Media Literacy Assignment Directions (Due Sunday, September 24th):
You will watch and critique a film based on historic events or meaningfully set in a different time period. Please read the sample paper provided in Blackboard!
Film Criteria:
Needs to be a feature film (not a documentary, Youtube video, short, or TV show)
Can be made at any time, but must be based on an event or set in the time period of the 16th, 17th, 18th, or 19th century (1492-1875)
Needs to be an American film either set in America or about Americans abroad.
Animated films will work as long as they meet the other criteria.
You can do a Google search to find films, there are plenty that work freely available online.
Requirements:
At least one double-spaced page in length.
This is NOT A SUMMARY OF THE FILM, do not give me a review of the plot, or explain the setting or characters. You will not get points for a summary.
Find 2 or 3 things wrong with the film, tell me why the mistakes were made.
Example Problems Could Be:
Exclusion of certain types of characters (for example: there are no females or people of color represented)
Mistakes in the history of the film (for example: the film exaggerates some elements or leaves out others to sway an audience)
Blatant distortions (for example: re-tellings of events or leaving out obvious details that would change a viewer’s perception of the events)
NO TECHNICAL MISTAKES.
For example: “the main character had the gun in her left hand and then it was in the right hand in the next scene”.
NO MISTAKES YOU FIND ON WEBSITES.
For example: “the uniforms were a different color gray at the time”, etc.
You should pick mistakes in the content and substance. Do not look up websites listing problems with your film and summarize it, you will not get points. You don’t need any outside research. Just watch the film and point out exaggerations, absences of perspectives or characters, or other things that would distort the audience’s perceptions of the events.
The paper is about the mistakes, not the content of the film.
If your film is about the war in Iraq, you won’t write an intro with details about the war in Iraq, or explain American involvement, the paper is not about Iraq. Everyone’s intro should be the same, regardless of the film: it should lay out the problems with the movie.
We increasingly receive messages through video. The purpose of the assignment is to get you to properly view media, paying close attention to its constructed nature. Movies are productions. They are scripted. The most “accurate” films are not even remotely realistic or accurate.
If someone were only able to watch your film, what would they learn about the events? Would they think differently if the film focused on different characters, perspectives or contexts?
Westerns are a good example: In nearly all of them, Native Americans are portrayed as warlike savages while the pioneers, cowboys, and explores are portrayed as heroes. This might make modern audiences feel better about the fact that the land we live on today was violently acquired. If the only portrayal of Natives we know is as violent and blood thirsty, and as those who attacked whites, we might feel justified about taking their land. The real story includes violent explorers and colonists who marched West attacking Natives, turning them against each other, breaking promises, using biological warfare, bribing, and making dishonest deals with them, but watch a Western: the Natives are always bad and the Cowboys are always good.
There are no right or wrong answers on this assignment. I want you to practice “reading” the messages and discovering points of view embedded in them and to guess why they are there.