Essay (University Assessment) About Identity and Difference (Film Studies)

Assessment briefing:

Discuss issues of representation, identity and difference in a range of texts, one of which (at least) you have already used for your presentation (In my presentation I talked about Representations of sexuality. The Sexuality of women in America during the 50s and 60’s).

You should start by outlining the relevant theory or theories you intend to use. You should demonstrate a clear understanding of these. You must choose concepts that we have covered on the module, either alone or in conjunction with one another. So you will need to develop a perspective on one or more of the following: representation, identity, nationality, 'race', stereotyping, ethnicity, otherness, sexuality, difference. (I can give you the title of the books suggested by the professor).

You may group together texts for reasons such as genre, star, director, specific time scale, location or whatever.

You should then analyse the texts in terms of your chosen theory; you will need to choose appropriate examples from the text to illustrate your points.

You should use the work you did in your presentation (assessment 1) as a basis for this essay; you are encouraged to do further reading and to draw on other films or TV programmes where relevant. In your examples you need to consider how your chosen text works in a filmic or televisual way; in other words you need to think about genre, narrative structure, mise en scene, editing, music and so on. These are obviously important elements in the way that texts convey meanings and you will need to show how they work with or against different representations.

(The essay most have 3000 words)