Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky’s 1996 documentary, Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills, is a chilling critique of the American judicial system and how societal norms too easily shape law in the
Teaching Activity:
In the spirit of examining television news and who funnels funds into the production of news broadcasts, I think it is equally important to examine who is funding documentary productions. After all, documentaries, even more unabashedly than traditional
KSTP 5 Eyewitness News at 4:30PM
0:10 Introduction
0:36 Local Headlines
0:25 Weather Check
5:20 Local Stories
0:18 Coming Up Next
3:45 Commercials
3:54 National News
0:50 Local Interest Stories
2:46 Weather
2:53 Health Story
3:36 Commercials
0:57 Wrap Up
I’m a fairly avid watcher of the nightly news. It’s one of the only television programs I regularly watch. One of the interesting aspects of news, in my opinion, is the way most viewers are conditioned to watch specific stations from an early age and tend to not question their viewing habits as they get older. For instance, in my childhood home, we watched ABC for all of our news. My parents trusted Peter Jennings’ style during the national news, and our local affiliate, WISN Channel 12 News, is consistently ranked as one of the best ABC affiliates in the nation. So, when I came to the Twin Cities, I continued to watch ABC for my news, even though KSTP is not one of the better news teams in Minneapolis-St. Paul. Plus, they are known for their donations to conservative organizations. I’d bet that most people are the same way with their viewing habits. Whether ABC, NBC, or CBS, I think that we tend to view whatever news station we remember growing up.
Even though I usually watch the 4:30PM broadcast of 5 Eyewitness News, looking at the newscast more closely shed light on the fact that the entire 4:30 show is a preview of the 5:00PM broadcast – basically begging viewers to keep tuning in. With the exception of the weather and their health story on cigarette advertisements changing, all of the news stories were brief headlines for what was coming up at 5:00. Most of the stories ended with a call to watch the coming broadcast for more, in-depth information.
It is no secret that Hubbard Broadcasting Corporation, who owns KSTP, is a conservative, right-wing company. Still, in my opinion, most news organizations, whether transparently conservative or liberal, report news in a conservative manner. For instance, when a crime is committed, more often than not, the story is reported from the authorities’ point of view. Despite minor political hiccups and missteps, government and the law is usually seen as a good thing. In terms of race, crimes involving minorities, and those in urban settings more specifically, are overrepresented. Minorities are seen as either delinquents or charity cases. Finally, when a story involves some sort of ethical decision, traditional and conformist beliefs are usually depicted as the “right thing.” Fitting in with the status quo is shown as a desirable thing.
Teaching Activity
Bring the class to a computer lab or have a set of laptops available for use in the classroom. Break the class into groups according to the number of local news stations in your area and assign each group to one of those stations. Typically, this will mean a total of three groups for affiliates of national stations – one for ABC, NBC, and CBS. Then have each group research the ownership of their station or affiliate and the implications of that ownership on how the station broadcasts. Have them look at story choices, slants in coverage, commercial choices, etc. Next, have each group create a mind map, using MindMeister, that illustrates the chain of ownership for their assigned station or affiliate and the implications of that ownership. Finally, have each group present their findings to the class.
My favorite type of film/television genre is documentary. What I find most fascinating about documentaries is the fact that they purport themselves to be fact; yet, directors must answer to no one, so strict adherence to truths is completely unnecessary. Any framing of an image, whether for television, cinema, or even an art gallery, is inherently a political act. In my opinion, the representation of reality and the investment viewers have in the truthfulness of what they see is unmatched to viewer expectations of any other genre. If an action film fails to live up to the number of explosions one might like, for example, the film is typically shrugged off as a poor example of an action film. A documentary that contains even the slightest misrepresentation of truth, however, ceases the work from being documentary altogether. In fact, it may be classified any number of ways but documentary.
The same repercussions can be said for literary works deemed memoir or biography, which is why I see teaching documentary as a vital component to the traditional language arts classroom. Take the firestorm surrounding James Frey’s novel, A Million Little Pieces, for instance. After it was discovered that many of Frey’s accounts were fictional, readers, and most notably Oprah Winfrey, were outraged that they had been duped. Their indignation had everything to do with genre. If Frey’s novel were packaged as fiction, would it have changed the literary merit of the text? It’s doubtful. Would it have made his story any less poignant? Probably not. The point is, genre matters, and so does whether or not something is purported to be true. It is my hope to get students asking: Why do we care whether or not a film, television show, or piece of writing is truthful when it is presented to audiences as entertainment? This would be my way of presenting the notion that entertainment is never just entertainment – that everything is political, has meaning.
The main feature of documentary films is that they represent truth in some way. This doesn’t mean that they represent universal truths, but rather that the filmmaker can take facts and organize them in such a way to present a semblance of truth. Though there are a multitude of subgenres to documentary, each of which contains their own specifications, voice-overs, interviews, and archival footage are three of the most prevalent characteristics of modern documentaries.
Voice-overs are typical in today’s documentaries for the purposes of narration. Such narrations not only facilitate the message of a documentary piece, they also lend a sense of credibility to the images one sees on-screen. Here is an example of narration by both director (Werner Herzog) and filmmaker (Timothy Treadwell) in the film Grizzly Man:
Interviews are also popular in modern documentaries. “Talking-head” sequences, as they are called, often validate the filmmaker’s message by providing first-person narratives and/or expert opinions. Director Spike Lee relies heavily on interviews in his documentary film, When the Levees Broke:
Teaching Activity:
Because Las Hurdes: Tierra Sin Pan only runs approximately 30 minutes, I would hold a screening of the film. After, I’d pass out copies of Vivian Sobchack’s article, “Synthetic Vision: The Dialectical Imperative of Luis Bunuel’s Las Hurdes,” have the students discuss the article in pairs, and assign them the task of shoot their own ethnographic documentary in the form of Bunuel.
