POL 3300 Law & Film
Legal political content is a ubiquitous and important theme in American popular culture, especially film. This course sorts through this film genre in order to understand legal content in this form of popular culture - what films teach us about law, lawyers, the judiciary, and justice, whether these representations are accurate, and how these depictions create expectations about our legal system and its actors. We'll be addressing ways in which film affects and reflects legal politics. And, we'll tackle the main topics that each film confronts in an academic and realistic way. Overall, we will be learning about law and politics as portrayed in films and how these films affect our lives and those of legal actors.
Course Types
Society, Advanced Studies
- 1. Analyze and discuss legal films as a critical component of our popular culture that both reflects our American legal and judicial systems as well as shapes our understanding and expectations of these systems;
2. Develop a useful lens for evaluating legal films that includes aspects of personal experiences, realism, and academic knowledge;
3. Articulate how important political and legal concepts are confronted in films (both core concepts and overall messages of films);
4. Critically evaluate and debate current issues and controversies about law and courts; and,
5. Develop marketable skills.