VCE · Text Response
Text Response: "The Audience Left Twenty Years ago." How…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 97.5%: In his 1950 noir melodrama Sunset Boulevard, director Billy Wilder portrays the Hollywood film industry as a…
In his 1950 noir melodrama Sunset Boulevard, director Billy Wilder portrays the Hollywood film industry as a ruthless, transactional space that strips individuals of their fundamental humanity. Wilder initially exposes the systemic cruelty of the studio system through Joe Gillis’s financial desperation, demonstrating how corporate greed and economic pressure force artists to abandon ethical integrity for material survival. Beyond economic exploitation, the director explores how the pressure to maintain a public star persona forces performers into perpetual self-delusion, replacing genuine human identity with a hollow, theatrical facade. However, Wilder does not confine his critique solely to the studio machine; by framing the film around Joe's reminder that "the audience left twenty years ago," he indicts the public and media as complicit consumers whose insatiable demand for scandal directly fuels this performative nightmare. Consequently, Sunset Boulevard functions as a dire warning regarding a consumerist culture that routinely prioritises manufactured spectacle over human life.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: The time has come. (Please look…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 87.5%: Section B. The Time has come Year 2061 Dear mother, I hated your colourful top. I remember when I was seven,…
Section B.
The Time has come
Year 2061
Dear mother, I hated your colourful top.
I remember when I was seven, I hated that you left me alone.
I remember crying and begging for you to stay.
I remember despising that colourful top that you wore every single time you walked out of that door away from me.
I remember being annoying and clingy. I don't know how you dealt with me.
You never forgot what that top meant to you.
I didn't understand back then.
Today, when I am no longer seven, I finally understand.
This top meant connection as you held hands with strangers united for the same cause.
I remember you showing me photos of your protest, laughing over jokes written on signs like "This planet is hotter than my Ex" and stupid jokes about "I've seen better climate in Minecraft".
Believe it or not... you were lame, mother.
But I never quite understood why you stopped.
The memories and passion to fight have left you ever since the day you walked through the front door, bruised, your colourful top torn.
I remember you trying to shrug it off, you couldn't bear to tell me what had happened. You couldn’t bear to tell a seven-year-old what authority does when you speak up.
At ten I was happy that you were home, and your battle was over.
I suppose I was too gullible.
At fifteen I saw you standing sorrowful in front of the factory where you first protested, you stood staring at the smoke and the grey water coming out of it. Perhaps you knew you couldn't do anything.
That’s when I realized what those photos held: the voices of a community that stood against authority. Home for a better world.
You stood wearing the only colourful top you could find against a world so grey and suffocating that tears were hard to shed.
They silenced you,they made you scared. Silence is what made them strong.
I saw right through the pain in your eyes, the regret of not having a voice, regret that the world around you had shown its true form you wish you hadn’t seen.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: how is the blackwood estate in we have…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 72.5%: lack of "light", Jackson highlights how within the confines of their home the sisters are free from a society…
lack of "light", Jackson highlights how within the confines of their home the sisters are free from a society that constantly seeks to punish their differences. Furthermore, Jackson establishes the reoccuring motif of food, to represent the sisters escape from patriarchal norms. Merricats declaration that "we eat the spring and the summer and the fall", highlights the unending nature of their consumption. The repition in the statement, underscores how the sisters are not subject to any restrictions from a husband. As traditionally food was used to subdue women into a traditional 1960's housewife position, their only role being to serve. By being able to subvert this norm, Jackson represents the Blackwood estate as being free from the patriarchy, embodying a reality so few women were able to achieve due to the constant expectations to carry out traditional roles. Jackson implores how by physically rejecting society, one is able to find freedom, however presents the fragility of this reality and escape.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: 'You have to hide by yourself.' How does…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 92.5%: Published in 1994 as a historical allegory to the rise and fall of authoritarian regimes in the 20th century,…
Published in 1994 as a historical allegory to the rise and fall of authoritarian regimes in the 20th century, Yoko Ogawa's dystopian novel 'The Memory Police' explores the nuances of connection, identity, memory and resistance under brutal fascist authorities. Through the construction of her novel, Ogawa suggests that isolation is inherently damaging to both individuals and society. In The Memory Police, the characters' disconnection from others leads to an inability to form and maintain meaningful relationships. Furthermore, a lack of human connection can lead to a loss of identity. Ultimately, Ogawa illustrates how isolation causes an inability to effectively resist totalitarian regimes, acting as a precursor to total dehumanisation and destruction.
