Category: Media

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Postmodernism

Intertextuality – when one text refers to another or to current events

Parody

  • Life of Brian
  • Monty Python and the holy Grail
  • Shrek (Lord Farquaad and his kingdom which is just like Disney land so Disney were sending themselves up – it’s a small world!!)
  • Stargate SG1 and the cover up programme Wormhole Xtreme!!

Pastiche – a medley of existing themes / forms / styles…

Homage

Bricolage – giving a new meaning to an old form

  • Western – Firefly / Wild, Wild West
  • Vampire / Gothic Horror – Twilight

Simulacra – created artificial life forms / places etc. The boundaries of artificial and reality blur.

Associated with Jean Baudrillard’s belief that technological progress effects social change. Influenced by Marxism but believed that consumption not production drives capitalist society.

Hyperreality – fulfilment found through fantasy rather than reality; people who send flowers to dead soap characters.

  • The film 300, live action filmed in front of green screen then CGI’d in after!!
  • Vegas and the Venice Casino
  • Second Life
  • Touched up magazine photos
  • Reality TV
  • Baudrillard regarded Main Street at Disney World as a major example
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Feminism

  • Patriarchal society dictates how women see themselves.
  • Men run society; women are a threat so this disempowers them.
  • To be looked at / ‘looked-at-ness’
  • Women bearer of meaning – not maker of meaning
  • Scopophilia – reducing women to objects to be looked at and for men to gain pleasure from looking – e.g. men’s magazines. [MEN BEHAVING BADLY pornography episode.]
  • Leads to voyeurism at its extreme. [SKINS!! / REAR WINDOW.]
  • Cinemas pander to this – dark, comfortable, private, separation – fantasy up there on screen, grants anonymity; gives impression we are given access to an otherwise private world.
  • Active/ male vs. passive / female – binary opposition – Levi Strauss
  • Camera becomes a male eye.
  • Most directors are men!
  • Camera operators likewise!
  • Production companies controlled by men!
  • Women hold the look and play to the male’s desire.
  • Women unclothed – men never! [SKINS!]
  • Women often slow the narrative down; i.e. get in the man’s way, need rescuing, misunderstand, become the reason for the male’s actions.
  • Men speed the narrative up, are responsible for the action; women are there to be looked at ‘eye candy!’
  • Implications – women are used to being subjected to the male gaze and see themselves as men do: idealised. Image consciousness is FOR men’s benefit!