HOLLYWOOD HYPOCRISY

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HOLLYWOODHYPOCRISY?

• Kathryn Ann DiMarcello
• Heather Hersey
• Jennifer Miers

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The History of Hollywood Hypocrisy

• Wanted to generate interest in the research
  essay.
• Wanted to guarantee an argument no more
  reports.
• Wanted a variety in topics no abortion, gun
  control, etc.
• Wanted to prevent plagiarism.
• Wanted to have students use critical thinking
  skills.

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Books to help you start

• Past Imperfect History According to the Movies.
  1st Owl Book ed. New York H. Holt, 1996.
• Roquemore, Joseph H. History Goes to the Movies
  a Viewer's Guide to the Best (and some of the
  worst) Historical Films Ever Made. 1st ed. New
  York Main Street Books, 1999.
• Sanello, Frank. Reel v. Real How Hollywood
  Turns Fact into Fiction. 1st Taylor Trade Pub.
  ed. Lanham, Md. Taylor Trade Pub.
  Distributed by National Book Network, 2003.

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Reasons for continuing to use Hollywood
Hypocrisy

• Development of research skills
• Reinforcement of the analytical paragraph format
• Growth in writing
• Development of media literacy skills
• Enjoyment of students

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TWO VERSIONS OF THE PROJECT

• English I
• Films based on specific historical time periods,
  people, events, etc.

• Honors English I
• Films based on non-fiction texts.
• Students read the text as part of research.

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SELECTING MOVIES

• Permission SlipsA Must!
• Movie assignments
• Those that portray specific historical events
• Black Hawk Down, Tora! Tora! Tora!, We Were
  Soldiers
• Those that portray specific historical figures
• Pocahontas, The Untouchables, A Beautiful Mind
• Challenging movie assignments
• Those that portray specific time periods
• Gone with the Wind, Far and Away, American
  Graffiti
• Those that portray specific cultures
• Aladdin, Not Without My Daughter, Out of Africa

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• Pocahontas
• Directors Mike Gabriel and Eric Goldberg

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GATHERNG RESEARCH

• Keep students FOCUSED.
• Select aspects of movie for research.
• Focus on difference between movie portrayal and
  reality.
• FACTS, FACTS, FACTS!
• Work with librarians to provide direction
  indexes, tables of contents, readers guide, etc.
• Push students beyond comfort zones no
  encyclopediasnot even wikipedia.com!

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TIME IN THE LIBRARY

• Three days
• Day 1 Orientation, Card Catalog, Citations,
  Facts on File / Country Studies
• Day 2 Periodical Databases Readers Guide to
  Periodical Literature
• Day 3 Internet Searching and Evaluation

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Card Catalog

• Searching by Keyword versus Subject
• Keywords (Narrow, Broad, Related)
• Braveheart (William Wallace, Scotland)
• 61 (Roger Maris, Mickey Mantle)
• Use of table of contents and/or index
• A Beautiful Mind (Schizophrenia, John Nash)

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Readers Guide to Periodical Literature
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Periodical Databases

• Narrowing searches
• Quotation marks around phrases
• Full Text only
• Pocahontas (TITLE ONLY) AND history
• Expanding searches
• John Nash AND Alicia (ALL TEXT)
• John Nash AND hallucinations OR delusions

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Sample Search in ProQuest
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(No Transcript)
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Far from the lithe supermodel of the film, she
was a prepubescent girl of about twelve in 1607,
who, like all Powhatan girls, went about naked in
summer, her head shaved nearly bald.None of what
made Pocahontas significant in American history
is included or even hinted at in the film, which
closes with her bidding a tearful farewell to an
injured John Smith and choosing to remain with
her own people rather than follow her European
lover to England.
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Ways to Search the Internet

• Search Engines
• Ask.com
• Metasearch Engines
• Clusty.com
• Directories
• Librarians Index to the Internet (lii.org)

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Sample Search Engine (ask.com)
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Sample Metasearcher (Clusty.com)
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Sample Web Directory Search
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Evaluating Internet Resources

• Authority (who is the author/sponsor?)
• Accuracy of Content (variety of sources)
• Objectivity (bias)
• Currency (last updated and live links)
• Coverage (how thorough? level?)
• Appearance (grammar, spelling, and usability)

http//lib.nmsu.edu/instruction/evalcrit.html
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http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikipediaResearching
_with_WikipediaNotable_weaknesses_ of_Wikipedia
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Disneys PocahontasFact or Fiction?

• Native American Princess
• Or Barbie?
• Pocahontass screen image is less
• American Indian than fashionably
• exotic. Many criticsrefer to the
• makeover as Native American Barbie
• -in other words, Indian features,
• such as Pocahontass eyes, skin color,
• and wardrobe, only provide a kind of
• Native American styling to an old
• stereotype (Edgerton 95)

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Disneys Pocahontas and John SmithPocahontas is
Disneys first film based on a true story.
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The seduction scene between Pocahontas and John
Smith

• Here she is portrayed as an attractive,
  voluptuous, young
• woman, who falls in love with the first
  white man that she sees.
• In actuality, she is only eleven years
  old at the time she meets Smith. There
  is no evidence of any type of romance.

