Memento: Post-Modernism

Postmodernism can be understood as a philosophy that is characterised by concepts such as RE-IMAGININGPASTICHEPARODY, COPY, BRICOLAGE

Doing something new with a fragmentary set of inter-relationships. It contains self-referentiality – in Memento, complicated cut up and paired together to form a narrative

pastiche is a work of art, drama, literature, music, or architecture that imitates the work of a previous artist

parody is a work or performance that imitates another work or performance with ridicule or irony.

Inter-textuality is another useful term to use, as it suggests signs only have meaning in reference to other signs and that meaning is therefore a complex process of decoding/encoding with individuals both taking and creating meaning in the process of reading texts

Memento: Narrative

Look for patterns, codes, conventions that share a common features. In other words, narrative theories look at recognisable and familiar structures, that help us to understand both how narratives are constructed and what they might mean.

Satellites and kernels –

Roland Barthes:

Proairetic code: action, movement, causation

Hermenuetic code: reflection, dialogue, character or thematic development

Enigma code: create puzzles – enigmatic means confusing, intriguing – asks a question

ellision and elipsis: cut and crop things out – only show a short scene of burning a book, doesnt have entire thing from start to finish

Flasback/Flashforwards – working with time, foreshadowing, chronological order

non-sequitars – elements that emerge and play out but actually have little value, meaning or consequence to the overall / main parts of the narrative

Narative Music video essay

A music video will have a narrative shown through the song itself through lyrics as well as video clips displayed throughout the track. The video usually lasts for about 2 to 5 minutes and there are multiple clips which create a structure. This is known as structuralism. This can be shown through different settings which can have different meanings and representations. Each music video made by different artists can have a radical ideology which opposes the dominant ideology of what society deems as normal. Most music videos have a linear structure of: start, middle and finish. This is important especially to music videos as they are limited to time and keep the audience entertained. This is the theory of Toderov who states that if the structure is linear, it’s easier for the audience to analyse and deconstruct which allows them to understand the narrative that the artist is trying to portray more effectively.

A music video that is representative of linear structuralism is Commons letter to the free. The music video uses lyrics as well as visuals, such as the black square in a prison (start), to convey how black people were used as slaves and thrown in jail simply so the prison could stay open and provide jobs for white people. This is why “freedom” is lyrically used a lot through the music video to show how black people have rights just as much as everyone else and deserve freedom. This is sung by two black ladies who are in prison and look helpless as they just want to go about life as everyone else does (middle). This hopefully allows for the audience to become empathetic and understand if this had ever happened to them, they’d want their freedom too. This can be represented when the black square is out in an open field but will never truly be free which is represented by the black and white (end). This should then inform and persuade people to help stand against racist remarks from people in power who use their political power for money.

A second music called Ghost town (created by the specials) uses a different structure and can be considered a binary opposite. The videos narrative starts with the band driving in a car with very unusual lighting which looks faded, this could be a correlation on why they called the video ghost town. The video looks as if it’s trying to give of an element of horror which can also be heard through the doom like music. This allows the audience to understand how the video is a combination as well as a binary opposition which allows the audience to understand multiple versions of reality for different races. An example of this is how a white male can get away with looking suspicious where as a black person could get shot for grabbing an item if stopped by police. The specials did this by also using police sirens in their audio and them messing around by throwing stones at the end of the video. At this time, this music video would have been seen as radical to society as it attacked the political right wing which was considered the dominant ideology.

HOW USEFUL ARE IDEAS ABOUT NARRATIVE IN ANALYSING MUSIC VIDEOS?

Music Videos are how listeners identify artists with a song. They are short, moving image shots for the purpose of accompanying a music track made by the artist/s in order to encourage sales of the music. The narratives of these music videos are organised around a specific theme and are based on an idea giving a structure to these videos to follow (structuralism), “Structuralism has been very powerful in its influence on narrative theory. Its main virtue is that it is most interested in those things that narratives have in common, rather than in the distinctive characteristics of specific narratives.” – Turner p.85 ‘Film as Social Practice’ (source: http://mymediacreative.com/narrative/). Structure is so important to any form of media, especially within a music video when an artist/s is trying to convey a message because if the structure isn’t properly put in place e.g. a linear and sequential structure (beginning, middle, end – Todorov’s Tripartite Narrative Structure and Freytag’s Pyramid) then the audience won’t be able to decode, deconstruct and analyse the music video and get the artist’s message and therefore the music video would fail to serve it’s purpose.

