[SOLVED] MC3632 The Cultural Politics of Contemporary Hollywood Assignment 1

Module:	MC3632 The Cultural Politics of Contemporary Hollywood
Assignment:	Assignment 1 – Portfolio of analysis and discussion
Contribution to final mark:	40%
Deadline:	25th November 2024 (3:00pm)

Module Learning Aims and Outcomes assessed in this assignment

MLA a: Interrogation of the relationship between text and context via the relationship between Hollywood films and cultural politics.

MLA b: Employment of textual analysis and ideological criticism in the discussion of Hollywood films. MLA c: Demonstration of applied understanding of key concepts in the study of the cultural politics of identity to examples from contemporary Hollywood.

MLO a: An in-depth and applied understanding of major issues, concepts and debates in the cultural politics of identity.

MLO b: The ability to identify, discern between and engage with the discourses that arise from representational cultures of contemporary Hollywood.

MLO c: A historically located and contextually informed understanding of Hollywood film culture. MLO d: An advanced ability to analyse and discuss Hollywood films in terms of the cultural politics of identity.

MLO e (in part): The ability to synthesise, evaluate and apply key concepts in the study of representation and identity to pre-selected examples of Hollywood cinema.

Brief description of the assignment (including length or wordcount)

TASK

Using the notes you made on the Required Viewings and in seminar discussions as a jumping off point – write an analysis discussing the cultural politics of THREE of the following class case study films that we studied in the first half of the module (choosing them from the options below), each of which should address and answer the following question?

• With reference to specific examples – what does the film do to negotiate the cultural politics of identity and how?

ANALYSIS 1. The Cultural Politics of Frozen

ANALYSIS 2. The Cultural Politics of Crazy, Stupid, Love

ANALYSIS 3. The Cultural Politics of The Fast & The Furious(2001)

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Please number and title each of your analyses as above

2. Please write approximately 650-700 words per analysis, shooting for a combined overall word count that is within 10% of 2000 (i.e. no less than 1800 words overall and no more than 2200 words overall)

3. Please cite at least two relevant course readings per analysis

Wider reading is not required or expected for Assignment 1 as the main focus here is on your analysis of primary texts [i.e. films themselves] and your engagement with and understanding of the course materials. However, you may include references to wider reading if you wish to.

You do not have to include bibliographic information for your cited sources in your word count.

What are we looking for?

Throughout the semester you’ll be preparing to produce clear and convincing critical analysis in writing, via the notes you make during Required Viewings, and the points that you and your classmates make during seminar discussions. But the following explanation should serve as a starting point for you as you begin to work on this assignment.

Each analysis you write will discuss the cultural politics of a given film, via an engagement with the ways in which the films represent and negotiate particular formations of cultural identity (e.g. race, gender, class, etc. and their intersections).

Your analyses should not, therefore, only describe the film and what takes place in it or reproduce excerpts of dialogue. Rather, they should identify, select and explain some specific examples of your choice from the film, in conjunction with relevant concepts, theories and ideas that we encounter on the module, which pertain to the cultural politics of identity. You will use these examples to make an evidence-based argument about the films’ representations. In this case, the evidence will come mainly from a primary text (i.e. the film under analysis).

The emphasis in this assignment is on analysis and discussion rather than on research, so evidence of wider reading is not required or expected. Only evidence of engagement with relevant course readings is required and expected in this regard. Evidence of wider reading and research will be required for Assignment 2 (research essay).

What should each analysis include?

– Reference to relevant textual examples from the film under analysis that illustrate and provide evidence for the points you will make about its cultural politics.

– A clear and concise thesis statement outlined at the beginning of each analysis. Example: “This analysis explores the cultural politics of race in Happy Feet with a view to arguing that the concept of Otherness is embodied in the character of Mumble.”

– Clear concluding remarks that sum up your key points and findings. Example: “Using evidence from the film, and with support from the arguments of Tanine Allison, this analysis has demonstrated some of the ways in which Happy Feet negotiates racial discourse through its characterization of the penguins.”

