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Item Resistance, healing and empowerment through autobiographical therapeutic performance–– 愛，媽媽 (Love, Mum) : a solo matrilineal memoir and autoethnographic inquiry on Chinese womanhood and ‘The good woman’ ideal : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Creative Writing at Massey University, New Zealand. EMBARGOED until 30 July 2027.(Massey University, 2024) Lam, Cynthia Hiu YingMy research is an autoethnographic inquiry that employs creative and critical methodologies to examine the question: How does the process of writing and performing one’s life experiences and trauma act as a form of resistance to the dominant ‘good woman’ narrative, leading to personal healing, empowerment and transformation? Through the creation of my one-woman show, 愛，媽媽 (Love, Mum), a matrilineal memoir about three generations of Chinese women, I investigate how the creative process involving the writing, rehearsing and performance of my play can become a form of resistance and counter-storying against the dominant ‘good woman’ narrative, leading to personal healing and empowerment. I begin by discussing the historical context of the virtuous Chinese woman, and present research by scholars who demonstrate that depression in women contains a gendered lens, resulting from the socio-cultural pressures of living up to the ‘good woman’ ideal. My analysis uses the methodological framework of autobiographical/autoethnographic therapeutic performance (ATP). This is a method that focuses on the working through of personal traumatic material through writing and performance. My research utilises a transdisciplinary praxis, combining both arts-based and psychoanalytic theories and practice related to trauma recovery and the healing processes of ATP. My investigation is autoethnographic and deeply personal as my own life experience and creative process is used to answer my research question, as well as shining a light on the socio-cultural structures we live in. Employing a mixture of creative practice, personal reflection, theoretical examination, and a close reading of my play script and performance, I demonstrate how the creative process I went through has led to a form of personal healing and transformation, with the potential to impact and engage with the wider community.Item Rethinking female representation in superhero(ine) media through audiences’ digital engagement : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Media Studies at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand(Massey University, 2024-09) de Meneses, Bruna MariaIn recent years, debates about gender and feminism have become more easily accessible due to digital platforms such as social media. These debates often intertwine with films and television series that attempt to present characters and stories in consonance with claims for better representation. Superhero(ine) live action films and television are one example of this, with the representation of gender in this media becoming a topic of online discussion. But how are audiences engaging with these representations and this online discussion? In this study I undertook qualitative research with two groups of fans of the superhero genre from Brazil and New Zealand, using a combination of methods: digital diaries, interviews, and focus groups. Through this research, I sought to understand more about their experiences with such texts, and how they interpret them. I argue that the participants’ engagement with superhero(ine) media and related online discussion leads to questioning, critiquing, and learning about gender representation and feminism. This starts with superhero(ine) media, but exceeds it, reaching participants’ own life experiences. In this sense, the online culture surrounding superhero(ine) media acts as a form of digital feminism, providing a platform for consciousness-raising. This digital feminism has a transnational dimension, whilst also being inflected slightly differently by the national contexts in which the participants are situated, including their experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Simultaneously, any consciousness-raising comes with the caveat that the participants cannot completely escape the neoliberal logics and postfeminist sensibility underpinning the production and promotion of superhero(ine) media.Item A story in the telling. . . : an exegesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree, a Masters in Fine Arts, Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand(Massey University, 2018) Cook, DamonThis exegesis contains a laying out of the ground that is our contemporary moment of environmental and social crisis,. This includes the approaches and attitudes that have brought that crisis into being. These are approaches and attitudes that seek to control and master the world. The ‘body’— that is, our own bodies and the body of that world— is where this drama is seen to play out. Art and contemplative practices are understood as offering counter modes to control and exploitation. These counter modes of practice and understanding are examined and critiqued. An attempt is made to perform this problem by offering points of clarity and orientation, while, at the same time avoiding too much clarity and control. Which is to say that this exegesis is also a literary text, in part and whole. Finally, in keeping with this performance of clarity and control, and possible counter modes, the concluding section —‘Where to Next’— offers two suggestive, rather than explicitly directive ways forward.Item The quest for change : writing video game narratives to battle sexism : a Master of Arts thesis, Massey University, 2018(Massey University, 2018) Minson, MoanaCan video games be used to break down sexist attitudes and behaviours in their own community? This research investigated the intersection between narratives being able to inform users, games as highly immersive narrative sites, and how to deliberately design a game narrative with the goal of informing and building empathy in players about a social problem. This project investigated the question through several kinds of textual and field-work based research methods. First: a reflexive, auto-ethnographic exploration of the researcher’s own