Great thoughts on an ageless issue, but with so much new complexity now with social media and AI. Teaching high school, media literacy is a major goal of my classes. And I’m bringing back a film criticism elective next year after it being cancelled for a few years (apparently it wasn’t rigorous enough at other schools), so I’m eager to do more with that.
I think when I was a sophomore in high school, watching Starship Troopers with the boys was just pure fun. It was over the top and different from anything we’d seen. The satire was lost on us. I just finished a big satire unit with Animal Farm and most of my seniors that aren’t honors are equally incompetent and inexperienced with it. Hopefully I helped a few of them level up.
I’ve spoken with a few of my more advanced students about Hunger Games and Fight Club having the same issue leveled at Starship. Does the critique of violence get lost in the spectacle of violence in the Hunger Games books? Does the critique of toxic masculinity in Fight Club get lost by casting someone as charismatic and beautiful as Brad Pitt?
I think the medium is crucial. In a movie, the attractiveness and spectacle does distract. In a book or comic, the deeper message is more easily accessed. I think very early on reading X-Men I just assumed it was about anti-semitism because of the creators; later, in high school maybe, I figured it could be about homophobia. The allegory was impossible to miss.
Great thoughts on an ageless issue, but with so much new complexity now with social media and AI. Teaching high school, media literacy is a major goal of my classes. And I’m bringing back a film criticism elective next year after it being cancelled for a few years (apparently it wasn’t rigorous enough at other schools), so I’m eager to do more with that.
I think when I was a sophomore in high school, watching Starship Troopers with the boys was just pure fun. It was over the top and different from anything we’d seen. The satire was lost on us. I just finished a big satire unit with Animal Farm and most of my seniors that aren’t honors are equally incompetent and inexperienced with it. Hopefully I helped a few of them level up.
I’ve spoken with a few of my more advanced students about Hunger Games and Fight Club having the same issue leveled at Starship. Does the critique of violence get lost in the spectacle of violence in the Hunger Games books? Does the critique of toxic masculinity in Fight Club get lost by casting someone as charismatic and beautiful as Brad Pitt?
I think the medium is crucial. In a movie, the attractiveness and spectacle does distract. In a book or comic, the deeper message is more easily accessed. I think very early on reading X-Men I just assumed it was about anti-semitism because of the creators; later, in high school maybe, I figured it could be about homophobia. The allegory was impossible to miss.