of a series of critical responses to the films nominated for Best Picture at the 97th Academy Awards.

The following is an edited and corrected transcript of a recording made recently for the production of the How Do You Like It So Far? Podcast, hosted by Henry Jenkins and Colin Maclay. Our guest is Jonathan Taplin, an American writer, film producer and scholar. Taplin is the Director Emeritus of the Annenberg Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and Chairman of the Board of the Americana Music Foundation. Taplin's early production work included producing concerts for Bob Dylan and The Band. In 1973, he produced Martin Scorsese's first major feature film, Mean Streets, which was selected for the Cannes Film Festival. Between 1974 and 1996, Taplin produced 26 hours of television documentaries (including The Prize and Cadillac Desert for the Public Broadcasting Service) and 12 feature films including The Last Waltz, Until the End of the World, Under Fire and To Die For. His films were nominated for Academy Awards and Golden Globe Awards and chosen for the Cannes Film Festival six times. Taplin's memoir, The Magic Years: Scenes from a Rock and Roll Life was published in May 2021. The End of Reality: How 4 Billionaires Are Selling a Fantasy Future of the Metaverse, Mars and Crypto was released in September 2023.

 

In this excerpt from our upcoming podcast episode, we discussed A Complete Unknown (2024), what it was like to be at the Newport festival (which is the climax of the film), and how Taplin sees the current state of American popular culture. We will post here when the episode is released.

Henry Jenkins: Watching A Complete Unknown, I kept expecting to see your face pop up on the edge of the stage because you were there. You were helping to manage the Bob Dylan tour, so can you tell us about it, your response to the film, and what the actual event was like from your point of view. 

Jon Taplin: So, I liked A Complete Unknown. I thought Timothée Chalamet kind of channeled Bob's nervous energy really well. The way it was designed was good, too. The costumes, the look of the film, I thought was really quite good. Now, on the other hand, they took a lot of liberties with the reality. Where they really took liberties was the capstone sequence of the movie, which is the Newport Folk Festival of 1965; it was a kind of rite of Spring moment culturally, right? In the sense that everyone wants to make it as a break point between folk and topical music [on the one hand] and rock and roll and folk rock [on the other]. But it wasn't as planned as the film makes out at all. My belief is that Bob had no idea when he arrived in Newport on Friday that he was going to play rock and roll on the Sunday.

newport folk festival in A complete unknown

There had certainly been no planning from the management point of view for that. In fact, I was pulled into working on Sunday to help set up amplifiers and stuff. Because he had only one road manager, which was Bob Neuwirth, who didn't ever lift anything except a guitar case. 

What happened was that on Saturday afternoon they had these workshops and there was this guy named Alan Lomax, who we all know about, who was the great curator of blues music. And he was conducting a country blues workshop with Son House, Skip James, and Mississippi John Hurt. Three 70-year-olds. Black blues men who played acoustic guitar.

As this was wrapping up on a stage – a hundred yards away – the Paul Butterfield blues band was warming up and tuning up. Mike Bloomfield just ripped off a very fast guitar run and Lomax just kind of freaked out. He got up and walked the hundred yards over to the other stage and said ‘you have to unplug this thing! You're interrupting this thing and you're destroying this and this is Newport Folk Festival!’ Albert Grossman, who was my boss, just pushed him away. I said, ‘you stop it’ and these two big heavy guys started wrestling. Eventually they fell to the ground. It was ridiculous. Then Lomax slunk back to his thing Butterfield played.   

Albert, myself, and Jeff Moldar – who was in the Jim Kreskin Jug Band (the band I was working for) – went back to the artist tent. Albert starts regaling the artists – one of whom was Bob Dylan – about what happened: ‘Lomax is trying to unplug Butterfield’ and everything! And my surmise is Bob just thought, ‘well, screw it. If they don't want rock and roll, I'll really give them rock and roll.’  

Later that afternoon, Albert said ‘we got to organize this thing, and we'll get Butterfield's band to back Dylan, but we need an organ player because “Like a Rolling Stone”, which was his hit and was on the radio at that time – the organ was the key thing.

So they flew Al Cooper in a private plane in from New York to play organ, because Cooper had played on the record. They didn't rehearse, they didn't do anything. In the movie that Marty Scorsese did about this moment [No Direction Home], you see the sound check on Sunday afternoon, and it’s completely disorganized. They don't play much. Peter Yarrow from Peter, Paul, and Mary is trying to mix the sound, and he knows nothing about electric music. So when they went on that night, there definitely were boos but it was partially because the sound was so bad. It was so badly mixed. All you could hear was Bloomfield's guitar and he kept turning it up louder and louder.

And you could hardly hear Bob's voice. The boos were as much for this cacophonous thing. Peter Yarrow had no idea what he was doing. And partly because, yes, the old folk types didn't like rock and roll. But, nobody was throwing stuff at the stage. It was none of that. They had to dramatize this thing in a way that didn't really happen.

But, at the end of the day, there was a split, you know, and there was a group of people that didn't like rock and roll. And later, when Bob went out with the band on the road for a year and a half, they still got booed. And that was magnificent, the way the music was mixed, and the quality of the rock and roll was incredible.

So, there was a kind of cultural split between the old and the new. We keep coming back to the interregnum, “the old is dying and the new cannot be born.” There will always be people who resist the new and that's what happened as far as I'm concerned.

Henry Jenkins: So that's a good case where culture change is often read through a political lens. Do you think it was political for the people involved or was it a sound, you know, a sound-based question?

Jon Taplin: Part of the problem was that there was a large group of people who believed that folk music was deeply political – protest songs were explicitly political. “The Times They Are A-Changin’ and “Blowing in the Wind” – Bob had stopped doing that. And so, on one level, ‘the folkies’ – who still wanted him to be a protest singer – resented that and thought he had sold out to rock and roll, which, quite frankly, he had not.  My sense is that Bob was scared by politics. In 1963 and in your neck of the woods, Henry, he went down to Mississippi. 

Henry Jenkins: As a Georgian, we don't see Mississippi as our neck of the woods! 

[Laughter]

Jon Taplin: He went down there to be involved in a Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee organizing drive in Greenwood, Mississippi. And literally, three weeks earlier, Medgar Evers was killed forty miles from where he was playing. So, that was a kind of brave thing to do, right?  He sang a song about Medgar Evers. When Kennedy got killed, Bob much later wrote a song about that. I think it shocked Bob. And he also thought, ‘I don't want to be a spokesperson’. So he stopped doing that kind of stuff. He didn't ever play “Times They Are A-Changin” on stage, even though he did some acoustic music as a compromise in the future when the band and Bob went on the road. But if we think about it being political, it was only political in the sense that ‘I'm going to do what I want to do’, and I'm not going to do what the establishment wants me to do. 

Henry Jenkins: It's easy for us old-timers to forget how little exposure younger folks have had to that history. My 40-year-old son certainly knew who Dylan was, but mostly he knew later Dylan stuff. But Joan Baez and Pete Seeger were new names to him, and we got to have a great sit down and play through some of their music vids on YouTube when we got home. Woody Guthrie was known as having written a ‘patriotic song’ called “This Land is Your Land” that he'd been taught in school music class, but he knew Arlo Guthrie's “Alice's Restaurant” far better than he knew anything else out of Guthrie. I would have loved to see Phil Oakes somewhere in that story because he's my favorite of the folkies. But, I think it actually brings this music back full circle at a point that it may be especially relevant to the culture that we pay attention to. 

Jon Taplin: I totally agree. There's a genre of music called Americana. I was on the board of the Americana Music Foundation, and it's really folk, bluegrass, shading into country – but more Willie Nelson country, not Outlaw country.

Henry Jenkins:  Yeah, yeah, the good stuff, yeah.

Jon Taplin: Americana is rising. Quite honestly, I'm not thrilled with what's on the radio these days. I think music is in a kind of dead space right now. But what does intrigue me is this Americana music. It's acoustic, totally goes away from electric. There's no drum machines. There's no synthesizers, there's nothing. It's always recorded in a studio live. It's never, ‘we'll send it over to this artist to do their vocal track and then assemble it piecemeal – we'll assemble it all later and we'll use autotune to make sure that this person who doesn't sing very well sounds like they sing well.

l’ll say a little bit that I'm writing a new book, which is called The Interregnum and the American Renaissance. Whenever you have a period where things get funky politically – whether it's McCarthyism, or it's Coolidge and the KKK, or whether it's the robber barons in the 1890s, or it's Andrew Jackson – it's always the artists that step forward and begin rethinking what it means to be an American and what Jefferson's promise was all about: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, where ‘all men are created equal’.  I'm hoping that maybe Americana is part of that beginning of a renaissance, because quite frankly what happens in American culture – and I know Henry, you and I have some differences on this – is fairly nihilistic since 9/11.

If you just look at TV – The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Succession, White Lotus – there’s a lot of anti-heroes. It's always about horrible people struggling for power with other horrible people. And it has a nihilistic feeling to it. And a lot of hip hop has the same thing. Gangster rap is pretty dark. And a lot of video games, you know, are the same thing. 

Henry Jenkins: I don't think we disagree on that last point nearly as much as you might imagine. I had come through the pandemic predicting that the next wave of pop culture was going to be more like Ted Lasso. I was little prepared for the reality that the global success of the post-pandemic moment was Squid Games, right? My vision was of an uplifting comfort food kind of media versus the genre of lethal games that seems to be widespread now. And now … 

Jon Taplin: …we're in Squid Games 2. 

Henry Jenkins: Yes and – more to the point – Beast Games, which was the live real-world version of Squid Games, where we saw people almost slitting each other's throats to try to win the multimillion-dollar prize that Mr. Beast was holding out there – wallowing on huge stacks of money. As someone who generally is in touch with pop culture, I watched every moment of it like a train wreck. But it's horrifying to see what it shows us about the state of America today. 

Colin Maclay: I haven't watched the any Squid Games or Beast Games or any of that stuff. But, just recently, we had the strike and we've had a big slowdown – all the COVID delays, all these delays in producing new media content after so many really rich years where maybe there was more of a balance. You had Ted Lasso and Schitt's Creek and some other things that were more positive.

And so now, recently in my own little bit of escapism at night, I’m just going to watch a little TV before I go to sleep. And I kind of scroll through what's on offer and there's very little – it's basically all in the way that you describe. And so I guess the question I have is how much is that reflecting where we are culturally in this country? How much is it driving things versus reflecting things? Is it a response? Is it provocation? Is it part of that cycle that we're seeing play out in political space? Look no further than the fires. The mutual aid in LA and all the civic participation and support for one another has been tremendous. So we are seeing positive things happen in the world at a very local level. But the media properties are almost exclusively scary.

