Television Critique-Assignment 1 Solution

Television Critique Assignment

Like the reading abstracts for discussion-leading, this will be one of the written documents required during the quarter, it counts towards 20% of your final course grade and will take the form of a class presentation).

The goal is for you to discern a specific television text for its engagement in racial discourse, and to articulate and share both a historical framing and your current analysis/initial critique.

Find a television program that has a major or supporting character who is racialized. A recurring role is a more stable example to analyze than a one-time appearance, but if you’ve identified such an episode that you want to comment upon, you may.

View/be familiar with at least two episodes of the series; having seen many episodes is advantageous.

Consider the broadcast context: i.e., network, place on the schedule or offered on-demand/streaming, how many years/seasons has the program run, can you identify the production or parent company, research as much about the cultural production/industrial process as possible.

Get SWOT Analysis Assignment Here!!

Prepare a 3-4 page Television critique including:

• A brief background for the character.
• What role does the character have in relation to the larger cast, e.g., in terms of PR marketing, fan activity?
• How does this character participate in the main storyline?
• Articulate ways that the character replicates or generates out of a long-standing trope, or perhaps, defies expectations? Be specific.
• Have in mind a specific scene that illustrates your point(s).
• Discuss how you think genre (the generic context) which houses this racial discourse functions? 
• What is your assessment of this image/these images in the text, as well as in popular culture more broadly – vis-à-vis context?
• In what specific ways do you understand this television program may (or may not) be moving racial representation and/or racial discourse forward, or “opening up representational practices”?
• Clips and a PowerPoint/Google slides presentation are welcome!

You can submit the Television Critique at our Canvas course site, and please via e-mail to me: lskim@ucsc.edu as well. You will present this document and your analysis, comments, and perhaps a couple of questions for discussion in class. We can arrange for you to “Share Screen” in our Zoom session to share images or show an illustrative clip. (Please let me know your general plans, so I can allocate the time for that class meeting and offer possible suggestions.)

If you have questions, please let me know. It’ll be great for everyone to learn about a wide range of television programs ~ genres, characters, episodes ~ that you find!