What is your favorite class taken at URI? Illustration by: Maddie Bataille | Photo Editor
My first semester here at URI was one of the most memorable times of my life. I had just transferred here from the Community College of Rhode Island (CCRI) and the classes were so much fun.
One of my favorite classes that semester and that I have ever taken here at URI is “Politics and Protest in Films,” (HPR344). This class taught me more about American history than any history course I’ve taken in middle or high school. The fact that I learned about a century of American history in one semester and retained almost all of it is bizarre to me.
Now, of course, films aren’t 100% accurate, and a majority of the class was watching movies and reviewing the historical content. However, the professor of the class, Thomas Zorabedian, made sure to teach us actual history during the timeline we were studying.
He had an entire document filled with historical information and split it into three categories: politics, culture and film. The politics covered every political action taken during the decade we were covering. The culture went over everything that Americans did during that time and how they lived their lives; and other things like commercials, food, clothes and more. Finally, the cinema covered all the movies and shows that came out during the decade, and even the awards and nominations for certain films.
We covered a wide range of topics during the course of American history through film such as the lunch-counter protests, the black panther group, the protests for the Vietnam War and even the Pentagon Papers.
I really enjoyed the section where we talked about the Vietnam War and we watched several movies pertaining to that subject. It was a big part of the class as it was one of the biggest protests in American history.
We watched “A Small Circle of Friends,” “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” “The Most Dangerous Man in America” and “The Post,” which were all excellent films and taught me a lot about the Vietnam War and all the hidden truths behind it. One truth being that America kept sending young men to Vietnam to essentially die instead of accepting defeat.
The last two films also tied into the Pentagon Papers which was especially interesting to me because I am a journalism major, and I got to learn about how those private papers were leaked and given to the New York Times for the excerpts to be published.
I have also never learned so much about Black history until I took this class. I never knew that Martin Luther King Jr. led a march from Selma, Alabama to the capital, Montgomery in 1965. I never knew that he and hundreds of other Black people marched from Selma and some of those people were killed and beaten by the police before even making it over a bridge.
Another interesting film that I watched was “The Butler” with Forest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey. This film followed the life of a young Black boy named Cecil who was born into slavery, and was eventually freed. Long story short, he becomes a butler in the White House and serves for 34 years under every President from Dwight D. Eisenhower to George H.W. Bush.
This film covered so much history and so many protests, and I loved the ending even more because it ended with Cecil meeting the first black President of the United States, Barack Obama.
I really loved the assignments too because they were really easy to understand and so interesting to do. We got to make a film treatment as a final project in which we created an entire document pitching a film to our professor. We wrote about the plot and timeline, and we even got to make a cast list which was a lot of fun too.
This course made me so happy and grateful because I have never gained so much from a class before in my life. I highly recommend taking this class if you’re looking for a good four credit class at an upper level!