Jon Taplin: I made the argument that it does have an effect. Someone once said, “culture eats politics for breakfast every morning.” Let's just say for 15 years you had this dark vision of what power is and how the struggle for power is: it's not weird to think that eventually someone says, ‘Tony Soprano should be president’ and that's of course what Donald Trump is. He's a gangster – he acts like a gangster, and he treats people like a gangster as the Europeans are finding out. His fans think that's great.

You know, there's a famous theory somebody came up with about professional wrestling called kayfabe. Kayfabe is the idea that the participants, the audience, and the commentators are all in on the con, but they never acknowledge that it's a con. And that's a lot of what's happening in the media space. I don't know how we get out of it but I think we do get out of it. I think it's through individual artists making things. As Henry says, just even people seeing something that's a little more authentic like the Dylan movie is helpful, I think. Maybe that's the beginning of something. 

Colin Maclay: This conflicts a little bit with what you're saying, but when I think of The Wire, which is kind of in that same period – anti-hero in some sense –  it was also like diving into the complexities of urban environments in a way that was incredibly rich. For me it was a reset of TV. Compared to The Sopranos, which you see as the template for much of contemporary television, The Wire is another model with all the fraughtness, but it also has so much more humanity. 

Jon Taplin: Yeah. David Simon wrote Homicide. It's amazing. We've been watching it wall to wall just because the writing is so rich and so original. There's no political correctness about it at all. 

Henry Jenkins: Murder One comes out of the same period and fits that – or slightly earlier is Hill Street Blues. All would be representations of urban environments that have deep empathy, even for the criminal class, but certainly for the citizens living there. What we often lack in our media today is that empathy. Because with that empathy you can deal with brutal worlds. If we have characters we care about and who care about each other, there's something there to be salvaged.

One thing that gives me a little hope right now – I mean, it's going to sound odd to say because it's network procedurals – but I think there’s been a revival of interest in Columbo as a model for series television, which is resulting in Elsbeth, Matlock, High Potential, Pokerface and Knives Out. The Columbo character has the gruffness of someone who comes from the streets, who asks questions of the rich and powerful and exposes corruption and so forth. Such stories are frequently a critique of the ‘might makes right’ and ‘wealth makes smart’ ethos that we're dealing with right now. We are used to thinking of the procedural as probably one of the most conservative forms of TV. The quality TV is the serialized drama and these are self-contained episodes, but these series are asking questions about the rich and powerful right now. Matlock, for example, keeps calling attention to Big Pharma’s role in the Opioid epidemic and big law firms’ role in covering it up.

Stay tuned for the full podcast episode of How Do You Like It So Far? hosted by Henry Jenkins and Colin Maclay.

Biographies

Jonathan Taplin is director emeritus of the Annenberg Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California and author of Move Fast and Break Things, which was nominated for the Financial Times / McKinsey Business Book of the Year. Taplin has produced music and film for Bob Dylan, The Band, George Harrison, Martin Scorsese, Wim Wenders, Gus Van Sant, and many others. He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, chairman of the board of the Americana Music Foundation and sits on the board of the Authors Guild Council. His cultural commentary has appeared on Medium and in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Time magazine, the Huffington Post, the Guardian, Washington Monthly, and the Wall Street Journal.

Henry Jenkins is the Provost Professor of Communication, Journalism, Cinematic Arts and Education at the University of Southern California. He arrived at USC in Fall 2009 after spending more than a decade as the Director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program and the Peter de Florez Professor of Humanities. He is the author and/or editor of twenty books on various aspects of media and popular culture, including Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture, Hop on Pop: The Politics and Pleasures of Popular Culture, From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, Spreadable Media: Creating Meaning and Value in a Networked Culture, and By Any Media Necessary: The New Youth Activism. His most recent books are Participatory Culture: Interviews (based on material originally published on this blog), Popular Culture and the Civic Imagination: Case Studies of Creative Social Change, and Comics and Stuff. He is currently writing a book on changes in children’s culture and media during the post-World War II era.  He has written for Technology Review, Computer Games, Salon, and The Huffington Post.

Colin M. Maclay currently serves as Research Professor and Executive Director of the Annenberg Innovation Lab at USC. Situated at the intersections of disciplines, sectors and communities, the Lab takes a think + do approach to exploring relationships among media, technology, culture and society. Colin has long been motivated to understand how radical changes in information and communications affect otherwise immutable organizations and institutions, including their complex interaction with people. Ultimately, his works asks what areas of understanding and associated actions can help emerging technologies and practices to work for – not against – people and society broadly.

OSCARS WATCH 2025 – Political Fears and Fantasies in Edward Berger’s Conclave

This post is part of a series of critical responses to the films nominated for Best Picture at the 97th Academy Awards.

figure 1: Ralph Fiennes as Cardinal Thomas Lawrence

The political thriller is a genre that most effectively exists in close proximity to history. Regardless of whether its narratives are based on actual events, they draw on the political fears and paranoias of an era. It is why, historically, we have seen the genre congregate around moments of significant political tension or fear. Cold War fears gave us films like The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and The China Syndrome (1979). The Bush-Chaney years gave us the Bourne trilogy (2002, 2004, 2007) and Syriana (2005). And, most prominently, the distrust and paranoia of the Watergate era gave us The Conversation (1974), Three Days of the Condor (1975) and All the President’s Men (1976). We live in such an era now, with the divisive unorthodoxy of Trump being but the most prominent of numerous international examples of the growing divide between left and right and a breaking down of previously accepted political norms. That being the case, it should not be surprising to see a political thriller, Edward Berger’s Conclave, find its way into what is a notably political Best Picture field for this year’s Academy Awards.

Conclave follows Ralph Fiennes’ Cardinal Thomas Lawrence who, as dean of the College of Cardinals, is charged with overseeing the election of a new pope after the passing of the longstanding pontiff. In his effort to oversee a smooth, quick and controversy-free process, he must not only navigate the ambition, posturing and factionalism that elections bring to the surface, but investigate various issues that threaten the integrity of the process.

The Catholic Church is a powerful political institution which has had numerous examples of abuses of power and conspiracy brought to light in recent years. Several films have explored these, with 2016 Best Picture winner Spotlight being the most prominent. But Conclave isn’t one of them. Conclave uses the setting of the Vatican to make a broader comment on contemporary politics. It is, after all, a film about an election of international significance. An election in which conservative and liberal factions war over who shall replace the elderly liberal who has vacated the throne. An election in which each side believes the very survival of the institution depends on their victory. Of course, screenwriter Peter Straughan insists any comparisons to the US presidential election that occurred in the same year as the film’s release are purely coincidental (Horner, 2024). What is interesting about Conclave from a genre perspective is the ways in which its religious setting makes it feel different to other political thrillers, and the surprising ways in which it doesn’t. 

figure 2: Secret meetings in darkened corners

Tradition dictates that when the papacy is vacated, the College of Cardinals come together in Rome to elect a successor. Since the late 13th century, this has involved the cardinals being locked in seclusion for the duration of the process to avoid external political interference. This makes a papal conclave a fascinating setting for a political thriller. Dramatically, you have a chamber piece, the equivalent of the snowed-in country manor in so many Agatha Christie-inspired murder mysteries. All the key players are there. No one enters. No one leaves. The Vatican provides an appropriate substitute for the governmental corridors of power, with its mixture of public and private spaces. There are moments in which everyone is on display, but no shortage of quiet stairwells and darkened rooms in which to have secret conversations (Figure 2). Significantly, though, it creates a separation between the inside and outside world, a disconnect between the political mechanism and the concerns and events of the real world. This disconnect is emphasised not only by the dramatic shuttering of the windows and barricading of the doors but also by the whispers and rumours we hear of the significant political turmoil happening outside of the Vatican’s walls, which we never see and to which the majority of the Cardinals are completely oblivious.

In seeking to define the genre, Pablo Castillo and Pablo Echart note that political thrillers are, at their core, investigative narratives (2015, 114). They explore confrontations between an individual and a system that is supposed to be working for society’s benefit but is revealed in some way not to be. In such narratives the individual’s attempt to expose the workings of the institution see the power of that institution brought to bear on them as it seeks to protect itself. Political thrillers will often use the iconography of the state to emphasise that overwhelming institutional power. In an American political thriller, it might be looming shots of the Capitol Building or the White House, federal agents coming out of big black cars, documents bearing the seal of the President. Conclave generates a slightly different sense of institutional weight through its use of the iconography of the church (Figure 3). The camera lingers on ceremony – the stamping of wax seals, the donning of robes, the threading of the votes – and while we never fear for Lawrence’s safety, it builds a sense of the weight that the tradition and orthodoxy of the church brings to bear on him as he uncovers information with the potential to shape the institution’s future.

figure 3: The iconography of the church is an ever-present reminder of the institutional power with which Lawrence wrestles

In Conclave, it is Lawrence who reluctantly takes on the role of the investigator: “I am not a witch finder. It is not by job to go hunting for secrets in my colleagues’ past,” he declares. And yet it is he who must do the digging to uncover what happened in the final meeting between the deceased Pope and Cardinal Tremblay; who this previously unknown Cardinal Benitez is and what the interaction with the late pope that almost saw him resign was about; the source of the issue between Cardinal Adeyemi and the nun that caused a scene in the dining room. But unlike the journalists in All the President’s Men, Lawrence is not an outsider. Not only is he a voting member of the College of Cardinals and part of the liberal faction that is supporting Bellini’s candidacy, to his surprise and horror he becomes the recipient of multiple votes in the first rounds of the election. As such, his motivations come into question, with his moral determination to ensure no-one unbefitting of the position is elected pope being interpreted by his peers as a politically motivated move to discredit his opponents. Cardinal Tremblay warns, “You should be careful, Thomas. Your own ambition hasn’t gone unnoticed… I wonder if you really are so reluctant to have this chalice passed to you.”

Just as interesting as the ways Conclave’s setting makes it feel slightly different to other political thrillers are the surprising ways in which it doesn’t. Despite the pope being the direct successor to St Peter and the anointed head of the worldwide Catholic Church, there are scarcely any expressions of faith or evocations of the will of God in this papal election. The candidates jockeying for position appear to treat it like any other political position. The two factions make strategic and ideological arguments. Tedesco’s conservatives talk of the need for strength after years of liberalism and relativism have undermined the authority of the church. Bellini and his liberals talk of the need to keep Tedesco out of power to protect the work of the late pope in dragging the church towards positions of more contemporary social relevance. Despite the religious context, there is little sense of a higher calling amidst the mudslinging and manoeuvring of the candidates. The only candidate to cite any sort of divine calling to the papacy is Adeyemi, who tells Lawrence he felt the presence of the Holy Spirit assuring him that he was ready to be the pope. Even then, having just made a public scene that looks to have cost him his candidacy, his proclamation can be read as a desperate strategic play rather than a heartfelt sense of calling. While expressions of faith can be an uncomfortable presence in secular politics, they are hardly a presence at all in the politics of Conclave.

