Genre Theory...

In our class discussion we talked about the 'Theory of Genre'

The first question was: What is Genre?
Genre means a kind or a type.

We were asked to list as many genres we could, here is a list of mine and a few of my classmates:

• Vampires (Twilight)
• Documentary
• Horror
• Thriller
• Action
• Comedy
• Romance
• Cartoons
• Romantic Comedy
• SCI-FI
• Western 
• Fantasy
• Musicals

Music Genres:

• R & B
• Classical
• Pop
• Rap
• Hip-Hop 
• Jazz

Genres have characteristics features (certain things are linked/ the style of it)that are known to and recognized by audiences. (If they are aware of the genre). This formula is reproduced again and again. For example in Western we see similar characters, situations and settings. (A man on a horse with hat in a countryside)

Audiences and Genres

Why do audiences find genres satisfying?

Audiences develop an understanding that certain expectations may be fulfilled and they may find pleasure in predicting what will happen next. "It is not always about Narrative"

Example:

The Film 'Scream' tells us the 'rules' (Highlights genre- what the game is) of the genre- what's going to happen and the shows it happening. This movie is extremely clever postmodern movie as Scream begins within a film and the characters continuously talks about horror movies. It constantly makes references to other horror movies and it reminds the audience that it is just a movie.

Audiences recognise the key elements or conventions of a genre and respond accordingly. These key elements are called Paradigm. (Villain coming back from the dead)

There are two types of paradigm:

1. Iconographic: signs and symbols. (e.g the costumes, props and settings in a western) In Scream, the props were masks, knives and telephones)

2. Structural: how structures in the text deals with issues such as ideology and gender (e.g how gender is represented in a Rom-Com) This could be the representation of characters, e.g Women that are pure survived and those who are sexually active were killed. The women are seen as "an object of erotic desires" through the male triple gaze.

Genres appeal to a certain target audiences. For example Soap Operas such as Eastenders, Coronation street and Romantic Comedies, Sex and the City apply mainly to females. Whereas BBC News or Sports will apply to males.
Genre tends to become "tired" over a time (They go out of fashion however few years late they are re-introduced)  with the audiences becoming less interested. Dracula was a movie releases years back and the fashion of vampires came back with 'Twilight Saga"

Christina Metz identified four phases:

1. The Initial Phase
2. The Classical Phase
3. The Declining Phase
4. The Parody Phase (Comedy) 

An example of these four phases:

• The Disaster Movie
• Initial- Airport
• Classical- The Towering Inferno
• Declining- Airport' 80 The Concorde
• Parody- Airplane 

Clearer examples are found in more of the western and horror movies.

EXAMPLE!

Questions:

-Which genres on television are currently the most popular?

-Why are they popular?

-Which Genres are most popular in the cinemas?

INSTITUTION AND GENRE

 Types of institution:

-Recording studios

-TV studios

-TV Company

Producers are of generic narratives depend in a certain amount of immediate communication with the audience. They want the narrative to be easily comprehensible. Genres that use key components that are easily recognisable are particularly important. E.G All 6 movie of 'STAR WARS' start exactly the same way.

Audiences know what to expect from a genre but at the same time they want some variations to prevent dissatisfaction and even boredom. Thus any text in a genre is a combination of the familiar and the unexpected. -(Too predictable = boring!) 

Key Components of Genre:

• STOCK CHARACTERS
• STOCK PLOTS, SITUATIONS, ISSUES AND THEMES (e.g McGuffin)
• STOCK LOCATIONS AND BACKDROPS
• MUSIC AND SOUNDS
• GENERIC CONVENTIONS 
• Female Fatale - Thriller?

Problems of Genre:

• Actually defining a genre is inherently problematic.
• E.g What is the difference between an action/adventure film and a Thriller? or between a thriller and horror film?
• Is 'Seven' a thriller, a horror film or a Film Noir?
• Is Film Noir a Genre?!

How can the audiences identify the genres?

Narrative Theory

What is a narrative?
Narrative is the way the story is organised.

Elements of Narrative:

• Time - What period of time does it cover? Flashbacks?
• Closure - A particular way of ending so that the audience leave the cinema pleased and satisfied - No cliff hangers!
• Enigma- The problems created 

In Real life we have lots of problems unfortunately we don't always end up with closure. e.g Breaking up? However media texts seem to have closure. For example CSI  where at the end all the problems/ mystery is solved.

