(note don’t forget to support all of your ideas with details, examples and illustrations from the 2 CSP’s)
What is the link between society and media (ie McDougall/ Fenton)
How best to link 2 music videos and society? Postcolonialism
Postcolonial theory – Gilroy & WEB du Bois (double consciousness, hybridisation)
Postcolonialism is a way of understanding ‘the other’ Lacan – mirror theory / Edward Said Orientialism
How can music videos change ideas? Culture as a site of struggle – Althusser ISA / Gramsci Hegemony
Conclusion
jacques lacan-the other
Often discussed by contempoary philosopher Slavoj Zizek, the recognition of the ‘Other’ is mainly attributed the French philosopher and psychoanalyst 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.
To link this to postcolonialism would be to suggest that the West uses the East / the Orient / the ‘Other’, to identify and construct itself. How it sees itself as the ‘West’ as opposed to . . . in other words, it acts as The Other, a mirror by which a reflection of the self can be measured out and examined.
when the black community look at tv they dont see them selves(relate to mirror theroy). no positive representation for different minorites
Edward said
talks about orientalism (look more into)
ORIENTALISM:
The Link between culture, imperial power & colonialism
thepower to narrate, or to block other narratives from forming or emerging, is very important to culture and imperialism
Edward Said Culture and Imperialism, 1993: xiii
Louis Althusser: ISA’s & the notion of ‘Interpellation’
(break down notes)
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. According to Althusser, ‘the category of the subject . . . is the category constitutive of all ideology’ (214:188). In other words, we are socially constructed and what socially constructs us is ‘despite its diversity and contradictions . . . the ruling ideology, which is the ideology of ‘the ruling class’,’ (2014:245)
Althusser noted that individuals often believe that they are ‘outside ideology’ and suggested the notion of ‘interpellation‘ 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 interpellation, which is the way in which your subject identity is formed and which, more often than not, corresponds to the dominant ideology.
saying that the western world and the leaders of the society give the ideologies of what society is meant to be so we don’t have as much control as we would like to think. Boys will be boys and girls will be girls to be accepted by society
that the ISA’s strain and keep us where we are to conform to societies standards
‘Ideology ‘acts’ or ‘functions’ in such a way to ‘recruit’ subjects among individuals . . . through the very precise operation that we call interpellation or hailing.
Althusser 2014:190
Hegemonic struggle Antonio Gramsci – Hegemony
‘from America, black voices will take up the hymn with fuller unison. The ‘black world’ will see the light
FRANTZ Fanon ‘on national culture’
As an early critical thinker of postcolonialism, 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). In the chapter ‘On National Culture’ (pp;168-178) Fanon presents three phases of action ‘which traces the work of native writers’:
How useful are ideas about narrative in analysing music videos refer to “Ghost Town” and “Letter To The free”
Music videos can convey a lot more subtle and or powerful messages that other forms of communication can’t. We can understand these messages and signs a lot better, by using narrative theories ideas to analyze music videos, past just the surface signs and styles.
There are many theories about narrative that could apply to the videos, such as; Claude Levi-Strauss (Binary Oppositions), Tztevan Todorov (Tripartite narrative structure) and Seymour Chatman (Satellites & Kernels). I chose these theories as I felt they were the most relevant to the case studies.
In ‘letter to the free’ the use nice camera work that supports narrative structures such as Freytag’s Pyramid. from beginning ,middle, and end, the camera starts by getting closer to the musicians and singer creating close up shots which are typically used for emphasizing emotion till it passes the climax of the song, and then start panning back out of the prison. this can be interpreted as the journey to freedom out of the prison.