In The Memory Police, disconnection from others inhibits individuals' ability to form and maintain heartfelt relationships with others. Ogawa's depiction of an insular society that is alarmingly fragmented in individuals' isolation from others aims to warn that isolation prevents people from developing an understanding of and relationship with others. The pathetic fallacy of the "mountain shrouded in haze", separating their society from the rest of the world and the "quiet and lonely" nature of the town highlights the isolated nature of the town. Through this, Ogawa suggests that the physical nature of the island is a reflection of the disconnection between the citizens of the island. Ogawa warns that physical isolation often acts as a precursor to disconnection between individuals, highlighting the difficulty of finding connections with others in a society so inherently isolated. Furthermore, the narrator's realisation that she "didn't know anything about" R despite having worked with him for a while in his editing highlights the normalisation of surface-level relationships due to this physical isolation. Through this, Ogawa suggests that individuals must make an effort to make connections with others, as it doesn't occur naturally in isolated societies. As a result of the absence of these meaningful connections, individuals in disconnected societies have difficulty maintaining meaningful relationships. As R "hide[s] by [him]self" in the annex in the narrator's house, the narrator's metaphor of their "hearts being pulled into such different, distant places" highlights the difficulty of maintaining connections with others when isolated. Through this, she champions Anne Frank's maintenance of connection with her family while hiding in the annex, suggesting that even when isolated with society, individuals must strive to maintain meaningful relationships that had already been created. Hence, Ogawa underscores the importance of relationships in societies that are forced to be isolated by authoritarian regimes, as it prevents total isolation.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Framework: Writing about personal…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 75%: Section B The road inside me Dear Amma and Baba. This is something that is very difficult for me to express…
Section B
The road inside me
Dear Amma and Baba. This is something that is very difficult for me to express with my words, so I hope this letter softens the blow of my actions. Growing up, I remember how we used to attend Jummah every Friday. How during lockdown, we spent an hour every night during Ramadan praying together. To be honest, my upbringing in this household is very closely tied to the Islamic teachings taught by you. However, now that I'm older, I've learnt and taught myself lots of things about myself. And a few of the things that I've learnt is that I did not absorb any religious teachings, and I've met my other half, a truth that you'll never be willing to accept, no matter how open minded and understanding you were about my personal beliefs.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: Ghost Wall is a novel about defiance.…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 65%: Written in 2018, Sarah Moss constructs the novella ‘Ghost Wall’ as a direct response to modern issues within…
Written in 2018, Sarah Moss constructs the novella ‘Ghost Wall’ as a direct response to modern issues within British society, such as patriarchal control and high versus low class divides. Through this, it is apparent Moss’ central theme is defiance as well as the control of individuals. Firstly, Moss depicts individuals who defy detrimental patriarchal control. Furthermore, the author illustrates the ability of individuals to challenge class structures. Despite this focus on defiance, Moss portrays the dangerous control wielded by those with power.
Firstly, through the illustration of a world dominated by patriarchal control, Moss demonstrates how this is defied by individuals. This is particularly evident through the characterisation of Molly as a fierce individual guided by a strong moral compass. In response to the male students joking about women always worrying about where to go to the bathroom, Molly hits back, arguing “it’s just the way [they all] act as if a vagina will come out and eat [them] if it’s out without a muzzle.” The metaphorical description that a vagina requires a muzzle is capitalised on by Moss to uncover societal normalities regarding the judgement of women urinating. Through this, Moss critiques the fear of women’s bodies perpetuated by the patriarchy. Furthermore, in response to being taunted for her and Silvie’s outfits as they walk along the highway Molly gives the car of men “two fingers”. Shocked by this, Silvie describes Molly as acting “as if there were no possible consequences for a girl making obscene gestures on the public highway.” Silvie specifically believing a ‘girl’ should not be making obscene gestures reveals the gendered lense in which she views the world which is challenged through Molly’s fearlessness to put forward her opinion. In writing to a British audience in 2018 facing a rise in right-wing ideology, Moss condemns the control of women and praises individuals who defy this.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: In We Have Always Lived in the Castle,…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 90%: In Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, traditional expectations of women are challenged through…
In Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, traditional expectations of women are challenged through the tension between female independence and the social pressures that seek to restrict it. Written in a period when women were often expected to prioritise domestic responsibilities, marriage and obedience, Jackson exposes how these expectations can limit women’s freedom and autonomy. Through the contrast between the sisters’ secluded domestic life and the intrusion of male authority, Jackson questions the assumption that women require male protection or control. However, Jackson also reveals that escaping these expectations does not necessarily guarantee freedom, as isolation can become another form of confinement. Ultimately, the novel challenges traditional gender roles by exposing the ways patriarchal authority restricts women’s independence and defines their place within society.
Jackson initially challenges traditional gender expectations by presenting female relationships as a source of security that exists independently of male authority. The statement, “She was the most precious person in my world,” conveys the intensity of Merricat’s attachment to Constance. Through the superlative “most precious,” Jackson emphasises the importance of female affection, suggesting that emotional fulfilment does not have to depend on romantic relationships or marriage. Merricat’s world is instead organised around her sister, allowing their relationship to become an alternative to the conventional expectation that women should seek fulfilment through men. This independence is further demonstrated when Constance tells Charles, “Don’t bully her, Charles.” The imperative “Don’t” establishes Constance’s willingness to challenge male behaviour rather than submit to it. By defending Merricat, Constance rejects the expectation that women should remain passive in the face of male authority. However, Jackson also complicates this apparent freedom by presenting the sisters’ dependence on one another as increasingly exclusive. Their devotion protects them from a hostile society, yet their withdrawal from the outside world suggests that independence from patriarchal expectations can come at the cost of wider social freedom.
