Topic: The Color Purple (Film)
Students will use Media Analysis by selecting a film that has race as a major theme, and will be expected to apply the material covered in class, especially Bonilla-Silva's 4 frames of colorblind racism to their everyday social world. The paper should present quotes that illustrate all 4 frames of colorblindness and analyze them accordingly. Keep in mind that in Chapters 3-6, Bonilla-Silva outlines the typical colorblind racism patterns, while in Chapter 7 he looks at how progressive racial ideology differs from those, and in Chapter 8 how racial "minorities" tend to use colorblindness differently than the majority.
As his/her critical-thinking decision-making objective, the student should decide whether the societal evidence he/she reviews in the paper (a) demonstrates the typical colorblind pattern that Bonilla-Silva describes in the textbook; or (b) reveals a more progressive and/or minority pattern; or (c) some combination of the above; or (d) some other pattern not discussed in the textbook but worth exploring in future research. The student may find that the quotes he/she analyzes deliberately challenge one of the 4 frames of colorblindness in some way, and he/she can note this in the paper as well. Each paper should consider the implications of the analysis of colorblindness for the future of a multiracial society. In other words, how do the representations discovered in your analysis help and/or hinder a society's progress toward inclusive multiracial democracy?
[NOTE: students should write a minimum of 6 pages total as part of their paper.]