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Audience Theory, Representation

POST-MODERNISM

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Overview

  • Postmodernism can be understood as a philosophy that is characterised by concepts such as RE-IMAGINING, PASTICHE, PARODY, COPY, BRICOLAGE.
  • It’s an approach towards understanding, knowledge, life, being, art, technology, culture, sociology, philosophy, politics and history that is REFERENTIAL – in that it often refers to and often copies other things in order to understand itself.
  • When you copy, new meanings can be made

Parody vs Pastiche

  • Pastiche is a piece of work, such as art, drama, literature, music, or architecture which imitates the work of a previous artist
  • Parody is a work or performance that imitates another work or performance with ridicule or irony or joke, or taking the mick
  • “The Simpsons relishes its self-referentiality and frequently engages in pastiche” – Gray (2006:5)

Intertextuality: surface signs, gestures & play

  • As Shuker notes, two points are frequently made about music videos: ‘their preoccupation with visual style, and associated with this, their status as key exemplars of ‘postmodern’ texts.’ (2001:167). 
  • The fragmentary, decentred nature of music videos that break up traditional understandings of time and space so that audiences are ‘no longer able to distinguish ‘fiction’ from ‘reality’, part of the postmodern condition’ (ibid). 
  • BRICOLAGE is a useful term to apply to postmodernist texts as it ‘involves the rearrangement and juxtaposition of previously unconnected signs to produce new codes of meaning’ (Barker & Jane, 2016:237).
  • Similarly, INTERTEXTUALITY 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.
  • Postmodernism can therefore be understood (more than other creative movements) as deliberate, intended, self-conscious play (about play?), signs about signs, notes to notes
  • Often (and again unlike other creative movements such as modernism or structuralism – see below) this may be frivolous, trite, casual, surface, throw-away. It may even be ironic, joking, or literally, ‘just playing’. However, it is always a deliberate copy (of the old).
  • Therefore, the old has been re-worked into something new, which clearly entails a recognition (a nod and a wink) to what it was and where it came from. In this sense, postmodernism works in terms REITERATION
  • “the concept that the meaning of a text does not reside in the text, but is produced by the reader in relation not only to the text in question, but also the complex network of texts invoked in the reading process.“

Surface and style over substance

  • If it the priority is play, then the emphasis is on the surface, in other words, if the main focus is the idea of just connecting one product to another, then the focus is superficial, shallow, lacking depth, so ‘in a postmodern world, surfaces and style become the most important defining features of the mass media and popular culture‘ (Strinati: 234). 
  • In terms of the key principles of art and design the priority is in formal elements: of shape, colour, texture, movement, space, time and so on.
  • As opposed to more discursive principles of: narrative, character, motivation, theme, ideology. Or put simply: STYLE OVER SUBSTANCE. Put another way, are we more interested in the surface of an object than its’ inner meaning?

A brief economic, historical and societal backdrop to Postmodernism.

  • In 1959, Richard Hoggart (Uses of Literacy) noted the shift in modern societies particularly the impact on our ‘neighborhood lives’, which was ‘an extremely local life, in which everything is remarkably near‘ (1959:46).
  • As John Urry comments, this was ‘life centred upon groups of known streets’ where there was ‘relatively little separation of production and consumption‘ (2014:76).
  •  Thus, a characteristic of modern (postmodern?) societies, is the creation, development and concentration of centres of high consumption, with a displacement of both consumption and production that has radically altered the nature of societies and individuals living in them.
  • This approach in terms of postmodernism is associated with Fredric Jameson‘s 1984 essay, and subsequently 1991 book; Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism which located postmodern culture (for example, music videos) in the expression of a new phase of capitalism, one which was aggressively consumerist, rampantly commodifying all of society as potential new markets. 
  •  For many this is reflective of the new global economy (globalisation), which has created a high polarized class division between the rich and the poor / underclass made possible through the rapid increase of new forms of technological developments.
  • For instance, it may be possible to identify the extent to which our economic experience is now characterised by what we buy (consumption) than what we make (production).
  • In other words, there is an argument that postmodern culture is a consumer culture, where the emphasis on style eclipses the emphasis on utility or need

Fragmentary consumption = Fragementary identities.

