Issue 39 Spring/Summer 2006

Transcription

Issue 39
Spring/Summer
2006
ISSN 0268-1951
mej
media education journal
2
contents
editorial
issue 39
Spring/Summer 2006
Media Studies: the Current SQA Arrangements
2
Editorial
4
Teachers’ TV
8
Bye-Child
11 Abertay Media Intro
12 Dead or Alive: CSI
15 Broadcasting ‘Body Language’
18 “It noh funny”
21 The Jessica Lynch story
24 Mary Slessor in the media
27 Donnie Darko: SF/teen pic
30 Teaching Whale Rider 10-14
33 Reviews
43 Back issues
Editor: Des Murphy
Thanks to:
Douglas Allen and Dini Power
Typesetting and Design:
Roy Stafford, itp
Printed by:
Thistle Reprographics, 55
Holburn Street, Aberdeen
AB10 6BR
Teachers may reproduce
material from this journal for
educational purposes only.
Written permission is required
for any other use.
All text © AMES 2006 and
individual contributors.
Photos taken from Bye-Child
courtesy of Flechette (cover, pp
8-10 and 34). CSI images (pp
12-13) © Jerry Bruckheimer/
CBS, Donnie Darko (pp 27-30)
© Pandora/Metrodome, Whale
Rider (pp 31-32) © South Pacific
Pictures/ApolloMedia/Icon.
Others as shown or unknown.
The views expressed in the
journal do not necessarily
reflect the views of AMES
as an organisation or of the
institutions where contributors
work.
A
t one time Scotland led the rest of
Britain in its development of Media
Education. The steady growth of the subject
during the days of Scotvec and the ‘modules’
was, however, not sustained with the
introduction of the Higher Still programme.
Now Scotland lags behind the rest of Britain
as far as the popularity of Media Studies is
concerned.
Undoubtedly the old Arrangements
documents were partly to blame for this,
so the situation should have improved
when the subject was revised. However,
the Arrangements have been in place for
over a year now and it is probably a good
time to review their effectiveness and to
consider the changes they have brought to
the subject.
Superficially, at least, the situation would
appear to have improved. The reduction
in the crushing weight of assessment in
the old Arrangements is to be welcomed.
This was done by limiting the time needed
for Unit Assessments to an hour per unit
and the removal of the necessity for every
pupil to keep a production logbook (and
for the teacher to read them all). Also,
with all levels being written to the same
template, bi-level teaching becomes easier
and, hence, the situation has become more
manageable for many who have been tasked
with delivering more than one level at the
same time. However, this of itself is not
necessarily a good thing, as it is virtually
impossible to find a teacher of any subject
who will defend the concept of bi-level
teaching other than on the grounds of its
being, at times, an undesirable necessity.
Another more nebulous consequence of
the rewriting of the units is the ideological
shift in the subject’s base. In the current
educational climate of league tables,
accountability and the consequent need
for successful certification, those delivering
Media Studies have to devise the simplest
courses which will deliver results and, to
cover both analysis unit assessments and
the analytical component in the exam, only
four of the key aspects need be taught per
text. Moreover, the fact that the focus is
now on one medium at all levels means that
there is no longer any need to explore the
key aspects across a range of media. This
means that the successful analysis of a text
no longer requires the understanding of all
the key aspects and their application to that
text. Instead students will often concentrate
on two texts in the same medium and for
each of these they will learn how the four
aspects inform one another with regard to
that text. Indeed, for many centres Medium
Studies is probably a more apposite title
than Media Studies.
Two other problems are beginning to
emerge: the expectation that students
at Intermediate Two level are capable of
integrating key aspects in any fashion other
than by rote learning; and the apparent lack
of awareness of the poor literacy level of
many students working at Intermediate One
level.
It is perhaps too soon to judge the impact
of the changes on Media Studies but, in
many ways, the revision seems like a lost
opportunity. What became a race to meet
deadlines and an attempt to change, but not
by too much, meant that the opportunity
to explore more radical alternatives, both
for the units and for their assessment, was
lost. Perhaps AMES was wrong to put all
its energy into fighting the one-size-fitsall course structure of the three 40-hour
units and should instead have thought more
creatively about how this structure could be
adapted to meet the objections to the old
Arrangements while keeping the integrity
of the subject. Perhaps we could have
addressed the problem of the course being
dominated by the idea of the single text,
an awkward constraint in a subject such
as Media Studies. But AMES, like everyone
else involved in the revision process, had
insufficient time for the kind of review that
was required.
We can but hope that the new
Arrangements will be enough to revitalise
the subject and increase its acceptance
with students and centres. Unfortunately,
a more likely outcome is that the subject
will continue to lurch along on the back of
genuine enthusiasts. Indeed, it could well
be up to the Curriculum for Excellence to
decide the fate of Media Studies. Perhaps it
is enough if the New Arrangements keep it
alive until then.
media education journal 39
3
4
Teachers’ TV – Are You
Tuned In and Turned On?
Sally Brady
A
s you are no doubt aware, Teachers’
TV, the new government-funded
digital television channel and website
dedicated to the teaching profession,
launched in February last year. Nearly
one year on, the channel’s consortium,
comprised of Brook Lapping Productions,
Carlton Television and the Institute of
Education, is preparing the evidence
for the DfES in order to secure funding
for the continuation of the Channel.
Andrew Bethell, the Channel’s Director of
Programmes, will have commissioned some
400 hours of programming, principally
focusing on the National Curriculum, but
also covering general issues such as career
development, interviews with key players
within education, advice on classroom
management and time-saving tips and
ideas.
The key objectives of the Channel, as
indicated by the DfES, are as follows:
1. To deliver targeted training in
management, leadership, personal and
teaching skills
2. To share best practice, innovation and
leading edge thinking from the English
education system and beyond
3. To deliver practical ideas, suggestions,
tips and resource reviews that are
designed to save teachers’ time
4. To deliver TV-based classroom
resources to teachers in a way that
complements availability on other
channels and on broadband
5. To deliver news and current affairs
6. To signpost other resources such as
resources on the web, TV and support
available over the phone or by post
that allows teachers to follow up the
ideas, training and advice given by the
channel
7. Along with the website, to create and
stimulate communities of interest
around key issues
The Channel is of particular interest,
perhaps, to teachers keen to promote
the use of moving image media in the
classroom, but also in the staffroom.
How many of us teaching English, Drama
or Media, still encounter an element of
scepticism from colleagues when we share
ideas on how to utilise and build upon
the expertise of our students in terms
of their existing knowledge of film and
television? The Channel is targeted at
Primary and Secondary teachers (as well
as subsidiary audiences such as governors
and parents) and this move to highlight
the learning potential of the medium of
television can only serve to benefit, I think,
the drive towards a more media-literate
(however we choose to define it) society,
or even, as Raymond Williams suggested
in his cautiously celebratory account of
‘Television’ back in 1974, the:
“ . . . long revolution towards
an educated and participatory
democracy . . . ”
The ways in which teachers learn best,
as well as our students, are addressed
in this move to tap into the notion of
teachers as television audiences per se,
promoting and consolidating the sense of
audiences as ‘active’ agencies, able to sift
through the schedules in order to access
information, as well as entertainment,
from a wide variety of texts. Teachers’
TV can be seen to occupy a place within
our television viewing routines, as
well as within the context of ‘official’
government educational publications and
the plethora of teaching ‘guidebooks’
available for teachers at every stage of
their professional careers – providing
an additional source of representations
of the teaching profession and utilising
(and perhaps challenging) the preferred
discursive modes of our time.
The ‘house style’ of the Channel seems
to be a combination of television
documentary formats and ‘observational’
Continuing Professional Development
models, with the majority of subjectspecific programmes focusing on the
methodologies of classroom practitioners.
One of the potentially controversial
aspects of the pre-production research
conducted during the pilot of the Channel,
was the recommendation by the Demos
Report (2004), that Teachers’ TV adopt a
‘Professional Reality TV’ style:
“Teachers’ TV needs to be:
Educative: help teachers learn
Aspirational: help change the
culture of schools
Realistic: engage with the realities
and difficulties that schools face
Entertaining: encourage the
audience to tune in”
The assumption is that teachers will not
watch the Channel, therefore missing the
opportunities it offers to be ‘educated’
and ‘inspired’, unless it is perceived to
be ‘entertaining’. Leaving aside how
we can define ‘entertainment’, this is
arguably, an attempt by the DfES to locate
members of the teaching profession as
individuals within a wider culture of media
consumption, perhaps a nod too, to the
notion of television as a provider of a
variety of audience needs at any given
time. The tension arises, however, partly I
think in the potential for conflict caused
by the choice of a mainstream light
entertainment style of television (‘Reality
5
The homepage of the Teachers’ TV website at www.teachers.tv
TV’ or the revised version of it, suggested
by the Demos report – ‘Professional Reality
TV’) as the mode appropriate to address
the needs of a professional audience. This
point was highlighted too when I spoke
to David Buckingham of the Institute of
Education:
“You have a tension between what
makes good television and what
makes good CPD for teachers, so
something that looks like good
entertaining TV might entice
teachers to watch once or even
twice, but if it’s not really giving
them anything then I don’t think
they’ll stick with it . . . and what
makes good CPD is probably actually
desperately unsexy TV . . . it may
be really boring bullet points on a
screen . . .”
(Buckingham 01/06/05).
6
In one critical respect, the choice of
reality TV styles as modes of production
for delivering CPD makes perfect sense
– particularly if we consider the recent
proliferation of the ‘makeover’ subgenre
within current television scheduling and
their explicit imperatives directed at the
individual to reorganise their lives, in
whichever ways deemed necessary by the
‘expert’ advice on offer, in order to achieve
the perceived goal (to be more fulfilled
in some way) of the particular narrative
(or possibly, in a more critical reading, to
become more conformist). Alex Moore, in
his recent publication The Good Teacher
Teacher,
points to the ways in which current
educational trends have tended to focus
on “what teachers do”, rather than “what
learners do”, suggesting that this emphasis
can lead to a failure to recognise the real
purpose of education as:
“ . . . helping young people both
to achieve academic and creative
success and to develop as critical,
confident, independent and socially
responsible citizens.” (Moore, A:
2004, p. 170)
In some respects, Teachers’ TV also focuses
on ‘what the teacher does’ and, in doing
so, this type of programming arguably
reinforces a culture of ‘individual blame’,
much as Alex Moore’s analysis of the
‘competencies’ discourse, points to its:
“ . . . capacity to contribute
to misdiagnoses of perceived
educational failure, and to deflect
solutions of educational difficulties
away from analysis and reform
of social conditions... towards
the blame of individual students,
teachers and schools.” (Moore:
2004, p. 84)
The Guardian newspaper’s press coverage
during the launch of the Channel
highlights this conflict. Much was made
of the reality TV impetus behind the
programme styling: in terms of techniques,
‘fly-on-the-wall’ filming is highlighted
by journalist Stephen Hoare, as the best
approach to ‘capture what goes on in
the classroom’; teacher participants are
described as ‘stars’; John Bayley as ‘a
John-Harvey-Jones style troubleshooter’;
Ted Wragg’s slot as ‘like Jerry Springer
without the trailer trash’ and the All
Change series is described by Hoare as “a
format that draws inspiration from the
glorious tradition of Changing Rooms (see
The Guardian Education Supplement, 08/
02/05 pp. 4-5).
Simultaneously however, there was
an attempt to dissociate itself with
mainstream television – “We are not trying
to produce reality TV – we are trying
to help teachers get a clearer insight”;
“Changing
Changing Schoolrooms it is not . . . the
emphasis is not on entertainment per se,
but on ‘factual entertainment’”, perhaps
reflecting the public debate recently
generated by these formats, particularly
in the broadsheet press, amidst wider
concerns of a perceived ‘dumbing down’ of
British culture.
Several of the responses to the initial
survey conducted for my investigation of
the Channel, indicated a reluctance to
utilise television as a medium for teaching
– arguably suggesting a compliancy
in the historical view of television as
necessarily ‘lacking’, located on the
lower (popular entertainment) rungs of
the hierarchical ladder of cultural forms.