VCE · Language Analysis
Language Analysis: Argument Analysis
VCE Language Analysis essay scoring 85%: In response to the overall concern over the past few years, residents are aware of the environmental impact and…
In response to the overall concern over the past few years, residents are aware of the environmental impact and general safety of certain individuals in relation to the use of fireworks at the celebrations of New Years. In 2025, Jack Adut published “Lighting the Way: A New Year, a New Celebration”, contending for the removal of fireworks in celebrations and replacing through implementing digital, projected lightshows. Adut focuses this piece towards individuals who experience high sensitivity to loud sounds and toward environmentalists who cherish nature, for the purpose of persuading against the general use of fireworks and making the effects on both people and the environment more publicly acknowledged. Adut uses a non-formal, more friendly tone as a way to connect with the audience on a more personal and emotional level to further persuade them.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: In Ghost Wall, men revert to primitive…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 75%: The human desire to romanticise the past often reveals more about the fears and prejudices of the present than…
The human desire to romanticise the past often reveals more about the fears and prejudices of the present than history itself. Throughout her novel, Moss examines the primodal behaviours men resort to, and how women resort to this power, when placed away from modern society. Here, Moss warns against the tendency of men to exhibit authority by romanticising the creul customs of the past. Furthermore, these gender stereotypes are present even within a family, with Moss showcasing how the father-figure can be controlling. On the contrary however, Moss celebrates the way a priviledged education gives women the freedom to not blindly accept male dominance or traditions.
Within 'Ghost Wall', masculine figures exhibit authority by glorifying Iron Age customs, while women succumb to their power. Moss utilises the character of Bill, who "draws strength" from the Northumberland exclusive enviroment as it allows him to teach Silvie his skills with the "hunting knife". Here, Moss condones how an isolated enviroment allows men's behaviours to lose the respect found in a developed society. As such, when Molly asks what the professor and Bill found after their scavenging adventure, the Professor builds mystery around what is said as "it's not that interesting", to exclude the women from knowing, therefore creating the divide in Iron Age knowledge and power that keeps men in control. Furthermore, while Professor Slade is crafted to act as the voice of reason, Moss demonstrates how men have the tendency to neglect female boundaries by forcing the sacrificial 'ritual' onto Silvie. In that moment, Moss condemns how the Professor showed up to the reenactment with a "camera strung around his neck", a symbol that Moss portrays as objectifying women in a way to recreate and capture the cruel torments of history, all while Silvie had a "rope tied around her neck." Here, Moss critiques men who see history as a simulation and ignores the physical and psychological damage that women endure. Similarly, Moss exposures how young men also turn a blind eye to abuse, through Pete even volunteering to partake in "mission[s] of violence" with the other men, and asserting dominance over Silvie by coming at her with "raised sticks" during her ritual. Here, Moss critiques the inability of young men to notice women surrendering their self-autonomy to earn a role in male activities. This also reflect the social awareness shift in the mid-2010's which infamously called out men for being by-standers to female abuse. Overall, Moss denounces the way men preside over women, by romanticising the past until females lack the confidence to stand up against it.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: control and love
VCE Text Response essay scoring 90%: In Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, love is presented as a powerful yet contradictory force…
In Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, love is presented as a powerful yet contradictory force that can provide emotional security while simultaneously restricting individual freedom. Through the novel’s exploration of familial devotion, possessiveness and domestic authority, Jackson reveals how the desire to protect loved ones can become a means of exercising control. Although affection offers an alternative to the hostility of the outside world, the dependence it creates can ultimately reinforce isolation and prevent individual growth. Through Gothic symbolism, an unreliable first-person narrator and the destruction of the Blackwood home, Jackson challenges idealised representations of familial love, revealing that when affection becomes inseparable from the need to control, protection can become another form of confinement.
