CTCS 394: History of the American Film, 1977-Present
Units: 4.0
Spring 2021
Synchronous: Wednesdays, lecture (18:00—19:00) and discussion section (19:15—20:00)
Asynchronous: weekly film screening (approx. 120-200 mins.)
Teaching Team
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Professor Kiki Benzon (she/her or they/them)
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Corina Copp (she/her) Lead Teaching Assistant ccopp@usc.edu Office Hours: by appointment |
Marissa Matos (she/her) matosm@usc.edu Office Hours: Thursdays 12:00-13:00
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Jose Ramirez (he/him or they/them) joser@usc.edu Office Hours: by appointment
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Course Description
In this course, we will explore the vast and complex arena of American cinema since 1977. While one of our core objectives will be to develop a nuanced understanding of the evolution of cinematic practices during this period, we will diverge from a “linear” model of historicity and organize our encounters with films and critical theory, for the most part, thematically. We will ask: what problems do these films address, amplify or claim to resolve? How do particular narrative and visual modes advance particular ideologies? How can spectacular stories both entertain and destabilize our sense of truth? We are interested in the “productive frictions” that draw films together within broader cultural, political, technological, and economic frames—even if these films were produced decades apart. Thus, our discussions and analyses will invariably acknowledge the cultural conditions within which particular films emerged, but we must also consider our own situatedness as creatives, scholars, and just plain movie lovers. While we acknowledge a cinematic “canon” as it has been conceived for decades, we also understand that canon is itself a construction that is scaffolded by systems of power. By examining works that are less often acknowledged in film survey courses, we exercise our unique opportunity as students at SCA to reimagine and, in fact, re-engineer conventional models and metrics that are often applied in the determination of cinematic “value.”
Learning Objectives
You will emerge from this course with
– an enhanced understanding of the ways in which American cinema both reflects and produces cultural, political, economic, and psychological experience—both within America and globally
– a grounding in contemporary film and cultural theory, with an emphasis on themes and ideas at the forefront of cinematic scholarship
– an awareness of the advancements in filmmaking technology—in particular, the ways in which digitality, online streaming platforms, and other technologies of entertainment have transformed how we make and experience films
– familiarity with a range of American films drawn from 1977 to the present, and insight into new and future cinematic practices that incorporate viewer interactivity, virtual/augmented reality, and other media affordances that are changing the ways we experience and think about films.
Required Readings and Supplementary Materials
Readings will be provided as PDFs, which can be accessed on Blackboard. We will also post supplementary content—further critical work and filmographies—that you might consult toward investigating our weekly themes. You will be able to access screening assignments through SCA Community (instructions to follow).
Description and Assessment of Assignments
Synchronous meetings will include a lecture and discussion section components. In discussion sections, one or two students will give a short presentation (15%) on the assigned film. The presentation (10-15 minutes) should provide an analysis of some aspect of the week’s assigned film and offer a set of questions that will provoke discussion in the group.
Approaching the middle of the term, you will be asked to submit a midterm paper (25%) that will present critical commentary on a subject related to works and concepts we have addressed in the course. You will choose from a set of paper topics that will be provided several weeks before the paper is due. Papers should be 1200-1500 words in length and adhere to MLA style for research papers.
In the final paper (30%), you will advance a critical argument that focuses upon a particular subject addressed in the course; the paper should reflect a considerable level of scholarly research. While suggested topics will be provided, you are invited to investigate an area of particular interest to you, so long as your subject is firmly situated in American cinema post-1977 and you have cleared your topic with an instructor. As with the short paper, you are required to develop a refined thesis that can be persuasively defended within the allowed length (in this case, 2000-2500 words).
Over the course of the term, there will be three unscheduled team activities (5% each), where students will be placed in small groups and given an assignment to complete and submit in 15-20 minutes. These activities will emphasize creativity and criticality.
Active engagement with ideas and discussions is imperative for your success in the course. Your participation mark (15%) will be based on your attendance at lectures and contributions to the discussion section. 10% of the mark is based on your attendance; if you miss, are late to, or depart early from a lecture or discussion section (without a doctor’s note), 2% will be deducted from this 10%. The remaining 5% of the participation mark is based on your level of engagement in the discussion section. Participating in discussions is one way to demonstrate engagement, but you may also share references and critical observations in the chat, or forward these to your section leader before or after class. If you are located in a time zone where class time falls outside what the University has deemed “reasonable learning hours”—07:00 to 22:00—please let Kiki know and we will sort out alternative arrangements.
