Essay Plan tutorial

Question – you’ve changed the question at the top of your plan and it is now too vague and doesn’t include your primary text. This needs to be resolved before you do anything else… the previous question we had was: How are black people represented in the film Dope? Perhaps something about audience effect? E.g. How are black people represented in the film Dope (2015) and what impact might this have on audiences?

Introduction – lay out argument, primary text and any secondary/historical texts you will be discussing. Present your angle/hypothesis – will you be arguing that black representations are negative, damaging and stereotypical? If so, introduce that argument here. You don’t need a backstory for the actors etc. A one-sentence summary of the film will do (like an IMDB plot synopsis). 200 words.

Section 1 – Primary text: Dope. Textual analysis is the key in this section. Media key concepts, film language etc. Very detailed deconstruction please! Associated theories and research. Choose one or two key scenes (2 minutes max each) and analyse the hell out of them. How are representations created and what is it telling the audience? 500 words.

Section 2 – historical text. Boyz N The Hood. Good choice of historical text and I’m sure there are plenty of links there. Get some textual analysis in here too – again, deconstruct a couple of key scenes (perhaps the scene where Furious Styles is talking to the boys on the street corner?) Draw links and contrasts with Dope. Perhaps discuss how these films may seek to challenge negative stereotypes but perhaps accidentally reinforce them? 400 words.

Section 3 – Issues and debates – black representation in the media. This is where your research comes in. Loads of potential here to discuss academic research (BFI books perfect here), Guardian/MM articles. Wider media and social context – what impact do these representations have in society? 500 words.

Section 4 – Effects theory and research. What impact do films have on audiences? If you write this well, hopefully the research will follow on nicely from the paragraph above. This doesn’t need to be as long but bring some theory such as Gerbner and Cultivation Theory. 250 words.

Section 5 – New technology and black representations. Social media, Black Lives Matter campaign. Perhaps discuss self-representations too – do young black males inadvertently reinforce negative stereotypes in their own social media posting? How will this debate look in future? Trump and American right-wing? 400 words.

Conclusion – sum up your argument, snappy ending please! 150 words.

Next steps… update/finish your plan based on this tutorial. You don’t need to stick to the above by any means but hopefully it has at least clarified your thinking and provided a potential structure that will be easy to follow.

I need to have a quick read of your opening paragraph when it’s written but otherwise you are good to go.

This essay has great potential – the key is making sure that the research sections in the middle about black representation in the media and effects theory are really strong. You may need to do a lot of additional research to have enough to write about here.

Publish this tutorial to your blog with your next steps as usual

Introduction

How are black people represented in the film Dope (2015) and what impact might this have on audiences?

Black people in film i feel are misrepresented, always addressed a as a gimmicky gangster or brash women with attitude problems. These roles are what the majority of black people are perceived to be. These controversial stereotypes can be very negative and can be very damaging to the black culture. This essay would undergo the ways in which the film dope (2015) has either reinforced or subverted these common stereotypes.  Dope (2015) is essentially Malcolm a geek, living in the bottoms (rough neighbourhood) with his band mates, where they find it hard to survive and fit in, in a tough area. They accidentally find out they have a large quantities of 'Molly' after they have been invited to a local drug dealers party, that went array.  I have chosen this as my primary text is because it very different to a traditional 'Hood' movies. The movie that i would be comparing it with is Boyz n the Hood (1991). Although, these films were produced at different times with a 24 year age difference, the two are very similar and undergo the same conventions in these Crime dramas. Dope (2015) is also a comedy so there should be some exaggeration in the film because of this.  

Essay plan

How is an ethnic minority represented in media?

Introduction (100 – 150 words)

·         I would use a quote used to introduce the topic: ‘As Blacks moved out of the inner city, drugs such as heroin and crack moved in. ANDREANA Clay / HIP-HOP CULTURE AND BLACK IDENTITY 

Page 1347’.

·         I will introduce the reason why I have chosen this topic and introduce the media text.

·         Background story of the actors (if necessary)  

·         Background story of the director and the story that he was trying to portray in the film Dope.

·         The use of self-representation (moral panics) & generic conventions used in Dope

Section 1: this will be used to analyse the primary text (400-500 words) 

·         Mini intro with key information about the primary text (institutions behind production)

·         What have they produced beforehand & what correlation does it have with the primary text

·         Using migrain to identity the key conventions – language and forms

·         The issues of self-representations will reinforce ideologies

Quotes:

·         Keepin’ it real journal by Andreana Clay: ‘Exactly how hip hop culture maps out these real and imagined relations between people and the tools used to bring people together is an important question to explore in the discussion of black youth identity, cultural capital and hip hop culture’

·         Keepin’ it real journal by Andreana Clay: ‘There also was constant pressure to perform: to have the right clothes, listen to the right music and speak the right language – all of which were based on hip hop’

·         Chapter 5 - Claiming Community Ownership via Authenticity (pp. 52-66)

"Taking intellectual property, traditional knowledge, cultural expressions, or artifacts from someone else's culture without permission. This can include unauthorized use of another culture's dance, dress, music, language, folklore, cuisine, traditional medicine, religious symbols, etc. “

“It's most likely to be harmful when the source community is a minority group that has been oppressed or exploited in other way.”

·          

Theories:

·         Uses and Gratification 

·         Two step flow model 

·         Hypodermic needle model 

·         Representation theory

Key words (all link wider context):

·      how will people’s ideologies of black people be subverted with these hip hop videos? Liberal views

·         Binary oppositions

·          the education system

Wider context:

·         Black Lives Matter

·         Education system – discrimination (Cultural competence)

Section 2: historical text (350 – 400 words)

·         Background of historical text (Boyz n the hood)

·         Hood life

·         Compare key conventions

·         Representations are similar – specific role for each character (props)

Quotes:

And so the idea was to sort of tell a story about the kids that not only live in these environment but live in different environments around the country and the world that sort of have a different point of view, that don't quite fit into sort of the societal norms of what people expect. And so the celebration of these kids who are geeks, who are into a lot of different things but don't necessarily fit into sort of the accepted or sort of pop cultural norms was something that I was thinking about doing more just on sort of a personal level in that I felt like I was that kid. 

http://www.npr.org/2015/07/01/419160423/dope-director-on-geekdom-the-n-word-and-confronting-racism-with-comedy

notes

Although the film does not go out to glamorise the drug, its very inclusion promotes interest in that substance.

section 3: issues and debates (400 words)

·         Black lives matter campaign

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=sHLRCgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=black+lives+matter&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjNnZ_p55fQAhWkK8AKHZgADg0Q6AEIHTAA#v=onepage&q=black%20lives%20matter&f=falseBlack Lives Matter covers the shootings that touched off passionate protests, the work of activists to bring about a more just legal system, and the tensions in US society that these events have brought to light. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Essential Library is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.

·         Police brutality amongst black people

      black on black crimes 

      Section 4: media technology NDM (350 – 400 words) 

      opportunities it provides

       
      citizen journalism

freedom of speech