Magazine Media - cloudfront.net

Transcription

MM
edia agazine
english and media centre issue 51 | february 2015
Empowering
women
SEXUALITY IN SF
Coping with
copyright
Taylor Swift
Clean Bandit
V I R T UA L
REALITY
The decline of the
film star
MM
MM
This magazine is not to be photocopied.
Why not subscribe to our web package which
includes a downloadable and printable PDF of the
current issue or encourage your students to take
out their own £12 subscription?
MediaMagazine is
published by the
English and Media
Centre, a non-profit
making organisation.
The Centre publishes a
wide range of classroom
materials and runs
courses for teachers. If
you’re studying English
at A Level, look out
for emagazine, also
published by the Centre.
The English and Media Centre
18 Compton Terrace
London N1 2UN
Telephone: 020 7359 8080
Fax: 020 7354 0133
Email for subscription enquiries:
[email protected]
Editor: Jenny Grahame
Subscriptions manager:
Emma Marron
Design: Sam Sullivan
Print: S&G Group
Cover: Ivan Sutherland’s ‘The
Sword of Damocles’ (virtual
reality)
ISSN: 1478-8616
Well, the timing may not be great,
but if you’re an AS student, as well as
honing your analytic and production
skills for your forthcoming exams, you
really need to be keeping an eye open
for the way the media are representing
our 7th May General Election. You
could kick off with Tom Brownlee’s
article on the TV campaigns around
the Scottish Referendum, then whizz round the party websites to
see how they’re constructing their identities, their representations
of the issues they’re highlighting, and their uses of different media
platforms and appeals. You’ll need all this stuff for next year’s exams
– and you can get ahead of the game right now by allocating tasks
within your group: for example, someone to collect newspaper
headlines, monitors for Facebook and Twitter, someone else to track
the online responses of opinion-formers and party leaders, or to
keep an overview of cartoonists’ work, and so on. You could even
write about your experience of the electoral campaigns for our
MediaMag writing competition.
Powerful women are a recurrent theme of this magazine, with
two really powerful non-British films ideal for A2 film students,
and a research-based introduction to the new adaptation of Vera
Britain’s Testament of Youth. But we’re also covering both Beyoncé
and Taylor Swift, as well as Clean Bandit’s Grace Chatto – strong
women indeed. If you’re working on a mashup, parody or pastiche
for your production coursework, you must read Julian McDougall’s
extremely useful article on copyright and the new Copyright Users
Portal. And anyone with the remotest interest in new technologies
should have a close look at Damien Hendry’s introduction to
the virtual realities in store via Occulus Rift and other such
developments, where you’ll be in at the birth of a whole new range
of codes and conventions.
Finally, a reminder to everyone that time is ticking by for our
two competitions – the deadline for both is Friday 20th March.
On page 5 we’ve suggested a few ideas to get the ball rolling for
student writing; and the entry forms for both competitions are
downloadable from our home page. We’ve been expecting you…
In April’s MediaMag
Russell Brand; Social media surveillance; Mockingjay; Bad
language on TV; Owen Jones; cosplay; idedology and more!
2 MediaMagazine | February 2015 | english and media centre
MM
contents
04
06
10
14
18
The Front Page
The latest media news and
views.
22
Re-imagining Fargo and
Hannibal
43
Wadjda and Female
Empowerment
The Media Concepts:
Representation Old and
New
In her latest guide to the
key media concepts, Steph
Hendry explores one of
the most powerful and
controversial of them all,
and demonstrates how
the changes in our media
landscape have influenced
the ways we view the world
and ourselves.
26
Your Country Needs You!
What role did the media
play in the battle for hearts
and minds in perhaps
the most important vote
in a generation – last
September’s Scottish
independence referendum?
Expat Scotsman Tom
Brownlee surveys the
battlefield.
The Decline of the Film
Star?
Nick Lacey dismisses rumours
of the death of the moviestar – and discovers that the
future is international.
Cold as Ice? Viral
Campaigns and Charities
Does the use of viral
campaigns by charities really
make a difference, or does
it just make us feel better?
Discuss! Clare Gunns fuels
the debate.
30
33
Jonathan Nunns takes a
forensic and gore-splattered
look at what happens when
an iconic and controversial
film is re-imagined for longform TV drama.
Copyright Regulation
(Remix)
Professor and examiner
Julian McDougall outlines
what you really need to
know about the issues
around online regulation and
copyright.
Virtual Dreams and Rifts
in Reality
Damien Hendry reports on
the latest developments in
Virtual Reality.
48
50
54
An Interview with Grace
Chatto of Clean Bandit
Barbara Bleiman interviews
one of the powers behind
the hugely popular classical/
pop group known for their
amazing videos.
36
Covering Gender –
Beyoncé, GQ and Vogue
39
Girls ‘n’ the Hood? Bande
de filles
58
Emma Calway compares the
coverage of a global icon
in two contrasting lifestyle
magazines.
A powerful new film about
girl gangs in the Parisian
suburbs is on its way. Roy
Stafford compares it with La
Haine.
63
Preparing for the FM4
Specialist Study on
Empowering Women? Mark
Ramey explains why this film
is so important.
The Male Gaze Cartoon
Deconstructing Taylor
Student Lydia Kendall uses
media concepts to challenge
the media representations
of Taylor Swift – from the
perspective of a fan.
Un-straightening the
Future – Sexuality in
Science Fiction
Steve Connolly suggests
a less threatening way to
approach issues around the
representation of sexuality:
through the ‘otherness’ of
science fiction.
Testament of Youth 2014
– From Memoir to Movie
Vanessa Raison introduces a
terrific case study example
of the UK Film Industry at
work – and a very topical
introduction to research
skills.
Westgate – One Year On
How is a world news story
configured differently in
different places? Expat
Maggie Miranda compares
her personal experience with
local and international news
coverage of a terrorist attack
that shook the world.
english and media centre | February 2015 | MediaMagazine
3
MM
The world’s biggest-ever
Hobbit project?
Like’em or loathe’em, we need your
thoughts about Hobbits. If you’ve seen
any of the films in the Hobbit trilogy,
Professor Martin Barker of Aberystwyth
University invites you to take part in a
global research project exploring the
appeals of fantasy for audiences. Read
on to discover why, and how to get
involved.
What’s the link between these? Game
of Thrones … The Maze Runner …
The Hunger Games … The Lord of the
Rings … Harry Potter … add your own.
It’s obvious, isn’t it? All blockbuster
movies. All ‘fantasies’. OK, but look at
the differences. One mock-medieval
version of the Wars of the Roses. Two
post-apocalypse stories of teenage
survival. One near-allegorical version of
the struggle between good and evil. One
coming-of-age school story, with added
magic. Yes, but still all ‘fantasies’.
And that’s the question. What might be
the appeal and importance of ‘fantasy’
to audiences? Of course there are a lot of
people who just use the word to dismiss
it all as cheap, throwaway, commercial
trash: ‘it’s just fantasy’. We don’t think
that’s right. So we decided to try to find
out. Using as our way-in the release of
the final film in the Hobbit trilogy, we’ve
launched a research project to gather
people’s views of those films, and this
kind of story-telling as a whole.
When I say project, I actually mean the
most humongous megaproject of all
time. Research teams in 46 countries
around the world, gathering responses
in over 30 languages. Hoping to recruit
over 50,000 responses at our website:
www.worldhobbitproject.org. The
trouble is, we may be huge, but we are
doing this on almost no money. So we
are utterly dependent on people visiting
our site and completing the survey there
(20 minutes is all it should take) – and
then telling relatives, friends, and ‘Friends’
about it.
If you’ve seen the films, it doesn’t matter
if you saw them because you are some
kind of fan (of Tolkien, of Peter Jackson,
of Martin Freeman, whoever) or just
someone who likes to catch a big movie
around Christmas. It doesn’t matter if you
thought (as some people have) the films
were streeeetched too far from the book,
or if you loved the three-year build up
– or just got dragged along by friends.
Whatever your views on the films, we
need to hear them.
Who are ‘we’? We are university
researchers interested in audiences,
and how ordinary people enjoy and
make sense of films. We are not linked
in any way to the filmmakers – this is an
entirely independent operation. And we
are promising that everything we learn
will make its way back into the public
domain, so audiences can learn about
each other. From Brazil to South Africa to
Slovenia to Japan, and of course the UK –
please, take a bit of time to go to
www.worldhobbitproject.org and let
your inner ‘critic’ speak to us! And then
make your friends do it too …
Thanks!
Martin Barker, Professor of Film & Television
Studies at Aberystwyth University.
Calling all
teachers – how
inspiring are you?
Do you, or a colleague, use film to
support topics in the curriculum
or engage with students that
find traditional learning methods
difficult? Have you ever used film
to tackle challenging subjects like
bullying or racism? Do you include
filmmaking activities in your lessons,
or encourage your pupils to develop
their critical analysis and literacy
skills by discussing films and writing
reviews?
To celebrate the value of film as
a learning tool and champion
educators who are using the
medium interestingly and effectively
in class, Into Film is inviting teachers
to nominate themselves or a
colleague for its ‘Most Inspirational
Use of Film in Class’ Award.
Nominations may be made by
teachers themselves, by a colleague,
parent or student, and must include
an example of work to demonstrate
the inspirational use of film in the
classroom.
The winner will be announced at
an Awards ceremony at London’s
prestigious Empire Leicester Square
on 24th March 2015. Film industry
professionals will be attending
the ceremony, which also includes
other categories to showcase
young people’s involvement
in film and education. Entries
to the Inspirational Use of Film
category must be submitted by
5pm on February 26th at http://
www.intofilm.org/awards2015inspirational
The
MediaMag
2014
Student
Conference
Well, we loved it – but then we would
say that, wouldn’t we? However, 930
students and teachers seemed pretty
excited to be part of a day topped and
tailed by two of the most influential
journalists of our time, Jon Snow and
Owen Jones, with creative inspiration
from Destiny Ekharaga, Jake Wynne and
Pete Fraser. Indeed, students were still
queuing halfway round the building to
talk to Owen and Destiny an hour after
the conference closed, so we must have
got something right. The complete talks,
as well as interviews with the presenters,
are now available to MediaMag web
subscribers – just ask your teacher for
your username and password. In our next
issue we’ll be publishing interviews with
Owen and Jon.
In the meantime, MediaMag’s favourite
moments included Jon Snow posing for
hundreds of selfies with students before
pedalling off for an interview for Channel
4 News; Jake’s anecdotes about working
with the Spice Girls; and Destiny’s
experiences as a black woman director,
and her thought-provoking views on
diversity.
If you missed it as an AS Level student,
all is not lost – our 2015 Conference is
already in our sights, and this year it will
be earlier, on 5th November. Our first
speaker is already booked – in response
to popular demand, Owen Jones will be
returning for a re-match, so you’ll be able
to catch him for some (metaphorical)
fireworks. Make sure you watch out for
details as they appear on our home page!
MM
The MediaMag Writing
Competition!
Our very first writing competition has launched, and we want your writing. But
what do you want to say, what form do you choose you say it in, and where do
you start?
Writing from the heart
The best ‘real’ writing (as opposed to the forms of writing required for
coursework, exam answers, or practice essays) will come from a passion –
whether a response to a news event or debate which angered or provoked you, a
film or TV text which inspired you, or an experience – a game, a twitter exchange,
a production or a gig – you’re immersed in or blown away by. Your choice will be
personal, so there are no set topics or titles – but here are some prompts which
just might get you started.
Join the debate
So far in this year’s news, we’ve seen the appalling events at Charlie Hebdo, and
the inspiring displays of solidarity and community Europe-wide, raising huge
questions about free speech, censorship and extremism. The Royals have taken
another bashing, with the news of Prince Andrew’s alleged indiscretions, and
the Palace’s protection of its own. Controversy rages around the forthcoming
electoral campaign TV debates and who will have a platform. Page 3 has gone
and come back, and the No More Campaign is still live. All these news stories
reflect on the issue of the right to speak out. Do you have a view?
Share your passions!
Meanwhile in the world of media, it’s Awards season. Boyhood, The Theory of
Everything, or Birdman – three entirely different frontrunners, all featuring the lifejourneys and/or crises of their male protagonists. Which one would get your vote,
and why? Are you a passionate viewer of Broadchurch 2, Wolf Hall, Cucumber or
Banana, or even (dare we say it?) Mr Selfridge? Is there a social media platform,
an app or a piece of media technology which has changed your life, or without
which you could not survive? Write about it!
Is there an iconic or cult figure in any contemporary media form you feel deserves
wider recognition in an article, whether a performer, writer, director, musician,
columnist, thinker or theorist? Are you a fan – a Whovian, or a Sherlock-ite(?), a
Swiftie or a Little Monster? Share your passion, make your case, explain what
your icon means to you either as an expert ‘curator’, a journalist, or from a fan’s
perspective.
Choose your own rules
The only rules are length – 1000 words or under. Choose your own format – a
feature article; an op-ed (comment) piece on a particular issue, an interview,
dialogue or imagined conversation; a graphic or photojournalism piece, or even
a treatment or a script. Nothing is out of bounds, except plagiarism or a practice
exam essay.
If you’re not sure whether your idea is a good one, run it past your teacher, or mail
a one-paragraph summary to
[email protected] and we’ll get back to you with some advice.
You’ll find the entry form on the MM home page. Make sure your entry arrives by
Friday 20th March. Good luck – we’re waiting for you …
The Front Page was compiled by Jenny Grahame.
5
MM
In the latest in her series
of guides to the key media
concepts, Steph Hendry explores
one of the most powerful and
controversial of them all, and
demonstrates how the changes
in our media landscape have
influenced the ways we view the
world, and ourselves.
again), and so the images and ideas
we see on screen, in print or online are
‘removed’ from the original object. The
media intervene and stand between
the object and what we see – the act
of communicating the image or idea in
some way changes it.
For example, take the following image
created by the surrealist artist Magritte as
long ago as the late 1920s.
work helps us to identify the way media
products create ideological meaning.
Representations and the
Mass Media
Traditionally, the power to create
representations has been in the hands of
media producers working within media
institutions. In ‘old’ pre-digital media
forms this is still true. A film director
makes choices which will determine how
s/he will represent the city in which the
story is set; a TV producer will decide
if a positive or negative presentation
of the subject will be created; a press
or TV news editor will decide on the
appropriate slant for a journalist’s story.
In my last article I argued that media
products were constructed carefully
in order to create meaning. It is the
combination of media language
choices that construct a representation.
In print media the process works like this:
Understanding how representations are
created, and how they create meaning, is
• The Duchess of Cambridge is a person
central to an understanding of the media,
– she is flesh and blood, she exists.
as everything that appears in the media is The pipe may be a superficially accurate
portrayal – but it is a re-presentation of a • A photographer takes her picture. If
in fact a representation.
this is an official picture, Kate and the
pipe from Magritte’s perspective, rather
The word representation itself holds
royal team will have given considerable
than the pipe itself.
a clue to its importance. When we see
thought to the outfit she is wearing,
Representations are always, in some way,
a person, place, object or idea being
the location of the image, her pose,
filtered through someone’s point of view,
represented in a media text, it has in
facial expressions etc. If this is an
and carry particular meanings or values.
some way been mediated by the very
unofficial or paparazzi photo, Kate
act of representation. A representation is In other words, they are ideological. Thus
herself may have tried to control the
an understanding of how representations
a re-presentation (literally – to present
image as much as possible, but the
MM
‘snapshot’ is now controlled more by
the photographer.
• A picture editor selects the photo from
a whole series of images to be used to
illustrate a news story. The image may
be cropped, resized and, in some cases,
photoshopped.
the context of the image, and the other
media language choices that surround
it. Try writing captions for the photos
above. You should quickly see how easily
you could create both a positive and a
negative representation from the same
image.
• A news editor will decide on the way
The How, Who and Why of
the story will be presented, and the use Representation
of captions to pin down, or anchor, the
When analysing representations, it
meaning of the image.
is always essential to question who
is creating them, and why. All media
• The photograph of Kate Middleton
products have a specific function which
in the newspaper is a re-presentation
will impact on the representations they
of what she looks like, with people
construct. Producers will consider:
controlling and manipulating the
image at various stages throughout the
• the expectations and needs of the
process.
target audience
• The Duchess herself, the person, is
• the limitations provided by genre
some distance away from the image
codes
that is reproduced.
• the type of narrative they wish to
See above for two images from the
create
same event that create different ideas
about the Duchess. Which picture would •their institutional remit.
you use if you wanted to imply that the
All representations, then, are the
Duchess had a bit of a drinking problem? cumulative effect of a collection of
The photograph, then, is a representation
of the Duchess. It may look like her
but, in addition to her likeness, it will
communicate ideas about her that are
created during the mediation process.
The photographer, picture editor and
news editor are its ‘gatekeepers’: at each
stage of the representation process,
attempts can be made to shape and
control the image, depending on the
nature of the story, and the news agenda
at the time. Thus a photograph of the
Duchess could be used to help stir up
positive support for the Royal Family;
alternatively it could imply a critical view
of the monarchy. Much depends on
media language choices. Certain choices
are made; others are rejected. The
representation itself is the combination
of these selections and rejections. The
elements that are rejected do not carry
the meaning the producer wants to
communicate. Even a simple element
such as the choice of wallpaper used
to dress the set of a soap opera family’s
living room will help to create ideological
meaning – for example, by suggesting
that the family are hard-up, show-off
and tasteless, or chic and fashionable
(see p.8). Of course, the wallpaper is not
ideological in itself, but combined with
the other representational choices, it
could help to create ideological meaning
as just one element of the overall
representation.
The values above can be seen as genre
codes for soap operas, repeated time
and time again in different shows. This
repetition of values and ideologies
starts to feel very ‘natural’ to the viewer.
The critical philosopher Roland Barthes
argues that the ‘naturalisation’ of
ideas in this way actually acts to hide
the ideology from view. It is present
within the text but we don’t recognise
it because it comes across as being
common sense, just ‘the way things
are’. This is not the same as saying that
the media has a direct and immediate
effect on the audience. It does,
however, suggest that certain ideas
go unquestioned, which can lead to
‘the silencing of difference’ (Barthes). If
something seems ‘natural’ then there is
no point in questioning it.
Another Approach to
Ideology – the Work of
Stuart Hall
The cultural theorist Stuart Hall
developed a hugely influential approach
to the ways readers/audiences make
sense of the ideological meanings of
televisual texts. Hall’s critique is known
as the ‘Encoding/Decoding Model’, and
still challenges conventional assumptions
about how media messages are
produced, circulated and consumed.
Hall argued that audiences do not
necessarily accept the ideology of texts
passively, but instead draw on their own
cultural and social experiences to create
their own interpretations. In his view
‘meanings’ and messages are not fixed
by the creator of the text, but depend
7
MM
Wallpaper
Choice
Positive Representation
Negative Representation
Old fashioned,
tatty and faded
Characters struggle for money
but place greater value
on family and supporting
one another than on home
improvements and ‘keeping
up with the Joneses’.
Characters are assumed to be
lazy and unmotivated. They lead
unhealthy life-styles and resent
others’ success. Family relationships
may be stressful, and there may be
disputes with neighbours.
New, clean and
fashionable
The characters are successful,
and hardworking. They take
pride in what they have, and
enjoy sharing their comfort
with others. The home is an
important place for them.
The characters are successful but
may value their financial success
and material possessions over
friends and family. They have lots
of ‘stuff’, and enjoy showing it off,
but fail to value it and take their
success for granted.
