In this essay, you will describe and analyse the relationship between race, gender,
sexuality, and class in a film of your choice.
Draw on key scenes from the film to support your argument.
In order to answer the two central questions of the essay, it may be helpful to think
further about the following questions:
– How does the media text represent non-white and white people, places, or
cultures?
– In what ways is race rendered visible and to what ideological ends? More
specifically, how is race articulated through or against gender, sexuality, and
class?
– In what ways do these configurations influence the viewers identification or
dis-identification with certain bodies and characters, ideas and assumptions?
– What is the political context of the film and how does it make a comment on
the entanglements between race, gender, sexuality and class in this broader
cultural context?
Try to go beyond a positive or negative assessment. Instead, respond to these
questions by focusing on the ways in which racial difference, whiteness, and power
relations are performed in and through the narrative, dialogue, backdrop,
music/sound, camera movement and the effect that these performances have on the
central message of the narrative. Make sure to support the arguments you make with
specific examples from the film that you have chosen.
You must draw on at least three required readings from the class. You must also
draw on at least three scholarly sources from outside of the course. You can also
draw on non-academic sources such as newspaper articles, websites, and film reviews
if you would like. Make sure to maintain a focus on the required readings and your
chosen film. Any external sources should be used primarily to support, extend, or
challenge the course material.
You will be assessed on your writing skills as well as the clarity and depth of your
intersectional reading of racial representations in a media text. You will be assessed
on your ability to progress an argument clearly and convincingly throughout the
essay. We will consider how well you develop your argument based on your
understanding, application, and criticism of academic concepts and how well you
support your argument through examples from the film itself.***Attached are readings which you may choose from to use to support your arguments – you must use AT LEAST THREE of these. Please find another three readings on your own, AND choose the movie you wish to analyse***Please use CHICAGO formatting, complete with footnotes that have EXACT page numbers on them.
