The Course
This course looks at what it means to be a man or woman as something we learn (often without being aware of it) through language and cultural rather than as something given to us at birth by our biology and anatomy. Sex and gender, as such topics are often identified, can be seen as places where "body" and "culture/society" come together to produce who we are and what we do.
Part of this way of thinking includes the idea that sex and gender are made up of collections of "codes"--preferred ways of speaking, acting, and thinking--that help us "put ourselves together" as men or women in our lives. The "preferred" here is quite important, because, usually, sex/gender are not thought to be a choice but rather as "just the way things are," as "facts of nature." As such, they usually have a quite heavy "moral" weight to them, as ways we should or must be (and ways that are "right").
One result of thinking that being "man" or "woman" might be a result of our own actions and thinking--within a given culture/society--is that we can get some "distance" from them. That is, we can think about such matters more critically. Thinking "critically" doesn't necessarily mean thinking negatively, but rather considering the possibility that the way things are might not be the only way they could be; that they have been and/or might be otherwise. Another way to get a sense of this is just to start looking carefully at all of the different ways that people act like "men" or "women" in our own society (like, around the table in this classroom). Hence, the notion of "masculinities" in the course title rather than the singular, "masculinity."
Critical thinking allows us to ask where these ways to be a man (or woman) have come from, how they have changed along with other changes in the culture and society; how particular bodies come to be linked to certain kinds of identities; how individuals who occupy/enact some positions benefit more than others or even come to dominate others in different social/cultural locations, and so on. It also allows us to think about possibly changing and/or complicating these familiar ways of being man (or woman) in society. Even if we don't want to change the options that seem open to us, this way of thinking helps us see how "doing what comes naturally" may not be so "natural" after all.
One way or another, this kind of approach to sex/gender implies a "politics" about these matters, which is to say it makes us think about power differences and domination, and we will try to notice this as much and as often as we can as we move through the course.
But, you might ask, where does the "film" come in here? Movies or films are part of culture in that they are made up of meanings and images and stories that not only reflect the ways a people live but also help to maintain or keep things going in certain ways. But if these parts of popular culture--and music is another part--can reflect and support, they also can be a source of change.
Films are one place to see some of the various ways of being man or woman. We can look at and think and talk about these ways, rerun them, stop them, and so on. This is of course harder to do with "real life." But films also are part of the world capitalist economy. They have to make money, profit, and that means they have to appeal to audiences rather than offend or turn them away. Especially with popular or Hollywood films, the images and stories and moral lessons offered in the films cannot be too "strange" or in opposition to the "codes" mentioned above or they would lose a good deal of money. This is not a small matter and we will try to be alive to it as we discuss the possibilities and limitations of popular culture and film as forces for social change.
Finally, one additional thing we will try to do is to keep asking how we as examples of spectators come to relate to the films we watch and discuss in class. This is part of the more general question of how to think about the nature of the relationship between film texts or stories and their audiences: what do films "do" to spectators and what are some of the things spectators can "do with" the films they watch?
Reading
There are two books to buy at the University Bookstore on Forest Ave and 30th.
Bordo, Susan. The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public and in Private. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. 1999.
Pollack, William. Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood. .New York: Owl/Holt. 1998.
In addition, there are a few readings that will be on 2-hour reserve in Cowles Library (marked as "Cowles reserve" in the schedule, below) for FYS 20/Soc 14. I also will distribute some readings in class ("In class"). Stay tuned.
Film Screenings
We will not use our regular class meetings to see the films for our course. There are three film labs set for the course (Monday, 3:00-5:15 pm; Tuesday 6:30-9:00 pm, and Wednesday 6:30-9:00 pm) during which to screen the films, before Thursday's discussion. The viewing labs are located in the new electronic classroom, down the stairs and to the right in Cowles Library (room 45). You should plan to see the film for the week during the Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday scheduled lab period. While attendance will not be taken at these labs, it is assumed that you will have seen the week's film by the time you appear in class on Thursday for discussion. Several of the films we will see are available at local video rental shops but you should not assume that they always are available.