Ideological
Meaning
In TV drama, the domestic setting and mise-en-scene are symbolic
indicators of the broad values underpinning the narrative – in
soaps, generally the value of hard work, strong family ties and the
importance of home. The wallpaper, like characters’ dress codes,
body language or dialect, is one of the micro-elements that helps
to create these ideological meanings.
on the relationship between the reader/
viewer, and the text. In the wallpaper/
family values example above, you may
support the implied ideologies, and
therefore you might accept the intended
meaning. However, some audiences
may only partially accept the meanings
being offered by a text; Hall calls this the
negotiated position. Other audiences
might reject them completely (the
oppositional position).
Representations and New
Media
With the rise of new media, audience
members can now construct and
share their own media products, and
in websites, video-sharing platforms
and social media there are more
opportunities for people to represent
themselves than ever before. Individuals
can now engage in the act of selfrepresentation, often on a daily basis,
through the creation of social media
profiles and content.
When we post an image on Instagram
or some thoughts on Facebook, we are
constructing an idea of ourselves, and we
are distributing it to our followers or our
friends. The choices we make in terms
of which images to upload and which
comments to create a construction of an
idea about ourselves. Social media allow
us to construct selective and controlled
representations of the public identity we
wish to communicate to the world.
We may define ourselves in a variety of
ways. Our personal identities may be
based on the characteristics we see as
being part of who we are – e.g. our age,
gender, sexuality, ethnicity – or we may
foreground our cultural identities, based
on our sense of belonging (or not) to
specific cultures or groups.
There is, of course, some overlap here.
We may identify ourselves through our
personal sense of masculinity and/or
femininity but we may also associate
ourselves with particular cultural groups
based on gender identity.
In these ways, the style of a specific selfie,
the identification with our favourite
book or film, or the clothes we choose
to be seen wearing become the ‘media
language’ choices we make when
constructing our own identities online.
We may have one consistent identity,
but it is more likely that we have a range
of different identities that we draw on
in different contexts. We may construct
these identities in slightly different ways
that relate to the groups we are in and
the way we identify with that group.
The carefully constructed social media
images below are examples of selfrepresentation by Zoella, aka Zoe Sugg
– the celebrity YouTube vlogger recently
outed for hiring a ghostwriter for her
hugely successful first novel Girl Online.
Zoella’s expressions show she is aware of
the camera and poses carefully to create
the visual image that supports her video
persona. Part of her appeal is that she
is perceived by her 2.6 million (!) Twitter
followers as a ‘normal person’ rather
than a celebrity media construction; but
this identity is carefully constructed and
maintained. Her audience identify with
her, and she offers an aspirational lifestyle
that her fans admire. Indeed the wave of
support from her 6 million YouTube fans
when she temporarily ‘took a break’ from
vlogging when the ghostwriting was
exposed seems to confirm their knowing
acceptance of her highly constructed
personality.
Increased opportunities for selfrepresentation also mean that previously
under-represented groups – for example
people with particular minority faiths,
political beliefs or health conditions –
may be able to create a broader media
presence. Less visible groups may be
able to address the use of simplistic
stereotypes in the mainstream media;
MM
they can represent themselves actively,
rather than simply being subject to the
way media institutions portray them.
An Example: Representing
National Identity in Old and
New Media
Old media forms have always attempted
to define and construct an identity
for their audience, using certain types
of representation to prescribe how
people think about themselves and
others. National identity is invariably
raised during national sports
competitions. During the 2014 World
Cup, The Sun sent a free newspaper
to 22 million households in England
which represented its own concepts of
‘Englishness’ by symbolic references –
queuing, the Sunday roast, Churchill
and The Queen – to heroes, values
and behaviours that the paper (and its
owners, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corps)
defined as appropriate expressions of
‘English identity’.
This representation may have helped
some audience members to identify with
a certain idea of national identity and
our politicians seemed keen to represent
themselves in relation to it, reinforcing
The Sun’s messages about what it means
to be British.
However, social media forums and
comment pages allowed many people
to voice their rejection of the messages.
Through self representation, they
were able to show that they distanced
themselves from the values in the tabloid
newspaper.
The way we think about representation
is changing; traditional approaches that
focus only on the large media institutions
now seem a little out of date. We may
find the different groups to which we
belong are represented by the media in
ways that may not always seem accurate
and fair; and as individuals we may
find that much of our knowledge and
understanding of the world comes from
limited media representations circulated
by traditional media organisations. But
digitisation has vastly expanded our
opportunities for self-representation,
and contemporary media forms and
platforms offer more voices and more
viewpoints than ever before through the
diversity of representations they offer.
Steph Hendry is a lecturer in Media at
Runshaw College, and a freelance writer.
Follow her on Twitter @albionmill
MoreMediaMag
from the archive
Representation of War in TV News,
MM45
A Serious Business: The Politics of Two
American Sitcoms, MM38
The Ideology of The Batman Trilogy,
MM44
Stuart Hall – A Beginners’ Guide,
MM20
9
MM
Last September’s Scottish
independence referendum included
16- and 17-year-old voters for
the first time. What role did the
traditional TV political broadcast
play in the battle for hearts
and minds in perhaps the most
important vote in a generation?
Expat Scotsman Tom Brownlee
surveys the battlefield, in a brilliant
case study for anyone studying
Propaganda, Politics and the
Media, and Media and Democracy.
On September 18th 2014, Scottish
adults voted on the question,
‘Should Scotland become an independent
country?’
‘Yes.’
‘No.’
‘No, thanks.’
‘Are you yes yet?’
‘Better Together.’ ‘
Aye!’ ‘
Naw!’
‘Mibbe?’
While new media played an important
role in the Scottish Referendum, both
Yes and No camps relied heavily on
the propaganda role of traditional
television political broadcasts to
influence the four million registered
voters. This article considers three such
broadcasts to analyse their impact.
media and old fashioned canvassing
to outflank what it perceived as the
pro-union bias of the ‘Better Together’
campaign. Yet while ‘Yes Scotland’
energised a wide sweep of the nation,
its message was ultimately rejected by
55% of those who voted on the day.
Propaganda – Appeals to
the Head and Heart
So what do we mean by propaganda
and how did the two sides try to win
over the Scottish public? Wikipedia’s
definition is as good as any:
Information, especially of a biased or
misleading nature, used to promote a political
cause or point of view.
In a sense, propaganda appeals both to
the head and the heart.
One familiar and frequently analysed
template for propaganda in the UK is
the Lord Kitchener WW1 recruitment
In the pro-Union camp – vote ‘No’ –
poster. Its message – ‘fight for your
stood the Conservative, Labour and the
country’ – is communicated through
Liberal Democrats. The Independence
direct address and the use of personal
cause – vote ‘Yes’ – was led by the
pronouns (Yes. YOU.). It further works
Scottish National Party, the Greens, and
by establishing relationships of
a loose network of support groups such
hierarchy and deference; and signifiers
as Commonweal, which relied on social
MM
of class, position and authority are
asserted through the military uniform,
the flamboyant, hyper-masculine
moustache, and the fixed male gaze.
Combined, these signifiers cement
Kitchener’s authority over his male
audience. They are addressed as British
men who naturally defer to their social
superiors, using the iconography of
masculine pride and patriotic duty. It
seems crude now, but it established the
generic conventions for propaganda for
a sizeable portion of the 20th century
and endures today: see the images
of Vladimir Putin in heroic mode on
horseback for a recent example.
The Role of Television
Although in recent political history
social media have played an
increasingly important role in shaping
public opinion, in the Referendum
the three-minute television campaign
broadcast remained the most powerful
tool. I will analyse three key broadcasts
from the final weeks before the vote.
Using the conceptual framework to
deconstruct this sample, we will see
how a mix of advertising ‘know how’
and political spin can be used to shape
opinion. Opinion polling indicated
that large sections of the electorate
remained undecided throughout the
campaign period. Reaching them was
the key to success.
1. Better Together: The
Woman Who Made Up Her
Mind or #Patronising BT
Lady
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/
uk-scotland-28951673
https://twitter.com/hashtag/
PatronisingBTLady
Polling suggested that a sizeable
proportion of women voters were
genuinely undecided. These swing
voters were invaluable to both
sides, and Better Together’s (BT)
August broadcast sought to speak
directly to the concerns of this niche
demographic. Thus was born The
Woman Who Made up Her Mind. It
starts with her sitting in her kitchen
drinking a cup of tea while her
husband and children are away. Cast
as the embodiment of the ‘supermum’
archetype she confesses that juggling
the demands of job, home and family
has prevented her from following
the debate closely. By breaking the
fourth wall (i.e. speaking directly to the
camera), the character seeks to create
a sense of complicity and identification
between herself and the female viewer.
Her personal struggle with the decision
before opting for BT is supposed
to reflect a frank and non-partisan
approach to politics. The producers
are using the popular advertising
technique of personalisation in order
11
MM
to characterise and play to a certain
socio-demographic type. Previously
market researchers have identified
social types such as ‘Worcestershire
woman’ or ‘Basildon man’, for instance,
as a means to address their values
and attitudes. The character in this
advert might be called ‘Fearful Fiona’,
the average woman anxious about her
family and, by extension, her nation’s
financial future.
What the Better Together advertisers
failed to anticipate was the scope
for a subversive reading of the text.
Their representation of the average
housewife seems to have stepped out
of a ‘70s TV detergent commercial, and
might be confessing to substandard
laundry. BT was swiftly accused of
stereotyping Scottish women as
politically ignorant, family-obsessed
housewives with lower levels of
education than men. ‘Yes’ campaigners
pounced on the opportunity for some
mischievous satire by creating the
‘Patronising BT Lady’ meme, which
went viral within hours of the first
broadcast. The widely parodied Better
Together broadcast wasn’t aired again.
2. Yes Campaign: ‘Look Out
World: Here I Come’
http://www.youtube.com/user/
YesScotland
‘I can dress myself’, whispered by a wee
lassie, establishes independence as the
theme of the Yes broadcast. Again, the
main message is anchored by a woman
(that crucial demographic again!) who,
symbolically, is a florist – the ‘flower
of Scotland’. Speaking frankly to the
camera she asks, rhetorically:
independence. It’s what we want in our lives –
so why not for our country?
Bathed in an optimistic glow of bright
colours, the chorus of persuasive,
aspirational characters delivers a
message of sunlit hope. Both literally
and metaphorically, the emphasis is
on dynamic movement, whether it is
within the frame or in panning and
tracking shots. This version of Scotland
is going places. Each section of society
– young and old, male and female,
rural and urban – are characterised in
the campaign video. To balance the
female spokesperson, the producers
place a muscular Scotsman (a modern
day Braveheart?) seen running through
a rugged Highland landscape, which
has connotations of natural strength,
power and virility, both of the land and
its people. Overall it echoes Obama’s
‘Hope’ message of 2008 and contrasts
with the fretfulness of the previous
BT broadcast. ‘Look out world, here I
come,’ says a long-haired student, as
MM
advert stresses aspiration, movement
and progress, BT’s brand values are of
community, stability and solidarity. ‘Yes’
scored a majority with people aged
under 50, while ‘No’ was the choice of
the over 55s.
Highland lochs sparkle, children play
happily in the sunshine, and active old
folks joyfully dance in a presumably
comfortable and fulfilling retirement.
3. Better Together:
Solidarity Forever
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/
uk-scotland-29230269
The subtext behind the final piece is
the battle for the traditional Labour
vote, which seemed to be drifting
towards the ‘Yes’ camp. The narrative
falls into two portions – past and
present – but the message is simple:
choose solidarity, not separation.
Montage sequences are used to build
momentum throughout the piece. The
first minute is devoted to a nostalgic
While each side deployed the
iconography of the Scottish landscape
and buildings, they both resisted the
obvious temptation to wrap themselves
in plaid. Romantic ‘tartanry’ is the
province of Visit Scotland, the country’s
tourism marketing agency, and not the
reality for the vast majority of people
both in the message and in its narrative
living, working and voting in Scotland
structure. A male voiceover (Voice of
today.
God narration) guides and anchors our
Eventually, as we know, the majority
interpretation of the visual wallpaper
of Scots voted to keep the country in
on the screen.
the UK. After two years of electrifying
The only other spoken words come
debate up and down the country, in
from Gordon Brown, the soberlyclassrooms and school assemblies,
attired former Labour Prime Minister
across the internet, in TV debates and
and redoubtable Scottish MP for
in acres of newspaper space, at public
Kircaldy and Cowdenbeath. Brown’s
meetings, over a pint and over the
intervention is a classic example of
dinner table, Scotland can now boast
the ‘Two Step Flow’ theory identified
of having some of the most politically
by Lazarfield and Katz in the 1940s.
aware and media literate citizens in
This is a process whereby influential
the UK. With the upcoming UK General
opinion leaders filter and interpret
Election featuring resurgent Greens
media messages and pass them on
and, of course, UKIP, it promises to
to influence others. Speaking directly
offer a thrilling clash of political styles
to the audience, Kitchener-style,
and modes of political persuasion.
the familiar figure of Brown offers
General Election 2015 could prove
just as exciting for students of political
propaganda as last year’s referendum.
Tom Brownlee is Head of Media at Richard
Hale School, Hertford.
MoreMediaMag
from the archive
Politics, Propaganda and the Press,
MM45
YouTube – Politics and News, MM21
Your country needs you: Former Prime Minister and Scottish MP, Gordon Brown speaking directly to
the audience
tribute to the sacrifices of previous
generations, suggested through
flickering, black and white archive
footage of the labour movement,
including millworkers, hospital staff
and soldiers. ‘Real’ people are shown in
large groups as a metaphor for a social
solidarity which transcends nationality
or region. In its nostalgic pitch to
both older and younger voters, the
producers emphasise traditional values,
Your Top 30 YouTube Political Clips,
MM38
reassurance to an older, and perhaps
more cautious, target demographic
in a way that avoids the faux pas of
earlier broadcasts, and seeks to win
over wavering Labour supporters in
the final days before the vote. But
where Kitchener points directly at the
subject, Brown’s open-handed gesture
suggests openness and friendship. He
has influence rather than power over
his audience. Where the earlier ‘Yes’
13
MM
MM
Here’s a name you may never have heard
of: The ‘Biograph Girl’. Who is she? You
may well ask – many thousands of her
fans were once desperate to know the
answer. When she was finally named, in
1910, as Florence Lawrence, she heralded
the Hollywood star system, and became
the first ever movie star.
Nick Lacey dismisses rumours
of the death of the movie-star
– and discovers that the future
is international.
In the early days of cinema, film actors
were happy to remain anonymous, for
they considered movies to be beneath
them. Producers endorsed this anonymity
to stop actors demanding more money
for their services. This changed when
producer Carl Laemmle poached
Lawrence from the Biograph Studio and,
in a publicity ruse, announced that she
had died in an accident. He then placed
an advertisement in the St Louis PostDispatch suggesting that enemies of his
production company had lied about her
death, and that he would prove that she
was alive by arranging an appearance in
St. Louis to promote her new film. Crowds
swarmed to see – and from that point
on, stars were used to promote films and
became integral to Hollywood for the rest
of the century.
Film stars became extremely well paid
if they were successful, and are still
important to film industries across the
world, particularly in India. Hollywood,
however, seems to be falling out of
love with stars. Consider, at the time of
writing, the current top ten films of the
year so far (end of October 2014) based
on the North American box office:
US Top Ten 2014
1. Guardians of the Galaxy
2. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
3. The Lego Movie
4. Transformers: Age of Extinction
5. Maleficent
6. X-Men: Days of Future Past
7. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
8. The Amazing Spider-Man 2
9. Godzilla
10. 22 Jump Street
(source: boxofficemojo.com)
Let’s compare this to the North American
top ten of 1994 (with stars in parenthesis):
US Top Ten 1994
1. Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks)
2. The Lion King
3. True Lies (Arnold Schwarzenegger)
4. The Santa Clause
5. The Flintstones
6. Dumb and Dumber (Jim Carrey)
7. Clear and Present Danger (Harrison
Ford)
8. Speed (Keanu Reeves)
9. The Mask (Jim Carrey)
10. Pulp Fiction (Bruce Willis, Uma
Thurman and John Travolta)
(source: boxofficemojo.com)
Pulp Fiction actually featured three stars,
although its success is best characterised
by its status as a Tarantino film. Over
half the films were star-driven, and
only three of the films were based on
already-known properties. During the
last 20 years Hollywood has increasingly
relied upon pre-sold material, whether
as part of a franchise, remakes or based
on television series and popular novels,
rather than star vehicles.
In the last three years, focusing on the
top ten films, only Robert Downey
With the exception of Guardians and The Jr., Johnny Depp and Tom Cruise can
Lego Movie (and even these were pre-sold conceivably be considered to have been
as part of the Marvel Universe, and a well- a key factor in selling the films they
known toy respectively), every film here is appeared in; and even these were all
part of franchises: Iron Man, Pirates of
a sequel or remake of some kind. Of the
10, only Maleficent (based on a character the Caribbean and Mission: Impossible
respectively. Stars are no longer crucial to
from Sleeping Beauty, US, 1959), and 22
the success of blockbuster films.
Jump Street are built around their stars,
Angelina Jolie, Jonah Hill and Channing
Tatum.
15
MM
This is not to argue that Hollywood has
given up on stars. In 2014 there was an
attempt to see whether Melissa McCarthy
could carry a movie on her own: the
answer is ‘probably not’, based on the
$85m domestic box-office of Tammy
(US). The significance of stars has been
superseded by franchises that are usually
special-effects-driven.
The Rise of the CGI Franchise
Although the blockbuster CGI franchise
movie isn’t new – Star Wars first appeared
in 1977– in recent years Hollywood has
reduced the numbers of middle-budget
movies in favour of pinning all their
hopes on the few big-budget ‘tentpole
releases’ that don’t use stars as their main
selling point. This is because during the
early years of the 21st century it became
clear that while movies starring A-list
actors typically had higher box-office
revenues, the fees for those actors were
so high that they wiped out the extra
revenues the stars brought in – leaving
studios with the same profits they
would have made if they had relied on
lesser-known creative talent. (Elberse,
2013. Blockbusters: Why Big Hits – and Big
Risks – are the Future of the Entertainment
Business)
So are Hollywood stars in terminal
decline, only striking box office gold if
they are in a franchise? The answer to
that is ‘probably not’.
The film market in North America, which
includes Canada, has been ‘mature’ for a
number of years: the number of tickets
sold has been steadily declining even if
annual box office revenues have been
increasing slightly due to the inflation of
ticket prices. However, the international
market (most of the ‘rest of the world’)
has been expanding rapidly; this is
especially the case in China, and stars are
still golden currency in these developing
markets.
The Tom Cruise Effect
For example, Tom Cruise, whose last film
Edge of Tomorrow disappointed Warners
so much that they renamed it Live Die
Repeat on its DVD release, is still able to
generate massive box office revenue
internationally. Compare the takings of
his last five films and you can see the
international market makes up 70% of
the revenue for his films.
