mix of British and Jamaican music

britians first multi racial music

The video and song are part of a tradition of protest in popular music, in this case reflecting concern about the increased social tensions in the UK at the beginning of the 1980s. The song was number 1 post-Brixton and during the Handsworth and Toxteth riots.

The aesthetic of the music video, along with the lyrics, represents an unease about the state of the nation, one which is often linked to the politics of Thatcherism but transcends a specific political ideology in its eeriness, meaning that it has remained politically and culturally resonant.

two tone music was the trend

The representations in the music video are racially diverse. This reflects its musical genre of ska, a style which could be read politically in the context of a racially divided country. This representation of Britain’s emerging multiculturalism, is reinforced through the eclectic mix of stylistic influences in both the music and the video. 

First Jamaican settlers who arrived in 1948 Brought a wave of musicians to the uk and Brough ska used by the specials which is lively.

mise en scene- dark and gloomy, very bland, little colour. the car looks like a hearse which could infer the environment is deathly dangerous or that the coffin leads to a deadly outside world at the time which leads to death at the protests. the people inside the cars are wearing full suits which is ominous and suggests death or the supernatural linked to ghosts which is pointed out in the name of the song

Cinematography: At the beginning they show loads of empty buildings and streets which is ominous and run with the theme of a ghost town. the camera shakes when there is a ghost like scream which suggests we should be afraid
or that the ghost is controlling the deathly car as they drive and steer frantically as if they are running or avoiding super natural beings. also when they drive through the tunnel the colours shapes and lines of the lights remind me of the ghosts that packman’s plays which of course was a popular game around the time of realest of the song. they also show the shadow of the car at a low point of the song to suggest they are currently safe from danger for the time being until the climax.

equilibrium begins in a deserted city with no one in the streets

the disruption is running into “supernatural beings” and having to avoid and drive from them

new equilibrium on the beach away from danger showing colour and the sea/ beach which is a positive and shows end and a peaceful resolution

suspense with the music going low waiting for a climax as they creep through a dangerous area

An introduction towards theories of gender representation, couched in a summary of feminist critical thinking and applied to music videos, adverts and video games but equally applicable to all aspects of media, literature and cultural studies.

Feminist= a political position

Female= a matter of biology

Feminine= a set of culturally defined characteristics

1st feminist wave= suffragettes gaining the vote.

Second–wave feminism was a period of feminist activity and thought that began in the United States in the early 1960s and lasted roughly two decades. It quickly spread across the Western world, with an aim to increase equality for women by gaining more than just enfranchisement.

Critical Thinking= the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgement.

A good starting point, in terms of key concepts, is to look at the work of Laura Mulvey and specifically focus on her 1975 polemical essay: ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema‘. Central to her thesis was the role of the male gaze, a theoretical approach that suggests the role of ‘woman as image, man as bearer of the look,’ in contemporary visual media.

 ‘cinema offers a number of possible pleasures’. 

 scopophilia (‘taking people as objects and subjecting them to a controlling and subjective gaze‘ ie OBJECTIFICATION); 

vouyerism (the 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‘ – ‘close-ups of legs . . . or a face‘, of lips, hips, bums, tongues, thighs, legs and breasts, etc. etc) which are exaggerated through cinematic conventions of ‘scale’, ‘size’, ‘focus’.

 Jacques Lacan and The Other

‘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.

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.

‘rebellion of younger women against what was perceived as the prescriptive, pushy and ‘sex negative’ approach of older feminists.’ 

• 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

Judith Butler: 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). In terms of applying queer theory to feminist critical thought, Judith Butler, among others expressed doubt over the reductionist, essentialist, approach towards the binary oppositions presented in terms of: male/female; feminine/masculine, man/woman. Arguing, that this is too simple and does not account for the internal differences that distinguishes different forms of gender identity, which according to Butler ‘tend to be instruments of regulatory regimes . . . normalising categories of oppressive structures‘

Reductionist: a person who analyses and describes a complex phenomenon in terms of its simple or fundamental constituents.

Essentialism is the view that every entity has a set of attributes that are necessary to its identity and function. In early Western thought, Plato’s idealism held that all things have such an “essence”—an “idea” or “form”.

