Elsa-Margareta Venzmer
Elsa-Margareta Venzmer holds a bachelor’s degree in Media Studies and Musicology and a master’s degree in Media Studies from the Universität Regensburg. In addition, she received a certificate in IT Studies. During her studies she worked as a journalist for the German online newspaper ShortNews, as a film editor for the website Save.TV, and as a freelance author. In 2021 she gained experience as a research fellow at the Institute for Media Studies at Philipps-Universität Marburg. Her research interests include film studies, quality television, fan studies, feminist theory and affect studies.
Project: Ineffable Husbands – Die Inszenierung und Rezeption sentimentaler Männerfreundschaften in Buddy-Filmen und -Serien. Versuch einer Systematisierung des Verhältnisses von Queerbaiting, Affizierung und Fandom
The dissertation project examines the staging and reception of sentimental male friendships in buddy films and TV series. The aim of the project is to determine how these media texts affect viewers through their aesthetic design and narrative themes, and further, how these stimulate emotional appropriation processes and participatory culture, especially the writing of fan fiction. The main interest lies in such fan fictions in which female fans transform two male characters, who in the original texts are linked by a heterosexual friendship (“buddies”), into a homosexual couple and create a love story. The project seeks to analyze what prompts authors of fan fiction to take this narrative step and focuses in particular on the phenomenon of ‘queerbaiting’. The project intends to show that sentimentality plays a crucial role in queerbaiting and affecting the spectator by analyzing films and TV series that rely on the sentimental mode. Next to the forms of the sentimental in cultural texts, the project is also interested in its functions: a second aim is thus to investigate whether and why media producers use certain aesthetics and narrative structures in a targeted manner – for example, so that the discussion of their media texts through the creative appropriation processes of the fans continues many years after their release.
Talks
- Upcoming: „Ineffable Husbands – Die Inszenierung und Rezeption sentimentaler Männerfreundschaften in Buddy-Filmen und -Serien. Versuch einer Systematisierung des Verhältnisses von Queerbaiting, Affizierung und Fandom,“ Film- und Medienwissenschaftliches Kolloquium (ffk) 2023, Paris-Lodron-Universität Salzburg and Universität Mozarteum Salzburg.
- 01/2023: „’We’re partners. What happens to you, happens to me.’“ Buddies im Spielfilm“ (with Kay Kirchmann), Ringvorlesung „Interdisziplinäre Zugänge zu Freundschaft zwischen Gleichheit und Differenz II,“ Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg.
Publications
- Perspektiven des Quality Television. Chemnitz: THENEXTART Verlag, forthcoming in 2023.
- „Big Data, Big Brother, Big Trouble. How A World Dominated By Data Controls Our Lives“ (with Christian Fernández Larrere). In: Fischer, Christian. Kühn, Guido (Hrsg.): Formula Mundi. Impact on Tomorrow (Sammelband zum gleichnamigen internationalen Filmfestival). Hochschule Fulda: E-Publi, 2021, S. 94-106.
- „Das digitale Panopticon – Wie die NSA-Überwachung unser Verhalten verändert.“ In: Bachor, Martina. Hug, Theo. Pallaver, Günther (Hrsg.): Zum Umgang mit Daten im digitalen Zeitalter. Innsbruck: innsbruck university press, 2021, S. 73-92, URL: https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/52177.
- „‚What’s happened to the American Dream?‘ Intertextualität und Interpiktorialität in der Graphic Novel Watchmen.“ In: Forschungsergebnisse von Absolventen und Promovierenden der Fakultät für Sprach-, Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaften der Universität Regensburg, Bd. 3 Nr. 3, 2020, S. 27-44, URL: https://forap.uni-regensburg.de/index.php/slk/article/view/45/46.
- Bob’s Burgers – Gender-Aspekte in einer Animationsserie. Regensburg: Universitätsbibliothek Regensburg, 2016.
- „Geschlechterrollen in der Werbung.“ In: Ottmann, Solveig (Hrsg.): Sprembergs Werbeschallplatten. URL: https://sprembergswerbeschallplatten.wordpress.com/die-werbeforschung/geschlechterrollen-in-der-werbung/, 2014, o.S.