History Creator / LindsayEllis

* StudentDebtPlot: has spoken about her problems while studying at, and after graduating from, USC, where student debt caused a rift in her working relationship with Website/ChannelAwesome.

DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything:

* ProductPlacement: "Product Placement and Fair Use", [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin appropriately enough]], has Lindsay go over the modern motivations behind this, as well as the distinction between it and non-endorsed UsefulNotes/FairUse.

* SpiritualAntithesis: Discussed in "Independence Day vs. War of the Worlds", especially given where they fall on the SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism.

** The MediaNotes/DisneyRenaissance. Lindsay discusses this ''a lot'' in her videos, especially [[UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfAnimation the years leading up to it]], its rise in popularity, its decline (which she attributes to ''WesternAnimation/{{Pocahontas}}''), and [[GenreKiller its downfall]]. She consistently posits that it started out strong but, due to being StrictlyFormula, audiences quickly got tired of seeing the same movie over and over in favor of the more unique Creator/{{Pixar}} stories and subversive Creator/DreamWorksAnimation.

** In "Are Disney Villains Going Extinct?", Lindsay discusses the history of how big, iconic Disney villains lost relevance. In classic films from when Creator/WaltDisney was alive, most movies were simple [[BlackAndWhiteMorality good versus evil]] stories where the villains acted as the evil for the heroes to defeat. In the early [[UsefulNotes/TheRenaissanceAgeOfAnimation Disney Renaissance]], villains manipulating teenage protagonists searching for a [[ComingOfAgeStory coming-of-age sense of identity]] for their own ends also worked, but by the late Renaissance and early Revival, Disney villains had become TheArtifact. By the early Disney Revival, [[WesternAnimation/ThePrincessAndTheFrog Dr. Facilier]] and [[WesternAnimation/{{Tangled}} Mother Gothel]] were [[TheLastOfHisKind the last of their kind]].
** In a number of videos, Lindsay also discusses the end of [[UsefulNotes/TheRenaissanceAgeOfAnimation Disney Renaissance]], how audiences got tired of seeing the same [[BlackAndWhiteMorality good vs evil]] [[ComingOfAgeStory teenage coming-of-age musical]] over and over, paving the way for the more unique and subversive Creator/{{Pixar}} and Creator/DreamWorksAnimation stories during the TurnOfTheMillennium.

*** Regarding the movie ''Film/{{Titanic|1997}}'', Lindsay argues that its monolithic success -- or rather, [[HypeBacklash the enormous backlash towards its success]][[invoked]] -- marked the end of the perception that widely popular films and "TrueArt" [[ItsPopularNowItSucks could cross over]], citing how [[UsefulNotes/AcademyAward The Academy]] has since been extremely hesitant to even nominate mainstream films in a ghetto they arbitrarily created.

** In "Are Disney Villains Going Extinct?", Lindsay argues the [[UsefulNotes/TheRenaissanceAgeOfAnimation Renaissance Era of Disney]] petered out because [[StrictlyFormula audiences got tired of seeing the same]] [[ComingOfAgeStory teenage coming-of-age musicals]] again and again. She argues TheNewTens Disney is also StrictlyFormula: [[BuddyPicture buddy comedy]] [[RoadTripPlot road trip plots]] with a male and female lead ([[OfficialCouple romantic]] [[TheNotLoveInterest or not]]) [[WesternAnimation/ThePrincessAndTheFrog who have to]] [[WesternAnimation/WreckItRalph learn to]] [[WesternAnimation/{{Tangled}} get along]] [[WesternAnimation/Frozen2013 and fix]] [[WesternAnimation/{{Zootopia}} each other's flaws]] [[WesternAnimation/{{Moana}} and their own]] to undergo CharacterDevelopment, all while [[BetterThanABareBulb constantly lampshading, lampooning, and subverting classic Disney tropes]]. Lindsay speculates that it's only a matter of time before TheNewTens audiences get tired of seeing the same movie over and over again as they did in TheNineties.

** She goes into great detail of the subject in her ''Loose Canon'' two-parter of 9/11, describing how media ([[UsefulNotes/{{Bollywood}} and not simply Hollywood]]) reacted to the disaster and the various stages of interpretation as the years go on.

* SignatureStyle: In Part 2 of ''The Whole Plate'', she says that it's a good point of UsefulNotes/TheAuteurTheory, that directors having certain key themes that show up throughout their bodies of work.

* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotDidactic: {{Invoked|Trope}}, {{Deconstructed|Trope}}, and partially played for [[SelfDeprecation self-deprecating laughs]] regarding ''The Whole Plate'', where she uses the ''Film/TransformersFilmSeries'' [[{{Applicability}} as a vessel for various political readings]], from UsefulNotes/TheAuteurTheory to feminist and Marxist theory. As she points out several times in the series, the point of critical media studies is less to pin down a deliberate, intended political message in the work, but rather to raise questions about how audiences consume media and what it says about the culture that created and surrounds it, even if [[ItsNotSupposedToWinOscars the subject she chose is considered "lowbrow."]] This is supported by the fact as pointed out in her episode on auteur theory, Creator/MichaelBay considers himself a deeply political person whose worldview seeps into his work, even if he doesn't like actively discussing what that means.

* AuthorAvatar: She has a good time in her "Loose Canon" video on ''Theatre/ThePhantomOfTheOpera'' with pointing out that Creator/AndrewLloydWebber, a deeply talented but homely man working as a theater composer and, at the time, courting an ingenue with a beautiful voice who eventually left him, decided to adapt a story about a deeply talented but homely man working as a theater composer and courting an ingenue with a beautiful voice who eventually leaves him. She half-jokingly suggests that this is probably why the theatrical adaptation ends up playing up the romance a lot.

** In her Loose Canon TwoPartEpisode on ''Phantom of the Opera'', Lindsay opens the second part by talking about a composer who becomes enamored of a soprano diva and writes a show for her to star in -- specifically, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Sarah Brightman.
** In her video essay on ''Phantom of the Opera'', she talks about how the film world has trended in a realistic direction ever since one Michael Crawford starring musical. It seems apparent that she's referring to the titular musical, since Michael Crawford originated the role of the Phantom in the stage production. However, she is actually talking about the film version of the musical ''Film/HelloDolly'' which Michael Crawford also happened to star in as the clerk Cornelius Hackl.

** Her full video essay on ''Phantom of the Opera'' touches on how the failure of ''Film/HelloDolly'' was the marked ending of lavish, big-budget live-action Hollywood musicals. "The Death of the Hollywood Movie Musical" greatly expands on the surrounding context and major missteps that made it less of a single major fault and more of a final nail in the coffin. Near the end of the video, she also points out how the root cause -- Hollywood's mentality of throwing money at dying trends in an attempt to save them [[CondemnedByHistory before they inevitably die without any chance of a revival]] -- is still a pervasive modern attitude.

** In part 2 of the episode on Phantom of the Opera, she gives a shout-out to ''Phantom of the Mall: Eric's Revenge'' not to really discuss the differences of its Phantom, but to share its sheer [[TheEighties 80's-ness]] and hilariously ridiculous plot.

** Her ''Loose Canon'' episode on Death [[AnthropomorphicPersonification as a character]] runs into this quite a bit, with various Deaths being sympathetic and caring like in ''ComicBook/TheSandman1989'' or in ''[[Series/TheTwilightZone1959 The Twilight Zone]]'s'' "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E81NothingInTheDark Nothing In The Dark]]", having a comical side like in ''Film/TheSeventhSeal'' or ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'', having a character arc like in ''Film/BillAndTedsBogusJourney'' or ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'', or some combination of the three.

** In her ''Loose Canon'' of UsefulNotes/ElizabethI, she plugs WebVideo/BrowsHeldHigh [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3uYipLshD4 for a more in-depth analysis]] of [[ConspiracyTheorist the sheer insanity of]] ''Film/{{Anonymous}}''.

--->'''Lindsay:''' This is a trend we see in a LOT of [[UsefulNotes/DisneyRenaissance Renaissance]] movies: The heroine states a want--be it, you know, [[WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaid1989 legs]], or [[WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast "adventure in the great wide somewhere"]], or [[WesternAnimation/{{Aladdin}} love-marriage]], or [[WesternAnimation/{{Hercules}} not being in service to]] [[EverybodyHatesHades Satan]] [[WesternAnimation/{{Hercules}} anymore]]--but the solution at the end always seems to wind up being... ''guys'' [...] And personally, I find that little trend of "Woman's self-actualization being defined by [[NeverASelfMadeWoman what guy she ends up with]]" ''WAAAY'' more insidious than "Whether or not this movie is about StockholmSyndrome."

