Flight of the Conchords

"Representation in media texts are often simplistic and reinforce dominant ideologies so that audiences can make sense of them". Evaluate the ways that you have used/challenged simplistic representations in one of the media products you have produced.

In the media products I have produced, I have both used and challenged representations. In my music video, the main character was an aspirational, relatable female figure. It was important that she was depicted as aspirational as I wanted my target audience of teenage girls to view her as a role model and take hope from the video after the relationship break-up narrative. I wanted to make her relatable and stereotypical as I felt that it would then make the narrative easier to relate to and sympathise with; if I had formed a complicated character, then the audience may have lost interest and not connected with her in the way I wanted them to. In creating these qualities in my music video, I am conforming to simplistic representations.

It was important that the correct connotations were carried by my character. I wanted her to be portrayed as innocent and vulnerable therefore, to achieve this, I ensured that her costume always consisted of natural, simplistic colours. As well as this, the location and mise-en-scene she was surrounded by also consisted of the same colour scheme in order to avoid distraction or mis-interpretation of meanings. This demure look ensured that my female character didn't conform to the male gaze as this is not the image that I wished to convey; I wanted her to appear innocent and potentially as a victim to the narrative.

Her character develops throughout the video, an establishing shot doesn't give much away, allowing the audience to make their own judgements. The fact that she takes up the majority of camera shots allows the audience to form a more broad opinion of her as the video progresses, the constant focus on star image means that the audience feel as if they get to know the character. Gaundlett says that 'Identities are constructed' linking to the idea that gradual construction breaks up and simplifies representation.

The male character in my video appears desirable and stylish however he is not given much camera time therefore the audience don't really get to know him and aren't able to relate to him. He is not presented in much detail, thereby making him a simplistic character representing 'any man'. The condensed narrative doesn't give him an opportunity of voice therefore the audience view him as the 'villain' in the story. Having the male role as a villain and the female role as the victim conforms to representations in media texts.

Stereotypes are used to enhance realism, however, Martin Marker comments on the idea that "stereotypes are condemned for misrepresenting the 'real world'". This could link to Baudrillard's theory of hyper-reality and how people are unable to distinguish reality from a simulation of reality. People expect certain attributes from characters, despite the fact that they are not always realistic. In the case of my music video, it is expected that the girl is depicted as weak and vulnerable in comparison to the male character.In conforming to expectations, I am using simplistic representations of media texts.

Pluralism

Pluralism argues that there is no answer to anything.

Normative Pluralism - this is the acceptance of all narratives and the idea that no narratives are better than another.

Secondly, there is a kind of PoMo which is pluralist in the sense that it accepts different views, without denying that something is better than other things.

Representation

"Representation in media texts are often simplistic and reinforce dominant ideologies so that audiences can make sense of them". Evaluate the ways that you have used/challenged simplistic representations in one of the media products you have produced.

Stereotypes
- Stereotypical female character for a country/pop genre. Makes her easy for the audience to relate to and understand
- Cliche couple in a pop video. Having troubles and break up

Setting
- Simplistic setting. Keeps the focus on the characters and narrative
- Neutral colours used to mirror the representation of the girl

Gaunlett (2002)
"Identities are constructed". From the first shot, only the appearance of the girl can be established. Over her time on the screen we see actions and behaviour that exress innocence and her demure youthful personality.
- Gradual construction breaks up and simplifies representation

Condensed Narrative
- Focus on main events (Happy couple, fall out, break up)
- Not enough time for all the details
- Simplifies reality
- Audience can recognise the situation from the information given.

Male Character
- Not much detail or camera time
- Appears stylish and desirable but could be any man.
- Simplistic representation.

Female Character
- Doesn't conform to the male gaze
- Her character develops throughout the video
- Natural colours used to convey her as innocent
- Aspirational role model
- Take up majority of camera shots (Star image)
- Relatable character

Postmodern Audiences

- have audiences become accustomed to the stimulation and excitement of spectacular films/games and a sense of spectacle has become something that (young?) audiences increasingly demand from cultural experiences?

