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There is a lot of commentary that really has nothing to do with the film or production. I’ve separated the descriptive part of the article from the commentary which is under “Analysis”. |
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Scholar [[Miguel Tinker Salas]] wrote that the film was part of a practice intended to make the American employees more sympathetic to the Venezuelan locals upon arrival, and to not be too brash; he also believes it was unsuccessful in this aim. He states this is because it was only shown to employees of petroleum corporations, not their families, and was paired with extensive classes in [[Venezuelan culture]] that generally perturbed the employees — enough for stories of expatriates calling the practice "indoctrination" to arise. Tinker also suggests that anything learnt from the lessons and film were quickly forgotten, with American oil workers still retaining their opinion of cultural dominance.<ref name=tinker>{{cite book|last1=Tinker Salas|first1=Miguel|last2=Joseph|first2=Gilbert M.|last3=Rosenberg|first3=Emily S.|title=The Enduring Legacy: Oil, Culture, and Society in Venezuela|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_R5JkihMrXAC&pg=PA148|publisher=Duke University Press|year=2009|isbn=9780822392231}}</ref><sup>:147–148</sup>
[[Television studies|Television scholar]] Erin Giannini argues the original film "shares features with [[Social guidance film|mental hygiene films]] such as ''[[A Date with Your Family]]'' as well as the overt propagandizing of ''[[Invasion U.S.A. (1952 film)|Invasion USA]]''", writing that ''Assignment: Venezuela'' "attempts to sanitize" many of the racial and environmental issues relating to US-Venezuelan oil ventures. She notes that "some"{{Who?|date=May 2024}} treat the film as an accurate historical record of 1950s Venezuela.<ref name=giannini/><sup>:150</sup>
In an article examining some ''MST3K'' shorts, Giannini selects the version of ''Assignment: Venezuela'' as a good example of where ''MST3K'' makes good film selections to spoof with suitable commentary, and as showing how this practice appears in their shorts as well as feature films.<ref name=giannini>{{cite journal|last=Giannini|first=Erin|title="People were whiter back then": Film Placement and In-Theater Commentary as Sociopolitical Dialogue|editor1=Weiner, Robert G.|editor2=Barba, Shelley E.|journal=In the Peanut Gallery with Mystery Science Theater 3000: Essays on Film, Fandom, Technology and the Culture of Riffing|publisher=McFarland|year=2014|pages=146–154|isbn=9780786485727}}</ref><sup>:147</sup> Giannini also notes how public ___domain material generally benefits the spoofs as it provides prime material to mock quaint 1950s American ideals in line with more contemporary social and political issues, which she believes ''Assignment: Venezuela'' shows very clearly.<ref name=giannini/><sup>:149</sup> It also lacks the internal structure and scheduled framing narrative of many other ''MST3K'' shorts.<ref name=giannini/><sup>:150</sup> Giannini argues that the short's lack of public distribution gave the ''MST3K'' writers more leeway in their commentary.<ref name=giannini/><sup>:149</sup>
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