You will not be able to view the films at Cowles at times other than the scheduled lab periods.
CourseWork and Grading
The various pieces of work that make up the course and the relative weight for each are as follows, each of which is detailed further in a section below:
(1) Discussion preparation memos. 20%.
(2) Film discussion leading. 15%.
(3) Film journal--both viewing and reflection notes. 20%.
(4) Four essays. 45%: 3 best essays chosen = 15% each (ALL four essays must be submitted; none is optional).
I'll inform you of your midterm grade by Friday, October 19. Midterm grade reports must be submitted for First-Year students and these will be available to you on the Drake webpage.
Class Meetings
As you know, this course is called a "seminar." This usually means that the students talk more than the professor. Our class probably will be closer to 50/50, although I would be happy if you talked more than I.
But "just talking" and "talking about the issues and ideas and materials in the readings and films" are not the same. We are more interested in the second kind of talking. It's pretty easy to tell the difference between "just talking" and what might be called "serious talk."
You should come to class prepared to talk about the course materials: the readings assigned for the class period and the film/s we are viewing that week. Tuesdays usually will be set for talking about the readings assigned for the week. Each Tuesday, each of you should bring a discussion preparation memo, limited to one printed page that sets out three points you want to make about specific issues in the week's assigned reading. These should not be "reading notes. " That is, they should not just repeat ideas/definitions from the readings. They should contain your particular emphasis on, questioning of, confusion about, insights from things you have read for the week. They should have specific page references to the reading so it is easy to see where your ideas come from and to what they refer. I will collect those discussion preparation memos each Tuesday at the end of class as part of your course work (20%). As I read them, I will be looking for evidence that you not only have read but thought further about the material assigned. What you decide to focus on us up to you but it has to be linked specifically, with page references, to the reading for the day. I won't accept memos after the class period in which they are due.
Thursdays will be given to critical discussion of the week's film, using our developing ideas and understandings about masculinity and sex/gender from the readings and prior discussions. I will try to bring the film to class on Thursday so that those in charge of the discussion can direct our attention to relevant segments as we talk. Two students each week will be responsible for working together to prepare and lead these discussions (film discussion leading, 15%). You need not prepare any additional papers to hand in to me when you lead a discussion, but I will assume that you have planned and met together prior to the class.
Note taking in class. Since there are no exams in the course, you have to think a little differently about how you make notes of our talk in class and why you are making those notes. The same can be said for making film notes (see below).
The best reason to make notes in class is that these notes might contribute to your own growing understandings/inquiry about masculinity and sex/gender. People will say things in class that make you think about something or that helps you see something in a new way, and you will want to write some notes about that to help you later when you write. Remember, there are no "tests"; the idea in the class is that you have to work to shape and direct your own understanding. Of course, it is an understanding that takes place in dialogue with me and my judgment of your use of the readings and class-related experiences. Students sometimes forget this last point.
I expect you to come to every class, contribute to the discussion, to see every film, to plan and lead a focused discussion on the films to which you are assigned, and to make notes on each. I will record your presence/absence at each meeting. If you miss more than three classes, you should not expect a course grade higher than C. Missing more than 5 classes puts you in danger of a D or F grade. This of course does not mean that if you never miss class you can expect an A or B. Excessive absences make it impossible to pass the course. I see attendance and participation as what it means to be enrolled in the class. If you plan to be absent, please contact me in advance (PhoneMail--ext. 2158--is always waiting for your call, as is Email--joseph.schneider@drake.edu).
Email Communication
You should plan to use email to communicate with me about your writing ideas and proposals and about other course matters. If you live off campus, you should use the campus computer labs or arrange to hook up to the campus network from home, if you have a computer and a modem. See the microcomputer people in the basement of Carnegie Hall or check Drake’s webpage to see about this latter arrangement. If you have a non-Drake email address you prefer, you should arrange to have all of your Drake email forwarded to that address. You can also arrange this on the Drake webpage.
