INTRODUCTION TO READING FILMS CRITICALLY AS "SOCIAL TEXTS":

MAKING SENSE OF FILMS IN RELATION
TO SOCIAL CONTEXTS

Professor Bob Nowlan
 
 

1.
 

To begin, I don't think it makes much sense to say that any film, including any Hollywood film, simply is, or means, any one thing. This is reductive and cannot due justice to the complexity of factors which contribute toward making up what a film represents, how, and why. In short, I want to discourage you from making either sweepingly positive or sweepingly negative statements about the films which we will discuss as objects of critical study. Don't simply evaluate these films by judging them as good or bad, likeable or unlikeable without providing reasons and evidence for your judgements; evaluate these on the basis of careful, thorough, and rigorous analyses of how they are constructed, composed, and deployed, as well as how they work to influence, and even determine, the ways that they are received by their ideal audiences - the sympathetic audiences they invite, encourage, elicit, and help fashion; the audiences that "read" what the film represents to them the way that the film wants them to read this.
 

2.
 

To be even more precise, while it is certainly true that many Hollywood films end up expressing and communicating largely socially and politically conservative positions, to simply describe this as what they do really tells us very little of any substance or use, and is not actually an example of critical thinking; instead it is merely an example of cynical thinking, and cynical thinking is anti-critical thinking. At the least, we always need to account for the specific ways in which specific films construct and convey conservative messages. Beyond this, we need to be precise about exactly what specific conservative messages are we talking about, in what ways are these messages the product of a particular complex of factors, and in what particular ways are they likely to intersect with, to enforce, and to reinforce conservative values, attitudes, convictions, and commitments already maintained by their audiences.
 

3.
 

However, even much more important than what I have just said, we need to grasp Hollywood films as sites of contradiction. In fact, these films are sites of multiple contradictions. What this means is we need to look for the ways that films reflect and respond to issues in society about which there are a range of different, and especially opposing, positions. The films register the tensions and the conflicts among these positions in what they express and communicate to us. So a film is not, for instance, likely simply to be for or against racism, but rather to be about the tension, conflict, and struggle among multiple different racist, and anti-racist, ways of thinking, acting, and interacting.
 

4.
 

Of course, a film will lean in one direction versus another (or versus others) in relation to virtually every contradiction it represents. However, the way that it leans, and the process by which it attempts to explain and justify this leaning is what is really of interest for the critical student of film. In addition, the critical student is also very much interested in the ways that a film, of necessity, represents - or attempts to marginalize and suppress - positions in opposition to that which it leans to support. Even the seemingly simplest of Hollywood films can be read, in other words, as social texts engaged in struggle with an array of social subtexts (subordinated, buried, marginalized, or repressed ways of looking at the same social issue). Many of these subtexts may function, moreover, as countertexts (opposing ways of looking at the same issue). The critical student will attempt to identify the array of opposing positions represented in a film, analyze how they are represented, and evaluate how the conflict among these positions is represented - as well as the array of opposing positions the film ignores, elides, denies, or mystifies. What remains "unseen" and "unheard," because the film does not (and at times, cannot or will not) "show" or "speak" it, often contributes substantially to the impact and influence of the film as a social (and political) text.
 

5.
 

In addition, it is very important to pay careful attention to the way in which films seek to resolve social contradictions. In other words, films don't simply hold a mirror up to a world which exists outside of or prior to its representation; films take material from this world and work on it. Perhaps even better put, they work it over: they rework, and they transform the material they take from the "real life" which exists outside of, prior to, and beyond the movies.
 

6.
 

To take the example of racism, once again, a film which deals with this issue will usually represent a particular way of attempting to deal with this problem: it will attempt to present some kind of resolution of at least a particular instance of racism. Resolution may mean "solving" or "overcoming" the problem, but this is not necessary, by any means. More often, resolution involves clarifying or illuminating what is most crucially at stake in a conflict. In the case of racism, this means the film will work to show us what explains the existence and persistence of racism, and what does not, as well as what is likely to prove useful, and what not, in working to address this problem.
 

7.
 

In fact, to follow up on what I have said earlier, a film is likely to represent to us an array of multiple possible directions for resolving a contradiction, even as it also, simultaneously, suggests that one of these is superior to that of the others.
 

8.
 

Films represent contradictions in a variety of different ways. It is important to look for contradictions within and between the various elements that are involved in making up a film. The eight major elements involved in narrative, fictional, feature films include the following:
 

a. the narrative (the plot, the story, and the narration);
 

b. the characters;
 

c. the settings;
 

d. the themes;
 

e. the mise-en-scène (the staging and performing of the film before the camera);
 

f. the cinematography (the manipulation of the camera in recording what is staged and performed in front of it);
 

g. the editing (the preparation, selection, and arrangement of which pieces of recorded film to use, in what combinations, and what not, after the film has been shot); and
 

h. the sound (the recording and arrangement of speech, sound effects, and music tracks, especially in relation to the image track).
 

What we need to begin to do, as critical students of film, is to look for contradictions within each of these areas (for instance, contradictions within a character), and for contradictions between each of these areas (for instance, contradictions between what we see and hear, between what the camera shows us and what the music track suggests). If we start to do this, we will begin to develop a much more complex, sophisticated, and, in fact, just and accurate way of interpreting and evaluating films.
 

9.
 

If thinking of films in terms of contradictions seems strange at first, this is probably because we are so often taught to look upon contradictions as simply bad things. We are taught to think in ways which are inadequate to do justice to the complexity and dynamism of life. In fact, contradictions are everywhere, and they are, moreover, the driving force of change. To illustrate, let's just take the example of an individual human being. If we consider that individuals are always involved in multiple and complicated kinds of relationships at the one time, and are growing, developing, and changing over time, then we see it makes little sense to say that any individual simply is - and is not - one fixed thing.
 

10.
 

Let's call our hypothetical individual Tom. I am proposing, in short, that it makes perfect sense to say that Tom "is" the following:
 

• A good student and a bad student.
• Happy and sad.
• Responsible and irresponsible.
• Hard-working and lazy.
• Concerned about his future and focused on the here and now.
• A good friend and a bad friend.
• In love and not in love.
• Idealistic and cynical.
• Respectful of women's equality and not respectful of women's equality.
• Gentle and harsh.
• Intelligent and ignorant.

11.
 

In sum, therefore, I urge you, as you start to analyze films critically to be sensitive to contradictions: to aim to grasp what films represent to us as just as complicated, as dynamic, and especially contradictory, as are the questions of who Tom is, what is he like, and what is he about.
 
 

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