In this assignment, you will bring together all of the skills we have been building in this course to compose a 5-page, argument-driven textual analysis of two media texts that belong to the same genre. In this essay, you will analyze how (and what) ideological meaning is created in these texts, through their use of two specific genre conventions. Your paper should be organized around an argument-driven thesis and deploy specific, close textual evidence to support your readings of these media texts. You will support your readings with three scholarly sources, one of which is provided to you below. The goal is to use your comparative analysis to reveal underlying subtleties or complexities of meaning created by the repetition of visual and thematic tropes specific to that genre.
As we have been learning in our genre unit, Thomas Schatz argues that genres are “ritualistic narrative systems” that explore ideological conflicts and work as problem-solving formulas. What cultural problem or anxiety is addressed in your chosen media texts? What do these texts tell us about how that anxiety is felt or resolved in each text’s respective cultural context? Do they expose, reinforce, or critique a collective value or ideological conflict? Explore these questions by examining how these texts convey meaning through two specific genre conventions (such as a character archetype, narrative/plot structure, setting, iconography, props, theme, specific elements of camerawork or sound, etc.).
Building on skills developed in the shot analysis, your analysis should draw on specific textual evidence to support your readings of these texts. Demonstrate how these genre conventions convey meaning through formal elements and techniques in a specific scene to support your argument.
Cite your genre’s required scholarly source above as well as two additional peer-reviewed journal articles (10+ pg.) or chapters from academic books that engage the genre you’ve selected as the focus of your paper.
Scholarly sources are those that are either a.) double blind peer reviewed, or b.) published by an academic press.
Include consistent in-text citations & full works cited page (in MLA style) when quoting or summarizing your research materials — and don’t forget to cite your media texts as well.
Your thesis should be provable, specific, and go deeper than a surface level reading of the genre and texts. When crafting a thesis, some questions you should ask yourself include: What are you trying to argue? What parts (specific scenes, elements of mise-en-scène, etc.) of the texts you’ve selected best support your argument?
Give your reader a roadmap, and be attentive to transitioning between paragraphs and ideas.
Keep your tone objective and scholarly: this is not about whether you personally (dis)liked the texts you’re writing about, or found them to be “good” or “bad” examples of the genre you’ve selected. This is about uncovering and analyzing meaning in these media texts. Assertions need to be backed up by evidence and analysis.
Presume that your reader has some vague familiarity with the media objects you’re analyzing, and your job is to get them to see the texts in a new way or consider particular elements in greater depth (in other words, don’t waste time with plot synopsis, focus on analysis).
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The genre I decided to go with is horror, the required films are Poltergeist (1982) and His House (2020), and the required scholarly source is Nakagawa, Chiho. 2017. “Dangers Inside the Home: Rereading Haunted House Films from a Gothic Perspective.” Journal of American and Canadian Studies 35: 75-96.
I’m not the greatest writer so don’t make it sound too good. I am an honors student so at least make it decent, but not too good to be true. I am a college freshman so make it sound like a college freshman wrote it.
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