Films for Classroom Use
Academic films are listed first, followed by commercial films.
Chapter 1: The Discipline of Anthropology (Ethnology)
■ Neighborhood Tokyo (1992, 30 minutes)
Miyamoto-cho is a community of Mom-and-Pop stores and family enterprises
located near the center of Tokyo. Competition from supermarkets and shopping
centers threatens the livelihoods of long-term residents. High land prices tempt
owners to tear down old homes and replace them with apartment buildings; this in
turn is changing the composition of the population. Against this backdrop,
residents strive to maintain the close social ties, symbols of local identity, and
community rituals that keep Miyamoto-cho from becoming just another mailing
address. Theodore Bestor began his research here in 1979. His prize-winning
book of the same name is available through Stanford University Press. This
documentary is one of a series depicting the variety of life in today’s Japan in the
context of human problems common to all industrial nations. A comprehensive
study guide is available. www.mediarights.org/film/neighborhood_tokyo
■ The Nanny Diaries (2007, 106 minutes, PG-13)
Taken from a book of the same name, this film follows a college grad who has
studied anthropology into the world of the New York City’s Upper East Side,
where she finds a job as a nanny for a wealthy, dysfunctional family known only
as the X Family. The film uses a voiceover to suggest a kind of ethnographic
study of the Tribe of the Upper East Side, allowing the film to be a springboard
for discussion of ethnographic methods. Deeper discussions can come from the
images of care work, gender roles, socialization, and class. Starring Scarlett
Johansson and Laura Linney, this film is not an example of substantial
filmmaking, but it provides an accessible way to talk about anthropological
methods and social issues. Some coarse language and implied nonmarital sex.
■ Songcatcher (2000, 109 minutes, PG-13)
This award-winning film follows professor of musicology Lily Penleric (Janet
McTeer) from her university in New York to the Appalachian mountains, where
her younger sister teaches school. There, Dr. Penleric encounters people singing
old English ballads in a traditional style thought long vanished. After vain
attempts to collect the songs “scientifically,” Penleric begins to understand how
the music, life, and culture of the people are seamlessly woven together. A good
film to spark a discussion of ethnographic ethics and methods and the power of
ethnographic research. PG-13 for some violence, implied nonmarital sex
(including a homosexual relationship), and an intense scene of childbirth.
Chapter 2: The Concept of Culture
■ N!ai: The Story of a !Kung Woman (1980, 59 minutes)
This film provides an overview of !Kung (Ju/’hoansi) life before and after the
!Kung people were restricted to reservations. A focus on a single woman provides
visual and thematic interest. The film integrates culture and history and shows
culture change over a thirty year period. www.der.org/films/nai-kungwoman.html
■ Spanglish (2004, 131 minutes, PG-13)
Spanglish is the story of a Mexican immigrant, Flor (Paz Vega), who, for the sake
of her daughter Cristina, leaves her ethnic enclave to work for the wealthy Clasky
family of Beverly Hills. Navigating cultural differences as well as the neuroses of
Deb Clasky (Téa Leoni), Deb’s lovable lush of a mom (Cloris Leachman), and
her successful but bewildered husband, John (Adam Sandler), Spanglish
highlights the struggles of cultural adjustment, throwing into relief some of the
particular (and peculiar) aspects of white, suburban U.S. culture. This comedy
was a Golden Globe nominee and multiple award winner. Some coarse language
and simulated sex between husband and wife.
Chapter 3: Language
■ American Tongues (1988, 56 minute standard version/40 minutes high school version)
American Tongues uses the prism of language to reveal our attitudes about the
way other people speak, highlighting the diversity of dialects and accents around
the United States. In the voices of everyone from Boston Brahmins to black
Louisiana teenagers, from Texas cowboys to New York professionals, American
Tongues presents funny, perceptive, sometimes shocking, and always telling
comments on American English in all its diversity. The film includes several
linguistic terms and interviews with a number of sociolinguists explaining the
formation of dialects. The standard version contains several uses of curse words.
www.cnam.com/flash/index.html
■ Voices of North Carolina (2005, 57 minutes)
This film is a unique journey through the dialects and languages of this diverse
southern state, from Hoi Toider speech on the Outer Banks to the Highland
speech of the Smoky Mountains. Cherokees, Lumbees, rural and urban African
Americans, Spanish-speaking immigrants, and the new generation of southerners
in metropolitan areas all reveal how their way with words communicates their
identity. www.ncsu.edu/linguistics/talkingnc/products/voicesofnc.php
Chapter 4: Social Structure and Inequality in Race, Ethnicity, and
Class
■ Life and Times of Sara Baartman: “The Hottentot Venus” (1998, 53 minutes)
This documentary shows how colonialism impacted Khoikhoi people of southern
Africa by telling the story of Sara Baartman, a Khoikhoi woman brought to
Europe to be displayed in exhibitions. Through the narrative, the film links
colonialism and anthropology with the development of modern racial ideologies.
