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

MLO f: The ability to conduct in-depth research into and execute a study of 21st century Hollywood cinema that engages with issues of cultural representation across intersecting axes of identity. MLO g: The ability to generate original research questions [this part of MLO g is optional], and make a coherent argument about the cultural politics of identity in relation to contemporary Hollywood.

Brief description of the assignment (including length or wordcount)

TASK:

Compare and/or contrast Bridesmaids (2011) class case study films with a contemporary Hollywood film (from the year 2000 to the present) that you have selected yourself, discussing aspects of its cultural politics of your own choosing.

For this essay you are asked to critically interrogate the relationship between cultural politics and contemporary Hollywood in relation to a case study text (or texts) of your choice.

Word count: 2000 (plus or minus 10%, i.e. shoot for a total word count, including the bibliography this time, of between 1800 and 2200 words).

What are we looking for?

You should make an evidence-based argument using primary sources (i.e. the films themselves and/or their marketing materials such as trailers or posters) and secondary sources (e.g. quoted or paraphrased material from scholarship on your topic that you have researched and read, and/or relevant industry data that you have researched), and with reference to pertinent course readings.

In addition to engaging with relevant course materials you should also demonstrate evidence of wider reading, and wider research that is specific to your topic of study and your film/s of choice.

The essay should convey an informed understanding of your topic and should demonstrate close and detailed engagement with any key films that you are dealing with. It should incorporate discussion of specific scenes and instances that you determine are significant in communicating or negotiating the film’s cultural politics.

ADVICE:

Choose your texts carefully.

Think about what this module is asking you to do. Refer to the handbook for a reminder of the learning objectives and outcomes and make sure there is scope to meet them in the topic that you choose and the films that you write on.

Take care to use the correct terminology as it pertains to the topic in question If in doubt look up the meaning of a term or concept that you are not sure of.

Proof-read your work very 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 all quoted material to the proper author. Include a full bibliography at the end of the essay.

Examples from feedback provided in previous years

Fail:

This essay has manifestly misunderstood the assignment instruction to compare one of the listed films to another example of contemporary Hollywood by comparing Get Out to the Korean film Parasite. This severely limits the possibility of being able to demonstrate relevant understanding of module aims and content, and of being able to demonstrate that the relevant module learning outcomes have been met. Despite your efforts to emphasise the connections that Parasite has with Hollywood film culture via its Academy Award win for Best Picture and corresponding impact that it made among audiences internationally, there are still no grounds offered up to understand Parasite as an example of contemporary Hollywood, which is unsurprising because by most available measures this Korean film is manifestly not an example of contemporary Hollywood. There is some evidence of engagement with some relevant course content and material (e.g. racial appropriation and erasure which we addressed in Week 3, is identified as relevant to the cultural politics of race in Get Out and applied to your understanding of the characterisation of the characters of Georgina and Walter accordingly. Some effort has been made to consider how specific filmmaking techniques and cinematic devices have been used to convey and negotiate Get Out's cultural politics of race, e.g. the observation about use of close-ups to convey Chris's experience of racial subjugation. This is good to see. Some relevant wider reading around the topic has been undertaken (e.g. hooks and Yancey), but this might have been balanced by inclusion of reference to relevant course readings. Many of the secondary sources listed in the bibliography are not relevant to the cultural politics of contemporary Hollywood in line with the approach that has been taken here following misunderstanding of the assignment instructions. Disregarding all of the material here that is not relevant to the assignment (i.e. all of the material on Parasite) the assignment reads as disjointed and unfinished. There are some good and relevant observations made about Get Out that view in terms of the cultural politics of race which make some of the material of a passable standard, but not enough in the context of an assignment which is, in effect, incomplete.