Now relating to Seymond’s theory of satellites and kernels we can understand the important elements behind the music video ‘letter to the free’. The kernels in the letter to the free music videos, I think are subtle but help massively in giving the music video real meaning, and giving the message behind the video, a solid base to really define it. So even though the signs are subtle, they are kernels in my opinion. Examples would be the setting being in a prison, the use of black and white filtering used for the whole video. Since the saying “ seeing in balck and white’ was meant to say a message was seen as only facts, nothing else’. So by using black and white filtering over there music video whilst singing their lyrics about black history and black injustice i think this is a brilliant way to define the message to tell people you can interpret this any other way, this is the truth. And the use of the black box which wasn’t the clearest sign from seeing it the first-time.Viewers could still understand the surface signs of the box transitioning from a prison to an outside pleasant scenery, showing freedom in the meadow. Some examples of satellites in this video would have been the basketball hoop in the background of some of shots, or the shots of the drummer.
Using now Tztevan Todorov (Tripartite narrative structure) that there are clear shows rising of climax or the disturbance of equilibrium and equilibrium. this is shown from the start as the band members are in the car and driving normally through the city whilst sing, with no disturbance till you get further through the song, the break of equilibrium is shown by the the car swerving left to right in fast short shots, as the band start to act crazier and crazier. This could be interpreted as a tell towards the rapid increase of unemployment through the country, and the upset around the country. The new equilibrium finishes with a wide shot of the band throwing stone into the river. Now i think this is a good way to end the music video, as it symbolizes the youth as a whole and in my opinion shows some binary opposition of the youth against the county, rebelling back to the government who caused so much unemployment.
There is also evidence of narrative structure in ‘Letter to the free’ From the start of the music video you see a black box floating in a boxed grey room said by the artist to represent “the infinite thing about blackness and blackness can’t be defined in time or space.” and transitions to another scene in the prison as the climax of the video is happening and then transitions to a new setting in a meadow meant to symbolise freedom, the opposite to the prison it began in prison. Therefor new equilibrium.
“Ghost town” and the theory of binary opposition you can see the sides of the good and bad being used and the song itself is about how In the 1980’s, England experienced a recession in the industrial workplace, and left a lot of the country unemployed. so by knowing that, and quoting the lyrics stating
“Why must the youth fight against themselves?
Government leaving the youth on the shelf’
That we can prove the Specials are pointing out how the british government is the opposition. Even though the video doesn’t show this, it’s a point to be considered as a deeper meaning in the video.
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.
Parody v Pastiche
pastiche is a work of art, drama, literature, music, or architecture that imitates the work of a previous artist
this is your standard thriller/detective
parody is a work or performance that imitates another work or performance with ridicule or irony
surface signs, gestures & play
A good place to look for illustrations of postmodern culture, in terms of media studies, is the music video. 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). Shuker refers Fredric Jameson’s (1984) notion of the ‘metanarrative’ (discussed in more detail below) that ’embody the postmodern condition’ (168). For example, 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). Alongside their similarity to adverts (essentially the music video is a commercial tool to sell music products) ‘making them part of a blatantly consumerist culture‘ (ibid). And of course, the ‘considerable evidence of pastiche, intertextuality and eclecticism‘ (ibid) which is the focus of this next section.
because there’s so much surface there is worry for the overall meta narrative
Postmodernism
Postmodernism is a way of thinking about culture, philosophy, art and many other things. The term has been used in many different ways at different times, but there are some things in common. Postmodernism says that there is no real truth people can know.
Postmodernism can be seen as a philosophy that is characterised by concepts such as RE-IMAGINING, PASTICHE, PARODY, COPY, BRICOLAGE. or as the dictionary describes it as a late 20th-century style and concept in the arts, architecture, and criticism, which represents a departure from modernism and is characterized by the self-conscious use of earlier styles and conventions, a mixing of different artistic styles and media, and a general distrust of theories.
postmodernism its fragmentry,dentred nature of music video
postmodernism say that we cant tell the difference between fiction and relaity
we live in this part of a blatantly consumerist culture
bricolage relates to the film as its involves the rearrangement of sign
Postmodernism typically criticizes long-held beliefs regarding objective reality, value systems, human nature, and social progress, among other things. For example, Pulp Fiction is a postmodern film for the way it tells the story out of the ordinary, upending our beliefs of how a film should be structured.