Grading Breakdown
| Assignment | % of grade |
| short presentation | 15% |
| team activities (3) | 15% |
| midterm paper | 25% |
| final paper | 30% |
| participation | 15% |
| TOTAL | 100% |
Grade Scale
| A | 95-100 |
| A- | 90-94 |
| B+ | 87-89 |
| B | 83-86 |
| B- | 80-82 |
| C+ | 77-79 |
| C | 73-76 |
| C- | 70-72 |
| D+ | 67-69 |
| D | 63-66 |
| D- | 60-62 |
| F | 59 and below |
Assignment Submission Policy
Written assignments should be submitted on time via Blackboard. Assignments submitted after the due date will be penalized half a letter grade per day late to a maximum of four days, at which point the assignment will receive a zero.
Additional Policies
In the context of the COVID-19 global pandemic, interactions and information exchange in this course will be conducted online. On August 7th, 2020, the USC Office of the Provost issued to faculty its “Policy and Guidelines for Asynchronous Learning”; I am sharing this with you to make transparent the guidelines that have informed the “Additional Policies” that I’ve devised for this course in its online configuration. Below are the guidelines most pertinent to us:
“Camera Policy
The USC Provost Acknowledging that class dynamics are substantially compromised without the ability to see the people in class, faculty can set an expectation that students have their cameras on during synchronous online sessions. However, some students may be facing challenging situations, such as internet connectivity, illness, or home environments that make this difficult or impossible. To alleviate these concerns, faculty can encourage students to use virtual backgrounds, which will eliminate most privacy concerns, and earphones or headsets to improve audio quality. While faculty are at liberty to create a “camera-on” policy in their class, they should communicate that accommodations are available to students who contact them directly with reasonable requests.
“Recording Online Classes
For the Fall 2020 semester, USC policy requires that all classes conducted online be recorded for asynchronous viewing with transcriptions made available. Recordings ensure that all classes are ADA compliant, and can be freely accessed at all times by students irrespective of the region or time zone they are studying from. To make this requirement easier for faculty, ITS has set up Zoom to automatically record and transcribe class sessions, which are then made available to students and faculty for all classes in Blackboard.
“As students may be personally identifiable in class recordings via their voice, name, or image, these recordings may be considered “educational records” subject to federal privacy laws (FERPA). However, as long as the recordings are posted to an appropriate class website (such as Blackboard or Zoom) that is accessible only to students enrolled in the class and instructors, TAs, graders, and student services staff members, these recordings are FERPA compliant.
“The university recognizes that its faculty have concerns regarding the misuse, inappropriate dissemination, or attempted sale of class recordings, as well the appropriation of intellectual property. As such, faculty should remind students of their responsibilities towards the appropriate use and handling of these recordings under existing SCampus policies regarding class notes (https://policy.usc.edu/scampus-part-c/). They should also remind students that they are not permitted to create their own class recordings without the instructor’s permission. Violations of these policies will be met with the appropriate disciplinary sanction.”
Netiquette Policies
In general, it is best for a class this large for students to mute their microphones when they are not speaking; please use the “raise hand” feature to make a comment, or use the chat panel to share remarks, notes, links, questions, etc., alongside the lecture or class discussions. Please share the floor with your peers and help to make this inclusive environment where everyone has a chance to speak and contribute to the discussion. Please do not log-in to the class on your phone. Please do not eat or use technology other than your computer during synchronous meetings except at the break.
Content Warnings
Many of the films included in the syllabus for this course contain material that may cause extreme discomfort to some viewers. Some films contain potentially triggering material. Film titles in the weekly schedule are accompanied by content warnings (“cw”); I have tried my best to provide accurate warnings, but these may not be comprehensive. If you anticipate that any film may cause you extreme discomfort or be retraumatizing, you are invited to consult with your instructor before watching the film, research its plot and content for potentially problematic material, and/or skip over disturbing content while watching the film. Here are some resources you might consult: https://www.doesthedogdie.com/, https://www.unconsentingmedia.org/, and IMDb Parents Guide (“Parents Guide”—but actually provides quite detailed information about sensitive material in films).
