Sex and the Screen

This subject has the following teaching availabilities in 2010:

How do representations of sex in screen media such as film, television and the Internet impact on our experience of our own gendered and sexual identities? How are ideas about love, romance, sex and gender, and social categories like masculinity and femininity; heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality represented in screen media? How have such representations transformed over time, and how have they been shaped by historical movements and contexts like film censorship, queer political activism, cultural globalization? By focusing on the ways in which screen representations both reflect and construct modern understandings of sex and gender, this subject approaches gender and sexuality as historically and culturally contingent rather than as ‘natural’ expressions of a private self. Drawing on theoretical formations in both cinema and cultural studies from Freud to Foucault and from feminist film theory to queer theory, this subject engages with a diverse range of screen media that may include examples from Hollywood cinema, the American underground and trash cinema, the New Queer Cinema, and contemporary television and Internet cultures. On completion of this subject students should be able to understand and explain the complex connections between gender and sexuality in contemporary culture and to analyse the representation of gendered and sexual identities and desires in selected screen texts.

Students who successfully complete this subject should;

• understand some of the ways in which contemporary gendered and sexual identities have been represented in Western (and some selected non-Western) screen media as an aspect of cultural modernity;
• be able to understand and explain the complex connections between gender and sexuality in contemporary culture;
• be able to analyse the representation of gendered and sexual identities and desires in selected screen texts;
• have an understanding of how gender and sexuality, especially as represented in screen media, relate to other facets of social identity such as race, generation, and nationality;
• be familiar with some of the key approaches to gender and sexuality in contemporary film and cultural theory (including post-structuralist feminism, psychoanalytic approaches, Foucauldian approaches, and queer theory).

A subject reader will be available.

This subject potentially can be taken as a breadth subject component for the following courses:

• Bachelor of Biomedicine
• Bachelor of Commerce
• Bachelor of Environments
• Bachelor of Music
• Bachelor of Science
• Bachelor of Engineering

You should visit learn more about breadth subjects and read the breadth requirements for your degree, and should discuss your choice with your student adviser, before deciding on your subjects.

Students who successfully complete this subject should:

• acquire social, ethical, and cultural understanding of self and others through detailed analysis of contemporary culture in its various local, national and transnational contexts; the reception of new ideas and the contextualization of judgments; the adaptation of knowledge to new situations;
• acquire critical analysis and synthesis through the study of competing theories of contemporary culture and their application to diverse examples; the engagement with and processing of different critical perspectives across the interdisciplinary field of cultural studies; the development of independent thought and arguments;
• acquire effective written and oral communication through tutorial discussions and debates; the preparation and execution of written assessment exercises; exposure to and emulation of competing genres and protocols of critical writing;
• acquire information management and information literacy through the practice of library and archival research; engagement with electronic databases;
• acquire teamwork, flexibility, and tolerance through group discussions in tutorials; reception of new ideas and opinions; engaging and cooperating with other people from diverse backgrounds;
• acquire time management and planning through managing and organizing workloads for recommended reading and assessment requirements.

This subject is available to pre-2008 Bachelor of Arts students for credit to 2nd or 3rd year of the major in Cinema or Cultural Studies. Students who have completed 107-079 Sex and the Cinema: The Gendered Screen are not permitted to enrol in this subject.