Psychology & Film Analysis
Purpose:
Hopefully you can understand psychology is a “hub” for a variety of disciplines. For your paper, you are to connect what you have learned from this class and apply it to film. The purpose of the assignments is to answer how films portray psychology, typically through characters suffering through a variety of situations.
Films:
Choose one of the following Netflix films to analyze:
- The Grinch (2018) Animated Cartoon
- Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle (2018)
- Dallas Byers Club (2013)
- The Irishman (2019)
- Her (2013)
- Beats (2019)
- Ex Machine (2015)
- Everybody Knows (2019) – Spanish Film, can be viewed using English CC.
- A Secret Love (2020) Documentary
*Some films may have some violent/sex scenes. Please review the film before watching. If you the film is not for you, then please choose another*
Instructions:
After viewing your chosen film, you are to analyze the film through a psychological lens. You may use any perspective, concept, or theory we have examined this semester. For example, you could easily discuss social psychological (stereotypes, discrimination, prejudice) concepts in Dallas Byers Club (2013). You could discuss defense mechanisms in Her (2013). You can discuss self-esteem and self-comparison, or stages of human development in The Grinch (2018). You may simply choose a character in the film and complete a character analysis. You may also do the same analysis for a scene. Again, you decide. You have the freedom to construct this analysis as you like.
To make your analysis stronger, you are to find scholarly research articles that will reinforce what you are writing. You need to make sure you cite as appropriate. You may utilize your online textbook, online journal articles, or any other type of credible sources as your reference. Visit https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/ to learn more about to cite and to reference in APA style.
Format:
- Your paper should be 4-5 pages not including the title page, abstract, or reference page.
- Your paper needs to be completed in APA format. Your will need a page header, a title page, abstract, content, and a reference page. To learn more on how to format your paper, visit https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/
- You will use headings in your paper. APA uses a heading system to separate and paper sections. It helps with organizing your paper. You will be required to use level 1 sub headings throughout your paper. Here is some additional information: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/16/
- Your paper must be completed in Word. If you have a MAC, you need to convert the document to word, or you may upload the document as a PDF. Any other program will not work.
- You will have minimum of 4 references. 3 of those references must be scholarly articles (articles from the research database/research articles) and your last reference will be the film. You will need to utilize the college research database to find these articles.
- To access Lone Star College’s research database, visit http://www.lonestar.edu/library/ . On the left hand side click on research database, click social sciences, and click on Psychology and Behavioral Sciences collection. If at any time the systems asks you to log in and use a library card, click on the online user link and log in as if you were logging into D2L.
- You will need to cite if you are pulling material from different sources. If you have a definition in your paper, you must cite where you got the definition from. To learn how to cite, please visit https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/ and learn how to cite your sources. Note: You must refence the movie on your references page.
- I have included an example of how to properly create in-text citing, and citing our textbook. You must include this in your posts, if you gathered information from somewhere else, for maximum points. This is not an English class but citing applies to any/all information relayed in writing in a classroom environment. The below example is for the OpenStax textbook:
- In-text: (OpenStax, 2019).
- Textbook: OpenStax College, Psychology. OpenStax College. 8 December 2019. http://cnx.org/content/col11629/latest/
- You can find the page number for OpenStax by downloading the PDF version of the book.