Often, much of what we know about a faith comes via the
media. In fact, it is often a television series that gives us our first glimpse into a particular belief system. Those representations might vary from accurate and objective to stereotypical and biased, even offensive. Still, these depictions often help establish defining characteristics of a belief system. For
your final project, you will examine the representation of faith (or
lack of faith) in an American television series from the last 20 years. The goals are to
illustrate the ways in which a specific belief system is portrayed and
to analyze that portrayal's impact on the general perception of those
beliefs.
In 12 slides, you must:
Part 1: A clear thesis, arguing how this belief system
(faith-based or non-faith-based) is portrayed in a specific television program
Part 2: The media's historical representation of this
particular belief system (e.g. Judaism, Mormonism)
Part 3: This program's representation of that belief system via
specific characters, plot lines, themes, etc.—focus on a minimum of three
episodes
Part 4: Present a contrasting view of this belief system via
a secondary television program (no more than two
episodes) to compare and contrasted with your primary source
Part 5: A conclusion that illustrates an understanding of
this intersection of faith and media
Part 6: Works Cited slide
The primary focus of your presentation should be on one of the following
television shows; your secondary source may also come from this list:
30 Rock (NBC)
The Americans (FX)
American Horror Story (FX)
The Americans (FX)
Battlestar Galactica (2004 remake; Syfy)
The Big Bang Theory (CBS)
Big Love (HBO)
Black-ish (ABC)
Blue Bloods (CBS)
The Bold Type (Freeform)
Bones (FOX)
The Borgias (Showtime)
Broad City (Comedy Central)
Brooklyn Nine-Nine (FOX, NBC)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (The WB, UPN)
Caprica (Syfy)
Carnivale (HBO)
Catastrophe (Amazon)
Charmed (The WB, The CW)
Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO)
Daredevil (Netflix)
Dexter (Showtime)
Empire (FOX)
The Exorcist (FOX)
Family Guy (FOX)
Game of Thrones (HBO)
Gilmore Girls (The WB, Netflix)
Glee (FOX)
The Good Place (NBC)
The Good Wife (CBS)
Grey's Anatomy (ABC)
The Handmaid's Tale (Hulu)
House (FOX)
House of Cards (Netflix)
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (FX)
Jane the Virgin (The CW)
Joan of Arcadia (CBS)
Justified (FX)
King of the Hill (FOX)
The Leftovers (HBO)
Living Biblically (CBS)
Lost (ABC)
Lucifer (FOX)
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Amazon)
New Girl (FOX)
The O.C. (FOX)
Orange is the New Black (Netflix)
Oz (HBO)
The Office (NBC)
The Path (Amazon)
Parks and Recreation (NBC)
Preacher (AMC)
Rectify (SundanceTV)
Rome (HBO)
Seventh Heaven (The WB)
The Simpsons (FOX)
Sex and the City (HBO)
Six Feet Under (HBO)
The Sopranos (HBO)
South Park (Comedy Central)
Star Trek: Discovery (CBS All Access)
Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Cartoon Network)
Supernatural (The CW)
Superstore (NBC)
Touched By An Angel (CBS)
True Blood (HBO)
True Detective (HBO)
The Tudors (Showtime)
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix)
The Walking Dead (AMC)
Will & Grace (NBC)
The X-Files (FOX)
The Young Pope (HBO)
Project timeline:
Week 13: Thu 4.18- RESEARCH PROJECT OUTLINE (BRING 2 HARD COPIES)
Week 14: Thu 4.25- RESEARCH PROJECT (DRAFT 1—BRING ELECTRONIC VERSION)
Week 15: Thu 5.2- RESEARCH PROJECT (DRAFT 2—BRING ELECTRONIC VERSION)
Week 16: Thu 5.9- RESEARCH PROJECT (FINAL DRAFT—EMAIL BY 5 P.M.)
Generally speaking, humans tend not to dwell on death too much. For
most of us, our own death is a concept too large to wrap our brains
around. Still, each and every one of us will eventually die. To help
reconcile the gravity of that fact, we've constructed a number of
explanations for what happens when we die via religion, philosophy,
science, and the arts. Constructs, such as the circle of life or an
afterlife, help us better comprehend what lies ahead. But, of course,
now one can agree just what happens at the moment of our death. What do
you believe happens when we die? Does our essence live on through a soul
or form of energy? What of the role of science? How has it informed our
understanding of this natural process? Finally, are you afraid of
dying? What, if anything, gives you comfort?
Include at least two of the following in your discussion:
As a medium, film is tremendously influential in teaching American filmgoers religions and how we interact with them. Often, a film is a moviegoer's first peek inside a Christian church or a Muslim home; a film might even be the first time we meet a Jew or an atheist. Burke’s Dramatistic Pentad offers us a useful tool for deciphering the motivations film scenes, including those depicting interactions with spirituality. Below you will find scenes from ten films. You will use the Dramatistic Pentad to identify specific rhetorical elements in three of those scenes illustrating the intersection of people and spirituality (or a lack of one). Additionally, you will analyze the ratio between two elements.
Directions:
Choose three scenes from below. Also, choose one ratio with which to examine all three scenes (e.g. purpose:agent, scene:agency).
Using the Dramatistic Pentad, identify what you believe to be each of the five elements (agent, agency, etc.) for each of the three scenes (or “artifacts”)—see model below.
In one paragraph, examine how your chosen ratio functions in each of the three scenes. For example, what is revealed by examining the scenes through this specific ratio? Are there similarities? What are the differences? You might also consider how this particular ratio informs us versus another.
Example: "Start the Day Write" commercial from Kellogg’s Artifact Description: A boy sluggishly wakes up for school. After a bowl of Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes, he is more animated. Later, at school, the boy enthusiastically answers his teacher’s questions thanks to the boost he got from the cereal.
The Dramatistic Pentad: 1. Act: A boy’s morning sluggishness is only helped by eating a bowl of Frosted Flakes cereal. 2. Agency: In order to pep up her sleepy son, the boy’s mother purposefully serves him a sugary breakfast cereal. 3. Agent: The boy’s mother, who serves her son a sugary cereal in order to wake him up. 4. Scene: Split between his home and his classroom. 5. Purpose: The boy’s mother, needing an efficient means to ready her sleepy son for school, feeds him a bowl of sugary cereal. She succeeds in that he is very engaged soon after in school.
Choose three scenes from the following for your analysis:
"Has God made you promises?" from The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
"There is no freedom without the law" from The Ten Commandments (1956)
"Every sperm is sacred" from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983)
"Don't you talk like that in here!" from Footloose (1984)
"The joke's on us" from School Ties (1992)
[NSFW]
"Will you be my god?" from Little Buddha (1993)
"Let me get this straight, you don't believe in God because of Alice in Wonderland?" from Dogma (1999)
"Tell us, are you the Messiah?" from The Passion of the Christ (2004)
