POLS 1101 - Politics in Film, Music & Art-Contemporary Political Issues

Credit Hours: 3.00

Objectives:

1. Identify and define key terms.
2. Identify, define, and explain basic genres of film.
3. Identify and define key constitutional, legislative, and legal foundations of the production, distribution, and consumption of film, music, and art.

Outcome 2: Upon completion of this course, the student will be able to demonstrate their understanding of how film, music and art shapes, changes, and reinforces how we think about politics and political issues.

Objectives:

1. Identify and explain how film and other art forms contribute to our understanding of politics, power, public policies, social conditions, justice, and value systems.
2. Identify and explain film and other art forms convey points of view through dramatic structure and image.
3. Critically analyze and explain important political themes in film and art.

Outcome 3: Upon completion of this course, the student will be able to competently communicate the relationship between film, music and art and critical political problems in a democratic society.

Objectives:

1. Argue and defend various interpretations and perspectives on political messages in specific films.
2. Argue and defend interpretations and perspectives on the political context of various musical genres.
3. Research and explore a variety of source material relating to popular culture, film, music and art, and synthesize the results.

Outcome 4: Upon completion of this course, the student will be able to analyze film, music and art from a diverse and global perspective.

Objectives:

1. Identify and explain multicultural factors and their significance
2. Identify and explain how various political themes are expressed across genres from an international perspective (theme-specific when a theme is established)
3. Identify, explain, and analyze diverse historical, sociological, and political perspectives as expressed in film and music.

1. The Role of Film, Music, and Art in Politics
   1. A brief historical overview of the topic
   2. General introduction to the relationship of politics and popular culture
   3. The relationship of the government to film production, music, and art, including legislative, constitutional, and legal foundations
   4. Transmiting ideological and political messages
   5. Government censorship in the past, the new censors, and industry self-censorship
   6. Shaping the American mind
   7. Comparative examples of propaganda
   8. The use of image and sound in political campaigns
   9. Shaping public opinion in war
   10. The motion picture as primary source material
   11. The consequences of concentrated media power
   12. The role of the political documentary: Narrative realism? Is objectivity in film possible?
   13. Guidelines for evaluating images and sounds
2. Law and Justice in Film
   1. General overview of the American judicial system
   2. Legal conflict as depicted in the “reel” justice system
   3. Law and the participants (lawyers, judges, jurors, prosecutors) in an adversarial system, e.g., Anatomy of a Murder; Twelve Angry Men; To Kill a Mockingbird; Philadelphia
   4. Due process and crime control, e.g., Murder in the First; and Justice for All; Presumed Innocent; The Star Chamber
   5. Law, political power, and resistance, e.g., Iron Jawed Angels;
   6. Tort litigation: up against the big odds, e. g., A Civil Action; The Insider
   7. Hollywood depicts the death penalty, e.g., Dead Man Walking; The Ox Bow Incident
   8. Law and morality in a time of emergency, e.g., The Trial of Joan of Arc
   9. Gender and race issues in legal films J. Military justice films, e.g., The Soldier’s Story; Breaker Morant; Prisoners of the Sun
   10. International and comparative law films, e.g., Judgment at Nuremberg; A Dry White Season; In the Name of the Father
   11. Popular culture, constitutional issues, and realism, e.g., The Thin Blue Line; Brother’s Keeper; With all Deliberate Speed; Skokie; Incident at Oglala
   12. Summary evaluation of the significance of popular culture’s representation of the legal system