This is symptomatic perhaps of a broader
scepticism concerning the value of moving
image media within education – a battle
still fought in staffrooms between more
‘traditional’ educationalists and those keen
to enhance the capacity of our students
to act as fully functioning, media literate,
citizens.
The potential for the Channel to “combine
‘workshop TV’ with ‘watercooler TV’
- programmes capable of sparking both
institutional and social conversations”
(Demos: 2004, p.19), and thereby
seeking to initiate debate and generate
communities of learners, creates an
additional dimension in terms of the
perceived limitations of television
broadcasting as a two-way medium. In
lamenting the loss of a genuine ‘public
sphere’ and in a critique of radio, film
and television, as opposed to the ‘printed
letter’, Jurgen Habermas suggests that the
‘new media’:
“curtail the reactions of their
recipients in a peculiar way . . .
they deprive it of the opportunity
to say something and to disagree”
(Habermas: 1989, p. 171).
This view, I think, denies the agency of
television audiences (and, in this case,
teachers as television audiences), and
reduces the notion of our capacity to
engage in the discursive structures of
television texts. Habermas’s lament
includes what he perceives to be the
‘staging’ of discussion, suggesting
that this can act as a substitute for
(political) action. The conversations with
respondents for my project negates this
view, in the ways in which observed onscreen ‘discussions’ (but also, discussions
interpreted as necessarily ‘staged’ for the
purposes of textual construction) were
deemed to be valuable in promoting
debate subsequent to the viewing event
– the experience becoming a social act
of communication between the group
concerned, regardless of whether the
context of viewing had been individual or
collaborative. In this instance, of course,
the conversations were also ‘staged’
(for the project), but the potential for
the Channel to engender these kinds of
exchanges signifies, I think, a value more
significant for a professional audience
than that of ‘watercooler TV’ (see Demos
Report: 2004, p. 19).
The unique structure of the Channel’s
scheduling, with programmes divided
into the General, Primary and Secondary
‘Zones’, indicates further complications
in the ways in which Teachers’ TV
audiences will be shaped – reminiscent
of an American model of ‘scheduling
strips’, rather than a traditional British
broadcasting approach to scheduling
(see Bignell: 2004, p. 272). The Channel’s
position within the wider digital
broadcasting arena (as well as within
the context of developing Internet
technologies), should be acknowledged
here as a crucial contribution in
addressing the issue of Continuing
Professional Development as an ongoing,
dynamic process. The multiple uses to
which programming can be lent, suggests
a ‘plasticity’ of capacity in which texts
can: “ . . . reproduce, disseminate, redesign, and transform in many different
ways” (Burn and Parker: 2003, p.8), and
this is certainly an area of interest for
Andrew Bethell:
“ . . . the extreme is that it’s just
another channel like the History
Channel for focused professional
people . . . then we go through
to people who are recording
programmes onto DVD and then
the website where people are
downloading it and chopping it
up and turning it into their own
programmes . . . I’m much more
intrigued by these multiple layers of
use and that’s what makes Teachers’
TV really, really interesting . . .”
(Bethell 03/06/05).
The freely downloadable aspect of the
Teachers’ TV website is potentially a real
advantage for schools and individual
7
teachers, whereby clips of programmes
can be re-edited in ways appropriate
for local needs, the current problems
around distribution of the Channel partly
alleviated by this (approved) capacity to
re-invent the material in focused ways.
The transformation of the original texts
also, I think, highlighting the way in
which digital technologies can alter the
earlier problematic of analogue television
reception: “the deep contradiction, of
centralised transmission and privatised
viewing” (Williams, R: 1974, p. 24). The
possibilities afforded by the streamed web
content of programmes, create exciting
potential in terms of collaborative CPD,
suggestive of work that:
“. . . allows school communities to
decide for themselves what counts,
to identify questions that are
significant and pertinent to their
needs” (see Leach, J in Banks et al:
2001, p. 392).
The opportunities for individual teachers
to become involved in wider learning
communities, via the anticipated
development of the Teachers’ TV
website, will also be important in terms
of enhancing a sense of professional
identity, particularly perhaps for teachers
who feel that they are operating in
environments unresponsive to their needs.
The potential for the Channel to be used
‘interactively’, suggests recognition of the
multiple contexts of audience receptions
of programming, with an empowering
sense that viewers are enabled, in taking
ownership of the Channel content, by
becoming the schedulers for their specific,
localised needs.
The Channel must be seen, in my view
(and as intended), as one of a number of
ways through which school communities
and individual teachers can access
relevant and stimulating material
for their professional development
needs. As well as the conventions of
documentary (in all its guises), it borrows
too from a long established tradition
of educational programming within
British public broadcasting, placing itself
in prime position to compete with the
early examples of such programming,
highlighted by Raymond Williams as
follows:
“These kinds of practice, which TV
makes possible by its range and
scope, are directly related to some
of the most encouraging methods
within formal education itself,
trying to experience a process
rather than being taught about it.
They do not replace other kinds of
education, but they add to them,
and in some cases change them
qualitatively, in what is clearly an
innovatory way.” (Williams, R: 1974,
p. 73).
New initiatives by the DfES to drive
up standards in schools, such as the
Teachers’ TV project, become easy prey to
conspiracy-theories, or certainly a level
of scepticism - it is easy to criticise, to
negate, to suspect, far more challenging
to negotiate, discuss, exchange. A
more useful approach is, I think, one of
cautious optimism, the ‘commodification
of knowledge’ juxtaposed, as Webster
suggests, with an acceptance of our
contemporary paradox:
“ . . . the sheer range and depth
of information sources available
today outshine that of previous
epochs, and the ways in which
people now can take part in public
affairs should they so wish are made
much easier today than yesterday.”
(Webster: 2002, p.199).
My conversations with colleagues
suggested that it was Andrew Bethell’s
definition of the Channel, which really
held significance in relation to their
professional needs:
“ . . . Teachers’ TV is about the craft
of teaching . . . the reason we’re
putting it there is for you to think
about what you’re doing. And you
may decide that what you’re doing
is fine, but just that process of selfreflection is itself a key part of CPD”
(Bethell 03/06/05).
The teachers I interviewed were not as
interested in the programme makers’
abilities to mimic their favourite generic
formats, nor did any perceived expounding
of new DfES directives impress them
– what they responded favourably to were
representations of a range of teachers,
providing contextual frameworks for
specific practices. If the impression I
got when I interviewed Andrew Bethell
is the right one – that the ethos of the
Channel is one of reflection and active
engagement with the developing needs
of its audiences, then I for one will
keep watching the space on my screen.
The challenge, I think, is for individuals
working in institutions to interpret the
Channel’s material, converting the general
to a localised translation of teachers’
needs, in a mutually supportive and
ongoing process of development. If this
also creates a climate in which the moving
image becomes a significant catalyst for
learning, then, I’d suggest, we’ll all be that
much better for it.
References
Bignell, J (2004) Television Studies,
London: Routledge
British Film Institute (2000) Moving
Images in the Classroom: A Secondary
Teachers’ Guide to Using Film & Television,
London: bfi, English & Media Centre &
Film Education
Burn, A & Parker, D (2003) Analysing
Media Texts, London: Continuum.
Craft, A (2nd ed) (2000) Continuing
Professional Development
Development, London:
Routledge Falmer
Habermas, J (1989) The Cultural
Transformation of the Public Sphere,
London: Polity Press
Hartley, J (2001) ‘The Infotainment Debate’
in Creeber, G (Ed) The Television Genre
Book, London: bfi
Book
Hoare, S (2005) ‘Switched On and Full
of Promise’, The Guardian Education
Supplement 08/02/05
Hoare, S (2005) ‘Why Fun Makes Learning
a Whole New Ball Game’, The Guardian
Education Supplement 08/02/05
Horne, M et al (2004) ‘Switched On:
How Television Could Turn Teachers
on to Learning’. Available online at
www.demos.co.uk
Leach, J (2001) ‘Teaching’s Long
Revolution: from Ivory Towers to
Networked Communities of Practice’
in Banks, F et al Early Professional
Development for Teachers, London: Fulton
Moore, A (2004) The Good Teacher:
Dominant Discourses in Teaching and
Teacher Education. London: Routledge
Falmer
Webster, F (2002) 2nd Edition, Theories
of the Information Society
Society, London:
Routledge
Williams, R (1974) Television: Technology
and Cultural Form, London: Routledge
Sally Brady is Head of Media & Teacher of
English at New Hall School, Chelmsford. She
has recently completed the MA in Media,
Culture & Communication, at the Institute
of Education, London University. Her final
dissertation was based upon a research
project on how Teachers’ TV is meeting the
needs of teachers, including semi-structured
interviews of teaching staff, analysis of a
sample of programmes and an investigation
into the institutional background to the
establishment of the Channel.
8
Bye-Child:
A producer’s eye view
Andrew Bonner
T
here was a time was when a short
film of Bye-Child
Bye-Child’s scale could not
have been attempted by such a new
director and producer team. So it is
thanks to the work of all the investors,
cast and crew that the film was produced
at all. It is a hard task to collect the
money, gather the talent, find the
locations, book the gear, roll the cameras
and deliver a film that still works in the
edit suite. This article gives some of the
story that took place behind the camera.
Development
You could say this film has been in
development since Seamus Heaney made
his first attempts at writing the poem
of ‘Bye-Child’ and showed what he had
achieved to Bernard [McLaverty, writer
and director of the film], and other
members of the Belfast writing group,
way back in early 1970! However, for the
purposes of our story, we begin when I
Bye-Child spotted
approached Seamus Heaney for the rights
to adapt the poem to film.
Rights and scripts and the search
for cash
I had been an admirer of Bernard
MacLaverty’s writing for many years, so
when Seamus Heaney gave me permission
to adapt the poem into a short film, I
knew who would be first choice to write
the screenplay. It was only much later
that Bernard revealed to me that the ByeChild poem had been an important source
for his work on the novel and screenplay
of Cal, one of his most acclaimed works.
So Bernard was keen to make the short
film come to life, as it had always been a
story that fascinated and appealed to him.
It took a couple of months for Bernard
to think about how he would construct a
story from the impressions and imagery
of the poem. For example, the poem never
attempts to explain how and why the
Bye-Child is hidden in the outhouse. This
has to be explained if a film version is
to work. It was also necessary to explain
how the child could have been hidden so
well for so long, and why no one on the
neighbourhood had come across him/her
sooner.
The screenplay’s answer was to create an
isolated farmhouse, that would distance
its owners from any nearby villages, and
to have characters who themselves might
be socially isolated, thus making it less
likely that they would receive visitors.
Visitors to the house could only be there
through an unlikely invitation, or by
mistake. This story element was settled
in two ways: by bringing the grocer’s
van to the house at the beginning of
the film, and by bringing the boys to the
house when they play hide-and-seek
midway through the film. This becomes
the catalyst moment that unearths the
Bye-Child.
With these and other script issues sorted,
I set about looking for cash and talent.
Though one problem, that of finding a
director was very quickly solved: Bernard
himself volunteered to do the job. It was
something he always fancied doing, and I
was delighted to accept his offer.
It wasn’t until two years later, however,
that enough money was found to pay for
the production. Short films do not make
much, if any money, and so it takes a long
search to find people who will want to
support them. Bye-Child
Bye-Child’s money came in
the form of grants from the Scottish Arts
Council, Scottish Screen, Northern Ireland
Film and TV Commission and private
investors. Susan Lynch had agreed to play
the lead role of the Mother, though most
of the other roles weren’t settled until the
final stages of pre-production.
Pre-production
Once all the money had been offered and
guaranteed, the film moved very quickly
from development into pre-production.
One of short film’s other drawbacks is
that crews and cast are often on other,
bigger projects right up to the start date
for shooting and so pre-production has
to be very quick. We had little more than
two weeks to finalise our plans.
Prep is the most intense period of
work for many members of the crew,
particularly the art department and
production team. The production design
team had to build a shed, dress the
exterior of our house, furnish and arrange
9
Bye-Child: the crew prepare to shoot
the interior of the house, order chickens,
source, buy and collect wheelchairs,
stools, mirrors, and props of all kinds. The
team to do this would be much bigger
on a TV or feature film, and with only
a few people working on our shoot, the
production design team did a tremendous
job.