position in the community, plus a review of current literature, and game-player interviews were combined to establish a contextual knowledge base about negative gendered concepts and attitudes in gaming. These elements were then used to inform the construction of a game narrative which sought to, while being a great game, expose sexist attitudes and behaviours, challenge gendered stereotypes, and stimulate empathy and understanding towards the ‘other’. A portion of this narrative was turned into a playable game which was used to perform player testing, which revealed elements of how games create affect in users. These research stages were then combined to build a set of guidelines for use by other game developers; guidelines designed to suggest effective ways to shape game narratives which seek to break down sexist attitudes and behaviours within the gaming medium and community.Item Stance, same-sex marriage and space : an analysis of self-referencing on YouTube : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand(Massey University, 2019) Kerry, Victoria Jane (née Faris)By mid-2018, YouTube engagement reached 1.8 billion users per month, making it almost as big a platform as Facebook. Despite its popularity, little is understood about the user-generated comments written below the videos as a form of engagement on the site, with most linguistic research focusing on language found in the videos themselves. This study is a Mediated Discourse Analysis which explores what YouTubers say about themselves in textual responses posted under videos showing the passing of the same-sex marriage law in New Zealand. Using Du Bois’ (2007) Stance Triangle as its fork, it analyses the function of self-referencing stances and the sharing of personal information to a potentially large and unknown audience. In order to understand YouTube as a context for self-referencing, I propose a new framework called Participatory Spaces. The Participatory Spaces framework identifies three salient areas of YouTube interaction: the shared interest that brings a diverse group of participants together (the Membership Layer), the different members of the audience that are addressed (the Audience Layer), and the technical affordances and constraints of the Space (the Spatio-Temporal Layer). The three Layers of a Participatory Space outline the interactional practices within and provide key perspectives on the mechanics of stance. The Membership Layer focuses particularly on the centrality, weighting and interpretability of the discourses, Discourses and particular locations shared by a geographically dispersed, diverse, audience. Self-referencing is used to increase credibility of an argument, to warrant participation and to express the right to belong. The Audience Layer reveals how commenters design their contribution for specific audiences. Here, examples of self-referencing can function as a means of (dis)aligning with other members on YouTube, and creating the Space itself. Finally, the Spatio-Temporal Layer uncovers the influences of time and space on participatory norms, including how participants’ histories and imagined futures are embedded in the Discourses they present. The participants’ self-referencing creates context and meaning for both their own, and the other participants’, interpretation of their comments. The Participatory Spaces framework also highlights the need for revisions to Du Bois’ Stance Triangle. Specifically, I argue that adapting the Triangle to include multiple objects of stance, segmenting the audience, and including participants’ histories, provides a tool for understanding YouTube interaction and the role self-referencing plays in these practices.Item Eliza undermined : the romanticisation of Shaw's Pygmalion : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English at Massey University, Turitea campus, New Zealand(Massey University, 2011) McGovern, Derek John; McGovern, Derek JohnFew twentieth-century plays have been adapted into as many media as Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. First performed on stage in 1913, it was published in book form (1916), turned into a series of screenplays and films (1934–38), modified for a stage musical (My Fair Lady, 1956) and for a film musical (My Fair Lady, 1964). In addition, the original text was revised in 1939 and 1941. This thesis examines the ways in which the play’s core themes have been reworked for these adaptations through a nexus of interpreters’ and adapters’ intentions, the formal conventions of the various media, and the interventions of Shaw himself. Throughout his screenplay and (stage) textual revisions, Shaw strove to emphasise the anti-romantic nature of the original play and its central concerns of class, independence, and transformation. On the stage, in Shaw’s retelling of the Pygmalion myth, the point was not that the “creator” (Higgins) and “creation” (Eliza) fall in love, but rather that the latter achieves independence from her autocratic Pygmalion. Marriage between the two, Shaw declared, was unthinkable. To his dismay, however, audiences and critics alike inferred otherwise, often influenced by the interventions of the play’s interpreters. So via his prose sequel of 1916 and his 1934–38 screenplay, Shaw emphasised a marital future for Eliza with Freddy Eynsford Hill (a minor character in the original play) in an attempt to satisfy these expectations of romance without compromising Eliza’s or Higgins’s independence. Despite this, filmmakers continued to imply a Higgins–Eliza romance, whereupon Shaw responded by changing the ending of his stage text and aggrandising Freddy’s role for his 1941 “definitive” version. Ultimately, however, this damaged the original play’s structural and tonal unity. Oddly enough, the musical adaptations of Pygmalion that appeared after Shaw’s death were more successful in portraying Freddy as a credible romantic foil to Higgins. My Fair Lady differs significantly from Shaw’s Pygmalion, however, by suggesting that Higgins’s independence undergoes a transformation as profound as Eliza’s. This thesis explores the life cycle of Pygmalion and the tensions of authorship caused by adaptations, and, in particular, Shaw’s attempts to assert his own conception of the text, and others’ determination to modify it.
