Modules
121
Point 5:
Point (topic sentence):
Evidence (supporting points):
Analysis (explanation, discussion)
•
•
•
Now, write a statement that summarises the main point of the conclusion:
Write your own response
Plan and write your own response, using a Module C question from another HSC
examination paper. Use the planning model outlined above. Create your own original work
in restricted time. Allow for about one hour of writing time.
Edit your work
After you finish, go back and edit your work. Use the editing checklist on page 9 to make
sure that you have covered all necessary areas.
2010 Paper 2 Section III Module C – Elective 1: Conflicting
Perspectives
To what extent has textual form shaped your understanding of conflicting perspectives?
In your response, make detailed reference to your prescribed text and at least ONE other related text of your
own choosing.
Sample response: Film
Prescribed text:
Related text:
General
discussion about
conflicting
perspectives is
developed into a
clear thesis that
shows the
importance of
form on
creating
meaning
Texts are linked
by situation but
separated by
form
Wag the Dog, Barry Levinson, 1997
‘Historian dismisses Tasmanian aboriginal genocide “myth”’, PM,
Radio National, 12 December 2002 (transcript of radio interview)
For a situation of any significance there is always more than one
perspective, and these perspectives are often in conflict with each other.
The existence of conflicting perspectives is something that provides
subject matter for the media, but the media can be manipulated so that a
different perspective can be represented as the new truth. Many texts
illustrate the struggle to find meaning in a multimedia world which both
creates and allows access to many different perspectives about the same
event. Having knowledge about the way textual form affects the
representation of an event can give insight about the event. When that
event has political implications, the conflicting perspectives can have great
consequences. The film Wag the Dog directed by Barry Levinson and the
interview between Keith Windschuttle and Henry Reynolds led by Peter
Hutcheons (PM on ABC Radio National, 12 December 2002) show how a
perspective can be influenced by manipulating the data that is available to
represent a new perspective that influences people’s beliefs. Both texts, the
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film and the interview, act as an enquiry into the way political events (about
electioneering and Aboriginal genocide, respectively) are represented by the
form that is used.
The topic
sentence
connects both
texts to the
same situation
(as required by
the syllabus
description)
A brief
overview of
both texts gives
background
New topic
sentence
connecting the
titles of both
texts
The interview
form of the
related text is
now discussed
with close
textual detail
Conflicting
perspectives can
be seen to be
implied in the
words that are
used
Perspectives are
seen as dividing
an audience
Audience is used
to connect to
the prescribed
text
The character
and plot are
seen as part of
the form
Both Wag the Dog and the PM interview are about a cover-up. In Wag the
Dog, Mr Fix-it (Conrad) sets out to improve the image of the President on
the eve of an election when he has been accused of sexual indiscretion with
a minor. In the interview, the interviewee, Keith Windschuttle, sets out to
prove that his perspective on the genocide of Tasmanian Aboriginals is
more accurate than that of Henry Reynolds. On the one hand, we see the
power of the media and media images in the way producer Stanley Motss is
able to recreate a war, and on the other hand, we see how an interview with
words can be manipulated to explore conflicting perspectives about a war
against Tasmanian Aboriginal people.
The titles of the film, Wag the Dog, and the book, A Fabrication of
Aboriginal History, that forms the basis of the interviews, allude to
changing perspectives. The expression “wag the dog” tells us that any story
can be influenced and controlled from different sides. Windschuttle’s book
is a provocative attack on previously held beliefs on Aboriginal/colonial
relations, situating the previous perspective as a falsehood by the word
“fabrication”.
The interview is structured in the usual format with an introduction to
each speaker and the topic, followed by a series of questions and answers
to guide the discussion. The argument is carefully mediated by the
interviewer who controls the revelation of each point of view. In his
introduction, reporter Mark Colvin opens with the description of
Windschuttle as a Sydney historian who is “trying to overturn the
conventional thinking about what’s been widely accepted”. He uses the
word “genocide” twice and offers Windschuttle’s description that this was
“myth” and a “vendetta” against Governor George Arthur “perpetuated by
historians”. The Aboriginal genocide is referred to as “infamous” and
“notorious”. The powerful nouns and adjectives used, including
“conventional”, immediately position the audience to see this as an attack
on an accepted truth. This theme is continued by the interviewer who
chooses to quote Windschuttle’s accusation that his detractors are “leftleaning quasi-Marxist academics”. Yet again we see the power of words,
placing the two speakers in opposing positions. “Left” and “Marxist” are
words charged with negative meaning for a conservative audience,
immediately polarising the argument and, in consequence, the audience
into different groups.
Producer Stanley Motss also seeks to influence his audience, the American
public, and change their views with tools that go beyond the words. He
uses all the skills of a filmmaker in a film which can be regarded as selfreflexive in its implicit criticism of the very form that it uses. Sound and
images reinforce the creation of a war that exists only in the media and is in
fact an election ploy. Juxtaposing the actual election advertisement against
preparations for this fabricated war sets up a contrast that is explicitly
discussed by the characters. Motss laughs at the limitations of the
conservative ad and its repetition of the catch phrase, “Never change
horses in mid stream. Always back a winner!” He believes that real power
Modules
Perspectives are
seen as being
alterable
A close reading
of one scene
through the film
techniques
shows how an
understanding
of perspectives
is conveyed
through form
Conflicting
perspectives are
silenced but
implicit in this
film
Discussion of
satire as a form
in which
conflicting
perspectives are
embedded
The interview is
contrasted with
123
lies in the creation of the false news story which manipulates the people in
a much more subtle manner to side with the President. Perspective can be
altered when you “change the story, change the lead”. The audience may
be attuned to the falsehood of advertising, but the news item retains its
identity as the carrier of an objective perspective which can be verified
through news footage.