  • This process of fragmented consumption separating, splitting up and dividing previously homogeneous groups such as, friends, the family, the neighborhood, the local community, the town, the county, the country and importantly, is often linked to the process of fragmented identity construction.
  • “Putting it very simply, the transition from substance to style is linked to a transition from production to consumption” – Strinati (235)
  • So in summary, the focus on FRAGMENTATION OF IDENTITY is characterised and linked to an increase of consumption and the proliferation of new forms of digital technologies.
  • In effect, another key characteristic of postmodernism is the development of fragmented, alienated individuals living (precariously) in fragmented societies.

The loss of a meta narrative

  • Although Postmodernism sometimes refers to architectural movements in the 1930’s the most significant emergent point is to be found in the 1980’s with clear philosophical articulations from eminent thinkers such as Jürgen Habermas, Jean Baudrillard, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Fredric Jameson and others. 
  • Fredric Jameson claimed that Postmodernism is characterized by pastiche rather than parody which represents a crisis in historicity.
  • Jameson argued that parody implies a moral judgment or a comparison with previous societal norms.
  • Whereas pastiche, such as collage and other forms of juxtaposition, occur without a normative grounding and as such, do not make comment on a specific historical moment. As such, Jameson argues that the postmodern era is characterised by pastiche (not parody) and as such, suffers from a crisis in historicity.
  • From a societal perspective the ‘real’ seems to be imploding in on itself, a ‘process leading to the collapse of boundaries between the real and simulations’ (Barker & Emma, 2015:242).
  • A process which the French intellectual Jean Baudrillard would describe as IMPLOSION which gives rise to what he terms SIMULACRA.
  • The idea that although the media has always been seen as a representation of reality – a simulation, from Baudrillard’s perspective of implosion, it is has become more than a representation or simulation and it has become SIMULACRUM not just a representation of the real, but the real itself, a grand narrative that is ‘truth‘ in its own right: an understanding of uncertain/certainty that Baudrillard terms the HYPER REAL.
  • A way of understanding this comes from Baudrillard’s provocative 1991 book The Gulf War Did Not Take Place which suggests that not only was our experience and understanding of this war a ‘mediated reality’, but it was also constructed as a media experience to the extent that reality did not match mediation. 
  • Meta-narrative = a big, overall, story

Definitions

  1. Pastiche = a piece of work or art which imitates another artist.
  2. Parody = a piece of work or art which imitates another artist, however a parody can seem comical and is presenting irony, such as the Parody of Blurred Lines by the Women
  3. Bricolage = this is when something is created from a diverse range of different things. For example, there’s a “Bricolage” chain of shops in France that sell groceries, electronics, clothing and a whole range of different things
  4. Intertextuality = this is the shaping of a text based on another text and suggests that signs only have a meaning if they are in reference to another sign
  5. Metanarrative = a big, overall story; meta = big/overall summary, narrative = story
  6. Hyperreality = it is the inability to distinguish something as either real or a simulation, due to its similarity from reality. For example, Dubai is a hyper-realist city as they have rebuilt sone “new and improved” wonders of the world and are currently building a new and better Taj Mahal.
  7. Simulacrum = although media is seen as a representation of something, a simulacrum is not just a simulation of something real, but is in fact the real thing. An example of simulacrum art is pop-art.
  8. Consumerist Society = a society where people give lots of time, energy and resources, which are dedicated to “consuming”. An example of this is the Kinder Egg.
  9. Fragmentary Identities = Something fragmented is made up of little pieces that are unconnected and a fragmented identity is therefore an identity made up if unconnected elements.
  10. Implosion = when a business or corporation suddenly collapses or fails
  11. cultural appropriation = this is when there is an inappropriate adoption of certain cultures, religions, beliefs by one person or a society consisting of members of a different culture.
  12. Reflexivity = it is the process that is used in production of media, which is used to draw attention to itself.
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POST-COLONIALISM QUESTIONS

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Letter To the Free- Common :

  • Q1:How can you apply the concept of Orientalism to Common’s Letter to the Free?