An example of narrative theory in Common’s Letter to the Free is Seymour Chatman’s Satellites and Kernels. In the music video, the visuals are more based and related to the lyrics rather than a visual story other music videos may follow e.g. Avicii’s Wake Me Up. the kernels within Letter to the Free is the fact that this song has been made about the black slavery in america and how the 13th amendment still allows prisoners to be taken in as slaves, poking at the fact that a reason for so many african americans being locked up in america may be because of racially fuelled police officers and other higher racist powers in america’s corrupt police system. The satellites in Letter to the Free are the repeated lyric of “freedom” is being chanted and sung throughout the song in the background encouraging us to release ourselves from the‘mental slavery’ of racism and to instead, embrace the fact that freedom will eventually come. This can also show how audiences may mentally position themselves politically by their socio-cultural status to offer different views and readings of the narrative in the music video, “Letter to the Free”.The narrative structure in Ghost Town by The Specials is very different, it follows Claude Levi Strauss’ Binary Oppositions. It’s narrative in the music video consists of ominous shots of an empty East End of London with the band in a car lip syncing to the song referencing a large variety of iconic film styles including thriller and horror genres, evident from and by the expressionist lighting that brings different meanings of the lyric ‘ghost town’ helping us develop an understanding of the processes of selection, combination and binary oppositions that the band is trying to represent and show which constructs versions of reality. Rather than presenting opposing characters, The Specials were showing opposing views which was unusual for the time it was made in because of them conveying a strong social message within the video instead of going with the dominant ideology style of other popular music and their music videos at the time. The audience who watched the video may have potentially shocked them because they were so used to the non-politically fuelled videos being produced at that time e.g. Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic By The Police.

POST-COLONIALISM ESSAY

Post-colonialism is an important factor that can affect how we see things within the media. There are two main theorists who explore the link between society and media and these are J McDougall and Natalie Fenton. Firstly, Natalie Fenton can link to post-colonialism because she created a 3 phase plan of action, which includes the assimilation of colonial structures that correspond to the “Mother country”, an immersion into an ‘authentic’ culture and media types should fight and create national literature, which can be seen as the “mouthpiece of a new reality in action”. Following Fanon’s 3 phase actions, it is apparent that the mother country in Letter to the Free is America and and mother country in Ghost Town is the UK (more specifically London). Continuing on with Fanon’s 3 phases of action, it is significant that following the third phase of action, both Letter to the Free and Ghost Town are radical and are bringing awareness and trying to enforce chnages. Similarly, J McDougall is a theorist that we can apply to Letter to the Free. McDougall wrote a book called “Fake News vs New Media”, and a quote from his book is “There are always points historically where populations have been discontented or economic hardships have been exacerbated”. This quote from McDougall’s book denotes how Letter to the Free is a song about the history of the mistreatment of black lives and discrimination, which further links onto historical events, such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott, where Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat for a white man as it was a standard for black people to give up their bus seats and the sit-ins in Greensboro (North Carolina), where black people sat at the whites-only counter in Woolworth and refused to move. Therefore, Letter to the Free can be seen as radical because it is challenging the historic events that black people faced and the music video is asking for equal rights for black people and to end segregation and discrimination.

It is apparent that Ghost Town by The Specials and Letter to the Free by Common present society and the world in very contrasting ways. This is shown mainly through the narratives of the two music videos because Letter to the Free is about ending slavery and creating equal rights for all skin colours, however, Ghost Town is about the economic depression and the employment rates going up in London, which rose and spun out of control. Also, the music videos themselves are very different in their genres, as Letter to the Free is a hip hop rap style song, however, Ghost Town is a hybridisation on two very different music genres: ska and reggae. However, what is similar about both these videos are that they are radical and are bringing awareness to events that at the time of writing were currently happening around the world (and for Letter to the Free, are still sadly happening in the modern world today). Both these music videos are also seen as quite radical and show a prejorative viewpoint on society, such as Ghost Town being about the economic depression within the Uk and employment rates rising up and eventually running out of control and Letter to the Free is a plea from Common for equality for black people, which could be an event that had encouraged the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020.

