'Most media texts target a rang of different audiences' How true is this to your chosen text?
JJ Abram's 'Lost' has the intended audience of a wide mainstream audience, both active and passive audiences are gratified by a use of carefully constructed conventions of mainstream texts.
A convention used in order to appeal to a wide, mainstream audience is the use of an ensemble cast. 'Lost' has a large cast with a wide range characters of different race, age genders and nationality for all audiences to relate too, such as 'John Lock' 'Syiid' 'Walt' and 'Clair' - an old man, an asian middle aged man, a child, and a young pregnant woman. 'Lost' has given each of these characters have an equal amount of screen time to enable the audience to be able to relate to them.
Another convention used is the use of combining escapism and using a relatable plot to be able to appeal to a wider audience. To an audience that is gratified to the use of escapism, 'lost' appeals to them by the mise-en-scene, set in a mystical island creating fantasy and diverting the audience from real life.
Wednesday, 22 January 2014
Wednesday, 18 December 2013
books and quotes for essay.
1. Cultural - Studies (chapter 13- bodies and things)
- "we project mental images into others minds through our bodily actions"
- "bodies change meaning depending on the context in which they are found"
2. Culture Theory and Popular Culture (chapter 7 - Gender and Sexuality)
- "it's here that women (and men) are offered the cultures definitions of themselves" (page 137 'women at the cinema')
- "whilst commodity consumption for female spectators in mid to late 1950's Britain concerns producing oneself as a desirable object"
Wednesday, 11 December 2013
How typical is your chosen text of its genre? Fish tank - clip 5
How typical is your chosen text of its genre?
The text I have studied is 'Fish Tank'. 'Fish Tank' falls into the genre of Social Realism. The concept of social realism is to enable the audience to gain empathy for the under represented characters within the text. The text mostly conforms to this genre by using different social realism conventions throughout.An example of a technical convention present in the film is the use of shallow depth of field. Shallow depth of field is present throughout the whole film however a specific example would be when she's waking up in her bed, Mia is in focus and everything else such as the sheets and background are blurred and hazy. The shallow depth of field is a convention of social realism as it sees as the human eye would see, this enables the audience to see as if they were there. However when Mia's mum comes into the room she then becomes the main focus, giving us a point of view shot of what Mia is also seeing, which conforms to the the concept of empathy within the genre.
Monday, 2 December 2013
'Most texts today mix genres.' How true is this of your three main text? [30]
The text I have studied is District 9, this film adheres to the statement "most texts today mix genres." District 9 is a hybrid as it consists conventions from both the sci-fi and documentary style genre's. Being a hybrid District 9 conforms to the theory of postmodernism, the theory states that no text is no longer original. Today's texts are seen as hybrids, parodies or paying homage to texts from the past.
One particular science fiction convention that District 9 clearly conforms too is 'Body Horror', wikus' transformation from human to alien. This can be seen in the narrative when Wikus' hand is first revealed. Wikus' transformation occurs from his accidental exposure to a alien liquid substance. When the transformation is first revealed, Wikus is immediately taken in for experiments by the corporation, and treated like an alien himself. This also conforms to the sci-fi convention of social and political issues. The aliens of the film have a polysenic meaning and could be seen as a metaphor for the black people if south africa. When wikus' hand changes the MNU corporation begin to see him as a 'trater', In this scene you can see the power differences between the corporation and wikus.
Friday, 29 November 2013
DRAFT.
To what extent are young women such as Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift
represented stereotypically in the pop music industry today?
The representation of young women differs in different
areas of the media, but is rapidly changing. ‘The representation of females
in film has become much more narrow and cartoon like than in the 20s, 30s, 40s
and 50s’ (10). Young women from the ages of 18-25 in the pop music industry
are becoming increasingly objectified within their material and music videos
launched into the media proving this in the documentary Miss Representation it
states ‘In the 1990’s
studies found a steady increase in explicitly sexual images in advertising‘ But this could also conform with most texts within the media. I am
going to be investigating how young artists such as Miley Cyrus and Taylor
Swift are represented and how they represent their selves in the pop music
industry today, by analysing Miley Cyrus' music video 'We Can't Stop' (3) from her new album Bangerz (1) and Taylor
Swifts music video 'We Are Never Ever
Getting Back Together' (4) from her album 22. (2)
Firstly I will be exploring whether young female artists are consciously
objectifying themselves within their music video’s to increase their success or
whether they are just puppets for the music industry. Secondly I will analyse
the lyrical content of the two artists and how it investigates their
chosen theme of the song. And lastly I will be discussing the effects that both
of these points can have on the artists ‘intended’ audience and what the
consequences of this might be. To help answer these investigations I
will be applying a number of theories such as: Laura Mulvey’s – The Male
Gaze and how women are objectified and seen through the eyes of a male.