In his writing on American political thrillers of the Bush-Cheney era, Douglas Kellner notes that as well as being mired in the fears and paranoia of an era, the political thriller also tends to catch the era’s fantasies (2010, 165). Conclave offers a glimpse of these political fantasies, these hopes, in two key turning points in its narrative.

The first is Lawrence’s homily on the opening morning of the conclave (Clip 1), in which he calls for tolerance, warns against certainty and extols the virtues of doubt. It is an attention-grabbing moment that thrusts him into consideration for the vacant position. To the gathered leadership of a worldwide religion, doctrinal decision-makers, it is undoubtedly a provocative plea. It is also one that has broader political significance. In our current context of hardline partisanship, it speaks to the fantasy of a politics of humility that finds strength in its diversity, in which leaders accept that they don’t know all of the answers and therefore listen and respond to advice without it being seen as a weakness; this is a politics in which leaders more readily admit mistakes, trusting that doing so won’t be fatal but accepted with forgiveness and understanding.

Clip 1:“Grant us a pope who doubts.”

The second turning point comes on the third day of the conclave when a terrorist bombing, one of a number that have occurred simultaneously across Europe, blows in one of the sealed windows atop the Sistine Chapel. Tellingly, the explosion happens just as Lawrence casts his vote in the sixth ballot in which, motivated by strategy rather than conviction, he has changed his vote for the first time. Framed like a religious tableau with a shaft of light shining from the window down onto the altar (Figure 4), this is the moment in which the outside world and, for Lawrence, God breaks through. This moment opens the possibility of dialogue. While the differences between the two sides remain, and are potently expressed, for the first time we see the two sides in discussion. Positions are outlined, thoughts are shared, and votes shift based on what is said in the room. When the voting resumes, it is no longer in seclusion from the outside world. Rather than the silence of the chapel we can hear the breeze and the birds coming through the open window. The fantasy presented in this moment is not an endorsement of terrorism, but simply a hope that the political bubble that keeps the outside world at bay can burst, that factionalism can break down and decisions can be arrived at based on meaningful dialogue about the needs of the world.

figure 4: The explosion breaks the seal of the conclave, allowing the outside world in

There have been and will be other films made that speak to the politics of the 2020s in a more direct manner, but through its propulsive and intrigue-filled narrative, Conclave effectively uses the genre trappings of the political thriller and the dressing of the Vatican to prompt a broader reflection on the way politics is presently done.

References

Castrillo, P. & Echart, P. (2015). Towards a Narrative Definition of the American Political Thriller Film. Communication & Society 28(4): 109-123.

Horner, A. (2024). Conclave with Peter Straughan. Script Apart [Podcast] (22 December).

Kellner, D. (2010). Cinema Wars: Hollywood Films and Politics in the Bush-Cheney Era. Wiley-Blackwell.

Biography

Duncan McLean is the Discipline Lead for Screen Studies in the BA program at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School (AFTRS) and has a PhD in Film Studies from Macquarie University. Duncan’s writing on genre has been published in The Journal of Popular Film and Television and Refractory: A Journal of Entertainment Media.

OSCARS WATCH 2025 – I’m Still Here: A Harrowing Retelling and Warning

This post is part of a series of critical responses to the films nominated for Best Picture at the 97th Academy Awards.

After government operatives enter and occupy the Paiva home in the film I’m Still Here, their daughter innocently runs into the home to retrieve a ball. She is unaware of what is happening and insists on being allowed back outside to play with her friends. At this moment, unbeknownst to the daughter but acutely sensed by the mother, their mundane life has been stolen. The family’s patriarch, Rubens (Selton Mello), a former Brazilian left-wing politician, has been detained without explanation. The Paiva family can never experience their blissful mundanity again, or rather their mundanity will always be framed by “eternal psychological torture,” as Paiva matriarch Eunice (Fernanda Torres) describes it. In many ways, I’m Still Here is about the limitations on the insistence of mundanity in times of turmoil and what we lose as a society when gradual escalations are unaddressed.  

In 1964, the United States supported a military coup in Brazil that heralded a nearly twenty-year military dictatorship (1). Under military rule, a series of Institutional Acts were enacted including Institutional Act Number 5 (“AI-5”), which authorized the Brazilian president to suspend Brazil’s legislative bodies, remove the political rights of any Brazilian deemed to engage in “unlawful” activity, and invalidate habeas corpus requests (2). As a response to the censorship and imprisonment of political dissidents, radical resistance groups kidnapped foreign ambassadors to negotiate the release of political prisoners (3).

These circumstances frame I’m Still Here, which is based on the true story of the Paiva family and their headstrong matriarch, Eunice, as they navigate a tragedy orchestrated by the regime of Brazilian authoritarian president, Emilío Médici. I’m Still Here is an adaptation of the autobiography written by the only son in the Paiva family, Marcelo Paiva.

figure 1: paiva family

The film sets up the political dynamic in Brazil while presenting a family fully engaged in the everyday joys and struggles of a mundane affluent life. An early scene in the film follows the eldest daughter, Veroca (Valentina Herszage) spending time with her friends but being harassed at a military checkpoint for the cohort’s hippy aesthetic. Despite the turmoil, the family eats dinner and makes plans for the future, including considering sending Veroca to England to prevent her from participating in violently suppressed university protests. The strength of the film lies less in the plot than in the acting and cinematography that subtly points to the internal battles waging in the minds of the characters.

The reality of most people living under oppressive political regimes is balancing a keen observation of the regime’s moves and the maintenance of routine for sanity and survival. Most people are focused on daily routines until they can no longer avoid tyranny. We consume news, particularly international news, through tragedies without considering that most people in these localities still have to go to work, eat, take care of their families, and chase their dreams. And it’s the moments between the insistence on routine and indiscriminate violence that determine whether we tilt towards chaos or order. 

Figure 2: I’m still Here (2024)

Humans, Americans especially, believe in the inevitability of order, even with all evidence of the opposite. However, society follows the second rule of thermodynamics, and it takes a lot of effort and intentionality to make the entropy inherent to any complex society feel uneventful.

In fact, two other 2025 Oscar nominated films touch on one of the most recent moments in American history when political tyranny led to chaos that took the lives and livelihoods of American citizens. A Complete Unknown opens with acclaimed folk singer Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) addressing the media after being convicted for contempt of Congress after he refused to testify during a House Un-American Activities Committee's investigation (4). The fictional depiction represents a real series of events that transformed Seeger from a member of the popular Weavers quartet group to a solo artist struggling to book summer camps and union halls (5). Although Seeger never served any time in jail, he was blacklisted from American network television and was rejected from most colleges and concert halls for his perceived radical beliefs, which included support for the Civil Rights Movement (6).  

Although the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) had been founded in 1938 to investigate the activities of Americans suspected of having ties to the Communist Party, the committee didn’t kick into high gear until 1950 when zealous Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy heightened the stakes by ruthlessly pursuing prosecution under the unfounded allegation that hundreds of Communists had infiltrated the State Department and other federal agencies (7).

McCarthy employed the cunning genius of young lawyer Roy Cohn to lead investigations, which were intended to embarrass and snuff out anyone with any remote sympathies to the Communist ideology. (8) Easily the most controversial McCarthy incident is the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg case, which led to the conviction and execution of the married couple. While it is established that Julius did conspire to spy on behalf of the Soviets, heavy skepticism remains about Ethel’s involvement. In 2015, the grand jury testimony of key witness David Greenglass (Ethel’s brother) was unsealed and revealed that testimony of Ethel typing atomic secrets was omitted, heavily implying that Greenglass committed perjury that led to the execution of his sister. (9) It is further suggested that the alleged false testimony was induced by the prosecution, which was eager to make an example of the Rosenbergs. And anyone familiar with Roy Cohn wouldn’t be surprised at the surmise that he himself was involved in the illegal intimidation of Greenglass.

The Apprentice, follows a young Donald Trump (Stan Sebastian) transforming under the tutelage of Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong) from an ambitious but insecure son of a Queens slumlord to the ruthless and charismatic individual we know today. Our introduction to Roy Cohn involves him brashly bragging about sending the Rosenbergs to the “chair.” Throughout the film, Cohn justifies participation in the McCarthy prosecutions as his desire to “safeguard America.”  Both Sebastian and Strong are nominated for their acting in the film and rightly so. While it’s easy to depict such outsized real people as caricatures, Sebastian and Strong manage to find the logic and humanity that motivate people like Trump and Cohn. The reality is that their dependency on power for validation leaves no room for empathy and non-transactional kindness. And they will stop at nothing to acquire what they believe is their appropriate place in society.

As I left the theatre screening for I’m Still Here, a fear rose in me. Does a Rubens Paiva even exist in our society today? Under no circumstances should anyone have to sacrifice their life to criticize or work against a tyrannical regime, but if it came down to it, is the spirit of resistance still alive? Are we ready to prevent the tragedy that befell the Paivas and the hundreds of families affected by disappeared Brazilians? (10)

People in countries around the world are currently living at a critical juncture between an insistence on mundanity and proper resistance to escalating behaviors. We shouldn’t be flippant about news that a President’s administration is requesting loyalty tests for government employees, insisting on the deportation of foreign students who dare to exercise their freedom of speech, and physically removing a long-time bureaucrat for refusing to enforce illegal agency terminations. (11) It’s easy to imagine how this rapid escalation can lead to a world where the simplest critique is interpreted as treason. If we’re unwilling to heed the warning of I’m Still Here, we may very well lose the mundane routines we cling to for our sanity.

Notes

(1)   See The Library of Congress, The United States and Brazil’s Military Coup, https://guides.loc.gov/brazil-us-relations/brazil-coup-1964and The Library of Congress, The Military Dictatorship (1964-1985), https://guides.loc.gov/brazil-us-relations/military-dictatorship for more information

(2)   Tâmara Freire, AgênciaBrasil, Military Regime: Notoriously repressive AI-5 decree turns 55, https://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/en/direitos-humanos/noticia/2023-12/military-regime-notoriously-repressive-ai-5-decree-turns-55.

(3)   The Library of Congress, The Kidnapping of Ambassador Charles Burke (1969), https://guides.loc.gov/brazil-us-relations/ambassador-charles-burke-elbrick-kidnapping.

(4)   Paul S. Cowan, The Harvard Crimson, Court Sentences Seeger for Year on Contempt of Congress Charges (April 10, 1961), https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1961/4/10/court-sentences-seeger-for-year-on/.

(5)   Peter Dreier, The American Prospect, Recalling Pete Seeger’s Controversial Performance on the Smothers Brothers Show 50 Years Ago(Feb. 28, 2018), https://prospect.org/culture/recalling-pete-seeger-s-controversial-performance-smothers-brothers-show-50-years-ago/. 