Jackson initially presents love as a source of emotional security, while exposing how intense attachment can make personal identity dependent on the preservation of a relationship. Merricat describes Constance as “the most precious person in my world”, with the superlative “most precious” elevating her sister above every other relationship and revealing the extent to which Merricat’s identity depends on Constance. However, the centrality of Constance within Merricat’s “world” also suggests that her affection is inseparable from her desire to preserve their relationship against external interference. By positioning her sister as the foundation of her existence, Merricat constructs an emotional reality in which love becomes both her greatest source of comfort and a potential source of vulnerability. Jackson therefore complicates the apparent purity of sisterly devotion, suggesting that affection can become restrictive when an individual’s entire sense of security depends on maintaining another person’s constant presence. This protective dimension of love becomes evident when Constance warns Charles, “Don’t bully her, Charles.” The imperative “Don’t” establishes a firm boundary against Charles’s behaviour, while the verb “bully” positions Merricat as vulnerable to his attempts to dominate the household. Constance’s intervention demonstrates that affection can become a form of resistance against controlling authority. Nevertheless, Jackson presents this solidarity as both empowering and limiting: although the sisters’ loyalty allows them to withstand external hostility, it also encourages them to define safety through their separation from others. Through this contradiction, Jackson suggests that love provides genuine emotional refuge but can restrict independence when preserving a relationship takes precedence over engaging with the wider world.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: ‘I want to say I’m Sorry…’ In We Have…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 85%: The 1962 gothic novel, authored by Shirley Jackson, We have always lived in the castle, explores how humanity deals…
The 1962 gothic novel, authored by Shirley Jackson, We have always lived in the castle, explores how humanity deals and grows from experiences of regret and guilt. Exemplified through the rejection of guilt leading to survival, illicit inviting social compliance. However, by embracing guilt and regret can lead to peace. Through this, Jackson contends there is little to gain from unaddressed guilt and regret! Messaging to the embracing it results in a freedom readers the importance of addressing underlying causes, in order to grow.
Jackson reveals that rejecting the guilt society imposes, individuals begin to flourish. Through Mary Katherine (Merricat's) first-person narration, she rejects the typical guilt experienced by a murder. remarking that "their bellies ... will feel a torment hotter than a thousand fires." The hellish imagery is used to deflect her own guilt. As she reframes the villagers as deserving guilt, using the irony of consuming fire, which reflects the reasoning to why the villagers impose guilt onto her, for the poisoning. Mirroring their taunts, "Merricat, said Connie, would you like a cup of tea." Jackson reveals how individuals reject guilt, by using violent punishments that reflect their torment. Additionally, the imagery positions herself as not a monster, but as bringing justice to those who persecute her. Allowing her to deflect her own internalised guilt. Furthermore, The novel is structured around the delayed revelation, of Merricat puting the poison "in the sugar." layered upon the first-person narration,
Jackson immerses readers into Merricat's perspective. This sanitises the guilt of Merricat's actions, guiding readers to sympathise Merricat or ignore the cruelty in her actions.
Jackson employs this structural deception to explore that ignoring guilt serves little purpose as individuals can flourish and survive without feeling any guilt. In all of this, she criticises the confining imposed by the 1950s and early 1960s America, messaging that it constructs guilt and regret. Speaking to her own experiences, she messages to those who feel alienated that rejecting societal pressures is a way to feel alleviated. Overall, Jackson asserts that there is little to gain from guilt, as individuals can deflect it.
Moreover, Jackson establishes guilt and regret as instrumental in enforcing submissivity. She explains there is little to gain, as it is a psychological to enforce entrapment. Displayed through the Blackwood mansion operating under the shadows of the late patriarch - the sisters "always put things back where they belonged." Maintaining the "layers of Blackwood property." This domestic routine of preserving, dusting and cleaning serves as spatial entrapment. Symbolising how domesticity transforms their lives to a dedication of the dead family order, Jackson superimposes the Gothic feature of a haunted domestic atmosphere to create a shrine-like atmosphere and impression of stagnant time. Thus Jackson examines how pressures of maintaining domestic order limits autonomy and confines women into
submission. She highlights the lack of experienced gain as she condemns post-war gender roles for the validity they pusue, emphasizing its toxicity and implies it hinders autonomy and independance.
However, Jackson highlights that by embracing guilt and regret individuals gain peace and liberation. She underscores the importance of overcoming fears, and sorrows, rather than rejecting them. The fire at the climax signals a structural shift in power. it purges the "top of the house." Symbolising the destruction of patriarchal control which frees the sisters from the source of their guilt, patriarchal family order. This is represented through Constance claiming "(she) knew" about Merricat putting the poison "in the sugar." Jackson reveals the catharsis of addressing guilt and regret, by representing this acknowledgment as crucial to shed the guilt from society. Additionally, this admission signals the shift to the food economy, representing liberation through admission. The sisters rely on food from the community, preserves, and the garden to achieve total emancipation.