It is very significant that both Letter to the Free and Ghost Town explore the concepts of post-colonialism. Two theorists who have came up with theories based around post-colonialism are Paul Gilroy and W.E.B Du Bois, who have both came up with theories based around post-colonialism. Gilroy wrote a book called “No Black in the Union Jack”, which can be seen as controversial because it challenges the ideas and messages that are brought across in Letter to the Free. Another concept that Gilroy explores originated from the ideas of W.E.B Du Bois and that is the idea that we as an audience has double consciousness. This idea of double consciousness links to both the music videos Letter to the Free and Ghost Town because double consciousness is the internal conflict which is experienced by subordinated or colonialist groups within an oppressive society. This links to both the music videos because the setting in Ghost Town is in the UK during the economical crisis, which left people out of work and refusing to leave the house. Similarly, Letter to the Free is set in an oppressive society in America because black people are experiencing discrimination and are getting a lack of rights compared to white people just because they are black and through historical events, it is evident that white people saw black people as Slaves and different to the white culture.

It is also suggested that through the use of post-colonialism, we are able to understand the concept of “the other”. Two theorists who explore how post-colonialism can show to concept of the other are Jacques Lacan and Edward Said. Jacques Lacan created a theory he called the “mirror theory”, in which he explored when an infant first sees their reflection in the mirror, it is the first time of them recognising themselves, however, for some infants, they may not recognise themselves in the mirror and instead see something else. This links very closely with both Letter to the Free and Ghost Town as by watching the music video and listening to the lyrics, it is apparent that many people will have different interpretations on the message of the song. Another theorist who explores the concept of the other is Edward Said’s theory of Orientalism. Orientalist is the link between culture, imperial power and colonialism and link very closely to the two music videos because by using the theory of “the other”, we can learn more about ourselves.

Finally, it is significant that music videos can change cultures and show the struggles they are facing. Two theorists who explore how music videos can change are viewpoint on cultures are Althusser and Gramsci. Althusser came up with the theory of ideological state apparatus’, which are used to describe how the structures of a civic society can serve to structure the ideological perspectives of society, which eventually will turn to form our own individual subject identity. Similarly, Gramsci came up with the theory of hegemony, which can illustrate how certain culture forms predominate over others, thus meaning that certain ideas can be more influential than others. Therefore, hegemony is not a total domination, but is instead a continual exchange of power through the use of ideas. Follwoing on from Gramsci’s theory, it is evident that post colonialism articulates a desire to reclaim, re-write and re-establish cultural identity and therefore maintain power of The Empire, even if the Empire has gone. These theories by Gramsci and Althusser also link to Letter to the Free and Ghost Town because hegemony is a struggle which emerges from negotiation and consent, linking to Letter to the Free because there is a lack of negotiation and equality given for black people compared to white people and in Ghost Town because there is a lack of negotiation of people fighting and cursing violence within the inner cities.

To conclude, it is apparent that the concept of post-colonialism can be applied to both Letter to the Free and Ghost Town and that music videos can be powerfully influenced by the dominant cultural and social attitudes of elements such as race, class and gender. This is shown in Letter to the Free as the song is heavily influenced by the mistreatment and discrimination of black people, which therefore makes Letter to the Free a plea to all for equality for black people and to end discrimination. Following on from this, music videos can change cultures and show the struggles they ar facing, such as how Letter to the Free is a plea for equality for black people and Ghost Town serves a purpose to bring awareness to the economic crisis and employment rates rising, as well as bring awareness to the violence that was occurring in cities across the UK. Post-colonialism also helps us understand the other, meaning we can learn about different cultures as well as learn more about ourselves. However, following on from the theory of the other, using the mirror phase by Lacan, it is evident that we may see the music videos’ messages differently compared to other, sung as how when a baby sees themselves in the mirror for the first time , they may understand it is them they are looking at, or they may see themselves as looking in the mirror at another person, thus identifying that people may interpret both Letter to the Free and Ghost Town differently, which is why it is important for music videos to ave a clear narrative structure and follow the tripartite narrative structure and therefore have a clear beginning, middle and end.

social and cultural context essay

media products often challenge in which they are created to what extent does ghost town and letter to the free support this.

When we consider how society links culture we should consider Jean-Francois Lyotard’s idea that in postmodernism there is a “incredulity towards meta-narratives” and due to overarching ideas such as attitudes, values and beliefs that have once before held us together in a shared belief in things like religion, science, capitalism, communism, revolution, war, peace etc as is no more as Lyotard states that no one seems to agree on what used to be real and now everyone has their own perspective so we as a society are rejecting our culture in order to discover a “truth”. In postmodernism we have become aware of differences, diversity as-well as the incompatibility of our aspirations, beliefs and desires and societies and our perspective of culture and society is being corrupted as societies sense of reality also known as the the overarching metanarrative, seems to originate from the culture like the media not as much from society which is then recreated and represented through forms like media as well as communication. It seems that our societal perspective of the ‘real’ seems to be imploding in on itself, and Barker & Emma says its a ‘process leading to the collapse of boundaries between the real and simulations’