(6)   See note 5

(7)   Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum, McCarthyism/ The “Red Scare”,https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/research/online-documents/mccarthyism-red-scare#:~:text=Senator%20Joseph%20R.,the%20U.S.%20Department%20of%20State..

(8)   Jordana Rosenfeld, Britannica, Roy Cohn (Jan. 23, 2025), https://www.britannica.com/biography/Roy-Cohn.

(9)   Sam Roberts, The NYTimes, Secret Grand Jury Testimony from Ethel Rosenberg’s Brother is Released (July 15, 2015), https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/16/nyregion/david-greenglass-grand-jury-testimony-ethel-rosenberg.html.

(10) Pablo Uchoa, BBC News, Remembering Brazil’s decades of military military repression (March 31, 2014), https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-26713772.

(11) See Matthew Lee, Aamer Madhani, and Jill Colvin, AP News, Loyalty tests and MAGA checks: Inside the Trump White House’s intense screening of job-seekers (Jan. 25, 2025), https://apnews.com/article/trump-loyalty-white-house-maga-vetting-jobs-768fa5cbcf175652655c86203222f47c, Andrea Shalal, Reuters, Trump administration to cancel student visas of pro-Palestinian protestors (Jan. 29, 2025), https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-administration-cancel-student-visas-all-hamas-sympathizers-white-house-2025-01-29/, and Rachael Levy, Reuters, Exclusive: USDA inspector general escorted out of her office after defying White House(Jan. 29, 2025), https://www.reuters.com/world/us/usda-inspector-general-escorted-out-her-office-after-defying-white-house-2025-01-29/for more information.

Biography

Martina Fouquet is a lawyer living in New York City. She enjoys writing about media and its relationship to society, politics, and unconsidered creative precedent.

NEPF Promotes a Bridge Between Fanfiction Academic Studies and Fandom in Brazil

Retratos da Leitura no Brasil [1] (Portraits of Reading in Brazil), a nationwide survey carried out every four years to learn about the behavior of Brazilian readers and non-readers, has been including fanfiction as one of the activities related to reading since 2015. The inclusion of fanfiction in a study of this caliber indicates the relevance that this literary genre is gradually gaining in Brazil. Despite the presence of Brazilian fanfics on sites like Wattpad, Fanfiction.Net and Archive of Our Own, the favorite fanfic platforms are two that were made by Brazilians for Brazilians: Spirit Fanfics e Histórias (Spirit Fanfics and Stories) and Nyah!Fanfiction. The former has more than a million fanfics published and the latter, although it doesn’t provide data on the number of fanfics posted, is one of the most cited sites by Brazilian fic readers and writers on social media. Comparing the data mentioned to the international popularity of the phenomenon, the figures we have for fanfic in Brazil are still remarkable. The high number not only represents fanfic production in just one country, but also it shows that even if Brazilian society doesn’t have the habit of reading (Instituto Pró-Livro), there are many people that are invested in fanfic.

The popularization of fanfic in Brazil has led to an interest in the subject as an object of academic research, and now our country is going through the process of introducing the theme in universities. This process is proving difficult due to the traditionalist view that is very present in Brazilian academia – unlike researchers from countries such as the United States and England, Brazilian academia tends to be resistant to topics related to mass culture, which makes researching fanfic challenging. It’s within this scenario that the Fanfic Studies and Research Group (NEPF) was born. Founded in 2022 by Julia Abrahão, NEPF is one of the research centers of Word Lab, one of the branches of the Advanced Program of Contemporary Culture (PACC) in the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) [2]. NEPF's main objective is to promote Brazilian research about fanfic and to promote different types of events and productions, aiming to arouse interest in academic research, and this is what the research group has been doing during the two years of its existence.  

IMAGE 1: GEEK WEEK LECTURE FURRY AT PACC (OCTOBER 22, 2024)

In Brazil, NEPF is the only academic space dedicated to fanfic research, and, because of this, it has become extremely important for many graduate students and researchers around Brazil. So, readers of Pop Junctions, we're here to share all the work we’ve done at NEPF with you. From now on, you’ll be able to follow the various academic and artistic productions carried out and disseminated by the center through regular publications here. For all of us at the center, it's an honor to be here showing our work in such a prestigious and important space for Fan Studies. We hope to bring new possibilities in the field through the activities we organize. Since we started, we’ve done workshops about fic writing and fanzine, lectures about Fan Studies and fanfic, an introductory course about the field Fan Studies, and we even held a conference called Geek Week in partnership with two other research groups from Word Lab. Now, let us tell you a bit about the history of our research group.  

The process of creation of NEPF was rocky at best. Due to the pandemic, Julia Abrahão, the founder and coordinator of the project, was already in her sixth semester in the English and Portuguese bachelor’s degree when she started attending classes on campus. As she got there, it was clear the Brazilian academic community were very strict and traditional, having no classes about Children’s Literature, Young Adult Literature, Digital Literature or any form of alternative Contemporary Literature. Her desire to study the literature that she grew up reading drove Julia to create a project that allowed her to research fanfiction. Although the idea faced some criticism and a lot of hesitation, she still managed to gather a group of students willing to work with her and try their luck to make the project go forward. That’s how they met Carlos Pires, one of the head professors of PACC and the only one willing to give them a chance. He agreed to a probation period of six months to see whether the project would take off or not. The first round of applications for the project got over 130 submissions, even students from other universities in Brazil were interested in participating.

So, the group was officially founded on May 31st of 2022 and, although it started as a project made by students for students, now it also includes teachers and bachelors. The current coordinators are Julia Abrahão, Leticia Pimenta, Ticiane Café and Natalia Seixas. They manage everything from paperwork to social media to different types of projects.

IMAGE 2: NEPF’S COORDINATORS (DECEMBER, 2024)

The Fanfic Workshop happens every other semester and it's open for students from any university. The coordinators prepare a full week of fanfiction debates, usually having one theme each day. The debates happen in the PACC Word Lab auditorium at UFRJ, open for anyone to join. Those who choose to participate beyond that can be one of three categories: FicWriter, Beta Reader or Fan Artist. The debate week occurs within the first couple of weeks of the semester, allowing 2 months for a fanfic to be written and beta read to then be sent to a fan artist for a month before being published in NEPF`s AO3 account. The students participating are set up in trios with one of each category. The fanfics and fanart created must be inspired by one of the tropes debated. The workshop tends to be recorded and later posted on YouTube for others to enjoy.

IMAGE 3: FANFIC WORKSHOP AT PACC (MAY 2023)

IMAGE 4: FANZINE WORKSHOP (OCTOBER 25, 2024)

Other workshops like the Fanzine workshop are also staples of NEPF at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. In addition, the coordinators are constantly preparing lectures, interviewing big names in the field, or researching relevant topics. NEPF is frequently bringing discussion topics relevant to the fandom community, like legal rights, the concept of literature, the non-profit agenda and others. We work to spread awareness and highlight aspects of the fanfic world that should be further discussed.

Students that decide to apply to NEPF as permanent members instead of only participating in events, can decide what type of research they wish to develop. One of the biggest projects currently in production is the Fanfiction Dictionary. It has a group of nine members working diligently to create an eBook, inspired by Fanlore and Angelfire, that contain over two hundred terms currently used by the fandom community.

For those university students and researchers who want to learn more about Fan Studies, but aren’t ready to commit to research yet, there is the Fan Studies and Fanfiction Study Group. Once a month, they hold an online meeting to discuss a text previously chosen by a poll. Those discussions are supposed to not only create a space to debate about Fan Studies topics, but also help the participants to better understand the texts as many of them aren’t fluent in English and struggle with it. The Study Group was born because of the Introduction to Fan Studies and Fanfiction course given by the coordinator Natalia. Some students from the course requested an activity that would give continuity to the work they started in the course, so that’s how the group came to be.

IMAGE 5: STUDY GROUP ONLINE MEETING (NOVEMBER 7, 2024)

NEPF is dedicated to social work, the project Fanfic in Schools takes fanfic and fanzine workshops to different schools in Rio de Janeiro, mostly attended by lower income students. The idea comes from the premise that fanfiction as a work of creative writing can not only help expand one's imagination, but also help significantly in the process of learning the mother language and second language acquisition. Soon, you’ll have the opportunity to know more about this project as we’ll release a book about it in a few months.

The group has become a point of reference for other institutions, receiving praise for its determination to spread contemporary culture in the academic field. Julia, Leticia, Natalia and Ticiane are incredibly dedicated leaders devoted to not only the quality of their work but also to the longevity of the project. While Brazil oftentimes gets left behind academic discourse, it’s project like this that take a step forward in bringing the contemporary art to the classroom. The past may be important, but one shouldn’t focus only on what has already happened. It’s important to observe and study what is happening right now too. Why wait until it becomes obsolete?

This text was produced by NEPF and further information can be found in social media like Instagram and Tumblr. NEPF has an AO3 - Archive of Our Own account available to read fanfics created and beta read by Brazilian students on Fanfic Workshops. Stay tuned for NEP’s future projects. 

Works Cited

Instituto Pró-Livro. “Retratos da Leitura no Brasil.” Instituto Pró-Livro, Mar. 2016, p. 104, www.prolivro.org.br/pesquisas-retratos-da-leitura/as-pesquisas-2/. Accessed 23 Nov. 2024.

“Latin America Rankings.” Times Higher Education (THE), 29 Oct. 2024, www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2024/latin-america-university-rankings. Accessed 23 Nov. 2024.

“Nyah! Fanfiction.” Fanfiction.com.br, fanfiction.com.br/.

Spirit Tecnologia LTDA. “Spirit Fanfiction and Stories.” Google.com, 2021, play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=br.com.socialspirit.android. Accessed 24 Nov. 2024.

Notes

[1] Retratos da Leitura is considered the most comprehensive survey to measure the behavior of Brazilian readers, in 2024 5,504 people were interviewed during home visits in 208 municipalities.

[2] UFRJ is one of the most prestigious universities in Brazil, ranking 3rd in the Times Higher Education ranking of the best universities in Latin America.

Biographies

Julia C. Abrahão and Natalia Seixas are Coordinators of the Fanfic Studies and Research Group (NEPF).

Supervised by Renata Frade. 

“Popular” Dolls: A Discussion of the Wicked Movie Dolls in the Context of Wizard of Oz Merchandizing Culture

This post is part of a themed series on toys that asked contributors to think about a toy/toys/toy company and explore how various cultures, groups, audiences, or companies find and make meaning (or money) through such play. The theme is purposefully open-ended, meant to be fun, and published throughout December to coincide with the holiday season.

In this final installment of the themed series on toys, Henry Jenkins and Lauren Sowa discuss how the many Wicked branded toys and dolls fit into the larger culture of dolls and collecting that has a long history with The Wizard of Oz transmedia property. From book, to stage, to screen, and back to book, and stage, and screen again, The Wizard of Oz has over a hundred years of cultural influence – with branded merchandising following its every step down the yellow brick road. 

