User:Zhoulez/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
(500 Days of Summer.)

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article to evaluate because the article did not have a controversial lock on it, the article held a good amount of content, and had content I can contribute to. In class, we discussed that we should not add to articles with a lock icon near it as they are typically controversial topics that Wikipedia prevents further editing on. In the Talks Page, I also discovered that this article is a part of the WikiProjects and rated to a mid-level of importance. As discussed in class, we should not edit a page with a high level of importance (mostly because we probably will not know more about a topic than a actual researcher with a PHD) and we should go for low-mid-level of importance topics. While some may think that the article is completed, I believe there is more discussion to be made around the cultural impact of the film. One of the main themes we need to apply to our Wikiseries is a gender studies element to ensure relevancy to the course. Based on this theme, I would provide a feminist perspective on the impact of film reviews being made centred on the concept of a manic-pixie dream girl.

Evaluate the article
Lead Section

The article leads with an introductory sentence that concisely describes the genre of the film, the major contributors and actors to the film, and a short summary of the film. This introductory paragraph is concise and good as it gets straight to the point. The article is relevant to the topic of the movie and even explores the slow rise in popularity through its journey to fame. However, this article does not deal with Wikipedia’s equity gaps by addressing underrepresented topics. This movie is about two white people that fall in love and fall out of love, so it would be considered an overrepresented topic.

Content Tone and Balance

Based on the most of the article’s information being presented factually, this article is pretty neutral. However, there is a slight disagreement over the classification of its genre. The first paragraph states that it is a romantic comedy but the direction paragraph of the production section states that the director describes the film as a “coming of age” story rather than a “rom-com.” Perhaps, the first paragraph should be changed to a “coming of age” story to reflect the director’s wishes.

Sources and References

The sources and references for the article are backed up by legitimate secondary sources for movie articles like Rotten Tomatoes and newspapers like The Times. The sources are not current but that is because the film was made in 2009. In addition, the links work.

Organization and Writing Quality

The article is organized very well, with the plot being the first major section while the cast, production, release, reception, soundtrack albums, and references following after. The first paragraph states all that a reader would need to know about the movie. The plot is written in a way that presents the facts without inserting a bias to the tone. The organization of the paragraphs are in order of importance-which I find is really helpful. For example, he marketing of the film is placed at the bottom of the production section. This placement makes it easier for readers that  want to know the general idea of the film but can choose to skip the more in-depth analysis of it if they want.

Images and Media

The article only has a few images and the images are well-captioned and enhance the understanding of the topic. However, the images are not laid out in a visually appealing way. I would want this article to have more images, especially more architectural pictures in reference to Tom’s love for architecture.

Talk Page Discussion

Surprisingly, the article’s talk page contains members from the Queen Mary University London editing team that conduct an in-depth edit of the movie. They edit “Tom’s new beau” to “crush” in acknowledgement that beau means boyfriend. To pay respect to Autumn’s pronouns, they amend “beau” to “crush,” a more gender neutral term. While I originally would have wanted to add the cultural impact of the rise in concept of a manic pixie dream girl emerging from this movie, the talk page addresses this. They discouraged adding content about the manic pixie dream girl discussion because it seemed like a “terrible neologism” to them and they believed that journalists make up new categories to give themselves something to write on. This comment was made by Horkana on December 6, 2009. In 2010, Horkana realized the director used the actual term of a manic pixie dream girl to explain Summer’s character. In my opinion, the concept of a manic pixie dream girl SHOULD be included in the page. This is one of the most popular movies to evoke film review channels to bring up the discussion of a manic pixie dream girl. This concept of a manic pixie dream girl perfectly describes the over-objectification of women by men in romance movies who are “hopeless romantics.” Rather than being in love with women, these men are in love with the idea of women and often villanize women that do not return the same feelings to them.

Overall Impressions

Overall, this article is very well-written and edited to account for gender neutral terms and objective facts. This article can be improved by expanding on its cultural impact since there was so much discussion surrounding a manic pixie dream girl that emerged as a result of it. This article’s complement is very well-developed and provide thorough details of the production, background information, and even architecture of the film.