Beeler, Stan

The Marshmallow Effect is a fictional work that explores the consequences of isolation and trauma on an individual’s identity. The story revolves around the protagonist Arthur, a man who inadvertently creates a reality-bending psychological safe haven to protect himself from his past only to have it warp and transform into an insidious space which forces him to confront said past. This project, written as a screenplay, follows Arthur as he experiences and is affected by horrifically warped versions of his memories, unbound by the rules of reality and fantastical in their proportions, until he becomes an active participant and takes back control of his space and identity. Through discussions of horror, ghosts, folklore, film, and psychological critique, my introduction breaks down the application of setting in the story as a transformative, trauma-informed space that is inexorably intertwined with Arthur’s identity and body, the relationship between the characters and repetition of action to initially reinforce, then defamiliarize, identity, and the difficulties in confronting or coming to terms with trauma in order to move past negativity and into a realm of greater stability in terms of the self and identity.

This thesis explores the body horror subgenre of film, its creation and rise in popularity during the late twentieth century (1975-1995), and how the subgenre’s grotesque and unsettling examination of the human body, its form, and reproductive processes, allowed body horror filmmakers to tackle societal taboos regarding the human body and one’s sexuality. By comparing and contrasting the body horror subgenre with both its contemporary the slasher subgenre and its thematic sexual origins within Victorian Gothic fin de siècle horror fiction, this thesis will provide evidence that the subgenre makes significant strides within the horror genre to push a more progressive narrative and representation of men, women, and the LQBTQ+ community, through its deconstruction of the human body/form, sexuality, and reproductive processes. Through a detailed breakdown and analysis of Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979), David Cronenberg’s Shivers (1975) and The Fly (1986), Clive Barker’s Hellraiser (1987) and Nightbreed: The Director’s Cut (2014), and Roger Donaldson’s Species (1995), this thesis will demonstrate how filmmaking techniques, themes, and narratives of these films, deconstruct previous notions of the human body and sexuality within the horror genre, and encourage audiences to re-evaluate the body, and the roles/positions/pressures society has created around sexuality and perceived sexual taboos and fears.

This thesis examines Suzanne Collins‘ use of “arena fiction” conventions and historical social reform movements in The Hunger Games trilogy (THG) to encourage reflection on the means of subverting the intended effects of spectacle, but also to consider the cost of consuming or using children in social reform. My thesis argues that THG is an arena story which explores the mechanics of social reform through powerful visuals while also exploring the personal cost, especially on children, of becoming a visual symbol of resistance. I show how THG is rooted in historical social reforms and why these are so useful for Collins to generate visual resistance literacy in her readers and push her use of arena fiction deeper into exploring child bodies. Finally, through a close reading of the subversions in THG, I argue that Collins uses both arena fiction and history to further reflection on children‘s participation in reform movements.