Surface and style over substance
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)
break down a narrative into 2 distinct elements. Those elements which are absolutely essential to the story / plot / narrative development, which are known as KERNELS and those moments that could be removed and the overall logic would not be disturbed, known as SATELLITES.
Relating it to the film;
kernels in this movie I would say would be his illness of memory loss and the inability to make new memories. or the explanation behind the polards.
Explaining the theory;
Vladimir Propp (Character Types and Function)
CHARACTERS FUNCTION TO PROVIDE NARRATIVE STRUCTURE:
Hero
Helper
Princess
Villain
Victim
Dispatcher
Father
False Hero
Relating it to the film;
John I would say is portrayed as the villain in the story as we are told so far he killed and raped lends wife
Lenard/lenny- I would say gives off the hero/victim character structure as he deals with the loss of his wife and his illness but descides to do something about it and get revenge on the person who hurt him and his wife.
Explaining the theory;
Roland Barthes: Proairetic and Hermenuetic Codes
Proairetic code: action, movement, causation
Hermenuetic code: reflection, dialogue, character or thematic development
Roland Barthes talks about enigma code;the way in which intrigue and ideas are raised- which encourages the audience to want to learn more eg who dun it film, films that give you just enough info but still missing key parts that make the audience want to learn more and figure out.
elision and elipsis are when you cut things out. rarely movie is in real time you have edits
movies can rearrange time
flashbacks and flashforwards
and foreshadowing (showing the end of the film at the start)
and dramatic irony (where the audience knows something the characters dont)
2 story’s happening at the same time- parallel or simultaneous narratives
light and shade to have the movie not be all intense all the time example being having jokes in the middle
non sequitars are parts of narratives that create an enigma but lead no where
Pastiche– According to Jameson, parody has, in the postmodern age, been replaced by pastiche: “Pastiche is, like parody, the imitation of a peculiar or unique, idiosyncratic style, the wearing of a linguistic mask, speech in a dead language.
Parody-an imitation of the style of a particular writer, artist, or genre with deliberate exaggeration for comic effect.
Bricolage-(in art or literature) construction or creation from a diverse range of available things.
Intertextuality-the relationship between texts, especially literary ones.
Metanarrative-A metanarrative (also meta-narrative and grand narrative; French: métarécit) in critical theory and particularly in postmodernism is a narrative about narratives of historical meaning, experience, or knowledge, which offers a society legitimation through the anticipated completion of a (as yet unrealized) master idea.
Hyperreality-Hyperreality, in semiotics and postmodernism, is an inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from a simulation of reality, especially in technologically advanced postmodern societies.
Simulacrum-A simulacrum is a representation or imitation of a person or thing. The word was first recorded in the English language in the late 16th century, used to describe a representation, such as a statue or a painting, especially of a god.
Conumerist Society-A consumerist society is one in which people devote a great deal of time, energy, resources and thought to “consuming”. The general view of life in a consumerist society is consumption is good, and more consumption is even better. The United States is an example of a hyper-consumerist society.
Fragmentary Identities-presence of more than one sense of identity within a single human body.
Implosion-an instance of something collapsing violently inwards.
Cultural appropriation-Cultural appropriation, at times also phrased cultural misappropriation, is the adoption of an element or elements of one culture by members of another culture. This can be controversial when members of a dominant culture appropriate from disadvantaged minority cultures.
Reflexivity-Reflexivity generally refers to the examination of one’s own beliefs, judgments and practices during the research process and how these may have influenced the research. If positionality refers to what we know and believe then reflexivity is about what we do with this knowledge.
we are looking at identity and representation through the lens of Empire and Colonialism.
