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Genre Film Analysis

Your assignment: analyze a film, picking elements that show how the film reveals contemporary society's values, morals, obsessions, fears, and/or desires. 2500-4000 words.

The western. The sci-fi. The teenage coming-of-age chick flick. We watch these genre films—movies with familiar settings, themes & characters, and predicable storylines—for entertainment, and we're drawn to them partly because we know what to expect. But these formulaic films have received much academic scholarship. Each genre changes decade by decade, and those changes reflect cultural shifts happening in society.

And that’s your job in this paper: interpret how a genre is changing and what that says about what’s changed in American society.

When you think about it, genre films can be quite complex. Consider the 1958 film "Attack of the 50-Foot Woman": on the one hand, it's a typical adventure film with a cheap 1950s sci-fi feel. It has the same general plot as "King Kong" (1933), "Godzilla" (1954), or "The Blob" (1958). But what does it mean that the filmmakers chose a colossal woman as a fear-inspiring monster? And what does it say about 1950s gender roles--and postwar America generally--that the woman is a wealthy alcoholic with a cheating husband? What does the poster (a scantily-clad woman standing over a freeway clutching up cars) hint about America's love affair with the automobile? Or about the burgeoning Sexual Revolution?

Prompt
Step 1: Go out and catch a flick currently playing in movie theatres. While there, take notes. These can be anything that catches your attention (interesting lines, scenery, characters, plot twists), but in the back of your mind, think about how the notes you're jotting down will help explain how this film is both typical and atypical for its genre.

Step 2: Find at least one article or book on your chosen genre and add an entry to the class film bibliography.

Step 3: Write an essay which details how the chosen film uses typical genre conventions (you could compare it to others films), points out how the film diverges from typical genre traits, and concludes how this film and its genre help us understand the culture in which it was made.

Tips
• Evaluate why the film was made now. What does it say about the technological, cyber-driven world we live in that "Transformers" was made in 2007 instead of, say, 1987? How does the desert setting echo America's worries about war in the Middle East? How does its battle-for-Earth theme reflect our concerns about global warming?
• Don’t try simply to research the film you chose. Instead focus on the genre—there’s lots of detailed scholarship on the databases. Read interviews with the director and internet message board commentary on imdb.com. But most important, research the real world that the film depicts.
• Decide whether your film is in fact, a mix of genres (it probably is). In addition to being a sci-fi alien film, "Transformers" draws on the patriotic battle-for-Earth tradition of "Independence Day," the comic-book stylings of "The Hulk" and "X-Men," and is arguably one big romantic adventure like "Indiana Jones.”
• Here are some scholarly film resources I've rounded up -- use them in your papers!