By ridding their sources of the silence the sisters acheived liberation, through recognising that individuals gain freedom letting go. Jackson renounces patriarchal and capitalistic greed, by displaying total secession for those systems as liberating. She underscores the freedom gained, as the sisters "are so happy" with the destruction and total isolation their radical acceptance undermines the looming guilt that was limiting their isolation. constrasting the isolation at the start and the end. This clarifes the freedom gained from embracing guilt is a freed mind. Jackson messages to the readers that rejecting social orders
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: change is unwelcome. discuss
VCE Text Response essay scoring 90%: In Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, change is presented as a destructive force that threatens…
In Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, change is presented as a destructive force that threatens the characters’ security, identity and sense of belonging. Through the Blackwood sisters’ rigid domestic routines and their increasingly isolated existence, Jackson reveals how the desire to preserve familiarity can become a means of resisting a hostile and judgemental society. However, while the sisters’ withdrawal initially offers protection from external scrutiny, their refusal to confront change ultimately reinforces the limitations of their world. Written in 1962, within a society shaped by traditional gender expectations and rigid ideals of family life, Jackson’s Gothic novel challenges the assumption that security can be maintained through domestic order and social exclusion, exposing the dangers of allowing fear to dictate one’s relationship with the changing world.
Jackson initially establishes the Blackwood family’s resistance to change through their rigid domestic routines and privileged way of life, suggesting that their dependence on familiarity creates an illusion of lasting security. Before the poisoning, the family’s wealth and social status distinguish them from the villagers, allowing them to maintain an orderly household seemingly untouched by the outside world. Merricat’s observation that the family “kept things in order” emphasises their reliance on routine, with the language of “order” suggesting an attempt to impose control over a world that is otherwise unpredictable. However, Jackson gradually undermines this apparent stability through Merricat’s superstitious worldview, as the ominous declaration that “All the omens spoke of change” transforms change into an almost supernatural threat. Through Gothic conventions and foreboding language, Jackson reflects Merricat’s psychological need to interpret uncertainty as danger, revealing how deeply her identity depends on the preservation of familiar patterns. The poisoning shatters the family’s carefully maintained domestic order, demonstrating that the security the Blackwoods have constructed is more fragile than it appears. By establishing the family’s dependence on routine before exposing its vulnerability, Jackson suggests that resistance to change arises from the fear of losing control, rather than from any genuine guarantee that the familiar is safe.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title:resist and persist…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 90%: The heat on the pavement was thick, clinging to the asphalt like the tension between the three men in the…
The heat on the pavement was thick, clinging to the asphalt like the tension between the three men in the alleyway. To the rest of the street, it was just another routine check—a performance of authority that had played out a thousand times before. Elias didn’t see it as routine, though. He saw an injustice that needed a voice, and he was convinced that his own was loud enough to quiet the gears of the machine. As he stepped in, the officers’ hands didn’t leave their belts, but their eyes drifted toward him with a chilling, practised indifference. He walked away a moment later, chest tight with the adrenaline of a self-anointed hero, believing he had bent the arc of the world just a fraction of an inch to the right. He didn't know that the machine didn't bend; it just waited for you to turn the corner.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: the question is In twelth night seeking,…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 72.5%: With the name alluding to the festival of missrule Shakespeares William Shakespeares comedic play “Twelfth Night”…
With the name alluding to the festival of missrule Shakespeares William Shakespeares comedic play “Twelfth Night” explores demonstraights how characters whom seek light plesure are in reality acting with malice without realising. Shakespeare Throughout the play Shakespeare explores how characters seek plesure and its unintended consiquences on both themselfs and others. Shakespeare also is critical of Illyrias system that allows for this harm, exploring how the through the plays structure how malice is usualy the result of plesure for othe of others seeking plesure.
Shakespeare dipic is critical of the ways in which people seek plesure in Twelfth Night, emphasising the harmfull tendancys that of Pleasure has on others. Through Mr Sir Toby’s & Maria’s sshene scheme in Tw the play demonstraits the negitive affects that come from seeking plesure in others. As Maria knew malvolio wouldnt be able to “differenciate between her [and] [Olivias] hand”. Demonstrating to the Reader that Maria only cared about the kick she got from Malvolio’s belief that his “lady” loved him. What was designed to be a laugh for Sir Toby and Maria resulted in Malvolios “inprisonment”. Shakespeare Those sequence of events that is woven into the plays plot demonstraights how in a society of such mysrule. Malice is can be unintentional and a byproduct of plesure.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Small acts Big wins
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 90%: Small Acts, Big WINS Khan Behind Camera reality show October 23rd 1998 Orange and blue lights shine on the…
Small Acts, Big WINS
Khan Behind Camera reality show
October 23rd 1998
Orange and blue lights shine on the stage, cameras begin rolling, and "ACTION!'
Ishita Sen: Good evening, viewers! This is our weekly show “Khan Behind Camera”, where we interview the prominent Khan stars of Bollywood. Last week, we were joined by Salman Khan after his success as Aman in the blockbuster Kuch Kuch Hota Hai! Today, we are joined by the anti-hero in “Avrodh”, the one and only Vaastav Khan! Now, Vaastav, how does it feel to star in an absolute blockbuster of our time?
Vaastav: First of all, thank you for having me here. I always do appreciate the love and support from all the fans, and it’s always an honour to star in such a blockbuster. The tragedy of Bollywood is that it is always so divided, fearing consequences; Each success, each artistic excellence, draws fans, friends, critics, more contracts, and— (pause) and even bullets.