This compares favourably with the North
American 2013 Top Ten, which took
63% of their revenue internationally,
suggesting that Cruise’s star power
Movies driven by CGI (computeradds seven per cent. Admittedly these
generated imagery) may cost a lot
calculations are little more than a ‘rule of
to make but, unlike A-list stars, the
thumb’, and are not a robust statistical
special-effects companies don’t take a
analysis. But there’s no doubt that the
percentage of the box office, and so these
studios recognise that star power remains
are more profitable for the major studios.
important internationally. For example,
In addition, it costs no more to market a
$200m movie than one that costs $100m
Cruise Films
North American gross/ International gross/
to produce; so the more expensive a
percentage ($m)
percentage ($m)
film, the more the promotional costs are
Knight and Day (US, 2010)
76/29
186/71
proportionately reduced relative to the
production budget. Given that it is the
Mission: Impossible – Ghost
209/31
485/69
mega-budget movies that are the most
Protocol (US-UEA-Czech
profitable, this increases the studios’
Rep., 2011)
profits.
Jack Reacher (US, 2012)
80/37
137/63
In short, the studios have found that
Oblivion (US, 2013)
89/31
198/69
the only way to be profitable, following
the shrinking of the DVD market, was
Edge of Tomorrow (US-Aus,
100/27
264/73
through the global success of their
2014)
biggest movies, which are invariably their
Totals
554/30
1270/70
franchises. These, by their nature, are
pre-sold; and so the search for properties
Source the-numbers.com
Jack Reacher (2012) was an attempt
that are serial, like ‘young adult’ novels
to kick-start a franchise based on the
such as the Divergent trilogy, or The
character from Lee Child’s novels. Despite
Hunger Games, is paramount. And after
its poor showing at the domestic box
purchasing Marvel Studios and the Star
office, a sequel has been announced,
Wars franchise, Disney seems to be a
suggesting the $137m international gross
prime example of this trend.
MM
was more than enough to compensate
for Cruise’s decline in popularity in
America.
The Power of International
Finance
The internationalisation of Hollywood’s
business is epitomised by the countries
involved in the financing of Cruise’s
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol:
United Arab Emirates and Czech
Republic. Looper (US-China, 2012), which
was recently named the top science
fiction film of the century in a British Film
Institute poll, was part-financed by a
Chinese company. This explains why the
wife of ‘Old Joe’ (Bruce Willis) is Chinese
(Xu Qing); the film’s Shanghai scenes
were more extensive in the version
shown in China (these were originally
intended to be Paris). Similarly, in Iron
Man 3 (US-China, 2013), Dr. Wu (Wang
Xueqi) has a bigger role in the Chinese
version.
One of this year’s surprise hits Lucy
(France) looked like a Hollywood film,
and starred Scarlett Johansson
and Morgan Freeman. However,
it was written and directed by
Luc Besson and produced by his
EuropaCorp company. Similarly,
the tsunami disaster movie The
International (Spain, 2012) was a
Spanish production. The reason these
films are made in English is to give
them a greater chance of success
internationally; English is the lingua
franca.
It is arguable that America’s cultural
influence is in decline; it’s just that we
in the West haven’t noticed. The villain
in Lucy was played by Choi Min-sik (in
east Asia surnames are given first), a big
star in Korea. Whilst Choi is familiar to
some Western audiences (see Oldboy /
Oldeuboi, 2003), many other East and
stars can be both local and Hollywood;
for Westerners, mostly it’s just the latter.
How long will it be before the financial
focus of the film industry moves, as it
has done in cricket, to the East? Who will
be the Asian ‘Florence Lawrence’, and
become a big star in the West as well as
the East?
Nick Lacey teaches Film and Media Studies,
is the author of several Film and Media
Studies textbooks, and is a freelance writer.
MoreMediaMag
from the archive
Starstruck, MM26
South East Asian stars aren’t. For example,
Uhm Jung Hwa and Han Hyo-joo are
both regarded as big stars in South
Korea, and Hindi cinema still has a fullyfledged star system including Kareena
Kapoor, Deepika Padukone, Ajay Devgan
and Salman Khan, names far less familiar
in the West. For film fans in East Asia,
There Will Be Blood – Star Persona,
MM24
The Cultural Influence of
Hollywood
While it may seem that these non-major
studio films are challenging Hollywood’s
hegemony, the films themselves look
like conventional American products.
Indeed, it’s highly unlikely that many
realised that Lucy is not Hollywood-made.
So although any success these films
have will hit Hollywood’s profitability,
they do reinforce a sense of American
cultural imperialism. It doesn’t matter
which country makes the film; in order
to be successful globally it has to mimic
Hollywood. And the concept of the star,
for so long synonymous with Hollywood,
has not yet waned.
17
MM
ARE VIRAL CAMPAIGNS UNDERMINING
MEANINGFUL INVOLVEMENT FOR CHARITIES?
Did you do the ice-bucket
challenge to fundraise for a
charity this summer? And, if so,
is that where your commitment
ended? Does the use of viral
campaigns by charities really
make a difference, or does it just
make us feel better? Discuss!
Clare Gunns fuels debates which
A2 students could use for AQA’s
New Media and Identities, or
the OCR topic We Media and
Democracy.
At the beginning of July my Facebook
feed showed a single video of an old
school friend dumping a bucket of
iced water over his head. He then
nominated three friends and dedicated
it to another old friend, Tony, and
included a link to his blog about living
with ALS called ‘Don’t Shrink.’ By the
end of the summer, my newsfeed
was an almost continuous stream of
videos with people chucking, pouring,
screaming, swearing, nominating,
dedicating and, in most cases, donating
to various causes.
causes whilst actually having very
little meaningful involvement. UNICEF
built a recent campaign on this insight
(see left), with a large advertisement
advocating the message that
The Twitter hashtag
‘#ALSicebucketchallenge’ was a
viral success, resulting in massively
increased awareness and donations
for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, a
degenerative muscular disease that had
previously struggled to find a footing in
the public’s consciousness.
It seems that the ease with which it
is now possible to participate is both
an advantage and disadvantage to
charities. Online lobbying groups such
as 38 Degrees have benefitted hugely
from new media. Instead of spending
Likes don’t save children’s lives. We need MONEY
to buy vaccines.
Charities are concerned that new
media spread the public too thinly
across a variety of causes, rather than
dedicating meaningful time, effort and
money into a small number of needy
groups.
Simultaneously, the movement
attracted criticism from a range of
places, including those concerned
by water wastage, or alleging that
those completing the challenge were
‘slacktivists’, who were more concerned
about representing themselves as part
of the phenomenon, than about those
living with ALS.
time and money gaining signatures
on petitions in person, or persuading
‘Slacktivism’ is a term coined to describe people to write letters to their local
MPs, all it takes is a couple of clicks on a
the way new media allow an audience
standardised letter format, and you can
to feel they are involved in charitable
Slacktivism
MM
used or contributed to a crowdfunding
project where individuals can raise
money for ventures that banks refuse
to support. All of these examples of
clicktivism are evidence that supports
Shirky’s belief that digital media is not
just about promoting a cause; it is also
a way of ‘facilitating social change and
activism’.
How Deep is Involvement?
However, critics would argue that
in the vast majority of cases, the
public’s involvement in these causes
is superficial. Micah White, the activist
behind the Occupy Wall Street
campaign, holds a dim view of online
activism. According to his article for The
Guardian in 2010, White believes that
support any campaign of your choice.
You will even receive email updates to
prompt your involvement, and to tell
you how your local MP has voted.
Equally, it is much easier to donate
and support charities and fundraising
events than it has ever been before.
Online petitions are no longer used just
by lobbying groups; many charitable
groups and non-governmental
organisations (NGOs) are using this
method to highlight their particular
cause. In his 2008 book, Here Comes
Everybody: The Power of Organizing
Without Organizations, Clay Shirky
describes the term ‘Clicktivism’ as
collective action that
clicktivists damage every genuine political
movement they touch.
and Amnesty International can
continue to garner large-scale
international support for their causes
via online petitions; but now members
of the public may also use new media
to support their smaller ideas.
He goes on to explain that the desire
for numbers overshadows actual
dedication to a cause. By focusing on
‘inflated figures’, campaigns often miss
the opportunity to genuinely engage
individuals. Once the novelty of online
activism wears off, people who were
socially active actually end up feeling
that they didn’t really achieve anything
– making them less likely to get
involved the next time.
For example, you may have been asked
to sponsor someone via a website such
challenges existing institutions by eroding
as JustGiving.com. You may be involved
the institutional monopoly on large scale
But Does it Work?
in an online-organised boycott of
co-ordination.
Nevertheless, it is difficult to argue
a company, as advised by Ethical
with statistics that show how many
Thus large charities such as Greenpeace Consumer.org. You may even have
19
MM
people become involved and aware
through online movements and,
particularly, how much money can
be raised through a successful viral
campaign. According to a recent BBC
report, from 29 July to 28 August this
year the American ALS Association
received $98.2 million, compared with
$2.7m donated during the same period
last year. Visits to the ALS Association
website peaked at 4.5 million on the
20th of August, in comparison to an
average 17,500 before the ice bucket
challenge. Similarly, ALS’s followers on
Twitter more than doubled, whilst the
UK’s Motor Neurone Disease account
had 6000 new followers.
A recently released infographic on
vox.com (see right) demonstrated
the influence that awareness and
engagement has on a charity, in
comparison to the number of people
actually affected by the problem.
For instance, breast cancer came top
in terms of money raised, with $257.85
million in the U.S. Second was prostate
cancer and third was heart disease. In
comparison, heart disease was actually
the biggest killer by far, with 596,77
American deaths in 2011, followed by
emphysema and chronic bronchitis
in second place and diabetes in third
MM
place. Breast cancer’s pink media
campaign has been hugely successful
in bringing awareness and engaging
people through their personal
experiences. Encouraging people to run
or walk in sponsored events in memory
of a friend or relative actively connects
individuals with the charity. Similarly,
the very gendered pinkness has made
raising money for breast cancer a way
for women to unite against a common
enemy.
impact it was having on Tony and
his family. The donations may not
continue to the heights of this summer;
and the majority of the people who
threw ice over themselves may forget
ALS, and move onto the next viral
phenomenon. But for some people,
this has highlighted a cause that they
will continue to support because it has
engaged them personally.
The statistics speak for themselves but
I’ll let Tony’s unquantifiable blogging
demonstrate that clicktivism and
slacktivism shouldn’t be dismissed as
a sign of modern superficiality. For
some people and causes, a genuine
difference can be made:
Ice Cold Thanks. Wednesday
September 10
Ali Costerton, Senior Project Manager
with Public Life, an agency that builds
websites and branding for charities,
agrees that finding people who are
engaged with the issue is the key to
success for projects. However,
as with the mass participation of petitions and
viral campaigns, some action is better than
none and this initial minor action can provide a
route to these people.
Which brings me back to my friend
Tony. At the beginning of July, like
most people, I had no idea what ALS
stood for, let alone what a devastating
‘The wonderful thing for me, which mirrors the
campaign, is the awareness I see increasing
among my friends and in my community and
the generosity my family has been shown in
the past two months. I’ve seen a huge number
of ice bucket challenges performed in my
honour. They, too, are humbling, uplifting, and
emotional to see. Every once in a while I get a
message from someone asking how they can
donate some money to my family. The donation
– and every donation – is humbling, uplifting,
and emotional to receive. Every time.’
Follow it up
http://www.dontshrink.com/Tony
Conway
Townsend, L. 2/09/2014. ‘How
much has the ice bucket challenge
achieved?’ in BBC News Magazine
http://www.bbc.com/news/
magazine-29013707
White, M. 12/08/10. Clicktivism
is ruining leftist activism.
http://www.theguardian.com/
commentisfree/2010/aug/12/
clicktivism-ruining-leftist-activism
Belluz, J. 20/08/1. The Truth about
the Ice Bucket Challenge: Viral
memes shouldn’t dictate our
charitable giving. http://www.vox.
com/2014/8/20/6040435/als-icebucket-challenge-and-why-we-giveto-charity-donate
Shirky, C. 2008. Here Comes Everybody:
The Power of Organizing Without
Organizations
MoreMediaMag
from the archive
Too Shocking for Words, Barnardo’s
2003 Campaign, MM7
Spreading the Word – Viral and Subviral Advertising, MM11
Clare Gunns is Head of Media at the British
School of Brussels, and currently on
maternity leave.
21
MM
MM
Jonathan Nunns takes a forensic
and gore-splattered look at what
happens when an iconic and
controversial film is re-purposed,
or re-imagined, for long-form
TV drama. And he’s chosen two
seriously wicked examples ... (NB
contains spoilers).
There are times when an idea for a
film or TV series just makes your heart
sink, particularly if the idea includes
the word ‘re-imagining’. Re-boots are
fine: a freshen-up for a tired franchise
has often worked wonders. Just look at
the profits for Casino Royale (Campbell
2006) and The Dark Knight (Nolan,
2008). However, when ‘re-imagining’ is
mentioned, it usually refers to one of
two things.
The first is, ‘let’s take something iconic
and complete and try to extract some
more money from it’. This is like saying,
‘let’s make Apocalypse Now the TV
show. Of course we’ll have to update
it to Iraq rather than Vietnam, cut out
the drugs since it’s for primetime, and
lose the unpatriotic politics, as we don’t
want to upset the sponsors.’ Eventually
not only do you often lose what was
good about the source material in the
first place, you tarnish the memory of
the original.
The other approach is to re-imagine
something originally made in a foreign
language – hey, audiences clearly can’t
be asked to read and watch pictures at
the same time – resulting, for example,
in the workmanlike but largely
redundant English language versions
of Scandi Noir dramas The Bridge
(2011-present), The Killing (DR, 20072012), The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
(Oplev, 2009) and Let The Right One In
(Alfredson, 2008).
Two recent TV re-imaginings, however,
have been unexpectedly successful.
Who would have thought, for example,
that the much-loved 1995 Coen
Brothers masterpiece, Fargo, set in the
chilly wastes of North Dakota, would
transfer so well to the small screen?
Or, for that matter, the Hannibal
Lecter film franchise, which included
Manhunter, Silence of the Lambs and the
critically slaughtered (pun intended)
Hannibal Rising? Why tamper with
these? What could be gained, other
than cheapening the memory of the
originals?
Yet both series have aired to
great acclaim and have been
re-commissioned for subsequent
seasons.
‘Have you ever danced
with the Devil in the pale
moonlight?’
So said Jack Nicholson’s Joker in Tim
Burton’s Batman (Burton, USA,1989)
The term has its roots in folklore, and
means ‘Have you ever found yourself
in a horrifying situation when no-one
is around to help?’ As the Joker (the
murderer of Batman’s parents) goes on
to comment, ‘I say that to all my prey’.
Dancing with the Devil might be the
ultimate form of extreme sports, but it’s
unlikely to end well.
Hannibal and Fargo both feature
characters who take up the Devil’s
invitation, which is in large part what
makes them so interesting. However, in
only one of them does the dancer pick
up the smoky smell and really wonder
who they are dancing with.
‘Aw Jeez!’ It’s Fargo
One of the pleasures of this icy,
snowbound TV series is that it replays
none of the characters from the film.
Instead it recycles the freezing midWestern setting and precisely replicates
the darkly humorous tone of the
original. The plot and characters are
entirely new.
23
MM
‘Is This What You Want
Lester?’ (Malvo)
Put-upon milquetoast* Lester Nygaard
is a loser on every level: a failed fortysomething salesman, husband and
brother, despised and browbeaten
by everyone, including a school bully
who has tormented him all his life.
Lester, as played by Martin Freeman,
the hangdog actor from The Office (BBC
2001-2003) and The Hobbit (Jackson
USA, New Zealand, 2012), initially
seems an example of tired typecasting.
Until, that is, he has a chance meeting
in a hospital waiting room.
Chigurh in No Country for Old Men.
(Coen and Coen, USA, 2007). In a
subplot, a doltish personal trainer
attempts a crime well above his paygrade and becomes the victim of one
Lorne Malvo (Malevolent?) might just
of Malvo’s cruellest schemes, much
be the devil himself. The drifter hitlike Brad Pitt’s equally doomed fool
man (Billy Bob Thornton) is a full-on
in Burn After Reading (Coen and Coen,
agent of mayhem and chaos. With a
USA, 2009). Finally for the true Coen
chance remark, Lester inadvertently
obsessive, the little red windscreen
sets this monster on his tormentor.
scraper, the marker for Steve Buscemi’s
Shortly afterwards, Lester’s school
buried loot in the original Fargo movie,
bully is dead. At the same time, Malvo
unleashes in Lester the boiling rage and makes a timely reappearance, proving
first a blessing, then a curse.
resentment of the little man who has
been thwarted and abused his whole
Most fascinating though are the
life – the same fury that made Breaking characters, primarily Lester and Malvo,
Bad’s Walter White (Bryan Cranston,
but also Molly Solverson (solve by
USA, 2008-13) so compelling an antiname and...?), the overlooked sheriff’s
hero, morphing from ‘the little guy’ into deputy who sees through Lester’s ‘Aw
his deadly alter ego, the meth-cooking heck’ folksiness in an instant, whilst her
Heisenberg. In Fargo, Malvo lets the
boss simply can’t believe anything bad
genie out of the bottle and in no
about ‘little Lester’.
time the horrified Lester has removed
Lester is at first terrified but then
another of his tormentors, shockingly
empowered and emboldened by the
bludgeoning his hectoring wife to
possibilities of his situation. Finding
death.
his inner psycho, there is more than a
Amongst the show’s pleasures is
little Heisenberg in Lester’s framing of
the time it takes to remind us that
his own brother for murder, and in his
we are still in the weird world of the
rapid ascent to become Salesman of
Coen brothers. Malvo, a supremely
the Year, with a palatial new house and
competent assassin, reminds us of
trophy wife to match.
Javier Bardem’s role as the implacable
Lester has a chance meeting with
Malvo in a Vegas Hotel, months after
the original Events. Malvo is clearly
on another job, and is unwilling to
acknowledge Lester while under deep
cover, but Lester won’t let it lie. His
genie won’t go back in the bottle,
and he simply has to demonstrate
his alpha male credentials, even (or
especially) with someone as dangerous
as Malvo. Seconds later, Lester has
reduced Malvo’s meticulous plans to
bloody tatters, and the two are set
on a collision course, each becoming
the other’s nemesis. Lester learns that
making a deal with the man downstairs
(even by chance) doesn’t mean you
get to ‘walk on water’. As for Malvo:
like Frankenstein, be careful what you
create when you play God – it may be
just as dangerous as you are.
‘I Do Enjoy Having Friends
for Dinner’
So comments the brilliant but very
chilly Dr Hannibal Lecter (Mads
Mickelson) at one of his epicurean
feasts. Hannibal is not only an eminent
psychiatrist and go-to guy for the
FBI when they need help profiling
criminals, but also a chef so Cordon
Bleu that his cooking makes the
MasterChef final look like a pit-stop at
a burger van. Hence his dinner parties
are a hot ticket for the FBI’s great and
good. What the glacial doctor lacks in
warm repartee is more than made up
for by his world-class cuisine. Naturally,
his guests are unaware of his more
unorthodox ingredients. Suffice to say,
it might be best to avoid the good
Doctor’s sushi when bodies are turning
up with bits missing.
Old Nick’s dance partner in Hannibal
is Will Graham (Hugh Dancy), an FBI
profiler of such quivering angst and
empathy he is able to project himself
directly into the heart of a serial
killer’s psychosis. He is so completely
empathic that he is able to use the
results to solve the crimes. Naturally
Will has spent far too much time
inside the minds of madmen, and is
himself a complete mess. In freefall, his
personality disintegrating, he is placed
into the ‘care’ of Dr Lecter.
