Sports Culture “Playlist” Guidelines – US Cinema: Sports Film
Film and Media Studies 162
US Cinema: Sports Film, Fall 2021
Throughout this course, we discuss the ways in which sports films define, negotiate, affirm, and challenge the construction of social identities, including geography, race, gender, class, and sexuality within utopian narratives of success and individualism. We also examine how sports films construct themselves as part of a recognizable reality by drawing upon real contests and stories about athletes in sports history. Even when fictionalized, sports films often have a realist style, using actual stadiums, authentic uniforms, and athletes-turned-actors to authenticate their claims to a verifiable, real-life sporting world. The Sports Culture “Playlist” turns our attention to this real-life sporting world and the larger arena of media and mediation that distinguishes the images, imagery, and imagination of sports cultural productions and production cultures.
Sports fiction films are influenced by the larger cultural institution of sports, which permeates many other media forms, including network and cable television, documentary films, commercials, print advertising, music videos, fan videos, digital media, and various audio forms (music, podcasts, et al.). This assignment challenges you to explore how sports films are influenced by larger media and mediated sporting cultures that construct and critique discourses about social identity, including but not limited to: geography, race, gender, class, sexuality, ability, nationality, etc.
Two of the major goals in this class are for you to learn how to apply critical analyses to sports films and for you to articulate how sports (and thus, as we see in this course, sports films) come to matter both culturally and politically. You have learned to identify and critique how competing social identities are affirmed and denied in sports, cinema, and history (as well as the combinations of all three). But, perhaps most importantly, you have learned how these social identities in film and visual culture are shaped and re-shaped in relation to each other through the discourse of sports.
The goal of the Sports Culture “Playlist” assignment is for you to creatively demonstrate (1) your knowledge of intersectionality—how people are shaped by the interaction of different social categories and how these social categories connect to broader institutions of power; (2) your ability to apply this analytical framework to your own media critique; (3) and your engagement with core themes and topics explored in the class. This assignment relies upon your understanding of intertextuality, which describes the way texts make (more) sense in relation to each other. So, while you must be thinking intersectionally (along the lines of race, gender, sexuality, class, ability, etc.) you will also need to think intertextually to create the most compelling playlist about a larger theme.
Guidelines:
Choose a theme and pick a fun title that is most interesting to you. We’ve been discussing sports films in broad terms and have covered (and will cover) themes and ideas such as: The American Dream; gender representation; race and representation; injury; violence/aggression; spectacles of masculinity; female masculinity/muscularity; notions of a level playing field/fair play; militarization; politics, etc. Be inventive in your theme and its title.
Compile together a Sports Culture “Playlist” of 5 texts of your choosing. These items can include: commercials, music videos, film clips, documentary clips, consumer ads, memes, gifs, TV or audio clips (the only requirement is that it is in a format that can be posted to Canvas). Your playlist can include texts from all one genre/medium format or text in a variety of formats. The only requirement is that they must make sense together.
Compose a 250-350 word intersectional analysis and/or critique of each text. Here, focus on what is going on in a single Some questions you might want to ask yourself include: What stereotypes or tropes are being utilized in the text? Are there assumptions (about geography, race, class, gender, sexuality, etc.) the text asks viewers to make? Is the text supporting or critiquing (or both?) utopian narratives of achievement or success/heroism/self-reliance/determination/hard work/level playing field/gender/race/sporting culture tropes? How so? Are we being “sold” something and what are the “products” literally and metaphorically? How are they playing with sports history or sports culture?
Include a 2-3 page rationale of your playlist as a whole. This rationale should clearly demonstrate your understanding of intersectionality and intertextuality. You should also use course readings or outside sources as evidence to support your arguments in the rationale. This cumulative analysis should thoughtfully and critically conceptualize the playlist and address how this playlist provides insight into the world of sports culture. It should also explicitly explain how these texts you have chosen make sense together. Start by asking: What narrative do these texts create? This is a chance to look at and explain the bigger picture.
Two common mistakes to avoid:
- Summarizing: This analysis is NOT a summary that re-describes each of these texts, but it is an analyticalwriting exercise in which you are expected to explain your texts and playlist by coherently articulating how course concepts/readings/screenings apply to these examples of your choosing.
- Opinion: This playlist is NOT an opportunity for you to simply express your opinions about an aspect of sports culture, but should explore, through primary and secondary sources, how a critical media, race, and gender studies approach to sports offers a new way of seeing texts on their own, together, and as part of a larger culture.
All texts (media texts, course readings, and outside sources) should be cited. Include a Works Cited section in the rationale.
Sports Culture “Playlist” Guidelines – US Cinema: Sports Film
APA
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