The Blind SidePaper RDG 4320 This paper requires you to perform a criticalracial analysis of thevisual narrative presented in the movie,
The Blind Side. This paper specifically requires you to examine the concept of
character development in
The Blind Sideto demonstrate how racial ideologies are being produced in this film narrative. Racial ideologies refer to a set of beliefs that reinforce the superiority of White people and the inferiority of people of color. For this analysis paper, your central purpose is to convincingly show the ways in which the movie,
The Blind Side, reinforcesracial ideologies and elaborate on how this impacts our society. In your analysis, you are to use Oher’s book,
I Beat The Odds, as a resource text to help develop your arguments.
This paper will be graded on the following criteria: - Aprovocative introduction that presents a clear thesis statement that specifically states your argument on how racial ideologies are produced in the narrative presented in The Blind Side.
- An in-depth racial analysis of character development in the movie, The Blind Side, using specific evaluative criteria. You do not need to organize your paper around these criteria, but you do need to develop several of these points in your analysis and arguments. Every point in your analysis needs to argue or provide evidence of your thesis statement.
- Insider/Outsider Perspective
- Omissions
- Depth of Character Development
- Embellishments
- Decontextualized Racial Binaries
- Agency
- Cinematography
- Use of Michael Oher’sI Beat The Odds as a supporting text to your arguments.
- Extent to which you support your analysis with specific references from the movie, including images, dialogue, storyline, camera angles, etc.
- Embedded Images: Your paper should include 3-4 embedded still-images from the film that support and provide evidence for your analysis.Your text should be wrapped around the images.
- Ability to discuss the significance of your analysis throughout your paper. How do the examples in your analysis contribute to racial ideologies? After every major point in your analysis, you need to show how this aspect of the movie narrative contributes to specific racial ideologies and explain how these racial ideologies impact our society in a negative way. Be able to state specific racial implications throughout your analysis.
- Overall effectiveness of arguments presented in your paper as well as stylistics including editing, organization, and page length.
Page Length: 5-6 pages Criteria for Analyzing - Insider/Outside Perspective:The perspective from which the narrative is being told.
- Character Development:The extent to which audience members get to know characters within a narrative.
- Omissions:Leaving crucial elements out of the narrative.
- Embellishments:The manipulation of a narrative that creates distortions.
- Agency: The extent to which a character confronts, takes action, and resolves the problems he/she as well as the larger community face in the narrative; the extent to which a character does something to better her/his situation.
- Decontextualized Racial Outcomes:Inequitable racial outcomes in school or society that seem to have no historical or social context for how the inequities are produced, and thus reinforce deficit theories.
- Cinematography:Various physical features of a film, including camera shots, camera angles, camera movement, and lighting.