Hyperreality and postmodernism will be discussed to see if there is a true
representation of ‘real women’. Uses and Gratifications will also be applied to
assess how representations affect others and reasons why they watch and listen
to music by artists such as Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift.
The Male Gaze, developed by feminist, Laura Mulvey describes how the
audience, or viewer, is put into the perspective of a heterosexual male. (5)
This can be applied to most visual texts in the media industry and specifically
music videos such as Miley Cyrus’ ‘We
Can’t Stop’ (3) from her album Bangerz (1). Discarding any technical
aspects, in the first fifteen seconds we see Miley in a tight white crop top
and leggings, being forced to see a lot of her body and this is where the
objectification starts. However to contrast in Taylor Swifts music video ‘We are never ever getting back together’
(4) you could say that it subverts to the idea of objectification, and that the
audience of this video is not necessarily put into the perspective of a male.
There are no obvious ways of Taylor being objectified or looked at in a sexual
way. Even in Miley’s video the mis en scene gives sexual connotations, as the
first thing you see is a bed – the first thing that comes to my mind when
seeing a bed is sleep, or sex. However in Taylor’s video again like Miley she
is in her bedroom, but the environment that she is in would seem a lot more
homely with things like bright colours in the background and stuffed birds,
which would be seen as childish. Also Taylor is wearing some bright colourful
pyjamas that do not show any skin or fragment or objectify her body.
Today people might say that young female artists are consciously
objectifying themselves to increase their success in the industry. Laura Mulvey
states that ‘There are circumstance in
which looking itself is a source of pleasure, just as in the reverse
formulation, this is pleasure in being looked at’ (6). This could conform
to artists such as Miley Cyrus. Being a former Disney star meant that she had
been given a ready-made image from the ‘good girl’ character she played for the
show ‘Hannah Montana’. However to subvert the Disney image she had been given, in
2013 Miley bought out her new mature, all grown up album ‘bangerz’ (1)
including the controversial singles such as ‘We Can’t Stop’ (3) and ‘Wrecking
Ball’ (7). My question is whether or not producing such ‘mature’ and
provocative music/videos have gained much more success compared to more laid
back and not so sexualized music from artists like Taylor Swift. When the music
video for ‘We Can’t Stop’ (3) came out it hit
10.7 million views within the first 24 hours, it was the fasted video to hit
100 million views and broke the record of most views in 24 hours (8). As of
now the video has almost 300m views on YouTube (3) Where as Taylor Swift’s
music video to ‘We are never ever getting back together’ has the smaller number
of almost 200m views but was released 10 months before Miley’s. Is Miley’s
video more popular because of the objectification and sexual connotations, and
what are the differences between the two? There is such a big contrast within
the visual content of both videos. In
the ‘We Can’t Stop’ video (3) during the chorus of the song the scene is shot
where Miley is singing lying on a bed and the camera is placed in between her
legs and shot with hand held motion, making it seem as if you were there. This
is clearly putting the audience into the position of a male or someone who
would gain scopophillia from the view of Miley’s crotch and cleavage. You can
see that Miley here is consciously objectifying her self by the way she moves
on the bed and leaning her chest towards the direction of the camera. However
if you look at the first chorus of Taylor’s video (4) it’s a totally different
story. The shot is of her almost, childishly dancing in big chunky glasses and
a pair of printed pyjamas with her band members in fluffy animal costumes. The
shot is of a room full of people so she isn’t the main focus disenabling you to
really fragment or objectify her body as there are no close ups and there is a
narrow depth of field therefore everything/everyone in the shot is clearly in
focus. Analysing both text you could
definitely say that Miley’s video adheres to the idea that objectification and
sexual maturity in her videos has gained her more success. You can determine
weather it was a conscious decision by looking at previous music videos of hers
that are not so grown up such as the video for ‘When I look at you’ (9) from
2010 only has 96,024,138 views, which isn’t even half of the views for her
current video, and then later she bought out ‘can’t be tamed ’(9) which
involved slightly more mature content later in 2010 and gained even more views.