Dolly shots swoop down in the scene where they are making the film,
following one person and then fluidly moving on to another, displaying the
ease with which information is passed on from person to person,
transforming a construction into a reality. The constant intrusive and
pervasive presence of the television set in most settings – at the director’s
mansion, in the pub, in the meeting room of the White House, in the car –
further asserts the extensive power of the media which disturbs and alters
the current of conversations as news items are flashed. Through the
conversations around the television we see perspectives being attacked and
manipulated into new perspectives. Motss’ initial discussions with Conrad
are held against a backdrop of television news which attracts their attention
and influences their decisions.
This is a world of surveillance and secrecy. From the opening scenes when
Mr Fix-it, Conrad, enters the White House, a tilt-down shot from a security
camera is edited with live shots showing the interplay of different realities:
on screen and in life. Paradoxically, even the reality that we see is mediated
by a screen, further suggesting the many perspectives from which we can
see the same situation. The complicating event of the President’s
indiscretion leads to the passing on of authority to Conrad in the bowels of
the White House, in a room that alludes to Winston Churchill’s war room,
with its large central table and clocks on the wall, the allusion offering a
premonition of the act of creating a war with Albania that follows.
Underpinning this scene is the sound of a banjo, music that connects to
the heartlands of America and is entertainment for the masses who are
going to be confronted by the new perspective that will be conveyed.
This satirical film does not set out to objectively present conflicting
perspectives but focuses on the creation of one point of view against
others. Satire is a form that makes a comment about society by presenting
a perspective that is so extreme that it is provocative; it therefore depends
on conflicting perspectives, even if these are implicit. Levinson’s
illustration of the creation of this ‘Disneyland’ (as the theorist Baudrillard
would call it) is so hyperbolic and immoral that it makes the audience
aware of what is real and also acts as a criticism of such acts of creation.
The reality of an alternative perspective is suggested by the presence of the
public audience, in the bars, at work, on a farm far away and at the airport,
as it is to influence the public that the ‘war’ has been engineered. The
intrusion of the CIA men, whose job is to silence the dissenting view that
is being constructed, further indicates an alternative perspective.
Interestingly, we see the power of Conrad in silencing voices of dissent in
the way he handles the CIA men and producer Stanley Motss, whose
hubris is so great that he endangers the situation with his desire to reveal
his role.
The interview form may not have the drama of a film, nor will it have
access to the ‘masses’, playing instead to a select audience, but it is a very
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Cambridge Checkpoints HSC Advanced English
the film through
the reference to
the audience
How the
interviewer can
intervene to
alter/affect a
perspective
Interviewer is
conscious of the
conflicting
perspectives
The conclusion
continues from
the previous
paragraph to
offer a final
statement
linking texts to
question and
module aims
important way of conveying conflicting perspectives to an audience.
Meaning can be controlled and swayed by the interviewer, who may be
provocative in his style. The Windschuttle/Reynolds discussion is framed
by the questions of the interviewer, often phrased in the negative and
drawing our attention to the conflicting perspectives: “Can you really jump
to the conclusion that they [the massacres] didn’t happen?” he asks
Windschuttle. The colloquial use of the adverb “really” and the negative
“didn’t” send connotations of doubt to the audience. In other parts of the
interview he describes one perspective and then ends on a provocative
question: “What’s your response to that?” In contrast, when he talks to
Reynolds he is more circumspect in his questions. He offers leading
alternatives: “Rather than people fighting for their homelands, would you
describe these conflicts as frontier warfare?” Finally he asks both historians
to reflect on the processes that led to such opposing perspectives: “How
can two historians come to such remarkably different conclusions?”
The subtle premise of this last question, that meaning is infinitely
interpretable, is central to both texts. While the interview seeks to find out
how two such different perspectives can emerge, the film takes us to an
earlier stage of the process, looking at the impetus for creating a conflicting
perspective. It is therefore by knowing how each textual form works that a
better understanding of conflicting perspectives emerges.
Follow up
Look up the Notes from the Marking Centre and the Marking Guidelines for the 2010
Examination (on the Board of Studies website). Use these guidelines to identify what was
valued and to assess the sample 2010 responses.
Elective 2: History and Memory
Unpacking the Syllabus and Prescriptions statements
Refer to pages 111 and 112 for the Syllabus and Prescriptions statements.
The concept of ‘history wars’ tells us that while it is possible to agree on certain facts about
the past (dates, people and events), interpretations of those events are open to discussion
and question. Context and personal perspectives influence the ways we understand events
and people in history. The accounts of an eye-witness and of a participant can be very
different. Other contexts, such as a cultural or racial connection to a historical event long
after the event is over, can also affect how that event is interpreted and how it is represented.
Ned Kelly is an iconic figure in Australian history and Australian folklore. While facts are
known about his life, there is considerable nation-wide discussion about whether he was a
criminal or a hero. Unsurprisingly, in recent interviews with Kelly’s descendants he is
portrayed as a hero, while to descendants of his victims and of the police officers who
arrested him he is a villain. These polarised views are based on the same set of facts. In True
History of the Kelly Gang, Peter Carey gives us a representation of Kelly, using the voice of
the Jerilderie letter to provide a false authenticity, mixing fact and fiction to show how hard
it is to separate truth from mythology and showing the generous and violent aspects of