40% - 49%:

In some respects Love Actually is very well chosen as a point of comparison with Crazy Stupid Love given that they are both relationship comedies with some noteworthy points of overlap in terms of their respective cultural politics of gender. However, there are other respects in which it is less well chosen, e.g. it is a British film and not a Hollywood film (notwithstanding its funding and distribution arrangements), which you should have acknowledged and accounted for in your explanation of your decision to pair these two films together or else chosen a more straightforward example of a

Hollywood film, as per the assignment instructions. Many aspects of the presentation are inconsistent, in particular the capitalisation and use of italics for film titles - this makes the essay look messy and suggests the need for much more careful proof reading. There is far too much in the way of speculative assertion and too little in the way of evidence-based critical analysis. Engagement with the films themselves is also lacking, and there needs to be better fact checking and clearer writing, because it reads at one point as though you think Crazy Stupid Love is a film from the early 2000s, when we know it was released in 2011. You are very wedded to the idea of explaining the politics of femininity in these films by viewing it and certain characters through the lends of the figure of the 'modern day femme fatale'. This is an interesting position to take up, but this cultural figure has not been explained or contextualised, nor has it been substantiated via textual analysis, so this reading is unpersuasive. Scholars like Katherine Farrimond and Samantha Lindop have done very interesting work on the notion of 'postfeminist noir' and thereby of the figure of the modern day femme fatale, so scholarly support for your reading was available had you carried out wider research into your chosen topic. Some pertinent points about the universality of whiteness as a subject position are made towards the end, although not using critical academic language or terms encountered in class. Some demonstration of understanding of the cultural politics of race in the chosen films is therefore displayed, although demonstration of understanding is limited. Research is poor. No academic sources have been cited, and no course materials (other than the film Crazy Stupid Love) have been engaged with.

50% - 59%:

The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants is well chosen for the purposes of this assignment as a point of comparison with Bridesmaids. You do well to demonstrate the extent to which both films can be understood as 'chick flicks' according to how different scholars characterise this type of film. And you have drawn from a good combination of secondary sources encompassing both relevant course readings and also wider reading around relevant topics that you have done. However, there is a lot of unclear writing, some of your points don't stand up to scrutiny and/or lack illustrative evidence from the case study texts to back them up, and you don't show that you understand how the points you make relate directly to the cultural politics of gender as we studied it on the module. Symptomatic of this is the fact that in your conclusion you are unable to make concluding remarks that go beyond having identified that the cultural politics of gender is something that is in both films.

60% - 69%:

This is a very clearly expressed essay with a clear line of argument that references a really good range of scholarship encompassing both relevant course materials and also well sourced relevant wider reading. There is good applied use of relevant terminology and you've engaged well with relevant examples from both films to evidence a number of well made points. Bridesmaids and Charlie's Angels are very well paired for the purposes of this comparative analysis, although you might have also considered some of the ways in which they contrast, to enable more nuanced understanding of the similarities under discussion here. Also, more could have been done throughout to indicate the ideological stakes of the points being made (e.g. in relation to the Bridesmaids example where the man next to Annie is mistaken for her romantic partner).

70% - 79%:

Excellent essay. Lone Survivor and American Sniper are very well paired for the purposes of this assignment. You've done some great and on point wider reading around the topic area and brought it to bear successfully on your discussion. You've used and interpreted relevant industry data which is great to see, and for the most part you've done so very effectively (that said, some of the conclusions that you draw from your references to box-office data could use a little more thought and reflection). You demonstrate a strong understanding of the ideological stakes of the cultural politics of nationhood in both of these films and you do a great job of situating the production and release of these films in relation to relevant contextual factors, which you also do very thoughtfully. Your writing is fluent and engaging. Great work.

80% and above:

Outstanding work. Immensely engaging and impressively comprehensive, especially given the limitations of the word count. You demonstrate extremely sophisticated understanding of many key concepts encountered on the module including hegemony, patriarchy and postfeminism. And you demonstrate great critical confidence in reading the films of the Star Wars franchise through these lenses and in these terms. Your argument is extremely compelling throughout, your writing style. is beautiful, and your attention to detail and your ability to interpret meaning and draw out the ideological stakes of such detail is second to none. Your also seem to be just as comfortable taking a broad overview approach as you do taking a detailed micro-analytical approach. You've done a great range of reading, and you've dealt with a really impressive number of primary texts, encompassing both films and their marketing materials. My only question is about the retrospective application of postfeminism to second wave feminist era texts (which you might have acknowledged that you were doing), but you've done it extremely persuasively, demonstrating the original Star Wars trilogy to be 'protopostfeminist' in a way. It was such a pleasure to read your extremely impressive work.

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.