Document Type

Thesis

Degree

Master of Arts (MA)

Major/Program

English

First Advisor's Name

Jason Pearl

First Advisor's Committee Title

Committee chair

Second Advisor's Name

Michael Grafals

Second Advisor's Committee Title

Committee member

Third Advisor's Name

Michael Patrick Gillespie

Third Advisor's Committee Title

Committee member

Fourth Advisor's Name

Mark Kelley

Fourth Advisor's Committee Title

Committee member

Keywords

Hyperreality, Pandemic, Uncanny, Film, Bo Burnham

Date of Defense

3-24-2023

Abstract

The main purpose of this thesis is to examine comedian Bo Burnham’s 2021 musical comedy special Bo Burnham: Inside as it questions reality and the subsequent production of the self in a digital age. This thesis aims to examine the special through the lens of two guiding theoretical concepts, the uncanny and the hyperreal, and how they interact and effect both an understanding of the special’s social critique of mass digital content consumerism and rising concern over authenticity online. Consequently, the work of Martin Heidegger and Jean Baudrillard respectively are discussed at length in tandem with the special. This thesis proposes the argument that the special is not merely a useful example of these theories at work, but a deliberate rebuttal against compulsory categorization and rigid binary thinking in our everyday lives, expanding upon these initial questions about reality and the (un)canny itself. This thesis reveals therefore a historically delimited concern with reality and of our mutual strangeness as people long before the era in which the special was produced - the Pandemic acting not as a catalyst for these issues, but as a breaking point.

Identifier

FIDC011081

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