Cross-cultural Management

Guidelines for Movie Reflection Paper

Individual Assignment (15 points)

Popular films or movies offer glimpses of ‘culture in action’ through stories of

individual lives weaved in the broader social fabric. The script, dialogues, sounds,
sights, landscape, music and all other constituent elements offer a unified impression
of the characters embedded in their contexts. In this assignment, you will have to
‘deconstruct’ this unified impression by analyzing the movie from the cultural
perspective.

The move for this assignment is:

1) Gung Ho (1986, Director Ron Howard) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091159/

Reflect upon the movie—more deeply than you would usually do— keeping the
cultural nuances in mind. Personalize your observations and key-takeaways. The
theoretical concepts from the course are not required in this assignment. You might,
for instance, want to consider what surprised you about the two cultures, vis-à-vis
your own cultural identity. What is it that you could appreciate about the two
cultures? What did you think about the clashes and conflicts in the movie? What is
that you could attribute the clashes to? Did the resolutions seem fair? These are just
suggestive ideas—and by no means, an expected set of criteria or an exhaustive list
for you to draw from. It’s completely your own take on the movie, from the cultural
perspective. Build the narrative in a manner that it goes beyond a casual description or
summary of the movie.

Also, please bear in mind that this is not a movie review. As much as you would like
to, you are not playing the role of a movie critic! So, keep the analysis focused on the
cultural aspects. Refrain from making such comments as, so-and-so actor did or did
not act well, or the plot was not tight enough, or the censorship norms are different in
India and other parts of the world—these topics are off-limits for the assignment.

You will be graded on both the content and the style of your report.

Content
The degree to which your paper demonstrated excellence in each of the following:
• Depth of reflection
• Thoroughness and detail
• Presence of your voice
• Your ability to go beyond the obvious.
• Persuasive appeal and the compelling strength of your points
• Clarity and coherence of your ideas
• Relevant details and strong evidence to support the ideas
• Avoiding repetition, overlapping, and redundant information

Style
The degree to which your paper demonstrated excellence in each of the following:
• Sound writing skills:
o displayed clarity and precision in language; avoided verbosity

1
 o organized the material well; where required used headings and sub-
headings
o constructed fully-developed paragraphs around topic sentences
o avoided grammatical and typographical erros (yes, hope you get the
point!)
o had a well-built introduction and conclusion
• A narrative that kept the reader curious and interested
• Creativity and out-of-box thinking

Additional points:

• Use 12-point Times New Roman font, double-spaced lining. Leave 1-inch
margin.
• Do not forget to put page numbers on the header.
• The maximum page-limit for this paper is 10 pages.
• Submit the assignment in Moodle Turnitin by Wednesday, January 2nd, 2019,
10 am.
• Also, turn in a black-and-white hard copy of the assignment by Wednesday,
January 2nd, 2019, 10 am. (in the class).

Late policy: Late assignments will not be accepted, and you will not get any score
in this component of the course.

Plagiarism
• The Greek and Latin roots of the word lie in plagiaries, implying ‘kidnapper’!
Needless to say, it is a serious offense. Please refer to the Institute Guidelines
as well as visit the website www.plagiarism.org to get more understanding of
this issue. Please talk to the instructor in case of any doubt.
• In using information from other sources, paraphrase the information in your
own words with appropriate citations and references. One of the standard
manuals used as a citation and reference guide across academic institutes and
business schools is the American Psychological Association Publication
Manual (6th edition). The following link provides a subset of information from
the APA-Manual; for present purposes, you can use it for the reference and
citation, for instance, of internet sources:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/10/

Hope you enjoy the movie and the assignment. Good luck! I look forward to
reading your reflections.