TCOM 100 IDEOLOGICAL ANALYSIS ASSIGNMENT
For this assignment, you should conduct an ideological analysis of a film, TV show, or video game. It should be different than what you did the narrative assignment over. THIS ASSIGNMENT IS WORTH TEN POINTS AND IS DUE ON NOV. 22
• Identify the level of ideological explicitness that applies to your text. You choices here are from the class material – Neutral, implicit, explicit. Provide a sentence or so to explain your choice. At the risk of oversimplifying it (and casting it in exactly the kinds of terms that annoy me), think in terms of how “political” (ugh…) your film/show/game seems to intend to be.
• Identify the protagonist and articulate what character archetype they are
• Identify the antagonist and articulate what character archetype they are
• In a sentence or two, describe what kind of ideological tension that emerges from those two kinds of archetypes coming into conflict.
• Identify how your text articulates some of the dimensions and dichotomies that help identify a text’s ideological tendencies. Here is the material from the book you’ll be using.
Choose any FOUR of these and, using the worksheet at the end of the assignment, place your text’s treatment of the four categories you choose on a continuum that indicates how far to one side or another you think it goes.
• Finally, we talked about a variety of concepts related to critical theory and applied those to categories such as gender, race, sexual identity, and some psychological concepts. Insert TWO screenshots and discuss how a couple of those concepts apply to the screenshots.
See the next page for the worksheet to fill out answers on.
ANSWER WORKSHEET
1. The film/show/game’s level of ideological explicitness is (and a sentence to explain your choice – choose between neutral, implicit, or explicit)
2. Identify the protagonist and the character archetype they embody
3. Identify the antagonist and the character archetype they embody
4. Describe the ideological tension that emerges from the conflict between these two character archetypes
5 – 8. Choose FOUR of the following ideological dimensions/dichotomies and place your film/show/game on a continuum that indicates how far to one side or another you think it goes.
A.) DEMOCRATIC HIERARCHAL
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B.) ENVIRONMENT/ HEREDITARY/
NURTURE NATURE
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C.) RELATIVE ABSOLUTE
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D.) SECULAR RELIGIOUS
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E.) FUTURE/PROGRESS PAST/TRADITION
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F.) COOPERATION COMPETITION
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G.) OUTSIDER INSIDERS
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H.) INTERNATIONAL/ NATIONALISTIC
DIVERSE NON-DIVERSE
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I.) SEXUAL FREEDOM MONAGAMY/
ABSTINENCE
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A couple of notes on these. Some of the lingo needs updating. For example, with I, you might also consider whether the text embraces non-heterosexual relationships or whether it embraces traditional, heterosexual relationships. For H, you want to think about more than just the diversity of the cast. You also want to conceive of diversity as more than just “identity.” Consider the text’s attitude about different cultures and ways of thinking. For D, you might also think in terms of “science and reason” vs. spirituality and mysticism.”
9-10. Insert TWO screenshots and discuss how a couple of the concepts related to critical theory (and categories such as gender, race, sexual identity, psychoanalysis, etc.) apply to the screenshots.