Film Matters: Please tell us about your article that is being published in Film Matters.
Alexandria R. Moore: This piece was really the culmination of my undergraduate intellectual development. It was, to me, a way of dovetailing my humanities education in a way that felt intersectional, representative, probing, and honoring of great female scholars.
FM: What research and/or methodologies do you incorporate in your article?
ARM: Obvious as it is, many hours in the library, scouring shelves and journal databases. I found myself referencing ten-, twenty-, even thirty-years-old film criticism essays that were responding to the first great wave of science fiction fantasies, eighties films that really kicked off American cinematic depictions of cyborgs. A lot of great scholars were responding to that emergence, and I just wasn’t finding modern texts that dealt with those depictions with the same breadth (and poetry) of consideration.
FM: Describe the original context for/when writing this article while an undergraduate student.
ARM: It was the final paper for a class called Women in Film. The class was in fact very intersectional, heavily based in theory and transgressions, and so — in developing this thesis — it didn’t feel unrealistic to unpack a film that hasn’t been received as a feminist film. For this assignment in particular, the professor, Katie Johnson, suggested we aim for a level of quality that might make these papers publishable.
FM: How has your department and/or institution supported your work in film and media?
ARM: Simply by cross-cataloging enough classes so that I was able to delve into my interest of film studies, while still working toward my degree (bachelor’s in professional writing and journalism).
FM: How have your faculty mentors fostered your advancement as a film scholar?
ARM: I would credit a couple advisors here, as I never had just one who supported my work. Elizabeth Hodges, who taught my first film course and introduced Her as a film worthy of a highly theoretical, critical lens. That first week in her class established a permanent love for this field, and over the last year of my undergrad, and, by her example, I learned to use the five senses to draw poetic language into film analysis. Katie Johnson, who oversaw this piece, honored our class by providing readings that were well above the average undergrad-level course expectation, and pushed our minds in new directions every week by challenging what we saw, and how we thought about it. If it weren’t for that, I never could have broken through regurgitation of other smart thinkers into my own brand of intellectual inquiry and response.
FM: How has the Film Matters editorial and publication process impacted the development/evolution of your article?
ARM: After more than a year’s worth of dust collection, I came back, brushed it off, and re-engaged with this piece in a way I might have never done otherwise. The feedback of the editorial board, particularly, forced me to reframe this work with more clarity.
FM: What audience do you hope to reach with your Film Matters article and/or what impact do you hope it has on the field of film studies?
ARM: To consider texts that aren’t branded as “feminist” with a critical lens. Often, the pieces of art that best represent social movement are ones that don’t know they are operating in that way. A character like Samantha is complex; if she is able to take on such a vibrant “realness” without a body, we are owed a certain “realness” of the corporeal women we see in films.
FM: What are your future plans?
ARM: I’m looking to pursue documentary filmmaking now, as a way to employ all this language for film critique I’ve acquired to make something of my own. I also hope to work for a publication, writing a regular news beat or media column, and I plan to go to grad school in fall 2019.
Author Biography
Alexandria R. Moore is a freelance writer, editor, and documentarian living in Washington, DC. Her intellectual framework considers the intersectionality, femininity, race, and social eminence of technologies, imagined and real. She graduated cum laude from Miami University in 2016.