While the art department were busy
getting the set designed and built, the
production team were arranging for the
rest of the cast and crew to get involved.
The learning curve for me as a new
producer was steep and difficult to climb,
but with the help of a great production
manager, Lisa Woods, many of the
difficulties were fixed. Pre-production is
the time when all the plans for the actual
shoot are agreed and finalised, so the
director of photography, First Assistant
Director, Production Designer, Make-up
and costume supervisors and a host of
other people have to be part of the plans:
all will have to share their thoughts on
how the plans affect their jobs.
Bye-Child was a tough prep because there
were so many issues to be solved in a
very short amount of time. But the team
made it, helped in no small part by their
enthusiasm to be working with Bernard.
His ability to explain very clearly what
he wanted, and to quickly adapt when
he couldn’t get it, helped everyone. By
Sunday 8th June 2003, everything was
in place for six days of shooting in the
beautiful countryside of Northern Ireland.
Production
Making a film is often described as
‘doing the high-wire sprint’. Once prep
has finished, there is no turning back
without a lot of expense and possibly a
lost film. Production is when the film rolls
through the camera, actors come into
their own and the producer hopes and
prays that all the prep has been sufficient
for everyone to do their job. It is also the
time when problems have to be dealt with
very quickly or else there will be huge
ramifications for the film.
Day 1
Shooting on Bye-Child took six days in
June 2003. Day 1 started at the chapel
inside the grounds of the Ulster Folk
and Transport Museum near Holywood,
Co. Down. There were 30-40 extras,
almost full cast, and a crew of 35-40 and
therefore would be the most difficult day
of all. Amazingly, the crew got through
most of the shots required, even with a
few problems along the way, and moved
from Holywood to the location for the
house in time for a few shots in the
evening. The rest of the film was shot
here, near Templepatrick, Co. Antrim, and
this made the next few days easier to
handle.
Day 2
A long day, dominated by the need to
get night shots and dark exteriors. Some
interiors were shot in the early part of the
day, but the cast and crew were in for a
long night as sufficient darkness could
not be achieved in the night sky until
VERY late. A difficult task, but good to
have it out of the way relatively early in
the week.
Day 3
Lots of interiors: of the woman trying to
get to sleep, and then some moves to get
the exteriors of the priest approaching the
house. This is also the day that the rescue
10
Susan Lynch as the mother in Bye-Child
of the child is filmed. Originally written to
take place at night, it was decided that,
with such bright skies well past midnight,
there wouldn’t be enough dark hours to
accomplish this. Instead, it was shot in
the afternoon, and many say how much
better it worked than the original idea.
Genna MacCormick, playing the ByeChild, is trained to perfection by drama
coach, Julie Austin, and the scenes have
tremendous impact with all the crew.
Day 4
Many of the night interiors of the shed
are filmed. A black drape is erected over
the shed in the garden, and daylight is
banished. The rat is one of the stars today,
and performs brilliantly. The one-take
wonder-rodent is wrapped by teatime.
This is also the day when Susan Lynch
and Dick Holland perform their difficult
fight scene. It’s tricky to choreograph and
shoot, but is done with amazing skill and
rare power. Everyone knows this will be a
great scene in the final cut.
Day 5
Just when we needed it, this was a
beautiful summer day. Scheduled for Day
5 was the hide-and-seek game with the
boys. It’s complicated by the fact that
many angles and points of view have to
be covered. For example, when Susan
Lynch goes to her window to check on
the disturbance she hears, she must see
the feet of Danny McGrady making his
getaway. Lots of time spent setting up,
but all the shots are in by wrap.
Day 6
The last great day! All the scenes dropped
from earlier in the week have to be
picked up. The priest is yet to confront
the father, and so Brian Devlin is recalled
for another day’s work. Another glorious
day of sunshine lifts spirits, and the film
is completed on time and with all the
footage required, in the can.
Post-production
Post-production is when the camera has
stopped rolling, the cast and crew go
home and the director waits to see if he
really has a film. The first assembly edit
takes place, and Bye-Child seems a bit
long. There is a discussion about how the
flashback should work, because as it is
scripted it doesn’t seem to have as much
power as was hoped. These issues are
solved and then the special visual effects,
like placing the moon in the night sky are
added. The edited film goes to a digital
negative processor in Switzerland, and a
new negative comes back to Technicolor
in London. Bye-Child
Bye-Child’s post-production
is delayed at various points by personnel
being on summer holidays, babies’ births
and other commitments. Sound has to be
re-recorded, and dubbed. Music has to be
written and recorded, and then dubbed
into the sound mix that has already been
taking place. Credits have to be agreed,
and then filmed, printed and attached to
the main film: it can seem like the film
will never get made.
But the print is ready in time for its
première at the London Film Festival in
October. Finally, the film makes it to a
big screen, and receives a tremendous
reception.
Andrew Bonner
Resources
The film’s website is at:
www.byechildfilm.com
Ordering Information for DVD of
film plus education resources
Poetry in Motion Ltd
3/2 191 Hyndland Road
Glasgow G12 9HT, UK
tel and fax: (+44) 0141 587 6279
email <[email protected]>
ABERTAY MEDIA STUDIES 11
Media Studies at Abertay
Hazel Work
T
his is the second edition of the
Journal to contain articles from
the Media and Culture research group
in the Division of Sociology at the
University of Abertay. The previous
Abertay issue of the MEJ (2002, No.
32) addressed a range of themes from:
Scottish nationhood as expressed
through the tabloid tales of the Daily
Record, the power of myth and identity
Record
in the film The Outlaw Josey Wales and
motifs of carnival and the grotesque
in the television series The Sopranos.
These themes and issues are reworked
and reshaped in the present edition
where debates about identity, myth
and the body re-emerge in articles
about internet sites, CSI: Crime Scene
Investigation, body language and the
stories told about Jessica Lynch in the
American media.
becomes part of a long tradition of
victimising and stigmatising social
groups finding themselves badly
affected by changing socio-economic
structures.
Alex Law in ‘‘It Noh Funny’: Ned
Humour on the Web’ focuses on the
way in which urban, working class
youth in Dundee are portrayed on the
Internet site ‘Dumpdee’. Law argues
that while this site justifies its content
through an appeal to humour, the
wider issue is who is meant to get
the joke? He argues that these sites
express wider representations of
urban youth and housing schemes
as standing beyond the pale of
civilization. In such ways, the Internet
Andy Panay draws on the American
frontier myth in ‘Spinning into SemiReality – the Captivating Tale of
Jessica Lynch’ to discuss the way in
which the capture and captivity of
the American soldier Jessica Lynch by
Iraqis in 2003 was represented in the
American media. Panay argues that the
stories surrounding her captivity and
rescue were not simply an exercise in
media manipulation and propaganda
but demonstrated how collective
In contrast to Alex Law’s discussion
of the ‘Dumpdee’ site, Cathy Di
Domenico’s article focuses on the ways
in which the Internet and other media
have contributed to a reworking of the
ways in which ‘Mary Slessor of Calabar’
(1848-1915) the famous Scottish
Missionary’s life story has been told in
both Nigeria and Scotland. Domenico
argues that although different
emphases have been brought to her
biography, the Internet has played
an important part in creating links
between her life and legacy in Nigeria
and in Scotland.
myths surrounding American history
and identity are re-enacted in times of
national emergency.
James Moir revisits his interest in
discourse, communication and visual
rhetoric in his article on ‘Broadcasting
Body Language: Studying Popular
Television in the Classroom’. Moir
considers the way in which the study
of, or comment upon people’s ‘body
language’ has become a popular
form of television entertainment.
He discusses how media students
can be encouraged to consider and
reflect upon the popularity of expert
commentary on ‘body language’ within
reality television programmes such as
Big Brother
Brother.
Hazel Work’s paper ‘Dead or Alive:
Bodies of Evidence in CSI’ addresses
the way in which new developments
in forensic and media technology
are used to take the ‘voyeurism of
witnessing’ associated with crime
drama to a new level. The paper
suggests that this voyeurism is
accompanied by a discourse about the
infallibility of the forensic method that
ensures that any social understandings
of crime and criminality are pushed to
the margins of the narrative within the
series.
ABERTAY MEDIA STUDIES
12
Dead or Alive:
Bodies of Evidence in CSI
Hazel Work
I
n October 2000 CBS aired a new show
on their network, CSI: Crime Scene
Investigation (CSI).
CSI). The immense popularity
CSI
of this show led the network to create a
series franchise with CSI: Miami which
aired in 2002 and CSI: NY which debuted in
2004. This article will focus on the original
series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and
will discuss the ways in which the forensic
procedures utilised within the series help
frame the types of stories we are told
about crime, criminality and the bodies of
both the living and the dead.
The Science of Deduction
In many respects the series builds on the
positivist tradition and the ‘science of
deduction’ that blossomed in the popular
crime fiction of the nineteenth century.
Thomas (2003) points to the close link
between the ‘science of deduction’ found in
the popular fiction of writers such as Edgar
Allan Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle and the
emergence of a new body of ‘scientific’
knowledge in this era. He suggests that
the development of forensic criminology
was popularised and in part legitimised
through its presence in such fictional tales.
The emergence of a new heroic figure for
the modern age, the detective, provided
the cipher for this approach to the study
of crime. In CSI we have a contemporary
example of this process with Grissom and
his team providing the viewers with a
showcase for fictional narratives which
privilege and help legitimise a science of
crime and criminality more suited to the
twenty first century. The series places the
Crime Scene Investigators at the centre of
the detection process and while this format
departs from aspects of the traditional
detective drama, the series conforms to one
of the dominant motifs of the detective
narrative whereby “the hidden identity of
the criminal is the structuring motif of the
text” (Young 1996:83). In CSI this motif is
overlain with the demands of the forensic
method and this method helps structure
the narrative and provides the means
and procedures for catching the criminal.
The forensic method is predicated on the
belief that the deployment of scientific
rationalism is the most efficient way to
catch criminals and ultimately understand
crime. This method is based on the idea
of the ‘detective as positivist’ (Young:
1996) where the problem and mystery of
crime is solved through the analysis and
interpretation of observable phenomena; in
CSI the observable phenomena include the
bodies of the victims and the crime scene
under investigation.
In CSI the individual, perhaps more
precisely, the individual body, lies at
the centre of the mystery of crime. The
emphasis placed on the individual body,
be it the victim’s or the criminal’s, ensures
that the stories we are told about crime in
CSI play out at one step removed from the
social world. In fact the forensic methods
used to secure the ‘scene of the crime’ and
subsequently catch the criminals’ helps
to push any wider social understanding of
crime to the margins of the narrative.
In CSI the debris of the social world is
a possible contaminating factor at a
crime scene and the CSI teams work
to preserve the site from the threat of
contamination. Through this process the
area is transformed from a social space in
which people may have lived and worked
and almost certainly died into an arena
for objective, scientific study in which the
evidence, the facts are said to speak for
themselves.
CSI staff invariably search rooms using torches and other technologies to reveal
evidence.
Gil Grissom the lead CSI in the series
never tires of reminding the viewers and
his team to “Concentrate on what cannot
lie . . . the evidence”. This approach is
reinforced by the fact that the dead body,
the corpse in each story is treated as an
object, becomes a thing through which
evidence can be extracted and used to
help catch the criminal. In this sense the
“body becomes the haven of truth” (Peters:
2001). This truth is not only found on the
body of the victim but also often in or on
the perpetrator of the crime; blood, skin,
semen and hair, the biology of the offender
leads the team and the viewer to the
solution to the crime. Here we have a more
sophisticated version of the ‘criminal type’
made popular in the nineteenth century
by Lombroso, Bertillon and others. We
still have crime written on the individual
body but instead of a crude physiognomy
wherein criminality is detected in the shape
of ear lobes, eye-squints, close-knitted
brows and low foreheads, we have bodily
betrayal often at a deep genetic level. In
CSI the implication is that no-one can
hide, neither the criminal nor the audience
and this message resonates with a wider
culture of surveillance and control found in
modern societies.