Lauren Sowa: I feel like there is a fascinating branding and franchising moment happening right now regarding the plethora of Wicked movie merchandise being sold. Specifically with the toys, there are items such a Wicked board game, a Wicked Bluetooth MP3 Karaoke with Light Show set, Fisher Price Little People Wicked characters (which does not include the munchkin Boq, because perhaps that’s a little too on the nose), multiple Lego versions, several Funko Pop variations, (my person favorite) the Glinda Squishmallow plush, and many, many Elphaba and Glinda dolls (singing dolls, fashion dolls, and more expensive collectable dolls) from Mattel. I am interested in how the Wicked IP (which has existed for 3 decades as a hit Broadway musical and a novel series) has exploded with this film. Previously, American Girl (which is owned by Mattel) had Glinda and Elphaba outfits that were a copy of the Broadway costumes, but generally the Broadway merchandising has not been nearly as pervasive as what we are seeing right now. I see this moment as the intersection of Ariana Grande fans with the Wicked Musical fandom, under the umbrella (rainbow?) of the The Wizard of Oz narrative taking hold on our culture and riding the coattails of last year’s hit musical and toy adaptation, Barbie (2022). What do you think this conjuncture is about?

Henry: I think, first of all, there's been merch around The Wizard of Oz all the way back to the origins of the book and particularly the original stage musicals that Baum produced around his book. It's often cited as one of the early merchandising successes that he's been making around pop culture alongside examples such as Felix the Cat or Mickey Mouse, or any number of early examples that someone like Ian Gordon has written about. From the beginning, it was a transmedia franchise; it's within a couple of years of writing the books that Baum produces film versions through his own film production company. It's one of the things that makes The Wizard of Oz books (all dozen plus of them) relatively incoherent. He drew on different media to seed them. For example, he drew on the film for some, he drew on Broadway for some, and there are even rival comic strips. Baum and his illustrators created different versions of the core Oz characters simultaneously, so there's a kind of process of incoherence or proliferation of Oz through time.

We could jump forward to the various film versions: there's a silent version with Oliver Hardy, there's the MGM musical with Judy Garland, and when I was growing up the key thing was the television showings of “Wizard of Oz,” which were annual at Thanksgiving. Everyone in my generation watched them once a year; we anticipated them at school for weeks ahead of time. We played things in the backyard – we didn't have a lot of figures to play with, but we used our bodies to embody those characters and that was very much part of it. The show on television was sponsored by Singer sewing machines. Obviously, they were appealing to mothers, and Singer would create merch that they gave away to customers who came into their stores. That stuff has become highly collectible because there was such a small percentage of it. Then, coming out of the showings of “Wizard of Oz,” several of the actors from the original film did voice acting for, I think it was a Hanna-Barbera animated series called “Here Comes the Wizard of Oz.” I used to own a board game that was based on “Here Comes the Wizard” or “Off to See the Wizard.” Basically, you follow the yellow brick road around the board with dice and play figurines and so forth. So, all of that has gone on for a long time.

The Wicked books revitalized interest in the stories yet again as did the Disney film Return to Oz (1985). Disney had long owned the rights to it and even produced a Mickey Mouse Club version in the 50's of “Wizard of Oz.” So, there's a lot of history there. The Wicked books do what good fan fiction does: it invites us to re-read these characters from a different point of view. In Textual Poachers (1992) I called it moral realignment. There, I was talking about telling Star Wars from the point of view of Darth Vader (which I guess to some degree we now have) but, you know, it was fanfic that was turning the villains into heroes and, in Wicked, Gregory McGuire's novel does exactly that: he marginalizes Dorothy to a few pages while really expanding outward the story of Glinda and Elphaba. The story from that point of view is a lot of backstory, it's a lot of missing scenes, it's a lot of character rewriting, so forth, which then leads to the Broadway musical. I think you can probably pick up the story from there better than I can.

 

Lauren: yeah absolutely. I think one of the things that was interesting is that, when Stephen Schwartz read the book Wicked, he knew he wanted to make it a musical. He got the rights to it – I think in the mid-90s – and developed it for a long time before it premiered on Halloween 2003. But, the musical itself also kind of takes on its own narrative and a life of its own because it is quite different from the books that Maguire wrote. Schwartz wanted to focus on the relationship between the two witches, Glinda and Elphaba. He took a dive into that story and their journey together. He created the love triangle with Fiyero and other plot points that actually don't exist in the books. So that narrative then that is more broadly accepted culturally as “Wicked” is a variation from the books that Maguire was writing. The interesting thing I'm seeing since the movie came out, and along with all the other merchandise for the film, is they're putting the movie cover on the Maguire book! But it's not the story of the Broadway show or the movie.

Furthermore, the movie has also taken on its own variation of the story by dividing what is the Broadway production into two parts – two films. I was really skeptical at first; I thought, okay, this feels like a money grab. The Broadway show is obviously done in one night, do we really need to do two parts for this film? And having seen it, I think it was actually very successfully done because they've added more layers and they've expanded the story and dialogue. So, it's interesting, again picking up the story where you left off, to see what has happened from McGregor's books to the Broadway musical and now to the movie version-that's great!

Henry: And I think it's almost preordained that Wicked would become a musical because the original Baum productions on the stage were musicals, right? According to the convention of what a musical was in the early 20th century, which is a series of spectacles and acts strung together by a fairly simple plot. For example, The Wizard in the original musical is an Irishman because he lives in an Emerald City – so, Broadway clichés about Irish people and layering them onto the version that was constructed by the books. And then the Wizard has a song which is actually a product placement where he sings “Budweiser, a friend of mine.” So, he's singing about the pleasure he takes in drinking and drinking a particular brand of beer.  

Lauren: It seems some of that merchandising is just inescapable and is such an integral part to what The Wizard of Oz cultural narrative is for consumers. Especially as you had mentioned, there were those specials that came out around Thanksgiving. Obviously, that's when this movie was released. It is the perfect timing to bring out these toys right in time for the Christmas shopping season!

I grew up with a bunch of ‘Wizard of Oz’ items: Dorothy, Glinda, and Wicked Witch costumes, and many dolls and figurines. I had these small little figurines that I would play with. One thing that I was thinking about more is that I had a Wizard of Oz Barbie – a Dorothy Barbie who actually looked like Barbie but was dressed as Dorothy – and then I also had another Wizard of Oz Barbie doll, but it looked like Judy Garland. So I think there is something interesting going on with the imagery of the actor as a Barbie doll versus Barbie being the character of Dorothy. Currently, with the dolls that I've seen being released from the Wicked movie, they are mostly just Cynthia and Ariana as Glinda and Elphaba. So, Mattel has created these dolls after the actors’ images rather than just the characters.  

Henry: If we go back to Baum’s idea that these books will be instantly turned into films and musicals, you realize that almost all of the characters that are non-human in the books could have been performed by humans. They don't have bodies that are so radically different from the humanoid – that the human body wouldn't fit into the costume and perform them on stage. So, we can picture how a scarecrow or a tin man or a cowardly lion could be played by a human being and become part of a stage show.

Lauren: And I think that’s where that sort of idea is really strong in Maguire’s writing of Wicked because he discusses where the Tin Man and Scarecrow come from. They are people first, and Elphaba is the one who (spoiler alert) ends up transforming them into these different humanoid characters.

Henry: Yes, and that lends itself to dolls, right? So, if you have these characters that are humanoid already, then they can become dolls more readily than – I don't know – we could imagine a squid function in the world of The Wizard of Oz. What would it do, how would it move down the yellow brick road, how would it operate in that universe? We can have the cowardly lion, you can have the hungry tiger who's ethically torn because he needs to eat other beings to survive and yet really doesn't want to; or, you can have someone like King Dough who has to sprinkle flour and sugar everywhere he sits because otherwise he's going to stick to everything and leave a trace where he's been. These kinds of characters are still humanoid so you could, in theory, make them into dolls or other kinds of toys in a way that would have been suitable for the manufacturing capacity of the late industrial age. Even though a lot of these things never made it to toys, they could have been in theory.

Lauren: That's really interesting to think about that and how they are already set up for that kind of performance by humans on stage, in films, and now to be packaged as these dolls.

One of the other interesting things that I think we would be remise to not mention is the controversial moment of the mispackaging of the Wicked dolls. The website on the box version of wickedmovie.com that actually lead to a porn site. So, I think that this is an interesting moment. Obviously, these dolls with this packaging were recalled immediately. Mattel profusely apologized. Target and Amazon took them out of circulation. But now these boxes and these toys are being sold for hundreds and hundreds of dollars. They're limited editions now in their own right and way. So, I think that this PR fiasco actually speaks to some other really odd and interesting moments with the movie and the dolls and the culture of collecting, as well as what it is to have dolls for children and play. And then, of course, this happens to be a porn site. You couldn't write a better disaster if you tried.  

Henry: I mean, I'm reminded of the problem Barbie got into when they had the lavender vest. Some years back, where they created (consciously or not, there's a lot of debate) a gay icon that became a top seller for adult collectors, but was quickly swept off the market when parents protested that it was an inappropriate image, particularly in the 70s and 80s for a children's toy. But it's sort of like we're getting that some of the ambiguities around adult collectors and adult fans, right? Because Mattel caters actively to adult collectors now. And, in some ways, the Barbie movie was as much about serving the interest of those adult collectors as it was about bringing new children into the franchise. But adult toys carry different connotations in another context, right? So, the wicked packaging suggested an adult toy, rather than an adult toy. So, the toy was a collector of action figures and dolls. We go back to the fact Barbie was based on an eroticized toy in Europe that was tamed down to be a fashion toy in America. So, the connection of eroticism and toys, particularly dolls, just continues.

Continuing to think about dolls, the silent feature version of Wizard of Oz (1925), the one with Oliver Hardy and Larry Semon, opens with a toy maker. He has made doll versions of the characters from Baum's book. And the camera looms in on them. And that becomes our point of entry into the story, much as you might imagine Disney saying in a book on the table and you flip it open, and then you enter through the book. But there you enter through the dolls, and it suggests that dolls are associated with Wizard of Oz almost from the very beginning, leaving me wanting to know more about what was actually manufactured when the book first came out.

Lauren: Well, I think it is really interesting then to see that, yes, while there is this current merchandise explosion for the Wicked movie, it really is just following the tradition of what the Wizard of Oz has always been doing for all this time in terms of dolls, collecting and toys. So maybe we are not in such a unique moment of commercialization.  

Henry That's for sure. Not at all.

