Student Voices

Different Places! Real and Hyperreal Las Vegas in Showgirls

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William Smith analyzes how the film Showgirls engages with themes of the hyperreal in its portrayal of Las Vegas. The film makes a jarring break from typical representations of the city, peeling back the layers of Las Vegas to reveal its promises to be inaccessible, profit-driven myths.

Cinetourism and Urban Development: Student Voices Dossier

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Noelle Griffis introduces this issue of Student Voices with a discussion of her Fall 2020 course, Cinema and the City, providing context and an overview of her students' work, as well as links to her course syllabus and assignment. Griffis's course emphasizes the role that urban development has played in racial and economic inequality in the city and the ways these issues have been depicted—or neglected—on screen.

The Millenial Flaneuse in Broad City

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Sasha Nater explores the television series Broad City to consider the extent to which the show's main characters might be considered modern-day flaneuses. The show demonstrates the unique struggles millennial women face as they navigate the city, while also offering up potential for women to make their own place in the city by navigating and narrating their everyday experiences amidst the urban environment.

Culture in the Mediapolis

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Helen Morgan Parmett and Conn Holohan introduce this installment of Student Voices. First, Helen Morgan Parmett discusses the themes of her seminar course, "Culture in the Mediapolis," from which student essays in the section are drawn. Morgan Parmett emphasizes the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic influenced the course and her students. Holohan then provides an introduction to the short films students' submitted as part of the section's special feature on student responses to the pandemic.

Springtime 2020

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Stanley Nugent, an MA student in Film Production & Direction at The John Huston School of Film, N.U.I.G., explores the effect of the lockdown on their 18 year old son in the film "Springtime 2020."

Long Way Home

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In her poetic video essay, "The Long Way Home," Lena Stevens pays homage to the tender moments of togetherness that we are fighting for every moment we spend in isolation.

Sherlock Holmes and Tourism in London

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Michael Naim discusses the phenomenon of Sherlock Holmes tourism in London. Naim argues that Sherlock tours stem from earlier forms of literary tourism, but the series’ multi-generational and multi-media expansions have created a more immersive form of media tourism.
Inside Michigan Central Station under construction, a decaying archway is featured behind construction tape, a sign that reads "Men Working Above," and a construction worker walking in front of the archway toward a construction machine.

Detroit and the Glorification of the Past

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Christian Golden compares the use of ruins in the documentary Detroit: Comeback City and the fiction film Gran Torino, arguing that ruins in these two films resonate with the city’s efforts to attract business and investment through imagining a nostalgic past that can be retrieved to renew Detroit’s future.