The Revolution, Televised: Iconography, Visual Violence and the Struggle for Racial Justice

This thesis exists in two interconnected parts. The first is a narrative film that explores the relationship between a white, single mom, Noa, her daughter, Maia, and Lucas, the black man who babysits for the family. The film takes place during the fall and winter of 2014, when the murders and no indictments in the cases of Michael Brown and Eric Garner occurred and broadcasted widely. It tracks the relationship they each have to the TV and the news and how that informs and shapes the relationship they have to each other. The written component of the thesis contextualizes the film within legacies of visual violence and subversive filmmaking. The essay explores the histories of violent white supremacist images, their continued legacy in cinema, and ways to resist and subvert these ideologies through the creation of new art.