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The Disney film "Pocahontas" appears to be an attempt to respond to growing cultural diversity, calls for multiculturalism, and strong female role models in the United States. This paper provides an analysis of the film, examining how Disney's claims to the creation of positive, pro-social representations of women and Native Americans in "Pocahontas" hold up or collapse when viewed from a critical feminist perspective. The paper first looks at the historical background of the film, at what historical information was used accurately and what was omitted or changed, noting the Eurocentric bias of written accounts from the early 1600's from what is now Virginia. A synopsis of the Disney film is then presented. Next, the paper provides a textual analysis of the film, focusing on the construction of the character and her relationships, on the premise that Pocahontas's character sends mixed messages to young viewers: her body is drawn as a mature and sexual woman--an exotic male fantasy--but she is independent and adventurous, a feminist role; she is sensual and in tune with nature, but her heightened spirituality is a stereotype of Native American spirituality; she rejects a dependable man, a hero of her tribe, later choosing the adventure of being with Captain Smith, a dangerous man and one she ultimately cannot have. In the end, she must pay dearly for her strong character traits, by remaining behind when Smith returns to England. The paper's concluding section notes that on the positive side, "Pocahontas" begins to fill a void in film offerings for children with strong female and ethnic role models, and its underlying theme of respect for nature or eco-consciousness is important and timely. On the negative side, however, the film manifests the limitations of a serious cultural critique attempted within a market context; the film also glorifies Native American religious beliefs, which are increasingly exploited for commercial purposes. (HTH)

Sharing some organizational frameworks, this paper presents two groups of diagrams that have been employed in various communication classes to illustrate how theoretical understandings can be used as paradigms to help organize information in a more clarified manner. The first part of the paper discusses diagrams which are directly relevant to courses in visual communication and cinematic development. Diagrams in the first part of the paper address media/space/abstraction relationships, the spectrum of deep and flat relationships, narrative (fiction) film, and some relationships between window/frame visual analysis and realism/formalism/modernism modes of cinematic style. The second part of the paper presents three diagrams, variations on a general model of communication, more along the lines of visualizing theory in an attempt to metaphorically extend the visual analysis paradigm of the first group to the larger contexts of the communication process. Contains 5 unnumbered diagrams, 3 figures, 4 notes, and 24 references. Appendixes present a description of the functions of communication, and an organizational chart for courses in film and television theory and criticism. (RS)

Papers from a 1993 conference on linguistics, all in French, include essays on the following: Yoruba morphophonology; literary Arabic morphophonology; grammatical cohesion in Burushaski; phonological and lexical variation in French Canadian dialects, including Acadian; insults in Madrid Spanish; discourse analysis; maintenance of meaning in translation; lexical stratification in specialized language; the nature of language planning; linguistic stereotypes in Berber; semantics of terminology used for American Indians; French usage among Canadian hispanophones; court interpreting; borrowing from French in Peul; language attitudes and proficiency among Latino immigrants to Quebec; the grammar of anaphora; evolution of a Cameroon pidgin; semantic comparison of the concept of beauty in French and English; a New Brunswick study of bilingualism in young children; a study of trilingual (Portuguese/French/English) families in Montreal; a pragmatic analysis of film criticism; the Moroccan vocalic system; evolution of the comma in French grammar; the concept of morphology in the functionalist linguistics of Andre Martinet; language, society, and ethnicity in Cameroon; Italian Swiss participation in a study of French vocabulary; use of the French phrase "en tout cas"; and official recognition of current usage in Quebec French. (MSE)

A film presented as factual may permit critical responses that question its purported factual objectivity and political neutrality. In class, Hans-Georg Gadamer's concept of effective-historical consciousness can be used to evaluate the allegedly propagandistic messages in Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will." Analysis of this 1934 film reveals how it reinforced racial doctrines propagated by the Nazis and by scientists who sympathized with these racial views. Somewhat paradoxically, Riefenstahl's film may be considered a harbinger of two genres in film whose essences seem contradictory: documentary and propaganda. "Triumph of the Will" contains no narration whatsoever after brief introductory remarks. Not verbalized, these remarks are printed on successive screens in short phrases. This lack of narration reduces the critical distance between viewer and event. The opening scene features Adolf Hitler emerging from a plane to grace Nuremberg with his presence, and to rescue and transform Germany. Much of the film's power lies in its consistently positive approach to racial models: the Nordic ideal is instantiated throughout the film with lavish close-ups of handsome blond types. Gadamer argued that all interpretation takes place within the context of the interpreter's prejudice, but that awareness of prejudices does not imply subjection to them. As exercises in class, ask students to pick a specific scene and interpret it through the eyes of a propagandist for the opposing side; or, to undermine the principal theme of preceding scenes, screen part of the film, then ask students to construct the next scene that would proceed logically from the one they just saw. (Forty notes are included.) (NKA)

