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Conscious Beholding: Strategies, Methods, & Approaches Of Transgender & Gender-Nonconforming Filmmakers

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Conscious Beholding: Strategies, Methods, & Approaches Of Transgender & Gender-Nonconforming Filmmakers

Drummond, Quinn-Evelynn (2023) Conscious Beholding: Strategies, Methods, & Approaches Of Transgender & Gender-Nonconforming Filmmakers. Masters thesis, Concordia University.

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Abstract

Representation of transgender and gender non-conforming (T&GNC) identities in media is crucially important - it helps to form self-identity, contextualizes personhood, and cultivates community. However, we as T&GNC people are going to have to create much of this representation for ourselves. We cannot rely on most mainstream media producers and systems for meaningfully accurate or good faith depiction, as has been routinely historically demonstrated. This research-creation thesis thus works to answer the following question: in the context of film, what are non-mainstream transgender and gender non-conforming filmmakers doing to create more reflective, self-generated representations? Specifically, what unique strategies, approaches, techniques, and mobilizations are being employed to tell novel stories about transness and gender-nonconformity? Essentially: what are T&GNC filmmakers doing differently? Garnering data through qualitative interviews and interpreting it through the framework of experiential narrative, this thesis ultimately identifies a series of production and narrative-based strategies and phenomena - including funding issues, narrative incidentalism, commercial disavowal, and a communal shift - as key dynamics informing T&GNC-made film that, taken together, help to illuminate the practices, struggles, and aims of such filmmakers.

Divisions:Concordia University > Faculty of Arts and Science > Communication Studies
Item Type:Thesis (Masters)
Authors:Drummond, Quinn-Evelynn
Institution:Concordia University
Degree Name:M.A.
Program:Media Studies
Date:12 April 2023
Thesis Supervisor(s):Lynes, Krista
Keywords:narrative, story, transgender, gender non-conforming, film, community
ID Code:992147
Deposited By: Quinn-Evelynn Drummond
Deposited On:21 Jun 2023 14:16
Last Modified:21 Jun 2023 14:16

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