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G. Vaughn Joy is a film historian, writer, podcast host, and PhD candidate at UCL.
Vaughn’s research interests lie in entertainment and social histories, particularly in the post-war period in the United States. For her PhD research project, Vaughn is exploring the extent to which the US government’s involvement in the motion picture industry impacted the cultural outputs of the early Cold War. To analyse this impact, Vaughn is presenting a case study on Christmas films from 1946 to 1961, including titles such as It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), Miracle on 34th Street (1947), White Christmas (1954), and Babes in Toyland (1961). By exploring the changing cinematic representations of Americans and their traditions during the Christmas season, the thesis argues that these sentimental films, and other innocuous media of the like, are not simply feel-good media, but rather provide social and political commentaries on the world around them, as well as offer a distinct lens to analyse such themes as commercialism and social ills.
Before pursuing a research degree at UCL, Vaughn completed an MA in History also at UCL and an MPhil in Classics at Trinity College Dublin with dissertation titles “Venus in Manhattan: A Study of Gender Relations in Post-WWII New York” and “Reproductive Demonesses: Mental Escapism from Reproductive Failures in the Ancient World,” respectively.
