Seymour chatman: SATELLITES & KERNELS

This theory allows students to 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. Think about the way satellites orbit something bigger like a planet. Satellites can therefore be thought as useful to develop character, emotion, location, time and so on, but NOT ESSENTIAL. In this way they are really useful creative elements but not essential to the story. As such, some elements may emerge and play out but actually turn out to be of little value, meaning or consequence to the overall / main parts of the narrative – these can be called non-sequitars. Nevertheless, the use of light & shade is very important in terms of constructing an effective and enjoyable narrative.

ghost town

When we first think about political protest, what comes to mind?
○ Attempts to change to laws or legislation
○ Organised political movements
○ Public protests
○ Petitions, marches
However, we can look at political protest in terms of:
○ Cultural resistance
○ Everyday people
Why look at cultural resistance?
○ Overt political protest is uncommon. When it occurs, it often results in a backlash.
○ Even if overt political protest does results in changes in legislation, it won’t necessarily change public
opinion.
○ Culture is what influences people’s hearts, minds and opinions. This is the site of popular change.

Hegemonic: dominant, ruling-class, power-holders
Hegemonic culture: the dominant culture
Cultural hegemony: power, rule, or domination maintained by ideological and cultural means.
Ideology: worldview – beliefs, assumptions and values

Cultural hegemony functions by framing the ideologies of the dominant social group as the only legitimate
ideology.
The ideologies of the dominant group are expressed and maintained through its economic, political, moral,
and social institutions (like the education system and the media).
These institutions socialise people into accepting the norms, values and beliefs of the dominant social
group.

As a result, oppressed groups believe that the social and economic conditions of society are natural and
inevitable, rather than created by the dominant group.

Birmingham school was the first to notice youths which were punks and teddy-boy etc which therefore invented the idea of the teenager.

Bringing race into the picture in the 1980s, Paul Gilroy
highlighted how black youth cultures represented
cultural solutions to collectively experienced problems
of racism and poverty.

Music influenced kids to stand up against racism.

Margret Thatcher proposed black people as a threat to white British citizens.

Police didnt do anything about white on black crimes as they were brainwashed by news papers and the government to believe it was right and that it was black peoples fault.

New cross fire 1981 when a believed white British citizen set alight a group of black people celebrating a friends birthday police said they were on drugs fought and killed each other even though there were witnesses.

film posters analysis

This image is similar to what I want my film poster to look like. The hand is the dominant signifier coming from what seems like the ‘unknown’. The ‘unknown’ is to signify the outside that the girl has always been made sure to beware of. This poster can be portrayed as polysemic because it is open to interpretation as such, the audience does not know what it means or what the context behind it is.