This research investigates and decodes Disney’s representation of queerness in four of its recent animated and live-action films, namely Cruella (2021), Jungle Cruise (2021), Lightyear (2022) and Strange World (2022). It uses queer theory, imagology, and stereotypical tropes (twelve in total, divided into seven categories) to conduct a qualitative visual discourse analysis and close viewing…

This thesis analyses Robyn Brooks, or Rob, the gender-swapped main character in High Fidelity (2020 series), by relying on adaptation theory, feminism, gender-swap theory, and discussions in published reviews. The essay uses the Map Your Hero(ine) site by answering a survey on the webpage and experimenting with Voyant Tools to discover how these perform when…

This study explores how modern-day heroine Black Widow compares to the Classical heroine Penelope, using close-reading and Voyant Tools to analyse Homer’s Odyssey and MCU films Iron Man 2 (2010), The Avengers (2012), and Black Widow (2021). The text mining focuses primarily on the terms heroism, heroes, heroic, heroine, hero, and glory. Results indicate that…

Over the past few decades, readers and viewers have become more critical of representations of minority groups, including representations of gender, race, and ethnicity. This has forced makers of new adaptations to critically think about how to adapt certain aspects of their older source text. This thesis investigates such an adaptation, namely the 2015 film…

The Map Your Hero(ine) website is online! It’s work in progress still, but it’s alive. For a long time I’ve been wondering to what extent characters change when novels are adapted. I have a hunch changes are rather limited, but there are only so many heroes and heroines or adaptations I know, and it’s high…