Weekly Schedule
Week 1: January 20
introduction to the course / discussion sections / presentation sign-up
PART I: American Mythologies
Week 2: January 27
New Hollywood and cinematic historiography
| prepare | Schatz, Thomas. “The New Hollywood.” Movie Blokbusters. Juliamn Stronger, ed. Routledge, 2003. 8-37. |
| assigned film | Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979) 153 min. [cw: extreme violence, war, racism, animal cruelty] |
Week 3: February 3
capitalism and the entrepreneur
| prepare | Hancock, David. “Revulsion and awe: charting the development of the moral economy of capitalism and its hero in the American imagination, from the protestant ethic to ecstasy of the entrepreneur.” Journal of Cultural Economy. 10.2 (2013): 136-149. |
| assigned film | There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007) 158 min. [cw: violence, graphic murder, ableism] |
| recommended | The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese, 2013) 180 min. [cw: sexual harassment, substance abuse, homophobia, misogyny, ableism, sexual content, violence, animal cruelty] |
Week 4: February 10
American frontiers, American dreams
| prepare | Kollin, Susan. “Uncertain Wests: Kelly Reichardt, Settler Sensibilities, and the Challenges of Feminist Filmmaking.” Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik. 68. (2020): 7-20. |
| assigned film | Meek’s Cutoff (Kelley Reichardt, 2011) 104 min. [cw: racism, ancestral trauma] |
| recommended | El Norte (Gregory Nava, 1984) 141 min. [cw: racism, racial trauma, violence]
Muller, Gilbert H. “Promised Land: Postwar Fiction and the Immigrant Experience.” New Strangers in Paradise Book Subtitle: The Immigrant Experience and Contemporary American Fiction. University of Kentucky Press, 1999. 1-25. |
PART II: Anatomies of Resistance
Week 5: February 17
feminist coalitions and the “buddy film”
| prepare | Cooper, Brenda. “Chick Flicks” as Feminist Texts: The Appropriation of the Male Gaze in Thelma & Louise.” Women’s Studies in Communication. 23.3 (2000): 277-306.
Kinder, Marsha. “Girlfriends by Claudia Weill.” Review. Film Quarterly. 32.1 (1978): 46-50. |
| assigned films | Girlfriends (Claudia Weill, 1978) 88 min. and Thelma & Louise (Ridley Scott, 1991) 130 min. [cw: misogyny, attempted r*pe] |
| recommended | Bagdad Café (Percy Adon, 1987) 97 min.
Sutherland, Jean-Anne & Kathryn M. Feltey. “Here’s looking at her: an intersectional analysis of women, power and feminism in film.” Journal of Gender Studies. 6.6 (2017): 618-631. |
Week 6: February 24
the L.A. Rebellion and its legacy
| prepare | Mulvey, Laura. “Julie Dash: Daughters of the Dust.” Afterimages: Women, Cinema and Changing Times. Reaktion Books, 2020. 113-125.
Rogers, Jamie Ann. “Diasporic Communion and Textual Exchange in Beyoncé’s Lemonade and Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust.” Black Camera. 11.2 (2020): 130-157. |
| assigned films | Daughters of the Dust (Julie Dash, 1991) 112 min. [cw: sexual trauma, ancestral trauma, racial oppression] |
| recommended | Beyoncé. Lemonade. Parkwood Entertainment, 2016.
Killer of Sheep (Charles Burnett, 1978) 80 min. [cw; racial slurs, racial oppression, animal cruelty] Massood, Paula J. “An Aesthetic Appropriate to Conditions: Killer of Sheep, (Neo)Realism, and the Documentary Impulse.” Wide Angle. 21.4. (1999): 20-41. |
Week 7: March 3
documenting others, performing the self
| prepare | hooks, bell. “Is Paris Burning?” Black Looks: Race and Representation. South End Press, 1992. 145-156. |
| assigned films | Paris is Burning (Jeanne Livingston, 1990) 78 min. [cw: misgendering, hate speech, death of an LGBT person] |
PART III: Postmodern Transitions
Week 8: March 10
self-reflexivity and the postmodern subject
| prepare | Constable, Catherine. “Postmodern Film.” Cambridge Companion to Postmodernism. Steven Connor, ed. Cambridge UP, 2004. (you can skip the Face/Off part!) |
| assigned film | Synecdoche, New York (Charlie Kaufman, 2008) 124 min. [cw: su*c*de, anxiety attack depicted, ch*ld abuse, misgendering, hate speech, death of an LGBT person] |
| deliverable | midterm paper due – submit through Blackboard |
Week 9: March 17
“blockbuster syndrome” and nostalgia
| prepare | Dwyer, Michael D. “Fixing the Fifties: Reaganism, Nostalgia and Back to the Future.” Back to the Fifties: Nostalgia, Hollywood Film, and Popular Music of the Seventies and Eighties. Oxford UP, 2015. 18-54. |
| assigned film | Back to the Future (Robert Zemeckis, 1985) 116 min. *flashing lights* [cw: attempted sexual assault, incest, hate speech] |
| recommended | E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (Steven Spielberg, 1982) 121 min.