L’Oreal’s 2002 television advertisement featuring Beyonce for Feria poses several problems in how it perpetuates the hegemonic construction of gender and the way it promotes an unrealistic image of Black beauty.
The advertisement takes a clear stance on how the desirable, feminine woman is supposed to appear and act. The product itself, a hair dye that promises “pure color,” highlights (pun intended) the fact that to be a woman is to be inherently inadequate. Beauty is not natural; it is something to be achieved superficially – more specifically, through consumption of chemical concoctions. L’Oreal pushes their consumer agenda masterfully by having Beyonce, one of the most glamorized celebrities of our time, speak to the synthetic sisterhood of women as a knowing participant in their quest for beauty. She too needs Feria to achieve perfection, the advertisement points out; never mind that she actually serves as a pawn in L’Oreal’s capitalist quest to make other women feel inferior. Furthermore, the image of the modern woman is one of sex appeal. Beyonce and her fellow models wear low cut dresses, tank tops, and skin-tight jeans that showoff their bodies’ curves, accentuate their breasts, elongate their legs, and compliment their highly airbrushed faces. In essence, these women become an assemblage of body parts and makeup instead of real, personable human beings. With a multitude of medium long shots, one is invited to look at figures and bodies rather than what the advertisement is actually selling: hair dye. L’Oreal is, in short, trying to sell an idea of womanhood, not just perfection in a tube.
The 2002 Feria commercial also promotes an image of Black femininity that is particularly troubling in terms of race politics. When it comes to Black beauty, hair matters; and Beyonce, depending on how one sees her, is either lauded or demonized for hers. In the case of L’Oreal’s commercial, color isn’t the issue, authenticity is. While Feria promises to contain “super hydrating conditioners,” Beyonce’s straight, feathery, and, quite frankly, White hair, points to an epidemic of Black women being told that thick, black, kinked hair is undesirable. Their Blackness, in other words, must be exorcised in some way. In fact, the sole Black woman in the commercial who appears to have kept a natural, close cut afro is only featured on a box of dye, and even her hair is bleached to a shockingly abnormal color. Finally, it should be no surprise that even Beyonce’s skin is lit in such a way that her race becomes ambiguous. She could easily pass for a White woman. It begs the question, then, is Black really beautiful when it looks just like White?
To get my students thinking about how feminism and race politics work in advertising, I would first pick out several beauty advertisements for the class to screen and have them discuss who the advertisements are made for and the reason why a company would want to make that particular advertisement. In groups of three or four, I would them have them storyboard their own advertisement for a beauty product to have them see how images and concepts are broken down to make meaning. Finally, I would have them shoot the advertisements and screen them to the class alongside a re-screening of the original, real advertisements I had shown earlier. Then, the class could vote on which group had the most convincing advertisement, and I would have them discuss what made their choice so believable, particularly in terms of feminist and race politics.
This activity is meant to spawn discussion about the representation of reality in documentary film after already having shown Nanette Burstein’s documentary American Teen in a previous class. Burstein’s film is widely criticized for its “constructedness.” She inserts animated scenes seamlessly into the plot, happens to be around at the right place and time when important phone calls and unplanned illicit activities occur, and subjects are typecast to fit personas and scenes one would already be familiar with from previous teenage films.
Begin the class by breaking the students into six groups. Each of these six groups will be assigned the task of seeing how well Burstein’s film adheres to the six modes of documentary film that Bill Nichols lays out in his book, Introduction to Documentary. The six modes are: poetic, expository, observational, participatory, reflexive, and performative. After everyone gets situated in their groups, hand each group a slip of paper that explains their mode, and ask them to write down how well American Teen fits their mode using examples from the film.
POETIC MODE GROUP
This group will be in charge of noting any emphasis on visual associations not explicitly pointed out by the director, whether there is a rhythmical quality to the film, and if the film is formally organized.
EXPOSITORY MODE GROUP
This group will be in charge of noting any verbal commentary and/or argumentative logic within the film. Commentary and argumentative logic do not necessarily have to be explicit though. This mode deals with how people identify with the documentary in general.
OBSERVATONAL MODE GROUP
This group will be in charge of noting any emphasis on the everyday life of the subjects as observed by an unobtrusive camera.
PARTICIPATORY MODE GROUP
This group will be in charge of noting any interaction between the filmmaker and the subject. This includes interviews, having the director in a shot, or even including archival footage to examine issues.
REFLEXTIVE MODE GROUP
This group will be in charge of paying attention to assumptions and conventions that govern documentary filmmaking. In essence, they are to point out the constructedness of the film’s representation of reality.
PERFORMATIVE MODE GROUP
This group will be in charge of addressing the director’s engagement with the subject or filmmaking process itself to assess his or her objectivity during filming.
After the groups have assessed how well Burstein’s film addresses these modes of documentary films, have them report their findings back to the class as a whole. Discussion should be lively if groups have thought hard about their modes. For instance, the observational mode group will probably assert that Burstein’s film is unequivocally a documentary because it shows the everyday life of teens. However, the reflexive group will probably counter by pointing to the fact that Burstein uses a fair amount of animation, which disrupts the reality she is depicting.
** If discussion seems to be going nowhere, or students are not doing well with analyzing the film according the modes of documentary film, have the class view the first 15 or 20 minutes (just enough to establish the personalities of each character) of The Breakfast Club, by John Hughes, and explain to them that while Burstein’s film is classified as a documentary, Hughes’ film is considered a fictional teen drama. Keeping the students in their six groups, have them discuss and write down any similarities between the two films or any ideas that Burstein may have taken from Hughes. Then, come together as a class to discuss whether or not Burstein could have manipulated reality in order to create a teen film similar to those that came before hers.