Lauren: It's just all is coming together right around Christmas time, and we're seeing it everywhere in a way that, as a Broadway fan, I'm excited to see how it has sort of proliferated the general broader culture more than, say, other past movie musicals have. We weren't necessarily having this sort of level of dolls for Steven Spielberg's West Side Story or even Les Miz, or the box office success, Mamma Mia! We weren't celebrating in quite the same merchandising way. But Wicked falls into that Wizard of Oz tradition where that has been part of its history. 

Henry: I can imagine dolls for The Color Purple would not be necessarily a top seller at Christmas time.

Lauren: Oh, I know me and some of my friends would absolutely be getting some The Color Purple dolls.  

Henry: Yes, I understand that. But maybe not for kids.

Lauren: Perhaps not. Actually, that is when I fell in love with Cynthia Erivo as a performer. Her performance at the Tony Awards for the 2015 revival of The Color Purple. Her “I'm Here” was brilliant and I actually showed it as an example of intersectional feminism in doctoral seminar. So when I heard that she was going to be Elphaba in the Wicked movie, I was very excited and celebrating that casting choice.

Henry: As a film musical fan who wishes I could see more stage musicals, I'm excited that this is finally the musical that's taken off after sort of false starts around In the Heights, West Side Story, and The Color Purple, none of which lived up to their box office potential. This one seems to be right. And that's exciting for the future potential of musicals. We need some every handful of decades at least to keep them in production.

Lauren: Yes, absolutely. I agree. And I'm sure the next big one will most likely be Hamilton. At least, that’s my guess.

Henry: Well, that would be so much fun to see as a fan of 1776, which was a success, Hamilton would come full circle, right?

Lauren: Yes, absolutely. And I wish they would have made a Bill Daniels as John Adams doll!

Biographies

Lauren Alexandra Sowa is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Communication at Pepperdine University. She recently received her Ph.D. from the Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California. Her research focuses on intersectional feminism and representation within production cultures, television, and popular culture. These interests stem from her several-decade career in the entertainment industry as member of SAG/AFTRA and AEA. Lauren is a proud Disneyland Magic Key holder and enthusiast of many fandoms.

Henry Jenkins is the Provost Professor of Communication, Journalism, Cinematic Arts and Education at the University of Southern California. He arrived at USC in Fall 2009 after spending more than a decade as the Director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program and the Peter de Florez Professor of Humanities. He is the author and/or editor of twenty books on various aspects of media and popular culture, including Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture, Hop on Pop: The Politics and Pleasures of Popular Culture, From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, Spreadable Media: Creating Meaning and Value in a Networked Culture, and By Any Media Necessary: The New Youth Activism. His most recent books are Participatory Culture: Interviews (based on material originally published on this blog), Popular Culture and the Civic Imagination: Case Studies of Creative Social Change, and Comics and Stuff. He is currently writing a book on changes in children’s culture and media during the post-World War II era.  He has written for Technology Review, Computer Games, Salon, and The Huffington Post.

Marvel on the Shelf: The Art and Play of Action Figure Display

This post is part of a themed series on toys that asked contributors to think about a toy/toys/toy company and explore how various cultures, groups, audiences, or companies find and make meaning (or money) through such play. The theme is purposefully open-ended, meant to be fun, and published throughout December to coincide with the holiday season.

You might have heard of the Christmas meme tradition, ‘elf on the shelf,’ now get ready for my rhymeless, less catchy, and all year-round version, ‘Marvel on the shelf’ – or, more playfully, ‘Marvel at the shelf’.

There are many ways that adults enact the practice of action figure collecting: they might be driven by completionism or nostalgia; motivated by a hunt for rarities; alter the design through customization; maintain purchase value by keeping packaging intact; participate in a toy community economy through swapping, reselling, and second-had purchasing; and/or engage in a sense of play and expression through various forms of display. It is the latter of these expressions – the art and play of display – that I want to discuss here, which draws upon my own experience as an action figure collector of Marvel Legends 6-inch action figures by Hasbro (formerly ToyBiz).

In the article “From Displays to Dioramas to Doll Dramas: Adult World Building and World Playing with Toys,” Katriina Heljakka and J. Tuomas Harviainen find that the discourses surrounding adult toy collecting often focus on collecting as the fundamental goal (2019, 353). However, they suggest that it is also of value to “look at what adults do with toys after they have hunted them down and purchased them as ‘collected’ artifacts” (354). As Heljakka and Harviainen further explain:

contrary to common belief, adults, besides collecting, also engage in both manipulative and imaginative play with contemporary character toys, or toys with a face, such as action figures, dolls, and soft toys, in multifaceted ways that involve multiplatform play scapes. (354)

Indeed, the practice of collecting is only part of how adults engage with toys. Collectors who choose to remove action figures from their packaging enjoy a range of activities that constitute forms of play: staging dioramas against backdrops; producing photographs or stop-motion sequences; cataloguing and organizing components (such as alternative heads and hands, or accessories); 3D modelling of alternative components; modification and kitbashing, which involves using components to create new figures, or simply displaying figures in dynamic poses on a shelf – and, yes, adults do also move figures with their hands to stage fights and make sound effects noises. Figure 1 demonstrates some of my modest attempts at staging photos against a television screen saver as backdrop.

figure 1: frog-man attempts to escape from stilt-man against various terrains.

Figures 2-4 below illustrate some of my own kitbash, alterations, and custom action figures: Colleen Wing, Sue Storm, and Diamondback. I created Colleen Wing because I wanted the ‘Daughters of the Dragon’ together on the shelf. Hasbro has produced Misty Knight (seen in Figure 2), but no Colleen Wing. So I kitbased this figure using a range of action figure body parts and accessories I had collected: the body and hair came from two different Black Widow figures, the face is taken from a Psylocke, and the sword is from a Deadpool. This figure required minimal paint work, except for a color touch up to the eyebrows. Figure 2 is a face alteration of Sue Storm (AKA Invisible Woman) from the Fantastic Four. This figure was well-known to have an aesthetically displeasing face design, so I replaced it with a spare head we had from an alternative figure that had the same-sized ball joint. This required warming up the head molds and carefully lifting off both hair pieces, before sculpting the hair back onto the new head (it is not always easy to do this without damaging the hair piece). Figure 3 is a custom creation of Diamondback that I made for my husband. Diamondback is a former member of the Serpent Society and love interest of Captain America, so she moves between being displayed with the Serpent Society or with Cap, depending on shelf room. She adds a nice pink pop to the sea of serpent green.

figure 2: Colleen wing kitbash (to join hasbro’s misty knight and complete the ‘daughters of the dragon’)

figure 3: sue storm (invisible woman) head alteration.

figure 4: diamondback custom

While collecting articulates the process of gathering objects, displaying provides a means to integrate a toy collection into a domestic space and use that space for personal expression and play. However, the dynamic between art and play may seem at odds within the practice of display. According to Harry L. Rinker, “toys are meant to be put into motion” and “displayed on a shelf, they are in an unnatural state” – as such, his advice to toy collectors is to “resist the urge to treat these childhood treasures as objets d’art” (1991, 103). This implies that display is incompatible with play because it hinders toy’s natural state of motion in favor of artistic ornamentation. 

Through my experience as an action figure collector, I am inclined to suggest that the practice of displaying action figures on a shelf is both an expression of art and play. To display an action figure collection can be a form of artistic expression akin to hanging a painting on a wall. It requires a canvas (a shelf or unobstructed space) and a location that is well-lit but also away from direct sunlight to avoid damage. There are a range of possible choices for how to pose action figures on the canvas shelf, depending on the constraints of the space and the points of articulation in the figures. As Heljakka and Harviainen acknowledge, “displaying toys is a highly personal act but the sharing of the results of these manipulative and visual scenarios–whether arranged according to size, color, manufacturer, or aesthetics—is considered rewarding” (2019, 358-59). While the goal is to admire the aesthetic presentation of material composition and color on a shelf, the process requires physical interaction with the material design of the toy’s articulation that also constitutes a form of play.

There is therefore a dependent relationship between personal choice, aesthetic style, materiality of form, and playful practice at the foundation of display. Indeed, it is really through the act of display that I consider myself to meaningfully engage with toy collecting. As an expression of play, my approach to action figure display is shaped by a fundamental commitment to preserve the perception of action in the action figure form. This is how this collecting practice differs from MOC (mint on card) or MIB (mint in box) collecting, which preserves the toy in its box. Perhaps MOC collecting is closer to what Rinker describes as an ‘unnatural state’ for an object designed and manufactured for the purpose of action and movement; this approach to collecting is very different to a display-focused expression of action figure play and, while I admittedly struggle to relate with it, it reflects the multiplicity of ways that adults express collecting practices.

Action figures are not dolls. That is the first principle of action figure appreciation. They are not dolls because the capacity for movement through points of articulation (POA) is essential to their form, function, and enjoyment. Historically, there is also a gendered distinction between the market for action figures and dolls (‘boys’ and ‘girls,’ respectively), but as a woman who collects action figures together with my husband, I do not think gender or age holds up as a determining qualifier of how to formally differentiate action figures from dolls (for more on the distinction between dolls and actions figures beyond gender or age, see Bainbridge 2010). The greater quality and range of movement in the POA of action figures provides more opportunities for poseability that accommodates spatial constraint and narrative signification: if a figure has more range of movement, then it is possible to explore a range of dynamic poses that emulate the character’s abilities, action, and character relationships in tandem with the ‘personal style’ of the collector-displayer. In this context, the action figure form enables the process of display to be both an expression of art and play.

jimmy neutron: boy genius (2001)

points of articulation (POA) in Ultimate Spider-Man (SOURCE https://www.blackactionfigure.com/?p=3932)

figure 5: marvel heores shelf display

My approach to action figure displaying considers a range of dimensions that exist across the material design of each figure: this includes size, shape, and POA. Figure 5 above is an example of some of one of my displays: this display reflects my preference for layers, closely huddled placement, and mid-action poses. While in most cases larger figures are placed at the back to provide additional support to smaller figures and not to obscure the entire display, there are some cases – such as Spider-Man’s rogues’ gallery (Figure 6 below) – where larger figures are a feature of the display and should not be relegated to the back; in this case, these characters are prominent villains in the Spider-Verse and their action figures are also aesthetically impressive. Indeed, the idea of not showcasing the Sinister Six seems like an offence, no matter their size or shape.

figure 6: sinister six and spider-man’s rogues’ gallery display shelf

Characterization and narrative consistency are therefore also central to this process of display. While I am not overly driven by source material fidelity in my appreciation of action figures, the comic books inform how our collection is distributed across shelves. For example, our collection is organized based on character team-ups, alliances, factions, organizations, or even brief associations between characters. These relationships help discern placement and groupings across and within shelves, but still raise questions about where to place less-prominent, random, or ‘deep cut’ characters and teams that do not cross paths with other characters (i.e. where does one put Death’s Head, Deathlok, the Squadron Supreme and Alpha Flight?). We frequently look for comic book connections between characters to justify display choices (even if such choices are based on one time characters crossed paths in one single comic book issue). Therefore, the process of display also requires a degree of obscure knowledge of Marvel Comics to shape placement. 

figure 7: galactus, his heralds, fantastic four and other cosmic friends.