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 

What is Racism?

prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalised

How did black lives matter and the 2020 riots and protests begin?

On may 25th 2020 a black man (George Floyd 46) was murdered by Minneapolis police. The police officer (Derek Chauvin) knelt on Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes with the last 3 minutes Floyd showed no movement or pulse. Floyd was arrested for allegedly using a counterfeit bill and was later pinned to the ground face down, handcuffed and with Chauvin’s knee on his neck cutting off his airway. Floyd screamed multiple times “I can’t breathe” which became a strong quote for the black lives matter movement. This event killed Floyd and started riots and peaceful protests across the world. The black lives matter movement became the largest civil rights movement ever.

Iconic image of peaceful Protests. These show people of all race, ethnicity and religion coming together to end racism.

Iconic image of police brutality. These images show excessive force used by police for those protesting for equality and the end of police brutality and racial profiling.

Riots- Some protestors have taken these protests so far that it had led to destruction of buildings, homes and business’ as well as destruction of war monuments and statues of racists.

Narratives are about time and space.

They are linear (arranged in or extending along a straight or nearly straight line) and sequential (forming or following in a logical order or sequence)

Chronology (what order) and secrets

How is it structured? What order

Beginning, middle and End

Narratives are organised around a theme

There is a difference between narrative story and plot

You learn to ride a moped, your nervous and scared- you get your 125 your grown up and confident- flashback to a kid when you learn how to ride a bicycle.

Tztevan Toddorov: Equilibrium, Disruption, New Equilibrium

High point of drama is the climax

the enticing incident is what begins the climax

the resolution is after the climax

Claude Levi-Strauss (Binary oppositions)

e.g white/ black straight/ gay rich/poor

Vladimir Propp (Character types and functions)

there are stock characters with stock functions

Hero, Helper, Princess, villain, victim, dispatcher, father, false hero

Seymour Chatman: Satellites (embellishments, developments, aesthetics) and kernels (key moment in the plot/ narrative structure)

Crash course Genre theory

Steve Neale- “Genres are instances of repetition and difference”. Fine difference between texts to maintain the economy of the genre. Audience will loose interest if films become to similar

Conforming- comply with rules, standards, or laws.

Subverting- undermine the power and authority of (an established system or institution) (make something new)

Thomas Schatz: Only 2 Genres?

GENRES OF INTEGRATION: Commonly have heroes with a feud against and external antagonist. Hero is commonly a misfit who doesn’t fit into society or is an outsider proving loyalty or worth. (Sci Fi, Western and Gangster) resolution is death of anti hero

GENRES OF ORDER: Focus on family or community in a civil space which is internalised focusing on self. resolution is love or happiness returning to past life or a better life

Crash Course on narrative theory:

Todorov

Beginning, middle and end (Act 1, 2, 3)

Equilibrium (world in current base of balance)

Disruption (de balances equilibrium and disrupts harmony)

Recognition (Protagonists identify the disruption)

Repair (protagonists attempt to restore equilibrium)

New equilibrium (restored equilibrium/ new norm)

Propp Character types

Hero: Task or quest ahead of them which may be difficult or impossible to overcome

Villian: Causes disruptions and prevents the restoration of peace

Donor: enables hero to go on quest and improve

Helpers: Helps hero on quest

princess: heros prize

false hero: poses as good but turns out evil

dispatcher: sends hero on quest and sets goals

Claude Levi-Strauss (Binary Oppositions)

West/ east

good/ bad

light/ dark

Roland Barthes: Proairetic and Hermenuetic Codes

Proairetic code: action, movement, causation

Hermenuetic code: reflection, dialogue, character or thematic development

PARADIGM AND SYNTAGM. A paradigm is a unique collection of signs. With the application of the appropriate rules, compound signs, or syntagms, can be constructed from the paradigm. The notions of paradigm and syntagm underlie many of the semiotics methods that are used in the study of human communication.