The Technology of Crime
In CSI technology plays a large part in the
capture of criminals. It is technology that
allows the investigators to see the DNA
string or the chromosomal abnormalities
that lead the viewer to the perpetrator of
the crime and there is a sense in which
both the scientific and media technologies
used in the series take us into another
realm of the observable, a realm hinted at
in Walter Benjamin’s essay on ‘The Work of
Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’.
Benjamin (1992) drew attention to the
ways in which photography and the
camera could open up a field of vision
not observable to the naked eye. In
CSI the use of microscopes, advanced
computerised imaging techniques, infrared
and other light based technologies allow
the investigators and the audience ways
of seeing which take us beyond the limits
of plain sight. The camera techniques
used throughout the series reinforce this
expansion in the field of vision. The camera
takes the viewer inside the victim’s body
thereby providing a close-up of the damage
inflicted by bullets, poison, knives, hands,
or the other contributors to the more
natural processes of decay displayed on the
corpse. Both the scientific and media based
technologies used in the series provide us
with a “superabundance of details with
evidentiary value” (Peters 2001: 708)
details a CSI and the viewer require to
ensure the apprehension of the criminal by
the end of the episode.
The manner in which this technology is
used to gradually reveal the identity of the
criminal is also an important component
of the methodology of the CSI team. As
“. . . a significant portion of each episode is taken up with examining the corpse of
the victim” – in this case a man with excessive body hair.
Peters (2001) suggests, both scientific
instruments and media technologies such
as the camera and the microphone “were
thought thing-like, and hence credible, in
their indifference to human interests”. In
CSI the forensic method is rarely seriously
challenged and the fact that images,
recordings and evidence can be tampered
with or inaccurately processed, or open to
a range of alternative interpretations is
an issue that rarely arises. In one episode
‘Mea Culpa’ (2005) Grissom’s processing
skills are brought in to question on an old
case but it transpires that the technique
used to finger print a matchbook resulted
in the emergence of a ‘slow motion’ print,
a print which would not have been visible
during the original processing. This episode
does raise questions about aspects of the
forensic process but ultimately Grissom’s
integrity and methods are proved to be
sound and the audience is reassured by the
suggestion that in the intervening period
the techniques for processing prints have
become more advanced and therefore even
more reliable.
In many respects the appeal of CSI rests
on the reassurance offered to the viewers.
There may be a few twists and turns
in the narrative to keep the audience
interested but the stories are at one
with the dominant tropes of detective
fiction, literary or otherwise. The viewer
is “comforted by the sense that, whatever
happens, the excursion into the fearful
world of criminality will be followed by a
return from fear, as the detective solves
the crime and reveals the identity of the
criminal” (Young 1996:79). In CSI this
return to safety is perhaps more apparent
than in some other crime dramas aired
on our screens. This is largely due to
the fact that the forensic method and
its associated processes of detection
are often constructed as infallible – the
evidence does not lie: any glitches in what
the evidence may mean is often due to
minor lapses in the procedural process.
The solution is usually linked to a more
stringent use of the forensic detection
techniques available to the team, leading
to a more in-depth knowledge of the
perpetrator of the crime. This gradual
unmasking and capture of the criminal
ensures that the series fulfils two of the
pleasures associated with detective dramas,
censure and the ‘voyeurism of witnessing’
(Young: 1996).
The Voyeurism of Witnessing
In CSI one may suggest that this ‘voyeurism
of witnessing’ goes beyond the pleasures
involved in seeing into the private spaces
of the victims’ lives. In CSI death opens the
narrative and a significant portion of each
episode is taken up with examining the
corpse of the victim. Modes of death are
on display for those who wish to look; we
see bodies that are so putrefied that they
have melted into carpets or become the
black sludge in a bath, we see bodies that
are so desiccated they crumble to dust at
the merest touch or we are reminded of
our own fate as partially decayed insectridden corpses are shown on the screen.
In CSI the voyeurism associated with
looking closely at the corpse of the victims
serves a singular purpose, to illuminate the
scientific method as a mode of detection.
As viewers and persons we cannot
actually see death, the moment between
“bodily being and non-being” is a mystery
(Sobchak:1984) and as such “the moment
of death can only be represented in a
visible and vigorous contrast between two
14
states of the physical body: the body as
lived body, intentional and animated, and
the body as corpse, as flesh unintended,
inanimate, static” (Sobchak,1984:287).
Through this display of the body as an inert
object, a resource for the expert knowledge
of the forensic scientist, science is retrieved
from its redundancy in the face of death.
Science is the lens through which we see
and read the signs written on the corpse
thereby challenging Sobchak’s (1984:286)
suggestion that death “is a sign that ends
all signs.” In CSI the corpse is made to
‘speak’ before and often beyond the grave.
This validation of science and the forensic
method as the ultimate interpreter of both
the living and the dead body is reinforced
by the manner in which the crime scene
investigators and ultimately the audience
are able to view the corpse, at a distance.
For the Crime Scene Investigators this
distance is ensured by their objectivity as
investigators, for the viewer this distance
is achieved by adopting the point of view
of the lead characters and the mediated
means by which the corpse is presented
to us on screen. In the autopsy scenes
the viewer is shown images in a range of
time frames from slow motion, speeding
up or reversing time to the repetition
and replaying of particular images. Such
scenes are often accompanied by rock
music giving the viewer a macabre popvideo moment; this pop-video sensibility
is reinforced by the multiple views of the
dead body available to the viewer through
the video screens that populate the autopsy
lab. Such mediated techniques reinforce
the distance between the viewer and the
corpse and as such the artifice of the
process encourages the audience to view
the corpse as an object thereby reinforcing
the dominant socio-ideological framework
of the series as a whole.
Reason and Emotion
There is another sense in which the
narratives within CSI may be viewed as
an exemplar of the ‘science of deduction’
and that is in the way in which the series
pushes the personal and the emotive to
the outer-reaches of the narrative even
though Sparks (1992) Young (1996) and
Garland (1993) have argued that we would
gain a fuller understanding of crime and
criminality if more attention was paid to
the emotions involved in criminal acts
and the responses to them. There are a
range of episodes where the audience
do get a glimpse of the personal lives
of the characters: Catherine Willows’
relationship with her husband, father and
tellingly to a lesser extent her daughter;
Grissom’s deafness in Seasons Three and
Four; Warwick’s gambling problem or
Sara Sidel’s childhood experiences. By
and large the personal lives of the CSI’s
are subordinated to the demands of the
‘technical procedural’ (Young: 1996) of
the narrative. In the episodes where the
personal does intrude it often acts to the
detriment of a CSI’s required objectivity
on a case. In ‘Random Acts of Violence’
(2003) Warwick’s emotional involvement
leads him to assume a suspect is guilty. We
get an indication that a lack of emotional
distance from the crime is a problem in
the 2003 episode ‘Lady Heather’s Box’.
Again, in ‘Weeping Willows’ (2005)
Grissom is unimpressed that Catherine’s
need for “human contact” situates her in
an anomalous position as both a Crime
Scene Investigator and involved subject
in terms of the case they are working on.
She asks Grissom if it is a crime to need
such ‘human contact’; his response is to
intimate that it is problematic, reinforcing
the viewers’ perception of him as an
emotionally detached but gifted CSI.
His superior abilities are linked to this
detachment and in this respect he fits in
to the mould of the detective archetype
developed in early detective fiction.
Edgar Allan Poe’s Dupin, argued to be
the precursor of the modern detective, is
characterised as an ‘emotionless reasoning
machine’. Sherlock Holmes eschews the
company of women fearing that their
emotionality will interfere with his
rationalism and there are many instances
within the series where Grissom suggests
that one’s objectivity and reasoning skills
are tainted by emotional attachments.
The difference here would be that this
taint may affect both the male and female
members of the team; emotion is no longer
the preserve of the female but objectivity
and rationalism continue to be the most
prized qualities and in CSI, Grissom is the
exemplar of this mode of being in the
world.
Grissom is an enigmatic figure yet as
a character he fits Young’s (1996:86)
description of the detective as a “dividedunity-both rational and imaginative.” In
the series we are regularly shown scenes
where Grissom imagines himself at the
scene as the crime occurs and he often
makes intuitive leaps with regard to
the cases he is working on. However it
is clear that this empathy and intuition
come from knowledge of the world that is
observed and processed rather than fully
experienced. This knowledge borne of his
experience as a CSI has led him to develop
his own taxonomy of criminal behaviour
but it is a schema in which the ‘nuts,
sluts and perverts’ of the social world are
categorised and contained from a distance.
In many senses Grissom’s knowledge of
‘man’s’ folly is often detailed through the
philosophical and literary references he
makes within episodes and it is telling
that his status as an expert in entomology
suggests he has a greater affinity with
insects than human beings. His character,
as a result, seems to stand at one step
removed from the pettiness of everyday
existence and in this respect he mirrors
the qualities of the classic detective who
moves through society but is not entirely of
that society. This is reinforced by William
Petersen’s portrayal of the character as an
intelligent and quirky loner.
CSI provides the viewers with a highly
polished account of the forensic method
as a mode of crime detection, so polished
that the series glosses over the difficulties
in retrieving viable forensic evidence
(The Scotsman, 16.1.2006). Furthermore,
the emphasis placed upon a positivistic
approach to crime and criminality ensures
that viewers’ attention is directed away
from more complex discourses about
society, social conditions and the nature
and causes of crime.
References
Benjamin, W (1992) Illuminations, London:
Fontana Press.
Deutsch, L (2006) TV Crime Dramas ‘distort
view of US justice for jurors’, The Scotsman,
16 January.
Garland, D (1993) Punishment and Modern
Society: A Study in Social Theory
Theory, Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Peters, J.D. (2001) ‘Witnessing’, Media,
Culture and Society
Society, Vol.23 (6) 707-723.
Sobchak, V (1984) ‘Inscribing Ethical Space:
Ten Propositions on Death, Representation
and Documentary’, Quarterly Review of Film
and Video, Vol. 9 (4) 283-300.
Sparks, R (1992) Television and the Drama
of Crime: Moral Tales and the Place of Crime
in Public Life, Buckingham: Open University
Press.
Thomas, R.R (2003) Detective Fiction and
the Rise of Forensic Science, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Young, Alison (1996) Imagining
Crime: Textual Outlaws and Criminal
Conversations, London, Sage.
Hazel Work teaches in the Division of
Sociology at the University of Abertay
Dundee. Her main research interests
include media constructions of crime and
criminality, Bakhtin and dialogism, the body
and carnivalesque in contemporary culture.
Broadcasting ‘Body Language’:
Studying Popular Television in
the Classroom
Dr James Moir
T
he study of non-verbal
communication or body language
as it is commonly known, is very
popular amongst students studying the
behavioural sciences as well as being
a topic with huge populist appeal in
the media. For example, in the United
Kingdom television programmes
such as Body Talk presented by the
psychologist Peter Collett (Channel 4,
UK, May 2004) have captured the public
imagination and there is also a thriving
populist and academic literature in the
field (e.g. Hinde, 2005; Collett, 2003;
Beattie, 2003; Fast, 2002; Richmond &
McCroskey, 2003). There is also a vast
applied side to this work in terms of
coaching programmes associated with
interaction in the world of business and
personal relationships. The study of body
language is big business.
Much of the appeal of this area rests
upon the idea that body language
involves people communicating their
‘true’ thoughts and feelings. Indeed the
media has played a part in popularising
Birdwhistle’s (1970) work which found
that around 7% of communication
is the result of words, the rest of our
messages being conveyed through our
body language, tone of voice, and facial
expressions. It is for this reason that
there is an obvious appeal in reading
the body and de-coding what these
various signals mean. It is no accident
that much of this work is devoted to the
study of power in politics and business
as well as the nature of sexual signals.
These are areas where the revelatory
power of being able to de-code these
signals provides much of the appeal and
rhetorical power of this kind of study.
However, it is also an area of study
where this populist appeal itself is of
interest, especially for students studying
television and how media intersects with
culture and society.
