Loading...

The Hollywood Curriculum

Teachers in the Movies

by Mary M. Dalton (Author)
©2010 Textbook XIV, 193 Pages
Series: Counterpoints, Volume 256

Summary

The second revised edition of The Hollywood Curriculum analyzes over 165 films distributed throughout the United States over the last 80 years to construct a theory of curriculum in the movies that is grounded in cultural studies and critical pedagogy. The portrayal of teachers in popular movies focuses on individual effort rather than collective action, and relies on stock characters and predictable plots, precluding meaningful struggle. Conformation to these conventions ensures the ultimate outcome of the screen narratives and almost always leaves the educational institution—which represents the larger status quo—intact and dominant. To interrogate the "Hollywood curriculum" is to ask what it means as a culture to be responsive to films at both social and personal levels, and to engage these films as both entertaining and potentially transforming.

Details

Pages
XIV, 193
Publication Year
2010
ISBN (PDF)
9781453917749
ISBN (Softcover)
9781433108730
DOI
10.3726/978-1-4539-1774-9
Language
English
Publication date
2004 (March)
Keywords
Education Film Studies Media Studies Cultural Studies cultural studies critical pedagogy status quo
Published
New York, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, Oxford, Wien, 2010. XIV, 193 pp., num. ill.
Product Safety
Peter Lang Group AG

Biographical notes

Mary M. Dalton (Author)

Mary M. Dalton is Associate Professor of Communication and Co-Director of the Documentary Film Program at Wake Forest University. She is co-author, with Laura R. Linder, of Teacher TV: Sixty Years of Teachers on Television and co-editor with Linder of the anthology The Sitcom Reader: America Viewed and Skewed. In addition to her scholarly work in the area of critical media studies, she is a documentary filmmaker.

Previous

Title: The Hollywood Curriculum