Please take notes on all four of these questions. You will be required to discuss them in depth and I will collect your notes to see that you are engaging the film as a "text."  Then, choose two of these questions on which to write formal paragraphs.  Remember that they should have all the characteristics of well-written analytical paragraphs:  They should have solid analytical topic sentences, they should have well introduced evidence that must be analyzed to prove the claim of the topic sentence, they should fully analyze the chosen evidence, and they should have a solid concluding sentence that indicates the importance of your paragraph.  If you need to review, please look at the writing links on the college prep home page. 

 

Please submit these two paragraphs tonight via a google doc to me before class tomorrow.  These will be taken into consideration for progress reports. It should have the following title   Name   I Robot Notes day  one  College Prep Block.

 

Finally, take pride in your work.  Make sure that your work is spell checked and that you have revised it at least once. Also, please read ch. 15 for tonight.

 

1. How are race and gender used in I Robot?

 

2.  How is consumer society portrayed in this film?

 

3.  How do the robots comment on race issues?

 

4.  Do they have anything similar to reservations in this movie?

 

Here are other guide questions to help you thinking.

 

How is it possible that cops in 2035 can afford to drive brand new Audis?

How does Chicago look compared to your vision of London in BNW?

How likely are homicide and suicide in this film?

How does Will Smith think of chair builders in the film?

"You simply don't like their kind." The chairman of USR says.   Does this sound like BNW.

First woman portrayed wears recognizeably futuristic clothes and misses the sexual puns employed by Will Smith's character. Why?

What does it mean that there will be one Robot for every five humans?  What is the ratio of the different races is America?

Why is the central computer, VICKIE, portrayed as female?

How does Will Smith's character compare to Bernard and Hemholtz Watson?

Why would the robots need to seem more human?

How does the story of Hansel and Gretel work in the fuction of this film?  What does the allusion mean? What is allusion?

Reference to Jesus walking on water just prior to the discovery of the robot.

Talks about the appearance of free will. What does this mean

21:57

Why is it important that Will's character is divorced?

Why does he have a grandmother?

"Robots building robots. That's just stupid."  Why?

Imagery of the robots arranged like soldiers. The robots say, "One of us. One of us."  How is this like BNW.

"Does thinking your the last sane man on earth make you crazy? Cause maybe I am."

26:00 Chapter 10

Why would it be important that the American cops drive German cars?

Why would a wink be important?

Why would the robot builder be called, father?

An imitation of life?  Can a robot write a symphony? Can a robot turn a canvas into a masterpiece?...Can you?

Why would the robot be named Sonny? Why is the detective named Spooner?

What is the significance of the word "love" in this film?  Have we seen any instances of love in the film to this point?

32:00

How does business overwhelm the legal authorities in this film?  What authority does the "law" have if the majority of

 

 

The story of Hansel and Gretel figures prominently in this film.  Below you will find a link for this story:

In a manner analogous to BNW, I Robot, uses the classic fairy tale "Hansel and Gretel" as a literary allusion.  Why does I Robot use a children's fairy tale whereas BNW uses Shakespeare?  What does the choice of allusion mean to our thinking about the two primary texts we are studying? 

 

 What does it mean to be a "dumb smart person"?

 

If this movie "claims" that robots will become humans, how does this claim work vis a vis emerging cultures around the world? How did this work with regard to slavery?  Please read Frederick Douglass's Fourth of July speech.  http://www.teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=162

Why is it important that Detective Spooner is part robot?

 

Why is it important to have a sexual tension between the Spooner and Calvin?  How does that relate to Brave New World?

How does guilt function in relation to morality in i robot? 

How does the individual matter to detective Spooner in ways that don't apply in Brave New World?

 

Dreams are important in Brave New World  and in I robot. Discuss.

"We all have a purpose. Don't you think, Detective?"  What does destiny have to do with life in either I Robot or in BNW?

Can one do "savage" violence to robots? 

The individual worth of a single robot, Sonny, is supposed to be a meditation on the worth of a single human in Brave New World.  Notice that at the same time that the CEO is saying that Spooner has been "savage" to robots, he denies their individuality or their merits as individuals.  This kind of assembly line, interchangeable part mentality is, in part, what BNW is trying to critique with his use of Henry Ford as a version of God. 

 

Consider the dump in relation to the "savage reservation."

 

End at 78:00