A Classical Hollywood Narratives usually are:

1. Linear (in chronological order: beginning, middle and end)
2. Few , if any, sub-plots
3. Tendency towards closure 

Not all movies are linear, there are also non-linear movies. For example "Memento" this movie ends where it started. Another movie is "Pulp Fiction" which is an extreme postmodern movie, the narrative of this movie is complex as it is all over the place.

Theories of Narrative:

1) Tzvetan Todorov - A Bulgarian Theorist

• Equilibrium -"Everything is fine"
• Disruption- "Something interrupts/ Enigma is introduced"
• Resolution - Solving the enigmas
• New Equilibrium -Characters have moved on and new story...

A good example of this is seen in the movie "Outlaw Josey Wales"

The Equilibrium is  "Ploughing the fields with a happy family"
The Disruption is the "army of horses and houses on fire"
The Enigma is "Who are these people? Where has the wife gone> and Why did they take her?"

2) Roland Barthes
Barthes described all texts as complex "bundles" of unravelled to create a whole range of different meanings. (Different interpretations)

According to Barthes texts can be:
-OPEN: with numerous 'threads to pull'
-CLOSED:  with only one obvious thread to grasp

Texts that can be read in a number of ways are known as POLYSEMIC texts. "Can it be read in different of ways?"

These 'threads that Barthes referred to are known as 'narrative codes'.
The most significant of these codes is the enigma codes.This is constructed to attract and hold the attention of the audience normally by creating a mystery or puzzle that the audience want to see solved. (A problem is created to be be solved by introducing disruption phase. The Enigma code is usually introduced in the disruption phase of Todorov's model. Enigma codes are designed to attract and hold the audience's attention. For example the use of these is Reality shows such as X-Factor, Britain's Got Talent and Big Brother. Before announcing the winner or results there is often the two mins break or straight cut to adverts or camera shots on faces which causes mystery.

3) Vladimir Propp
"All stories have only 8 characters"

-Analysed Folk Stories
-Identified 8 Character roles in these stories.

These are the 8 identified Characters by 'Propp':

1. The Hero
2. The Villain
3. The Donor (Provider)
4. The Helper
5. The Father
6. The Dispatcher
7. The Princess
8. The False Hero.

Propp argued that the characters could fulfill more than one of these roles and there can be more than one of each character type.

THE THREE ACT STRUCTURE:

In Hollywood films, the narrative tends to be organised in what is called a "three act structure". The writer 'Sid Field' (also known as the 'SCRIPT-GURU') has identified what he calls the 'ideal Paradigm three act structure. (All structured in a movie)

1) The Set up
In this structure, a film must be set within the first twenty minutes before the main character or protagonist experiences a 'plot point' that gives him or her a goal that must be achieved.

2) The Confrontation 
Approximately half of the movie's running time must then be taken up with character's struggle to archive his/her goal: this is the 'confrontation' period. - Adventures?

Field also refers, sometimes to the 'Midpoint' a more subtle turning that happens in Act 2- the confrontation which often has an apparently devastating reversal of the main character's fortune. (e.g The hero gets captured but he escapes)

3) The Climax
The final quarter of the film (the third act) depicts a climatic struggle by the protagonist to finally achieve(or not achieve) his or her goal and the aftermath of this struggle. (The Hero takes in the villain)

Levi-Strauss
Levi-Strauss and Binary Oppositions 
Levi-Strauss argued that a structure of narratives was a dependence on binary oppositions. A conflict between two qualities or terms. (This could be seen in a Romantic Comedy - it is set up most of the time in movies). These binary oppositions can form basis of narratives. E.g Young vs Old, Women vs Men, Rich vs Poor and vice versa.

For Example: 'GENDER' - Narratives can be organised through binary oppositions of gender stereotypes.

Binary Oppositions (Levi- Strauss): Constructions of gender roles in narratives lead to a series of binary oppositions. 'Dominant vs. Subordinate'

DOMINANT (Powerful):

• Male
• White
• Middles Class
• Middle aged
• Heterosexual 
• Able-bodied

SUBORDINATE (Less Powerful):

• Female
• Other ethnic groups
• Working class
• The young, The old
• Homosexual, Bisexual
• Disabled.

Audience and Audience's Theory

Audience and Audience's Theory

So far..

We have studied three theories of audience:

• The Effects model
• The uses and gratifications model
• Reception model

Now we will be looking at "SUTURE" and "Feminist film theory and Audiences".

Suture: Classical Hollywood narrative, editing,sound, , Mise en scene 'sutures' or positions the audience in certain ways making one PREFERRED reading (reception theory)possible, however unconscious the audience is of that position.