Orientalism is the link between culture, imperial power and colonialism. The concept of orientalism can be linked to “Letter to the Free”, especially because of the prison-based setting, which emphasises how what used to be a mainly white-skinned government opposed African-Americans and instead of bringing equality, they imprisoned African-Americans based on their black skin colour. This imprisonment could also be based on the stereotypes held against black people as they are seen as the “criminals” in films and due to the upbringing of society, people held these beliefs of what they saw in films and applied it to the real life world. However, in the song, Common is emphasising how slavery, racism and this stereotype of African-Americans being “criminals” is still occurring in the 21st century. This is shown by the lyrics mentioned in the song such as “The American Dream”, which is the idea of equality across America and the hope for freedom in the US. However, Common juxtaposes this “American Dream” by mentioning the “Jim Crow Laws”, which were laws set in place to enforce racial segregation to the Southern States of America. Many African-Americans opposed the Jim Crow Laws and instead protested to try and emphasise that they want freedom, which is what spurred historical events such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the African-Americans sitting at the “White” chairs in Woolworths, Greensboro.

  • Q2: Can you apply Fanon’s 3 phase plan of action to this music video?

Fanon’s 3 phase plan can be applied to Common’s ‘Letter to the Free”. For example, phase 1 is the assimilation of colonial culture which corresponds to the ‘mother country’. Phase 1 is shown in “Letter to the Free” through the introduction, in which the audience are presented with Common appearing in a prison, although the camera enters the prison, thus emphasising the open door as an opportunity for freedom, Common is seen in the prison singing, emphasising how black people are mistreated and “imprisoned”, juxtaposing the freedom that the white people have. Phase 2 is immersion into an “authentic culture” and is shown in the music video by Common removing the stereotypes held against black people. This is shown through the lyrics, in which Common is standing up for the mistreatment of black people and is emphasising how it is wrong to mistreat people based on their skin colour. Finally, the 3rd phase is fighting, revolutionary and ‘the mouthpiece of a new reality in action’. This links to “Letter to the Free” because the symbol of the black box can be seen as revolutionary as it can be seen as an emphasis that black lives are revolutionary and the. box could emphasise how they are there. Phase 3 can also be applied to the music video as it is a source of motivation to encourage black people to speak out and the black and white video, emphasises how the message is more important than colour, thus meaning the use of black and white brings the attention to the message.

  • Q3: How is the audience called / addressed / hailed (interpellated)? Use examples from both the lyrics and the visual grammar (shot, edit, mise-en-scene) to show how audiences are drawn into a specific subject position / ideological framework?

The use of different shots and eerie “prison music” (chains clattering) makes it appear as if the listener is taking a tour through the prison and the use of empty shots, create an eerie feel and make it feel as if the prison could be abandoned, thus creating a sense of disturbance and a horror feel, in which the eery setting could be to emphasise how it felt for black people being put in prison due to the colour of their skin. A black box constantly appears and is floating, and the shots of empty jail cells zoom into this black box, in which the shot appears in the chorus of “freedom”. Therefore, it is apparent that the black infinite box is a subliminal message that black is infinite and the infinite box represent the hopes and dreams of black people. The setting of the prison also lacks lights, and is quite dark, creating an eerie feeling and therefore making it seem scary to emphasise how black people felt. Loneliness can also be presented by the use of shots of long, empty corridors and the lack of people, thus emphasising the loneliness that black people faced.

Ghost Town – the Specials:

  • Q1: Where can you identify ‘hybridity’, ‘ambiguity’ and ‘cultural polyvalency’ in this music video?

Hybridity is shown in the music video through the use of both black and white band members. Hybridity is also shown by the combination of ska and punk rock music, in which ska music originated from Jamaica, whereas punk rock music originated from the US. This means there has been a hybridity of two very different music genres and also a hybridity of different cultures. Ambiguity is presented in the introduction of the music video, the drive through the empty streets, as it can present a different message based on age, ethnicity, and gender, however, the introduction shot is mainly to emphasise the empty streets that have been introduced due to the high lack of unemployment and nobody going out to work. Finally, Cultural polyvalence is when you belong to more then one culture and is shown by the band members, who are all of different ethnicities and their combination of different ethnicity allow them to experience other cultures.

The Specials Have Recorded Brand New Material | UNCUT
  • Q2: How does this text apply to Fanon’s 3 phase plan of action?