www.icarusfilms.com/new99/hottento.html
■ Race: The Power of an Illusion (2003, 3 episodes, 56 minutes each)
The division of the world’s peoples into distinct groups—“red,” “black,” “white,”
and “yellow” peoples—has became so deeply imbedded in our psyches, so widely
accepted, many would promptly dismiss as crazy any suggestion of its falsity.
This provocative new three-hour series by California Newsreel questions the very
idea of race as biology, suggesting that a belief in race is no more sound than a
belief that the sun revolves around the earth. Yet race still matters. Just because
race doesn’t exist in biology doesn’t mean it isn’t very real, helping shape life
chances and opportunities.
Episode 1 examines contemporary science to debunk the notion that race
represents real biological categories within humanity. Episode 2 uncovers the
roots of the race concept in North America, the nineteenth-century science that
legitimated it, and how it came to be held so fiercely in the Western imagination.
Episode 3 asks, If race is not biology, what is it? This episode uncovers how race
resides not in nature but in politics, economics, and culture.
www.newsreel.org/nav/title.asp?tc=CN0149
■ The Tribal Mind (1994, 52 minutes)
Through the example of post-apartheid South Africa, this documentary explores
the creation of ethnic (“tribal”) identity. The film follows the Afrikaans leaders of
a small, anti-apartheid paper through the transition to a nonracial democracy to
illustrate the process of the creation of Zulu, Afrikaans, and South African
identities. There are some disturbing images and descriptions of violence, along
with several uses of curse words. This film is an excellent illustration of ethnic
identity formation and provides a history lesson on one of the great political
stories of the twentieth century. (A high school version of the film is available in
which the curse words are censored.) www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/tribe.html
■ Smoke Signals (1998, 89 minutes, PG-13)
A film written by, directed by, and starring Native Americans, Smoke Signals
follows Victor (Adam Beach) and Thomas (Evan Adams), two Coeur d’Alene
Indians on a road trip to recover the ashes of Victor’s father, who abandoned the
family and moved to Arizona years before. A funny, touching, well-made film,
Smoke Signals was a Sundance Film Festival favorite when it was released. This
film provides an excellent way to discuss contemporary Native American identity;
the role of history (or imagined history) in creating identity; and spiritual themes
of Christianization, forgiveness, and hope. Some curse words and intense scenes.
■ The Nanny Diaries (2007, 106 minutes, PG-13)
See description under chapter 1.
■ Spanglish (2004, 131 minutes, PG-13)
See description under chapter 2.
Chapter 5: Gender and Sexuality
■ N!ai: The Story of a !Kung Woman (1980, 59 minutes)
This film provides an overview of !Kung (Ju/’hoansi) life before and after the
!Kung people were restricted to reservations. A focus on a single woman provides
visual and thematic interest. The film integrates culture and history and shows
culture change over a thirty year period. www.der.org/films/nai-kungwoman.html
■ Ma vie en rose (1997, 88 minutes, R)
This French film (with English subtitles) follows a young boy in the Paris suburbs
who disturbs his neighbors and family by refusing to fit social expectations for his
gender. Eight-year-old Ludovic (Georges Du Fresne) takes every opportunity to
dress as a girl and professes his desire to one day marry the young boy next door.
This Golden Globe–winning film is touching and disturbing as Ludovic’s family
attempts to deal with neighborhood disapproval and their own inability to
understand their son’s transgendered life. The film is a way to have a conversation
about social categories of gender and social control, as well as about how
Christians could respond to such issues in society, family, and the church. Rated
R for coarse language and intense emotional outbursts.
■ Whale Rider (2002, 101 minutes, PG-13)
Whale Rider is the story of a Maori community in New Zealand dealing with the
changes of the twenty-first century. Koro, the grandfather and leader of the
community, has been waiting for his oldest son’s wife to give birth to a boy who
will be the new leader of the community. When the infant boy and mother die in
childbirth, Koro’s son cannot face his community and leaves for Europe, leaving
behind his infant daughter, the surviving twin. Fixated on finding a male leader to
restore the people’s sense of community and culture, Koro cannot see that his
granddaughter, Paikea (Keisha Castle-Hughes), may be the best hope for his
people’s future if he can only reimagine the past. Some brief uses of coarse
language and one drug reference. This film is an excellent resource for
discussions about culture change, tradition, “authenticity,” family, and gender.
