How to Read and Write

The Queer Eye

Spring 2021

How to Read Theory

Theory is a text like any other, but it can seem more dense and demanding than, say, a novel.
This is because theory asks us to examine the assumptions we bring to the very act of
reading: in one fell sweep we are both reading and thinking about the act of reading,
performing a double labour. We perform this double labour all the time but we are not always
asked to be accountable for our assumptions. Theory does not let us off the hook so easily –
that is what makes it daunting and exhilarating at once.

The first thing to do while reading a theoretical text is not to underestimate the time required
to do the reading, and the difficulty involved in the exercise. Give yourself enough time to do
the reading, and perhaps read along with a friend or two.

Ideally, do a first reading straight through, and then follow that with a second reading in
which you can pause over particular passages of difficulty. Always mark sentences and ideas
that strike you. These sentences might completely withhold their meaning from your desire to
understand them, or they might trigger an immediate recognition. Either way, mark it, and
scribble a note next to it to remind yourself of your difficulty and/or delight. At the end of
each reading, write down a couple of questions the essay has helped you think through, and a
couple of questions you would like to ask of the text.

In other words, ask yourself what the text has done for you, how it has done it, and why it is
making the argument that it is. Most important of all, do not be fazed by the difficulty. What
doesn’t kill you will make you stronger!

How to Read Film

Films too are texts that need to be read, especially when you’re watching them for class. As
always, be an active reader. Note scenes and images and lines that seem important or
intriguing. Since film is its own medium, there are also questions specific to it that you will
need to think about:

1. The first important thing to do when you watch a film is to not merely pay attention to
the story, plot, and characters, but to how they are presented by the camera. We tend
to think of film as “realistic” because the medium renders people and objects in life-
like detail. Remember, we as an audience can only see what the camera’s “eye” shows
us, and that nearly everything we see on the screen is manipulated by the director and
others who make the film. So, pay careful attention to how the director “sets up” a
shot in any given scene.
2. Is the director using a long shot, a medium shot, a close up, or an extreme close up? Is
the shot taken from a high angle, a low angle, or from eye level? Is the camera placed
in an “objective” location, or does it represent the point of view of one of the
characters? Does the camera move or does it stay in place? Is it handheld or stable?
 3. Consider also the composition of the scene. That is, how has the director arranged
actors, objects, lighting, etc. to make the effect of the scene? Is there something
implied going on off screen?
4. Does the film utilise effects like voiceovers, text, direct addresses to the camera and
other narrative devices? What is the effect of these devices?
5. Pay attention to how the movie opens and closes. How are the credit sequences
presented? How is music used to set the mood of the film?
6. Editing: Most people do not pay attention to how a film is edited or how it cuts from
shot to shot and scene to scene. This, though, is an important part of how film has an
effect on an audience. Pay attention to whether the rhythm of the editing is fast or
slow, does the director use long takes in a scene or do they divide the scene up with
many short takes? Does the editing make for a unified and continuous effect (i.e., you
don’t really notice it) or is it jarring or destabilising? Does the editor/director use
effects like fade in/fade out frequently?
7. Consider the overall mood of the film as created by acting, music, lighting, sound
effects, costumes, colours, sets, etc. (All of these things taken together is what film
scholars call mise-en-scene, French for “put before the camera.”) These small details
often go unnoticed but play a crucial role in a film.
8. Look for repetitions that cue you in to the things the director or writer thinks are
important. Is there a recurring song, music, camera technique, special effect that adds
meaning to the film? Just as when you read a book or play, pay attention to these
repetitions.
9. Finally, think about how your observations relate to the over-arching ideas in and
about the film.
(These points are taken, in part, from
https://web.english.upenn.edu/~mulready/Handouts/How%20to%20Read%20a%20Fi
lm.pdf)

How to Write Theoretically

Theory is not an app that can be activated by one click on your phone. It is also not to be
“applied” to literature like you apply jam on toast. Theory is nothing more or less than the
process of questioning itself. Why do narratives matter? Do narratives matter? How does
language affect life? How can literature allow us to think of economic inequities? Does the
environment have anything to do with discourse? What is madness and what is normalcy?
How do we become gendered beings? What does it mean to have sex?

When you write a theoretical essay, you will write in a way that allows such questions to be
asked. Your approach to the text(s) has to be a questioning one. You will thus not be
providing an explanation of the text that is focussed on plot. Rather, you will be figuring out
how the text – written or visual – is saying what it says, and with what effects. On the basis of
what assumptions? What is its purported aim? Does it succeed or fail in this aim? What does
success connote? What might both success and failure tell us about the way in which we
read?

Writing theoretically thus maintains a fine balance between the big and the small, the macro
and the micro. Ask big questions, but pay attention to the small details to help you address
those questions. And do not be too invested in providing answers.