Phase 1 is shown by the combination of both ska and punk rock music, which are bringing different cultures together since ska originated in Jamaica, whereas punk rock originated in the US. Phase 2 is shown by the lack of people in the “Ghost Town” and the title “Ghost Town”, which gives the sense of loneliness and lack of employment. However, this juxtaposes the reality because during the employment crisis, there were many protests and riots, however the name “Ghost Town” could link to loneliness and a lack of people, which is not the case. Finally, phase 3 can be applied to this music video there is a resolution of the band all together, throwing rocks on the beach. They appear to be having a good time and there is no racism occurring, which emphasises an ideal world which is without any racism.

  • Q3: How is the audience called / addressed / hailed (interpellation)? Use examples from both the lyrics and the visual grammar (shot, edit, mise-en-scene) to show how audiences are drawn into a specific subject position / ideological framework?

Similar to Common’s “Letter to the Free”, the black and white shots at the beginning can create an eerie feeling and the title “Ghost Town” could link to the horror genre, thus emphasising the scary reality of that society and the “Ghost Town” and riots occurring due to the employment crisis. The shots in the beginning also appear to be recorded in first person, the view of what the band members can see, which makes it feel as if the audience is with the and and also experiencing this ‘reality’ as well. The band also appear to break the ‘fourth wall’ by looking directly at the camera, which could appear as if they are trying to establish a relationship with the audience and are trying to send a message directly to the audience.

Representation

POST-COLONIALISM

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Overview

  •  Overall, this is a topic that concerns IDENTITY and REPRESENTATION
  • But here it is specifically looking at identity and representation through the lens of Empire and Colonialism

Orientalism

  • The Link between culture, imperial power & colonialism
  • “the power to narrate, or to block other narratives from forming or emerging, is very important to culture and imperialism” – Edward Said Culture and Imperialism, 1993
  •  He asked if ‘imperialism was principally economic‘ and looked to answer that question by highlighting ‘the privileged role of culture in the modern imperial experience’ (1997:3)
  • ‘an economic system like a nation or a religion, lives not by bread alone, but by beliefs, visions, daydreams as well, and these may be no less vital to it for being erroneous’ – V. G. Kiernan
  • POSTCOLONIALISM 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‘. (Said, 1978:238).
  • Paul Gilroy puts it as, ‘a civilising mission that had to conceal its own systematic brutality in order to be effective and attractive’ (2004:8)

The Orient as the “other”

  • In his book Orientalism, Edward Said, points out that ‘the Orient has helped to define Europe (Or the West) as its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience [as] . . . One of its deepest and most recurring images of the Other’
  • Discussed by contemporary philosopher Slavoj Zizek, the recognition of the ‘Other’ is mainly attributed the French philosopher and psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan.
  • 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.
  • To link this to postcolonialism would be to suggest that the West uses the East / the Orient / the ‘Other’, to identify and construct itself. 
  • Essentially, and most crucial for postcolonial critical thinking, it is possible to identify a process whereby REPRESENTATIONS of – the East /the Orient / the ‘Other’ – are CONSTRUCTED through the lens of WESTERN COLONIAL POWER. 
  • The two geographical entities thus support and to an extent reflect each other.

Louis Althusser: ISA’s & the notion of ‘Interpellation’

  • ” all ideology hails or interpolates concrete individuals as concrete subjects, through the functioning of the category of the subject ” – Althusser (1971:190
  • Ideological state apparatus (ISA), is a theoretical concept developed by (Algerian born) French philosopher Louis Althusser which is used to describe the way in which structures of civic society – education, culture, the arts, the family, religion, bureaucracy, administration etc serve to structure the ideological perspectives of society, which in turn form our individual subject identity
  • Althusser noted that individuals often believe that they are ‘outside ideology’ and suggested the notion of ‘interpolation‘ as a way to recognise the formation of ideology
  • In that ideology ‘acts’ or ‘functions’ in such a way as to recruit subjects among individuals.
  • In other words, the way in which society calls / addresses / hails you is interpolation, which is the way in which your subject identity is formed and which, more often than not, corresponds to the dominant ideology.

