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Dr Tim Barnard | History | NUS | Back to GEM2005/HY2243 |
GEM 2005/ HY2243
FILM AND HISTORY
Feedback on Project 3
Many students wrote us before the project asking us to clarify the question. The question was ambiguous on purpose, to force students to think through the different meanings of the terms. There are many ways of approaching the question. “Character” for instance, could be the character proper, what they did/said in the films; it could be how the director drew/represented the character; it could be the place of the character as a whole in the movie. The term “Understands Asia” depends on your definition of Asia. Here Dr. Barnard's lecture on Kill Bill fleshed out some of the complexities , so if you missed it you may have missed the point. He highlighted the stereotypes of Asia. You can take Asia as being represented by Japan and China, or Asia as more than those countries. But in all cases the films show stereotypes of Asia, whether positive or negative (just because Kill Bill shows a different and possibly more positive stereotype of women than You Only Live Twice does not mean that The Bride understands Asia better.) And lastly, what does it mean to “understand” something? Whatever criteria you choose, note that it still means that you understand something through your own values/stereotypes, which could be different from the complex realities that we can find in Asia.
Breakdown of grades
(for in-between grades, the numeric grade is approximately halfway between one grade and the next, ie “tick/tick plus” means that you received approximately 65%, and so on)
Tick minus 50%
Most of you who received this grade based your paper on a lot of your own stereotypes of Japan, China or Asia as a whole, and argue d for one character or another. How do you know what Japan was like in the 1960s? Are all Asian women SPGs? Does it mean that all Japanese people would know to treat Hanzo steel with deference and that makes them Japanese/Asian? Isn't a "honouring" of Japanese steel, simply another stereotype? You may have mention ed in your introduction or conclusion that Asia is more than just the stereotypes in the film, yet you go on to argue for one or the other character based on those stereotypes or your own. Or, the essay had bits of information that did not address the question directly.
Tick 60%
You still made sweeping statements about Japanese and Asians, but not as m any as tick minus projects . You brought up some grey areas of the terms mentioned in the question, or even the question itself, but did not carry it through to the rest of your argument. As we said before, go through the drafts of your paper before submitting!
Tick plus 70%
You may have noticed that both films present stereotypes, and that the Bride/Kill Bill did so as much as You Only Live Twice . You may have mention ed that any criteria for understanding Asia is itself problematic, as what do we take as being “truly Asia”? Maybe you also mentioned ethnocentrism of the moviemakers and characters.
Double tick 80%
Great argumentation and writing of the points mentioned under ‘tick plus’. Would you like to be a History major?
Here is a link to the two best Projects both of which received double ticks so that you can judge the calibre of answer needed for a double tick.
nüü
17 (4%) grade = 80%
ü+/üü
9 (2%)
grade = 75%
Did not hand in a Project 9.