MediaSmarts Tags - Movies

Level: Grades 6 to 8

Author: MediaSmarts

This lesson was adapted from "Gender Issues in Sailor Moon" by Alice Te of the Toronto Board of Education.

Overview

Level: Grades 10-12

About the Author: Aaron Bawn

Duration: 4-6 hours

Overview

Level: Grades 9 to 10

About the Author: Matthew Johnson, Director of Education, MediaSmarts

Duration: 2 hours

Overview

This two-day lesson looks at the increasing prominence of gambling in the media, particularly movies and television. Students are asked to look critically at how gambling is portrayed, in comparison to its reality, and to consider how that portrayal affects how people perceive the risks and rewards of gambling.

Learning Outcomes

In the U.S., where television began as a commercial enterprise, the First Amendment, ensuring free speech and freedom of the press, has been used forcefully to argue against any government intervention in the operation of media organizations.

Since at least the days of Birth of a Nation (1915), Hollywood has turned to history for material. A quick survey of this year's Academy Award nominations shows that this is as true now as ever, with five out of the nine nominees for Best Picture – Argo, Django Unchained, Les Miserables, Zero Dark Thirty and odds-on favourite Lincoln – based in history in some way.

Level: Grades 9 - 12

Overview

In this special guest blog, MNet intern and University of Ottawa Communications MA candidate Anton van Hamel looks at how a desire to appeal to international audiences may affect a movie's setting and storyline.

Level(s): Grades 8 - 9

Author: This lesson was taken, with permission, from the award-winning Violence-Prevention Curriculum Healthy Relationships, produced by the Halifax, Nova Scotia advocacy group Men For Change.

It's a question that most parents of young daughters face: "Has she hit the 'princess phase' yet?" Not all parents are upset by this, of course: many happily buy their girls princess costumes, toys and accessories ranging from shoes to purses, all in pink. Some, though, despair of the powerful gender stereotyping this delivers to young girls and each new piece of princess gear can be a source of conflict.