The addition of Haslab’s 32-inch Galactus action figure (with over 70 points of articulation – 20 in each hand) provided more opportunity to play with dynamic action poses that take advantage of shelf space and POA (Figure 7). In following the principle of using large figures to support smaller figures, Galactus is so big that other figures – such as the Fantastic Four and his Heralds – can effectively hang off his structure in dynamic action poses. It is perhaps this shelf that exemplifies the capacity to capture the impression of motion in an action figure display. The overall look I wanted to achieve with this shelf was to be reminiscent of a comic book splash page, where the implication of movement is embodied in the display.

I try to achieve a dynamic display with multiple levels and a range of active poses. POA is so important to the process of display because it enables each figure to be effectively shaped into a space. I often reflect on how the activity of display extends the process of material shaping that action figures embody: as material objects they are constituted by molded plastic, but this process is incomplete until the figures are posed and displayed. This reinforces why a display-as-play expression of action figure collecting is so different to MOC collecting.

An action figure shelf display is not static but is continually reshaped and redesigned with the addition or substitution of new or cycled figures. As noted above, the ‘display canvas’ is constrained by the size of a shelf, room, and home; this means that decisions are always made around what figures to showcase, leave off, or use to fill out the background. For myself, redesigning a shelf take significant time, effort, and stylistic thought. I have taken pride in new displays and missed previous displays that I have struggled to re-achieve. An action figure shelf display is ephemeral and in continually process, and so the art of display is also an expression of play.

References

Bainbridge, Jason. 2010. “Fully Articulated: The Rise of the Action Figure and the Changing Face of ‘Children's’ Entertainment.” Continuum, 24 (6): 829-842, DOI: 10.1080/10304312.2010.510592 

Heljakka, Katriina and J. Tuomas Harviainen. 2019. “From Displays to Dioramas to Doll Dramas: Adult World Building and World Playing with Toys.” American Journal of Play 11 (3): 351–378.

Rinker, Harry L. 1991. Collector’s Guide to Toys, Games and Puzzles. Wallace-Homestead Book Company.

Biography

Tara Lomax is the Discipline Lead of Screen Studies at the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS) and has a PhD from The University of Melbourne. She has published on topics such as media franchising, the superhero and horror genres, licensing, transmedia storytelling, storyworld building, and digital effects. Her work can be found in the Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, Senses of Cinema and Quarterly Review of Film and Video, and various edited collections, including The Supervillain Reader (2020), The Superhero Symbol (2020), and Star Wars and the History of Transmedia Storytelling (2017). She is a member of the Pop Junctions editorial team.

Telling Your Toy Story: Fans’ Storytelling Practice in Shanghai Disneyland

It was a normal summer night in Shanghai, with humidity choking the air and no breeze to speak of. People were still at risk of heatstroke, even at night, so the once-bustling street was silent except for the sound of cicadas calling. At 4:00 in the morning, the quiet environment abruptly altered when a few people in colourful clothing appeared on the street. Remarkably, they weren't business travellers or barflies; instead, they were headed for a magical place — Shanghai Disneyland. Most of them own annual passes to Shanghai Disneyland and are big fans of the special Disney toy line “Duffy and Friends,” which is mostly seen and popular in East Asia. They were up so early to wait in line for hours in order to get their hands on limited series products and to see their adorable Disney friends inside the park. This might seem extraordinary, but it’s actually an everyday occurrence—let’s talk about it. 

What is “Duffy and Friends”?

The “Duffy and Friends” story started in 2002 when Minnie Mouse made Duffy, teddy bear with a sailing costume, to accompany Mickey when he’s travelling. Now Duffy the Disney Bear has his own name and a seat in Disney’s corners and shops. The bear was not well-known when it first appeared in Shanghai Disneyland—hardly anybody recognized him, so the character simply wandered alone through the park. However, with constant exposure on social media and new friends joining the toy line, “Duffy and Friends” became one of the most profitable IPs in Shanghai Disneyland. To own some limited backpack pendants, some fans must pay more than six times the retail price; sometimes the cost of a single item can exceed 10,000 CNY ($1400), demonstrating the series' popularity and economic potential. The popularity peaked when the pink fox LinaBell joined the series in 2021. As a newly created character who was "born" in Shanghai Disneyland, LinaBell is seen as a gift from Disney to Chinese fans, and, in return, the Chinese fans do everything in their power to make LinaBell the "sales champion" of Disneyland. After entering the park, some fans wait in a queue for over nine hours to meet and engage with LinaBell for thirty seconds; outside it, other fans created a tonne of LinaBell memes and share them across the country to show off who their favorite Disney character is. Until now, Duffy and his six friends continue to be the most visually striking characters at Shanghai Disneyland, as seen by the long lines that form in front of their interactive attractions and the toy bags that visitors carry.

Duffy and Friends 

Auction for “Duffy and Friends” Series Toys

In the “Duffy and Friends” toy line, every friend has unique characteristics and a representative colour, which inspires fans to imitate them and purchase corresponding goods. Walking into the theme park, you may see a lot of fans wearing just yellow, pink or green clothing and carrying character backpack pendants to display their fan identities. Sometimes, these fans will dress in similar costumes to characters, which can be seen as a kind of Disney bounding. Both Disney and fans themselves push this mimicking habit. When Halloween comes, character cosplay will be welcomed in Shanghai Disneyland. Unlike in Disney bounding, during this time fans don't have to pretend they aren't cosplaying the characters and can trick-or-treat with each other. The festive atmosphere will persist throughout the year, though in other seasons fans are not allowed to explicitly cosplay when entering the park. Many fans take on the role of fashion leaders, teaching others how to cosplay the characters without causing trouble for the company. The practice makes some of them big name fans in Disney fandom and contributes to a highly organized fan community.

Apart from being the most popular choice for Disney bounding in Shanghai Disneyland, Duffy and Friends' distinctive characteristics also cause considerable controversies within the fandom. In the Friends interaction attractions, different costumed actresses for the same character sometimes act out the characters in unique ways for the fans, who judge these performances. Some fans are sincere followers of performers rather than the Disney characters themselves; they will discuss who the performer in the toy costume is every day and occasionally express their dislike for the performance. When fans switched their focus to Hong Kong Disneyland, this contentious attitude escalated. Several fans expressed their displeasure on social media, complaining about Duffy and his friends' lack of concern for the tourists. The complaints exist on a small scale, but they highlight the importance of fan participation in this unique fandom—tourists have clear expectations about the series and what they can expect from their interactions with the characters.

The Bear is Yours: Fan Participation in Storytelling of the “Duffy and Friends” Series 

Despite its phenomenal success, many fans continue to have doubts about the “Duffy & Friends” line because none of the characters are featured in Disney films or television programs. Disney seems to grant fans complete storytelling rights rather than providing a well-defined plot, which results in fan-created content appearing on Chinese social media, and there are no official plots released except for the seasonal advertisements. Apart from the seasonal commercials, fans may only see Duffy and his friends in the park and on social media. All of the stories and characteristics of the characters are produced by fans through content sharing and conversations in the fan community. The new media ecology, which incorporates people into a participatory culture as producers, users, and senders, gives fans multiple avenues for self-expression, which has helped this unique narrative mode (Diker & Taşdelen, 2019). It also promotes media literacy development, including the capacity to create and understand discourse as well as to engage in offline and online fan interaction. In Shanghai Disneyland, you can find young people taking photos of each other, as well as retired seniors enjoying time with their young friends and using phones or cameras to capture their favourite characters. Despite the stereotype that older men lag behind in the new media landscape, their enthusiasm for this magical world and the support of fellow fans allow them to keep up with the times. The strong fan community and the cost-effective annual card price of Shanghai Disneyland make it the backyard of every resident, a place where they can make like-minded friends, view performances, and even go for walks after dinner. As defined by Jenkins and colleagues, a participatory culture is one in which there are few barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, people are encouraged to create and share, and newbies receive informal mentorship from experienced members (Jenkins et al., 2009). “Duffy and Friends” fans form a community of mutual aid that is open to all members and is heavily involved in the creation of character-related media content.

Fan taking a photo of Disney actress     

“Soap Opera” acted out by tourists and Duffy’s friends

The prosperous idol industry, when applied to Disney characters, also incentivises more fans to participate in the Duffy toy line’s narrative. Within the fandom, there exist fans who engage in storytelling for leisure as well as professional fans who aim to make money off of it. Following the logic of idol fandom, these professional fans' practices expand the impact of some Disney productions in mainland China. The most well-known professional fan type is "Zhan Jie," sometimes referred to as "home masters" in the idol fandom, who snap pictures of their idols and share the images on social media (Zheng & Qing, 2023). Zhan Jie are also actively involved in the Disney fandom as productive fans; they are responsible for taking photos and videos of Duffy and his friends every day, telling the story of the characters’ daily life in Disneyland to fans who are outside this magic place. Thousands of fans follow this serialized fan production, participating in daily discussions and offering comments on each story point. Their recommendations can have a significant impact on the relationships between Duffy and his friends as well as how Zhan Jie interact with and film these characters, all of which helps the official producers and the corporation adjust the production to suit regional interests. In the toy line’s original story, Gelatoni was an artist cat friend whom Duffy met in Italy. However, when more people begin to think highly of Gelatoni, the cat became Mickey’s successor, a character who will eventually take over the amusement park, and began to have humorous arguments with Duffy. The characters’ shifting storylines emphasize the genre's adaptability and highlight the influence that readers have on the narrative. The practice resembles soap opera fandom bu involving fan performance (creative interpretations and role cultivation within the community), fan proselytizing, and fan criticism (Ford, 2008). Similar to soap operas, Disney may constantly add new characters and rewrite some of the toy line’s official stories, but the combined power of the fandom to alter the narrative itself is what allowed the “Duffy & Friends” series to become well-known in China. 

It's noteworthy that Zhan Jie act as a sort of mediator between Disney fans and the firm, conveying some messages that aren't allowed to be shared through the official channels. After the Open Door Policy in 1978, Chinese media started to import foreign animation, allow foreign studios to challenge local companies, and signed a contract with Disney to allow their characters to appear on Chinese screens in the 1980s, but the censorship of Western media content is still harsh (Xu & Schirato, 2015). Disney's media content in China is restricted: certain popular films, like Spider-Man: No Way Home, Suicide Squad, and Deadpool, are not allowed to enter the Chinese market, and specific depictions of social issues, like LGBTQ+ rights, are deemed risky and removed from films, as they did in the 2022 release of Lightyear, the prequel to Toy Story(Soundar, 2024). In these circumstances, Zhan Jie, as professional fans, can use video clips, content interpretation, and the creation of videos featuring characters who aren't allowed to appear in media (but are present in Disneyland) to disseminate Disney’s most recent information via relatively unofficial channels. For instance, despite the film Turning Red (2022) being prohibited in China for indecent content, Mei, the lead character, is still allowed to perform at Shanghai Disneyland. This causes confusion for many visitors because they had never seen this character before. Professional fans’ interpretations and social media sharing helps more fans know the story of the movie and, in some perspectives, attract more fans to pay attention to the movie and its products in China.