Film Journal
I require that you keep a film journal (20% of grade) for the course in which you will write about the films each week. I expect you to make two separate sets of notes, one called viewing notes, the other called reflection notes. Although you can keep both sets of these notes in a single notebook, please keep them separate, using the following format:
VIEWING NOTES REFLECTION NOTES
Film Title
Date you viewed film/wrote notes Date reflection notes written
Any details about the film: (year made,
director, main actors, genre, etc.).
*****************************************************************************
LEFT HALF OF PAGE FOR DETAILED RIGHT HALF OF PAGE FOR SPECIFIC
VIEWING NOTES REFLECTIONS STIMULATED BY
EVENTS/DETAILS NOTED ON THE LEFT
SIDE AS WELL AS GENERAL
REACTIONS TO THE FILM AND
SEGMENTS OF IT.. (See what
"reflections" might mean, below)
Again, I ask you to make two kinds of notes: (1) detailed notes made while you are viewing the film, and (2) interpretive comments about these detailed notes and other recalled impressions made soon after seeing the film, before class discussion of the film on Thursday. I will collect your whole viewing journal from time to time throughout the semester, usually unannounced, so be sure to bring it with you on Thursdays.
Viewing Notes: These come first. They should be titled "Viewing Notes," followed by the name of the film and the date you screened the film. Although you likely are not accustomed to making notes while viewing a film, it will come more easily with experience. These notes should record the details of scene and dialogue and action that you want to note. Don't worry about spelling or form or syntax in your writing. Jot things down so that when you look at them after viewing the film they will help you recall what you saw and what you were thinking. Give yourself enough information to recall the thing being noted. Try not to write any analysis or interpretation here--that takes too much time and distracts your viewing. The following kinds of things are among the things you might want to get down as "viewing notes":
- What are the opening scenes of the film? Where do they take place?
- Who are the characters and what are their names? What positions do they occupy relative to each other? How does this change in the film?
- What do the characters say in the film--what is the "important" dialog?
- Who occupies most of the screen time? Who is shown on the screen for most of the film? What kinds of things are they doing?
- What happens after the opening scenes--what then, and then? This is a question about what film people call "the plot," which is not the same as "they story" (which is more about who the main characters are and what happens to them in the film).
- How does the film end--what is the situation of the characters then?
- Any sense of how the production of the film itself helps/hinders/influences your viewing. For instance, lighting, shots, music, settings.
Reflection Notes: On the right side of the page, as shown, write your reflections/interpretations, connecting them to those points in the detailed description of the film you have just written. They should be marked "Reflection Notes." I don't expect you to write as many of these notes as of the viewing notes.
Here you should write down your thoughts, reactions, interpretations of various aspects of the film that you have recorded in the detailed notes. You don't have to write an interpretation/observation about everything, of course. Rather, try to comment on aspects of the film that seemed particularly important and/or interesting and/or wonderful/offensive to you and having to do with men and masculinity in the particular moment that is recorded on the left side of the page. These notes should be more clearly written than the viewing notes, but don't worry about spelling and grammar.
Try here to position yourself "critically" toward the film. "Critical" doesn't just mean being negative, but rather it means to develop your own sense of what the film is, and is about; what it tries to accomplish and how; what its "politics" are, and so on. It means you should consider the characters in the film as cultural objects to be studied and commented on rather than only to be consumed (which is what we do when we think of films as only "entertainment").
One of the differences between your seeing these films the first time or before you came to this class and now is that here we will try to look at the film as a part of culture, to think about it as a "cultural document" relative to our questions of masculinity and sex/gender. Help in this will come from the readings and from class discussions.
You might consider, for instance, your own reactions to the characters in the film. With whom do you identify? Against whom do you identify? How do you feel about the characters and why? What might the "message" of the film be and on what grounds do you say that? How would you characterize what this film is "about" and on what grounds? What is the main story the film tells? What other stories are told? How do the images and characters and stories in the film relate to other "texts" or events that you know about, such as newspaper stories, magazines, television, another class, and so on. And what about the "stars" in the film? What might you say about the connections between the actor/star and the character he portrays? What about the star separate from the character? Overall reactions?
