BFI study day: follow-up work

1.
Constructing and performing gender:

Bell Hooks:

What are her main theories about gender?
Intersectionality between race/ ethnicity, gender and social class and its relation to power in the media.

Your own example that shows her theories in action?
Music Videos
Some films and dramas

Example: 'Samaritans' by Idles
How does this music video link to hooks' theories?

• Males must be sporty/ physically strong/ like to fight
• patriarchy society
• Me are also victims of the patriarchy society
• Only see trauma when they are a child
• "gender becomes a set of connotations that have become naturalised"
• "normalised trauma"
• Patriarchy = male-dominant society

Lizbert Van Zoonen

What are her main theories?

• Built on Butler
• Gender is a performance
• Objectifying women in the media
• 'Liberal Feminist' 
• Equality of opportunity
• Economy representations
• Both men and women are sexualised in the media
• Wrote feminist media studies
• Female - passive, submission (men opposite)
• A force for change
• More sexual and gender diversity in media industries would offer more voices

Your own example that shows her theories in action?

Will Jay - Gangster

Example: 'Stay Where You Are' by Corine Bailey Rae

How does this music video link to Van Zoonen's theories?

• Women fighting - subverts feminine stereotypes
• Pitbull stereotypes subverted
• White male in suit supports homeless man
• Appearance
• Perceptions of sex - appropriate behaviour
• Self Perceptions

Judith Butler:

What are her main theories about gender?

• Gender is a performance - series of gestures, actions, behavioural and dress codes that construct an imaginary 'man' or 'woman'
• Constructed by the media
• 'Gender is the repeated stylisation of the body, a set of repeated acts within a highly vivid regulatory frame that congeals over lie to produce the appearance of substances

Your own examples that show her theories in action?

• St Trillian's
• Hairspray
• Will Jay - Gangster

Example: A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night

How does this film link to Butler's theories?

• Masculine action - weight lifting
• Female wearing make up (has to look good stereotype)
• Female submissive acting
• Hijab - patriarchy

Semiotics - the language of signs:

Saussure and Barthes:

What did Saussure say about how we make meaning from signs and what is the difference between them?

Denotation and connotation. Denotation is the direct or obvious meaning that is explicit. Connotation is the symbolic meaning that is implicit.

What did Barthes say about denotation ad connotation?

• Suspicious of denotation - suspected there was more ideologies involved than people think
• Denotation is actually just a 'dominant connotation'
• Meaning is 'naturalised' so we accept it without question

Example: 'Burn The Witch' by Radiohead

In the first half of the video what images seem to denote a peaceful, harmonious community?

There was a large group of people together as a unified group.

What are the connotations of using animated wooden puppets?

'Burn the witch' - relates to death. 'Creepy innocence'

Why were the 'naturalised' denotations at the start actually part of a more sinister ideology?

Bloody meat on the table.

Stuart Hall - Encoding/ decoding:
What did Stuart Hall say about the way audiences make meaning from the media?

• Reception Theory
• Different readings
• Dominant, oppositions and preferred

Example: Captain Fantastic

What might be some different ways of responding to this scene?

Preferred/ Negotiated/ Oppositional meanings

Preferred - father teachings - want his kids to be socially aware

Negotiated - accept some elements of the meaning but reject others

Oppositional - Insane - giving weapons like knives, bow and arrows etc to kids.



Pulp Fiction and Postmodern Narrative:

What are some key postmodern ideas?

• Hyper reality
• pastiche
• Bricolage
• Intertextuality
• Historical deafness 
• There is no objective 'reality'
• There is no essential 'truth'. Instead there is a multiplicity of 'truths', each equally valid.
• 'Truth' is just a 'discourse' or 'narrative' - a belief that helps us make sense of things
• There is no 'real you': you are just a bunch of experiences infused into a body.
• Nothing is 'original'

Jean Francois-Lyotard and Mentaarratives:

What did Lyotard mean by the term 'meta-narrative'?

• A totalising cultural narrative, that organises thought and experiences into a grand 'story' that makes sense of our lives.
• An ideology but with the features of an ongoing story.
• 'Everything makes sense' - in the contact of this ongoing story.
• 3 key beliefs were - History is progressive/ Knowledge, insight can liberate us/ knowledge has a secret unity.

Pulp fiction is an unconventional narrative:
Who are the 'hero's'? Why do they not seem conventionally heroic?

• Two police officers - dressed like hitmen
• talking about off topic stuff

What do we know about the? What is their quest?

• Justice on the guy has speech impediment

What do the character do (including what they talk about? Does this contribute to their quest ot does it distract them, divert them?

• They talk about foot massages
• Diverts - full debate about whether to wait at the door or not

Jean Baudrillard:

What did Baudrillard mean by the term 'simulacra'?

The imitation that seems more real than the thing it is imitating.

What is hyper reality?

Intensity and resonance that surpass creativity for their audiences. The blur between reality and imagination which makes audiences confused between the two.