Rhetorical Situation
Carol is based on the book, The Price of Salt (1952) by Patricia Highsmith. The film is set in 1950s New York City and tells the forbidden love story between Carol Aird, an older mid-divorced woman, and Therese Belivet, a younger, aspiring photographer. They first meet at the mall where Therese works, and Carol leaves her gloves at the counter. Entranced and intrigued by the woman she just met, Therese mails them to her using a slip Carol filled out with her name and address in order to have the product she bought shipped to her. Therese is invited to her home and Carol’s husband is skeptical of Therese because he knows about Carol’s homosexuality from a past affair. Since they are in the middle of a divorce, Carol’s husband wants to have a judge consider a “morality clause” as a means to keep their daughter, and Carol flees the city, taking Therese with her. The two meet a traveling salesman who ends up being a private investigator following the two. The PI ends up recording Carol and Therese kissing and having sex as evidence, and Carol leaves Therese abandoned to try and make things right with her husband. The two meet again later after Carol decides to allow her husband to have custody of their daughter so she can be her authentic self. The end of the movie implies that Therese goes back to Carol after being hurt and rejecting Carol’s advances.

Carol through a Radical Feminist Perspective Lens
I chose the Radical Feminist Perspective for this artifact because it “assumes that inequities and oppression stem from how the system creates men and women differently (subject and object gender identities) and the value (or lack of value) associated with them,” (Sellnow 168). In Carol, the two main women in the movie, Carol and Therese, are seen as inferior to their male companions and oftentimes, criticized and verbally attacked for standing up for themselves. Carol has a very dominating personality over her husband, which is why he tries to “shut Carol up” by threatening to take their daughter, Rindy, away. The goal of radical feminist critique is to “reveal how objectifying hegemonic beliefs and behaviors based on sex, gender, or sexual orientation are reinforced or challenged in some way,” (168). This is appropriate for Carol because the movie is about how hegemony is trying to be reinforced into two people who reject it. Since the movie is set in the 1950s, women are typically seen as objects in the film. They are expected to cooperate with the “man of the house” and the men in their lives. Therese, for example, has a boyfriend who she does not enjoy being intimate with (because of her closeted sexuality). While he does not force her to be intimate with him, he makes many remarks about how it isn’t right. Later in the film when she comes out to him, he tells her that “it isn’t right”. He then goes on to try and manipulate Therese by telling her that a woman could never give her what a man is meant to. These statements are meant to reinforce hegemony. However, both Carol and Therese reject these ideals and fight back against a patriarchal structure in order to be with each other. The only exception to this is when Carol leaves Therese to go back with her husband in order to not lose her daughter. Carol and her husband still divorce, and Carol agrees to go to psychoanalytic treatment (reinforcing hegemony), then stops attending because she knows she cannot be fixed (rejecting hegemony).

Potential Implications
By making a rejected attempt at reinforcing hegemony in the film, there could be implications of acceptance in the film. The film itself shows that homosexuality should not be punished, despite the obstacles in it. It also shows that society is not always morally correct, even when it thinks it is.

The Rhetorical Situation
Carol is based on the (my favorite) book, The Price of Salt (1952) by Patricia Highsmith. The film is set in 1950s New York City and tells the forbidden love story between Carol Aird, an older mid-divorced woman, and Therese Belivet, a younger, aspiring photographer. They first meet at the mall where Therese works, and Carol leaves her gloves at the counter. Entranced and intrigued by the woman she just met, Therese mails them to her using a slip Carol filled out with her name and address in order to have the product she bought shipped to her. Therese is invited to her home and Carol’s husband is skeptical of Therese because he knows about Carol’s homosexuality from a past affair. Since they are in the middle of a divorce, Carol’s husband wants to have a judge consider a “morality clause” as a means to keep their daughter, and Carol flees the city, taking Therese with her. The two meet a traveling salesman who ends up being a private investigator following the two. The PI ends up recording Carol and Therese kissing and having sex as evidence, and Carol leaves Therese abandoned to try and make things right with her husband. The two meet again later after Carol decides to allow her husband to have custody of their daughter so she can be her authentic self. The end of the movie implies that Therese goes back to Carol after being hurt and rejecting Carol’s advances.

