Title
Bending Family Friendly into Fear: Nostalgia, Minstrelsy and Horror in Bendy and the Ink Machine
Date of Award
Spring 5-19-2019
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Film Studies
First Advisor
Kelli Fuery
Abstract
When one thinks of Disney’s Mickey Mouse, fear and horror are not terms normally associated with this iconic American cartoon character; however, the video game Bendy and the Ink Machine turns animated bodies (cartoons) into bodies the player fears. In this game family friendly cartoon characters are transformed into figures of fear. Furthermore, Bendy and the Ink Machine does this by making the bending of Black bodies visible through what I call the gameic gaze. The transformation from family friendly into fear happens through the resistive gaze, the gameic gaze, which lingers on the bending of the diegetic cartoons. Bendy and the Ink Machine actualizes the historical contorting of the Black body starting in slavery and continued by the entertainment industry through bending. Bending and the Ink Machine makes the minstrel origins of cartoons visible through the gameic gaze.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Williams, Isabelle. "Bending Family Friendly into Fear: Nostalgia, Minstrelsy and Horror in Bendy and the Ink Machine." Master's thesis, Chapman University, 2019. https://doi.org/10.36837/chapman.000073