Ishita: Wait, Bullets? Oh yes, your hero in the blockbuster is a sharpshooter, but still, would you please elaborate, Mr. Khan,
Vaastav: No, Ishita, real bullets; you know the fans only see our on-screen facade. They see our charisma, our on-screen chemistry with prominent female actors, but behind any black-leather-jacket hero, there are threats from the underworld, blinded towards our talents, yet projected to our profits.
(Shakingly)
(stage lights turn scarlet)
Ishita: That's for the newspaper to address; let's now focus on your excellent perfor—
Vaastav: I am contending this; that’s my small act. Ishita, I know how much you love Bollywood, so you must listen to this; they must listen to this. My friend Shah Rukh Khan lives in the constant fear of the Abu Salem gang, for extortion... with the threat of death as the alternative. Death! Ishita, this is crazy; no matter how great your extended arm poses may be, you are never safe from the greedy monsters who leech off your greatness. I mean, no one approves of an eerie phone call describing what saris their wives wore to the store or what time their kid arrived at school. My good friend Karan Johar, whose last week’s release was a blockbuster, is not here to celebrate, following a threat to his mother’s life by the underworld. You know, Ishita, for any director or actor, a box-office flop is a gift; on the outside, it’s a failure, but our private life stays safe. It is always this Abu Salem; he called me nights ago, threatened my family, and blurted out profanities like my success is his? NEVER!
Ishita: (Frantically) Okay, let’s have a break; our sponsors at Pepsi are waiting; we will continue
(Ishita glances at the curious show director)
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: in sunset boulevard the greatest danger in…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 70%: Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard exposes the destructive consequences of Hollywood culture that measures personal…
Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard exposes the destructive consequences of Hollywood culture that measures personal wealth through fame, youth and commercial success. Released in 1950, at a time where the American film industry was going through significant change, Wilder’s film noir turns a critical eye on the glamour traditionally associated with Hollywood. Wilder suggests that failure in Hollywood isn’t the greatest downfall, it’s the illusion it creates for individuals. Norma Desmond’s illusion separates her from reality causing her downfall. The illusion of success, fame and wealth leads to the moral compromise of Joe Gillis. Ultimately Hollywood is an illusion as everything is about selling for money.
Wilder portrays illusion separates individuals from reality, ultimately causing downfall. Best demonstrated through Norma Desmond, a forgotten silent film star whose illusion keeps her isolated in her obsolete mansion as it acts as a shrine to help fuel Norma’s need to be desired, wanted and admired as she once was in the Hollywood industry. Through the use of shadows and a wide camera angle shot of the mansion, it represents Norma’s isolation from reality as it creates a wall that protects her from the real world and reinforces the idea of her being the biggest star in the world through the use of low to high slow camera angles of all of Norma’s portraits in her mansion, representing the illusion keeping her forced away from reality of being a forgotten silent film star. Norma’s photos also represent a safe isolated space for Norma where reality can’t hurt like it did once before, 20 years ago.
VCE · Language Analysis
Language Analysis: 11 2020 ENGLISH EXAM SECTION C –…
VCE Language Analysis essay scoring 87.5%: Following the recent speech, stakeholders have been forced to challenge the implications of the 'Recreational…
Following the recent speech, stakeholders have been forced to challenge the implications of the 'Recreational use of drones.' Young farmer Warwick Bandle advocates for banning drones from 'inexperienced users' to reduce the damages of 'harvest time' and reducing the time and costly problem they provide. Bandle negatively and formally contends that drones being used for recreational use is damaging farmers crops and therefore needs to be banned.
Initially, the author orientates by negatively framing drone usage by 'inexperienced users' in the photograph provided in his speech. In the foreground a drone is represented to be growing from the surface which contrasts the crops sprouting around it. This low angle shot provides a middle aged women in the background in shallow depth of field where she seems to be carrying a flower. This aspect of nature creates the illusion that humans value the environment however picking this part of nature from the roots it originated from highlights how humans are ultimately stopping the growth of the environment. Continuing this message, the drone in sharp focus positions drone lovers to understand the cheap and plastic material of these discarded drones are resulting in everlasting impacts on farmers lifestyle. Bandle's appeal to fear is exemplified from emotive language with the drones being 'left to rust away in the field until harvest time' illustrating the careless nature of people who fly drones for recreational use. Additionally the series of rhetorical questions, builds the pacing of the authors opening strategy by revealing the detrimental harms that drones impose on nature. Acknowledging tourists are important for 'supporting businesses,' the author criticises that flying drones originates from the increase of people exploring Byways in regional Victorica drawing back to the importance of banning drones for recreational use.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: How does Wilder critique the world of…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 75%: Depicting an era shaped by post WWII prosperity. Billy wilder delivers a scathing critique of Hollywood…
Depicting an era shaped by post WWII prosperity. Billy wilder delivers a scathing critique of Hollywood industrialised studio system through the meta film sunset boulevard. Billy Wilder uses film noir as a way to expose the destructive exploitation of Hollywood and the illusion of fame it brings with it, while changing views on the world of film itself. Wilder explores how power held by studios exploit artists and workers. Furthermore the auteur focuses on the fame that Hollywood creates is temporary and destructive. However the dreams of fame and success remain powerful and motivating.