• Has narrative coherence become less important for audiences?
Battleships, Transformers, Hobo With a Shotgun

• In terms of ideas, has cultural material become more simplistic and superficial, and audiences are no longer so concerned with the process of understanding a text. Think here about a film like Moulin Rouge where the plot is in some sense irrelevant to the overall impact of the film.
Depthlessness memes. Nothing is good or bad, everything is equal
• has the attention span of audiences reduced as they become increasingly accustomed to the spectacle-driven and episodic nature of postmodern texts


• in its ‘waning of affect’, has postmodernism contributed to audiences become emotionally detached from what they see. They are desensitised and unable to respond ‘properly’ to suffering and joy.
When people film concerts when they're there or watch the big screens when the band is right in front of them. The world can only experience things second hand.
• has postmodernism contributed to a feeling among audiences that arts and culture does not really have anything to tell us about our own lives and instead simply provides us with somewhere we can escape or retreat to.

Alain J-J Cohen - 'Hyper spectator'. A viewer with deep knowledge of cinema and can pick up the intertextual references.

Anne Friedberg- We have control over what we watch and where we watch it. "Films have helped contribute to the postmodern quality of life by manipulating and playing around with our conventional understanding of time and space."

My Memes

Ridiculously Photogenic Guy

"Postmodern media manipulates time and space" To what extent does this defination apply to texts you have studied?

Postmodern media is set in the future, a time which does not exist until after it happens therefore this in itself is manipulating concepts of time.

Inception is a film which manipulates time and space to create something postmodern. The film explores the ideas of dreams and dreams within dreams; thereby creating a seemingly complex narrative which may at first be difficult to comprehend. The song 'Je ne regrette rien' is played throughout the film at different speeds, indicating how many layers into the dream the characters are, the slower the music, the deeper into the dream they are. When Ariadn is put into a dream state, she manipulates space by pulling up a section of the town and resting it above the ground they are on, forming a sky-less world where gravitational expectations are challenged; they are able to walking up the vertical road effortlessly. These manipulations of time and space allow the film to conform to Baudrillard's theory of hyper reality. This inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from a simulation of reality is shown by the characters need for a totem; an object which allows them to recognise whether they are in the real world or a dream state. However even the audience loses track of what is the real world and what isn't; the continuously spinning totem at the end of the film leaves doubt in the viewer's mind about whether the characters made it back into reality or if they are still stuck inside a layer of the dream.

Scott Pilgrim Versus The World also manipulates time and space. This is most apparent in the fighting scenes where often the sequence is slowed down allowing the audience to see punches being thrown and 'points' being scored. The points appearing on screen infer that the characters are inside a video game and not living in reality, this is further supported by items such as the 'pee bar' appearing and Scott receiving an 'extra life', both things we'd expect from a video game. Julia Kristeva states that intertextual references 'shape meanings of new texts. This is true in this film as it implies that Scott's life is a game and that he isn't living in the real world. Many sound effects from the well-known video game 'Zelda' are included throughout and the introductory Universal logo uses arcade style music playing over the top; hinting from the very start that the film is set inside a video game.

When being introduced to the characters in Scott Pilgrim, a small profile appears next to their heads, replicating a video game where you choose the character you wish to play with. I could also be alluding to 'Fight Club' in which the main character looks around his flat and next to each item, an ikea-style fact-file pops up. Both of these are looking at hyper-reality and the manipulation of time and space; it demonstrates the idea of the dream world interfering with the real world and being unable to distinguish the two.

Many postmodern texts do manipulate time and space as postmodernism looks at breaking conventions. Virtual worlds and video games alongside augmented reality are traits of postmodern media which he audiences find intriguing. Changing concepts of time and space create enigmatic narratives which challenge viewers to solve.

Representation Theory

- Marxism
- Feminism
-Postmodernism
- Stereotypes

Marxism (ideologies and representation)
- Hegemonic view of society - idea that there are fundamental inequalities between social groups. (e.g. rich and poor)
Ideology - a set of ideas that show a partial view of reality.