MM
You might expect that Will would
immediately see Lecter for what he is,
since that is what he is so good at. But
this time, the dancer does not hear
the clatter of the cloven hoofs. Since
Will is pure emotion, he is unable to
penetrate the utter logical coldness and
inhumanity of the emotionally absent
Lecter. Hannibal couldn’t be more alien
if he came from Pluto. In one scene he
appears in a sci fi-ish hasmat suit, to
avoid getting gore on his impeccable
tailoring whilst cutting his victim a
smile wider than the Joker’s.
Having accepted his own odd
proclivities, the Doctor has become an
arch-manipulator embedded within the
FBI itself, shining the spotlight away
from his own murders by aping the
modus operandi of other killers, thus
passing his crimes off as theirs. Feelings
like guilt, remorse and empathy simply
don’t apply to Lecter. He scrutinises
human beings like a scientist might
consider the contents of a Petri dish. He
needs what he needs, and has as much
empathy with his victims as a great
white would for a tuna fish. His killings
are calculated and perfectionist in their
orchestration, as is everything else he
does. To quote Nicholson’s Joker again,
‘I make art until somebody dies’; but in
Lecter’s case, considering his culinary
interests, it might be more appropriate
to say ‘Somebody dies and then I make
art’.
No surprise then that Will can’t see
what Lecter intends. Considering the
doctor his physician and friend, he
cannot see the trap closing as Lecter
destabilises him physically, emotionally
and professionally. When Will coughs
up something nasty, his blackouts and
delusional behaviour leave him without
alibi or credibility, neatly providing the
FBI with a prime suspect. When Lecter
finally allows his mask to slip and Will
realises what’s coiled beneath, seeing
his true adversary for the first time
proves to be of no help at all.
Does the Devil Have all the
Best Tunes?
Both Fargo and Hannibal turn out to be
unexpectedly complex and creative. It’s
been widely suggested that with HBO
shows like Game of Thrones, Breaking
Bad and Boardwalk Empire, this is a
golden age for television. That Fargo
and Hannibal might join their ranks
is more than a little surprising. Who’d
have thought that ‘re-imagining’ could
be so imaginative?
The advantage of long-form TV drama
is its ability to develop and sustain
character arcs over a length of time,
and with a degree of depth impossible
for film. For the show-runners of Fargo
and Hannibal (Noah Hawley and Bryan
Fuller) to have made such complex
and compelling narratives from such
unpromising material, suggests that it
might not be just Lester and Will who
have been dancing with the devil by
the pale moonlight.
At the time of writing, Fargo has just
won two Golden Globes, three Emmys
and American Film Institute Series of
the Year.
*Milquetoast (definition):
A weak or timid person. Derives from the character
Casper Milquetoast who appeared in the 1920’s US
newspaper comic strip ‘The Timid Soul’.
Follow it up:
Fargo Season One DVD (2013)
Hannibal Season One DVD (2014)
Vine, R. Fargo Recap: Season One,
Richard www.theguardian.com/
tv-and-radio/series/fargo-episoderecaps (accessed 29/10/14)
Hannibal Season One, www.imdb.
com/title/tt2243973/ (accessed
29/10/14)
Hannibal Season One, www.
denofgeek.com/hannibal (accessed
29/10/14)
‘Have you ever danced with the
devil in the pale moonlight?’
definition www. answers.yahoo.
com/question/ index?qid=
20070109194950AAWipM0 (accessed
29/10/14)
MoreMediaMag
from the archive
Is Hollywood Out of Ideas? MM44
Fine Young Hannibal, MoreMediaMag
2007
Jonathan Nunns is Head of Media Studies
at Collyer’s College and Moderates for the
WJEC.
25
MM
Professor and examiner Julian
McDougall outlines what you
really need to know about the
issues around online regulation
and copyright, and introduces a
great new free resource which
should make a complicated topic
crystal clear.
Each year hundreds of A Level Media
students like yourselves choose to write
about media regulation in their exam,
and it’s also a factor in your production
work. As you progress to higher
education, especially on courses with
more of a focus on creative industries
and working practices, it becomes an
even more pressing issue.
What Exactly is Copyright?
Copyright is a set of rights through
which people who make media
of all kinds – writers, visual artists,
filmmakers, musicians and other types
of creators – can control the use of their
work and get paid for it. Importantly,
copyright protects the expression of
ideas and not the ideas themselves.
Therefore, although a creator can take
But my experience of marking A LOT
inspiration from other people’s ideas,
of exam answers on media regulation
to copyright his/her own work the
is that students tend to draw more
creator must express those ideas in his/
on traditional ‘big media’ case studies,
her own individual way – otherwise, it
sometimes outdated in the focus: too
much A Clockwork Orange, not enough doesn’t count as ‘original’. This is given
Leveson Report. An obvious opportunity automatically: so as long as your work
is original and in permanent or fixed
is being missed here – to compare
form, you have copyright.
and contrast one of those more
obvious examples with the complex,
Copyright is obviously a form of media
and perhaps less ‘clear-cut’ world of
regulation. But to understand its
online media regulation, in particular
importance we first need to ask: what is
intellectual property and copyright in
media regulation anyway?
‘Media 2.0’ contexts.
MM
approaching these complexities is to
Media Regulation –
Protecting Who From What? think about the examples available at
the time of studying the issues as being
Media regulation is always intended to
on a continuum. At one end is the
protect. It relates to power in various
more straightforward ‘black and white’
ways. If we accept that the media
stuff, where there is a ‘right answer’. At
are powerful, then regulating them
the other extreme is the really messy
is necessary in terms of reducing
case study where it all depends on
influence and ‘effects’. The media can be
whose point of view you take, and
regulated in terms of their content or
which examples you choose. And in the
their ownership and distribution.
middle are those areas where there are
Media regulation is, of course, a kind
different arguments, but it’s possible to
of power – there are laws that prevent
choose one or the other.
journalists, for example, from reporting
For instance, we might position
some things, and sometimes those
copyright regulation of parody videos
laws protect the powerful more than
on YouTube at the messy end, the
the ‘little people’. And various media
regulation of harmful content in film
institutions themselves would like to
classification at the other, and the
see more regulation of social media
outcomes of the Leveson Enquiry in
and, for different reasons, of copyright
the middle. We’d all agree that we
and of intellectual property. To make it
don’t want children seeing certain
even more complicated, the regulation
explicit material; where you stand on
of copyright isn’t just about Taylor Swift
taking her music down from Spotify,
but also struggling new artists trying to
make a living; you may know someone
in that situation – or it might even be
you.
4. Internet regulation – control of
online gaming content/access
compared to online copyright
regulation.
5. Press self-regulation (PCC) compared
to online copyright regulation.
6. Online copyright regulation
compared to the regulation of social
media.
7. The regulation of media ownership
regulation.
8. Online copyright regulation in the UK
compared to state media regulation
in less democratic countries.
9. Comparing online copyright
regulation today to offline/older
forms of copyright regulation.
10. Videogame/app access regulations
regulation.
Here are some of the key issues about
regulation you will need to explore:
– how media regulation now is
different to the past
– how different kinds of media
regulation seek to ‘protect’ people in
some way
– the degrees of efficiency and impact
of various forms of media regulation
– how well do they work, and what
difference do they make to people’s
lives?
– debates around the role of the
regulator in a democracy –
arguments for and against various
forms of media regulation.
The best way to do this is embrace
the complexity. This means choosing
case studies that offer different angles,
and contrast with one another – and
finding contemporary examples that
yield different responses to the key
questions above.
‘Complicated is Good!’
My ‘mantra’ with Media students
approaching coursework and exams
that require an informed ‘weighing
up’ of a critical debate is: ‘Complicated
is good’. And a really smart way of
the privacy/investigative journalism
arguments around press regulation
will be informed by broader views
about the role of media in a democratic
society. But your view on ‘remix IP’ is
probably more along the lines of ‘it
depends’.
Here are a few ideas for comparative
approaches:
1. Copyright regulation online
compared to the regulation of the
press and the Leveson Enquiry.
2. Classification of films (e.g. BBFC)
compared to regulation of online
copyright.
3. Regulation of television advertising
regulation.
How Does Copyright Affect
You as a Media Student?
As a Media student – someone
immersed in digital/social media and
comfortable with downloading and
adapting, modifying, remixing media
content to put your own ‘spin’ on it –
there are a number of obvious ways
in which copyright might be an issue
for you. You might be downloading
music or film/video from an ‘unofficial’
source. You might be producing media
coursework and having to use music
provided under a ‘Creative Commons’
license. Or – and we’d like to think this
is the case – you are a ‘creative’ and are
sharing your own work with the world
online.
27
MM
The Resource
At A Level it is always important to
know the context for any academic
source rather than take it as face value
as ‘the truth’ on a subject. The CUP
is a broad ranging ‘user resource’ for
anyone who needs to know their way
around the regulations, how to access
content without breaking the law
and/or protect their own intellectual
property.
Clearly, copyright is a lot more
complicated now than it was before
Web 2.0, and especially YouTube.
Writing about ‘Fair Use’ of remix videos
in YouTube for the Journal of Media
Practice, Collins (2014) observes:
Digital technology has greatly eased the
process of remixing copyrighted works as well
as providing global platforms for distribution.
The web is swarming with appropriations of
copyrighted media remixed into innumerable
new works and this reality challenges the scope
of copyright law and the function of fair use.
The ultimate goal of copyright is the
creation and spread of knowledge.
Indeed one of the main purposes
of copyright regulation is to strike
a balance between production and
dissemination of knowledge. In other
words, copyright regulation has to
reward and incentivise creators to
produce new works, whilst allowing
the public to access and use these
works. One of the new challenges that
copyright faces today is the notion
of ‘the creator’. Media production
is no longer only for professionals.
New technologies enable everyone
to express their creativity, and have
inspired new ways of using creative
works, such as fan fiction and remix.
However, many of these new creative
activities are restricted by the current
copyright regulation. The tension
between what the law says and what
people actually do online raises
several interesting questions about
contemporary copyright regulation.
Understanding UK
Copyright Law: the CUP
To tackle these complex issues, help is
at hand. Researchers in Bournemouth
University’s Centre for Intellectual
Property Policy & Management, and
in the University of Glasgow’s RCUK
Centre for Copyright and New Business
Models in the Creative Economy, have
been funded by Research Councils UK
to produce a research-based Copyright
User Portal (CUP).
Copyrightuser.org is an online
resource aimed at making UK copyright
law accessible to creators and members
of the public. The resources provided
are meant for everyone who uses
copyright. CUP’s goal is to inform
creators about how to protect their
own work, and also to help everybody
understand how to legally re-use the
work of others.
Last year, CUP researcher Bartolomeo
Meletti and I tested some of the
resources with A Level students (see
link in the ‘Follow It Up’ section below).
The outcomes fed into the production
of a set of resources by the Centre of
Excellence in Media Practice. These aim
to help students use CUP material to
inform their Media Studies A Level case
studies.
For the CUP research specifically
devised to explore critical debates
for Media Studies, we sent a short
questionnaire to a broad range of
copyright stakeholders. The responses
generated an interesting landscape of
the different perspectives, including
the views of individual creators,
rights-holders, EU and UK regulators,
collecting societies, lawyers and
academics among others.
The questionnaire responses were
then collated and coded into the most
common issues. The researchers then
brought together the responses to
illustrate the different stakeholder
perspectives on the most current
and pressing issues surrounding
copyright regulation and media. This
approach enabled the research team
to capture real-life examples, and
to provide students with robust raw
material which will help them debate
this example of contemporary media
regulation.
Case Study: Online Parody
The CUP team presented to
government a set of key findings
about the need for regulation of
online parody. Parody of course, is
of particular significance in Media
Studies. It brings together many of our
Critical Perspective topics: the study of
postmodern media (where the original
and the parody, the producer and
the consumer, the ‘real’ and the ‘fake’
are no longer so easy to distinguish);
study of the online media age and the
difference this has made to producers,
distributors and audiences alike;
arguments about ‘We Media’/Media 2.0,
participatory culture and democracy;
theories of global media (as it’s difficult
to ‘pin down’ the origin of YouTube
parody videos) and, most obviously,
debates around media regulation.
MM
The study found that:
Over to You
• Parody is a significant consumer
activity. On average, there are 24
user-generated parodies available
for each original video of a charting
single.
• There is no evidence for economic
damage to rights holders. The
presence of parody content is
correlated with, and predicts larger
audiences for original music videos.
• The reputations of the original
copyright holders are rarely
damaged. Only 1.5% of all parodies
sampled took a directly negative
stance, discouraging viewers from
commercially supporting the original.
• Observed creative contributions were
considerable. In 78% of all cases,
the parodist appeared on camera
(also diminishing the possibility of
confusion).
• There exists a small but growing
market for skilled user-generated
parody. Parodists who exhibit higher
production values in their works
attract larger audiences, which can
be monetised via revenue share with
YouTube.
So – have a look at CUP and use it
either for your study of media or to
help you operate in the regulatory
landscape for your own media
production – or (hopefully) both. If
you do use it in coursework or an
exam, make sure you reference it
(Copyright User Portal), for obvious
reasons, given the topic! Either way, it’s
an important area for Media Studies
to get its teeth into. Comparing the
regulatory landscape of online ‘citizen
media’ with, for example, ‘old school’
arguments about press ownership, film
classification, or the more recent ‘moral
panic’ about videogame effects, where
perhaps the lines of debate are more
clearly drawn, can only facilitate the
kind of ‘real world’ media literacy the
subject is designed to foster.
Follow It Up
The Copyright User Portal:
http://copyrightuser.org/
The case study resources for A Level
Media Studies will be regularly
updated at http://copyrightuser.
org/a-level-media-studies/
Recently, the CUP’s resources have
been explicitly featured in an
official report from the IP Adviser
to the Prime Minister. For more
details, see http://www.create.
ac.uk/blog/2014/10/15/copyrighteducation-and-awareness-createand-copyrightuser-org-in-a-reportby-mike-weatherley-mp-to-theprime-minister/
Creative Commons:
http://search.creativecommons.org/
Julian McDougall is Associate Professor of
Media & Education and Head of CEMP at
Bournemouth University and Principal A
Level Examiner.
29
MM
Our culture is one of
exceptionally fast technological
change. Media producers are
always on the lookout for the
‘next big thing’ and it seems
as if we are on the verge of
another step change that will
offer audiences new and exciting
experiences. The idea isn’t new
but the technology has finally
caught up with our imagination.
Virtual Reality is on the way.
Damien Hendry reports.
more often turning – one’s head in
the VR environment. This is achieved
through the use of head-tracking
sensors that ‘map’ the user’s movement
in the virtual space, updating what they
visually perceive in a way that conforms
to their expectation of what should
occur in a real three-dimensional
environment.
When done well, this can fool some of
the senses – mainly the visual senses
– to such an extent that VR users feel
that they are in a three-dimensional
space, even if they know that in reality
they are simply sat in a chair, wearing a
headset with various motion-detecting
Virtual Dreams
Virtual Reality (VR) is a computer
simulated, non-real ‘reality’. VR
technologies – both hardware and
software – create this virtual reality
by recreating sensory experiences,
including taste, sight, smell, sound
and touch, to the degree that the
users’ senses are fooled into believing
that what is being perceived is
approximately on a par with the
equivalent ‘real’ sensory stimulation.
For example, using computer software,
VR will soon be able to simulate a
three-dimensional environment that
the user can interact with in some way,
most commonly through moving – or
Man immersed in ‘virtual reality’.
sensors built in, LCD screens positioned
close in front of their eyes, and
computer software displaying images
on the screens.
A Mini-history
VR has been a long time coming, and is
almost here. Where once in the 1950s
it involved sitting in a clunky machine
called a Sensorama, before mutating
into the use of complex head-mounted
devices, we now live in an age where
companies like Samsung and Sony are
developing VR headsets, and devices
such as the Oculus Rift Development
Kit that may well be available to
purchase by spring 2015 (see Follow
It Up for examples). Their availability
and dissemination will pose some new
and interesting questions for Media
students.
An advert promoting the Sensorama: a ‘Revolutionary Motion Picture
System’.
MM
codes and conventions can, of course,
be challenged and subverted.
satisfyingly for audiences. As a result,
VR Codes and Conventions
through a period of great filmic
– Why Should They Matter
innovation and experimentation, they
to Media Students?
Film theorist Thomas Schatz has argued
were ultimately replaced.
What is particularly interesting from a
that genres generally pass through a
Media Studies perspective is that the
number of cyclical stages during their
In terms of the codes and conventions
content for these future VR devices –
development.
in VR content, it is clear that the
including games, educational resources,
rulebook is still being written; currently
• First there is the innovative stage,
conventional 3D films and interactive
VR content creation is in what Schatz
where there is a high amount of
3D film – is still being developed.
called the innovative stage. As Oculus
experimentation with existing genre
Furthermore, it’s been clear for some
state in their guide to VR developers:
conventions and often a merger or
time that the codes and conventions of
fusion of genres.
The question of ‘What makes for effective
traditional forms of media, such as films
virtual reality?’ is a broad and contextual one,
and conventional video games, will not • Second comes the classical stage,
and we could fill tomes with its many answers.
when genre conventions are
always work well in VR, although they
Virtual reality is still a largely uncharted
established and there are clearly
are very influential in the creation of VR
medium, waiting for creative artists and
defined differences between different
content.
developers to unlock its full potential.
genre categories.
Codes and conventions are the
For a start, VR requires new ways of thinking
generally accepted rules that arise over • Third is the parody stage, where
about space, dimension, immersion, interaction
the audience’s familiarity with
time as to how a media text should be
and navigation. For instance, screen-based
these established genre codes
produced to meet certain audience
media tend to emphasise right-angles
and conventions are used to bring
expectations. They can of course
and forward motion, and the edges of the
attention to them in a tongue-inbe subverted, often in clever and
screen are always present. This leads to what
cheek fashion.
artistic ways, to deliberately challenge
cinematographers call ‘framing’ of shots. But
audience expectations. But, generally,
• Fourth there is the deconstruction
in VR, there is no screen, no hard physical
there are certain aspects that are rarely
stage, where genre codes and
boundaries, and there’s nothing special about
up for negotiation.
conventions start to be questioned,
right-angles.
subverted, broken down and remade.
The Codes and Conventions
of Music Video
Technology Triggers
In the creation of a music video, for
Innovation
example, the audience expects, first
of all, that there will be music. A silent
music video may subvert expectations
– but not in a particularly useful way!
Other codes and conventions may
include making the video more or less
match the length of the song, and the
use of visual and metaphorical imagery
that attempts to reflect the themes
and/or narrative of the song. You could
further specify the particular genre
of the music video; and this would
define a perhaps more restricted set
of codes and conventions to meet
that specific audience’s expectations.
Dance music videos, for example, tend
to share the codes and conventions
of having young, energetic and often
sexualised men and (more often)
women appearing in the video. These
The innovative stage can also be
triggered by new technologies. One
example of this is the introduction of
sound into commercial cinema in the
1920s. Prior to this, cinema often used
title cards with small snippets of text to
illustrate, for example, what characters
in the narrative were thinking or saying.
In addition, it was common for there
to be live music played in the cinema
where the film was shown.
An example of a title card from the 1920 film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
Lady Gaga creating codes and conventions for the genre of Lady Gaga
music videos.
