Background:

I hold a BA in Film and Television Studies from the University of Lincoln and an MA in Film and Television Studies from the University of Warwick. My MA dissertation was titled Hybridised Musicals: Cinematic Representations of Animated Marginality in Recent Disney Films, which explored how the hybridity of the animated film musical was utilised by Walt Disney Studio to re-present non-western identities throughout their contemporary output, investigating how Disney found itself in a position of power based on the company’s rich animated past of cultivating representations for the big screen. This project developed my interest in the relationship between the musical as a genre and the politics of representations associated with marginalised groups, particularly how they intersect as a means to the revitalise the contemporary musical.

Current Research

My PhD research currently titled Visualising mental health: the role of intersectional marginality in the persistence of the [contemporary] Hollywood film musical, is concerned with how mental health as its own marginal group intersects with the LGBTQIA+ histories and representations from across the Hollywood film musicals vast history, and how this informs the contemporary climate of the genre and its increasing interest in representations of mental health. My thesis will posit a multi-discipline approach to the musical as a genre, understanding it as both a discursive arena for representational discourses, but also as a catalyst for exploring intersecting frameworks through which we can analyse the vital role of marginality across the genre’s history. Both past and present.

Drawing explicitly on Queer & Trans theory, mental health theories/ frameworks, film musical theory and case studies ranging from historical musicals, productions from the Freed Unit, to contemporary film musicals that explicitly engage with mental health, my research ultimately aims to provide intersectional frameworks for the differing marginal groups and representations that have continued to influence the persistence of the Hollywood film musical that accounts for the differing yet shared experiences of such representations for those living on the boundaries of marginality in cinema more broadly.

My research is co-supervised by Dr Julie Lobalzo-Wright and Dr Chris O'Rourke.

Research Interests

My main research interest are in film stardom, performance, celebrity, popular music and cinema, musicals, Hollywood/ American cinema, sound and cinema, animation, queer & trans theories and histories.

I am especially interested in representations in the subjects noted above and how they intersect with one another to form alternative traditions and lens to analyse these areas.