Mei in Shanghai Disneyland

Toys in Different Stories: Collect and Decorate Disney Friends

Walking down the streets of Shanghai, you will find Duffy & Friends’ backpack pendants everywhere. The toys in the backpack pendants wear different costumes, such as the clothes of their owners' favourite anime characters or outfits with owner's names, which displays the owners’ strong personalities. This “Toy Cosplay” is a trend in Disney fandom and among those who don’t know the friends’ stories but just want to hang something on their bags, and it is common for young people to recognize one other through such toys and their costumes. Chinese fans seem to have a special preference for the practice of toy collection. In previous blogs, Jenkins (2023) introduced PopMart’s original character Molly, who ignited a fervor for collection in China. In Molly’s universe, she can cosplay other anime or movie characters, be an astronaut, or even transform into a different species. Such “toy cosplay” provides a chance for owners to change their identities in a convenient way. When seeing Molly standing at their table, students and workers get a momentary escape from reality and an opportunity to immerse themselves in an imaginary world. This explanation also works for “Duffy & Friends” fandom: in a society where the economy is growing quickly but spiritual needs are neglected, individuals look for tangible things to help them feel emotionally fulfilled.

Duffy and friends wear clothes from other universes

A standout feature of the “Duffy and Friends” toys is their changeable clothing. Once a fan has chosen their favourite bear from the Disney store, many start customizing their toys by purchasing or making costumes, for instance to celebrate certain holidays and seasons or to show off their personal aesthetics. While some people will hire tailors to make costumes, there are many fans who choose to sew these clothes themselves; they buy supplies and create patterns, spending a lot of time creating the ideal look for their cherished toys. The practice establishes a unique sartorial fandom focused around the "Duffy & Friends" series, in which fans discuss their experiences and practice their talents. In China, where practically everything is produced by factories, the handcrafted experience that this fannish practice offers is valuable. The fandom, or lifestyle, gives the “Duffy and Friends” series a new meaning while also allowing followers to explore who they are and take a vacation from their hectic existences.

Through the case of Duffy, we can see how important telling stories of these characters is to fans. The toys, and the actresses in toy costumes, are the core seed for fans to exert their imagination on, and for them to attract more fans to participate in their narratives. Duffy isn’t the only Disney character to have been influenced by toys. In the following sections, I'll go over how toys altered the original Disney characters' images in the case of Lotso and Mulan.

Welcome to “Lotso Universe”: An Unexpected Hit in China

Some Disney characters who didn't do well in the films also had opportunities to emerge as upstarts in Shanghai Disneyland. Toy Story 3 (2010)'s Lotso, the strawberry bear, is one such unexpected case. In the movie, Lotso is the ultimate villain; he was abandoned by his owner and tried to frame the other toys even though they saved his life. Even with this backstory, Lotso managed to become a superstar in China. In the city center of Shanghai, there is a gigantic Lotso bear sitting behind the window and a tonne of Lotso toys inside the Lotso-themed store. And in Shanghai Disneyland, you can see the strawberry bear in the “Meet Disney Friends” section. People will even yell the bear's name to express their affection for it in the Main Parade.

Lotso - themed store in Shanghai’s city center

One reason for Lotso’s success is the strong manufacturing power and an interesting Chinese marketing system. Since 2021, a famous Chinese product retailer called Minisocollaborated with Disney on Lotso, launching a series of daily life goods such as canvas bags, power banks, and table lamps at prices that the average person could afford. For instance, a water bottle with the Lotso picture costs just 23 CNY ($3). Customers' curiosity about the character was definitely piqued by the reasonably priced products and Lotso's endearing appearance; as soon as the product series debuted, the strawberry bear was seen all across China. However, just owning the toy and related products does not imply that the owner is a fan or that they are aware of the character's backstory; in this sense, the Lotso series is more of a consumption trend than a media fandom. Once when I hung out with my friend, I noticed her power bank was part of the Miniso Lotso series. I asked her why she had purchased the item, and her initial response was to ask me who Lotso was. She then revealed that she thought the strawberry bear was Miniso's original character. Her response demonstrates the advantages and disadvantages of brand collaboration. On the plus side, customers may purchase more products due to their distinctive images, which would benefit the business. On the negative side, consumers may not know what they are buying. For example, the popularity of Zootopia and its success in business doesn’t mean consumers have watched the movie and the race issue it discussed. In China, the main reason why the Zootopia series is popular is because of the cute shape of the animals and the story it shows for all ages. Hence, though such a marketing strategy may seem successful in making profits, it may lead to a lack of value in the media. 

Lotso’s influence extends beyond China to several other East-Asian countries. As part of China’s long-term economic integration strategy with the world and neighboring countries, Chinese businesses have been investing in countries like Vietnam for a long time. In addition to major companies like Alibaba and JD.com, retailers such as Miniso have also chosen to expand into the international market of Vietnam in order to offset slowing domestic growth (Cao & Nguyen, 2023). Up to now, there are more than 70 Miniso stores dispersed over about 30 provinces in Vietnam; their goods bring IP collaborations from across the seas. Such a business strategy has led to unexpected cultural significances, including attracting more followers for the bear and even more cosplayers who have no idea who Lotso is.

Lotso's villainous reputation is likewise changed by the fandom's interpretation. Although the strawberry bear kept trying to take revenge on the world and didn’t even realize he was wrong in the end of the story, he was not born to be the bad guy. In order to explain why Lotso turned evil, Disney created a sad story, which gave fans an opportunity to engage and rewrite the narrative, sometimes altering the original plot. Asking honest Lotso fans about why they love the character, the most moving answer I got was “I want to collect as much Lotso as I could and never throw it away, it is my way to make up for the regrets in the story, and also my regret in throwing so many toys in my childhood away”. In a new media ecology, media serves to provide viewers with emotional value while giving them room to engage, immerse themselves, and create. In addition to giving viewers a place to connect, Toy Story offers a variety of avenues for people to use toys to write their own stories in real life.

Lotso in Shanghai Disneyland

In transmedia storytelling, a story is systematically presented through multiple media platforms; each media channel explores different aspects of the story world with new perspectives, thus building a richer and more three-dimensional story universe for the audience (Jenkins, 2006). Besides traditional storytelling methods like novels and movies, offline sites such as amusement parks can also be part of the story universe. Hence, the events and interactions in Shanghai Disneyland also play a role in fixing the impression of Lotso. In some social media fan videos, Lotso acts just like any other tourist’s friend—giving hugs, being patient when they ask for things, and occasionally acting envious of other toys who get to meet them. In other videos, Lotso interacts with and meets other Toy Story characters in a friendly manner, abandoning the enemy relationship that existed in the original story. The toy stories that happen in the amusement park are another timeline, convincing fans to believe in them and Lotso’s ultimately good nature. 

Mulan and Mushu Dragon Live in 21st Century Shanghai 

This storytelling mode also provides chances for other characters who failed to gain the audience’s attention in films and TV series. One example is Mulan (2020), where the distinction between offline performance and media content is considerably more pronounced. Following the film’s release, the live-action Mulan received negative reviews for disrespecting Chinese culture and history, as well as for being a work that represents political injustice and an artistic failure (Wang, 2022). Mushu, the dragon in 1998 Disney Mulan, vanished in its 2020 version, becoming a character who only existed in adults’ memories, which further stoked viewer misgivings. However, Mulan is still a big hit in Shanghai Disneyland. During China's Dragon Year in 2024, Mulan and her dragon are the centre of attention, with hundreds of fans getting up early to watch the Disneyland morning ceremony in which they take part every day. Mushu joins other well-known Disney friends to become the a resident guest of the parade, and Mulan has a good chance of showing up at the Princess Palace to interact with guests.

Since Mulan and Mushu have returned to the public eye, another storyline has begun. This time, they travel forward to 2024 and enjoy modern technology with other Disney friends. Similar to “Duffy and Friends,” fans in Shanghai Disneyland take on the responsibility of creating, interpreting, and promoting the stories. In one summer parade, due to the intense heat and heavy workload, the Mushu Dragon performer suffered a sunstroke and almost fell off the float. When Mulan's performer saw this, she hurried to Mushu to hold the performer and provide support until they made their way to the first aid area. Fans captured this powerful moment, which became popular online, discussing how Mulan and Mushu help each other in contemporary society, just as they did in the classic film. Besides this video, many other touching videos are sent out when something happens, making sure that fans can relate to and understand them. For instance, during the Chinese New Year, some fans ask how Mulan’s family enjoys this festival. Mulan, as both the actress and the independent individual, will respond to questions by mixing Mulan's features and life experiences, giving people a feeling of closeness.

Mulan in Shanghai Disneyland

In this case, the nationalism and cultural resonance are also noteworthy. Since Mulan's image in China is derived from a collective memory created by old poetry and writings, audiences will undoubtedly experience some cultural tension as a result of the Western origin of this version of Mulan. For example, some visitors will steer clear of seeing Mulan because they believe the character's style and values deviate from Chinese traditional wisdom. However, Mulan is also able to rehabilitate her poor reputation from the film through immersive interactions in the parks, thanks to the nationalistic and cultural resonance engendered by M[SC9] [10] ulan’s origins in Chinese culture. Since Mulan is the sole Chinese princess in Shanghai Disneyland, a lot of visitors come to see and cheer for her. When asked why they wait in a queue for over an hour to chat with the Mulan actress, several guests replied that it is easier to speak their native tongue with her rather than with another actor because Mulan is the only princess in the park who speaks Chinese. 

These are just some of the characters who gained popularity because of fan participation and transmedia storytelling in Shanghai Disneyland; there are many others who benefit from the mode. In a park that gathers all these interesting characters together, they are not alone but can wander throughout all the of Disney universe, meeting characters they may never have met in their movies or TV series in a more intuitive way that creates fun stories every day. Disneyland provides a world for fans to explore, create, and exert greater autonomy with a comparatively low technological barrier, which brings both cultural and financial benefits to the company in an unexpected way. 

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Biography 

Ying Wang is a third-year master’s student in Journalism and Communication at Shanghai University. As a participant in various popular cultures, she explores cosplay, games and online fiction. Her research focuses on participatory culture, especially gender and sexuality in fandom in China.