Once ‘the talkies’ had arrived, the
existing silent movie genre codes
and conventions no longer worked
New VR Codes and
Conventions
To date, there are a number of codes
and conventions that have already
been more or less established in VR. For
instance, the use of in-app or in-game
menus in VR differs from a normal 2D
gaming or application experience. In
2D games, the menu is often a static 2D
image, covering a large proportion, if
not all, of the screen. With VR headsets,
this kind of menu is often illegible, as
the image will extend to the periphery
of the user’s vision, forcing them to
strain their eyes to see the edge of the
menu. This induces nausea in some
people, especially if the menu remains
static when the user moves their head.
This links to another established
code and convention: to create a
comfortable user experience, VR
media must avoid static images, and
the user’s head movement should be
represented in the VR experience. Why?
Because when the user moves her/
his head there is an expectation that
the virtual head will move in the VR
environment. When this doesn’t occur
and the image on screen remains static,
the expectation that it should move,
31
MM
together with the jarring reality of the
static image, creates an uncomfortable
feeling.
Consequently, a menu system should
either be a 2D image ‘projected’ on
what is effectively a virtual cinema
screen in front of the user, thus
allowing them to move their head
to scan across the menu items, or
it should be represented in three
dimensions, perhaps as objects in
the VR environment. Using either of
these techniques provides greater user
comfort by avoiding a potential nausea
trigger, as well meeting the users’ often
intuitive expectations of how they
should naturally interact within a VR
world.
A ‘floating’ menu that allows the user to move their head around to
look at the content of the menu. The two images seen here are a twodimensional representation of what would be two different images – in
terms of perspective – that are sent simultaneously and separately to
each eye, creating the illusion of a three-dimensional space.
Another code that renders the VR
experience more comfortable is the
use of a form of ‘cockpit’ view. The best
way to understand this is to imagine
yourself either as a pilot in the cockpit
of a plane, or as a driver in a car. The
world appears to move around you
when you move the plane/vehicle,
but you can also independently move
your head around the cockpit/inside of
the car. If this was happening without
the virtual cockpit – imagine flying
through the air like Superman – then,
however fun this may be initially, the
issues of clashing sensory expectations
(your visual system ‘experiencing’
forward motion versus your balance
system telling you that you are sitting
perfectly still) can, over time, become
uncomfortable. A fixed reference point
(the car interior or the plane cockpit)
reduces the possibility of conflicting
sensory information. Moreover, most
people have already experienced the
world appearing to move fast around
them when in a car or plane, so they
are already used to this kind of visual
experience.
A ‘cockpit view’ in VR: inside a car.
Keeping it Real with the
Right Sensory Experience
Because VR is about simulating reality,
the codes and conventions for a
successful VR media text must simulate
the ways people naturally perceive
and interact with the equivalent realworld experience. This is why the
conventions of film, such as fast editing,
non-naturalistic framing of scenes,
or anything where the user is not in
direct control, can be so disorientating.
Getting the media text wrong in VR, in
essence, is not just possibly subverting
the audience’s individual and culturallyshaped expectations, but is potentially
contradicting a more fundamental and
hard-wired sensory expectation. This
makes it particularly challenging for
VR media producers and other content
developers to get the experience ‘right’.
Nevertheless, the arrival of a new
form of media consumption and the
opportunities to create and develop
entirely new forms of media – and
their genre codes and conventions – is
a rare and exciting occurrence. There
is still much work to be done on both
the technological and creative sides on
establishing the codes and conventions
of the media consumed in VR before
Virtual Reality headsets can become a
widespread consumer product.
But it’s clear that there are currently
unprecedented opportunities for
those willing to experiment with the
technology and development of media
for VR more generally. Understanding
the concepts that are integral to
media creation and consumption
are fundamentally important for
those wishing to get involved in the
development and analysis of future VR
media texts.
Damien Hendry is a freelance writer and
social media marketer. He is the author of a
political blog which can be found at
www.proletarius.net
Follow It Up
A VR example: The Occulus Rift
Development Kit (DK1).
Developed by young entrepreneur
Palmer Luckey, Oculus Rift was
financed through Kickstarter by
donor developers who contributed to
testing and developing the headset,
and creating games and apps for it
which would later be made available
to consumers. A new prototype, the
Crystal Cove, or DK2, was created,
and Oculus has recently worked with
Samsung – one of the largest mobile
phone manufacturers in the world
– to create a VR headset accessory
for Samsung’s latest ‘phablet’ the
Galaxy Note 4, called the Gear VR.
Such devices will probably be on
the commercial market by spring
2015, and already major players
in the industry are taking it very
seriously indeed. Sony, for example,
has developed its own VR headset
for the PlayStation 4 called Project
Morpheus. Perhaps it is not long
now until the ground-breaking
VR promises of the 1950s come to
fruition.
MM
Barbara Bleiman interviews one
of the powers behind the hugely
popular classical/pop group
known for their amazing videos.
Clean Bandit. Their name means
‘Complete Bastard’ in Russian, and
you can hardly fail to have heard their
massive Number One hit ‘Rather Be’, an
instantly recognisable mix of classical
strings and electronic beats, created by
the genre-bending pairing of classically
trained musicians with electro-pop and
deep house afficionados.
Band members Jack Patterson, Grace
Chatto, and Milan Neil Amin-Smith met
while undergraduates at Cambridge
University, where Grace and Neil
were playing in a string quartet. Jack
recorded their gigs, began mixing in
electronic samples and drum beats
from his brother Luke Patterson, and
a new fusion genre was formed, using
tunes from Mozart, Beethoven, Dvorak,
the input of powerful guest singers,
cultural references, and a dash of
humour. Their first single, ‘A+E’, peaked
at 100 in the charts in 2012; three
singles and an album later, their fourth,
‘Rather Be’, featuring Jess Glynne, was
released in January 2014, and topped
the UK Singles chart. Since then, there
has been a slot on Later ... with Jools
Holland, a UK tour, a gig with the BBC
Philharmonic Orchestra, the iTunes
Festival, Europe, and now, the US. They
are now huge. And they’ve done it all
themselves, videos and all!
Barbara Bleiman spoke to Grace Chatto
to find out how they got it all together.
How did you get started? Did social
media and the internet play a big
role in getting your music known?
We got together at university and put
on gigs there ourselves. Facebook
was by far the most effective way of
promoting the gigs. We had a MySpace
page for a couple of years, with a few
homemade recordings on it, including
our song ‘Mozart’s House’, but it was
quite hard to gain followers. Later,
when we were living in Moscow and
made our first music video (‘Mozart’s
House’ again), we put it on YouTube
and posted to our friends on Facebook.
It got a lot of attention, about 30,000
views in the first few weeks, compared
to about a hundred plays in two years
on the MySpace MP3! And so we
realised the power of having a visual
element to our work.
You’re well known for your amazing
videos. What role have they played
in your success?
Since making ‘Mozart’s House’, which
cost us about £100 to make, we’ve
made a music video for each new
song that we’ve written. This made
the production of the music itself a
lot slower than it could have been,
because the kind of videos we wanted
to make, with no money, took several
months each to produce! But they’ve
been really important, not only because
we love doing it and it completes the
songs for us, but because they are
what caught the attention of people
who have helped us get the music off
33
MM
the ground. Rather than having them
promoted in advert breaks, Channel
4 aired several of our videos as their
own short programmes, as part of
C4‘s Random Acts series: ‘UK Shanty’,
‘A&E’, ‘Telephone Banking’, ‘Mozart’s
House’. They originally heard about the
videos via Facebook, and saw them on
YouTube. When I first tried to get our
music on the radio, I think this support
from Channel 4 helped legitimise our
project in their eyes. I managed to get
AllMusic.com and Radio 1 to play our
song ‘Mozart’s House’. Then, once the
radio began playing it, lots of music
lawyers, managers, agents, publishers
and record labels began calling me.
We then signed a record deal and since
then, have been able to spend rather
more than £100 on our music videos!
I’m not sure if this has had that much
effect on the quality of the videos, but
it has meant we can make them a lot
more quickly.
to do all the things in our videos,
using YouTube tutorials and reading
manuals. I find this really impressive;
but it is mainly having the confidence
to try new stuff that has made it
possible to do all the special effects,
like modelling and animating the giant
gold snake in ‘A&E’. He didn’t know
how to do this before, but when we
decided we wanted a massive snake to
Unusually, you’ve made them all
yourselves. How did you do all of
that? Tell us about how it started
and how it’s evolved.
My partner Jack is very confident
about experimenting with technical
ideas. He had little or no experience
making films before ‘Mozart’s House’,
which he directed, shot (with help from
two friends) and edited himself. He
had studied some cinematography in
Moscow, but completely taught himself
slither through the London streets and
Underground, he knew he had to work
out how to do it!
As the producer of the videos, I’ve
enjoyed the challenge of trying to
make Jack’s crazy ideas happen, on
no money. Often this means brazenly
asking everyone I know for favours
– Can we film in your house? Can we
film in your school? Will you be in our
video? Will you lend me your clothes/
tripod/car? Endless requests like that,
and reaching out to friends of friends of
friends’ aunts’ friends and beyond, and
approaching complete strangers where
necessary.
For example, in our video ‘Telephone
Banking’, Jack wanted a ‘huge child
orchestra of Japanese cellists’. I tried
contacting Japanese schools in
London, and various Japanese societies,
but doing the risk assessments [a
health and safety requirement for all
productions, as music video-makers
know only too well!] were all going to
take too long for us. So I tried scouting
on the streets – I’d seen people
scouting for models outside Topshop
on Oxford Street, so I did the same! I
went to Knightsbridge and as I came
out of the tube station I met a beautiful
family of Japanese tourists who were
interested in the project and agreed
for the two children to play cello in the
video. They also said they would bring
friends. I then met another Japanese
girl and her mother in Harrods, and
gave her my card. She later watched
our other videos at home, and called
me up to say she’d love her daughter
to take part. I found ten extras like this,
and it was a wonderful day filming with
them! We had ten tiny cellos borrowed
from a school I was working in, and
set up a green screen so that we could
then multiply the ten children into a
massive orchestra. I taught them all to
hold the instruments, and pluck the
MM
strings. They didn’t speak English, and
I don’t speak Japanese, but we had
a great time! Because it was our first
experience of using a green screen,
we made a technical mistake and
framed the shot wrongly: we cut off
the children’s legs and so when we
multiplied them in rows, the second
row and beyond had no legs and were
just floating bodies. So we had to come
money. I think live gigs is where bands
make money. Also song writing.
Can you talk a bit about the
industry, the team that surround
you and the pressures on you,
both personally and as a classically
trained musician?
We have managers who oversee the
whole operation: the record label,
publishing label, booking agents,
We’re in the USA right now, which is
amazing so far. The crowds are very
warm compared to at home. ‘Rather
Be’, our single that was Number 1 in
England back in January 2014, is still
growing in the charts here, so it feels
like things are a bit behind and growth
is much slower but it’s really exciting.
We do have a foot in both the pop/
rock industry and the classical world.
In terms of music itself, I think it’s
all the same thing. But the way the
industries are run is quite different. In
the classical world everything is much
more regulated and efficient, from
what I’ve seen. And because we are
working across different genres, we
are still finding it hard to define our
sound/what we do, but we are being
encouraged to do so.
If I were giving advice to someone
going into the business, I’d say that you
need to be prepared to work longer
hours than anyone else you know. And
keep hustling!
Grace Chatto was interviewed online
by Barbara Bleiman, Co-director of the
English and Media Centre, which publishes
MediaMagazine.
up with a solution, and this was to add
plants into the shot. So this is why you
can see a fantastical jungle location in
the video for ‘Telephone Banking’!
You do masses of gigs and touring.
Do bands these days make their
money on CD sales, or gigs and
tours, or in other ways?
We don’t earn any money yet, even
though we’ve had a global hit. But we
are now getting booked for bigger gigs,
which is where we should make some
lawyer. They are all independent from
each other.
Clean Bandit are working with
Microsoft to help create a music
video for their next single. For the
first time ever, the band will be
crowdsourcing creative inspiration
by reaching out to their fans and
YouTube creators from six different
countries. Each YouTube creator will
be tasked with putting their own
distinctive spin on a re-imagined
music video for ‘Rather Be,’ all of
which will be shot using their Lumia
device. The producer of the most
creatively inspiring submission will
be invited on location by the band to
join them as a crew member on their
new video.
Building your own business is tough, I
think in any industry, but particularly
when the business is a ‘band’. There
can be added confusions, especially
when there are personal relationships
involved and this is often the case
when a band starts, unless you are put
together by Simon Cowell.
35
MM
Emma Calway compares the
coverage of a global icon
with something to say in two
contrasting lifestyle magazines.
What happens when two very different
magazines, one targeting women, the
other men, feature the same star, or
cover a similar story? One such example
is the superstar Beyoncé – a global A-list
celebrity, who appeals to both sexes and
can sell pretty much anything she puts
her name to (perfume, Coke, American
Express, Nintendo DS and L’Oréal to
name a few of her endorsements).
She has graced more magazine covers
than any other black star in the world.
And last year Beyoncé made her debut
in both British Vogue and the US GQ,
showing off her post-baby body.
Beyoncé is of course a wonderful gift
for magazine editors. She can cross
boundaries so can appear in a high
fashion magazine such as Vogue, a
‘gentlemen’s’ magazine such as GQ,
and, because of her ‘newsworthiness’,
the full range of newspapers from The
Guardian (a broadsheet) to The Mirror
(a tabloid red top). Her mass appeal
means she has the power to reach out
to massive audiences regardless of race,
age, gender or class. It is claimed she is
fiercely controlling of her own image
and representation, and she appears to
have been able to keep much of her life
to herself – which makes her an enigma,
and thus appealing to her fan base.
MM
Two Magazines, Two
Nations, One Owner – and
Beyoncé
Vogue is an iconic upmarket fashion and
lifestyle magazine that’s been on sale
since the autumn of 1916. Originally
published in the US, it is now a global
product with editions in 17 different
countries. A go-to for anybody who’s
anybody in the world of fashion, 85%
of its readership agree that it’s the
‘fashion bible.’ Published monthly by
Conde Naste Publications, it has a UK
circulation of 220,000. Its readership
is predominantly female; it combines
fashion and celebrity and many A list
stars strive to get their ‘Vogue Cover’,
seen as a real achievement and very
prestigious in high fashion circles. In
order to differentiate itself from less elite
fashion mags such as Look which costs
£1.80, it is priced at £3.99. However,
British Vogue is a magazine whose
financial success is based upon its
advertising rather than its sales revenue.
and her top skims her cleavage while
her pants reveal her extremely toned
stomach. She gazes directly at the
camera in an attempt to attract the male
Available from UK newsagents for £3.99,
gaze. Post-baby, her message is: ‘I’ve still
its readership is 73 % male, of whom
got it.’ She looks younger than on her
63% are reported as single. Like Vogue,
Vogue cover, and flirtatious rather than
GQ is available for monthly download on
fierce.
the iPad.
Beyoncé wears red knickers and blue
top; mirrored in the letters ‘G’ and ‘Q’ in
Representations and
the top left hand corner. The strap line
Readerships
So what representations of Beyoncé are ‘The World’s 100 Sexiest Women’ fills the
left hand side and alongside the image
offered to these different but related
of Beyoncé is designed to attract and
readerships?
titillate. The caption ‘Pants back on’ in
Beyoncé ’s GQ cover came out first, in
the top right hand corner adds to this
February 2013. Interestingly, Beyoncé
seductive effect – although on closer
appears lighter-skinned on the cover
inspection it clearly refers to a fashion
of GQ than the later Vogue image; this
story; and further down the page ‘Dads
was a source of contention, as she was
gone wild’ has the effect of appealing to
accused of using skin-lightening creams. an older, male market.
She has vehemently denied this; in fact
Inside the magazine, her comments in
it is more likely that both magazine
the interview are juxtaposed uneasily
covers have been Photoshopped and
with the suggestive nature of the cover
airbrushed.
image:
producers will also be aware that the content
must also appeal to the 27% of readers who are
female.
GQ magazine first came into being
in 1931 in New York City, and is now
an international monthly men’s
magazine distributed in 20 different
countries. The publication focuses on
all aspects of lifestyle (fashion, style,
culture, food, films, sex, music, travel,
sports, technology, politics and books).
Originally titled Gentlemen’s Quarterly
it was re-branded as GQ in 1967; the
rate of publication was increased from
In GQ Beyoncé is dressed in primary
quarterly to monthly, and in 1983 Conde
colours – a theme continued in the
Naste bought the publication to add to
masthead font and iconography of the
its already upmarket portfolio:
cover. The colours are bold, masculine
This magazine targets the niche demographic of
and patriotic. Beyoncé’s stance is a
the ‘metrosexual male’ – a type of magazine for
provocative one: her arms are held
the busy, modern urban man. The magazine’s
above her head – clutching her hair –
Equality is a myth, and for some reason everyone
accepts that women don’t make as much money
as men do. I truly believe that women should
be financially independent from their men ...
They define what’s sexy. And men define what’s
feminine. It’s ridiculous.
GQ is making a statement with this
feature. Although in some ways it shares
conventions with less prestigious lads’
mags such as Loaded and Nuts, I’d argue
that it’s trying to differentiate itself: it’s
saying yes we will also put a half-naked
woman on the cover but we will also
cover serious issues for the aspirational,
middle-class man. In the event GQ came
under fire – but was it placed in a no-win
37
MM
position by attempting to address
feminist issues via titillating imagery?
Beyoncé’s UK Vogue cover debut was
timed to perfection to promote the UK
leg of her ‘Mrs Carter’ tour. The cover
art features Beyoncé dressed in a dark
blue-sequinned leather pencil skirt and
blue and white stripey top. Her midriff
is bared, and her hands are placed
on her hips in a position of power:
this stance connotes that this woman
means business and she is not afraid
to speak her mind as well as looking
uber-fashionable. This power is echoed
metaphorically in the headline ‘megawatt fashion’ in the middle of the page,
further amplified in the text at the
top left hand corner: ‘the electrifying
Beyoncé ’. It is no accident she appears
right in the centre of the cover – she is
placed where the ‘G’ in Vogue should be.
In the coverlines, words like ‘pretty’
‘fantasy’ and ‘glamour’ are all clearly
designed as teasers for the female
consumer. However, the words in bold
below, taken from the inside content of
the main cover story, show a grown-up
Beyoncé – arguably in response to the
controversy around her GQ cover story.
But I guess I am a modern-day feminist. I do
believe in equality.
I feel like Mrs Carter is who I am, but more bold
and more fearless than I’ve ever been.
It comes from knowing my purpose and really
meeting myself once I saw my child. I was like,
‘OK, this is what you were born to do’. The purpose
of my body became completely different.
This article may have been a reaction to
her much criticised appearance in GQ
magazine, where her references to the
subject of feminism angered many of
her critics. It was not the nature of her
comments on feminism that angered
them – it was more the pairing of such
comments alongside her front cover
image. Notably, neither cover referred
explicitly to her editorial comments
about equality.
The editors of GQ and Vogue have one
primary interest that unites them: to
sell as many copies as possible. By
landing their Beyoncé covers – and the
subsequent branding that goes with
them – they each get mass appeal, from
consumers as well as sponsors. But both
publications also dare to touch on a
subject that is once again increasingly
present in the collective consciousness,
thus broadening a debate on which the
reader – whether male or female – will
have an opinion.
