Friday, May 29, 2009

The End of Homosexuality

HUM 290A - WORLD OF FILM:

In this course students will develop the expertise necessary to allow them to communicate intelligently about the artistic medium of film. The course is taught by a team of four professors coming from a range of disciplines. The course begins with an initial unit on the language of film; the course then turns to a series of units focusing on one element closely associated with film, such as photography, mise-en-scène, editing, sound and music, acting, narrative, or ideology; and examine films from a variety of historical epochs and countries. Fine Arts Approaches core.

DIFFICULTIES:

  1. Teaching film as opposed to watching movies.

    1. Students are unprepared to deal with film in a sophisticated critical way.

    2. Students resist being asked to address film using the genre's own language.

  2. Team teaching ¼

    1. Jumping in cold to deal with students at a random point in the term.

  3. Gender, Sex, Sexual Orientation, and Sexuality 100%

    1. Resistance to address critically nearly all of the above categories.

    2. Concerns with religious, moral, political views.

  4. Queer Factor

    1. This unit assumes that students are able to deal maturely with all sorts of questions dealing with queers, such as politics, sexuality, etc.


PROLOGUE TO A DISCUSSION:


How can we relate the following two clips to Judith Butler's performative theory of gender?

  1. Chris Crocker - No one is “Straight”
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTbo-b5w4vY

  2. La Agrado's monologue in Pedro Almodóvar's All About My Mother (1999)


Rebel Without a Cause (1955)

  1. Clip #1 – Boy meets boy
    Chapter 7 (23 minutes 29 seconds)

  2. Clip #2 – Boy wants to be a man
    Chapter 14 (41 minutes 58 seconds)

Shortbus (2006):

  1. Clip #1 Girl meets girls

    Chapter 6 (26 minutes 25 seconds)

  2. Clip # The boy and the mayor

    Chapter 7 (29 minutes 31 seconds

  3. Clip#3 Boys singing

    Chapter 8 (36 minutes 26)