Wilder explores Hollywood as an exploitative industry that values profit over the artists and workers who contribute to its own success. Through the mise en scene of Norma's decaying mansion, Wilder highlights the consequences of Hollywood's treatment of ageing stars. Once a symbol of wealth and prestige, the mansion has become isolated and neglected, reflecting Norma's abandonment by an industry that no longer considers her profitable. This criticism is reinforced through Norma's declaration that "I am big. It’s the pictures that got small." The irony of this statement demonstrates her inability to accept her decline while simultaneously exposing Hollywood's tendency to discard performers once public taste change. Furthermore, Joe's observation that "Audiences don't know somebody sits down and writes a picture." draws attention to the lack of recognition afforded to creative workers behind the scenes. Through Joe's distrust, Wilder reveals an industry that profits from artistic labour while often denying contributors the appreciation they deserve. This is scene when sheldrake explains all of the films he has denied over the years "Who wants to see a civil war picture". Wilder presents Hollywood as a system that exploits both its stars and workers, valuing financial gain above individual wellbeing.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: Every Voice Is important
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 90%: Parliament of Victoria, Spring Street, 2026. Every voice is important. Take a look back on history. What do you…
Parliament of Victoria, Spring Street, 2026.
Every voice is important.
Take a look back on history. What do you think of? Over the past hundred years our societies have been riddled with failures. War. Human rights abuses. Genocide. All of it could have been prevented if the people of the time had spoken out. Behind every one of those catastrophes sits the same accomplice: silence. The past cannot be rewritten, but the present is still being drafted, and we are its authors. We must speak before it is written without us.
To the people of Australia: our ancestors did not wait idly to win the eight-hour working day. In April 1856, stonemasons withdrew their labour and marched on this very building. Our comrades did not stay silent to win our weekend. They did not sit down when LGBTQIA people faced violence. They marched on our streets, were bashed and locked up, and marched again. Our First Nations people did not wait passively just to be seen and counted as people. In 1966 Vincent Lingiari led the Gurindji off Wave Hill station, and nine years later Gough Whitlam poured the soil of their country into his open hand. Protest works. In our fight for justice, every voice carries weight.
Silence. It creeps in quietly, like damp through a crack in the wall. It does not announce itself. It does not come with a warning. And yet, left unchecked, it hollows out the foundations of this great country. There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.
Some will tell you protest is merely noise. That it clogs the streets, divides the room, and changes nothing. But every right you take for granted, the vote, the weekend, the wage, was once dismissed as disruption by those who preferred the quiet. Comfort is not the same as peace. A silent chamber is not a just one. Ask the stonemasons how quiet this chamber was before they arrived. Ask the Gurindji who walked off Wave Hill.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: How does Sunset Boulevard suggest the…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 70%: Further during Sunset Boulevard, Wilder showcases that the deceptive nature of success within Hollywood leads to…
Further during Sunset Boulevard, Wilder showcases that the deceptive nature of success within Hollywood leads to disillusion . With the use of the character of Norma, Wilder showcases that the illusory nature of success means that individuals chasing success can never be fulfilled. Even though Norma was loved by millions and is recognized by Joe as her “used to be[ing] big, Norma is unable to live with the concept of being forgotten leading to her delusion, forcing her to believe “I am big”. Wilder further uses imagery creating a motif of Norma's house to highlight Norma disillusion. As on the outside Joe describes it as “ a big white elephant of a place” that looks like a "grim sunset castle ” that has been physical representation of Norma as a celebrity as while she is rich she no longer has beauty and meets the success of Hollywood. With the use of meta
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: Silence is deafening Stimulus:…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 87.5%: Silence is deafening The air is cold. Not the kind of cold that brushes across your face on a warm summer’s…
Silence is deafening
The air is cold. Not the kind of cold that brushes across your face on a warm summer’s day. No, not that kind of cold. The kind of cold that feels empty, sparse, still.
“How do you find the defendant, guilty or not guilty?”
“Not Guilty”
The gavel hits. Flat, hollow.
Deafening silence. Only broken by the soft sounds of tears flowing down her bruised face, her family solemnly embracing her in their arms.
I shift in my seat, he’s patting me on the back now. Different to the kind of comfort she’d received. His hands feel bruised, coarse, as if rusting from decades of stillness. I should feel joy. Justice. But I don’t. I can’t.
I can still hear the verdict:
“Not Guilty”
The gavel hits. Flat, hollow.