Roland Barthes‘ Narrative TheoryBarthes suggested there will be more than one of five codes that describe the meaning of a text. He suggested texts may be ‘open’ or ‘closed’. Open texts are those that are open to interpretation and can have many different subjective meanings that are individual to the audience. (Take an image off an advertisement and it won’t have meaning)

News Values- News values are criteria that influence the selection and presentation of events as published news. These values help explain what makes something “newsworthy”. 

Gatekeepers- Gatekeeping is the process through which information is filtered for dissemination, whether for publication, broadcasting, the Internet, or some other mode of communication.

Regulation-  This regulation, via law, rules or procedures, can have various goals, for example intervention to protect a stated “public interest”, or encouraging competition and an effective media market, or establishing common technical standards.

Deregulation-  These were principally that ownership deregulation would result in benefits for all sectors: for the traditional media, an emerging new media and the public. The traditional media would be released from restrictions, which had prevented it from competing with new media; from accessing new customers and opportunities.

Free market: The free market is an economic system based on supply and demand with little or no government control. Based on its political and legal rules, a country’s free market economy may range between very large or entirely black market

Monopolies: Monopolies are thus characterized by a lack of economic competition to produce the good or service, a lack of viable substitute goods, and the possibility of a high monopoly price well above the seller’s marginal cost that leads to a high monopoly profit.

Mergers: Media mergers are a result of one media related company buying another company for control of their resources in order to increase revenues and viewership. Successful media companies usually buy out other companies to make them more powerful, profitable, and able to reach a larger viewing audience.

Media concentration: Concentration of media ownership (also known as media consolidation or mediaconvergence) is a process whereby progressively fewer individuals or organizations control increasing shares of the mass media.

Conglomerates: A conglomerate is a multi-industry company – i.e., a combination of multiple business entities operating in entirely different industries under one corporate group, usually involving a parent company and many subsidiaries. Conglomerates are often large and multinational. 

Globalisation (in terms of media ownership): media globalization is the worldwide integration of mediathrough the cross-cultural exchange of ideas, while technological globalizationrefers to the cross-cultural development and exchange of technology.

Vertical Integration: vertical integration is an arrangement in which the supply chain of a company is owned by that company. Usually each member of the supply chain produces a different product or service, and the products combine to satisfy a common need. 

Horizontal Integration-Horizontal integration is the process of a company increasing production of goods or services at the same part of the supply chain. A company may do this via internal expansion, acquisition or merger. The process can lead to monopoly if a company captures the vast majority of the market for that product or service

Neo-liberalism: Neoliberalism is characterised by free market trade, deregulation of financial markets, privatisation, individualisation, and the shift away from state welfare provision.

Alt-Right: an ideological grouping associated with extreme conservative or reactionary viewpoints, characterised by a rejection of mainstream politics and by the use of online media to disseminate deliberately controversial content.

Surveillance: Mass surveillance is the intricate surveillance of an entire or a substantial fraction of a population in order to monitor that group of citizens

Privacy: Privacy is the right to be left alone, to control unwanted publicity. It is in direct opposition to the business of the media: they do not want to leave people alone.

Security: Social media security is the process of analyzing dynamic social media data in order to protect against security and business threats. Every industry faces a unique set of risks on social, many of which have put organizations in the press or at the center of controversy.

GDPR: The General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 is a regulation in EU law on data protection and privacy in the European Union and the European Economic Area. It also addresses the transfer of personal data outside the EU and EEA areas.

The Leveson Enquiry: The Leveson inquiry was a judicial public inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the British press following the News International phone hacking scandal, chaired by Lord Justice Leveson, who was appointed in July 2011. 

The Cairncross Review (read these questions under consideration:

“a public space between the private domain and the state in which public opionion was formed and ‘popular’ supervision of government was established” 

“The primary democratic role of the media is to act as a public watch dog overseeing the state.”

Stephan Holmes: “Doesn’t every regulation covering the media into a “neutral form” lessen its capacity to act as a partisan gadfly investigating and criticising government in an aggressive way”

Regulation should be provided by state or public. Should media be sensitised or graphic.

Structures of ownership

The role of advertising

Links with ‘The Establishment’

Diversionary tactics – ‘flack’- Make one devision seem better or more important Then the other.

Uniting against a ‘common enemy’- Combine groups of similar minded people against the same enemy