Feminist Film  Theory and Audiences:

Laura Mulvey is a British feminist film theorist and a film maker. She is known as the "intellectual landscape of media studies. Laura Mulvey is best known for her essay which was written in 1973 but published in 1975 in the British Film theory journal screen. It was called the "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema".  Below  you will find a summary of what she mentions in her essay.



Cinema reflects society: 
Does it really reflect society? In class we had a discussion on whether the cinema does reflect the society, the answer was yes by all the students including the teachers.

Therefore cinema  represents a patriarchal society: 
This means that the society is male dominated, in real life the men are at the top of the hierarchy, For example in the UK women has been banned from being bishops as it has been said that the bible does not allow women to do so. In our government itself, there's only one woman who is important in the parliament and the rest are males. In the House of Lords or Courts, the judges and barristers are mostly men. This shows that the male has a huge impact on society and therefore they dominate.

How does a patriarchal society manifests itself in cinema?
In many movies, it is mainly the male that goes out to work and seem to have the power. This shows that the males do dominate the society and even on screens. It's a stereotype as men are often the "Bread winner", This could be controversial because women these days would refuse to agree because women can do what men can do nowadays so why do we differentiate? There are women out there working as the "bread winner" instead of the man.

The Gaze:
"The gaze of the camera is the male gaze", this means that the camera looks at a woman through a males point of view. As the camera "man" is most of the time males therefore even the camera sees things through a man's eyes. There is only 3% of female directors in Hollywood and the British Film Industry therefore women struggle to make movies however in IRAN the issue is different, most of the film makers there is mostly females.

-The male gaze is active, the female passive.

Within the narrative male characters direct their gaze towards female characters:

 Do women look at males the same way as males look at women? In the class discussion, we found out that males always look at a female character as an object that fulfills an erotic desire.

The spectator is made to identify with the male-gaze, because the camera films from the optical as well as the libidinal, point of view of the male character. Thus three levels of the cinematic gaze "camera-character-and spectator" that objectify the female character.In most movies, females are treated as an object  to be looked at as they're presented as an "object of erotic desires". A woman's role in most movies of seducing men and therefore the man is always the protagonist.

The triple gaze is seen in James's Bond's Dr No.

In this particular scene he camera uses the "male gaze", it begins with a close up shot of Bond's face and it jump cuts to a Long shot of Ursula, We are able to see the expression of Bond's face as he raises his eyebrows which shows he's seen "something interesting". We then switch back to a long, long shot of Ursula  which shows that he is still gazing at her fully. Bond says "Im just looking" which suggests that he is looking at Ursula as an "Object of desire" as if there is female audience watching this movie, they are compelled to watch what the men enjoy watching.

With this theory, the women are forced to look at the screen as if they're males, (preferred reading). Movies are constructed to suit the men's needs which ends up confusing the females, this occurs through the process of suture.

Mulvey's essay also consists of Agency, it's been said that the in classical Hollywood cinema, the male protagonist has agency:
He is powerful and active and is the agent around whom the dramatic action unfolds.

Whereas...
The women are passive and powerless and simply an object of desire for protagonist and audience.
-Mulvey argues that women has two role in films:

• As an object of erotic desire for  characters
• As an object of erotic desire for audiences

In this scene Hale Berry is an "Object of erotic desire" to both the protagonist (Bond) and the audience viewing this scene. Hale Berry uses her body language in order to seduce the audience and protagonist. Bond later says "What a spectacular view" which is obviously referring to her body as his eyes were on her. The fact that there was use of slow motion when she was coming out of the sea shows that it is all intentional, it is deliberately there so that the males can look at Berry as the object.

The completed Music Video.

After all those troubles we've faced, Finally we have the music video!!

Real Artist: Arjun ft Raxstaar

Music: Stargazer

Reception Theory

Give that the Effects model and The uses and gratification have their problems and limitations a different approach to audiences was developed by the academic 'STUART HALL' at Birmingham University in 1970's.

Stuart Hall.

Stuart Hall is one of Britain's leading academic and one of the very first black academic. Also known as founding the father's of media studies.

Stuart Hall has become one of the main proponents of reception theory, and developed Hall's theory of encoding and decoding. This approach to textual analysis focuses on the scope for negotiation and opposition on the part of the audience. This means that the audience does not simply passively accept a text, social control.

Reception Theory considers how texts were encoded with meaning by produces and then decoded by audiences.