For the most part this area has been
the subject of academic psychology but
other disciplinary contributions are also
evident. For example, anthropologists
have approached the topic in terms of
the way in which these processes help
to integrate societies, whilst ethologists
have extrapolated findings from animal
studies to humans in terms of different
sorts of displays (see Hinde, 2005). What
is perhaps lacking is a more sociological
analysis of what makes this area so
popular within the media.
This paper therefore seeks to explore why
‘body language’ is such an appealing
area and how asking this question can
be utilised in turn to encourage students
to understand its ideological power in
terms of populist appeal. In particular,
it is useful to encourage students to
understand the way in which the study
of non-verbal communication trades
upon an inner/outer cultural dualism
in which the animated body is treated
as a window onto the mind. Moreover,
bodies are taken as communicating
socially shared ‘meanings’ such as joy,
interest, boredom, status etc. some of
which are unconscious whilst others are
taken as being controllable. This idea
of the body as the site of a struggle for
communicative intent has a resonance
with Goffman’s (1959) work on self-
presentation but less attention has been
paid to the underlying populist appeal of
this area in terms of seeing what people
think and feel, in reading the body
language of others.
There is little doubt that this in itself
is a powerful rhetoric in sustaining a
major part of the appeal of this area
and particularly when wedded to the
recent upsurge in commenting upon
people’s body language in reality
television programmes. These kinds of
“reality” television programmes have
become very popular viewing in recent
years. It is therefore relatively easy to
make reference to such programmes in
teaching about the relationship between
media, culture and society. It is also the
case that this kind of approach can help
students engage in a more reflective
learning about the extent to which they
themselves are drawn towards populist
television and how this appeal works.
In the case of commentaries upon body
language in television programmes
one avenue is to help students to
consider how the body is positioned
as a communicative device in which
movement is taken as displaying some
meaning or insight into what someone
is saying or doing. This issue is discussed
further below and illustrated with
examples used in class and drawn from
the popular media.
Movements and Minds
In the study of non-verbal
communication there is one major
underlying assumption: communication.
The basis of this is a conceptualisation
16
of the interaction as being about the
communication of some thoughts or
feelings ‘inside’ people. What is said, in
what way and with what accompanying
body movements are taken as requiring
interpretation in order to assess the
degree of congruence between them
and what they reveal about the person
during the interaction. There is an intrapsychic world that is mediated through
the outer world of the body which is
in turn is relayed to other minds. The
nuances of body movements in terms of
facial expressions and bodily positions
and gestures are taken as being the focus
of investigation. Therefore, the body in
this view is treated as a window onto
something else; an inner world that
requires to be exposed.
It is this revelatory discourse that gives
the study of body language so much
of its rhetorical power. To be able to
read the mind of another by analysing
the micro-movements of their body is
an area that has captured the public
imagination and shows no sign of
abating. It is perhaps no accident that
this should be the case given that the
mass appeal of this area of study has
been applied to topics such as sex,
politics and business. The ability to
communicate effectively in terms of
persuasion and influence, and to be able
to ‘read’ others is often crucial in these
aspects of people’s lives. It is also the
case that these are just the areas where
success in doing so carries much in terms
of individual ‘rewards’ and therefore is
a major element in the popularity of the
field and its appeal to students. To be
able to read other people’s minds has
always been a claim that has populist
appeal.
The emotional aspect of such
communication is taken as being
spontaneous and representing ‘feelings’
and it is this that is often presented as
being a major part of what the study of
body language can reveal. The emotional
state of a person as displayed through
non-verbal cues is often taken as a
reliable indicator of a person’s ‘true’
feelings. The physiology of these bodily
movements and facial expressions is
regarded as virtually beyond the total
control of the individual. It is also
interesting to note that much of the
discourse of the study of body language
revolves around the detection of
deception by reading non-verbal leakage,
or in Goffman’s (1959) terms, the
signals that are given off. The visibility
of ‘emotions’ as indexed to the body is
therefore a major cultural resource in
taking ‘outward’ non-verbal signals and
considering these as representations of
what people are like ‘inside’ as thinking
and feeling agents.
It is this communication model therefore
that drives the ‘expertise’ of those in
the study of non-verbal behaviour. The
stories of emotional and other states
laid upon the body through notions of
revealing the signals that is given off
leads to a discourse of functionality as
related to particular bodily ‘channels’:
vocal quality, facial movements, eye
movements; posture, orientation,
distance and touch, gestures, appearance,
and even chemical. These channels
are then related to functions such as
marking identity and status; the display
of emotional states; role relationships;
joint focus of attention; rituals, and
illustrators. This association between
the labelling of ‘perceptual moments’ in
the understanding of body language and
the mental operations that have been
applied to them provides for a means
of establishing a rationalist account of
non-verbal communication in terms of
functionality. The body must be attended
to in terms of discrete signals requiring
‘interpretation’ or ‘understanding’ these
expressive functions.
The popularisation of body
language in the media
This notion of body language has
extended into popular media in terms
of what the body ‘reveals’ about people.
Much of this has been associated with
the world of ‘reality television’ and the
use of body language experts to dissect
the expressions and movements of
participants for the benefit of the viewer.
In dissecting interactions between the
contestants on Big Brother
Brother, for example,
each conversation is treated as if it
were treading a delicate balance of selfexpression, impressing housemates and
currying favour with millions of sofabound viewers. These interpretations
from experts in the field also lend a
legitimacy to this way of reading the
body in terms of looking for the truth
behind the signals and that the body
does not lie (see promotional extract
below).
Big Brother’s Little Brother
As one of the official BBLB’s experts,
Robert Phipps has taken a keen
interest in this year’s Big Brother
Brother. He
says: “It’s great to be involved this
time round, as someone with more
than a personal interest in body
language the programme’s been a
must for me ever since the very first
show aired back in 2000”.
His role in the show is to shed light
on some of the gestures, signals
and movements the housemates
exhibit throughout the series, as
sometimes their body gestures do
not match the words coming from
their mouths. “This is known as
incongruence” says Phipps “and
when this happens it is always the
body that tells the truth, as the body
doesn’t know how to lie it gives off
the wrong signals.”
(from www.robertphipps.com/
BigBro.html)
One of the psychologists associated
with the show, Peter Collett, has
also presented a two-part television
programme screened on Channel 4 in
May 2004. The programme looked at
body language as applied to the world
of power, politics and sex and seen in
offices, a party conference, the armed
services and celebrity culture (see
www.thebookoftells.com/BodyTalk_
Main.htm). Those in the media spotlight
have remained the subject of this kind of
analysis through a weekly feature in the
Scotland on Sunday newspaper.
Images from Body Talk: The TV Series
Body Talk – The TV Series
Programme 1: Power
People who hold positions of
power are rather like poker players
– they’re engaged in a subtle
game of bluff, trying to persuade
everyone that they have the
necessary qualities to lead, and
doing everything they can to ensure
that their intentions remain hidden.
This programme examines powerful
people by looking at their “tells”
– those unintentional signs that give
them away and reveal their true
feelings.
Programme 2: Sex
face. Psychologists have consistently
shown that men smile much less
than women. That’s partly because
smiling serves as an appeasement
display – a means of showing that
one isn’t a threat. It’s also because
women have a more pressing desire
to be liked, whereas men are more
concerned with gaining respect. This
probably has something to do with
the fact that our society still regards
women as subordinate. But there
may also be a genetic component,
since gender differences in smiling
have been observed in babies as
young as two months. The fact that
baby girls smile more than baby boys
is difficult to explain in terms of
socialisation or social expectations.
By analysing celebrity couples like
Kate Winslet and Sam Mendes,
Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie
Presley, and Michael Douglas and
Catherine Zeta Jones, we can see
who’s in control, what’s happening
in their relationship and where
it’s heading. The tells that were in
evidence when Prince Charles and
Diana announced their engagement
are compared with those on display
when Prince Edward and Sophie
announced theirs.
Sun 11 Dec 2005, Scotland on
Sunday
Body language
Dr Peter Collett
The actress Helena Bonham Carter
and her director husband Tim Burton
are arriving at Sadler’s Wells Theatre
in London for the world première of
the theatrical production of Edward
Scissorhands, based on Burton’s film
of the same name. Bonham Carter,
we see, is standing slightly behind
her husband. That’s because they’re
holding hands and his is in front of
hers. The taller person usually adopts
the ‘front-hold’, but if the shorter
person is more dominant they’re just
as likely to assume this position.
Another expression of dominance is
the absence of a smile on Burton’s
Finally, we see that Bonham Carter
is tilting her head to one side. This
may be an unconscious attempt to
declare her devotion to her husband,
but it could also be a ‘head-cant’;
something that women typically
do to reduce their apparent height
and to make themselves look less
threatening. In fact, it’s not unusual
to see a woman wearing high
heels to make herself look taller,
while canting her head to one side
to make herself look shorter. No
wonder men are confused.
•
Peter Collett is the author of
The Book of Tells and was a
resident psychologist on Big
Brother
Conclusion
These examples can be discussed in
class with students in terms of how a
focus on body language in the media has
gained popularity. In particular, students
can be encouraged to reflect upon the
revelatory power claimed for this kind
of analysis and how this constitutes a
major aspect of its appeal. However,
there are also ideological issues that can
be teased out in class; for example, the
focus on interpersonal interaction and
underlying psychological states as being
key to understanding social relations and
interactions; the focus upon personal
influence through body language as
a means of ‘success’; the focus upon
celebrity body language as an ever closer
means of inspecting their lives; or the
ways in which ‘expertise’ is warranted
via interpretations of slow-motion shots
and still pictures. Students following
media-related programmes of study can
therefore begin to connect the nature
of popular television programming with
an understanding of the derivation of
popularity and how this relates to wider
sociological and ideological issues.
References
Beattie, G. (2003) Visible Thought: The
new psychology of body language, Taylor
& Francis.
Birdwhistle, R. (1970) Kinesics and
Context, Philadelphia: University of
Context
Pennsylvania
Collett, P. (2003) The Book of Tells,
Doubleday
Edwards, D. (1997) Discourse and
Cognition, London: Sage
Fast, J. (2002) Body Language, M Evans
& Co.
Goffman E, (1959) The Presentation of
Self in Everyday Life, reprint Penguin
Books, 1990.
Richmond, V. & McCroskey, J. (2003)
Nonverbal Behaviour in interpersonal
Relations, Allyn & Bacon
Dr Jim Moir is a senior lecturer in
sociology with research and teaching
interests in discourse analysis,
communication theory and visual
rhetoric in mass media. He is particularly
interested in studying ‘seeing’ as a social
accomplishment across a range of social
practices.
18
“It noh funny”:
‘Ned’ Humour on the Web
Dr Alex Law
A
ccording to the people licensed
to talk on behalf of the rest of
Scotland, the nation suffers from a love
of ‘failure’ and positively celebrates the
culture of urban poverty. For instance,
Stuart Cosgrove, Channel 4’s Director of
Nations and Regions and the presenter
of football-related banter on BBC
Scotland’s Off the Ball, recently claimed
that Scots love ‘failure’ and that writers
like James Kelman and filmmakers like
Peter Mullan are obsessed by the ‘selfloathing’ represented by depressing
urban realism. For Cosgrove, such
wallowing in urban squalor supposedly
explains the peculiar attraction of leftwing politics in Scotland: “They also
love the culture of poverty. The rise of
the Scottish Socialist Party is a case
in point. They don’t seem to be able to
imagine themselves out of this culture”
(cited by Law, 2005).
Similarly, Christopher Harvie, the
esteemed Scottish historian, has
attacked Irvine Welsh’s fiction as
‘debased’. Harvie is very specific about
the class-basis of this: “Welsh’s market
remains captive: the inarticulate
twenty-somethings, call- centre folk,
cyberserfs, unsmug unmarrieds who
infest [city centre] fun palaces. Welsh
is to this lot what, in his happier days,
Jeffrey Archer was to Mondeo Man:
the jammy bastard who did well” (cited
by Law, 2005). Such claims have been
accompanied by demands that Scots
need to become more psychologically
confident as a nation and embrace
entrepreneurial success in market
competition. In policy terms this chimes
nicely with New Labour discourses
of social inclusion through paid
employment rather than more equal
wealth re-distribution (Mooney and
Scott, 2005).