ORIENTALISM:
The Link between culture, imperial power & colonialism
“Thepower to narrate, or to block other narratives from forming or emerging, is very important to culture and imperialism“
Edward Said Culture and Imperialism, 1993: xiii
‘In this view, the outlying regions of the world have no life, history or culture to speak of, no independence or integrity worth representing without the West.‘ (Said, 1993: xxi). Orientalism (1978) alongside Culture and Imperialism (1993) are key texts written by the respected academic Edward Said. 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’
The mode is characterised by ‘the desire to contain the intangibilities of the East within a western lucidity, but this gesture of appropriation only partially conceals the obsessive fear.’ (Suleri, 1987:255)
Similarly, ‘the East becomes the repository or projection of those aspects of themselves which Westerners do not choose to acknowledge (cruelty, sensuality, decadence, laziness and so on). At the same time, and paradoxically, the East is seen as a fascinating realm of the exotic, the mystical and the seductive.’ (Barry, 2017:195)
Overall, 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). Or as Paul Gilroy puts it, ‘a civilising mission that had to conceal its own systematic brutality in order to be effective and attractive’ (2004:8)
The emergence of Postcolonial critical thinking
Postcolonial critical thought emerged as a distinct category in the 1990’s, with an aim to undermine the universalist claims that ‘great literature has a timeless and universal significance [which] thereby demotes or disregards cultural, social, regional, and nations differences in experience and outlook’ (Barry, 2017: 194). In other words, postcolonial criticism challenges the assumption of a universal claim towards what constitutes ‘good reading’ and ‘good literature’; questioning the notion of a recognised and overarching canon of important cultural texts – book, poems, plays, films etc – much of which is institutionalised into academic syllabi.
The arguments around postcolonial critical thought ‘constituted a fundamentally important political act’ (MacLoed, 200: 16)
For an interesting and consise overview of the development of ‘literary canons’ in literature, read Chapter 1 ‘Theory before Theory’ (particulary Literary Theorising from Aristotle to Leavis) in Beginning Theory by Peter Barry link here for extracts.
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’. So what does this mean? What is the ‘Other’?
Often discussed by contempoary philosopher Slavoj Zizek, the recognition of the ‘Other’ is mainly attributed the French philosopher and psychoanalyst 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.
Louis Althusser: ISA’s & the notion of ‘Interpellation’
“all ideology hails or interpellates concrete individuals as concrete subjects, through the functioning of the category of the subject”
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. According to Althusser, ‘the category of the subject . . . is the category constitutive of all ideology’ (214:188). In other words, we are socially constructed and what socially constructs us is ‘despite its diversity and contradictions . . . the ruling ideology, which is the ideology of ‘the ruling class’,’
Althusser noted that individuals often believe that they are ‘outside ideology’ and suggested the notion of ‘interpellation‘ 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 interpellation, which is the way in which your subject identity is formed and which, more often than not, corresponds to the dominant ideology.
” ‘Ideology ‘acts’ or ‘functions’ in such a way to ‘recruit’ subjects among individuals . . . through the very precise operation that we call interpellationor hailing.”
Althusser 2014:190
hailing=following
interpellation= of an ideology or discourse) bring into being or give identity to (an individual or category).
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 such as ‘dirty Nigger!’ or ‘look, a Negro!’ (ibid).
In other words, 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. interpellated by other ‘subjects’ of France, who clearly saw him through the lens of Empire – racial stereotyping, derogatory abuse – as acceptable social interaction. And if you think that is something of the past, look at the tweet received by ex-England international footballer Ian Wright (just posted when I was writing this blog post) or any number of racist incidents that occur everyday in your country, town, city, community and neighborhood. To recognise these incidents is to recognise the concept of ‘interpellation’ and which in terms of POSTCOLONIALISM is through the lens of Empire.
Hegemonic struggle (Gramsci) the chance to reclaim . .
‘from America, black voices will take up the hymn with fuller unison. The ‘black world’ will see the light’
FRANTZ Fanon ‘on national culture’
As an early critical thinker of postcolonialism, 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). In the chapter ‘On National Culture’ (pp;168-178) Fanon presents three phases of action ‘which traces the work of native writers’:
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)
Immersion into an ‘authentic’ culture ‘brought up out of the depths of his memory; old legends will be reinterpreted’
Fighting, revolutionary, national literature, ‘the mouthpiece of a new reality in action’.