(Ending of this needs to be improved…)
(Ending of this needs to be improved…)
In society today, one of the
stereotypes of women are that they are dependent of a man and that men are the
ones with power. I the documentary Miss Representation Jackson Katz states that
the media today is ‘socializing boys to believe being a man is
being in charge and dominate’ (10)
the content of Taylor swifts song ‘We are never ever getting back together’
from her album ‘red’ (2) subverts from this idea. The song is written about an
ex-boyfriend, in which she has the power of saying that they’re never getting
back together, in this she is the one with the power and in control of the
situation.
-
Miley Cyrus ‘we can’t stop’ – stereotype of teenager wreckless etc. trying to
show maturity – not succeeding? (more to add... stuck on how to write/analyse
lyrics….)
Lastly I am going to be discussing what effects the previous two points
have on the ‘intended’ audiences of both artists. Considering Miley’s old image
of being a ‘Disney girl’, her audience started rather young, as teenage girls
would tune in to watch her on ‘Hannah Montana’ playing a young teenage girl
living her dreams of being a pop star. But as Miley has grown up, so has her
audience, now making her a role model for an audience of teenage girls and
young women.
- Hyperreality: Miley is a false representation of reality. Copying a
copy – such as Madonna.
-18th June 2013 Miley Cyrus was voted to be ‘the worst celebrity role model for young girls’ in a poll of 2,407 parents (11)
-18th June 2013 Miley Cyrus was voted to be ‘the worst celebrity role model for young girls’ in a poll of 2,407 parents (11)
! Conclusion !
(My
second 2 aims are yet to be finished but there are some notes of things to
include underneath)
Bibliography:
(1) Miley Cyrus ‘Bangerz’
(2) Taylor Swift ‘22’
(5) http://katiehamilton25.blo
gspot.co.uk/2012/09/the-male-gaze-theory.html
(10) Miss representation documentary
‘Bangerz actually moved 270,000 copies in its first week, which is tops
for any woman in the pop category during any week of 2013!’ - http://perezhilton.com/2013-10-17-miley-cyrus-bangerz-biggest-sales-week-female-2013-pop-album-daft-punk#sthash.vbqy9VVD.dpbs
Wednesday, 27 November 2013
Characters: Fish Tank, Sin City and District 9
Fish tank (social realism)
Connor: represents white middle aged male with power.
- becomes corrupt by misusing his power. First seen as Joanne (the mothers) love interest. Gains Mia's trust and then sleeps with her.
- stereotype of male - in power, head of the family.
- leaves when they are vulnerable
Mia: Representation of a young girl living in underclass situations.
Propp - in the beginning Mia could be represented as the princess because of her family situations and Connor (the hero) being the first person to encourage her and give her hope.
By the end Mia can be seen as the villain, taking away Kiera (Connor's daughter)
Joanne (mum) : subverts from the stereotypical 'caring' and 'domestic' mother role. Lives in underclass suburban council flat. Aggressive towards children, not loving. however also stereotypical as we see that the family cannon function without a man (connor when he leaves).
Sin City (comic book and film noir)
Nancy: (post modernism - femme fatal/love interest mix)
She is objectified though the eyes of a male and camera techniques however compared to other characters such as Goldie she is not consciously objectifying her self.
Stereo Typical 'Princess' - propp: she's captured bu Rourk Jr. saved by John Hartigan who she later falls in love with.
John Hartigan: Stereotypical protagonist: struggles with heart condition.
- Trench coat worn to symbolise hero/investigator etc. (film noir and comic book convention)
The Yellow Bastard/ Rourke Jr. : represents a villain in Sin City.
Yellow - connotation of sickness and infection, smell, gross etc.
Marv: Protagonist suffers with self doubt. can't get a girl because he thinks he's ugly. chasing after the killer of the his femme fatal 'Goldie'.
Again has the trench coat when in 'action' to symbolise his hero figure.
Senator Rourke: Father of the yellow bastard. frames Hartigan of capturing/raping nancy when it was actually his son.
comic book/film noir convention - middle aged which man of much power turns corrupt.