** In "Woke Disney" she argues that Disney has been putting [[BetterThanABareBulb "self aware"]] meta commentary into their movies since at least ''WesternAnimation/{{Aladdin}}'', but while it started out as just the occasional throwaway gag in the UsefulNotes/DisneyRenaissance (such as Zazu briefly singing "It's a Small World After All," much to [[BigNo Scar's disgust]]), by ''Film/{{Enchanted}}'' it featured more heavily in their stories, and by TheNewTens it's grown into the entire basis for why their movies are made, and to justify each film's existence. From main entry movies like ''WesternAnimation/{{Moana}}'' and ''WesternAnimation/RalphBreaksTheInternet'' ''constantly'' lampshading and lambasting their own tropes to preemptively appease every possible criticism instead of just telling a compelling story, to Disney's live-action remakes obviously having no point to their existence other than to make money, so the filmmakers throw in lot of faux "self-aware critical analysis" as a flimsy pretext to make the cash-grabbing live-action remakes.

** The UsefulNotes/DisneyRenaissance. Lindsay discusses this ''a lot'' in her videos, especially [[UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfAnimation the years leading up to it]], its rise in popularity, its decline (which she attributes to ''WesternAnimation/{{Pocahontas}}''), and [[GenreKiller its downfall]]. She consistently posits that it started out strong but, due to being StrictlyFormula, audiences quickly got tired of seeing the same movie over and over in favor of the more unique Creator/{{Pixar}} stories and subversive Creator/DreamWorksAnimation.

* GuiltyPleasures:[[invoked]] Actually discusses and deconstructs this in a number of episodes. On the whole, Lindsay firmly believes that liking something or not is purely an emotional reaction, not necessarily a reflection of the quality or "logic" of a work. Some people can articulate why they like something better than others, some works of fiction are more structurally sound than others, but at the end of the day all fiction is meant to scratch an emotional itch. Even the best quality works can fail to elicit a strong reaction in some people, and even the worst-made media will have people who love it. (And she'll admit when she's being [[HypocrisyNod biased]] about something too.) She also argues in a number of videos (especially her ''Film/{{Transformers}}'' miniseries and the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8O06tMbIKh0 "Dear Stephenie Meyer"]] video) that, more often than not, media that people are made to feel "guilty" for liking are genres made [[GirlShowGhetto for, by, and about women]] (or [[MinorityShowGhetto minorities]], or [[AnimationAgeGhetto "children"]], the {{lowest common denominator}}), whereas equally flawed media geared towards men or teenage boys get much less flak.
** In an AsHerself video during the Nostalgia Chick era, she listed ten of these: ''Film/BattlefieldEarth'', ''Film/{{Showgirls}}'', ''Film/IndependenceDay'', every Meg Ryan movie from 1988 to 2002 (except ''Film/YouveGotMail''), ''WesternAnimation/{{Hercules}}'', ''Film/OmShantiOm'', ''Film/AVPAlienVsPredator'', ''Film/TwoThousandTwelve'', ''WesternAnimation/TransformersTheMovie'' and ''Film/HowTheGrinchStoleChristmas''. She's constantly apologizing for the last two.

** She points out in ''Film/{{Transformers}}'' that the film's ArcWords are the Witwicky motto ("no sacrifice, no victory"), but this doesn't make a lot of sense when the main character of the story is Sam, who... doesn't really sacrifice anything. This is part of the reason she prefers to interpret Mikaela as the real protagonist, because she actually has sacrificed things in her life.

** As for female human characters, Lindsay points out that while later films reduce them to walking punchlines, dry authoritarian figures that need to be challenged, or {{Fanservice}}y [[FlatCharacter "sexy lamps"]] [[LivingProp that exist just for]] [[DamselInDistress other peoples' conflict]], [[Film/{{Transformers}} the first film]] directly commentates on issues of gender inequality in male-dominated tech fields and is surprisingly sympathetic to its female characters... on paper. She argues that [[Creator/MeganFox Mikaela Banes]] is the most well-developed, well-rounded, and thematically whole character in the series, but is frequently remembered as a mindless MsFanservice [[DistractedByTheSexy due to the camera visually objectifying and framing her as one]].

*** "[[Film/{{Transformers}} I ate da whole plate.]]"

** She feels this way about Mikaela in the Film/TransformersFilmSeries. She argues that Mikaela was the best-written character in [[Film/{{Transformers}} the first movie]] and would've made a far better protagonist than Sam Witwicky, given that not only is her character the one in the whole film who displays an interest in cars (in a film that's very much about cars, albeit ones that are actually robots in disguise), but her arc lines up with the film's themes of self-sacrifice. Unfortunately, her framing in the films used her mainly as MsFanservice, to the point where audiences [[DistractedByTheSexy largely forgot she even had a character]].