Yet another way to exorcise the
cultural demon of the urban poor
has been to humorously send it up.
Humouring the poor was evident in
the 1990s with the popular situation
comedy Rab C. Nesbitt and, in the
2000s, with the sketch show, Chewin’
the Fat
Fat. In both cases the urban poor
were sympathetically drawn, living by
their own codes, speaking in their own
voices, and outwitting and defying
characters representing social and
cultural authority. If these portrayals
could sometimes be a bit too laudatory
they nevertheless had an insider’s feel
for the game that the Scottish urban
poor inhabit.
But by the mid-2000s these soft
insider representations of urban
subcultures have hardened into hateful
representations of the poor and the
areas where they live. I want to look
at one version of this – the website
‘Dumpdee’ – to argue that this is a
discourse of class-based derision,
where cultural representations allow
the urban poor, especially the youth, to
be transformed into an object of class
hatred. They become stereotyped as an
undifferentiated social group – ‘Neds’
- upon whom middle class fears of
social disintegration and poverty can be
projected.
Humour and bigotry
While the new ideology of class-based
hate continues an older tradition, most
obviously the underclass discourse
of the Conservatives in the 1990s,
it is now leavened by humour. This
helps to protect hateful talk about
the poor from counter-attack since
it is, after all, ‘only a joke’. But this
represents more than ‘merely’ humour.
This appeal to the conventions of
humour is an insidious method of
licensing hateful discourses against
the poor and other oppressed groups.
The social psychologist Michael Billig
(2001) examined the way that appeals
to humour is used to justify extreme
racist bigotry on Ku Klux Klan-related
websites. Predictably these sites
display violently racist humour. But by
deploying website disclaimers that it’s
all ‘just a joke’ anti-racist objections
are somehow thought to be cancelled
out. Billig argues that there is a
certain pleasure to be had in humorous
displays of hatred, what Sartre called
the ‘joy of hating’, whenever it
transgresses what is deemed acceptable
by social codes.
Humour allows the bigot the
opportunity to displace the symbolic
violence of hate discourses by denying
that social groups are really the object
of hateful laughter at all. Instead,
it is the shared recognition of the
‘cleverness’ of the joke format that
supposedly generates the opportunity
for hilarity. Thus, when challenged, the
bigot can readily shift their justificatory
ground from the hateful content of the
joke to the intrinsic social acceptability
of humour in the manner of “I was
only joking”, “its just a joke”, or “take
a joke”. Here small, unnoticed words
– ‘only’ and ‘just’ – diminish the right
to challenge and critique hateful patter.
In other words, it is less how the
joke works through its ‘clever’ inner
structure than how it is socially and
politically situated. By disguising its
symbolic violence against the real
object of its attack the bigoted joke
dissembles and misleads. Class-based
bigotry gets coded cover in a way that
would be disallowed by other types of
social communication. Jokes acquire
a transcendent quality that puts this
special kind of social communication,
when it is appropriately signalled to
its audience as ‘funny’, as somehow
standing outside the bounds of moral
or political judgement. In this way the
social damage of bigoted joking is both
excused and permitted.
Bigotry in ‘Dumpdee’
A ‘Ned’ discourse of class derision
is mainly targeted at working class
male youth in the greater Glasgow
region. But the hateful discourse
planners have been actively trying to
discourage negative images of the
city and to boost its regeneration
through education, science and
culture. While this provides jobs and
consumer distractions for the middle
class professionals who commute
into the city to work and populate its
galleries, theatres and wine bars, the
local working class, who have suffered
from decades of industrial restructuring
and factory closures, are visible only
as an army of labourers to service the
affluent before trailing back to the
hidden housing schemes dotted around
the city’s periphery.
However, the young urban poor make
their unwanted presence felt in Dundee
city centre, hanging around the public
and commercial spaces of the city
centre, congregating in the shopping
centres, the bars and clubs, on the
street, at bus stops, and in car parks.
that comfee?’ The earthquake
decimated the area causing
approximately £30.00 worth of
damage. Three areas of historic
burnt cars were disturbed and
many locals were woken before
their Giros arrived.
One resident Tracy Sharon Smith
a 15yr old mother of five fae
Ormiston Crescent said “It was
such a shock, my little Chardonnay
Levi-Mercedes came running into
the bedroom crying. My youngest
two, Tyler Morgan and Megan
Chantelle slept through it all, as
well as my great granny Lorraine.
I was still shaking while I was
watching Tricia the next morning”.
Apparently though, looting,
mugging and car crime did carry on
as normal.
. . . they carry the marks of past periods of anti-Highlander and anti-gypsy racism
into present day discourses of bigotry.
of class derision is not confined to
Glasgow or young men. Elsewhere in
Scotland, other derogatory terms are
used to name the same phenomena.
‘Schemie’, ‘Tinkie’ or ‘Gadgie’ are
east coast terms; the first refers to
living on a housing scheme while the
latter two are derived from terms
for impoverished itinerant travellers,
typically dispossessed Highlanders
or Romanies, peddling cheap goods
door to door. ‘Tink’ is defined by the
Scots Dictionary as a ‘contemptuous
term for a person, specifically a foulmouthed, vituperative, quarrelsome,
vulgar person’, though even the Scots
Dictionary fails to mention poverty as
a defining characteristic of the ‘Tinkie’.
That such terms continue to resonate
in Scottish society means that they
carry the marks of past periods of antiHighlander and anti-gypsy racism into
present day discourses of bigotry.
‘Tinkie’ is the term commonly used
in Dundee and the surrounding
area. Dundee as a city has struggled
against a poor reputation: for the
couthiness of the Sunday Post on the
one hand, and for being the poorest,
most concentrated working class city
within Scotland, on the other. City
They may have little purchasing power
but they have unwanted visibility.
Elsewhere in Scotland such fears are
typically reserved for young males.
But here the most venom is reserved
for young mothers in Dundee, a city
with a reputation for the highest level
of teenage pregnancies in Scotland.
Just as women formed the combative
backbone of the Dundee working class,
first in the jute mills and later in the
manufacturing factories like Levis and
Timex, so young women today are the
object of middle class fears in Dundee.
And so it goes on in this vein. This
has striking parallels with how the
black urban poor in New Orleans
were callously represented this year
in the aftermath of the devastation
wrought by Hurricane Katrina and the
indifference of a state that openly
despises the black urban poor. A page
on the site called ‘Cheryl’s Gadgie
Gallery’ purports to show photographs
of the poor fashion sense of Burberry
and tracksuit-clad locals but includes
spoof adverts for a toy, a check-clad
Furby doll, bearing the legend:
Websites like ‘Dumpdee’ produce just
such a discursive invective of class,
gender and place under the ideological
alibi that it’s all ‘just a laugh’. One
page contains a spoof news report of
an earthquake in Dundee that is able
to simultaneously mock the poverty of
its ‘epicentre’ in the housing scheme
of Whitfield, promiscuous teenage
mothers, endemic criminality, dissolute
lifestyles, welfare dependency, squalid
environment, and a general lack of
cultural taste among the poor:
Unlike any Furby seen before, the
more you play with it the less it
learns! In fact . . . it learns nothing.
Victims were seen wandering
around aimlessly muttering
‘whit the fuck’ and ‘Whaurd
All thanks to the new ‘SCUM’
(Socially Crippled Underage
Mother-board)
Another ‘advert’ for ‘Weegie Airlines’
is replete with clichés about Irn Bru
and Buckfast. Its outsider status is
further established by the fact that
Glaswegians do not call themselves
‘weegies’ and the use of the word
‘braw’ in the advert rings hollow.
Still another is of a ‘birthday card’ of
check-clad teenage male surrounded
20
by the claim – ‘Congratulations. Your
Grandmother is Thirty’. While these do
not have any specific relationship to
Dundee, they make the connection that
there is a wider fear of young working
class mothers circulating in society.
Other pages follow up the ethnic
roots of the terms ‘gadgie’ in a
sectarian anti-Catholic page, ‘The
Sisters of Tayside’. Here nuns are
depicted Fagin-like as producing fake
Burberry accessories and providing
‘self-contained units for young
pregnant mothers (under the age
of 11) in Dumpdee’. A fear of racial
miscegenation among the poor is also
present. In a page of ‘minutes’ from
the ‘Dumpdee Gadgie Society’ an item
on ‘Dress codes’ is reported from the
‘meeting’:
How to dress correctly at all times
with the latest from the Burbery
[sic] collection was given by
Chantell Khan-Cohen. (The meeting
was then temporarily suspended
due to Tayside Police raiding the
premises and removing Ms KhanCohen and her goods and the 3
models).
The name ‘Chantell Khan-Cohen’
manages to simultaneously draw
upon a fear of Muslims, Jews, and the
criminality of the poor.
Formal and informal disclaimers
Some attempt is given by the website
to respond to criticisms of material
that is seen as offensive. Its Home page
has the formal disclaimer of a Legal
Notice that allows the site owners to
‘disclaim all liability for such content to
the fullest extent permitted by the law’.
On the final page there is an informal
disclaimer, ‘It’s just a joke’.
the joker from the social or political
consequences of the hateful content
under the appeal that humour is a
special sort of social communication
(Billig, 2001). Yet much of the
discursive effort involves attempts to
definitively identify and stipulate the
characteristic features of the object
of attack in terms of promiscuous
sexuality, multi-partner teenage
mothers, violent criminality, dissolute
lifestyles, idleness, squalid environment,
and a general lack of cultural taste
among the poor, represented, for now,
by the ubiquitous Burberry check.
As a further measure of distancing
the website from any responsibilities
or consequences, it invites ‘Fan Mail’
supporting the site and ‘Hate Mail’
criticising it. Peculiarly then the page of
‘Hate Mail’ is actually from contributors
objecting to hate discourse! Much of
the Fan Mail is from people who do not
live in Dundee but who maybe have
studied at one of the Universities. All
agree that its all just a laugh.
However, a few fans are open about
deriving vicarious pleasure from hate:
This website is fucking magic. It
just says what the rest of Scotland
thinks about Scumdee. You missed
out the most important thing to:
the Kingsway that gets u pass
scumdee without seeing proper
gadgies as fast as you can.
Ripping the piss out of the neds/
gadgies is in no way glorifying
them.
The great tragedy is that natural
selection should wipe all the
gadgie fuckers out soon enough,
but it won’t work – cos they breed
as soon as they can walk.
‘It noh funny’
Such spurious reasoning puts into
relief the more general apologetics
for hateful humour – that at some
point it refers, if only implicitly, to its
social and political context. Discourses
of class derision have real effects.
They do feed into political, policy and
media definitions of social problems
and their remedies. The more explicitly
hateful the discourse is against the
stereotyped Other the more it sanctions
the use of draconian powers against
the most dominated groups in society,
including curfews, exclusions, postcode discrimination, arbitrary policing,
punitive laws and blanket ASBOs. It
is always more than ‘just’ a joke. This
makes it essential to recall the militant
refusal of racist stereotypes in the
1970s for challenging anti-working
class bigotry today. As the black
militant poet Linton Kwesi-Johnson
(1979) put it back then:
People sayina’ dis
People sayina’ dat
‘bout di youta’ af today
How dem causina’ affray
Ana’ it noh funny
It noh funny
References
Billig, M. (2001) ‘Humour and hatred:
the racist jokes of the Ku Klux Klan’,
Discourse and Society
Society, 12, pp. 291-313.
Kwesi-Johnson, L. (1979) ‘It noh funny’,
Forces of Victory
Victory, Island Records,
ILPS9566.
Law, A. (2005) ‘The conformist
imagination: think-tankery versus
utopian Scotland’, Variant
Variant, 23, pp. 3437.
Mooney, G. and Scott, G. (eds.) (2005)
Exploring Social Policy in the ‘New’
Scotland, Bristol: Policy Press.
Scotland
www.dumpdee.co.uk
We set up this website in our spare
time just for a joke – we had no
idea it would become so popular.
It’s not meant to poke fun at
anyone – it’s just for amusement
and to give everyone a wee laugh
– we all need that sometimes.
Is it really the case that ‘It’s not meant
to poke fun at anyone’? This attempt
to forestall critique by disclaimers is
a typical device used in hate humour.