Nevertheless, the differences in
representation are striking: on the
cover of Vogue Beyoncé looks powerful;
women can look up to her, relate to her
and want to be like her. This continues
inside the magazine: her discussion on
identity, motherhood, marriage and
her work will hit a chord with female
readers. In GQ the star has assumed
the position of a pinup. Her scantilyclad body alongside straplines which
objectify and reinforce her sexuality
attract the male gaze while also
dressing it up as lifestyle. GQ readers
aren’t buying/reading top shelf –
they are periodically offered serious
debates inside, even if these are rarely
foregrounded in its covers. But the initial
power of the cover in both cases attracts
the female gaze in Vogue’s case and the
male gaze in GQ. You really should judge
a magazine by its cover when looking at
gender.
Emma Calway is content writer at My
Big Fat Brighton Weekend and Brighton
Holiday Homes.
MoreMediaMag
from the archive
Magazines and Gender, MM17
MM
A powerful new film about girl gangs in the Parisian suburbs
is on its way over here. Roy Stafford compares it to its closest
predecessor, Mathieu Kassovitz’s renowned La Haine, and argues
that it breaks new ground both in style and in its representation
of a social group normally excluded from representations of innercity life. An excellent text to kickstart an FM4 specialist study on
Empowering Women, or Urban Stories.
In May 1995 a young filmmaker
presented his new film at the Cannes
Film Festival to great acclaim. Later that
month it opened across France and
was soon recognised as an important
and influential youth picture in both
the UK and US as well as its domestic
market – one of the best films of the
decade. La Haine by Mathieu Kassovitz
was so good it was re-released in the
39
MM
UK in 2004. It is currently one of the few
French films listed in IMDB’s ‘Top 250’.
But one of the few criticisms of the film
is that the female friends and relatives
of the three central male characters
have only minor roles.
In May 2014 another (relatively) young
French writer-director, Céline Sciamma,
presented her latest feature at Cannes,
again to acclaim. In October 2014 it
opened successfully in Paris and by
the time you read this Bande de filles
(Girlhood) should be on release in the
UK. This film is about a young woman
of 16 and the ‘gang’ she joins, which
changes her sense of self.
Although the film is not in any way a
‘response’ to La Haine, that film is an
important touchstone, and Sciamma
has discussed how her approach
differs from Mathieu Kassovitz on
his earlier production. Bande de filles
has the potential to be an enjoyable
and productive case study for A Level
students, and here I want to discuss
some ideas generated by the film,
taking a comparison to La Haine as a
starting point.
Anger in Les Cités
The title La Haine translates simply as
‘hate’; and the film reflects the genuine
anger felt by its writer-director and
the three actors who play the ‘beur,
blanc et noir’ – Saïd the North African,
Vinz the Jewish and Hubert the Black –
inhabitants of a workers’ estate on the
outskirts of Paris. The film begins with a
violent protest against police action on
the estate, during which a young man,
Abdel, is the victim of a police ‘accident’
(‘bavure’) and hospitalised. In the melée
a police revolver goes missing. Vinz has
the gun and he vows to avenge Abdel
if his injuries prove fatal. The film covers
the events of the next day and night
as the trio wait to hear whether their
friend has survived.
Juppé for senior government officials.
Ten years on things were not much
better and La Haine still seemed
relevant when Nicolas Sarkozy as
Minister for the Interior made critical
remarks about the youth on the estates,
calling them ‘scum’.
The youths are in their early to mid-20.
All three are unemployed, like most of
their friends, and all live in families with
absent fathers: references are made to
relationships with potential surrogates
(Saïd’s older brother, leader of the
North African youth on the estate,
and Samir who is a ‘community’ police
officer and tries to help). Mothers,
grandmothers and sisters are either
ignored or sometimes patronised by
the trio – but the women largely ignore
the young men in return.
The estates featured in La Haine and
Bande de filles were originally built
for factory workers, many of whom
were migrants from North Africa, West
Africa and the Caribbean. Most of the
factories have since closed, or at least
reduced staffing levels; and the estates
have many of the problems associated
with unemployment. La Haine is one
of several films which have sometimes
been categorised as ‘films of les
banlieues’.
The fictional world created by Mathieu
Kassovitz was a shock to the French
establishment, and the film was
actually screened by Prime Minister
A Note about Les Cités and
Les Banlieues
‘Banlieues’ translates as ‘suburbs’ in
English, but suburbia means something
different in the UK. The Parisian estates
are more like British inner-city highrise estates – except that they are
symbolically separated from the city
centre by the Parisian péripherique
(ring road) and this becomes important
in the film narratives. The youths
on the estates are ‘marginalised’
geographically as well as socially and
economically. ‘Cité’ seems to be used
in this context to refer to ‘districts’ or
to ‘cities’ in a metaphorical sense, i.e.
the estate is a world of its own. The
reference to ‘beur’ – back-slang for
‘arabe’ – was common in the 1990s, but
people with origins in North Africa are
now more often known as Maghrebis or
North African French.
MM
The Consumer Culture of
2014
Bande de filles is similarly set in les
banlieues and the young women at its
centre are from similar families with
working mothers and absent fathers.
Marieme at 16 is responsible for her two
younger sisters as her mother works
shifts as a cleaner. She tries to avoid
her older brother who intimidates her.
However, the thrust of Bande de filles is
very different to La Haine.
Sciamma has said in interviews that
she first saw groups of young Black
women in the shopping malls of Central
Paris and at the Gare du Nord, and was
impressed by
their charisma, their style, the way they talk ... I
was seduced.
She decided to make a kind of ‘coming
of age’ story about these girls, which
would complete a loose trilogy after her
previous films Water Lilies (2007) and
Tomboy (2011).
The film’s English title – Girlhood – is,
for once, more useful than the French,
since it alludes to both that long
period of finding a female identity,
as well as the suggestion of girls in
the neighbourhood. The ‘hood’ has
usually been seen in American films as
exclusively male (a view also adopted in
La Haine). Sciamma’s film opens with an
astonishing sequence. We are plunged
into the middle of a game of gridiron
– American football – set to music and
played at night by teams of young Black
women in the full regalia of padded kit
and helmets. Is this a fantasy? We then
see (possibly) the same group loudly
walking through the cité where they live
at night. But as they split off in ones and
twos, their shouts and general chatter
die away. Eventually Marieme is on her
own in the darkness, avoiding the young
men loitering. Together the young
women can be strong, but they need
courage to make it alone.
The ‘inciting incident’ in the opening
section of the narrative is when a
dejected Marieme, learning that she
will reluctantly have to go to vocational
school, meets a trio of seemingly tough
‘gang girls’. Their leader sees something
in Marieme, and eventually invites her
to join the group. Marieme changes her
hair, her taste in clothes and her name.
She gets out of the summer job her
mother has organised for her, and she
is renamed ‘Vic’ (for victoire/victory?)
by the gang leader, ‘Lady’. Collectively
the girls have fun – even if it involves
petty crime and fights and shows of
bravado – before Marieme/Vic is forced
to make decisions. These inevitably
involve young men – the boy she has
a relationship with, her controlling
older brother, and the local ‘boss’ for
whom she works, and who affords
her ‘protection’ once she has become
‘known’ in the male world. The film has
an open ending. We don’t know what
will happen to Vic, but we have learned
a great deal about the life that she and
her sisters face in les cités.
The Comparison
In aesthetic terms, La Haine and Girlhood
share an attempt to show young people
in les cités as being part of a specific
environment with cinematography
using long takes and tracking shots.
Sciamma also decided to abandon the
standard widescreen ratio, and shoot in
2.35:1 CinemaScope, arguing that this
was the best way to frame groups of
girls. But whereas Kassovitz processed
his colour footage as black and white
for dramatic effect, fearing colour would
detract from the atmosphere he wanted
to create, Sciamma foregrounded the
colour palette. Although she shot all the
exteriors on location, she chose to shoot
interiors in the studio, commissioning
sets with carefully designed colour
schemes. Both films rely heavily on
music, with standout sequences. The
most memorable in La Haine is a mashup by Cut Killer of ‘Nique la police’ (Fuck
the police) and Edith Piaf’s ‘Non, je ne
regrette rien’, with its strong political
message; but in Girlhood it’s the four
young women miming to Rihanna’s
‘Diamonds’ as they celebrate after a
shoplifting spree.
41
MM
accuse their teacher of serious
anti-social behaviour. Meanwhile,
Girlhood’s success follows on from
Samba (France, 2014), the second hit
for Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano
after the global success of Intouchables
(France, 2011). This time Omar Sy is
an immigrant who needs help from
Charlotte Gainsbourg as a civil servant.
But despite the success of Samba and
Girlhood, France’s Black community still
needs better representation in French
film and television; and both films were
made by white directors.
There is simply no equivalent to
Girlhood in the UK. The wide release
of Belle earlier in 2014 in the US and
the UK showcases the work of Black
British director Amma Asante and rising
star Gugu Mbatha-Raw. But although
focusing on a young mixed-race
woman in a CinemaScope presentation,
Belle is a costume drama set in the
18th century. Where are the films
about growing up as a Black British
teenage girl? One of the differences
between France and the UK is that
Céline Sciamma was able to find a
The main differences between the two between different racial groups; there
production budget much bigger than
films concern the representations of
is also little mention of the police. As
the average UK feature budget. I urge
gender and race and the overall ‘feel’
Ginette Vincendeau (2012) points out,
every MediaMagazine reader to go and
of the films and how they engage
since 1995, racial politics in France have
see what she does with it.
with commentaries on French society.
changed markedly and les cités have
Where La Haine is about male anger
been stigmatised as being ghettoised
Roy Stafford is co-author of The Media
and frustration that erupts from long
with less concern for integration.
Student’s Book.
periods of listlessness, Girlhood is about Some cités are now seen as ‘recruiting
exuberance and swagger (although
grounds for radical Islamists’. In
Follow it Up
it too has moments of reflection and
reclaiming the ‘hood for young women,
Vincendeau, G. 2012. ‘La Haine and
moments of violence). It’s worth noting Céline Sciamma has sidestepped
after: Arts, Politics, and the Banlieue’
too that in La Haine two of the young
the politics of race while leaving in
accessible at: http://www.criterion.
men are played by professional actors,
place questions about the narrow life
com/current/posts/642-la-haine-andwhereas Karidja Toure as Marieme and opportunities open to all the youth of
after-arts-politics-and-the-banlieue
most of the other young women in
les cités. Mathieu Kassovitz was open
Girlhood had never acted before.
about his political commitment in 1995, Girlhood is profiled on cineuropa.org
and he finally returned to ‘political
(look under ‘G’ in Films in Focus)
One of the striking features of La
filmmaking’ with the sadly neglected
Haine is the focus on ‘beur, blanc et
Girlhood/Bande de filles will
Rebellion in 2011.
noir’ characters – sometimes seen as
be released in the UK on 24th
an unlikely racial alliance and perhaps
February. You can see the
European Cinema
selected to emphasise a collective
trailer at blogs.indiewire.com/
Girlhood is one of three European films
resistance to French government
shadowandact/20140908
authorities. Girlhood features an almost to be nominated for the LUX prize in
2014. The three nominees will all be
completely Black cast of second and
MoreMediaMag
third generation ‘Sub-Saharan’ Africans subtitled in every language of the EU,
from the archive
ensuring their accessibility. Intriguingly,
and people from the Caribbean. It’s
Ghetto Culture, MM35
all three titles are about young people
debatable whether this is more or less
past and present. Ida (Poland-Denmark,
‘realistic’ as a representation of the
2013) features an 18-year-old in 1960s
communities of certain cités. What it
Poland, and Class Enemy (Slovenia,
does do, however, is to take out of the
2013) sees a class of senior students
narrative the possibilities of a clash
MM
If you’re a Film student preparing
for the FN4 Specialist Study on
Empowering Women, here’s
another one you should not miss:
a film about a little girl and her
bike, from a country with no film
industry or cinemas, directed
by a woman under a patriarchal
regime where women are
invisible, silenced, and banned
from driving or riding bicycles.
Mark Ramey explains why it is so
important.
In the 1980s a Tory minister
apocryphally told the legion
unemployed to ‘Get on your bike!’
In other words, ‘find work and stop
scrounging off the state’.
The quote is a somewhat inaccurate
tabloid construction, but its punitive
spirit is clear. However, in the mind of
the more liberal amongst us, a bike is a
symbol of self-propelled opportunism
and personal freedom. Cars are more
complex devices: they require licences
and certificates, garages and petrol
stations, and as a consequence, money.
Cars confer status.
The bike, on the other hand, is a
truly proletarian device – a simple
mechanism for working-class selfpropulsion. It’s a utilitarian machine
that opens doors and offers an
escape, even if only temporary, for the
downtrodden and oppressed. Think
of alienated Elliot and ET flying across
the moon in E.T. (Spielberg, USA,1982),
or the impoverished protagonist
of the Bicycle Thieves (De Sica, Italy,
1948), stealing a bike in desperation
to find work. The bike as a metaphor
for escapism and empowerment is
therefore a familiar trope.
43
MM
How strange then to find it forming
the narrative centrepiece of a film
from the world’s second largest oil
producer – Saudi Arabia. Indeed, no
film work reveals the bike’s liberating
ideological potential in such a powerful
way as Wadjda (Al Mansour, 2012, Saudi
Arabia/Germany), the only feature
film to shoot solely in Saudi. But what
makes it astounding is that Wadjda
was written and directed by a woman
– Haifaa Al Mansour – and is largely
about the contemporary Saudi female
experience. In fact it makes Wadjda
unique – not least because it was made
in a country without a film industry
or cinemas. The film won awards
and hearts at its Venice film festival
premiere in 2012 and has now reached
an international and critically receptive
audience largely via DVD and TV – and
this adds further weight to its cinematic
importance. So what is Wadjda about?
Wadjda is the social-realist tale of a
ten-year old Saudi girl’s quest for a
bike – something she is discouraged
from owning by her family, and which
is legally forbidden. In Saudi Arabia
women cannot ride bikes; nor, for
that matter, can they drive cars. Strict
social and religious rules do not allow
women such freedom of movement.
To understand why these restrictions
are in place we need to know some
of the cultural and religious contexts
underpinning life in Saudi Arabia.
About Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia is the 13th largest country
in the world and the only Arab country
to be part of the G20 group, thanks
solely to its vast oil reserves. It’s an
absolute monarchy and has been
run by a family dynasty, the Al Sauds,
ever since the country’s birth in 1932.
From the early 1980s the dynasty
has championed an extreme form of
Sunni radicalism, leading in part to the
banning of cinemas. It has long been
MM
an ultra-conservative country, and the
plight of its women in particular has
drawn criticism from human rights
activists and feminists. In 2013 it
scored 145th out of 148 countries on
the Gender Inequality Index, making
it marginally even less equal in its
treatment of women than the much
poorer nations of Afghanistan and
Yemen.
In Saudi Arabia, women are often
segregated in public, and sometimes
at home, fuelling accusations of a
gender-apartheid. Women cannot
divorce without legal representation
from a male guardian, and polygamy
(multiple wives) is still practised. The
full-length, black robe (abaya), head
covering (hijab) and face veil (niqab)
are relatively standard issue for the
majority of Saudi women when in
public; this doctrine is further enforced
by the mutaween (religious police).
Since the Arab Spring, there is some
evidence of relaxing attitudes, as
well as regional differences; but the
dynasty’s grip remains strong, and
the appeal of traditional values is not
significantly declining – even amongst
women.
This is something Wadjda carefully
illustrates in the complex female
representations of, firstly, Wadjda’s
conflicted mother, torn between her
frustrations with, and observance of,
patriarchal tradition; and secondly, her
fiercely conservative and doctrinaire
headteacher, who is perhaps
overzealous because she too had once
been a free-spirit like Wadjda.
The film therefore explores the
problems of Saudi patriarchy through
both Wadjda and her mother. The mum
has fallen out with her immigrant male
driver, and is unable to secure work
as she is now virtually house-bound.
She is also about to lose her husband
to a second polygamous marriage as
she is unable to bear him any more
children – this is a culture where only
sons matter. One heart-breaking scene
shows Wadjda scribbling her own name
on a scrap of paper and adding it (if
only temporarily) to an illustration of
her father’s, male-only, family tree.
As Wadjda’s director Al Mansour notes:
‘Women in Saudi are always invisible
45
MM
but they are also silenced’. Indeed,
the popular Saudi saying, ‘A woman’s
voice is her nakedness,’ is used by the
headmistress when chastising Wadjda
for being too vocal and non-conformist.
As a counterpoint, we see Wadjda using
her voice beautifully to recite a poem
from the Koran in a school competition
with a cash prize. Although Wadjda,
like the film as a whole, has shown little
interest in scripture and steers clear of
any religious posturing, the cash win
offers her the possibility of buying her
dream bike. But Wadjda’s headmistress
insists the prize money is donated
to charity. This is Al Mansour’s thinlyveiled critique of a misogynistic system
that erases both the visual and aural
signs of womanhood. Saudi women
should be neither seen nor heard,
because to be seen and heard in public
is shameful. It is against this crushing
ideology that we witness Wadjda’s
almost trivial acts of rebellion such as
her choice of navy blue sneakers with
purple laces and her azure nail polish.
Making the Film
The making of the film is yet another
illustration of extreme patriarchy at
work, and testimony to Al Mansour’s
resilience as a filmmaker. She was
forced to seek much of the finance
and technical personnel for the film
overseas, eventually teaming up with a
German company, Razor Film, who had
some Middle-Eastern pedigree with
the very successful Waltz with Bashir
(Folman, Israel, 2008).
Another crucial member of the
production team was the Saudi King’s
nephew Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, a
liberal and one of the richest men on
the planet. Acting as another producer,
he brought links to his various media
interests (he is a 7% shareholder of
News Corp) and helped with local redtape, which meant the film could be
shot in the streets of Riyadh. However
even there the Prince’s influence was
limited, as Al Mansour noted in a
spoiler interview with the BFI. In the
final scene, when Wadjda rides her bike,
she wanted to pan around an urban
landscape and end up on an open
horizon. But the only suitable location
was in an extremely conservative area,
which meant Al Mansour had to direct
from the back of a van, lest she be seen
mixing with men in the street:
I had a monitor, a walkie-talkie and a
telephone. We would rehearse the scene and
the Director of Photography would block it.
Then I would disappear but my voice would stay
there…
This triumphant cycle ride shows
Wadjda racing ecstatically towards a
crossroads with open land beyond. It
is a moment of personal freedom for
her, achieved neither by overthrowing
patriarchy, nor by using her ingenuity
to fulfil her dream. The bike is a gift:
rather than buying herself a red dress
to win back her husband’s affections,
Wadjda’s mother buys her a bike. It’s
MM
a beautiful moment in the film – shot
with mother and daughter on the
rooftop of their middle-class home,
sharing a moment of togetherness as
women as much as family, whilst the
fireworks from her husband’s wedding
party illuminate the sky. The bike
Wadjda’s mother gives her daughter
is much more than just a gift – it is an
invitation to be free. By severing one
small link in the chains of patriarchy,
Wadjda’s mum enables her daughter to
briefly escape.
Tradition and Change
Through the Eyes of a Child
Change is apparently afoot in Saudi
Arabia; but (according to Wadjda at
least) it will consist of minor acts of
personal sacrifice and rebellion rather
than an Arab-Spring styled revolution.
In early 2013 the mutaween announced
that women and girls would be allowed
to ride motorbikes and bicycles in
designated areas, for ‘entertainment’
– but only in the company of male
guardians. As Al Mansour comments in
a Cineaste interview of 2013:
The bicycle is a very modern concept. It is an
acceleration… In the film I wanted to show the
tension between tradition and modernity in
Saudi Arabia.
