2026-09-20T23:16:58Zhttps://wakespace.lib.wfu.edu/server/oai/request

oai:null:10339/393012026-09-18T12:07:13Zcom_10339_14934col_10339_38132

Bagwell, Daniel Steven 2014-07-10T08:35:37Z 2014-07-10T08:35:37Z 2014 https://wakespace.lib.wfu.edu/handle/10339/39301 The horror film genre utilizes spectacles of the human body while alluding to our worst fears beyond the silver screen. "Body horror" is a unique sub-genre that distorts the very nature of human flesh for horrific effect. David Cronenberg's <italic>Videodrome</italic> (1983) is an exemplary body horror text that incorporates themes of disease, metamorphosis, and gendering bodies to allude to a litany of social problems facing the larger body politic. I explore how such fears are rooted in the loss of human control surrounding mortality, identity, exploitative media, technology, corporate influence, and gendered power dynamics. I argue for the extension of Kenneth Burke's terministic screen theory into the realm of filmic visual rhetoric, identifying ways that cinematic bodies in <italic>Videodrome</italic> shape particular messages regarding broader social problems. In doing so, I argue that rhetorical critics should focus not only on <italic>what</italic> horror films communicate, but <italic>how</italic> they do so. en Wake Forest University bodies body horror Burke terministic screen Videodrome visual rhetoric Filmic Bodies as Terministic (Silver) Screens: Embodied Social Anxieties in Videodrome Thesis Von Burg, Ron Dalton, Mary Atchison, Jarrod Communication open.access