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Popular Culture and Media
FLM&MDA 145 (4.0 units) – Session I
Instructor: Graham Eng-Wilmot
The figure of the newspaper reporter is an enduring trope of American popular culture, particularly on film. Hollywood continues to depict journalists as heroes doggedly hunting the truth, muckraking villains with questionable ethics, and well-intentioned misfits who stumble on scandals. While these fictional versions are often designed as entertainment, they also propose serious ideas about the importance of news writing to American society. This course examines how the film industry has envisioned the changing cultural roles of newspapers, as well as their shifting values and practices, since the mid-20th century up to our current Internet age. By watching both classic and recent films, we will consider the relationships between newspapers and film as popular media forms. We will ask: How have notions about truth and objectivity evolved? What forces appear to drive news and the people who write it? How is the reporting process depicted, particularly in how journalists vet information and sources—and ultimately arrive at “truth”? Who are the journalists, i.e. what role does race and gender play in Hollywood imaginings of the news? What is the relationship between newspapers and readers? How are shifts in media technology depicted and understood in the popular cultural landscape? Most importantly, we will consider what these films might tell us about the larger American cultural imaginary. In other words, the question is not only what stories do we tell ourselves about storytellers—but also, why do we tell them? Prerequisite: FLM&MDA 85A.