Maria Garcia, Cineaste, October 2013
Children exist at the intersection of
tradition and modernity, and through
their eyes we see the hypocrisy of our
cultural norms. Despite this it is still a
pleasant surprise to find that Wadjda’s
one male ally is a young boy, Abdullah,
who is unspoilt by misogynistic
attitudes; she hopes one day to race
him on a bike and beat him. Her dream
comes true, and Abdullah’s reaction
is one of shared joy – a testament to
Al Mansour’s non-confrontational and
inclusive aims:
I really did not set out to make a film that is
loud and that clashes with society … To me, it
is not about making a big change; it is about
touching people on a very basic level. If a man
watches the film and buys a bicycle for his
daughter, it means something to me.
Maria Garcia, Cineaste, October 2013
Mark Ramey teaches Film and Media
Studies at Sir Richard Collyer’s College,
Horsham, Sussex.
MoreMediaMag
from the archive
Waltz with Bashir, MM26
Persepolis: Representations of Iran
and the West, MM27
47
MM
MM
49
MM
Student Lydia Kendall uses media
concepts to challenge the media
representations of Taylor Swift –
from the perspective of a fan.
This article is written from the point
of view of a Media Studies student
who is also a Taylor Swift fan. As a
key objective of our subject is to
enable students to use its academic
concepts to analyse our own media
consumption, tastes and how our
identities are partly ‘mediated’, I’ve tried
here to use Media Studies concepts
– particularly gender representation
and postmodernism – to explore the
Fearless, Swift has headlined three
mediation of Taylor Swift in recent
tours and received seven Grammys,
months.
whilst also experimenting with several
genres of music. As a star growing up
Presentation of Self
in the public eye, Taylor has kept her
Taylor Swift, born in Pennsylvania in
reputation as a more ‘organic’ singer/
1989, released her self-titled debut
songwriter, consistently for almost a
country album in 2006, at the age of
decade. Like Miley Cyrus, who became
16, and has since released four more
an icon in the same year as her own
albums, including her most recent
debut, Swift has been in the public eye
venture into the pop genre, 1989 at
from late childhood into adolescence
the age of 24. In the years following
and early adult life; however,
the release of her second album,
she has taken a sharp turn away,
representationally, from Cyrus, who has
chosen to escape her ‘Hannah Montana’
label through overtly sexualised and
controversial performances, signifying
her distinction from the Disney Channel
child star.
Like Lady Gaga, Swift reinvents her
musical style with each album. While
2012’s Red was filled with devastating
songs about heartbreak that collided
with a mixture of pop and country,
MM
2014’s 1989 is ‘80s pop Taylor’, and is
all about New York and a new attitude.
Each tour is filled with new costumes,
new stages, new ideas. However, there
are differences. Gaga is viewed as an
‘artist’, and the re-construction and
subversion of what she represents as a
female singer/performer is discussed as
the (re)presentation of her ‘character’;
but Swift has not been granted
this license. Instead she has been
consistently trivialised throughout her
career, assumed by her critics to be
presenting herself in the same persona
with each new release. I’ll focus on
three aspects of the way Swift has been
characterised to argue that she has
been undervalued as a postmodern
artist, a feminist, and an inspiring role
model for her fans.
Gender Trouble?
1989 boldly transcends Swift’s
previous genre associations, moving
into mainstream ‘retro-pop’ with a
huge marketing campaign and clear
intention to move to another level
commercially. Meanwhile, any sense of
protection of the ‘country girl-singer’,
or respect for her as a more ‘grassroots’
singer-songwriter, has disappeared. In
part, this comes with the territory. But a
great deal of the hostility (bordering on
hate) has been gendered.
As a fan of Taylor Swift, I have never
understood the double standard set in
place for female and male artists, so I
wanted to explore this question: why
are male artists celebrated for songs
about their lives, while females are
labelled as ‘desperate’, ‘immature’ or
even ‘slutty’ for doing the same thing?
In a recent interview with 2DayFm,
Taylor stated:
You’re gonna have people who are going to see
the depth from which you approach a song, the
fact that you put your real emotions into it and
that that’s valuable and that’s good and that’s
real, and then you’re going to have people who
are going to say ‘she just writes songs about her
ex boyfriends’; and I think frankly that’s a very
sexist angle to take. No one says that about Ed
Sheeran, no one says that about Bruno Mars,
they’re all writing songs about their exes, their
current girlfriends, their love life, and no one
raises a red flag there.
51
MM
describes as ‘the death of the avantgarde’ and as such mocks the idea of a
connection between Gaga and Warhol
– she is giving her a more ‘serious’ label
by calling her postmodern. The same
respect is not granted to Swift. But why
not?
And she’s right. While Sheeran is
celebrated for his sensitive lyrics about
love and heartbreak – and more so
recently in his angry hit ‘Don’t’ about a
cheating ex-girlfriend – Taylor receives
the opposite kind of attention. She
has been named a ‘serial dater’, and
has been the butt of this joke at award
shows and in magazine articles for
years.
From Serial Dater to
Feminist Icon
I’d argue that Swift has recently
become something of a feminist icon.
In an interview with the Guardian
earlier this year, she described the
message of 1989 as:
when you go out into the world and make
changes in your life on your own terms, make
friends on your own terms, without literally
saying ‘C’mon girls, we can do it on our own!’.
She told Cosmopolitan:
I’ve learned that just because someone is cute
and wants to date you, that’s not a reason to
sacrifice your independence and allow everyone
to say whatever they want about you.
Laura Mulvey’s (1975) theory of the
‘male gaze’ suggests that the camera
takes the point of view of the male
subject, which is looking at the female
object. Swift’s video for ‘Shake It Off’
is an interesting ‘playful’ subversion
of this, in the form of four minutes
of Taylor making fun of herself. The
critics say she can’t dance? She’ll try
to dance alongside professionals.
With her new album, she has turned
She’ll carry on dancing. Again, she
media representations back on
is acting as a parody of herself, or
themselves. ‘Blank Space’, is written in
twisting her representation back to
the voice of the person people think
the media – she’s exaggerating the
she is, whilst ‘Shake It Off’ parodies
negative representation, whilst playing
these rumours. This frivolous, arguably
out gendered meanings from other
postmodern, style of spinning the
pop videos. Indeed, the very notion of
representations around is similar to that
‘shaking off’ media representation in
of Lady Gaga, but Taylor is given no
the form of a media representation is
equivalent ‘art statement’ credibility.
worthy of more ‘serious’ analysis as a
When Lady Gaga appeared on The
postmodern statement.
X Factor recently, it prompted this
response from Suzanne Moore,
Paratexting Swifties
referencing artist-cum-broadcaster
Fan theory (Hills, 2002) and ideas about
Grayson Perry:
‘paratext’ (Gray, 2010) can also be easily
It’s all very postmodern, for although she
applied to Taylor Swift.
may reference Andy Warhol as easily as she
The extras, or ‘paratexts,’ [promotional texts like
references Miley Cyrus’s flesh-coloured bikini,
blurbs, cover art, sleeve notes, merchandising,
she can be incorporated into primetime TV.
advertising copy] that surround (media)
Gaga is deemed suitable for ‘a family show’. The
experiences are far from peripheral, shaping
promise of subversion is brought into the arena
our understanding of them and informing our
of light entertainment and demands little more
decisions about what to watch or not watch and
than that we applaud the spectacle.
even how to watch before we even sit down for
Guardian, 30.10.14
a show.
Whilst Moore is not celebrating Gaga
– indeed, she claims her postmodern
performance signals what Perry
Gray, 2010: cover blurb
Paratexts can be created by the media
as part of the ‘hype’ for a TV show, as
MM
Gray describes here, or they can be
created by fans – remix, tribute, parody
or homage videos. But fans themselves
can also be seen as paratexts, and they
play this semiotic role at Taylor Swift
concerts.
share references and why ‘Swifties’ are
so important in the representation
of Taylor Swift, as well as the hidden
paratextual meaning hidden in the
light-up posters and signs at every
show.
If you find yourself at one of her gigs,
everywhere you look people will
be wearing homemade shirts and
signs with Swift fandom references
across them. You could say that
her relationship with her fans is a
big part of the ‘meaning’ of Taylor.
‘Swifties’ across the country show
their appreciation of her using these
references, through social media
online and physically by waiting
outside venues or in concerts. In
return, Swift likes and comments on
her fans’ online posts, giving them
advice and acknowledgement. Before
many concerts on her worldwide
tours, her mother will walk around
the arena, picking members from the
audience who are demonstrating their
knowledge of ‘fandom references’ for
the chance to get closer to the stage.
Lydia Kendall is a GCSE Media student at
Kings Norton Girls’ School in Birmingham.
Prior to the release of her most recent
album, Taylor invited 89 fans to each
of her houses and hotel rooms to hear
the album months before everyone
else, playing it for them casually in her
sitting room and baking them cookies
to eat during their five-hour stay. This
is a very significant indicator of the
relationship between Swift and her
fans, and ensures that the ‘meaning of
Taylor’ circulates in a reciprocal – or,
Follow it Up
as the cultural theorist Henry Jenkins
calls it, ‘spreadable’ – way, surrounding
the actual music itself. The close bond
between the star and the fans, and the
references only those within the group
understand could be described as
‘paratextual meaning’.
In conclusion, a Media Studies analysis
of Taylor Swift can help deconstruct
both gender and genre categories,
helping us to understand that gender
does play some part in our tastes and
how we view people in the media.
As well as this, it can also stimulate
discussion about what counts as ‘art’,
and whether our perceptions of art
are distorted. As both a Media student
and fan of Taylor Swift, I am able to
identify the problems with misogyny
in the media, and view her as not only
someone of whose music I am a fan,
but also to see why she has changed
the way she reacts to the media, and
her views on feminism. It has helped
me to interpret my own fandom on
a more interesting level – why we
Hills, M. 2002. Fan Cultures.
Gray, J. 2010. Show Sold Separately:
Promos, Spoilers and Other Media
Paratexts.
MoreMediaMag
from the archive
Fan Culture, MM25
Amanda Palmer, MM43
No Second Acts – Lana Del Rey,
MM41
53
MM
Writing about representations
of sexuality is a challenge,
especially in coursework or
exam mode. Steve Connolly
suggests a less threatening way
to approach the topic: through
the ‘otherness’ of science fiction.
Read on if you’re preparing for
the OCR TV Drama unit, or A2
Critical Perspectives topics on
representation, identity, ideology,
and much more – and follow
his tips for tackling unexpected
unseen exam extracts.
Sexuality: an individual’s sexual orientation,
preference and capacity for sexual feelings
Those of you who are sitting a Textual
Analysis exam for AS or A Level Media
Studies in the forthcoming months
may be struggling with questions of
representation, and how technical
aspects of the moving image, such
as camera, mise-en-scène, sound
and editing are used to explore such
representations.
One area of representation which
frequently gives students (and
teachers) some difficulty is that of
sexuality, quite possibly because
both parties – mistakenly – think that
teaching the topic will end up in a
conversation about sex, along with all
the sniggering behind hands that this
entails. This view is mistaken, however,
because while sex is an important
aspect of sexuality, it is highly unlikely
that it is the one that will be explored
in your textual analysis exam! Instead,
approach the representation of
sexuality through the clues that the
audience is given about the complex
and diverse nature of sexuality via
things like costume, acting, dialogue
and camerawork. Making connections
between these things and sexuality
– defined as an individual’s sexual
orientation, preference and capacity for
sexual feelings – will allow you to write
a strong answer which analyses the
representation of sexuality in a mature
and sophisticated way.
Science fiction is an excellent place
to start when learning about or
practising the way we should write
about sexuality because, in the realm
of the fantastic, it is easy to find writers
and directors presenting audiences
MM
with more diverse representations
of sexuality: representations that go
beyond the traditional, heterosexual
‘boy-meets-girl’ kind of relationship.
When you are writing about ‘the alien’
every day, it becomes very easy to treat
the kinds of sexuality which may be
seen as alien by mainstream culture,
in an everyday way. Consequently, in
recent years, sci-fi film and TV has come
to be seen as a place where a diverse
range of sexualities are represented.
How it Was – Sexualised
Women as Aliens
It wasn’t always this way, however.
Quite often in some of the earlier
examples of the genre, women were
confined to roles which saw them
as weak or submissive. A look at the
poster for a film like The Day the Earth
Stood Still (1951), or even King Kong
(1933) would reveal a genre in which
women were often at the mercy of
evil alien robots or giant apes, having
their dignity – and often their clothing
– stripped from them. Here the evil
aggressor, in whatever form, be it
ape or robot, is in some way posing
a sexualised threat to the half-naked
but pure virginal woman who is seen
as needing to be rescued from the
masculine threat seeking to violate her.
In this 30s era of sci-fi, women were not
seen as people who were sexualised;
indeed, they were not seen as sexual
beings at all. Or at least, women from
earth weren’t. If a female alien was on
screen, then quite often they were seen
as offering a much more provocative
representation of sexuality, precisely
because they were alien. For example,
portrayals of Princess Aura, an alien
woman who appeared in the Flash
Gordon films, TV and comic strips from
as early as 1936, frequently feature
her as provocatively dressed, with
heavy eye make-up and seductive
voice. Many of the Flash Gordon stories
feature her attempts to seduce the
hero of the story, Flash Gordon, into
becoming one of her many lovers. Even
in 1936, this representation of female
sexuality seemed permissible because
Princess Aura was an alien, and behind
this mask of the fantastical ‘other’, such
behaviour was seen as acceptable.
Similarly, in Nathan Hertz’s 1958
classic Attack of the 50 ft Woman, the
central character of Nancy Archer is
only permitted to go on a rampage of
vengeance for her ex-husband’s sexual
infidelity once she has encountered an
alien creature and grown to the same
size as an electricity pylon. It is as if
her feelings of sexual jealousy towards
her ex-husband and his new girlfriend
can only be validated by becoming a
fantastical creature.
It is not surprising perhaps, that two of
these more relevant examples originate
from the work of Russell T. Davies,
the man behind the re-imagined and
re-booted Doctor Who. Davies’ most
notable contribution to TV drama prior
to resurrecting the time lord in the blue
box was to write for the 1999 series
Queer as Folk – a groundbreaking but
controversial drama about a group of
young gay friends in Manchester. In
Doctor Who, and it’s adult-orientated
spin-off Torchwood, Davies chose to put
a gay character front and centre in the
How it is – Anything Goes!
form of Captain Jack Harkness (played
(As Long as You are a
by John Barrowman) and an analysis
Lizard….)
These relatively rare examples of female of ‘Captain Jack’, as he is affectionately
known to Whovians and Torchwood
sexuality – as something other than
fans, provides a good starting point
submissive and virginal damsels in
for understanding how we might write
distress – have given way to stronger
and more realistic character types – the about the representation of sexuality.
much lauded relaunch of Battlestar
Galactica, for example, had an entire
narrative that was driven by powerful,
independent and, in some cases, highly
sexualised female characters. However,
these characters were, like those of
early sci-fi, still very much heterosexual
in their orientation. More recently
writers and directors have felt able
to go beyond the straightforward (or
perhaps just straight) portrayal of male
and female heterosexuality, and move
towards something altogether more
complex and, consequently, perhaps
more relevant.
Initially, Captain Jack’s sexuality is only
hinted at – probably because Doctor
Who is considered family viewing,
and references to any kind of sexual
behaviour, heterosexual or otherwise,
need to be kept oblique. At the end
of the episode ‘The Parting of the
Ways’ when Jack says goodbye to the
Doctor and Rose, he kisses them both,
separately. Other than this, Jack’s
sexuality is left to the audience to work
out from some of his one-liners. In an
episode in which a series of events has
created three versions of the Doctor,
Rose comments on the fact that she
and Jack are standing in front of three
55
MM
MM
show, even if it is in quite a fantastical,
and therefore, safe way.
Analysing the
Representation of Sexuality
‘Doctors’ to which Jack replies ‘I can’t
even tell you what I’m thinking of right
now’. This line suggests a physical and
sexual attraction to the doctor, and
hints at Jack’s latent homosexuality. In
Torchwood, the post-watershed spinoff from Doctor Who, Jack’s sexuality is
more openly presented, largely through
the physical relationship he shares with
Ianto, one of his co-workers.
A close look at any still images
of Captain Jack will reveal some
interesting points of analysis in terms
of mise-en-scène. He almost always
appears in a military uniform – this is
because at various points in history
he has been a soldier, and continues
to take the role of battling against
aliens. This costume is traditionally very
masculine and, indeed, there are many
aspects of Captain Jack’s appearance
which are hyper-masculine (he is tall,
muscular and well built, with short
hair, and clean cut features) reminding
us of the importance of not conflating
gender with sexuality when we write
our analysis; Jack Harkness may be gay,
but this does not mean that he is not a
man.
You might use any of the texts above
as a means of practising your textual
analysis skills for a question about
representation. Just find a clip which
seems to accentuate the sexuality of
the character, and then write about
some of the ways that it is being
presented. Pay attention to the
costume of the character, the way they
speak, what they talk about and their
relationship to other characters of
either sex. Composition and framing
are also important; a close examination
of Captain Jack will often reveal that
he is framed in medium long shot or
medium close up in order to emphasise
his physical attributes. Finally, sound
might also have a part to play in telling
us how a character feels about another
character, so incidental and other
music might also play a part in the
representation of sexuality.
It is also worth mentioning that we
are surrounded by images of sexuality
all the time, from music videos to
advertising, but most frequently,
this is only one type of sexuality; the
she meets and employs Jenny, a human ‘straight’ hetero kind. There are other
woman who has been cast out from
types out there, and science fiction
her family because of, in her words, her provides some good opportunities
‘preferences in companionship’. Jenny
to study them. Because your textual
and Vastra become a couple, referring
analysis task or exam might expect
to each other as ‘wife’, mirroring
you to look for something out of the
the acknowledgement of same-sex
ordinary, rather than those typical
relationships in the real world through representations, ‘exploring the alien’ is
gay marriage and civil partnerships.
definitely something to be encouraged!
Some audience members might feel
Dr Steve Connolly is a Media Studies
aggrieved that this portrayal of a stable
teacher, examiner and freelance Media and
same-sex relationship is only facilitated
Film Studies consultant.
by the fact that one of the two partners
Steven Moffat, Russell T. Davies’
appears to be a carnivorous lizard,
replacement, further complicated the
representations of sexuality in the show rather than another human being.
MoreMediaMag
However,
there
is
still
something
quite
from the archive
with the introduction of the characters
adventurous
about
putting
a
same-sex
of Madame Vastra and Jenny. In the
Battlestar Galalctica, the Original
Doctor Who-niverse, Vastra is a Silurian, relationship at the centre of a familySpace Opera, MM22
orientated show that goes out early
a female humanoid lizard, who is
on a Saturday evening. Vastra, despite
initially captured by the Doctor after
being a lizard, is clearly meant to be
he found her terrorising the citizens
female; she dresses as a woman would
of 19th-century London. After he
in Victorian London, has a woman’s
pacifies her, she agrees to settle into
voice and clearly holds sexual attraction
life on earth as a kind of detective,
for Jenny, who is a lesbian human.
investigating odd phenomena in the
Victorian era. In the course of this work These aspects of the representation of
sexuality are still being explored by the
57
MM
MM
Vera Brittain’s life and future
were shaped by tragedy and
loss in World War 1, where
she volunteered as a nurse
on the frontline. Her powerful
autobiographical memoir
Testament of Youth, hailed as
one of the great feminist antiwar masterpieces, is now a film.