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Fact versus Fiction

• According to scholars, particularly Klaus
  Theweleit, who wrote Pocahontas in Wonderland -
  Shakespeare on Tour, there is no evidence for a
  romantic affair between Pocahontas and Captain
  Smith, but the lack of facts makes the
  relationship more attractive, because it leaves
  room for speculation and fabrication
• (Histo/myth-tory).

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The Real Pocahontas

• In the movie, Pocahontas disobeys
• her father and goes out to meet
• Captain John Smith. This most likely
• would not have happened during the
• time period in the movie, as it was a
• cultural norm for all tribal members
• to adhere to any strict directive from
• a parent. In contrast, Disney has
• created a marketable "New Age"
• Pocahontas to embody our millennial
• dreams for wholeness and harmony,
• while banishing our nightmares of
• savagery and emptiness (Strong).

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Pocahontas and John Rolfe

• The marriage between Pocahontas and Rolfe is less
  sensational because it was legalized. She was
  baptized and educated, and she was a full member
  of the Jamestown community (Theweleit).

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• According to Theweleit
• myths also have to be effective, since they
• are created to serve a certain purpose. In this
  case,
• America has an original, non-British mother who
• is noble enough to save her enemy, a
  distinguished
• Englishman. The union between the European hero
  
• and the Native American Princess was short, but
• harmonic and effective. The founding act itself
  has become mythological, undesirable
  consequences like the following expulsion of the
  Indians have not found a way into popular
  mythology(Histo/myth-tory)

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Continuation

• According to Theweleit
• Through his writings Smith promoted
• himself successfully and became a
• pop-starPocahontas has become
• the mother of the New World. She
• symbolizes the birth of a new generation
• arising from the union of distinctive
• Native American and European heritage.
• John Rolfe did not enter the myth-and
• story-making of America's founding
• because he is too traceable, too real.
• Also his connection to the history of
• tobacco, the driving away of the Indians
• and the more or less forceful
• Christianization of Pocahontas is not
• really desired in the presentation of
• America's origins until today.
• (Histo/myth-tory)

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Works Cited

• Edgerton, Gary and Kathy Merlock Jackson.
  Redesigning Pocahontas Disney, the White
  Mans Indian, and the Marketing of Dreams.
  Journal of Popular Film and Television. Summer
  1996 90-98.
• Pocahontas. Dir. Mike Gabriel and Eric Goldberg.
  Buena Vista Home Entertainment, 1995.
• Strong, P. The Movie Review Pocahontas.
  H- World. Anthropology Department University of
  Texas, Austin. 1995
• Theweleit, Klaus. Pocahontas in Wonderland -
  Shakespeare on Tour. Stroemfeld, 1999

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CREATING A THESIS STATEMENT

• PURPOSE of the RESEARCH ESSAY
• to defend a hypothesis concerning WHY the
  director, producer, or screenwriter chose to
  portray the events in the movie in the way that
  he/she/they did. 

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ELEMENTS OF THE THESIS STATEMENT

• 1. Who is responsible?
• 2. What did he/she/they do?
• 3. Why did he/she/they do it?

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SAMPLE

• The movie The Untouchables portrays Elliot Ness
  as a heroic figure who saves the city of Chicago
  from the evils of organized crime however, the
  real Elliot Ness hardly compares to this shining
  image.  By portraying the Ness character in this
  light, the screenwriter creates an upstanding
  character worth cheering for at the end of the
  film.

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SAMPLE

• In Aladdin, Disney chose to use both stereotypes
  of Middle Easterners and Caucasian images in the
  portrayal of the movies animated characters.
  This used the fear of Americans toward the Middle
  East in order to more clearly delineate the good
  characters from the bad in the film.

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Thesis

• In Pocahontas, Disney animators reinforce the
  stereotype that the main purpose of a Disney
  heroine is to further the interests of love in
  order to focus on their commitment to romantic
  fantasy while minimizing the challenging issues
  they claim to address, such as racism and
  colonialism.

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HELP!!!!My movie is accurate!?!

• Have students consider the following
• Details or events left out
• Seabiscuit
• Biases
• Black Hawk Down
• Altered/Combined Characters
• Girl, Interrupted

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WRITING the ESSAY ORGANIZATION
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Paragraph Structure
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A BEAUTIFUL MIND

• Directed by Ron Howard

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YOUR TURN

• Read quotes from research.
• Identify what inaccuracy or bias in the scene you
  just watched.
• Develop a possible thesis statement for an essay
  about the movie A Beautiful Mind.

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Sample Thesis Statements and Supporting Quotes
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Readers Guide to Periodical Literature
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(No Transcript)
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(No Transcript)
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At some point, he began hearing voices. Though he
didn't literally see the figures who were
shouting at him, the voices were as real to him
as people on the street. As a young
mathematician, he saw mathematical
solutions-nonrational flashes of intuition-long
before he could work out the reasoning. After the
delusions and hallucinations took over, he said,
"My ideas about supernatural beings came to me
the same way my mathematical ideas did. So I took
them seriously."
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Contact Information

• Presentation material, including PowerPoint
  presentation, writing samples, and other handouts
  associated with the Hollywood Hypocrisy unit
• www.hcrhs.k12.nj.us
• Questions/Comments
• Kathryn Ann DiMarcello kdimarce_at_hcrhs.k12.nj.us
• Heather Hersey hhersey_at_hcrhs.k12.nj.us
• Jennifer Miers jmiers_at_hcrhs.k12.nj.us