Para/texts for the movie Archie's Final Project: navigating stigma and profit imperatives to discuss suicide and human connections.

In light of the high suicide rates among youth in the United States and the role that media can play in educating the public about it, this paper examines how the independent film Archie's Final Project (2009) navigated the lingering stigma attached to suicidality. On the one hand, the film as a tex...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Visual Studies Vol. 41; no. 1; pp. 295 - 308
Main Author: Seggi, Alessandra
Format: Article
Published: Taylor & Francis Ltd Feb2026
Subjects:
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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        atl: Para/texts for the movie Archie's Final Project: navigating stigma and profit imperatives to discuss suicide and human connections.
      aug:
        au: Seggi, Alessandra
        affil: Department of Sociology and Criminology, Villanova University, Villanova, PA, USA
      su:
        United States
        Archie's Final Project (Film)
        Social stigma
        Suicidal ideation
        Paratext
      sug:
        subj:
          Social stigma
          Suicidal ideation
          United States
          Paratext
          Archie's Final Project (Film)
      ab: In light of the high suicide rates among youth in the United States and the role that media can play in educating the public about it, this paper examines how the independent film Archie's Final Project (2009) navigated the lingering stigma attached to suicidality. On the one hand, the film as a text advances the conversation around both teen suicide and the teen experience by defying the silence that the stigma of suicide often imposes. On the other, some of the film's paratexts such as posters and titles appear to have been negatively influenced by the stigma of suicide. This situation allows for a discussion of movie advertising material as a contested territory. Among the several negotiations between various social players, the trade-off between allure and accuracy in the advertising material is examined both from the filmmakers' perspective and indirectly from the audience's perspective, on the basis of interviews with the filmmakers and a close readings of the movie paratexts.
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    language: English
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