Vanessa Raison explains why it
would make a terrific case study
example of the UK Film Industry
at work – and a very topical
introduction to research skills.
The new film adaptation of Vera
Brittain’s Testament of Youth, released
on January 16th 2015, is the perfect
case study for the UK Film Industry. The
promotional campaign began many
months before, with a prestigious
launch at October’s 2014 London Film
Festival. The critics gave a range of
feedback and BAFTA audiences loved
the film. Because the film is both
so new, and based on such a wellloved literary memoir, it would make
an excellent research project for AS
students, following the trails below.
Personal Consumption
You could chart your first awareness
of the film (perhaps it’s actually this
article, right here, right now?) through
to its position by the time you sit your
exam in May. Synergy, the creation
of a coherent campaign across all the
different media platforms, is the best
way to market a film; and you can
watch the campaign develop online,
in print, in cinemas, on TV and on the
radio.
Look out for the trailer in the cinema,
and the posters on buses and in tube
stations. Note down the dates and
places you see marketing material.
Watch out for TV spots and radio
coverage, features in the weekend
magazines, and a tie-in with a new
edition of the original book. You can
use this information for questions on
synergy, convergence, distribution,
audience appeal and your own
personal consumption.
The aim of any distributor is to create
a buzz around a new release. The
cheapest and most powerful marketing
is word of mouth; convergence opens
the doors to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube
and is a free way to spread the word
fast and far. Watch for this on your
social media newsfeeds.
Your web research will divide into
three categories: file-sharing, social
networking and institutional sites.
Try Googling first of all, and look at
the film’s official website. The Internet
Movie Database (www.imdb.com) is
a reliable site which gives detailed
industry data about cast, director,
production company, distributors and
scriptwriter. Wikipedia is sometimes less
reliable because anyone can contribute
to its pages, which are often written by
somewhat partisan communications
publicists; but it does allow for updated
information and context, so will be
worth checking out as the film’s profile
develops after its release.
Production and Funding
The film is produced by HeyDay films (I
am Legend, Gravity, Paddington), with
the BBC. How far will this film attract
global audiences, and how are they
being targeted? HeyDay Films has had
phenomenal international success with
the Harry Potter films, and The Boy in the
Striped Pyjamas (another adaptation)
made about £26 million at the
international box office – so Testament
of Youth may perform comparably, with
a book tie-in which will introduce it to
European audiences.
BBC Films funded the film for £1.5
million; the rest of the £7.1 million
budget came from a combination
of Screen Yorkshire, Heyday Films,
the British Film Institute, the Danish
company Nordisk, the post-production
house Lipsync and a contribution from
the film’s UK distributor Lionsgate (see
Nick Lacey’s article on Lionsgate in
MM50). Gap financing was provided
by Ingenious, and the production
benefited from the UK tax credit, which
is 20% of 80% of the budget.
To become profitable, the film needs
to make at least twice its budget in
box office sales so its target is more
than £14.2 million at the box office
worldwide. A sales agent, Protagonist,
is currently trying to sell it to different
territories around the world to achieve
that; they are negotiating with different
sales in different countries.
Launching the Film to the
Right People in the Right
Places...
Who is the target audience for this film?
Scriptwriter Juliet Towhidi says,
Because it’s a drama it can potentially appeal
to all age groups. There’s an appeal for older
audiences who’ve been through their own
losses and life stories and also for school age
and slightly older people who are discovering
the war for the first time and also are the age
that the characters in the story were at the
time ... James [Kent, the director] wanted to
make sure that the characters felt young to
59
MM
drive home quite how appallingly innocent and
young they really were ... Teenagers are ready
to embrace very searing experiences. When
you’re young and looking for meaning, to see
such a meaningful story in terms of the waste
of human life and what war can do to a whole
generation is a powerful thing.
The film launches in Denmark in April
2015, and it is hoped there will be a
large Scandinavian audience because
it stars Swedish-born Alicia Vikander.
However, a US distributor has not been
fixed, and the American market may
be tougher to break into because the
First World War is ‘culturally much less
significant over there.’
The Impact of the Premiere
Testament of Youth was chosen as the
Mayor’s Centrepiece Gala in the 2014
London Film Festival – a real coup, and
particularly timely in the anniversary
year of World War 1. The line-up on
stage was exciting. Mayor Boris praised
the film with his usual wit and gusto
– before admitting he hadn’t seen
it, and promptly leaving the cinema.
With warmth and panache, producer
Rosie Alison introduced director
James Kent, writer Juliette Towhidi,
and the cast: actors Kit Harington,
Taron Egerton, Colin Morgan, Dominic
West, Emily Watson. To crown it all, the
event included a talk by Vera Brittain’s
daughter, Baroness Shirley Williams, a
hugely influential political figure in her
own right.
In her Preface to Brittain’s
autobiography, Williams said of her
mother,
It was hard for her to laugh unconstrainedly;
at the back of her mind, the row upon row of
wooden crosses were planted too deeply.
The star of the film, Alicia Vikander,
speaking from a shoot in New Zealand
by video link, hinted at the joy to come
in the film; you could feel the fun and
camaraderie these guys must have had
shooting the movie on muddy moors in
Yorkshire. But it was Baroness Williams
who summed up the point of it all:
We must try to bring war to an end.
The BBC Films’ coverage of the event
is worth researching here; it includes
interviews with the cast and director
on the red carpet. The press conference
shows producer Rosie Alison explaining
her love for the project, and how she is
moved by Vera Brittain
going through the worst the world has to offer
and not giving up.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfilms/interview/
testament_of_youth
MM
The Trailer
There are now two trailers on YouTube
which you can deconstruct to define
the film’s Unique Selling Point. Look at
mise-en-scène, sound, editing, camera
angle, movement and framing. Analyse
the font, the tagline, the launch date,
the institutional information, the length
and the difference between the two
trailers. (The second has quotations
from critics following the film launch at
LFF.) Note down the first time you see
the trailer in the cinema, and track the
in-cinema presence of popcorn holders,
standees, posters or programmes. Work
out what kind of cinemas the film has
opened in, and why.
Meanwhile, watch out for the poster
campaign on buses and at stations and
work out how it promotes the film’s
USP and ties in with the trailer. The
poster is on Google images and again
you can deconstruct it for audience
appeal.
Press
If the reviews following a premiere
are good, the buzz they generate will
keep people hanging on until the film’s
release. A film of Brittain’s remarkable
memoir was always guaranteed to raise
interest, but what impact will the critics
have on its reception by audiences?
(He may be out of touch with the
15-25 year old audience demographic,
however.) The Hollywood Reporter loved
it.
So far the critics are divided. The
Evening Standard gave it four stars
while The Guardian was sniffy. Peter
Bradshaw wrote,
A plangent mood of regret settles on this
beautifully costumed, well-furnished,
respectfully performed period drama.
You could read the newspaper reviews
online, and pick out a sentence from
each which sums up the critic’s view.
Have a look at The Telegraph, The Times,
The Guardian and The Evening Standard.
The Daily Mail, Express and tabloids
have already featured plenty of prerelease celebrity coverage and it will be
interesting to see their perspectives on
the film itself.
61
MM
Adapting a Real-life
Memoir
Once you’ve decided what the narrative
framework should be you have to select
ruthlessly and leave a lot out. Part of my job is
to distill the essence of the book and find other
ways to get those emotions across. It’s a process
of distilling as well as reinventing. You do have
to make very hard choices. Making a three-hour
film would have been counter-productive. [The
autobiography] feels quite wordy, and it takes
its time to make its points in many ways, but
at the same time you get this modern vivid
woman’s voice shining through which could be
a voice of today almost. I think the overall feel
of the film is that it is layered with the poetry
and the letters.
Writer Juliette Towhidi’s approach in
adapting Vera’s memoir was to focus
on her journey. She sees Testament of
Youth as
a distinctive woman’s point of view. I identified
with Vera and it felt surprisingly modern, ...
[Brittain was] a natural feminist. She didn’t see
why she shouldn’t have the same rights as her
brother and she was very angry and frustrated
not to have those rights... She was always
questioning and testing things.
A book of this kind has no value unless it is
honest.
Towhidi calls her film adaptation ‘a
warning and a mourning.’
Getting the Timing Right
It will be a fascinating exercise to chart
how teenagers, parents and pensioners
respond to this telling of a story which
has stirred historians, feminists and
pacifists since it was first published in
1933.
Vanessa Raison is a journalist and teacher
The launch of Testament of Youth has
at Acland Burghley School.
missed Armistice Day, but avoided
the crowded autumn marketplace, in
which newly-released films can easily
get lost. By the time you read this, it
Towhidi celebrates the fact that you see will have recently opened in cinemas.
little actual warfare in the biography, in There is, therefore, plenty of time for
which
you to be able to analyse the marketing
impact of the poster and trailer, and
the Front is distilled into a couple of scenes
follow the continuing promotion,
presented in classic brush strokes ... It is a
Opening Weekend box office, and the
woman’s point of view of war.
use of social media, word of mouth
Brittain wanted Testament of Youth
and audience consumption to spread
to be ‘as truthful as history, but as
interest in the film’s first few weeks at
readable as fiction,’ saying,
home and abroad.
MM
ONE YEAR ON
How is a world news story
configured differently in different
places? Expat Maggie Miranda
compares her personal experience
with local and international news
coverage of a terrorist attack that
shook the world. This important
case study raises important
questions about representations
of Africa for anyone studying
global media, post-colonialism,
news values, collective identity,
and so much more.
News Values
When Nairobi’s Westgate shopping
mall was attacked in September 2013,
the world’s media came to cover the
siege. In terms of news values this story
had immediacy. The siege started on
a Saturday morning, and the world’s
press descended quickly, camping out
to report events as they happened.
The story had amplitude as the attack
was on a grand scale, with the gunmen
taking control of the whole shopping
mall. Everyone in the Kenyan capital
was surprised as attacks on this scale
are not usual. There was continuity
as the world’s media reported for four
days as the siege continued and then
finally ended. It was a terrible event,
and, of course, negativity always feeds
the news.
What Happened at
Westgate?
September 21st 2013 is a day I will never
forget. We had been living in Kenya for
just five weeks when armed gunmen
attacked the nearby Westgate mall. Many
people were mindlessly gunned down.
When we heard the news, we cancelled
our plans and stayed at home. We’d
been walking there over the previous
63
MM
weeks, picking up our groceries, buying
phone credit, grabbing a coffee: ordinary,
mundane things that people do all over
the world every day. The media told us
that the terrorists had rented a retail
space for several months, ‘casing the mall’
and deciding when to strike. All the time
they had been watching.
Why Did it Happen? Some
Background
Kenya entered Somalia in 2011 to
launch an assault on the al-Qaeda-linked
al-Shabab group of militants. They did
this after the extremists had kidnapped
tourists in Kenya, acts which have had
lasting effects on the country’s tourism.
At first al-Shabab were pushed away
from the Kenyan border. The African
Union Mission and the Kenyan defense
forces thought that they were weakening
their enemy. But since then al-Shabab
has inflicted several attacks on Kenya,
wanting Kenya to withdraw its troops
from Somalia. The four-day siege of
Westgate Mall is the most serious of
these.
The world’s media descended upon
the suburb where I live, and reported
the story in myriad different languages
across the globe. On 21st September
and the days that followed, the local and
international news often contradicted
each other. The number of gunmen was
widely debated. At the time the media
told us it was possibly 12. Now the official
version is four. But is it believable that
only four gunmen could inflict such a
bloody assault on this suburban mall?
Personal Experiences
A friend was trapped in the mall during
the four-day siege. When the al-Shabab
gunmen stormed in, firing randomly,
thankfully she instinctively ran and
took cover. She headed upstairs in the
supermarket complex and hid under a
bed in ‘Home Furnishings’ for four hours.
Her mobile phone was muted so we
couldn’t reach her. We hoped and we
waited for news. That night she walked
home, escorted by a BBC journalist, and
recalled her horrific ordeal.
We went to sleep to the terrifying sound
of gunfire, and we woke up to it too.
The gunmen remained inside the mall
with hostages. Helicopters patrolled
overhead. The deep, whirring noise of
MM
the chopper blades would rip through
our home each time they passed by.
From our garden we heard thuds of
grenades going off, sounds that I have
never heard in my life. Over those four
days we monitored the events from our
home, just a few hundred metres away
from the mall. We relied on the media
to give us the facts. The world’s media
watched and commented that week;
but then of course the next big story
took its place. But for audiences in Kenya
the news coverage on KTN, KBC and
K24 continued, an example of media
proximity. It was a local story, of interest
to us; and the analysis of the events of
Westgate continued for much longer.
Theories, Rumours and
Censorship
One theory quick to circulate was that
some of the gunmen escaped during
the siege, using a nearby sewerage
tunnel to flee into the surrounding
area. The number of dead was severely
underestimated. Rumours spread that
SAS officers had witnessed rapes and
beheadings; local news channels were
arguably pressurised to report that
things were under control before they
really were. On the Kenyan TV news one
evening, we were told that the siege was
over; the next morning at 0900 hours,
there was more gunfire. Some claimed
that there had been clear warnings
that this attack would happen; but if
so, why was everyone so unprepared?
And there was talk of censorship.
Following the attack, the Kenyan Police
force threatened to sue some Kenyan
journalists over reports alleging that
police officers and security guards were
looting in the mall after the attack. The
police denied this, and claimed that it
was war propaganda. Yet a week later
two police officers were fired for their
looting in the mall after the attack.
There were so many theories, so many
rumours. Where is the truth? One
thing that we know for sure is that
al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the
attack. Beyond that it gets ‘woolly’. It
seems ludicrous that the world’s media
informed us of this story, but in essence
the details and the real truth has never
been fully reported. Will we ever know
the truth about this attack?
I tried to make sense of the attack and
put it into some perspective. I took stock
and remembered that these attacks can
happen anywhere. This was not the first
time that I had been affected by acts
of terrorism; I grew up in London with
threats and random attacks by the IRA in
the late 1970s. I remembered when the
Royal Mail adapted our iconic red post
boxes, making the slit so much smaller
for fear of letter bombs. There was the
65
MM
attack at King’s Cross station, the nail
bomb in my old party haunt, Soho, and
the bus that was blown up at Aldwych
as I finished my shift at the Savoy hotel
nearby. And there have been others: the
Tamil Tigers’ attacks in Sri Lanka, ETA’s
attack on Atocha station and 9/11. But
should we ever begin to think about
these attacks in any rational way? Should
we ever see them as part of life? And how
should the media report on them?
One Year On...
One year on, Westgate mall stands
as a monument to the horrors of the
terrorist attack. Bullet holes are still clearly
visible – a haunting reminder of the
gunfire we heard for four days. Windows
are still left shattered and broken. The
official comment is that the mall is being
repaired; but no-one has any idea about
when it will re-open.
One year later, the media circus has
come back to town. The majority of
people in Kenya have spent most of the
last year doing their best to forget. It all
started again several days before the
one-year anniversary with a special BBC
broadcast on BBC World. There followed
several ‘Remembering Westgate’ special
features, which dominated the media
here all weekend, along with an HBO
documentary with shocking, graphic
footage, content that raises questions of
media ethics, ‘what to show’ vs ‘what not
to show’.
Terror at the Mall shows footage from
more than 100 security cameras,
and features previously unseen mall
surveillance video. But one year on, how
much more do we really know about the
siege at the Westgate mall?
At the time of the attack a BBC Nairobibased reporter, Anne Soy, broke the
story. One year on she also re-visited this
attack and recalled on BBC World how she
saw trucks ferrying bodies in the streets
nearby. To camera, she asked,
Why did the siege last for four and a half days, and
how many gunmen were there?
Again many unanswered questions come
to the surface. The BBC reported that
President Kenyatta had promised to set
up an enquiry into Westgate, but that to
date no such enquiry has happened.
On the evening of the one-year
anniversary, Kenya’s KTN network
broadcast Bottom Line, a live studio
audience debate, from Charter Hall,
Nairobi. A panel including a government
spokesperson fielded questions. The
studio audience was highly critical of
government and security. I watched and
listened to all the comments. There was
much talk but very few answers. Kenyan
MM
It Shocks Me to See How
Little People Think of Africa
(Dayo Olopade)
Most people associate two things with
Nairobi: ‘Nairobbery’ (the city’s reputation
for crime) or Westgate. But who has heard
of Silicon Savannah, entrepreneurs and IT
innovation in Nairobi? Who has heard of
Fafa, the Festival for African Fashion and
Arts? There are success stories but they
are not widely reported. Last year, less
than two months after Westgate, The Film
Africa Documentary Film Festival was held
in Nairobi to celebrate Kenya @ 50, the
anniversary of 50 years of independence.
Its documentaries told another story:
they depicted a different Kenya and a
dynamic Africa, and its accomplishments
in sport, progress and good governance.
The films celebrated successes. How and
when will the rest of the world’s audience
access these stories too?
TV stations ran coverage of the Terror
Attack Memorial which had been held at
the site of Westgate earlier that day, and
footage of the memorial at Karura forest,
where 70 trees were planted in memory
of the dead. But had we not been told
that the official death toll was 67? The
evening news showed coverage of the
Muslim community marching through
the predominantly Somalian suburb of
Eastleigh, united in their condemnation
of the attacks, and saying they were not
representative of Islam. The march got no
international coverage.
So What is the World’s View
of Kenya Now?
The continuous terrorist threat and
concerns about security have had some
international media coverage. The
travel advice given on various embassy
websites reinforces people’s concerns,
with the result that many tourists
continue to stay away and the economy
has suffered.
But in the last year what has been
documented about Kenya apart from
Westgate, al-Shabab and politically
motivated violence? A plethora of
negative imagery is perpetuated by
the world’s media. And it raises several
questions:
• How does one show a story like this
sensitively?
• How do you report on a terrorist attack
like Westgate without sensationalising
it?
• How does the media report a disaster
without reinforcing negative images
coming out of the continent?
Do news, documentaries and
other media texts do enough to
counterbalance the negative image of
the African continent? And who is telling
the story of Africa rising? This topic is
explored in Dayo Olopade’s book Bright
Continent, a positive account of the
African continent on the rise; but the
media doesn’t always do the same.
In Africa there are many established and
emerging broadcasters and filmmakers,
and in Kenya there are now more writers
and directors. People across the continent
are harnessing digital technology to tell
their stories. The challenge to those who
are running the TV networks and the
production companies is to work to tell
another story, to give a more balanced
account and to open the eyes of people
worldwide about the other side to life in
countries such as Kenya.
Maggie Miranda is a freelance MediaMag
contributor based in Nairobi.
Follow it up
http://www.aljazeera.com/
indepth/opinion/2014/09/
mysteries-linger-overwestgate--201492171737803205.
html
http://www.bbc.com/news/world/
africa
http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/
terror-at-the-mall
http://www.nytimes.
com/2014/04/13/books/review/thebright-continent-by-dayo-olopad
67

Magazine Media - cloudfront.net

Transcription

Similar documents

Naqsh Short Films

Film quiz 12 May 2011

Bandyke Moving Pictures

presents - Program in Arts of the Moving Image

ergophobia - Student Cuts

THE CREATION OF MEANING - Press Kit

Join us for a free screening of First Generation —

40 dias

Page 19 - Films - Magazine for the Arts