Finally, you might want also to write a couple of paragraphs at the end of the notes that express any thematic or general observations you have about the film that you have not been able to record earlier, including your own reaction to the film and its characters, themes, and so on.
Remember, use the details of the first set of notes to help you write these more interpretive ones. Finally, these reflection notes should be a good source of ideas for essays. I expect you to make this connection.
Four Essays
There are four essays required (each 5 double-spaced pages maximum; each worth 15%; three best grades chosen for 45%) in which you are asked to connect some idea, concept, thesis, or argument from the class readings and discussions about masculinities, on the one hand, to some specific aspect or aspects of one or more of the films (e.g., details of character, story, relationships shown) you have seen up to the essay due date, on the other. I urge you to use the writing in your reflection notes as a possible resource of ideas for these essays since I assume that, with time, your reflections on the films will also reflect your thinking that comes from the readings and class discussion.
For instance, you might be stimulated by an idea, concept, or thesis that you read about or hear discussed that might then help you understand or see one or more of the films or segments in the films in more careful depth and analysis (e.g., moments in a/the film/s when we can see what our author Pollack calls the "mask of masculinity" "crack" or begin to come apart; or how this "cracking" looks different in film X compared to film Y; or instances in the films when one might see what "phallic power" looks like and how it is used, and so on). On the other hand, there might be a scene or scenes, or character/s or relationship/s or solutions from this or that kind of situation that you see in the film/s that make you think about an idea you have read about in the course that you want to critique or complicate or elaborate or illustrate (e.g., Pollack's easy use of the idea of a "real" or "genuine" or "true" self could be critiqued by drawing on some very specific details from a/the film/s that imply this is too simple a way to think about self). Finally, you might have your own particular combination of these two ways of thinking that you want to propose as a topic for writing. Great. The key thing is that you let me know your ideas so we can talk about them and so I can respond to your plans for writing and that we can negotiate a topic that you want to write on and that I think offers a good chance for success. You should plan to have your proposals for the essays to me at least two weeks in advance of their due dates, listed in schedule, below. Propopsal due dates are listed there; please note. I can accept no final essays the plans and topics for which I have not okayed in advance. Please be clear: what you write about must be the result of this negotiation between us.
The most important thing here is that your paper or commentary must draw together (1) details of the film/s AND (2) ideas/concepts or arguments/theories from the readings and ideas presented in class. If you write only about one or the other, you miss the point of the assignments.
All pieces of writing must be printed, double spaced, have standard margins. The 5-page limit is real, but excludes any footnotes or references you want to add.
Reading and Viewing Schedule
Below are the films, the readings, and relevant dates for the next 16 weeks. The number in brackets at the end of the reading assignments gives the approximate number of pages assigned for the week.
Week Work
WEEK 1
8/27-31 Reading: (1) Pollack, "Introduction: Listening to Boys' Voices," pp. xxi-xxvi; "Inside the World of Boys: Behind the mask of Masculinity," pp. 3-19; "Stories of Shame and the Haunting Trauma of Separation: How Can We Connect with Boys and Change the 'Boy Code'?," pp. 20-51; and . [52pp.]
No film
WEEK 2
9/4-7 Reading: (1) Antony Easthope, What A Man's Gotta Do: The Masculine Myth in Popular Culture, New York: Routledge, 1992, "Fathers and Sons," pp. 17-26 and "The Masculine Ego: The Castle of the Self," pp. 35-44 (Dist. in class). (2) Bordo, "Prologue: My Father's Body," pp. 3-11; and "In Hiding and On Display," pp. 15-35. (3) R.W. Connell. Ch. 1 "Debates about Men, New Research on Masculinities," pp. 3-14 in The Men and the Boys. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. (dist in class.) [57pp.]
Film 1: Red River (Discussion 9/6)
WEEK 3
9/10-14 Reading: (1) Bordo, "Fifties Hollywood: The Rebel Male Crashes the Wedding," pp. 107-152. (2) Pollock, "Real Boys: The Truths Behind the Myths," pp. 52-64. [57pp.]