– A bibliography with a full citation for all cited sources (does not have to be included in your word count)

– Clear writing that has been proof-read for errors and carefully edited for accuracy and comprehensibility.

What is being evaluated in this portfolio of analyses?

– Your overall success in addressing aims a, b and c of the module (see the handbook for full listing of the module aims)

– Your overall success in achieving outcomes a, b, c, and d of the module, and some aspects of e (see the handbook for full listing of the module outcomes)

– Clarity in your analysis and understanding of the key concepts pertaining to the film being dealt with and its cultural politics.

– Your demonstrated ability to conduct original critical analysis (choose your own examples from within the films, and make your own points about them)

– Your use of relevant academic sources and illustrative and persuasive evidence to back up your points (i.e. from the course readings and from the films themselves)

– Accuracy and consistency of referencing, both within the essay and in the bibliography

– Quality of written communication (aim for accuracy, clarity and comprehensibility in how you write)

Tips

– Make your choices carefully

Think about what this assignment is asking you to do and choose what you will analyse accordingly (which films, which examples from within the films, etc.), thinking about how confident you are that you can engage with a film’s cultural politics in a critical and analytical way.

– Take care to use the correct terminology as it pertains to the topic in question (e.g. ideology, hegemony, postfeminism, otherness, race, gender, etc. as appropriate to the points and observations that you are making)

– Proof-read your work thoroughly

It is extremely important that you say what you want to say as clearly as possible. Good points cannot be rewarded if the marker cannot discern them within unclear writing.

– Cite all your sources fully and accurately

Use the same referencing style. consistently throughout your work. Make sure you attribute any quoted or paraphrased material to the proper author. Include a full bibliography at the end of each analysis (you do not have to include it in the word count).

Examples from feedback provided in previous years

N.B. Case study films for this assignment have changed over time in some instances.

Fail:

FROZEN

This piece of writing demonstrates no engagement with the cultural politics of identity as it is depicted in Frozen beyond a perfunctory remark about whiteness that relates to some quoted material that has not been cited. It demonstrates no engagement with the module content beyond a viewing of the film Frozen. It demonstrates misunderstanding of cultural politics and of identity. There is one valid observation made relating to the relationship between representation and points of identification for audiences. The presentation is poor and the analysis is weak and irrelevant to the learning outcomes of the module, and also to the assignment instructions.

HAPPY FEET

This does not demonstrate applied understanding of the module content because it mostly reiterates material from the lecture unreflectively without conducting any analysis independently. There is also misunderstanding and misreading of the racial codification of the penguins in Happy Feet (see my annotations on the document for further explanation). So, despite an attempt to engage with the cultural politics of race in the film, this does not succeed as a convincing analysis.

GET OUT

This analysis begins very confusingly as you state your intention to address the intersection of class and race in The Blind Side underneath a heading that says you will address Get Out. You then proceed to address both Get Out and The Blind Side erroneously. You state that Daniel Kaluuya plays Michael and then proceed to discuss the central character of The Blind Side as if he were played by

Daniel Kaluuya, who is not in The Blind Side at all. Daniel Kaluuya plays Chris, the protagonist of Get Out. You then analyse the visual discourse on the poster for Get Out, but you talk about it as it it were the poster for The Blind Side. I am not sure how you have managed to confuse and conflate these two films, and their respective poster campaigns. But you have. It’s a shame that you conflated your analysis of two different films from two different points in the module, because there are some passable points made in the second half which might have made a difference had it been clear that you knew which films you were talking about.

40% – 49%:

FROZEN

This is a passable but weak analysis of Frozen. An effort has been made to engage with the cultural politics of gender, albeit unsuccessfully (see my annotations on the document). An attempt has been made to engagement with a pertinent course reading, but again, unsuccessfully and with major referencing problems. Specific examples from the film have been cursorily engaged with. The writing is generally clear and the analysis is of an appropriate length.

THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS

This analysis tries to make an argument about race and representation in the case study film but it does not succeed. The relevant class reading by Mary Beltran has been cited, but the engagement with it is cursory and does not demonstrate understanding of her arguments or anlaysis. The remarks about cars as extensions of their owners is interesting but it has not been persuasively demonstrated the extent to which or whether this has anything to do, specifically, with race, beyond the relatively unmoored quoted material from Bond (2017). Some cursory attention has been paid to the depicted social hierarchies along racial lines (i.e. Paul Walker’s character’s status as an undercover cop), but the relevance of this to the film’s cultural politics has not been made explicit. There are times when points are made and then subsequently contradicted (see my annotations).

GET OUT

This analysis has many of the same problems as the previous two, although some extra plus points here include the interesting remarks about “white fragility” and the applicability of this idea to the depiction of whiteness in the case study film. Still, the quality here remains very patchy and presentation remains poor.

50% – 59%:

FROZEN

There are different strengths and weaknesses here. You engage with the cultural politics of race by pointing out that the overwhelming whiteness of the characters is in some ways at odds with their ethnically marked clothing, and you do well to argue that this constitutes cultural appropriation. You further engage with the cultural politics of race by arguing that the troll characters are coded as people of colour, pointing to some pertinent visual characteristics to back up your claim. You also draw on relevant course material by citing the Pino Diaz reading. There are a number of simple things that could be done to improve presentation, such as using double spacing, left aligning the text, and italicising film titles. There are also mistakes in the writing in the use of punctuation and capital letters that suggest a need for more careful proof reading. Also, some of your points are vaguely expressed or under-developed (see my annotations for examples), and a statement towards the end suggests that there has been some misunderstanding of how the process of hegemonic negotiation takes place and how the cultural politics of identity are negotiated through popular texts like this. Some good points and observations made here though.

CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE

This analysis sets out to draw on Gill’s elements of postfeminist media culture in order to discuss the construction of gender roles in this film. A number of pertinent observations about the depiction of gender in the film are made, but you have not successfully demonstrated how these observations relate to how Gill conceptualises postfeminist media culture, beyond noting that the film features a make-over scene (you could, and should, have noted that the make-over paradigm is one of the tropes of media culture that Gill argues is constitutive of postfeminism), and later that Jessica’s sexual agency constitutes postfeminism (you could, and should, have made an explicit link to what Gill says about the sexualisation of culture). There continue to be mistakes in the writing, especially in the use of possessive apostrophes. And there continues to be a need for more careful proof reading. The first reference to the case study film gets the title wrong.

HAPPY FEET

This analysis engages with the relevant reading by Tanine Allison in order to discuss white appropriation of black performance in Happy Feet, and thus engages with a relevant aspect of the film’s cutlural politics of identity – specifically its cultural politics of race. However, you rely too much on Allison’s claims and too many of the points made are those that come from the reading, rather than from textual engagement with the film itself. The analysis would have been stronger had you been able to take the film itself as the starting point, drawing on the Allison reading to support your own observations about the film. Towards the end of the discussion you leave the text behind altogether in favour of hypothetical speculation which means that the discussion is no longer functioning as a textual analysis. Some understanding of some of Allison’s points is demonstrated though. The problems with the writing and presentation that I refer to above also remain here.

60% – 69%:

FROZEN

This is a well observed reading of the cultural politics of gender that makes a number of good points, refers to some pertinent examples from the text, and draws on the appropriate class readings for support. There are a number of instances where you could have reflected further on the ideological stakes of some of your observations and some of your points are under-developed and need to be unpacked if they are to hold water, but overall you’ve done a good job of demonstrating the extent to which Frozen purports to make a progressive intervention into the status quo of Disney’s cultural politics of gender.

HAPPY FEET

Here you are still making good points and observations about the film’s cultural politics of race, but this one works less well as a textual analysis because you don’t pay enough attention to specificities of the film itself. As I note on the document, you’d have been better off just focussing on the point you make about the racial coding of the character of Lovelace and going into detail to explain how that has happened. It would have given you more scope to engage with the film at a textual level. All the same, good understanding is demonstrated of the relevant course content and there is good engagement with relevant ideas from the course readings.