Antonio Gramsci – Hegemony
‘It is well known that Alhussser drew part of his inspiration from Gramsci’ (Althusser, 2016: xxiv) the way in which class relations and subject is ‘exercised through a whole set of institutions . . . the place where encounters between private individuals occur.’ (ibid)
However, 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. In terms of postcolonialism Said, notes how ‘consent is gained and continuously consolidated for the distant rule of native people and territories’ (1993:59). 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.
For example, a way of reiterating European superiority over Oriental backwardness though image, sound, word, text, which in terms of postcolonialism, is ‘a flexible positional superiority, which puts the Westerner in a whole series of possible relationships with the Orient without ever losing him the relative upper hand.’ (Said, 1987:228) In other words, ‘being a white man was therefore an idea and a reality.’ (ibid). However, hegemony is a struggle that emerges from NEGOTIATION and CONSENT. As such, it is not total domination (not totalitarianism or explicit propoganda) but a continual exchange of power, through ideas. In this sense, postcolonialism 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. Put another way, it is the power of representation, played out in the realm of the cultural and civic, looking to make an affect on the political and economic.
Fight the Power, the struggle continues
‘According to Said , ‘Imperialism did not end, did not suddenly become ‘past’ . . . A legacy of connections still binds countries . . . a vast new population . . . from former colonial territories now resides in metropolitan Europe’ (1993:341).
Indeed, in 1982, Noam Chomsky indicated that ‘new forms of domination will have to be devised to ensure that privileged segments of Western industrial society maintain substantial control over global resources, human and material, and benefit disproportionately from this control.’ (cited Said, 1993:343). But as we have already seen, culture is both accepting and subverting, reactionary and radical. It is also an evolutionary and organic means of expression and understanding that develops out of specific historical moments of interaction.
So the idea of a MEDIA LITERACY is to equip students with knowledge and understanding that allows them to see the legacy of connections. So that rather acting as an accepting, passive consumer of media texts, they are able to actively engage in the process of meaning-making. Breaking down the layers of construction to grasp the sociological history behind the message. This can be found in any text that you may be asked to look at for your course of studies. At present in the AQA Media Studies A level, students are asked to look at music videos by Common – Letter to the Free, and The Specials- Ghost Town. So in the next section, we can apply some of the ideas that we have presented so far.
Q1:How can you apply the concept of Orientalism to Common’s Letter to the Free?
Q2: Can you apply Fanon’s 3 phase plan of action to this music video?
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?
Syncretism, double consciousness & hybridisation
mechanisms for understanding cross-cultural identities.
“Ain’t No Black In The Union Jack” — A proposal for a new flag for the UK and other socially engaged art work by Gil Mualem-Doron
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 follow this wiki link for more on this point.
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) Put presciently, ‘it has subsequently provided the justification for many a preemptive strike
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) Even Fanon suggests an emphasis on identity as ‘doubled, or ‘hybrid’, or ‘unstable’.
Ghost Town by The Specials conveys a specific moment in British social and political history while retaining a contemporary relevance. The cultural critic Dorian Lynskey has described it as ‘’a remarkable pop cultural moment’’ one that “defined an era’’. 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 in the UK charts, 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.
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.
Q1: Where can you identify ‘hybridity’, ‘ambiguity’ and ‘cultural polyvalency’ in this music video?
Q2: How does this text apply to Fanon’s 3 phase plan of action?
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?
Syncretism, double consciousness & hybridisation
these words are mechanisms for understanding cross-cultural identities.
paul Gilroy (british black accademic) writes about it (grab quote) maybe the place of racism in contemporary political culture.’
His theme of Double Consciousness, derived(developed the idea) from W. E. B. Dubois, <- talked about being black and american
(D.C) is the idea of being black & British or black and american being both
uses the term the vail in video w.e.b
edward cied talks about culture look more into orientalism
Sexism refers to the systematic ways in which men and women are brought up to view each other antagonistically, on the assumption that the male is always superior to the female‘ (1981:13).
