Discussion 1

Watch "Sexually Explicit Blockbuster," located on this week's Electronic Reserve Readings page.

Discuss the following with your peers:

How does Hollywood conceptualize sexuality?

The old adage is "Sex sells." Is this true of Hollywood films?

Discussion 2

Perhaps because I hear it quite often, I don't tend to buy into that whole "sex sells" line of thinking.

Is it really the sex that sells or is it the controversy surrounding it all? As one of my senior citizen students said last week, if no one had made such a big stink about it (it being a depiction of a nude woman in an artwork at the local museum), no one would have gone to look at the piece and it would have gone unnoticed.

So, is it really "sex that sells" as most simply say? Or, is it the controversy that sells?

Ideas? Thoughts?

DISCUSSION 3

Folks

Chapter 12 functions as a primer for writing a film analysis. It points out that you can analyze a film in terms of form, i.e., how it is made, how it is put together (think of your Week 2 worksheet) or you can think of it in term of content (i.e., what is the story about, thematic subject matter, etc.).

So, what about this short film could be analyzed? What would you say in this analysis?

Keep in mind that an analysis is not where you state that the genre is not your favorite genre or that you don't understand what is going on. An analysis is just that, your observations and ideas being put forth to analyze a work of cinematic art.

There is no need to write an entire paper, just to get you to practice your observational and analytical skills.