Assignment 3 - Masculinity on Film
Purpose: For assignment three we will continue our focus on critique — the close reading and critical analysis of texts. In this case, one of those "texts" will be a contemporary film. In addition to critique, we will be working on improving our writing through focusing on craft, or issues of grammar and style. While we will continue to work on thesis construction and paragraph development, we will also focus on word choice, careful sentence-level revision, and paragraph and idea cueing (also known as transition).
Texts:
Fight Club (1999), directed by David Fincher, screenplay by Jim Uhls. Available at Leavey Library, call number LVYVID 1283.
Excerpt from “The Betrayal of the American Man”, by Susan Faludi -- see link at bottom of this webpage.
“The Construction of Masculinity and the Triad of Men’s Violence”, by
Michael Kaufman.
Excerpt from A Short Guide to Writing About Film, by Timothy Corrigan.
Background: Susan Faludi’s book Stiffed suggests that our something that she calls “ornamental culture” dominates our cultural landscape. She argues that “ornamental culture is constructed around celebrity and image, glamour and entertainment, marketing and consumerism, it is a ceremonial gateway to nowhere.” Faludi also argues that “the internal qualities once said to embody manhood — surefootedness, inner strength, confidence of purpose — are merchandized to men to enhance their manliness. What passes for the essence of masculinity is being extracted and bottled and sold back to men.” The film Fight Club echoes many of these themes and suggests that American masculinity is in crisis. However, unlike Faludi’s analysis, Fight Club appears to embrace the notion that men need to return to essentialist notions of maleness to overcome the crisis.
Writing Task: Using the concepts of writing as process and of critical reading, carefully examine the movie Fight Club and decode its language, symbolism, and cultural mythology. Use any form of prewriting that you like to identify the film’s ideological message and its construction of gender roles. Then, in a 5-6 page thesis-driven essay, respond to the following prompt:
To what extent does Fight Club reinforce or criticize the various masculine myths that the film presents?
Some tips to help you:
* Take notes when you watch the film. If necessary, stop or pause the movie as you watch it to make note of important scenes, dialogue, or details.
* Watch key scenes more than once to be sure that you fully absorb details and subtleties. Because of aspects of the plot that will become clear after you view this film for the first time, you may find it helpful to watch the entire movie more than once.
* When writing about the film, refer to Edward Norton’s character as “the narrator” to avoid unnecessary confusion.
* For many of you, your best ideas in paper one stemmed from a discussion of details from your advertisement. With that in mind, you may want to pay close attention to detail in the film to help you enrich and expand your support.
* To ensure that you have the proper spelling of character names and to ensure the accuracy of other details, visit www.imdb.com, the Internet Movie Database’s website, and type in “Fight Club” as your search term. Because the website contains material that will “spoil” the film for you, don’t visit this website until after you’ve already seen the film.
Calendar of important dates:
Monday, February 18: No class; President’s Day
Monday, Feb. 25 and Tues., Feb. 26: Rough Draft due — the conference will focus on
one paragraph of your choice, and we will address
grammar and style concerns — but you must bring
a rough draft of at least three pages to the
conference.
Wednesday, February 27: Peer Editing Session. BRING YOUR ROUGH DRAFT.
Friday, March 1: FINAL DRAFT DUE.
Links
Writing 140 Homepage
Secrets and Hints for Doing Well
USC Library's Electronic Resources Page
Internet Movie Database (IMDB)
Advice on Using Quotations
Susan Faludi article excerpt
