Overview of Research
Emma is a Ph.D. candidate studying film, television, and popular culture in the Department of Communication Studies at Colorado State University. Her research interests include feminist media studies, media industries, and representations of sexual violence in popular culture.
She is currently writing her dissertation on the #MeToo movement’s impact on the representations of sexual violence in popular film and television. Emma regularly presents her research on fan communities, feminist rhetoric, and representations of sexual violence in popular culture at the Society of Cinema and Media Studies, the National Communication Association, and other conferences.
Current Projects
Rape-Revenge Television in the Wake of #MeToo: Proxy and Imagined Violence in Big Little Lies and I May Destroy You
Rape-revenge narratives are no stranger to our screens but take on new implications in the wake of the #MeToo movement. I propose a redevelopment of the rape-revenge narrative as illustrated in the television shows Big Little Lies and I May Destroy You. In contrast to the structure of the rape-revenge narratives that feature purposeful, violent revenge against perpetrators by survivors of sexual violence, rape-revenge narratives in the wake of #MeToo opt for violence occurring on behalf of others or through imagined scenarios. I argue that these forms of violence reflect the #MeToo movement’s emphasis on survivor solidarity and institutional failure. Ultimately, this article seeks to create a newfound understanding of rape-revenge narratives in the context of contemporary television. Although depictions of sexual violence on the screen remain complex, the redevelopment of violence in contemporary rape-revenge television provides opportunities to reflect on both the priorities and shortcomings of the #MeToo movement.
“Separate Societies Divided by Color”: Quasi-Color Consciousness and Sexual Violence in Netflix’s Bridgerton
As one of Netflix’s most popular original series, Bridgerton (2020–) repackages the period drama for contemporary audiences with its racially diverse cast. However, the hit series’ efforts to be color-conscious present representational quandaries. Bridgerton does not account for racist social structures, fails to subvert hierarchies, replicates racial stereotypes, and erases Black men as victims of sexual violence through a narrative and casting practice I term “quasi-color consciousness.” Bridgerton is illustrative of how inclusivity tactics in 2020s television attempt to respond to criticisms of colorblind casting, yet still fail characters of color.
Generic Reflexivity in Barbarian (2022): Hollywood, Horror, and the Possibilities of the Genre Film in the Wake of #MeToo
Spurred by sexual harassment allegations leveraged against film producer Harvey Weinstein in 2017, several narrative feature films in recent years have reckoned with themes of sexual violence in the wake of the #MeToo movement. While Hollywood has a long history of turning the camera on itself through metanarratives, #MeToo films that directly grapple with sexual violence within the context of media industries have yet to garner significant box office success. This article is concerned with the discursive possibilities of combining the reflexivity of a #MeToo film with the familiar formulaic elements of a genre film. I argue that the genre film is a privileged site for reckoning with sexual violence in the wake of #MeToo through what I call “generic reflexivity.” Generic reflexivity engages in ongoing #MeToo discourses through an appropriation of genre conventions. This article examines the discursive possibilities of generic relexify in the horror film Barbarian (2022).
Mormon Twitter: Negotiating Liminal Religious Identities Online
This study examines how liminal religious identities are described and negotiated in online environments, specifically in the context of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (the LDS Church) on Twitter. 15 members of the LDS Church who feel conflicted about their church membership who self-identify as members of the Mormon Twitter community were interviewed. It was found that participants felt conflicted about their church membership because they resonated with the community and certain doctrinal aspects of the LDS Church but struggled with identity based and institutional issues. Liminal members of the LDS Church described their conflicted identities in terms of the church activities they would and would not participate in as well as tenuous language. Mormon Twitter provided participants with a space to find like-minded individuals and explore nuances about their religious identities. These participants navigated their liminal identities in three ways: reclamation, embracing the in-between, and picking and choosing what parts of the Church worked for them. Ultimately, this study provides navigation tools for liminal religious identities and contributes to the literature surrounding LDS populations.
