Deck 10: Film and Ideology

Question 1

A society structured by the ideologies of male supremacy is called a ________.

A) patriarchy
B) matriarchy
C) oligarchy
D) monarchy

Answer 1

A

Question 2

The Edison film The Gay Brothers from 1895 depicts two men ________.

A) kissing
B) holding hands
C) dressing in women's clothing
D) none of these

Answer 2

D

Question 3

Systems of beliefs,values and opinions based on underlying assumptions about the way the world should be are known as ________.

A) biases
B) theoretical models
C) ideologies
D) cultures

Answer 3

C

Question 4

Following __________________,the film industry's depiction of disabled characters became considerably more complex,as evident in films like The Best Years of Our Lives.

A) World War I
B) World War II
C) the Vietnam War
D) FDR's presidency

Question 5

Some critics complain that studio-era films like Gone with the Wind and Shirley Temple's childhood films (e.g.,The Little Colonel)are racist because they ________.

A) avoid presenting black characters
B) present black characters in a demeaning way
C) overlook racial difference altogether instead of trying to explore the problems inherent in the United States' racial hierarchy
D) all of the above

Question 6

Before Kathryn Bigelow won an Oscar for The Hurt Locker, ________ women had won the Academy Award for Best Director.

A) three
B) two
C) six
D) zero

Question 7

The feminist filmmaking movement ________.

A) preceded the feminist critique of mainstream films
B) grew out of the women's liberation movement
C) devalued documentary films because they didn't reach as many women as those manufactured by Hollywood
D) all of these

Question 8

In The Birth of a Nation,African Americans are ________.

A) played by non-professional African American actors
B) characterized as rapists who threaten white women
C) depicted as the victims of the South Carolina legislature following the Civil War
D) all of these

Question 9

The group of individuals whose careers and lives were interrupted or ruined by having been listed in The Waldorf Statement were known as ________.

A) the Hollywood reds
B) HUAC
C) the Hollywood blacklist
D) the Don'ts and Be Carefuls

Question 10

"Apparatus" arguments made by critics deal specifically with ________.

A) the physical means by which a film is exhibited to audiences
B) the ways in which government influence impacts film content
C) the stereotyping of minority groups in popular films
D) none of these

Question 11

Films screened late at night for black audiences in white-owned theaters during the era of segregation were known as ________.

A) midnight revivals
B) black-outs
C) white-outs
D) midnight rambles

Question 12

Contemporary film scholarship reveals that gay and lesbian characters ________.

A) make appearances throughout the history of cinema
B) often function as plot devices that affirm heterosexual coupling
C) are frequently meant to provoke humor or pity
D) all of these

Question 13

Criticism that examines the ideologies of sexuality may consider films that ________.

A) are primarily concerned with homosexual characters
B) films that acknowledge only heterosexual couples
C) films that seem to avoid issues of sexuality altogether
D) all of the above

Question 14

A self-reflexive film ________.

A) constantly reminds viewers that they are watching a film
B) allow viewers to be caught up in the world of the narrative
C) enforce only the ideologies that dominate society at large
D) all of these

Question 15

"Blaxploitation" films ________.

A) promoted the benefits of racial integration
B) celebrated black power and resistance to dominant white culture
C) often featured actor Sidney Poitier playing educated, middle-class, upwardly mobile professionals
D) all of these

Question 16

Following the 1915 release of The Birth of a Nation,________.

A) the Ku Klux Klan organization, whose numbers had been dwindling for more than a decade, had a major revival
B) the NAACP embraced the film for its progressive portrait of life in the South after the Civil War
C) African American actors found more parts in Hollywood studio films
D) all of these

Question 17

Which of the following describes the U.S.Congress's House Committee on Un-American Activities (also known as "HUAC")?