Its function is to publicly dissociate
This last contributor returns to the
genocidal discourse against the poor,
only to complain that this solution
would also fail, and continues: “It’s
funny, it’s tragic, it’s all true”. This
appeal to ‘it’s funny’ is not here
qualified by ‘only’ but leads on to the
claim that this is all somehow ‘true’,
dropping for the moment the usual
contrast between ‘just a joke’ and the
more serious business of ‘reality’.
Alex Law teaches in the Division of
Sociology at the University of Abertay
Dundee. He has researched and
published widely, including in the areas
of film realism, national identity and the
press in Scotland, and critical theory.
Alex is Programme Tutor for Abertay’s
BA(Hons) Media Culture and Society
degree.
‘Spinning into Semi-Reality’:
The Captivating Tale of Jessica Lynch
Andy Panay
O
n the 2nd of April 2003 the
Washington Post announced to an
anxious American public that the prisoner
of war Private Jessica Lynch had been
rescued from Saddam Hussein hospital
in Nasiriya by a combined military force
of 1,000 Navy Seals, Army Rangers,
Marines and Air Force Pilots (‘Missing
Soldier Rescued’, WashingtonPost.Com).
Described as a ‘classic’ special operations
raid to rescue her, the story of Jessica
Lynch’s captivity resulting from an
ambush upon her military convoy, her
ordeal as a wounded POW, and her
subsequent deliverance from captivity,
enthralled the imagination of the
American public and would subsequently
catapult the twenty-year old army Private
to the status of war hero.
By late June of 2003 however, the
Wall Street Journal in a piece titled
‘Jessica Lynch is Spinning into Semi
Reality’, stated that the Washington
Post’s article of April 2nd “raises serious
Post
questions about whether the U.S military
manipulated the episode for propaganda
purposes and about whether U.S news
organisations were seduced into a
gripping, patriotic tale.” This was indeed
the conclusion drawn by a BBC television
documentary War Spin, which was shown
first in Britain on May 17th 2003 (The
Truth About Jessica). Describing the
programme in the Guardian newspaper
three days prior to screening presenter
John Kampfner states, “Her rescue will go
down as one of the most stunning pieces
of news management yet conceived. It
provides a remarkable insight into the
real influence of Hollywood producers on
the Pentagon media managers, and has
produced a template from which America
hopes to present its future wars.”
The experience in captivity of Jessica
Lynch, including the wild fictionalisation
of her story, is also a remarkable example
of the endurance of the captivity narrative
tradition in American popular culture. As
captivity narrative Jessica Lynch’s story
may be understood not simply as an
isolated or singular account of personal
trial and eventual deliverance during a
time of war, but as the latest narrative
account of captivity by an enemy that
was first popularised in the seventeenth
century amongst the Puritan settler
communities of the Eastern seaboard.
Subsequently the captivity narrative
entered American popular consciousness
through its wide circulation via ‘dime
store novels’, ‘penny dreadfuls’ and
novels of the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries, and has continued to provide
the central drama of numerous celebrated
modern films including The Searchers, The
Deer Hunter and even Taxi Driver
Driver.
The American captivity story in
contemporary popular culture, of which
Jessica Lynch’s biography I am a Soldier
Too, written by Rick Bragg (2003) is the
most recent contemporary example, is
a powerful cultural trope of historical
complexity. Generically captivity
narratives are organised through an
apparently simple tri-partite separation
of the following central actions: (1) a
perilous conflict situation leading to
subjugation and capture and the removal
of the captive to a realm that is unknown
to them and one which they perceive
as hostile and threatening; (2) the
endurance in a perilous space of personal
depredations and sufferings variously
including physical torment and injury;
(3) the subsequent rescue of the captive
from captivity and their return to their
community of primary identification.
The captivity narrative then is structured
through these three distinct phases,
which are established as the generic plot
markers of the form, called here Capture,
Trial and Return.
Capture
Jessica Lynch was a Private of the U.S
Army’s 507th Ordnance Maintenance
Company, a grade not expected to be
involved in frontline military action, but
rather one intended to provide logistical
support for frontline troops. Advancing
north to Baghdad on March 23rd 2003
Lynch’s company is officially said to have
taken a fatal ‘wrong turn’, and become
uncoupled from the main column. Instead
of following frontline battlefield troops
as intended, the 507th instead found
itself in the city of Nasiriyah where they
were quickly ambushed. A fierce gun
battle ensued and Jessica Lynch was
subsequently captured as a Prisoner of
War. The senior soldier present at the
ambush described the situation to the
Washington Post in historical terms
immediately evocative to American
audiences, saying, “We were like Custer.
We were surrounded” (‘Days of Darkness,
with Death Outside the Door’, April 14,
2003, WashingtonPost.com).
The power of the Custer myth and the
scenario of his “Last Stand”, derives its
tragic power from the twin associations
of an encounter by American troops
in hostile territory beyond the secure
space of civilised American life, and the
massacre of these forces by overwhelming
enemy numbers constituted as a savage
Other. In Rick Bragg’s biography of Lynch’s
ordeal the ambush is similarly described
with Iraqi fighters standing in for the
‘savage’ Sioux. Writing from interviews
with Lynch, Bragg describes the Iraqis
as variously, “scuttling everywhere;
swarming along the rooftops; shooting
22
and screaming”: and, just like the Indian
enemy when their moment finally
arrived, ultimately “the Iraqis closed
in, in triumph.” Lynch recalls the “dark
bearded faces” of her attackers (p71);
and fellow soldiers, who, whilst trying
to escape from burning vehicles “were
shot down, shot to death in the road”
(p75). An isolated soldier described as
being “left behind” in the confusion was
similarly “surrounded and shot down”. In
Nasiriyah the overwhelming enemy force
“sprayed bullets . . . and their AK 47’s
bucked in their hands as they fired on full
automatic” (2003, p70).
At this point, defeated through
overwhelming numbers but not through
lack of resistance according to the
Washington Post on April 3rd, Jessica
Lynch was taken captive by Iraqi forces.
Newsweek cover 14 April 2003
Indeed, in the Post
Post’s piece, titled ‘She
Was Fighting to the Death’, Lynch is
described as “firing her weapon until she
ran out of ammunition” and sustaining
“multiple gunshot wounds.” “She did
not want to be taken alive,” it added
(WashingtonPost.com), thus confirming
a culturally significant myth of American
heroism. This piece has since become
infamous however for being entirely at
odds with what Lynch says subsequently
in her biography. “I didn’t kill nobody,”
Lynch states, confirming that she hid in
her truck as her gun jammed praying for
her life (Bragg, 2003, p71).
Trial
For many scholars the literal figure
of the captive stands in for the whole
community as symbolically representing
the situation of precarious (American)
existence in hostile frontier spaces.
Catherine Scott (2000) argues that this
is applicable to the modern captivity of
the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979. Here
she argues, “media coverage of the 444
days of captivity echoed puritan captivity
stories of confrontation with the Other,
fears of innocents being violated, and
the call upon heroic leadership to rescue
both the hostages and the nation from
threats to American identity” (2000,
p178). In Lynch’s narrative too, both in
the biography of events, and the press
coverage surrounding her captivity, her
trials whilst a Prisoner of War may be
said to provide for what Scott describes in
the in the context of the Iranian hostage
crisis as “rallying around the flag”. This she
argues in the context of the meaning of
the updated captivity narrative, “means
resisting the ‘devilish savages’ of Islam”
(2000, p178).
Book, 2003
The enemy Other, in their assaults upon
their respective victims, reveal themselves
in what Scott describes is “a familiar
story of contestation between civilisation
and savagery” (2000, p179). Bodily
suffering (of the captive) is emphasised to
illustrate the trials of the captive figure,
whilst emphasising the brutality and
violence of the captors. Gary Ebersole
argues that historically, by repeatedly
stressing physical bodily suffering, “such
tales sought to exercise and cultivate
the reader’s moral imagination” (p165).
Lynch’s narrative during the trial phase of
her captivity repeatedly emphasises the
brutality of her physical condition and
the perilous consequences in this respect
of her continued captive state. Such is
the importance of physical suffering
as a motif of the captivity genre, and
so fundamental is it to the success of
the narrative formula, that the captive
undergoes trial and hardship before
eventual deliverance from suffering;
indeed the meaning of the captivity tale
itself may be said to stem from this, that
the precise details of Lynch’s physical
treatment by her captors, and of how
her physical injuries were inflicted, have
become a central site of struggle over the
truth or otherwise of her account ever
since.
Newsweek on the 14 April 2003,
Newsweek,
repeating the as yet not discredited
Washington Post account of Lynch’s
rescue that it ran on April 2nd, states
that “unsettling questions” exist amidst
the “joy” of her safe return regarding the
origins of her injuries which included
fractures to both her legs, a fracture
of the spine and right arm, and a high
fever (keepmedia.com/pubs/Newsweek,
Time cover, 17 November 2003
14/4/03). Newsweek also introduces
speculation not listed in the medically
verified account of injuries, that Lynch
had received stab and gunshot wounds.
It then goes on to say that officials
confirmed at the hospital where she was
flown immediately after her release that
she was not stabbed or shot, before going
on to reverse this and state a few lines
later that unspecified surgeons confirmed
that her wounds provided evidence that
she had in fact been shot! This entirely
baffling and unverified state of affairs,
despite its evident contradictions and
inconsistencies, nevertheless leads the
writer of the piece to conclude that
“she might have been shot after she’d
been captured rather than wounded in
combat.”
In Bragg’s subsequent biography
of Lynch’s captivity, published long
after both the Washington Post
Post’s and
Newsweek’s versions of her rescue from
Newsweek
Saddam Hussein General Hospital had
been discredited, the question of the
extent of Lynch’s actual physical injuries
were further complicated and obscured.
Bragg describes how the Humvee in which
Lynch was travelling trying to escape the
scene crashed, and it appears here that
Lynch was rendered unconscious since
she claims that between the impact of
the crash and waking up in a nearby Iraqi
military hospital she had experienced
a loss of conscious time of three hours.
Bragg describes (2003, p96) that when
Lynch finally woke up she was receiving
treatment by Iraqi medical staff for her
injuries. At this juncture Bragg details a
list of physical injuries consistent with
those detailed above by Newsweek (April
14), and confirmed by doctors in Germany.
Bragg goes on to claim (p96) “the records
do not tell whether her captors assaulted
her almost lifeless, broken body after
she was lifted from the wreckage (of the
Humvee), or if they assaulted her and
then broke her bones into splinters until
she was almost dead.”
Amidst the confusion of the nature and
extent of her injuries, or crucially how
these were obtained, he does not suggest
the entirely plausible alternative that
Lynch was in fact injured as a result of
the Humvee crash. Instead, and entirely
consistent with the captivity narrative
tradition, her injuries remain open to
the cultural expectation that they were
inflicted by the enemy. The captivity
narrative demands that the captive
undergo a trial of bodily suffering in
captivity the successful outcome of
which, eventual return to the community,
provides for what Slotkin describes as
“a parable of . . . collective salvation
through affliction” (1973, p95). And since
this cultural trope is so well known in
American culture, the captive’s ‘broken
body’ is an expected narrative motif,
without which the captivity narrative
has an entirely changed meaning. This
is perhaps why the American press
and media in general were so quick
to speculate on supposed ‘unsettling
questions’ regarding the physical
condition of Lynch, before she had even
been returned to them. Indeed, Newsweek
(April 14) stated that “the possibility of
mistreatment had been very much on the
mind of President Bush who . . .
had frequently raised concerns about
American women falling into Iraqi hands.”
Return
The precise circumstances of Lynch’s
release from captivity remain similarly
confused and obscured, though it is
clear that immediately upon Jessica’s
release from hospital the American media
presented the story of her rescue in
glowing patriotic terms, in which crack
American troops fought heroically to
secure her rescue. Subsequently, through
her biographer, Lynch would refute the
excesses of these claims and he states
instead that her own account of the
events of her survival provided “the whole
story, a much better one actually
. . . of the doctors who treated her . . . and
a slow realisation that the doctors and
nurses were doing their best to keep her
alive”. (p155)
code of honour and rescued Lynch in a
daring raid, leaving it says, “a whole lot of
dead Iraqis.”
