Does it explain the evidence and the argument? (20)
Is it providing an original idea or engaging in an argument in a thoughtful and innovative way? (10)
Is it easy to follow? (10)
Is it free of grammar and mechanical errors? (10)
Why is it important to understand theory before delving into topics of fear and horror?
Psychoanalysis Part 1
Writers of the
1970s who turned to Freud and Lacan - the two most influential psychoanalysts - we-
re critical, however, of what they perceived to be an underlying essentialism in Jungi-
an theory, that is a tendency to explain subjectivity in unchanging, universal terms.
According to Freud, large parts of human thought remain unconscious;
that is, the subject does not know about the content of certain troubling ideas and of-
ten much effort is needed to make them conscious
These ideas have also influenced film study and
some psychoanalytic critics explore the 'unconscious' of the film text - referred to as the 'subtext' - analysing it for repressed contents, perverse utterances, and evidence of
the workings of desire.
Point: mini thesis--a mix of the example and explanation
Example: Specific detail you noticed that ties in with your thesis
Explanation: Why your detail is important and why it ties in with your thesis
Your blog post will not mirror academic writing structures, but each post will still have a thesis (even if you don't state it the same way) and each should still have a Point-Example-Explanation (even if you have shorter or broken paragraphs)
One thing we will probably get back to, but it might be useful to keep in mind now, is that the audience does not "see" the movie the way the point of view (POV) character does. We do not identify with any human character. Instead, we identify with the camera lens. We only see what it sees, and as you now have a better idea, everything that is fed through the lens is a calculated move that tells us how to judge what we are seeing because it is mimicking the way we naturally see our real world. This exempts Michael Bay movies though. His lens only follows explosions, breasts, and muscled men.
Blog posts
You can write about ANY movie and find something worth writing about
The Air Up There
It does not have to be a movie you are familiar with. Sometimes an unfamiliar movie is better because you are seeing it with fresh eyes and can be on the look out for weird things. Your brain might not notice small details of a movie you've watched a hundred times because it has already stored them away as not important or similar.
Close Reading--a very English Lit thing from the New Critics that is exactly what it says: you read closely. Pick a detail that stands out to you and examine it. Why was it presented like this? Why did they use this color? Why do they keep inserting this image?
Armageddon examples: the names of the rockets, the quote "tools of war," blue collar workers, drilling, Americana images
The Air Up There Examples: the use of tribalism (costumes, beads, chanting), camera movement when we first enter the village, reaction of blacks to whites, reaction of whites to blacks, the fact the cheerleaders were called "Cowbells" vs. the nun vs. the chief's daughter, Nike shoes
For your blog post, try to stay limited to one or two very specific examples
For your blog post, pick a movie and find something you want to write about and then explain why that detail is significant.It isn't enough to just point out "Hey, it's weird that the rockets in Armageddon were named "Freedom" and "Independence"." You need to take it one step further: "Details like the names of the rockets in the movie Armageddon point to the main point of the movie not being an end of the world movie, but an expression of fear of the threat against America during the wars in the Middle East."
Or "While The Air Up There is undoubtedly racist, the use of relatively authentic tribal customs and costumes still expose the viewer to a side of African life in a positive way.
Or "The Air Up There is racist from conception, but it takes it even further by using semi-authentic African tribalism as a kind of freak show to further otherize people of color and to enforce negative stereotypes such as the mystical African.
Homework:
Group A does first blog post--Due Monday midnight
EVERYONE (including Group A) comments 2 times (two different posts) by Thursday midnight
Althusser contends that ideology has a material existence because "an ideology always exists in an apparatus, and its practice, or practices" (Lenin 112). Ideology always manifests itself through actions, which are "inserted into practices"
Althusser makes it clear that the "becoming-subject" happens even before we are born.
Through education, each mass of individuals that leaves the educational system at various junctures (the laborers who leave the system early, the petty bourgeoisie who leave after their B.A.s, and the leaders who complete further specialist training) enters the work force with the ideology necessary for the reproduction of the current system: "Each mass ejected en route is practically provided with the ideology which suits the role it has to fulfill in class society"
The very importance of this function is why schools are invested in hiding their true purpose through an obfuscating ideology: "an ideology which represents the School as a neutral environment purged of ideology (because it is...lay), where teachers respectful of the 'conscience' and 'freedom' of the children who are entrusted to them (in complete confidence) by their 'parents' (who are free, too, i.e. the owners of their children) open up for them the path to the freedom, morality and responsibility of adults by their own example, by knowledge, literature and their 'liberating' virtues" (Lenin 105-06). So pervasive is this ideology, according to Althusser, that "those teachers who, in dreadful conditions, attempt to turn the few weapons they can find in the history and learning they 'teach' against the ideology, the system and the practices in which they are trapped... are a kind of hero"
In other words, every product of our culture (how we speak, movies, books, art, education, work) is enforcing the "rules" that govern the way we do everything, even as it creates the rules.
Example:
"Polite Society"
Sexual education
Gender performance
Movies are an example of an ISA--they subtly write and enforce the rules of the dominant class
Based on this theory, is a movie that depicts an earlier time a product of the time the movie was made or the time that was filmed? Example: the movie Dracula filmed in 1992 depicts fictional events of late 1880's Victorian England--Does it promote the culture of the Victorian era or that of American 1990s? Why?
Homework:
Watch the following:
Feel free to ignore the first 50 seconds of the last video. The creator of the video sets the video up as if it were a hypothetical, but it actually happened. So, mostly, he just wasted 50 seconds and confused pretty much anyone who didn't know the film(s) in question to begin with.
The room is red because the author was connecting it to primal feelings of rage
vs.
the room is red because the author randomly chose the color.
Cultural knowledge:
867-5309
A man walks into a bar...
K1, ssk, k to rst marker, m1L, slm, k1, slm, m1R, k to last 3 sts, k2tog, k1
Red=anger
ocean=?
Based on the number you have, watch the music video with the theory you have in mind. How does the music video express the issues covered by your theory? Is there enough evidence to make it significant?
Masculine theory
Feminist Criticism
New Historicism (how is the video a product of it's time)
Race/Black Studies
Post-Colonization/Orientalism/"Othering"
Homework:
Read about Althusser and his ideas on how our culture controls and molds us as we work to create our culture. I know, but stick with it.