As a final part of this brief introduction, it is useful to draw upon Toril Moi’s (1987) crucial set of distinctions between: ‘feminist’, ‘female’ and ‘feminine’.
Feminist = a political position
Female = a matter of biology
Feminine = a set of culturally defined characteristics
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.
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, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (1975)
As Mulvey makes clear, ‘cinema offers a number of possible pleasures’. One is based around Freudian psychoanalytic concept of scopophilia (‘taking people as objects and subjecting them to a controlling and subjective gaze‘ ie OBJECTIFICATION); another is vouyerism (the sexual pleasure gained in looking); another is 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, tums, thighs, legs and breasts, etc. etc) which are exaggerated through cinematic conventions of ‘scale’, ‘size’, ‘focus’.
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 – ‘a complex process of likeness and difference‘. She also, discusses the position of the audience, categorising them as spectators who project their ‘repressed desire onto the performer‘.
‘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.
To apply these concepts to a media text watch this video from feminist frequency. Their work mainly looks at video games, which again shows how this fluid theoretical approach can be applied to a wide range of media and cultural texts.
Sut Jhally
Sut Jhally‘s work 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.
Dreamworlds 3 offers a unique and powerful tool for understanding both the continuing influence of music videos, as well as how pop culture more generally filters the identities of young men and women through a dangerously narrow set of myths about sexuality and gender. In doing so, it inspires viewers to reflect critically on images that they might otherwise take for granted.
Raunch Culture – 3rd Wave Feminism
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
pluralism/inter-sexuality
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). In other words, while on the one hand, the idea of liberation involves new freedoms for sexual exhibition, experimentation and presentation, on the other, it may well be playing out the same old patterns of exploitation, objectification and misogyny?
‘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’
Intersectionality: Queer Theory
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‘ (14:2004).
Van Zoonen
Similarly, Lisbet Van Zoonen also highlights the idea that the concept of ‘woman’ is not a homogenous, collective noun. That students need to be aware of the differences between women, that ‘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, which are explored in this blogsite on these pages: link1, link2). Van Zoonen, prioritises the realm of popular culture as the site of struggle, where identities are continually being reconstructed.
Hook: Multicultural Intersectionality
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). In other words, arguments around gender also intersect with postcolonial arguments around ‘power relationships between black and white women’. So that ‘in a postcolonial context, women carry the double burden of being colonized by imperial powers and subordinated by colonial and native men’ (ibid).
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. Rather intersectionality highlights the way ideas and concepts such as ‘female‘, ‘feminist‘, ‘feminine‘ (Moi 1987) intersect with other concepts, ideas and approaches, such as, sexuality, class, age, education, religion, ability. A way of exploring these ideas is through the work of bell hook.
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. Put another, encouraging us all to ‘think critically’ to ‘change our lives’.ethnicity and race, see for example here work ‘Cultural Criticism and Transformation‘ which was another video production by the Media Education Foundation (MEF), directed by Sut Jhally – part 1 below, parts 2 & 3 at the end of this post.
break down a narrative into. 2 distinct elements those elements which are absolutely essential to the story/plot/narrative development, which are known as KERNELS and those moments that could be removed and the SATELLITES
SEYMOUR CHATMAN rephrased and elaborated on ROLAND BARTHES narratives theory and made it more simple and put it in English sing barthes notes were in french
what is narrative structure? = narrative is the overall structure. Story, the things, the themes. The plot is how you organise all of that.
Pastiche– an artistic work in a style that imitates that of another work, artist, or period.
Bricolage– (in art or literature) construction or creation from a diverse range of available things. something constructed or created from a diverse range of things.
Intertextuality-Intertextuality is the shaping of a text’s meaning by another text. It is the interconnection between similar or related works of literature that reflect and influence an audience’s interpretation of the text. Intertextuality is the relation between texts that are inflicted by means of quotations and allusion.
Implosion-a sudden failure or collapse of an organization or system.
cultural appropriation-the unacknowledged or inappropriate adoption of the customs, practices, ideas, etc. of one people or society by members of another and typically more dominant people or society.