* ThisLoserIsYou: Analyzes it a bit in ''The Whole Plate'', comparing ''Film/{{Guardians of the Galaxy|2014}}'' to ''Film/{{Transformers}}'': both have a crude, jerkish, perverted, entitled manchild as their lead character and the presumed audience-identification character. However, what makes Peter Quill work where Sam Witwicky doesn't is that ''Guardians'' makes an effort to treat Quill's character flaws as, well, flaws, and has him genuinely go through hell or develop because of them. Meanwhile, Sam's flaws are treated as just wacky comedic stuff that's meant to make him relatable, and he's never really challenged or forced to change by this (if anything, he gets worse). Notably, she points out that Peter Quill DidNotGetTheGirl, while Sam gets multiple girls. This makes Quill actually have a character arc and impresses a genuine moral upon the audience, whereas Sam impresses upon the audience that being an asshole is perfectly fine and comes across as static and unlikable.

* BestKnownForTheFanservice[[invoked]]: {{Discussed|Trope}} and {{deconstruct|ion}}ed with Mikaela Banes from ''{{Film/Transformers}}'', pointing out how [[MaleGaze because the camera is so focused]] [[MsFanservice on Megan Fox's body]], viewers completely forgot her genuine but relatively out-of-focus character arc and [[WrenchWench personality]] and assumed that she was a purely mindless piece of eye candy. Lindsay even points out the scene where Mikaela snarks to Sam about not being taken seriously because she's a girl and recognizing something's unusual with his car... [[{{Irony}} which is frequently remembered as just "Megan Fox bending sexily over a car."]]

** She's rather discouraged that Creator/MichaelBay's first ''Film/{{Transformers}}'' film is feminist-friendly ''on paper'', with Mikaela struggling to be taken seriously by male characters who look down on her because of her looks and gender, despite her knowing more about cars than all of them in a film ''about cars'', [[MaleGaze only for the film's cinematography to undermine her struggle by framing her as]] [[MsFanservice the very disposable sex object men see her as]], causing audiences to dismiss her as a disposable sex object too.

* VoiceClipSong: The episode intro theme to ''The Whole Plate'', using the namesake line from ''Film/{{Transformers}}''.

* SissyVillain: [[invoked]]Briefly discussed in "Queering Michael Bay" of ''The Whole Plate'', going over the popularity of depicting effete villains via [[QueerPeopleAreFunny effeminate]] [[AmbiguouslyGay queer-coding]], from [[Film/TheMalteseFalcon1941 Joel Cairo]] to various animated Disney villains including [[WesternAnimation/TheLionKing1994 Scar]], [[WesternAnimation/{{Pocahontas}} Governor Ratcliffe]], and [[WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaid1989 Ursula]] (a [[GenderInvertedTrope gender-inverted]] example explicitly designed after a drag queen). [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools Lindsay also makes a point that queer-coded villains aren't always a negative thing]], as [[LGBTFanbase some have been openly embraced by LGBT communities]] as a reclamation of power.

Initially gaining popularity as ''WebVideo/TheNostalgiaChick'' on Website/ChannelAwesome in 2008, she departed in 2015, discontinuing the title, but continued to produce content on Website/YouTube under her own name until her departure and retirement in 2021. She initially started with a SpiritualSuccessor series titled ''Loose Canon'', though she later moved onto producing miscellaneous video essays.

Lindsay's video essays are often very analytical, owing to her experience and Master's degree in film criticism. Her videos tackle various topics, from film technique, to feminist theory, to production history, and more, observing popular works including that of the Franchise/DisneyAnimatedCanon and Creator/MichaelBay's ''[[Film/TransformersFilmSeries Transformers]]'' series.

Her blog is [[http://namebrandlindsay.com here]], her official {{Website/Facebook}} is [[http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Nostalgia-Chick/167999883240474 here]], her {{Website/Tumblr}} is [[http://lindsayetumbls.tumblr.com/ here]], and her {{Website/Twitter}} account (run by an assistant) is [[https://twitter.com/thelindsayellis here]][[note]]The account was formerly deleted in the wake of her departure and retirement; an archive is available [[https://web.archive.org/web/20210507233538/http://twitter.com/thelindsayellis here]][[/note]].