Due Date: April 19. Late Penalty: One letter grade a day Length: 7 to 9 pages (1-inch margins; 10-12-point font). (Spaces between paragraphs do not count toward total length.)

Goal: To write a historically and culturally sensitive analysis of an American sports movie made before 1990.

Paper: In your paper you will need to answer three main questions: What is this movie about? What does this movie have to say about sports? What does this movie have to say about the broader culture of the time?

In the first section, you’ll explain the movie to the reader. First provide basic information: when was the movie made? Who directed it? Who are the stars? Then summarize the plot, presuming that the reader has never seen this film before. You can finish this section with your own critical commentary: how effective is the movie?

In the second section, you will explore what the movie has to say about sports. How are sports presented in the movie – positively, negatively, or both? Does the movie touch on any of the issues or themes that we have covered in class this semester? Based upon what you have learned this semester, does the movie treat sports fairly and honestly? Does it distort, exaggerate, or gloss over anything? Was the movie created solely for entertainment, or do you think it is using sports to make a larger statement?

In the third section of the paper, go beyond sports to discuss what the movie says about the broader U.S. culture of the period in which it was made. Bear in mind that you can analyze films in a couple of different ways. On the one hand, you can look at what the filmmakers intended to say through the movie. What message or messages are they consciously trying to get across to the audience. This will largely be your approach in the second section of the paper. On the other hand, you can explore the values that are more unconsciously presented in the film. Movies are reflections of the times in which they are made. As scholar Stuart Samuels puts it, "every film speaks to some norm. Some behaviors are deemed appropriate, others not. Some acts are condemned, others applauded. Certain characters are depicted as heroic, others as cowardly. Film is one of the products, one of the languages, through which the world communicates itself to itself. Films...contain the values, fears, myths, assumptions, and point of view of the culture in which they are produced." So, what can you learn about the time in which the film was made by studying the film? Try to watch without taking anything for granted, and look for anything that looks different, revealing or interesting to a viewer today. For example, what does the film’s message (or lack of message) reveal about the era? Could this movie have been made at any other time? How do men and women behave and interact in the movie? How do people of different races or social classes behave, how do they interact, and how are they portrayed? Does the film seem to say anything, intentionally or unintentionally, about how different types of people should behave? What does the movie say about the world and how it works (or should work)?

Grading: When grading, I will be looking for:

1. Analysis: I will look for a sincere effort to analyze the film and to draw historical conclusions from it. There is no one "right" or "wrong" interpretation of a source. What I want is a serious attempt at interpretation and a demonstration that you have learned something from this class.

3. Effort: Misspelled words, scratched out typos, uneven margins, illegible font – all of these indicate a lack of effort and a lack of concern about the quality of the paper. I will interpret failure to follow the guidelines that are laid out in this handout as indicating a similar lack of effort and concern.

So, to sum up, I will be looking to find substantive ideas, expressed clearly and neatly. Please remember that plagiarism on any paper will result in failure of the course (see the course syllabus for further information).