Neo-Marxist Analysis
According to Sellnow, a neo-Marxist perspective allows rhetors to “expose how material conditions and economic practices shape dominant ideology regarding taken-for-granted assumptions about who ‘ought to be’ and ‘ought not to be’ empowered,” (135). More generally, how texts in pop culture reject or reinforce the status quo. I chose Carol for this perspective because the entire movie is about rejecting societal norms in order to be happy, even if it is a huge obstacle. In Carol, Carol and Therese are rejecting hegemony, the “privileging of a dominant group’s ideology over that of other groups,” (137). This is because instead of following the social order of heterosexuality, they are engaging in a romantic and sexual relationship with each other. Because of this, Carol’s husband is trying to take everything he can away from Carol – especially her daughter. This is the consequence she faces as a result of rejecting hegemony. Othering is the “devaluing consequence of hegemony that perceives those not in the empowered groups as different and as a them,” (137). In the 1950s, homosexuality was seen as a disease. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-I), homosexuality was described as a “sociopathic personality disturbance”. During the  ’50s homosexuality considered hard to treat. Psychiatrists back then believed that it could be treated with psychoanalytic treatment, which Carol ends up receiving as part of a court order in the divorce.

Sellnow describes interpellation as something that occurs when a text leads readers or watchers to identify with certain roles. Using characters as models and anti-models is one way texts do this. According to Sellnow, models are those who act “normal, attractive, and desirable” while anti-models are characters who act “abnormal, unattractive, and undesirable” (139). I believe that in Carol, the audience is led to identify with the anti-models. In societal terms, Carol and Therese are the anti-models because their behavior is “abnormal” and wrong. This means that the audience is taught to reject hegemony in order to side with the anti-models since the movie also perceives characters who reinforce hegemony as antagonists. This makes Carol an oppositional reading because it “challenges the status quo argument about who ought to and ought not to be empowered” (140). More specifically, Carol is a subverted oppositional reading because it rejects hegemony outright, from the very beginning.

Implications of Carol
With the setting of the film, I think Carol shows how far the United States has come with the idea of homosexuality. Given that 70 years ago, it was seen as a disease and now we have the federal right to get married, there have been huge strides for the community. A potential implication of the film could be that it is okay to love who you love even if others say it is wrong. The empowerment that occurs in the movie only does so when the leading women reject the status quo in order to do what they love.

For this post, I am analyzing Henry Selick’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. This is one of the first movies I think of when it comes to fantasy due to its imaginative imagery and ideas.

Rhetorical Situation
The movie is centered around Jack Skellington, Halloweentown’s pumpkin king, who has become bored with the same annual routine of frightening people. While taking a walk, he accidentally stumbles on Christmastown, the complete opposite of Halloweentown; bright colors, feelings of love and gratitude, and what he calls “warm spirits”. Jack decides he wants this world, so he plots to bring Christmas to Halloweentown by kidnapping Santa Claus and taking over the role. Jack realizes his plan doesn’t work out for the best, and it teaches him a lesson on what the true meaning of Christmas is. 

Fantasy Theme Analysis
According to Sellnow, the goal of the fantasy theme analysis is to use it as a methodology that rhetoricians use to “identify, understand, and interpret those converged symbols,” (110). Symbolic Convergence Theory works well for this artifact because there is a high amount of symbolism that makes the movie what it is. The Nightmare Before Christmas has accumulated a massive audience since its debut in 1993 – nearly 30 years later, the movie is still the inspiration behind other films (Coraline) as well as designer fashion collections (VANS, Converse).

VANS comes out with a collection of The Nightmare Before Christmas shoes every year and have done so since the film came out – they tend to be sold out almost every year.

One of the main ideas of the movie that tends to gravitate everyone in is Jack’s love for Sally, a rag doll who is the only one who has doubts about Jack’s plan. Despite her doubts, she still supports him, but ultimately is the reason Jack understands why his plan will not work. Their relationship is even referenced in Blink 182’s 2003 hit, “I Miss You”.

“We can live like Jack and Sally if we want
Where you can always find me
And we’ll have Halloween on Christmas
And in the night we’ll wish this never ends
We’ll wish this never ends”

With that being said, it’s obvious the movie has acquired a huge amount of popularity and still has a great amount of reception to this day. The sanctioning agents in the film vary. For Jack, it would be the quest to bring Christmas to Halloweentown, while for Sally, it would be the quest to get Jack to see himself how she sees him. One indirect motive in the film is that Jack is trying to make Halloweentown better this way because he doubts himself.

Implications
As I mentioned before, there were a lot of implications from this artifact. Sellnow suggests considering “the impact of a shared social reality within a community,” (117). I believe that the movie’s constant role in designer collections and music show the impact the movie had on 90s and early 2000s pop culture, well blending into culture today.