Representations of Global Poverty in Film

WRT 105: Unit 2 Assignment—

“The photographer was thought to be an acute but non-interfering observer

—a scribe, not a poet. But as people discovered that nobody takes the same

picture of the same thing, the supposition that cameras furnish an

impersonal, objective image yielded to the fact that photographs are

evidence not only of what’s there but of what an individual sees, not just a

record but an evaluation of the world.”

~Susan Sontag, “The Heroism of Vision”

“Film does not reflect or even record reality; like any other medium of

representation it constructs and ‘re-presents’ its pictures of reality by way of

the codes, conventions, myths, and ideologies of its culture as well as by way

of the specific signifying practices of the medium. Just as film works on the

meaning systems of culture—to renew, reproduce, or review them—it is also

produced by those meaning systems.”

~Graeme Turner, Film as Social Practice IV

(178-9)

"Poverty: a human condition characterized by the sustained or chronic

deprivation of the resources, capabilities, choices, security and power

necessary for the enjoyment of an adequate standard of living and other civil,

cultural, economic, political and social rights."

~United Nations’ definition of poverty

It is something of a commonplace

to claim that movies are appealing

precisely because they provide

viewers with an escape from the

real world, a two-hour respite from

the mundane realities of our

everyday routines. According to

this theory, films transport viewers

to other times and places,

releasing us from the present by

allowing us to identify with

characters other than ourselves,

operating in sometimes familiar

but more often unfamiliar

environments. Certainly these

utopian appeals are what keep us

coming back and the box office

booming. But if movies are tickets

out of reality, it is also clear that

the world of film is simultaneously

always engaged with the real.

Even the most fantastical films—

think anime or post-apocalyptic

sci-fi movies, for instance—are to

some extent still a vision or

Suggested Texts:

Selected film clips

Selected Photographs of Walker

Evans and Sebastião Salgado

Maggie Anderson’s “Among

Elms and Maples, Morgantown,

West Virginia, August, 1935” (in

CEw/T)

Diana George’s “Changing the

Face of Poverty” (in CEw/T)

Amy Green’s “Attacks on the

Homeless Rise, with Youths

Mostly to Blame” (in CEw/T)

Steve Macek’s “The Cinema of

Suburban Paranoia” (in CEw/T)

David Levi Strauss’s “The

Epiphany of the Other” (in CEw/

Anna Deavere Smith’s “Broken

Sentences: Women in Prison

Tell Their Stories Straight” (in

CEw/T)

Jake Wilson’s “Trash and

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WRT 105: Unit 2 Assignment—

“The photographer was thought to be an acute but non-interfering observer —a scribe, not a poet. But as people discovered that nobody takes the same picture of the same thing, the supposition that cameras furnish an impersonal, objective image yielded to the fact that photographs are evidence not only of what’s there but of what an individual sees, not just a record but an evaluation of the world.” ~Susan Sontag, “The Heroism of Vision” “Film does not reflect or even record reality; like any other medium of representation it constructs and ‘re-presents’ its pictures of reality by way of the codes, conventions, myths, and ideologies of its culture as well as by way of the specific signifying practices of the medium. Just as film works on the meaning systems of culture—to renew, reproduce, or review them—it is also produced by those meaning systems.” ~Graeme Turner, Film as Social Practice IV (178-9) "Poverty: a human condition characterized by the sustained or chronic deprivation of the resources, capabilities, choices, security and power necessary for the enjoyment of an adequate standard of living and other civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights." ~United Nations’ definition of poverty It is something of a commonplace to claim that movies are appealing precisely because they provide viewers with an escape from the real world, a two-hour respite from the mundane realities of our everyday routines. According to this theory, films transport viewers to other times and places, releasing us from the present by allowing us to identify with characters other than ourselves, operating in sometimes familiar but more often unfamiliar environments. Certainly these utopian appeals are what keep us coming back and the box office booming. But if movies are tickets out of reality, it is also clear that the world of film is simultaneously always engaged with the real. Even the most fantastical films— think anime or post-apocalyptic sci-fi movies, for instance—are to some extent still a vision or Suggested Texts:  Selected film clips  Selected Photographs of Walker Evans and Sebastião Salgado  Maggie Anderson’s “Among Elms and Maples, Morgantown, West Virginia, August, 1935” (in CEw/T )  Diana George’s “Changing the Face of Poverty” (in CEw/T )  Amy Green’s “Attacks on the Homeless Rise, with Youths Mostly to Blame” (in CEw/T )  Steve Macek’s “The Cinema of Suburban Paranoia” (in CEw/T)  David Levi Strauss’s “The Epiphany of the Other” (in CEw/ T )  Anna Deavere Smith’s “Broken Sentences: Women in Prison Tell Their Stories Straight” (in CEw/T )  Jake Wilson’s “Trash and

commentary on the landscapes we currently inhabit (in both a geographical and social sense). Further—as Graeme Turner argues in the above epigraph—these representations, both real and imagined, serve to influence the ways in which we construct our understanding of the world around us. Over the course of the next six weeks, we’ll be exploring and analyzing the ways in which impoverished individuals and communities are represented in contemporary film. For example, what happens when one of the world’s wealthiest industries, stocked with some of the world’s wealthiest individuals, attempts to represent the global underclass? Undoubtedly, the politics of such representations are rife with tension and complexity—who gets represented, and how, and by whom. For the Unit 2 assignment, I would like you to select one of the fictional feature- length films on the suggested viewing list and explore how that film takes on the subject of poverty in overt or implicit ways. Because poverty is a dynamic term, we’ll be discussing and debating what we mean when we use the word and how we distinguish between different kinds of poverty—abject, absolute, relative, individual, communal, domestic, national, transnational—in the real world as well as in the imagined worlds of our respective films. We’ll be analyzing what these films seem to be saying about the kind of poverty that is being represented, and what the films imply about the production of and potential solutions for poverty. Who is poverty associated with? What is it linked to? For instance, in John Singleton’s Boyz N the Hood (1991) Furious Styles drives his son Tre and Tre’s best friend Ricky to Compton where, standing in front of a dilapidated billboard that reads “Cash for your home,” he lectures the boys (and many of the local residents) about the impact gentrification is having on the welfare of those residents, adopting a black nationalist perspective and arguing for community controlled and owned businesses as a solution to the poverty and violence of South Central Los Angeles. What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), on the other hand, seems to trace the relative poverty (and eroding local culture) of the rural Midwestern town of Endora to the introduction of national chain businesses, such as the fictional “Foodland” and “Burger Barn.” In addition to practicing methods of analysis throughout the unit, we will be reading and discussing a handful of essays on the politics of representation and film interpretation, as well as reading a few examples of film criticism. In keeping with our emphasis on research practices, we will spend time navigating through and learning to utilize the Syracuse University Library databases, in order to find academic essays relevant to each of your topics. I am also requiring that each of you use two sources in this paper, one of which should be a scholarly article or book-length work obtained from the library. In addition, we will spend some time reviewing MLA guidelines and the integration of secondary sources into a work of critical analysis. Here are some questions you’ll want to consider as you screen your film, develop your claims and write:  Who are the poor in the imagined world of the film?  Are the characters coded in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, etc. as well as class?  How do they reflect their real counterparts?  How are the complexities of those people being brought to light? How are they being eroded, erased, or simplified?  How does the film create a definition of “poverty”?

Representations of Global Poverty in Film – Assignment 2 | WRT 105, Assignments of Creative writing

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WRT 105: Unit 2 Assignment—

Representations of Global Poverty in Film