From all of us at the
Media and Cinema Studies Program, we wish you all the best this holiday season
and in the new year! Next December, why not consider taking Prof. Blair Davis'
"MCS 353: Bah Humbug! - Analyzing Christmas Media Texts" course?
Students analyze a wide range of classic Christmas films and TV shows using
various media studies methodologies. It's the perfect way to get into the
holiday spirit... with such topics as "How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Semiotics"! "Elf and
Psychoanalysis"! "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Marxist
Analysis"! "A Christmas Carol and Cultural
Studies"! "A Charlie Brown Christmas and Religious
Studies"! "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians and
Paracinema"!
"Films like It’s a Wonderful Life and
programs like A Charlie Brown Christmas are commonly among the
most re-watched media texts for most people – we watch them more often over the
course of a lifetime than most other movies and shows," says Prof. Davis.
"In turn, it would seem natural that we should critically analyze these
media texts that we regularly return to in the same ways that we seek to find
the cultural, aesthetic and/or political meanings inherent in popular Hollywood
blockbusters and prime-time television series. But should Christmas media texts
only be consumed emotionally rather than intellectually? Does studying these
beloved films and shows somehow rob them of their joy, or does this process
have just as many intellectual rewards as when we analyze more traditional
media texts?" he asks.
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| image courtesy of cbs.com |
Rudolph the Red-Nosed
Reindeer, he argues for instance, is “an enlightening tale of class
politics at work at the North Pole that benefits from a Marxist analysis of how
labor is represented… when Hermey the elf and Rudolph declare themselves to be a
‘couple of misfits,’ each rejects their class designations to declare a new
identity, one which is not tied to the division of labor at the north pole.
When the Abominable (or the Bumble) is finally welcomed at the North Pole it is
because he is the only one who can put the star on top of the Christmas tree.
So in other words, once he has unique labor potential, he becomes a useful part
of North Pole society.”
"MCS 353: Bah
Humbug! - Analyzing Christmas Media Texts" is offered as a fully
online course in the December intersession term, and Prof. Davis plans to offer
it again in December 2015.