Encoded: The original meaning
Decoded: What audiences interpretation was: What they've understood by it.

The theory suggests that:

• When a producer construct a text, it is encoded with a meaning and message that the producer wished to convey to the audiences. (Every text created has it's meaning and message to be sent across)
• In some cases, the audiences will correctly decode the message or meaning by understanding the message intended.
• Sometimes the audiences will either reject or fail to correctly understand the message.

Stuart Hall identified three types of audience reading (or decoding) of the text:

1. DOMINANT OR PREFERRED.
2. NEGOTIATED
3. OPPOSITIONAL

1) Dominant

This is where the audience decodes the message as the producer wants them to and broadly agrees with it. (The right message came across to the audience)

For example: While watching a political message and agreeing with what's been said.

2) Negotiated

Where the audience accepts, rejects or refines elements of the text in light of previously held views.(Don't really care or just on either side)

3)Oppositional: Where the dominant meaning or recognised but rejected for cultural, political or ideological reasons.

E.g Neither agreeing or disagreeing with the political speech or being disinterested. 

A good example is the Song 'Born in the USA' which was played in support of Ronald Ragen to become president. Many listen to the song and "think" that he's just telling the audience that being an American is a proud and patriotic thing and the citizens of American are instantly drawn into thinking that he may be a good president since he shows much pride. BUT!

What is the actual meaning of the song? What's the singer trying to say?

Looking back at the lyrics, you will find that it's about a hard background of living and being in the USA, it looks back into this person's bitter life who had to go to Vietnam for the war.

This song is an example of Oppositional as many people will agree that being an American is a great thing to do whereas others look at the lyrics and disagree which is what the producer wants.

The uses and gratifications model.

The Uses and Gratifications Model is the 'OPPOSITE' of the Effects model.

It suits everyone different interests and temperaments, gender and age.

The audience are more:

• active and no longer passif
• uses the texts and NOT used by it
• uses the texts for it's own gratification or pleasure.- Your needs and wants are being satisfied.

The power lies with the audience, this theory emphasises what audiences do with media texts, how and why they use them. Audience are free to reject, use or play with media meanings.

Audiences therefore use media texts to gratify needs for: 

• Diversion
• Escapism
• Information
• Pleasure: takes away any stress or anger.
• Comparing relationships and lifestyles with one's own.
• Sexual stimulation.

The audiences is in control and consumption of media helps people with issues such as:

• Learning
• Emotional Satisfaction
• Relaxation
• Help with issues of personal identity
• Help with issues of social identity
• Help with issues of aggression and violence

Controversially the theory suggests the consumption of violent images can be helpful rather than harmful. This theory suggests that the audience acts out their violent impulses through the consumption of media violence. The audience's inclination towards violence is therefore sublimated, and they are less likely to commit violent acts.

Finished Magazine Advert!!

This is the finished ancillary task. I am now going to analyse this advert.

The Heading:

The colour of the heading is red because the it signifies Romance and the fact that it's the only writing that's coloured is because I want it to stand out. The main aim of the video is a love story and the use of red colour sends out the message as red associates with romance and love as well as passion.

The Background/Image:

The image is in black and white, however it was originally taken in colour. Yes, there is a reason to why it is in black and white. These colours you don't often see in magazine adverts therefore it would easily catch the audience's attention amongst those other bright coloured magazine advert. The aim of this whole use of rare colours is keep it sweet and simple rather than packed and filled with bright colours which could grab an individual's attention instantly. The image is of the couple holding hands, holding hands signifies love and attachment which is what this music video is about. It shows that they don't want to be apart from each other...

The Scan Code:

Many youngsters seem to own a blackberry and since i am an owner myself i know how this works. The Blackberry app world consist of an app which you can download for free and scan things to find out prices or where something is available. I think the use of this barcode is effective in my magazine cover because my intended audience is teenagers, Teens usually own blackberry's and thus they would want to scan to find out whats available for them.

HMV/Itunes/Amazon:

HMV is where people usually by music and movies from, having this on the magazine advert informs people where the music is available for purchase. Itunes is also a known software where people usually buy their music from thus as well as it's advertising Itunes, it also helps us get our intended audience to go buy it. Amazon is a site from where you can order things, having this on the magazine advert shows the audience other ways to get hold of the music.

Quotes:

"All I need is a guitar and my baby" this quote is part of the lyrics of the music, by including this on the magazine advert makes the audience wonder what this could be about and it also gives them a hint of the storyline of the music.