Final Paper

This paper should be three to four pages (double-spaced) with 12-point font, one inch margins. Write an essay that analyzes the historical issues and themes at play about "Dirty Harry (1971)" Ah, Dirty Harry. This is the film that made Clint Eastwood a star. Best known prior to Dirty Harry as an actor in Western films and television programs, Eastwood made the transition from B-list to A-list actor by playing “Dirty” Harry Callahan, a tough but frustrated detective in the San Francisco Police Department. The plot of the film revolves around Callahan’s investigation of a deranged hippie serial killer known as Scorpio, a reference to San Francisco’s famous Zodiac Killer of the late sixties. One of the sources of Callahan’s frustration is the limited means he has at his disposal to apprehend Scorpio. Callahan grows increasingly aggravated with the laws of the city, state, and nation because the law, he feels, favor and protect criminals instead of their victims, their families, and the rest of society. For instance, one scene, where Dirty Harry is told by the San Francisco District Attorney that Scorpio is slated to be set free because Dirty Harry violated his constitutional rights when he arrested him, goes like this: Harry Callahan: Are you trying to tell me that ballistics can't match the bullet up to this rifle? District Attorney Rothko: It does not matter what ballistics can do. This rifle might make a nice souvenir. But it's inadmissible as evidence. Harry Callahan: And who says that? District Attorney Rothko: It's the law. Harry Callahan: Well, then the law is crazy. In this respect, Dirty Harry, and the popularity it enjoyed when it was released, is an expression of what scholars and commentators at the time refer to as “white backlash”—the widespread conservative response in the late sixties and seventies against a whole lot of things: the Civil Rights Movement (especially the more radical elements of the movement); the Democratic Party’s increasing support for civil rights and programs aimed at eliminating poverty and racial inequality; hippies, the counterculture, and the sexual revolution; women’s rights and second wave feminism; and rising crime rates—crime rates often associated with African Americans and other ethnic minorities—across a number of U.S. cities. Suggestions: Get a general history of the 1960s and/or 1970s, or one that deals specifically with the following topics: crime in the 1970s; conservatism during the Nixon-era and after; white backlash, the silent majority and the New Right. Suggested Reading: Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945-1974 by James T. Patterson (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), especially chapter 21 (see also chapter 22 and 23). Requirements and Suggestions 1. Description (exposition): This is the basic, most elementary form of writing. Before you can say anything about anything, you must first say what it is you intend to discuss. Describe the film you are analyzing. Be sure to briefly outline the plot and themes of the movie. 2. Context (explication): Provide some context for the movie. What year was it produced? What was going on in the world, or country, at the time it was produced? To what end or purpose was it produced? Who might its intended audience have been? Does the source directly comment on current events? Does it have an obvious—or not so obvious—political bias? Is it meant to lend or reinforce a certain political, economic, or social system or order? 3. Analysis (argument): What conclusions, based on our description, and the context you’ve provided, can you arrive at a conclusion regarding the source? Is the source representative of the context you’ve outlined—does it support or confirm the basic terms of your contextualization— or does it differ or vary from, or critique, its historical context? NOTE: I’ve listed multiple questions or elements for each of the levels of analytical writing listed above. You are writing short papers, so don’t try to answer each and every question. Each question is meant to provoke you—give you a jump start. Pursue one, no more than two, aspects of each when your write your paper. This is not a book report. The focus of these papers should be on providing context and analyzing your primary source. Don’t just describe the document—explain it to me. An “A” paper will each of the following: (1) briefly describe the film you have chosen; (2) provide historical context for the content of the film (i.e. the film’s characters, plot, setting, etc.); (3) present an argument/analysis regarding how the source operated or functioned in the social/cultural context you’ve assigned to it; (4) incorporate at least one outside source into your discussion/analysis of the film. Remember all three tasks—description, context, analysis—are interrelated. You cannot analyze a primary source without providing some information about what it is and the time and place in which it was produced. Before you can analyze, interpret, or explain your document, you will have to provide the reader with some sort of idea about where it comes from. That is what it means to provide context. Again, if you need additional information, take a look at the PowerPoints and, if relevant, the Down to Earth and The Status Seekers/American Social Classes in the 1950s.