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Film Genres: The American Social Problem Film

Course: 
FILM 160
Instructor: 
Quarter: 
Fall
Academic Year: 
2020-21
Days: 
TTH
Times: 
3:20PM-4:55PM
Location: 
Remote Instruction
Description: 
This course explores recent American entertainment products that purport to offer solutions to current social problems. The social problem film has long been formulaically tied to beliefs about how stories might have a positive impact in society, and its recipe is used across many visual and sound media sub-genres (e.g. the bio-pic, the crime drama, the teen pic, most film and radio documentary, and works of animation aimed at young viewers). Diving into this history, we will study the genre's cycles in films, television and radio programming, educational media, or "public service" media, and even the academic study of social problems upon which all of these examples claim to rest. The course features a wide variety of material: from Hollywood feature films to off-beat productions; the social-problem comedy Juno and the rock-comedy Passing Strange; dramatic and documentary television series; the "Afterschool Special" phenomena; and social-problems in radio and podcast form. Drawing upon cultural theory and theories of film/media, students will be asked to make a critical assessment of the genre and to take part in theorizing its potential and pitfalls at this important historical juncture