Every film in America needs to have a disclaimer at the beginning where the main character faces the camera and says “I am the protagonist of this film. This does not mean I’m a good guy. This film is simply centered around my perspective. Protagonists can be bad guys.” And then the movie proceeds as normal except every 15 minutes the protagonist faces the camera again and reminds the audience about the disclaimer at the beginning
At the end of the movie the protagonist will then explain all the bad things they did and why they’re bad.
In the 8th grade my fucking ENGLISH teacher corrected my answer for what a protagonist is saying the point of view character in the story with an addition of *the character the reader roots for
I went to them after, pointed out a few examples of protagonists being bad people, which even at age 14 was pretty easy. I think I just listed a bunch of Scorsese movies and Trainspotting. They still wouldn’t give me the point so I got a dictionary and showed him the definition. In his credit, he did back down and fully eat crow after. Apparently this character the reader routs for xrap was part of the curriculum answer and I’d noticed other lessons used this incorrect definition before and he was a long term substitute who didn’t want to rock the boat.
i had something similar told to me, that the lead character is the one who the audience should identify and sympathize with. I was also told that determining the theme of story involves a math equation of how many times certain sentences are said relating to the theme. My teacher did like in Dead Poets Society and made an X-Y graph on the board of “theme intensity” versus number of times a theme is explicitly stated.
I tried like you did, saying that maybe a story’s themes aren’t always explicit or even internal to the text. I got a little intense and the teacher told me to sit down (i was an annoying teenager)
It takes place in a sexist society if that’s what they meant. Every female character except the police chief is some kind of servant, prostitute, or both. One of the female characters isn’t even a person, she’s a commercial product simulating a domestic servant
Every film in America needs to have a disclaimer at the beginning where the main character faces the camera and says “I am the protagonist of this film. This does not mean I’m a good guy. This film is simply centered around my perspective. Protagonists can be bad guys.” And then the movie proceeds as normal except every 15 minutes the protagonist faces the camera again and reminds the audience about the disclaimer at the beginning
At the end of the movie the protagonist will then explain all the bad things they did and why they’re bad.
In the 8th grade my fucking ENGLISH teacher corrected my answer for what a protagonist is saying the point of view character in the story with an addition of *the character the reader roots for
I went to them after, pointed out a few examples of protagonists being bad people, which even at age 14 was pretty easy. I think I just listed a bunch of Scorsese movies and Trainspotting. They still wouldn’t give me the point so I got a dictionary and showed him the definition. In his credit, he did back down and fully eat crow after. Apparently this character the reader routs for xrap was part of the curriculum answer and I’d noticed other lessons used this incorrect definition before and he was a long term substitute who didn’t want to rock the boat.
i had something similar told to me, that the lead character is the one who the audience should identify and sympathize with. I was also told that determining the theme of story involves a math equation of how many times certain sentences are said relating to the theme. My teacher did like in Dead Poets Society and made an X-Y graph on the board of “theme intensity” versus number of times a theme is explicitly stated.
I tried like you did, saying that maybe a story’s themes aren’t always explicit or even internal to the text. I got a little intense and the teacher told me to sit down (i was an annoying teenager)
so wait, literary analysis is just doing those cinema sin counters? or a drinking game?
Reminds me of all the dumb liberals who said Blade Runner 2049 (2017) was sexist.
It takes place in a sexist society if that’s what they meant. Every female character except the police chief is some kind of servant, prostitute, or both. One of the female characters isn’t even a person, she’s a commercial product simulating a domestic servant
And critics completely miss the point—that incredibly sexist future exists as a critique of our incredibly sexist present day.