TEACHERS AID
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
REAL CINEMA: USING MOVIES TO EXPLORE AND EMPOWER STUDENT VOICE By Anthony Perrotta
Within the context of cinema and popular culture studies lies an opportunity to cultivate culturally responsive teaching and learning. Recognizing that popular film rises from the political, teachers can engage in the politics of the past and present, while creating a safe space where students can discover and share their social identities and sense of self. The idea of multiple social identities is at the core of the Ministry of Education’s Culturally Responsive Pedagogy Building Capacity Series. As is noted in the document, “Culture goes much deeper than typical understandings of ethnicity, race and/or faith. It encompasses broad notions of similarity and difference and it is reflected in our students’ multiple social identities and their ways of knowing and of being in the world.” In other words, being culturally responsive goes beyond a conventional understanding of culture. Through consumption and production, film can empower students’ sense of knowing and being in the world, providing them with the opportunity to engage in a shared learning discourse that speaks to their identities. Specifically, by exploring cinema through a faith, political, and cultural discourse, the inclusion of movies with intention can be transformative. Movies can provide a window into unique perspectives, speak to who students are, and allow them to express their distinct perspectives on the world. The realness of cinema in a classroom speaks directly to the realness of students’ personal narratives. As a member of OECTA’s Professional Development Network, I recently presented the “Real Cinema” workshop to Catholic teacher candidates at Brock University, with the goal of providing them an opportunity to embrace media literacy as cultural literacy. Their big question was how to put it into practice. Establishing this thinking with students begins with an understanding that popular film is heavily politicized and 24 CATHOLIC TEACHER | FEBRUARY 2019
traditionally responds to, or reaffirms, a shared sense of time and place. For example, the science-fiction and horror films of the 1950s spoke directly to fears of atomic warfare and technological evolution. Some contemporary superhero movies, like 2002’s “Spider-Man,” rose from a post-9/11 need for heroism. More recent examples, like “The Dark Knight,” grapple with questions about the legitimacy of violence and the consequences of colonialism and imperialism. We can also think about Canadian films funded with public monies, which have a requirement to speak to Canadian sensibilities, in contrast to Hollywood films, which generally create or respond to dominant thinking. To reaffirm these ideas with the teacher-candidates, we explored Jordan Peele’s 2017 Academy Award-winning film, “Get Out.” In the opening scene, a young African-American man is abducted by an unknown person in a white Porsche, while walking through a suburban neighbourhood. The candidates were challenged to look at the scene through a real lens, which resulted in rich conversation. The scene provided a framework to explore colonial history, issues of race in America, and Canada’s own history with “taking.” As with my own students in the classroom, a connection to the Sixties Scoop was made. Through this context, the film is so much more than entertainment but rather real horror: a film that rises from a real world context that speaks to past and present. Once the cultural thinking around issues like race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class have been established, students can readily begin to tell their own stories. Like Jordan Peele, who explored his sensibilities as an African-American man, students can create their own real cinema. When students understand the power of movies as a critical and creative art form, they can leverage the medium to share their own voices. Anthony Perrotta is a teacher with the Toronto Secondary Unit. He uses popular film as a powerful tool to further classroom dialogue on Catholic values and conscious media consumption. Visit his website www.aperrotta.com for more resources.
ILLUSTRATION: @thenatchdl / Shutterstock.com
Popular film is so much more than entertainment.