I can see how this course could be tough. When they watch the first Dawn of the Dead, they might have to write about how the American public perceived the military and police in the late 70s. There's a lot of social trends at work in Romero's zombie films.
In the same vein, I might eventually teach a history reading seminar on comic books and how they relate to US social history. There's a lot of material to work with there. Superman and Batman comics display contrasting views of urbanization and highlight government corruption (especially in Batman's case). Luke Cage probably has enough to write a dissertation about race relations. Captain America is pretty much a walking historiography of wartime and post-war America. The Fantastic 4, Ant-Man, and Iron Man series all started off as optimistic super-science vehicles a la Jonny Quest. Wait, hold that thought... I just got an idea for an article.