When considering media in this case Media video they are a great visual medium to express a message across the video when you look beyond the surface. In this case Commons Letter to the Free, with its surface of hip-hop rap style, sends the audience a message of the historical and current oppression of African Americans as he talks bout how jail is modern slavery as it is a form of business where they have people to do cheap labour for them to which they sell and that why there must always be people in jail. when look at The Ghost Town by The Specials, it’s surface is of reggae as well as ska beyond it once again there is a deeper message as it conveys a message about the lack of employment in London what lead to an economic depression.

when considering Postcolonial theories we should think about Paul Gilroy and his ideology of Double Consciousness which was inspired from W. E. B. Dubois who explores the internal conflict experienced by subordinated or colonised groups in an oppressive society for example African slaves which were brought over to America to work, his theory involves ‘Black Atlantic’ who are people who want to be both European and Black through their birthplace as well as their ethnic political constituency . When we link this back to Commons Letter to the free we can apply double consciousness as it sends the message of the historical and current oppression of African Americans in modern day as he talks bout how jail is modern slavery as it is a form of business where they have people to do cheap labour for them to which they sell and that why there must always be people in jail and thats why they prominently pick lower class people like a-lot of African-American are. postmodernism theory we could look at is hybridisation what is when two genres/forms/ideas combine together to create a new form of combined media. We should relate back to Ghost town by the specials because they use hybridisation to combine ska and reggae into one medium.

Post-colonialism is a way of understandingthe other’ so for this we should consider Orientalism by Edward Said what is the acceptance of the West as well as the basic distinction between East and West as the starting point for elaborate theories, epics, novels, social descriptions, and political accounts concerning the Orient, its people, customs, mind, destiny etc and this relates back to Post-colonialism as it operates a series of signs maintaining the European-Atlantic power over the Orient by creating ‘an accepted grid for filtering through the Orient into Western consciousness‘ and another useful quote when consider orientalism is “the power to narrate, or to block other narratives from forming or emerging, is very important to culture and imperialism”

Music videos can change ideas considering this we should explore Alhussser who drew part of his inspiration from Gramsci theory of Hegemonic struggle the chance to reclaim. Gramsci raises the concept of Hegemony to show how certain ideas are more influential than others and normally is in line with dominant ideas as well as the dominant groups and their corresponding dominant interests. Hegemony is an issue that derives from negotiation as well as consent due to this it is not total domination but a continuous exchange of power, through ideas. Post-colonialism tries to reclaim, re-write and re-establish cultural identity and maintain power of The Empire

To conclude media products often challenge in which they are created to what and I extent does ghost town and letter to the free support this and if we were simply looking at the surface all well see is an interesting music video but when we look beyond it we realise they are trying to convey a greater message of current or past time.

Memento: Postmodernism

  • Philosophical and social theory which tries to explain the current times of the world and what and who people are.
  • a complicated and fragmentary set of inter- relationships (link to memento)
  • people in the post modern world revolve around thrill and fun
  • it is difficult to see a clear divide between fact and fiction
  • fragmentary identity construction – people trying to figure out who they are (present and future), -> link to Memento as Leonard doesn’t remember anything about his present self – ”you don’t even know who you are”
  • people no longer have spiritual beliefs so they are focused on what they do in this world -> fun orientated as they believe once they die there is nothing
  • Not trusting media as there is false/fake news -> link to memento as he cannot trust Natalie or Lenny, and Leonard saying no one trusts him due to his condition

memento: narrative

  •  LINEAR and SEQUENTIAL
  • normally have a beginning, middle and end
  •  narrative is the overall structure involved in communication, which can be broken down into: ‘story’ and ‘plot’.
  • Tztevan Todorov = equilibrium-> disruption -> new equilibrium
  • Vladimir Propp
  • 1. Hero
  • 2.Helper
  • 3.Princess
  • 4.Villain
  • 5.Victim
  • 6.Dispatcher
  • 7.Father
  • 8.False Hero
  • Binary oppositions
  • Film Media does NOT have to be in real time (most of the time isn’t)

FILM NOTES

  • starts off with a murder, audience curious of what happened
  • characters mental illness shows almost through his perspective
  • explores
  • hero – leonard
  • villain – John G
  • Victim – Leonards wife
  • Helper – Natalie
  • new equilibrium (flashback) ->disruption ->new equilibrium