A) It was established in the 1930s to investigate Nazi propaganda.
B) It was concerned with charges that Communist propaganda had infiltrated Hollywood films.
C) It called on many people in the film industry to testify before congress and provide names of acquaintances who may have been involved with the American Communist Party.
D) all of these

Question 18

The term "celluloid closet" refers to the fact that ________.

A) Hollywood films rarely depict gay and lesbian protagonists
B) many gay and lesbian stars in the film industry have maintained an illusion of heterosexuality for the public
C) Hollywood has traditionally used sexuality and gender play to provoke humor
D) all of these

Question 19

________ directed the first African-American feature film.

A) Oscar Micheaux
B) D. W. Griffith
C) Sidney Poitier
D) Charles Burnett

Question 20

Oscar Micheaux was ________.

A) the first African-American director to make a feature film
B) a white filmmaker whose portrait of African Americans after the Civil War infuriated members of the NAACP, which organized protests following the film's release
C) a white filmmaker who was sympathetic to the African-American cause
D) a French cinematographer who captured the racial tension in the American South with an outsider's eye

Question 21

The aim of feminist critics is to focus analysis solely on female characters and films that target female audiences,as it is believed that these have traditionally been ignored in film scholarship.

Question 22

John Schlesinger's Midnight Cowboy (1969)was the first film to depict gay characters.

Question 23

Animated films like Wall-E are able to avoid the pitfalls of gender stereotyping,largely because they don't focus on human characters and thus don't have to adhere to arbitrary standards of 'realism' in terms of character development.

Question 24

Female directors in Hollywood were most numerous during the 1910s and the 1920s.

Question 25

How does the storyline in Freaks disturb the tendency to identify the disabled as "others"?

Question 26

Using a film that has been screened in class,articulate an ideology that you feel it presents. In what ways does it do this overtly? In what ways does it do this implicitly?

Question 27

Initially black audiences applauded the depiction of aggressive African American men in blaxploitation movies like Shaft and Superfly because these characters challenged the squeaky clean image fostered by Sidney Poitier.

Question 28

The 1932 film Freaks was banned because the director's decision to have "normal" actors portraying dwarves,siamese twins and people with missing limbs was considered demeaning to the disabled community.

Question 29

The 1915 release of The Birth of a Nation has been linked to a revival of the Ku Klux Klan organization,whose numbers had been dwindling for more than a decade.

Question 30

The most important conveyers of a country's ideologies are its laws and its constitution.

Question 31

During the 1950s and 1960s,what political movement had a significant impact on Hollywood's depiction of African Americans?

Question 32

How did The Birth of a Nation depict the black politicians who ran the South Carolina legislature?

Question 33

The "Hollywood Ten" were a group of writers and directors who were blacklisted because they gave names to congress of their friends and co-workers who were known to be members of the American Communist Party.

Question 34

Robin Woods' analysis of It's a Wonderful Life contends that,"It's a Wonderful Life manages a convincing and moving affirmation of the values (and value)of bourgeois family life." But what is revealed when "disaster releases George's suppressed tensions"?

Question 35

Explain why some,like Rupert Everett,argue that contemporary film industry is still biased against openly gay actors,despite the proliferation of gay characters on film and television.

Question 36

When someone analyzes a film in light of its ideological content,the criteria used may be biased by the critic's own political values.

Question 37

Systems of beliefs,values and opinions based on underlying assumptions about the way the world should be are known as ________.

Question 38

"Midnight rambles" is the term used to describe events staged by the Ku Klux Klan protesting the exhibition of films sympathetic to African-American causes.

Question 39

The House Un-American Activities Committee called on many people in the film industry to testify before congress and provide names of acquaintances who may have been involved with ________.

Question 40

The events of the communist "witch hunt" of the late 1940s and early 1950s illustrate that Hollywood strives to be immune to politics.

Question 41

Both Million Dollar Baby and Avatar feature disabled central characters. Why do some critics argue they reflect different ideologies of disability?

Question 42

What is a stereotype and what is the relationship between stereotyping and ideology in cinema?