Disney's Pocahontas: A Critical Analysis

Full Sail University, 2015

This critical analysis attempts to identify and address the appropriation of indigenous culture in the animated film Pocahontas (1995). Specifically, how this film utilizes the major American Indian stereotypes of the “lovely Indian princess,” “natural ecologist,” “noble savage,” and “wise Chief” commonly used in films in contrast to the “white savior” trope to assuage American audiences.​

Hollywood’s China: China in the Eyes of America’s Twentieth Century Youth

Mills College, 2011

This critical analysis attempts to identify and address the stereotypical roles relegated to Chinese and Chinese American characters and actors in twentieth-century media marketed for children. This examination focuses on the animated short “Harem Scarem” (1928), the film The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932), the graphic novel “Tintin and the Blue Lotus” (1936), and “The Nutcracker Suite” from the film Fantasia (1940).

A Familiarity with Pirates: Adapting the Pirates of the Caribbean from a Disneyland Attraction into an Open Seas Adventure

Mills College, 2009

This essay attempts to highlight and demonstrate the adaptation process between Disneyland's attraction with that of Walt Disney Studio's Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise, as well as the company's creative choices to reinterpret the ride for modern visitors.

My Cameron Frye Complex

Mills College, 2009

Ferris Bueller, my personal life guru since 2007.

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Recognized by the Mills College English department and received the Melody Clarke Teppola Creative Writing Prize in Nonfiction (2010).

The Sound of Silence: The Relationship between Gender Oppression, Performance, and Language in Heldris de Cornuälle’s Romance de Silence

Mills College, 2008

This critical analysis attempts to examine the theme of nature vs. nurture in medieval French author Heldris de Cornuälle’s epic poem Romance de Silence, and the implications of such a struggle reflected in heroine Silence's (Silentia/Silentius) own gender identity.

Recognized by the Mills College Women's Gender and Sexuality department and received first place for the best academic piece (2009).