Levi – Strauss


CONCEPT
strongly
agree
agreeneutralagreestrongly
agree
OPPOSITE
CONCEPT
GOODBAD
EASTWEST
FEMALEMALE
STRAIGHTGAY
WHITEBLACK
URBANREGIONAL
POORRICH
EDUCATEDSTUPID
RELIGIOUSSECULAR
  • truth vs lies
  • long term vs short term
  • helper vs enemy
  • past vs present

Barthes

  • Proairetic code: action, movement, causation
  • Hermenuetic code: reflection, dialogue, character or thematic development
  • proairetic – killing (shows hate),driving , looking at notes/pictures (trying to remember)
  • hermeneutic – talking about past, inner feelings

Seymour Chatman – Kernels and satelites

Kernels – key factors that need to exist in a narrative

satellites – extra factors in a narrative that can be changed/taken out without changing it drastically

Bombshell

As a way of revisiting some of the ideas that we covered in terms of Feminist Critical Thinking, let’s look at Bombshell (2019, Dir. Jay Roach) a story based upon the accounts of the women at Fox News who set out to expose CEO Roger Ailes for sexual harassment. Follow this link for a brief summary of the plot.

LINKING WITH PREVIOUS THEORIES:

You can understand misogyny (the poor representation of women in the media) in the same way you can understand racism, homophobia, ultra-nationalism and other forms of casual stereotyping, bias and prejudice, that is, through TEXTUAL ANALYSIS and the notion of REPRESENTATION (for example, Lacan – mirror stage). We have also spoken about how such representations can be countered, altered, challenged, adjusted and so on through more postive and emancipatory representations (GRAMSCI – hegemonic struggle).

We ave also looked at the work Jean Kilborne from the Media Education Foundation. As well as the idea of the ‘Male Gaze’ articulated originally by Laura Mulvey, but developed later by others, such as Feminist Frequency.

However, prejudice may also occur beyond the level of text and can be identified as operating at a systemic INSTITUTIONAL intersection of race/class/gender <> power. Such ideas are proposed by Sut Jhally in his work for the Media Education Foundation – ‘Dreamworlds’ which looks at the role of MTV and music videos as a form of institutional / corporate sexism and misogyny

As such, this film provides a narrative of INSTITUTIONAL SEXISM, in the same way that we could look at other stories that are concerned with other institutional prejudices – racism, homophobia, Islamaphobia etc. In other words, this film presents a version of the story of INSTITUTIONAL SEXISM and MISOGYNY. It suggests a link between the presentation / representation of the female form and the ideas of a ruling patriarchy (Fox News, specifically Roger Ailes) and perhaps explains why we are presented with the stories we are presented with and how those stories are presented to us.

In other words, it helps to explain the ideas of Louis Althusser in that the ruling ideas emerge from elements of the Ideological State Apparatus (look at the connection between Roger Ailes, Rupert Murdoch, Donald Trump etc) and those ideas shape who we are, what we could be, want to be etc by a mechanism that he calls INTERPELLATION. For a visual representation of this watch the sequence in Bombshell where we see how the presenters are encouraged to dress and the way in which the choice of camera angles are used to reinforce this particular dress code.

Arguments presented against sexism and misogyny (ie the hegemonic struggle re: Gramsci) are raised through Feminist Critical Thinking and we have looked at early feminist movements as well as 2nd, 3rd and 4th wave feminist critics. We have even looked at theories of gender representation that look beyond binary gender values (male/female), which can termed as intersectionality, which first emerged as Queer Theory.

Jacques Lacan

A good way to develop an understanding of this term is in his exploration of the mirror stage of child development, whereby, as we cannot actually see ourselves as whole, we use a reflection to understand who we are / who we are not. Lacan proposed that in infancy this first recognition occurs when we see ourselves in a mirror. Applying that theory to culture, communications and media studies, it is possible to see why we are so obsessed with reading magazines, listening to music, watching films, videos and television because, essentially, we are exploring ‘The Other’ as a way of exploring ourselves.

REPRESENTATIONS of – the East /the Orient / the ‘Other’ – are CONSTRUCTED through the lens of WESTERN COLONIAL POWER. So as much as the concept and image of ‘the West’ itself, the Orient is an idea that has a history and a tradition of thought, imagery, and vocabulary that have given it reality and presence in and for the West. The two geographical entities thus support and to an extent reflect each other.

all ideology hails or interpellates concrete individuals as concrete subjects, through the functioning of the category of the subjectAlthusser (1971:190)