Film 2: Streetcar Named Desire (Discussion 9/13)
WEEK 4
9/17-21 Reading: (1) Pollack, "Action Love: How Boys Relate," pp. 65-78 and "Real Fathers/Real Men: The Empathic Relationships of Fathers and Sons," pp. 113-144.. (2) (1). R.W. Connell. Chs. 3 and 4, "Masculinities and Globalization" and "Gobalization and Men's Bodies," pp. 39-66 in The Men and the Boys. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. (dist in class.) [71pp.]
Film 3: Rebel Without a Cause (Discussion 9/20)
WEEK 5
9/25-29 Reading: September 25th--lecture by Dr. Alan Lightman, Sheslow Auditorium.
Film 4: Field of Dreams (Discussion 9/27)
WEEK 6
10/1-5 Reading: (1) Pollack, "Being Different, Being Gay," pp. 206-229; (2) Bordo, "Hard and Soft," pp. 36-68 and "Does Size Matter?," pp. 69-83. [69pp.]
Film 5: The Sum of Us (Discussion 10/4)
WEEK 7
10/8-12 Reading: (1) Pollack, "The Power of Mothers," pp. 81-112. (2) Pollack, "The Adolescent Crucible: Growth, Change, & Sexuality," pp. 145-80. [51pp.]
Film 6: Ordinary People (Discussion 10/11)
WEEK 8
10/17-19 Reading: (1) Bordo, "What Is a Phallus?," pp. 84-104 and "Gentleman or Beast: The Double Bind of Masculinity," pp. 229-264; and [55pp.]
Film 7: Fight Club (Discussion 10/18)
WEEK 9
10/22-26 Readings: (1) Bordo, "The Sexual Harasser Is a Bully, Not a Sex Fiend," pp. 265-280 and "Beautiful Girls, from Both Sides Now," pp. 281-298. [32pp.]
Film 8: Disclosure (Discussion 10/25)
WEEK 10
10/29-11/2 Reading: (1) Pollack, "Schools: The Blackboard Jungle," pp. 230-271 and "Sports: Play and Transformation," pp. 272-300. [69pp.]
Film 9: The Last Seduction (Discussion 11/1)
WEEK 11
11/5-9 Reading: (1) Susan Jeffords, "Can Masculinity Be Terminated?" Pp. 245-262 in Screening the Male: Exploring Masculinities in Hollywood Cinema, ed. Steven Cohan and Ina Rae Hark. New York: Routledge. 1993. (Cowles reserve.) (2) Bordo, "Beauty (Re)Discovers the Male Body," pp. 168-193. [42pp.]
Film 10: Terminator II: Judgment Day (Discussion 11/8)
WEEK 12
11/12-16 Reading: (1) Ralph Donald. "Masculinity and Machismo in Hollywood's War Films." Pp.124-36 in ed. S. Craig, Masculinity and the Media. Sage, 1992 (Cowles reserve). (2) Bordo, "Beauty (Re)Discovers the Male Body," pp. 193-225. [44pp.]
Film 11: G.I. Jane (Discussion 11/15)
WEEK 13
11/18-20 Reading: TBA
No film
WEEK 14
11/26-30 Reading: (1) Bordo, "Gay Men's Revenge," pp. 153-168. (2) Steven Seidman, pages from "Introduction," in Queer Theory/Sociology, ed. Steven Seidman. New York: Blackwell, pp. 8-13. (In class.) (3) Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. Pages from Epistemology of the Closet. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1990. (Dist. in class). [24pp.]
Film 12: Philadelphia (Discussion 11/29)
WEEK 15
12/3-7 Reading: (1) Bordo, "Coda: My Father the Feminist," pp. 323-332. (2) Pollack, "The 'Real Boy' Code--Revising the Boy Code and Staying Connected," pp. 391-398. [40pp.]
Film 13: Kiss of the Spider Woman (Discussion 12/6)
WEEK 16
12/11-14 Reading: TBA
Film 14 My Best Friend's Wedding (Discussion 12/13)