Michel Maffesoli (1985) identified the idea of 'urban tribe' where the members of small groups had similar worldwide views, dress styles and common behaviours. Decline of individualism.

David Gauntlett (2002) - argues that 'identities are not given but are constructed and negociated.' 'Identity is complicated.Everybody thunks they've got one. Artists play with the idea of identity in modern society'

Rosalind Brunt (1992) - ideologies are never simply ideas in peoples' heads but are indeed myths that we live by and which contribute to our worth'.

Laura Mulvey (1975) argues that the dominant point of vue is masculine. The female body is displayed for the male gaze to provide pleasure of the male. (Voyeurism)

John Berger 'Ways of Seeing' - 'men act and women appear.Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.' 'Women are aware of being seen by a male spectator'

Stereotypes are used to enhance realism
Martin Barker (1989) - stereotypes are condemned for misrepresenting the 'real world'

Define Post Modern Media With Examples

Postmodern media is the idea that anything can interpreted and valued equally; nothing can be judged as negative since anything can be art. Kirby Fergusson comments that 'everything is a remix' and argues that originality is impossible and that creativity relies on the ability to copy, transform and combine. This is evident  in Quentin Tarentino's film 'Inglourious Basterds' in the soldier line up scene as it is identical to a scene in ‘The Dirty Dozen’ where the soldiers are being recruited to attack; they are stood in the same formation and location. This demonstrates how the film takes scenes and then changes them slightly but not so much that the audience doesn't recognise the original source, and then integrates them into the new film; thereby following Furguson's suggested rule of 'copy, transform and combine'

Postmodern media often takes copy, transform and combine too far and end up supporting Jameson's theory of depthlessness. For example, the film ‘Apocalypse Now’ uses the music ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ to criticise US foreign policy, using the music to carry across racist connotations. British Gas however, have created an advert that uses flying service vans, (perhaps replicating the helicopters in ‘Apocalypse Now’) and have the ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ music playing over the top; this music has been put so out of context that it has ended up carrying no racist implications across at all, British Gas have simply created an entertaining advert using a piece of music that has lost its original meaning.

Pastiche and Homage are used in postmodern media. Pastiche links with the idea of parody and how the original source is mocked and become humorous. This can be seen in 'Hobo With A Shot Gun' where it attempts to replicate gruesome death such as decapitating a man by attaching his head to a car, however the film tries too hard to evoke emotion that it creates bathos and the audience cannot take it seriously.The film in itself is based on a trailer for a film that never existed; it was designed to be purposely bad to be good but then ended up just being bad. The sole aim of the main character in the film is to save up to buy a lawn-mover, this completely pointless life aspiration reflects the pointlessness of the film as a whole; again linking back to Jameson's theory of depthlessness. Opposing this, there is Pastiche where a film is respectful when copying another. For example in 'Inglourious Basterds', the audience feel the pathos aimed at them and they sympathise with the characters.

 However, many people criticise companies for advertising their products using simulacra; creating copies of copies of copies of something that never existed in the first place and making people aspire to a lifestyle which doesn't exist. For example the Nikon S8000 advert aims to 'remind' people about their unique experiences however, the experiences shown do not exist, the company is merely projecting aspirational life events that the audience may want and consequently, will ‘apparently’ experience with the purchase of this camera.

Postmodern media is constantly in production. So many films take ideas from other films and manipulate them to make the audience think they are watching something new therefore we are perhaps watching postmodern texts without even realising. Due to technical advances, we are able to view these texts on TV or online, 24 hours a day.

Genre Essay

Analyse one of your coursework productions in relation to genre.

 Genre is a pattern, form or style that defines a text. A text will follow conventions within a genre in order to satisfy an audience. Our video was based on the country/pop genre to which we formed a conventional narrative to meet audience expectation. Richard Dyer suggests that genres are 'pleasurable because they offer escapist fantasies into fiction worlds that remove the boredom and pressures of reality'.  Our video meets the ideas put forward in this quote as the easy-to-watch video gives the opportunity to be entertained. We aimed to target an audience of girls aged between 13-23 as we felt the themes raised in our narrative would be most relatable to their lives when relationships play a big apart in their lives.

