Journal of Academic Development and Education JADE Issue 10 | Page 96

ARTICLE #7 | 97
96 | JADE
MARIA FLOOD
an obscure independent film from a non-Western country that
they have happened upon on Netflix, while older, ‘canonical’
works may be eschewed because of their lack of availability on
online platforms.
In the following four examples, I consider factors one to three cited
above, as I consider them to be most relevant to the Keele and wider
HE context.
Example 1: Boyz N the Hood, dir. John Singleton, 1991
THE CHALLENGES OF A DIVERSE CURRICULUM: A CASE STUDY FROM THE HUMANITIES
The film proved to be an extremely popular choice, with all students
writing one of their assignments on it. I will assess the factors that
contributed to the film’s popularity, with reference to factors 1-3
cited above.
1. Relatability and relevance
The film adopts a conventional Hollywood narrative of order, disorder,
and order restored. The story is told in a linear and chronological
fashion, and the principal protagonists are likeable. The director also
adopts a didactic point of view, in that he assumes little knowledge
on the part of the spectator and aims to inform. There is also a
clear and unambiguous moral message at the end of the film. It is
a Bildunsroman, a coming of age story, which is a familiar narrative
structure that appeals to young people because of its relevance to
their own stage in life. These formal techniques and story-telling
choices make the film relatively easy to understand and interpret.
2. Cultural and Historical Context
Some contextualization of the film was required: the LA riots of the
1990s, following the shooting of Rodney King by a police officer,
form an important piece of cultural and social context. However,
the political backdrop of the film, including racial tensions, poverty,
police brutality and gang conflict in the ‘hood’, are social issues that
are familiar to students. All students will have familiarity with African
American culture, through popular music principally, and many will
be aware of the prominent social justice movement ‘Black Lives
Matter’ through social media. Therefore, the cultural and historical
context required to understand the film was limited: we were building
on previous knowledge.
3. Emotional Challenges
John Singleton’s Boyz N the Hood was the first American and
Hollywood film to feature not only a full black cast, but also a black
director and majority black production crew. The film examines
the lives of a group of African American male teenagers as they
navigate the challenges of growing up in South Central Los Angeles
(the ‘hood’ of the title) in the 1980s and early 1990s. The film is the
first film taught on the third-year course ‘Race and Sexuality on
Screen’ and as such, the students were ‘self-selecting’. Students thus
chose to do a module that explicitly deals with issues of diversity,
rather than a course where diversity issues are part of the ‘hidden
curriculum’, or one strand of a broader theme. As self-selecting in
this sense, most of the students (unless they chose the module for
lack of other options) had some interest in the topic.
The film presented a number of emotional challenges. One of
the central characters, a young football player who dreams of a
scholarship that will enable him to leave the neighbourhood, is
caught in the crossfire of gang conflict and dies at the end of the film.
Students were saddened by this scene, and by the cycle of violence
in which the characters are trapped. They were also angered by
the injustices experienced by African Americans, including racism,
ghettoization, government drug policy, and economic inequality.
However, as mentioned above, it is worth noting that these issues
were not new to the students, and in many ways, the film confirmed
their preconceived ideas about the situation of African Americans
in terms of inequality, police injustice, and urban segregation.
Therefore, the emotional challenges the film presented were not
insignificant, but tempered by the fact that the film confirmed, rather
than challenged, previously held assumptions about the social and