Pop Culture - Argumentative Paper

Essay 3: Pop Argument Research

Due date: November 1, 2017

Total worth: 20 points

At this point in the semester, you have looked at popular culture as a whole and gotten a grasp of the conversation surrounding it. Expanding on your thought process, you will now be required to get a bit more specific. For this essay, you will craft an argument that successfully blends research with analysis.

Getting more specific requires you to think beyond just the general conventions of popular culture (like you did with your first essay) and instead to consider the deeper implications that are present within popular culture representations, or misrepresentations. Many times what we find when we delve beyond just a surface level of research, we discover certain cultural ideas/exceptions/issues that find themselves being replayed within the context of movies, TV, games, etc. For example, Zootopia speaks to more that is culturally problematic than just a rabbit going against her parents and becoming a cop.

Writing a six to seven-page essay, you will address and critically analyze a specific idea/recurring theme in one single popular culture artifact (a movie, television show, graphic novel, etc) that you have come across in your research and engagement. Using TSIS as a guidepost, you will make your argument and come into the cultural conversation. This conversation should revolve around sexuality, sexual orientation, racial divide, politics, masculinity, femininity—a zoomed in concept with which you can ground your research. You will need a minimum of six sources for this essay to include the research that it needs without stifling your own voice. At least two of these sources must be scholarly. The key to finding good resources for this paper will be for you to find sources that aid your argument, but do not mirror it, nor serve as the “backbone”—your ideas should prevail over those you choose to incorporate into your essay. The idea here is for you to be creative in your argument, yet simultaneously contribute an engaging scholarly voice.

Questions to consider:

1. What conversation does the particular product that you chose open up about society’s ideals?

2. Does it have any historical patterns/repeats and/or relevance?

3. Why does it matter? Why should we care? What’s at stake? (The ever present “so what” question…)

4. How does your pop culture artifact address a larger cultural moment?

Paper length: 6-7 pages

Format: MLA + Works Cited page with all sources cited

Due date: November 1, 2017

What you’ll need to turn: A printed copy, and an online submission before class the day it’s due