political science writing-02

Remember – respond to one of the prompts below and include your own question for your classmates to respond to. Total word count: 350

1) As noted in class, research by the GDI has shown that in the top 100 grossing movies from 2014-16 women have considerable less on camera and speaking time than men. In academy award winning films over that time women have 32% of the screen time but even less (27% ) of the speaking time? What can we infer from this decrease in speaking time compared to an already comparatively low percentage of screen time?

2) Mad Max: Fury Road is certainly the most action packed film that we have watched so far this term. How do you believe being in such a genre impacts the ability of the filmmaker to convey political messages to the audience? Does the action undercut any political themes the filmmaker may be trying to include or does it make them easier for the audience to digest (or some other possibility!)?

3) Mad Max: Fury Road had the most visual effects of any film we’ve watched so far this term, placing it much further in the formalist direction of the formalist-realist spectrum. Did you notice more formal elements of film in this film compared to others we’ve watched? How did that impact your viewing?

4) The bare bones plot of Mad Max: Fury Road is very straight forward, with the characters more or less in a race from point A to point B and back to point A. In what ways, if any, did this rather simple plot structure impact how you viewed the film? Did it allow you to pay more attention to other formal elements of film? Did it help the discovery of implicit themes or did the less complex plot cause you to pay less attention as a viewer?