Typically, our genre has a relationship-based narrative; this inspired us when creating our storyboard as we had a basic understanding of audience requirement and what they want from a narrative video. The country/pop genre also focuses on star image with heavy reliance on close-up shots; we ensured that at least 90% of our shots contained our main star and included a range of close-ups. In order to present our star in a positive way, we used costume colours that connoted innocence; we allowed the audience to see this by using mid-shots. When carrying out our research and planning, we found that having the correct location and mise-en-scene is what makes or breaks a video. In finding this, we carefully planned where to film and what props needed to be in or out of the shot. We chose locations containing natural, simplistic colours to reflect the main character and also to promote her aspirational, carefree lifestyle.

Having the star singing all the way through seemed a major convention that needed to be followed in the country/pop genre. In order to meet this, we ensured the girl was on camera singing the majority of the lyrics; with the obvious exception of the instrumental. We chose to have the girl making eye-contact with the camera through most of the video since this demands audience attention and makes the viewer feel more involved and able to relate to her situation.

 Generically, videos in our genre promote a strong image of the female artist therefore, through the use of colours to connote innocence with mise-en-scene and costume, we have presented her as a role model for our target audience. We didn’t conform to Laura Mulvey's theory of The Male Gaze as we didn't feel this was appropriate for the message we were trying to convey. To avoid the male gaze, we used clothing that didn't connote sexuality and did not use camera angles that encouraged the audience to look anywhere but her face.

 It is important that our video offered the audience similar expectations of this genre because audiences feel more secure when surrounded by familiarity. Neale comments that 'Pleasure is derived through repetition and difference' which infers that audiences like knowing what to expect with repetition but, at the same time, appreciate the surprise experienced through difference. It could be said that a video must meet one of the requirements put forth in the Uses and Gratifications model in order for the audience to be satisfied. In this case, our video entertains and gives a sense of identity through the use of an admiral role model as the main star.

 Andrew Goodwin and his theory of voyeurism can be applied to our product. At several stages in the video, the girl is being looked at by the audience without her knowledge. For example when she is looking at the rose before singing and in the instrumental, when she is tearing up the letter during the instrumental and when she is looking at herself in the mirror after the instrumental. As well as this, Goodwin's theory that there is a link between the lyrics and the visuals can be applied to our products. The visuals illustrate our lyrics throughout the entire narrative to help keep a grasp on understanding the events that take place.

Overall, careful planning and consideration was carried out in order to make sure that our video met genre expectations. Our research and planning allowed us to learn and understand the generic conventions that we could potentially use and our storyboard permitted us to put our ideas together. Without a clear structured genre, it would be difficult to find an audience, at least with following the conventions of an existing genre, your audience already exists and there are guaranteed views.

Lana Del Rey - Postmodernism

Uncool Playlist

1) I Miss You Beyoncé
2) Free Falling Tom Petty
3) Sweet Disposition The Temper Trap
4) Little Things One Direction
5) I'm Yours Jason Mraz
6) Summer of 69 Bryan Adams
7) Complicated Rihanna
8) Little Bird Ed Sheeran
9) I Will Talk And Hollywood Will Listen Robbie Williams
10) Don't You Worry Child Swedish House Mafia

Ethnographic model

When the researcher enters into the culture of a group and uses questions and interviews to try and understand media engagement from he perspective of that group.

1) Engagement with media is often structured on domestic environment due to the domestication of entertainment and leisure.
2) Some texts seem to belong to a genre that has gender appeal. E.g. Soaps are seen as 'female texts' as they look at matriarchal power and nature of character relationships. The news is seen as a 'male' text as this is more factual; men need wider cultural understanding due to spending less time at home (domestic space) and more time in public (cultural space)
3) Our society is in danger of divided information-rich and information-poor. Schools and TV programs aim to present positive gender representations. Real-life programs use females in less traditional roles to equal the balance that often divides between men and women.