■ The Nanny Diaries (2007, 106 minutes, PG-13)
See description under chapter 1.
Chapter 6: Production and Exchange
■ Ongka’s Big Moka: The Kawelka of Papua New Guinea (1976, 60 minutes)
Ongka, a leader of New Guinea’s Kawelka tribe, prepares to give away his
possessions in a ceremony called a Moka. A key component of Kawelka culture,
the Moka ceremony finds those seeking to gain influence attempting to do so not
by acquiring valuable objects, but by giving them away. Unfortunately, things do
not go as planned, and the leader of the tribe is ultimately threatened with
violence as a result of his outwardly selfless act of giving. Several images of
women in traditional clothing (without shirts). From TV’s acclaimed
“Disappearing World” series. www.imdb.com/title/tt1312962/
■ N!ai: The Story of a !Kung Woman (1980, 59 minutes)
See description under chapter 2.
Chapter 8: Kinship and Marriage
■ Dadi’s Family (1981, 58 minutes)
Dadi is the grandmother or, as she explains, the manager of an extended family
living in the Haryana region of northern India. Women here leave their natal
villages and come as strangers to the households of their husband’s parents. This
film explores the extended family and its problems, particularly through eyes of
the women of Dadi’s family. Believing that the larger a family is, the more hands
there are to help, Dadi runs her household with an iron fist, trying valiantly to
make sure that her children stay together in harmony www.der.org/films/dadisfamily.html
■ Whale Rider (2002, 101 minutes, PG-13)
See description under chapter 5.
Chapter 9: Religion and Ritual
■ Leap of Faith (1992, 108 minutes, PG-13)
Steve Martin plays Jonas Nightengale, a small-time faith healer who cons the
willing with his religious act. When the bus breaks down in a small town, Jonas
decides to set up shop with the help of his assistant, Jane (Debra Winger), and
make a few bucks while waiting. He finds more of a challenge than he bargained
for. The film can elicit conversation about religious symbolism, cultural
expectations for faith, the portrayal of religion in Hollywood, and religion as a
cultural system. Some coarse language and implied sex between unmarried
people.
Chapter 10: Globalization and Culture Change
■ Mexico City: The Largest City (2007, 26 minutes)
This film defines Mexico City’s globalization in terms of winners and losers,
examining how, in the world’s largest metropolis, immigration challenges are
linked to poverty and population influx from surrounding rural areas. Contrasting
the high-tech facilities and fashionable neighborhoods with its sprawling slums
and struggling inhabitants, the program outlines the relationship between foreign
investment and the worldwide need for cheap labor, which Mexico and its
indigenous peoples readily supply. Glimpses into a tech-savvy youth culture and
the persistent Zapatista movement reinforce the capital’s nickname: City of
Contrasts. From the Global Cities series.
ffh.films.com/id/11602/Mexico_City_The_Largest_City.htm
■ N!ai: The Story of a !Kung Woman (1980, 59 minutes)
See description under chapter 2.
■ Whale Rider (2002, 101 minutes, PG-13)
See description under chapter 5.
Chapter 12: Anthropology in Action
■ Anthropology: Real People, Real Careers (Francis E. Smiley, AAA, 42 minutes)
This video was made by the American Anthropological Association to show
broad applications of anthropology for professional life. It shows anthropologists
at work in a variety of anthropological careers and includes all the subfields of
anthropology. www.aaanet.org/resources/students/CareersDVD.cfm
For multiple chapters:
■ !Kung Short Films (2009 [filmed from 1950 to 1959], 161 minutes total)
This collection of nineteen short films (many are four to ten minutes) shows
!Kung (Ju/’hoansi) life in the 1950s, as filmed by John Marshall. Many include
footage of everyday life (a tantrum, a child’s game, a song), as well as illustrating
the nature of ethnographic film.www.der.org/films/kung-short-films.html
Online Resources for Ethnographic Films
www.bullfrogfilms.com: Bullfrog Films is a leading producer and retailer of educational
films in the social sciences.
www.newsreel.org: California Newsreel produces and distributes cutting-edge social
justice films that engage, inspire, and educate audiences. Founded in 1968, California
Newsreel is the oldest nonprofit, social-issue documentary film center in the country, and
was the first to marry media production and contemporary social movements.