Do you need to just focus on one song or movie? or use songs and movies as a way to justify your points?
Because if you are only using the music and film to validate the argument that language does influence and/or assert identity: here are some points....
- Sound of the language is representative of the culture where it originates. The enunciation and the way that sentences are delivered determines the identity and the disposition of the person delivering them. The emotion (expressed through intonation, melody, accompanying gestures) is totally different between languages, and this alone can be a defining characteristic of an individual. We are able to identify and associate ones personality and their cultural background simply based on the way they speak.
MOVIES: shottas, amelie, bon cop bad cop, lola rennt, babel, etc
MUSIC: manu chao, feist, sublime, arcade fire, sigur ros, damian marley, bjork, etc
- fight club, napoleon dynamite, back to the future, star wars, monty python, lords of dogtown
- how can language be misleading in terms of identification? ie. australia vs. new zealand vs. england vs. south africa.... germany vs. austria.. when people just don't know the difference and make assumptions
- talk about multiculturalism within countries, and how people are stereotyped because of the way they look even before they open their mouths, and it is through their language that they are identifiable (and sometimes re-evaluated based on the way they speak.)
MOVIES: save the last dance, american history x (both black/white struggle)
-within countries (or regarding languages that overlap internationally) identity and origin is immediately recognizable simply though language. dialects, slang, and regional vernacular allow people to be identified and associated with whatever stereotypes or general understandings there are regarding their district of origin..
MOVIES: you could kind of overlap with music on this one, Justice's music video for the song "stress" is regarding the retaliation of black french gangs in France against the white french citizens. some of the white ppl don't see the black ppl as "authentically french" because they are black.. even though they are both still French & share a culture and language... so the black people start gangs and fuck shit up for the white ppl.
also trailer park boys (don't actually use this in your essay)
- questions you could answer to fill out your essay: how are people identified if they speak more than one language? how are acceptance and identity related in terms of travel within foreign countries? do people always assert their identity through language? how can identification by language be a positive and a negative thing, depending on the context?
