Envisaging Community in Twenty-First Century US Film and Television: Neoliberalism, Relationality, Ecologies
type: CreativeWork
description: This thesis explores interconnected questions of community, politics, neoliberalism, and ecologies in twenty-first century US film and television. Specifically, I examine the work of three American filmmakers — Kenneth Lonergan, Mike White, and Paul Schrader — whose works, I suggest, can be characterised as narratives of responsibility in their foregrounding of moral questions concerning community in a contemporary neoliberal American context. Yet the depiction of community in these works, this thesis argues, is often challenging and ambivalent. Moving across film and television works that respond to key (geo)political markers throughout the twenty-first century, such as 9/11, the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis, and our ongoing climate emergency, the thesis draws on an assemblage of theorists — ranging from Judith Butler, Lauren Berlant, Jean-Luc Nancy, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, among others — to examine how US film and televisual media engage with questions of relationality and collective social responsibility, envisaging forms of political community amidst the multifaceted and destructive workings of neoliberalism in America. In Chapter 1, I analyse Lonergan’s *Margaret* (2011), examining the film’s depiction of community in a post-9/11 New York City, a setting in which questions of alterity and grievability are navigated. While I consider the film in relation to 9/11 and its allegorical dimensions, I also address the contested ethical implications of allegory as a rhetorical device and examine the ways in which these allegorical complexities are necessarily inflected by the film’s cursory engagement with questions of race. Beyond its engagements with 9/11, I also explore the film’s negotiation of individual responsibility and community in relation to neoliberal discourses pertaining to gender and postfeminism. Chapter 2 centres on White’s HBO series *Enlightened* (2011–13), analysing the complex affective dimensions that undergird the series’ crit…
abstract: This thesis explores interconnected questions of community, politics, neoliberalism, and ecologies in twenty-first century US film and television. Specifically, I examine the work of three American filmmakers — Kenneth Lonergan, Mike White, and Paul Schrader — whose works, I suggest, can be characterised as narratives of responsibility in their foregrounding of moral questions concerning community in a contemporary neoliberal American context. Yet the depiction of community in these works, this thesis argues, is often challenging and ambivalent. Moving across film and television works that respond to key (geo)political markers throughout the twenty-first century, such as 9/11, the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis, and our ongoing climate emergency, the thesis draws on an assemblage of theorists — ranging from Judith Butler, Lauren Berlant, Jean-Luc Nancy, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, among others — to examine how US film and televisual media engage with questions of relationality and collective social responsibility, envisaging forms of political community amidst the multifaceted and destructive workings of neoliberalism in America. In Chapter 1, I analyse Lonergan’s *Margaret* (2011), examining the film’s depiction of community in a post-9/11 New York City, a setting in which questions of alterity and grievability are navigated. While I consider the film in relation to 9/11 and its allegorical dimensions, I also address the contested ethical implications of allegory as a rhetorical device and examine the ways in which these allegorical complexities are necessarily inflected by the film’s cursory engagement with questions of race. Beyond its engagements with 9/11, I also explore the film’s negotiation of individual responsibility and community in relation to neoliberal discourses pertaining to gender and postfeminism. Chapter 2 centres on White’s HBO series *Enlightened* (2011–13), analysing the complex affective dimensions that undergird the series’ crit…
author: Townsend, Karim
language: eng
keywords: ecocriticism, ecology, film studies, film theory, neoliberalism, US cinema, US television
license: https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/51871db4-839a-4fa0-a7c5-bad8f19b0262/download
license: https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/
date published: 2023-05-31
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:24:04Z
provider: Cambridge University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Cambridge

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.17863/CAM.107486