Frantz Fanon

  • In terms of postcolonialism, we can look at The Wretched of the Earth (1961), by Frantz Fanon, which for many (Barry, 2017, McLeod 2000 etc) is a key text in the development and ancestry of postcolonial criticism. 
  • Fanon was born in the French colony of Martinique and appears to recognise the ‘mechanics of colonialism and its effects of those it ensnared‘ (McLeod 2000:20) when he remembers how he felt when, in France, white strangers pointed out his blackness, his difference, with derogatory phrases
  •  what we have in this section of The Wretched of the Earth is a black man living in France, articulating the way he was constructed as ‘other’ specifically through the way he was hailed, called, perceived and understood i.e. interpolated by other ‘subjects’ of France, who clearly saw him through the lens of Empire – racial stereotyping, derogatory abuse – as acceptable social interaction.
  • Frantz Fanon took an active role, proposing the first step required for ‘colonialised’ people to reclaim their own past by finding a voice and an identity. The second, is to begin to erode the colonialist ideology by which that past had been devalued. (Barry, 2017:195). 
  • ‘On National Culture’ (pp;168-178) Fanon presents three phases of action ‘which traces the work of native writers’:
  1. Assimilation of colonial culture corresponding to the ‘mother country’ Chinua Achebe talks of the colonial writer as a ‘somewhat unfinished European who with patience guidance will grow up one day and write like every other European.’ (1988:46)
  2. Immersion into an ‘authentic’ culture ‘brought up out of the depths of his memory; old legends will be reinterpreted’
  3. Fighting, revolutionary, national literature, ‘the mouthpiece of a new reality in action’

Hegemony (Gramsci)

  • Gramsci suggests that power relations can be understood as a hegemonic struggle through culture.
  • In other words, Gramsci raises the concept of Hegemony to illustrate how certain cultural forms predominate over others, which means that certain ideas are more influential than others, usually in line with the dominant ideas, the dominant groups and their corresponding dominant interests.
  • However, this form of cultural leadership is a process of (cultural) negotiation where consent is gained through persuasion, inculcation and acceptance.
  • Where dominant ideas, attitudes and beliefs (= ideology) are slowly, subtly woven into our very being, so that they become ‘common sense’, a ‘normal’, ‘sensible’, obvious’ way of comprehending and acting in the world.
  • However, hegemony is a struggle that emerges from NEGOTIATION and CONSENT.
  • Post colonialism articulates a desire to reclaim, re-write and re-establish cultural identity and thus maintain power of The Empire – even if the Empire has gone.

Syncretism, double consciousness & hybridisation

  • Syncretism = the blending of cultures and ideas from different places
  • mechanisms for understanding cross-cultural identities.
  • Paul Gilroy is insistent that ‘we must become interested in how the literary and cultural as well as governmental dynamics of the country have responded to that process of change and what it can tell us about the place of racism in contemporary political culture.’ (2004:13)
  • His theme of Double Consciousness, derived from W. E. B. Dubois, involves ‘Black Atlantic’ striving to be both European and Black through their relationship to the land of their birth and their ethnic political constituency
  • As with much postcolonial criticism the aim to understand and reconcile individual and national identity.
  • Gilroy highlights Enoch Powell’s notorious 1968 ‘rivers of blood speech’ full of the ‘terrifying prospect of a wholesale reversal of the proper ordering of colonial power . . . intensified by feelings of resentment, rejection, and fear at the prospect of open interaction with others.’ (2004:111)
  • As Barry notes the stress on ‘cross-cultural’ interactions is indeed a characteristic of postcolonial criticism.
  • Often found by foregrounding questions of cultural difference and diversity, as well as by celebrating ‘hybridity’, ‘ambiguity’ and ‘cultural polyvalency (many meanings)’.
  • Even Fanon suggests an emphasis on identity as ‘doubled, or ‘hybrid’, or ‘unstable’.

Theorists Quotes

  • Paul Gilroy = is insistent that ‘we must become interested in how the literary and cultural as well as governmental dynamics of the country have responded to that process of change and what it can tell us about the place of racism in contemporary political culture.’ (2004:13)
  • Barry =  ‘cross-cultural’ interactions is indeed a characteristic of postcolonial criticism. Often found by foregrounding questions of cultural difference and diversity, as well as by celebrating ‘hybridity’, ‘ambiguity’ and ‘cultural polyvalency’. A unique position where ‘individuals may simultaneously belong to more than one culture – the coloniser and the colonised’. (2016:198) 
  • Stuart Hall = our cultural identities reflect common historical experiences and shared cultural codes (1997: 22)
Language, Representation

