Panhandle

I am a Professor of Cultural and Critical Theory as a well as Media Studies. I have written 3 books, *Renegade Hero or Faux Rogue: The Secret Traditionalism of Television Bad Boys,* published by McFarland Press in 2014, *Subverting Mainstream Narratives in Reagan’s America: Bringing Power to the People,* published by Palgrave MacMillan in 2018, and a co-authored manuscript about Michael Mann's *Manhunter* with horror scholar Phil Simpson, published by PS Press in 2021. I have published numerous peer-reviewed articles and chapters and spoken around the country during my time as an academic. My work focuses on the representation of gender, race, and queerness in TV and Film, as well as capitalism, politics, and issues such as violence and the abuse of sex in media.

As a screenwriter, my work is very personal, and I aim for a delicate balance of comedy and poignancy. I'm fascinated with working female leads and putting them in situations that one would normally take for granted if the character were male--making women flawed in socially unacceptable ways yet redeeming them in unique arcs.

I love to surprise audiences, to shock them out of complacency and use that as a tool for social change, hidden within entertainment.

As an academic, I'm learning more and more that as a culture we learn more from films and television than ever before, and I want my work to be as responsible as it is fun, exciting, and moving.

I approach my screenwriting with an underlying desire for social justice, and often surprise myself at how that works with the stories I tell. I hope that audiences walk away from films I write entertained with a desire to discuss what they've seen, regardless of whether they see the underlying subtext or not. I hope my work will engage people and entertain them, but ideally open their conversations up to larger ideas about the world around them.