Wood, Robin. “Papering the Cracks: Fantasy and Ideology in the Reagan Era.” Hollywood From Vietnam to Reagan and Beyond. New York: Columbia UP, 2003. 144-167. |
Week 10: March 24
late-capitalism, satire, and fragile masculinity
| prepare | Ross, Regan. “Inside Doesn’t Matter”: Consumerism’s Serial Annihilation of Women and the Self in American Psycho.” Fast Capitalism. 13.1 (2016): 105-120. |
| assigned film | American Psycho (Mary Harron, 2000) 104 min. [cw: extreme violence, gore, torture, cannibalism, sexual assault, antisemitism, hate speech, animal cruelty] |
| recommended | Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999) 151 min. **flashing lights** [cw: su*c*de attempt, self-h*rm, hate speech, gore, extreme violence] |
PART IV: Geography, Space and Self
Week 11: March 31
(sub)urban environments and psychologies
| prepare | Potter, Susan. Dangerous Spaces: Safe. Camera Obscura. 57.9. (2004): 124-156. |
| assigned film | Safe (Todd Haynes, 1995) 119 min. [cw. anxiety attacks depicted] |
| recommended | Blue Velvet (David Lynch, 1986) 121 min. [cw. torture, claustrophobic scene, sexual assault, domestic violence, ch*ld abuse, extreme violence] |
Week 12: April 7
Wellness Day – no class
Week 13: April 14
identity and “the American heartland”
| prepare | Cooper, Brenda. “Boys Don’t Cry and Female Masculinity: Reclaiming a Life & Dismantling the Politics of Normative Heterosexuality” Critical Studies in Media Communication. 19.1 (2002): 44-63. |
| assigned film | Boys Don’t Cry (Kimberley Pierce, 1999) 118 min. [cw: sexual assault, r*pe, extreme violence, torture, body dysmorphia, misgendering, death of an LGBT person, hate speech, animal cruelty] |
| recommended | Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005) 134 min. [cw: anxiety attack depicted, death of an LGBT person, hate speech, animal abuse] |
Week 14: April 21
Americans elsewhere
| prepare | Vernon, Alex “Spectator-Citizen-Soldier: History, Genre, and Gender in The Hurt Locker.” Modern Fiction Studies. 63.2 (2017): 373-396. |
| assigned film | The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow, 2009) 131. [cw: extreme violence, gore, war, anxiety attack depicted] |
| recommended | Zero Dark Thirty. (Kathryn Bigelow 2012) 157 min. [cw; torture, gore, war, extreme violence]
McSweeney, Terrance. “Introduction.” American Cinema in the Shadow of 9/11. Edinburgh UP, 2017. 1-20. |
Week 15: April 28
future cinemas, interactive narratives
| prepare | McSweeney, Terrence and Stuart Joy. “Change Your Past, Your Present, Your Future? Interactive Narratives and Trauma in Bandersnatch.” Through the Black Mirror Deconstructing the Side Effects of the Digital Age. Palgrave, 2018. 271-284. |
| assigned films | Pry (Tender Claws, 2015); “Bandersnatch” (Black Mirror S4E1, 2019) [cw: extreme violence, gore, anxiety attack depicted, self-h*rm, su*c*de, ableism, domestic violence, ch*ld ab*se] |
| deliverable | final paper due – submit through Blackboard |
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Support Systems
A number of USC’s schools provide support for students who need help with scholarly writing. Check with your advisor or program staff to find out more. Students whose primary language is not English should check with the American Language Institute http://dornsife.usc.edu/ali , which sponsors courses and workshops specifically for international graduate students. The Office of Disability Services and Programs http://sait.usc.edu/academicsupport/centerprograms/dsp/home_index.html provides certification for students with disabilities and helps arrange the relevant accommodations. If an officially declared emergency makes travel to campus infeasible, USC Emergency Information http://emergency.usc.edu will provide safety and other updates, including ways in which instruction will be continued by means of blackboard, teleconferencing, and other technology. Course Exam, Project and Paper Retention Policy It is the responsibility of all students in Cinema and Media Studies courses to retrieve all papers, projects, assignments and/or exams within one academic year of completion of a course. These records may be essential in resolving grade disputes and incompletes as well as assist in verifying that course requirements have been met. The Cinema and Media Studies will dispose of all records from the previous academic year in May of the current academic year. No exceptions. Please be in contact with your TAs about collecting these documents while you are taking the course.