Feminist Critical Thinking

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Key words:

  • Misogyny = the hatred of females (women or girls) expressed as disgust, intolerance or entrenched prejudice, serving to legitimate women’s oppression
  • Sexism = prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.
  • Patriarchy = a social system in which men hold primary power and predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege and control of property.
  • Feminist = a political position
  • Female = a matter of biology
  • Feminine = a set of culturally defined characteristics
  • Scopophilia = ‘taking people as objects and subjecting them to a controlling and subjective gaze
  • Voyeurism = sexual pleasure gained in looking
  • Fetishism = ‘the quality of a cut-out . . . stylised and fragmented‘), the way in which parts of the female body are presented as something to be ‘looked at’ and therefore ‘objectified‘ and ‘sexualised

Sexism from an institutional perspective and at an individual level

Feminism

  • According to Michelene Wandor, ‘sexism was coined by analogy with the term racism in the American civil rights movement in the early 1960s“
  • Barry makes the point that although the women’s movement was not the start of feminism, ‘the feminist literary criticism of today is the product of the women’s movement of the 1960’s’
  • Feminist critical thought became much more prominent and pronounced during the counter cultural movements of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, which heralded, among other changes: the facilitating of birth control and divorce, the permitting of abortion and homosexuality, the abolition of hanging and theatre censorship, and the Obscene Publications Act (1959) which led to the Chatterly trial.
  • This period is often termed second wave feminism – after the first wave of feminism, which was galvanised by organisations such as, the British Women’s Suffrage Committee (1867), the International Council of Women (1888), the The International Alliance of Women (1904),
  • In contrast, ‘at the beginning of the 1970’s the Women’s Liberation Movement set great store by the process of consciousness raising’ (Wandor, 1981:13), ‘influencing everyday conduct and attitudes.’ (Barry, 2017:124) and ‘exposing the mechanisms of patriarchy, that is, the cultural ‘mind-set’ in men and women which perpetuated sexual inequality’ (123).

Laura Mulvey

  • ” In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure which is styled accordingly. In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed and their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact“
  • As Mulvey makes clear, ‘cinema offers a number of possible pleasures’.
  • Mulvey draws on the work of Jacques Lacan (‘this mirror moment‘), highlighting the parallel between the ‘mirror stage’ of child development and the mirroring process that occurs between audience and screen
  • ‘Man is reluctant to gaze at his exhibitionist like‘, thus, he must control the look, and thereby, the narrative. Made possible ‘by structuring the film around a main controlling figure with whom the spectator can identify‘.
  • Rules and conventions of mainstream narrative cinema, that appear to follow ‘according to the principles of the ruling ideology‘. In other words, the dominant look is always hetero, rather than homosexual.

Sut Jhally

  •  Works at the Media Education Foundation (where Jean Kilbourne also produced much or her work) draws a connection between the aesthetics of pornography and the codes and conventions of the music video.
  • ” There’s no such thing as communication that doesn’t have something behind it, that it is always constructed by someone. And I want people to be active in the construction of their own world because if you’re not active in the construction of your own world then you’re a victim of someone else’s construction.“
  • Jhally, illustrates with specific reference to a wide range of music video clips how a dreamworld is created in music videos based around a range of predictable codes and conventions, many of which are borrowed from the genre of pornography.
  • At the centre of the dreamworld is the female body and drawing on the key concepts introduced by Mulvey (objectification, voyeurism, scopophilia, fetishism) it is clear both how the dreamworld is constructed and who it appears to be constructed for. In much of the work from MEF, the theme links content analysis (what we see) to audience behaviour, for Jhally this is around violence towards women.

