In Spring 2019, Sophie Washington completed an Independent Study with Professor Erin Johnson (DCS and Visual Arts). Here is the final product:
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This short film is a visual essay and research documentary exploring the ways that recent filmic media from the early to late 2000s produced in Hollywood and online media (social media, online games and chat rooms) has shaped a cultural understanding of media-induced femininity. These notions of femininity are internalized by young women growing up in the 2000s and reproduced via the 21st century modes of identity through online profiles and social media accounts. Digital identity in millennial and Gen Z young women is a result of mixing both technology and social media with iconic cult films from the past two decades. Young women are both cognizant of and shape their identity based on a perceived, shared identity that has seeped through layers of media culture specifically since the advent of online and social media, with Hollywood’s help during the golden age of the “chick flick.” Cultural and historical influence in Hollywood films of the 2000s created distinct ideas of femininity and a combined digital experience of early online games and chatrooms shows distinct ties to contemporary shared and mass online identity in millennial young women, seen again through another wave of Hollywood films about young women’s self-expression online.