THE BLIND SIDE

This analysis improves on the Happy Feet analysis in that you make better use of textual examples from the film itself, but you have tried to cover too many bases here again. You could have limited your focus to two examples that demonstrated the intersection of race and class in this film, i.e. Leanne’s voice-over, and the school pick-up scene, and gone into more depth and detail on those, and that would have worked better for you to make this into a textual analysis. All the same, it is good to see those examples referenced at all, and there are still good points and good understanding demonstrated here.

70% – 79%:

FROZEN

For the most part this is a very thoughtful and considered analysis of the cultural politics of gender in Frozen that narrows the focus of the discussion nicely and pays good attention to the relationship between text and context, considering the film in its larger institutional context. There are notes and queries on the document that suggest some of the ways in which it could have been stronger (e.g. by name-checking the examples you refer to, avoiding absolutism in the making of points, taking care to ensure clarity in your writing), but this is a good, strong reading of the film.

300

Another strong analysis that makes good use of textual examples and support from relevant secondary sources to conduct and informed and conceptually engaged analysis of this film that reads the juxtaposition between the Persians and the Spartans by viewing it through the critical lens of Orientalism and colonial discourse. There are still some issues with clarity of expression, but this remains strong work. So far the quality of your work from one analysis to the next (in terms of both strengths and weaknesses) is very consistent.

THE BLIND SIDE

Another strong analysis to finish with. Again you’ve engaged with relevant key concepts really well, you’ve paid close and observant attention to relevant details from the film with which to illustrate your points, and your argumentation is persuasive. The same issue of slight lack of clarity in some of the writing persists, but this is still very good work. You’ve produced a strong portfolio of analysis here, well done.

80% and above:

FROZEN

This is an excellent analysis. You do a great job of engaging with the text itself, paying impressive attention to a series of small but significant details and interpreting them with considerable flair, across a range of very well-chosen examples. You maintain a strong through line of argument to the effect that Frozen corresponds to some of Gill’s elements of the postfeminist sensibility, and you do so highly successfully with strong, evidence-based argumentation. Your writing is fluent, persuasive and engaging, and you make excellent use of the cited secondary source for support. Your understanding of gender as a social construct also comes across impressively and clearly. Outstanding.

HAPPY FEET

Another excellent analysis. Your approach seems to be similar across your analyses in that you select a relevant critical paradigm and use it to support a forthrightly articulated line of argument, and you do this extremely well. Your attention to significant textual detail remains outstanding, and your interpretation of this detail remains impressive and persuasive. You demonstrate strong understanding of what this film does via mind/body dualism to negotiate its cultural politics of race. I also enjoyed your adaptation of Gill (‘blackness as a bodily property’) very much – and it really worked well for the purposes of your analysis.

GET OUT

This analysis is also outstanding. This is such a rich film for our purposes, you could have gone in any number of relevant directions with it, but you narrowed your focus extremely cannily and you did so in a less obvious way than most, enabling you to showcase your critical flair and ability and enabling you to offer some original and highly well observed analysis of one aspect of this film’s cultural politics of the intersection of race, class and gender. Every point is well made, and beautifully illustrated and backed up. And the way you draw for support on Collins’ scholarship is excellent. Outstanding work. Well done.

What happens if you miss the deadline?

You will be penalised if you do not have extenuating circumstances and you miss the deadline for this assignment. If you submit your assignment in the 24 hours following the deadline, your mark will be capped at 40%. If you submit your assignment after 24 hours have passed, your assignment will receive a mark of 0%.

What happens if you fail this assignment?

If you fail this assignment but you obtain a passing mark overall in this module, you will not be required to resubmit this assignment.

If you fail this assignment and your overall mark for this module is not a pass, the examining board may invite you to resubmit this assignment during the re-sit period in August. Please wait for instructions from the examining board if you find yourself in this situation.