Past Projects
Master’s Thesis: Fan Remake Films: Active Engagement with Popular Texts
In a small town in Mississippi in 1982, eleven-year-old Chris Strompolos commissioned his friends Eric Zala and Jayson Lamb to remake his favorite film, Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). This remake would dominate their summer vacations for the next seven years. Over thirty years later in January 2020, brothers Mason and Morgan McGrew completed their shot-for-shot live action remake of Toy Story 3 (2010). This project took them eight years. Fan remake films such as Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation (1989) and Toy Story 3 in Real Life (2020) represent something unique in fan studies. Fan studies scholars, such as Henry Jenkins, have considered the many ways fans are an example of an active audience, appropriating texts for their own creative use. While these considerations have proven useful at identifying the participatory culture fans engage in, they neglect to consider fans that do not alter and change the original text in any purposeful way. Sitting at the intersection of fan and adaptation studies, I argue that these fan remake films provide useful insights into the original films, the fans’ personal lives, and fan culture at large. Through the consideration of fan remake films as a textual object, a process of creation, and a consumable media product, I look at how Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation and Toy Story 3 in Real Life reinforce the fans’ interpretations of the original films in a concrete way in their own lives and in the lives of those who watch.
Publications
Book Chapters
Lynn, Emma. “Fan Remake Films: Unintentional Transformation and Active Meaning Making Through Replication.” Fan Video & Digital Authorship. Edited by Samantha Close and Louisa Stein. (Accepted)
Book Reviews
In Progress
Lynn, Emma. “Separate Societies Divided by Color”: Quasi-Color Consciousness and Sexual Violence in Netflix’s Bridgerton.” The Journal of Popular Culture. (Revise and Resubmit)
Lynn, Emma. “Rape-Revenge Television in the Wake of #MeToo: Proxy and Imagined Violence in Big Little Lies and I May Destroy You.” Popular Communication. (Revise and Resubmit)
Lynn, Emma. “Generic Reflexivity in Barbarian (2022): Hollywood, Horror, and the Possibilities of the Genre Film in the Wake of #MeToo.” The Velvet Light Trap. (Submitted)
Conference Presentations
Console-ing Passions (June 20-22, 2024)
“Certain Women as Counter-Cinema: The Value of Women’s (Directing) Work”
Accepted
National Communication Association Conferences(November 16–19, 2023)
“‘Haters Gonna Hate’: Consciousness Raising and Popular Feminism in Taylor Swift’s 2019 Woman of the Decade Acceptance Speech”
Top Student Paper
Console-ing Passions (June 22–24, 2023)
“‘She Ain’t Even the Worst Thing That’s in There’: Monstrous Masculinity, Sexual Violence, and Female Agency in Barbarian (2022)”
Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference (April 12–13, 2023)
“All That Glitters is Not Diamonds: Quasi-Color Consciousness and Sexual Violence in Netflix’s Bridgerton”
National Communication Association Conference (November 17 – 10, 2022)
“A Masterclass in Fighting Misogyny: The Rhetoric of AOC”
National Association of Media Literacy Conference (July 14 – 17, 2022)
“Media Literacy in Entertainment: New Perspectives”
Panel guest
Popular Culture Association Conference (April 13 – 16, 2022)
“The 2021 Labor Shortage: Emerging Genres on TikTok”
Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference (March 31 – April 3, 2022)
“Contemporary Rape-Revenge Television: Accidental, Imagined, and Proxy Violence in the Wake of #MeToo”
Popular Culture Association Conference (June 2 – 5, 2021)
“Fan Remake Films: Text, Process, and Reception”
Ray Browne Conference (March 5 – 6, 2021)
“Political Activism on TikTok”
Southwest Popular/American Culture Association Conference (February 19 – 22, 2021)
“Hollywood Hegemony or Korean Takeover?: The Reception of Parasite at the 2020 Academy Awards”
Midwest Popular Culture Association Conference (October 2 – 4, 2020)
“Surveillance, Gender, and Humanity in Ex Machina”
Popular Culture Association Conference (April 16 – 19, 2020)
“From Perpetrator to Victim: A Shift in Rape Narratives in Popular Television”
Cancelled due to COVID-19
Ray Browne Conference (March 6 – 7, 2020)
“Remaking Raiders: Studying a Fan Shot-For-Shot Remake”