Intellectuals lament the disappearance of community, a nostalgia for the small town that has supposedly given way to the anonymous crowds of the city. Likewise, scholars have talked about "discourse communities" in romantic terms, referring to a place where all share the same values. However, a more urban view of social life, in which participants differ widely on values, might help teachers to rethink the work that goes on in the classroom. The term "community" has a positive opposing term: "public," a term which refers to a space, or point of contact. For the author Richard Sennett, a public space is one where strangers meet and talk, a site of difference and not consensus. The classroom should become such a public space, a zone of contact between competing views. In a class at the University of Pittsburgh, "Writing About Film," students were asked to write about any scene or image in the movie, "Do The Right Thing," that was difficult to interpret. Three selected responses indicated the range of opinions, and through discussion, support for each reading was presented. The goal was not to move closer to some ideal understanding of the film, but to determine why students chose to "read" it as they did. After rewriting the papers, the ways in which the class discussions had shaped the revised responses became clear. Students define their own voices partly through the public discourse of the classroom, demonstrating the value of the wrangle as opposed to the value of any push for consensus. (Fifteen references are attached.) (HB)

Since narrative forms help provide the rules and contexts for guiding human behavior, film and television offer excellent sources for the study of rhetoric in the college classroom. Kenneth Burke, Ernest Bormann, and Erving Goffman are all theorists, working from a "dramaturgical" perspective, who disuccuss the powerful role of the media in influencing social morality and praxis. Kevin Durkin's notion of "script theory" also provides theoretical support for investigating how people are influenced and motivated by media such as feature films. In the Honors Rhetoric course offered to freshmen at Gonzaga University (Spokane, Washington), students are assigned to analyze the film, "The Mission." A dramaturgical perspective is selected for this assignment because of its stress on the concept of identification between speaker and audience and the critical analysis of motive. The result of such an assignment has been that, although many of the analyses of the film concentrated on the same main act or scene, students developed many different interpretations. Film is a genre of communication worthy of study because of its significant impact on American culture as rhetorical discourse. (Sixteen references are attached; an appendix includes a course description, syllabus, description of the film analysis assignment, and a scoring guide for the course.) (HB)

A study of symbolism in feature films reveals how the symbolism employed by film makers can serve as a bridge between feeling and thought, and between aesthetics and cognition. What individuals read from and learn through a symbol varies with what they bring to it. The filmmaker's symbolims must be universal and not private. However, symbolism in a film can be so subtle that the audience may be unaware of its existence. A symbol arises when an image is surrounded by a complex of conscious and unconscious associations. Its impact depends on its cultural context. Film directors integrate symbols with theme, character, and predicament. Ingmar Bergman uses water repeatedly throughout such films as "Winter Light" where the rushing, sparkling stream contrasts with the still body of a man who has killed himself. Directors are increasingly aware of the symbolic properties of color. We must bring to the study of symbols aesthetic experience in the form of viewing significant films, rich in symbolism, together with wide exposure to the humanities and social sciences. (SW)

The announced general focus of the 1972 Oberlin Film Conference was "Goals, Methods, and Scope of Film Study in the 70's," the intention being to emphasize the conceptualization of the cinema experience as messages within larger sets of discourse. To this end, each student submitted an application essay and participated at the conference in discussions dealing with various topics. This document contains a conference schedule, selected student essays, and several transcribed discussions from the sessions. Among the essays included are the following: "Eisenstein and Joyce: Making the Mind Visible,""Film as Media as Epidemic,""Dimensions of Film Genres,""Metaphor in Film,""A Sociovidistic Approach to Film Communication: Theory, Methods, and Suggested Fieldwork,""A Metalogicon of Film: Topics in Film Metasemiotics,""'Boudu Saved from Drowning' (1932) Directed by Jean Renoir,""The Concept of Visual Space as a Critical Tool in Cinema,""Cinema as a Humanity: An Objection to Narrowness,""Godard's Paradigm,""Increasing Depth of Field and Sharpening Focus in Film Study,""An Analysis of 'Jules and Jim' as an Adaptation,""The Motion Picture Industry, 1896-1921,""Rocking the Role of Cinema in Latin American,""'Fellini-Satyricon,' a Baroque Masterpiece,""Film and Visual Perception," and "The Image of Women in the Cinema." (LL)