MediaSmarts Tags - Movies

Teachers who include media literacy in their classrooms often face issues that don’t arise in other subjects. Nothing illustrates this better than the issue of diversity in media. It’s not unreasonable for teachers to see the topic as a can of worms and be concerned about offending students and their parents – not to mention worrying about what the students themselves might say. At the same time, it’s a topic that is simply too important to be ignored: what we see in media hugely influences how we see others, ourselves and the world.

Level(s): Grades 11 - 12

Author: This unit was created by Carol Wells as part of a Media Education course taught by John Pungente at the Faculty of Education, University of Toronto, 1993.

Overview

Summer is officially upon us, and with it comes the usual lineup of blockbuster movies. Along with the usual cast of superheroes, spies and sexagenarian, whip-cracking archaeologists comes a somewhat unusual hero: Wall-E, the nearly mute robot protagonist of the film of the same name.

Level: Grades 1 to 6

Author: This lesson has been adapted from the activity guide for the video Live TV, produced by the National Film Board of Canada.

Overview

Last year in this space we wrote about how summer movies serve as advertisements for various kinds of merchandising. The success of 2007's Transformers and its sequel this summer point to a different but similar trend: making movies that are actually about the toys companies sell.

Movies for theatrical release

Before feature films are released for viewing in Canadian theatres, they're rated by provincial and territorial classification boards. These ratings can vary from one jurisdiction to another.

Videos designed for home rentals in Canada can have up to three different ratings on the box. The three systems in use are:

Level: Grades 3 to 6

Author: MediaSmarts

Overview

Level(s): Grades 9 - 12

Author: MediaSmarts

Overview

To introduce students to the rating systems for films, videos and television and to the issues that surround these classifications.

Learning Outcomes

Students demonstrate:

Further, Canadian media often reflects American as opposed to Canadian visible minority populations: for example, TV viewers are more likely to see African Americans than African Canadians on their screen and specific Canadian minorities, such as South Asian or Southeast Asian populations, will often be underrepresented in favour of Hispanic populations. Concerns have also been raised that visible minority actors are being recruited not as central characters, but as a means of attracting viewers from diverse cultural audiences.