3rd Wave Feminism

  • Known as raunch culture
  • Third-wave feminism began in the early 1990s, coined by Naomi Wolf, it was a response to the generation gap between the feminist movement of the 1960’s and ’70’s, challenging and recontextualising some of the definitions of femininity that grew out of that earlier period
  • In particular, the third-wave sees women’s lives as intersectional, demonstrating a pluralism towards race, ethnicity, class, religion, gender and nationality when discussing feminism.
  • According to Barker and Jane (2016), third wave feminism, which is regarded as having begun in the mid-90’s is the ‘rebellion of younger women against what was perceived as the prescriptive, pushy and ‘sex negative’ approach of older feminists.’ (344) and put forward the following recognisable characteristics:
    • an emphasis on the differences among women due to race, ethnicity, class, nationality, religion
    • individual and do-it-yourself (DIY) tactics
    • fluid and multiple subject positions and identities
    • cyberactivism
    • the reappropriation of derogatory terms such as ‘slut’ and ‘bitch’ for liberatory purposes
    • sex positivity
  • According to Ariel Levy, in her book Female Chauvinist Pigs raunch culture is ‘a product of the unresolved feminist sex wars – the conflict between the women’s movement and the sexual revolution‘ (2006:74)
  • ‘Raunch culture is the sexualised performance of women in the media that can play into male stereotypes of women as highly sexually available, where its performers believe they are powerful owners of their own sexuality’

4th Wave Feminism

  • Inter-sexuality
  • Initial critical ideas that looked at the plurality of feminist thought can be found in the early work around Queer Theory.
  • . In the UK the pioneering academic presence in queer studies was the Centre for Sexual Dissedence in the English department at Sussex University, founded by Alan Sinfield and Johnathon Dollimore in 1990 (Barry: 141).

Judith Butler

  • Judith Butler counterpoints earlier ideas of gender representation, for example, some of the ideas presented by Laura Mulvey seem to suggest that gender is fixed – male/female – that it is structured by institutions and those powerful individuals who are able to exert power and control – Weinstein et al. 
  • Butler suggests that gender is fluid, changeable, plural a set of categories to be played out and performed by individual subjects in individual moments in time and space.
  • Put another, it suggests that we have multiple identities that are performed to different people, in different social settings, under different social conditions. For example, look at categories such as lipstick lesbian, butch and femme, girly girl and so on, which illustrate the multiple, plural nature of identity, representation and performance with feminist critical thinking

Van Zoonen

  •  Lisbet Van Zoonen also highlights the idea that the concept of ‘woman’ is not a homogenous, collective noun. 
  •  ‘gender is not the defining quality alone for women, and intersects with race, sexuality and class.’ (Hendry & Stephenson 2018:52).
  • Van Zoonen, develops and applies ideas of cultural hegemony (GRAMSCI) and interpellation (ALTHUSSER) towards feminist studies
  • Van Zoonen, prioritises the realm of popular culture as the site of struggle, where identities are continually being reconstructed.

bell hook: Multicultural inter-sexuality

  • As Barker and Jane note, ‘black feminists have pointed ot the differences between black and white women’s experiences, cultural representations and interests’ (2016:346)
  • As a way of exploring this notion of intersectionality ie the idea that an approach such as feminism, is NOT UNIVERSAL, SINGULAR or HOMOGENEOUS as this is a REDUCTIONIST and ESSENTIALIST way of seeing the world. 
  • bell hook (always spelt in lower case – real name: Gloria Jean Watkins) advocates media literacy, the need to engage with popular culture to understand class struggle, domination, renegotiation and revolution.
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MEDIA MUSIC VIDEO

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Over the weekend, I have finished the basis of the music video. (Backgrounds for length of shots and text placement/actions). Now I am onto the last stage where I draw my characters before inserting them to my music video. I will use photoshop to cut body parts and rotate them to give the look of animation.

Here are my characters/actions. The Utopia of my character happens when their headphones are on whereas when the headphones are off, they are in reality.

(Note: I am not very good at drawing so these are my best attempts!)

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MUSIC VIDEO UPDATE

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Over the weekend, I’ve been playing around with some coding languages (a bit of JavaScript, Java and CSS) and even Scratch (drag and drop coding software) but it looks really blocky and doesn’t run a smooth animation. Therefore I am going to explore Adobe After Effects as that can save as a film for definite as it’s a film editing software and there’s loads of tutorials on how to animate on it

Tutorial videos

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PROGRESS SHOTS

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I have had an attempt at adobe animate but I have decided it will be particularly hard, especially as you can’t save it as a video and the software itself is quite advanced.

Therefore, I am going to try a coding software and try and code the animation since I am confident in the coding language the software uses. I will try the new software tomorrow and show more progress on that software.