The legal system is built on the idea of ‘justice’, silently celebrating what’s right, loudly convicting what’s wrong. It, in itself, is a form of institutional protest.
Tightening my tie, I step slowly into the dark, quiet hallway outside. The muscles in my face tense as I try to force a smile. An acquittal, the prosecution failed to obtain sufficient evidence, he walks away legally innocent.
The cold air brushes my face. What was once silence and emptiness is now engulfed in the chants and screams of a crowd on the steps outside. They will be disbanded soon. Called ‘public nuisance’ and made to return to the silence that once was. Are we really prosecuting wrongdoing or only actions we feel undermine our authority? We let dangerous individuals go on the premise of ‘insufficient evidence’ yet simultaneously imprison people for making noise against the legal system- my legal system.
‘WHAT’S YOUR OPINION ON THE VERDICT?’
‘HOW DO YOU FEEL?’
“He wasn’t guilty”, three words, the only ones I could offer to break my silence.
Chants, screams, the crowd only gets louder with each breath. All united and protesting against the legal system- my legal system.
But the doubt lingers. What if that girl crying in her family’s embrace now has to enter the world and walk alongside her perpetrator? I defended him, I am liable, I am the face of institutional protest.
“Not guilty”
The gavel hits.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: Silence is deafening Stimulus:…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 87.5%: Silence is deafening The air is cold. Not the kind of cold that brushes across your face on a warm summer’s…
Silence is deafening
The air is cold. Not the kind of cold that brushes across your face on a warm summer’s day. No, not that kind of cold. The kind of cold that feels empty, sparse, still.
“How do you find the defendant, guilty or not guilty?”
“Not Guilty”
The gavel hits. Flat, hollow.
Deafening silence. Only broken by the soft sounds of tears flowing down her bruised face, her family solemnly embracing her in their arms.
I shift in my seat, he’s patting me on the back now. Different to the kind of comfort she’d received. His hands feel bruised, coarse, as if rusting from decades of stillness. I should feel joy, justice, but I don’t, I can’t.
I can still hear the verdict:
“Not Guilty”
The gavel hits. Flat, hollow.
The legal system is built on the idea of ‘justice’, silently celebrating what’s right, loudly convicting what’s wrong. It, in itself, is a form of institutional protest.
Tightening my tie, I step slowly into the dark, quiet hallway outside. The muscles in my face tense as I try to force a smile. An acquittal, the prosecution failed to obtain sufficient evidence, he walks away legally innocent.
The cold air brushes my face. What was once silence and emptiness is now engulfed in the chants and screams of a crowd on the steps outside. They will be disbanded soon. Called ‘public nuisance’ and made to return to the silence that once was. Are we really prosecuting wrongdoing or only actions we feel undermine our authority? We let dangerous individuals go on the premise of ‘insufficient evidence’ yet simultaneously imprison people for making noise against the legal system- my legal system.
‘WHAT’S YOUR OPINION ON THE VERDICT?’
‘HOW DO YOU FEEL?’
“He wasn’t guilty”, three words, the only ones I could offer to break my silence.
Chants, screams, the crowd only gets louder with each breath. All united and protesting against the legal system- my legal system.
But the doubt lingers. What if that girl crying in her family’s embrace now has to enter the world and walk alongside her perpetrator? I defended him, I am liable, I am the face of institutional protest.
“Not guilty”
The gavel hits.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: How does Sunset Boulevard suggest the…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 70%: Further during Sunset Boulevard, Wilder showcases that the deceptive nature of success within Hollywood leads to…
Further during Sunset Boulevard, Wilder showcases that the deceptive nature of success within Hollywood leads to disillusion . With the use of the character of Norma, Wilder showcases that the illusory nature of success means that individuals chasing success can never be fulfilled. Even though Norma was loved by millions and is recognized by Joe as her “used to be[ing] big, Norma is unable to live with the concept of being forgotten leading to her delusion, forcing her to believe “I am big”. Wilder further uses imagery creating a motif of Norma's house to highlight Norma disillusion. As on the outside Joe describes it as “ a big white elephant of a place” that looks like a "grim sunset castle ” that has been physical representation of Norma as a celebrity as while she is rich she no longer has
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: How does Sunset Boulevard suggest the…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 70%: Although with the use of foil Wilder is able demonstrates that self acceptance can still occur when individuals are…
Although with the use of foil Wilder is able demonstrates that self acceptance can still occur when individuals are able to identify the false illusion of success that Hollywood creates. With the development of the character Betty, Wilder juxtaposes Norma as she is able to find fulfilment “on the other side of the character”. This is due to at a young age Betty through the deceptive nature of beauty success within Hollywood due to her having to get a nose job because they “didn’t like her nose” but then not hiring her because the directors “didn’t like her acting”. This led to Betty stopping from chasing the stardom but rather becoming a writer, who is one of the only characters in the play which Wilder showcases laughing and having fun. Compared to Norma who has reached the height of having fan mail and