Cardinal Rourk (Church): Father of 'Kevin the cannible' protects him from his crimes. lives in mistrust - convention of film noir (relates to the cold war living in paranoia) Lives hiding away in the church.
Again white middle ages man with a lot of power becomes corrupt.
Connor: represents white middle aged male with power.- becomes corrupt by misusing his power. First seen as Joanne (the mothers) love interest. Gains Mia's trust and then sleeps with her.
- stereotype of male - in power, head of the family.
- leaves when they are vulnerable
Propp - in the beginning Mia could be represented as the princess because of her family situations and Connor (the hero) being the first person to encourage her and give her hope.
By the end Mia can be seen as the villain, taking away Kiera (Connor's daughter)
Sin City (comic book and film noir)
She is objectified though the eyes of a male and camera techniques however compared to other characters such as Goldie she is not consciously objectifying her self.
Stereo Typical 'Princess' - propp: she's captured bu Rourk Jr. saved by John Hartigan who she later falls in love with.
- Trench coat worn to symbolise hero/investigator etc. (film noir and comic book convention)
Yellow - connotation of sickness and infection, smell, gross etc.
Marv: Protagonist suffers with self doubt. can't get a girl because he thinks he's ugly. chasing after the killer of the his femme fatal 'Goldie'. Again has the trench coat when in 'action' to symbolise his hero figure.
Senator Rourke: Father of the yellow bastard. frames Hartigan of capturing/raping nancy when it was actually his son.
comic book/film noir convention - middle aged which man of much power turns corrupt.
Again white middle ages man with a lot of power becomes corrupt.
Wednesday, 6 November 2013
Research investigations - Miss representation quotes
The following quotations come from the documentary entitled “Miss representation” and deal with issues of false and bias female representations in the Media, which help contribute to a patriarchal society. Some are statistics the documentary presents via on screen graphics where others are specific quotations from contributors.
- · Teenagers on average, spend 10 hours 45 minutes a day consuming Media
- · Girls learn from a very early age, the most important thing is how they look
- · 53% of 13 year old girls are unhappy with their bodies, by 17 the statistic is 78%
- · Rates of depression among girls and woman have doubled between 2000 and 2010
- · The ideal image of beauty is becoming more extreme and impossible than ever before – Jean Kilbourne
- · Girls measure themselves against an impossible standard and end up feeling left wanting
- · The non content form of the media has to be backed up and supported by the content
- · A lot of advertising is based on making people feel anxious and insecure – Jean Kilbourne
- · Girls learn to see themselves as objects– Jean Kilbourne
- · American woman spend between 12-15 thousand dollars a year on beauty products
- · The number of cosmetic surgery procedures performed on youth under 19 more than tripled from 1997 to 2007
- · At 7 years old little girls and little boys want to be president of the United States in equal number, 30%, ask the same question at 15 and a huge gap has occurred – Caroline Heldman
- · In areas where females have challenged male power, males have responded by representing them in a way that assists in taking their power away – Jackson Katz
- · Congress has the fewest amount of woman in 30 years
- · Females own 5.8% of all TV and 6% of radio
- · 97% of publishing companies are owned by Males
- · Woman comprise only 16% of all writers, directors, producers, cinematographers and editors
- · 10% of writers of film are female
- · People tend to employ reflections of themselves – Lindy Dekoven
- · We replicate the world we grow up in – Film Director
- · The representation of females in film has become much more narrow and cartoon like than in the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s
- · In the 1990’s studies found a steady increase in explicitly sexual images in advertising
- · The exploitation of female bodies sell products
- · Males are taught to not express emotion
- · Females are represented as young
- · You cant be what you cant see
- · Females are not represent in the Media for doing something, they are represented for how they look
- · Many woman are empowered, but not represented in the Media
- · The majority of females on TV are between 20-30, 71%
- · 39% of woman in the world are under 30
- · Woman are represented as natural enemies of woman
- · The Male Media represents females in power trivially, often concentrating on appearance, which influences audience’s opinions of females in power
- · Females are represented as emotional and irrational
- · Only 16% of protagonists in film are female
- · In between 1937 and 2005, there was only 13 protagonists in animated movies who were female. All apart from one of them had the aspiration to find romance – Greena Davis
- · As a culture woman are brought up to be fundamentally insecure
- · Were socializing boys to believe being a man is being in charge and dominate – Jackson Katz
- · More than 20% of teens have sex before the age of 14
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