For now, here’s my attempt at adobe animate:

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FEMINIST CRITICAL THINKING

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Overview

  • According to Michelene Wandor, “sexism was coined by analogy with the term racism in the American Civil Rights Movement in the early 1960s.
  • Sexism is the systematic ways in which men and women are brought up to view each other agnostically, with the assumption that the male is more superior then the female
  • The issue of women’s inequality has history that dates back to the 1960s.
  • Female critical thought has become more prominent during the cultural movements during the late 1960s and are 1970s.
  • The late 1960s and early 1970s were known as the “second wave of feminism”, which happened after the first wave of feminism, which was galvanized by organizations such as the British Women’s Suffrage Committee of 1867, the International Council of Women of 1988 and the International Alliance of Women of 1904, which had worked in order to give women the rights to vote.
  • According to Wandor, the Women’s Liberation Movement influenced everyday conduct and attitudes. Whereas, Barry said that it “exposed the mechanisms of patriarchy…which perpetuated sexual inequality”
  • In social, political and economical realm, there were demands for equal pay, education, opportunities, free contraception, abortion and greater provisions for childcare.
  • In summary, the definitions are:
    • Female = a matter of biology
    • Feminist = a political position
    • Feminine = a set of culturally defined characteristics.

Laura Mulvey

  • She is the writer of the 1975 Polemical essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”.
  • Central to Mulvey’s thesis was the role of the male gaze, which is a theoretical approach that suggests that the role of “women as an image, man as the bearer of the looks”
  • A quotation taken from Mulvey’s essay. = “In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure which is styled accordingly. In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed and their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact”
  • Mulvey makes it clear that “the cinema offers a number of pleasures”. With one of the pleasures being based on scopophilia (taking people as objects and subjecting them to a controlling an subjective gaze”. The other pleasures include voyeurism (the sexual pleasure gained in looking) and fetishism (the quality of a cut out…stylists and fragmented).
  • Mulvey draws on the work of Jacques Laban, which highlights the parallel between the “mirror stage” of child development and the mirroring process which occurs between an audience and a screen.
  • According to Mulvey, “Man is reluctant to gaze at his exhibitionist like‘, thus, he must control the look, and thereby, the narrative. Made possible ‘by structuring the film around a main controlling figure with whom the spectator can identify”.

Third and Fourth Wave feminism

  • Third wave feminism began in the early 1990s and according to Naomi Wolf, it was a response to the generation gap between the feminist movements of the 1960s and 1970s, which challenged and recontextualised some of the definitions of feminist that grew out of that earlier period.
  • The third wave sees Women’s lives as intersectional and it demonstrated a pluralism towards race, gender, ethnicity, class, religion and nationality.
  • According the Kira Cochran’s, the fourth wave of feminism began in 2013 and raises the issues of intersectionality and nw issues, such as body shaming, privacy, rape culture and pornography.
  • Fourth wave feminism also seeks to recognize the potential of new social platforms to connect, share, and develop new experiences, perspectives and responses
  • Fourth wave feminism opposes to oppression and are tools that are allowing women to build a strong, popular, reactive movement online‘ (Cochran’s 2013)
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PRODUCTION TASK: PLAN

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Most music videos, are filmed using real life objects, people and places, however, I am going to give myself the challenge of trying to animate my music video (following the style models of Just the Way you Are and Sunflower). I am also hoping to possibly have the lyrics on the screen too, like the way Sunflower is both a lyric video and a music video.

Main Idea

For my main idea, I am hoping to create an animation using Adobe Animate. This is to differentiate from other music videos and follow my style models since most of them are animations. I will create the characters using Adobe Animate too. I have chosen to do an animation because I have planned in my story board to have a scene where the protagonist is with their school friends after lockdown and I feel animating it will be a lot easier then trying to source people who look a similar age.

Guidance Videos

Back-Up idea

For my back-up plan, I am hoping to animate it using Adobe After Effects. I am not the best at drawing, so I am hoping to film the music video using my phone/a camera and then go into Adobe After Effects and edit the videos I have taken to make them appear cartoon like.

Guidance Videos (Plan B)

Equipment Needed

  • Camera/phone camera
  • Adobe Animate
  • Adobe After Effects
  • A laptop
  • Patience as it’ll take a while to make the characters
  • The music downloaded and ready to use.
  • Video tutorials for Adobe Animate and After Effects