Using Film to Teach Difficult Histories

• In Event: Critical Perspectives on Teaching Difficult History

Abstract

Introduction and Objectives
History is full of difficult topics. Recently, the term difficult knowledge has been applied in history education to those historical events that have had traumatic effects on those who have attempted to engage in them (e.g., Britzman, 1998; Garrett, 2011; Gaudelli, Crocco, and Hawkins, 2012). We use the term difficult history to address areas of the past that are difficult to understand, to represent, to engage students in, to teach, and difficult to incorporate into the dominant curriculum and culture.

This paper explores the potential for using film for teaching difficult and marginalized histories. We explore how film can serve as a medium for including perspectives and events often marginalized from the official curriculum.

Theoretical Framework and Methods
This conceptual essay examines the characteristics of the medium of film (e.g., narrative, aesthetics) for engaging in difficult and marginalized histories. We build from our previous work on the pedagogical framework of the burden of historical representation (authors, 2006, 2014), which can be met through film that includes the narratives, perspectives/characters, and worldviews of historically marginalized groups. Here we examine the affordances and constraints of film for engaging in difficult history.

This work is also driven by the growing body of film made for and by historically marginalized groups and about difficult historical topics, including Indigenous film (authors, 2014). Several factors have led to this increase, including the greater access and lowered cost of digital video production and a growing audience for these films in the US and globally.

First, we examine the framework of the burden of historical representation within the context of other conceptual frameworks for teaching difficult history, such as difficult knowledge and socio-cultural theory. We then use examples of recent films to analyze the affordances and constraints of the medium for use in pedagogical models for teaching difficult history.

Results and Implications
Though rarely made, films that have attempted to engage audiences in difficult and marginalized histories (e.g., Glory) are used frequently in the classroom as a way to include these perspectives, and have an impact on what young people may learn about the histories of marginalized groups (authors, 2006, 2014).

The affordances of film for this goal are clear. The affective nature of film and its ability to visually represent powerful events and perspectives means that it can be used to engage students in often-emotional aspects of the past – as well as to introduce visually non-Western epistemologies and worldviews (authors, 2007, 2014; Marcus, Metzger, Paxton & Stoddard, 2010).

It is important to also recognize, and have students recognize, film’s role as both a tool of dominance and oppression (e.g., stereotyping), as well as more recently as a medium for counter-storytelling. It is this latter emergence of film made for and by historically marginalized groups that is likely the greatest implication of this work. These films have the potential to provide voice to the historically marginalized and to challenge the dominant historical narrative most common in schools and standards.

Authors

• Jeremy D. Stoddard, College of William and Mary

• Alan Marcus, University of Connecticut

• David Hicks, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University