At the time of Lynch’s captivity American
forces were invading Iraq and pushing
north to Baghdad where it was widely
expected they would decisively secure
their occupation and bring to a swift
conclusion a brief conflict using Donald
Rumsfeld’s loudly trumpeted strategy of
‘shock and awe’. Lynch’s captivity was
depicted using the full cultural weight
of the historically significant captivity
narrative and Americans waited in
anxious but faithful expectation for a
successful conclusion, meaning decisive
military action to secure her release and
return her to American soil. Scott argues
in respect of the Carter administration
during the Iran hostage crisis of 1978,
that it was the failure to enact the
narrative principle of community action in
the form of some decisive and successful
intervention which finally destroyed the
credibility of its handling of the crisis.
References
Bragg, R (2003) I am a Soldier Too: The
Jessica Lynch Story
Story, New York: Alfred A.
Knopf.
Ebersole, G (1995) Captured by Texts:
Puritan to Post Modern Images of
Captivity, Charlottseville: University Press
Captivity
of Viginia.
Scott, Cv (2000) ‘‘Bound for Glory’: The
Hostage Crisis as Captivity Narrative in
Iran’, International Studies Quarterly
Quarterly, 44:
1, pp 178-88.
Slotkin, R (1973) Regeneration Through
Violence: The Mythology of the American
Frontier; 1600-1860, Oklahoma: University
of Oklahoma Press.
The captivity narrative in popular
culture suggests what Roberts (cited in
Scott, 2000, p185) argues is powerfully
entrenched in the American character,
‘the belief that good will triumph in the
end, that the cavalry will ride over the
hill at the last minute and save the day.’
A failure to act therefore undermines
the successful fulfilment of cultural
expectation. Therefore, and according
to this logic, Newsweek on April 2nd
(keepmedia.com) announcing Lynch’s
rescue, quoted a US Brigadier General
as stating “some brave souls put their
lives on the line, loyal to a creed that
they know. They will never leave a fallen
comrade behind.” Accordingly the article
then goes on to claim that the American
military fulfilled the expectations of this
It is in this context of cultural
expectations that the American military
response to Lynch’s captivity was surely
planned and carried out, as serving the
strategic needs of the American war effort
by satisfying the historically determined
cultural expectations of the captivity
story for public consumption. After all,
and as Newsweek stated in the first line
of its April 14th article that then went on
to triumph the bogus version of events
surrounding Lynch’s rescue, and without
a trace of irony, “It sounded”, the article
says almost breathlessly, “like one of
those fanciful Hollywood scripts.”
Press Articles Cited
Missing Soldier Rescued, April 2nd 2003,
(WashingtonPost.Com).
‘She Was Fighting to the Death’ April 3rd
2003, (WashingtonPost.Com).
‘Days of Darkness, with Death
Outside the Door’, April 14, 2003,
(WashingtonPost.com).
Newsweek Article, April 14th 2003,
(www.keepmedia.com/pubs/Newsweek).
‘War Spin; The Truth About Jessica’, The
Guardian, April 14th 2003.
(BBC 1 Documentary tx 17th May 2003).
‘Jessica Lynch is Spinning into
Semi-reality’ June 20th 2003,
(www.keepmedia.com/pubs/Opinion
Journal)
Andy Panay is a Teaching Fellow in the
division of Sociology at the University
of Abertay Dundee. He has research
interests in American popular culture
and is currently working towards his PhD
examining the cultural history of the North
American captivity narrative.
24
Representations of Mary Slessor in the
Media: Connecting Dundee to Calabar
Catherine Di Domenico
T
his article is based on original research
conducted over the past decade both
in Dundee, Scotland and Calabar, Nigeria.
It addresses changing media images of
‘Mary Slessor of Calabar’ (1848-1915),
the famous Scottish missionary and first
female magistrate of the British Empire,
who has been represented in a variety
of ways over the years in the media. Her
image has become quite familiar recently
to most Scots, when in 1998 she became
the first woman to be commemorated on
a Scottish banknote, the Clydesdale Bank’s
£10 note, displacing her predecessor, David
Livingstone, from this position. Curiosity
about her life and work has also been
further encouraged through the present
availability of information about her on
the Internet that, together with various
recent press reports, appears to have
stimulated an increased interest in her
both at home and abroad.
Mary Slessor’s Life, Work and Fame
Mary Slessor was born in 1848 in
Aberdeen, as the second of seven children,
of whom only four survived beyond
childhood. Her father’s unemployment
resulted in the family moving in 1859
to Dundee where there was a greater
availability of work in the expanding
textile industry. The Slessor women
obtained jobs in the booming Baxter
Brothers’ linen mill and, at the age of
eleven, Mary began work as a ‘half-timer’,
with the other half of her day being
spent attending a school provided by
the mill owners. At the age of fourteen,
she became a full-time skilled weaver
at a power loom, continuing this work
for fifteen years. The linen weavers were
regarded as an elite among mill workers
compared to the spinners and also, later
on, to the jute mill workers who came to
dominate the city.
She soon developed an intense interest
in religion and volunteered to become
a Sunday school teacher in the Queen
Street Mission where she undertook home
missionary work among the poor. She was
inspired by David Livingstone’s work, and
soon developed the ambition to become
a missionary herself (Robertson, 2001),
and not merely an obedient, devoted wife
and generally unrecognised co-worker of
a male missionary, like Livingstone’s own
wife Mary. Indeed, the lack of women’s
accounts in colonial societies such as
Nigeria show how their experiences were
generally neglected by the mainstream.
This is particularly true of women
missionaries who, despite their important
roles, have tended to be ignored in
historical, popular and academic accounts
(Tucker 1988). Mary Slessor is a notable
exception.
In 1875 she volunteered to join the
Scottish Presbyterian Mission in Old
Calabar, and did so a year later when
she presented herself at Duke Town, the
headquarters of the Calabar Mission.
British colonial officials, missionaries and
traders in the nineteenth century knew
Nigeria both through their first-hand
experiences and by secondary reports as a
dangerous place, the ‘White Man’s Grave’,
because of diseases such as malaria to
which they were extremely susceptible.
Many expatriate missionaries only lived for
a short time after they arrived in Nigeria
(Tucker, 1988). This became evident
when the missionary gravestones in the
cemetery at Creek Town near Calabar,
where Mary Slessor worked for some
time, were scrutinised. The tombstones
show how quickly many of the recent
arrivals fatally succumbed to illnesses that
regularly also decimated the indigenous
population. However, Mary was said to
be fearless in the face of such threats,
as was a mutual admirer, the famous
Victorian travel writer and atheist, Mary
Kingsley, who came to visit her at Ekenge
near Calabar in 1893. She describes Mary
Slessor not only as an expert on local
beliefs, practices and customs but also,
despite clear differences in their own
beliefs, as a kindred spirit (Kingsley, 1897).
Mary Slessor remained in Nigeria for
almost forty years. Among the missionaries
and British administrators, she stood
out as different, being both criticised
and admired for her comparatively
unconventional lifestyle, when compared
to other expatriates. For instance, she
became friendly with local chiefs, a fluent
speaker of Efik, and lived like a native
Nigerian, adapting to local customs and
lifestyles.
She travelled ever further inland, opening
churches, hospitals and schools wherever
she went. Becoming famous for rescuing
the destitute, orphans and especially
twins, who were seen in Calabar as
an abomination, she established the
Missionary Women Settlement at Use
for resettling displaced women and twin
mothers who had become outcasts. She
established the mission hospital at Itu that
was later named after her as the Mary
Slessor Hospital.
Her work became focused in an extremely
practical way with advice and help being
given freely to the people who sought her
out. This led in 1899 to her appointment
as Vice-consul and in 1905 as President
of the Native Court at Okoyong. The
National Commission Guide to the
museum in Calabar states, ‘the Okoyong
people called her the White Queen. She
had her own methods of finding the
truth and of delivering justice’ (1986:
p.185). After her death in 1915 her fame
spread even farther as she became known
as a heroic figure who, like her early
inspiration David Livingstone, was also a
pioneer and explorer to regions unknown
to the colonialists. Her fame spread and,
although sometimes eclipsed by male
missionaries, it stands in contrast to the
anonymity of many contemporary sister
missionaries (Tucker, 1988).
Mary Slessor Accounts and
Connections
At the mid-point of the twentieth century,
Mary Slessor is described in the West
African Review as a most remarkable
woman (Jeffreys, 1950). Indeed, her
narrative has been recounted in the print
media from the late nineteenth century,
when she was made famous in Britain
through contemporary newspaper and
travel accounts (e.g. Kingsley, 1897). The
classic volume of tales about her work and
adventures in Africa, published just after
her death by Livingstone (1916), did most
to establish her reputation as a heroic
figure. Many other accounts followed,
which elaborated on her life and exciting
exploits. These included many other
biographies, with the most recent being
Robertson’s National Museum of Scotland
(2001) publication in the ‘biographies of
famous Scots’ series. The shorter more
child-oriented version of Livingstone’s
book (1931) also became extremely
popular, and was followed by a variety of
illustrated storybooks and other heroic
accounts for children. These still remain
popular today along with the more upto-date twenty-first century versions that
have been produced for younger readers
(e.g. Meloche, 2002).
Articles about Mary Slessor have
continued to appear in recent years in
the press in both Nigeria and Scotland
and, although well remembered in each
place, different interpretations have
been brought to her biography. There is
a broad collective narrative describing
first of all her life of poverty, hard work
and courage in Scotland, followed by her
pioneering life dedicated to the people of
southeast Nigeria, and particularly to the
women and children. Thereafter, various
aspects of Mary Slessor’s redoubtable life
are highlighted in the different accounts.
These emphases reflect the histories and
social, political and economic contexts of
the two places, as well as the festivals,
events, representations and accounts of
her life and legacy that are held in each.
These have all combined to affect the way
in which stories about her are interpreted
and used in the media of the two
countries. Articles and features portraying
her life and image represent not only her
narrative but also those of the peoples of
the geographic areas with which she was
most connected.
‘Good enough for bank notes but not for charity’?
The importance of her life to the people
of Calabar is reflected in newspaper
articles, such as the feature in the
Nigerian Guardian by Anietie Ben Akpan
(1996) under the headline, ‘Mary Slessor
lives on’. Here she describes her as ‘the
Scottish sister remembered for stopping
the killing of twin babies in Calabar’.
She tells her readership how the ‘Slessor
clan’ also still ‘lives on’ in Calabar. These
people are the now quite numerous
descendants of the children whom she
saved and subsequently adopted. For
these descendants of her ‘adopted’ family
who kept the surname ‘Slessor’, she is
celebrated within their families as a
respected ancestress.
The Calabar community as a whole also
holds regularly widely reported events in
her honour. These include the celebrations
which took place in central Calabar city
in 1987, when an imposing statue of
Mary Slessor holding a pair of twins, with
the inscription in Efik naming her as ‘the
mother of all peoples’, was erected in her
memory. Again in 1998, in the towns,
villages, schools and hospitals with which
her name is associated, various events and
festivities were reported which marked
the 150th anniversary of her birth. Stories
about her exciting adventures also feature
frequently in the Nigerian national press.
For example, Okoroafor (1995) gives
an account of ‘Mary Slessor’s mission:
Conquest of Okoyong’ for the Headlines
readership. In such ways her stories have
become well known in Nigeria, with
these along with the events and festivals
celebrating her life being particularly
important for the women and children
because of the efforts that she made on
their behalf. Her reputation is particularly
safeguarded by the ‘Mary Slessor Society’,
a women’s organisation, which has
members throughout the country.
In Scotland, her connection with Dundee
and Aberdeen have led both cities to
claim Mary Slessor as a key figure in their
histories. In Dundee, she is portrayed in a
permanent exhibition beside the stained
glass window, put up in her honour just
after her death, in the McManus Galleries
museum. The Mary Slessor Centre is also
a community meeting place in the city
centre. Feature stories on her life have
recently appeared more frequently in
the local and national press in Scotland,
apparently stimulated by her portrayal
on the Clydesdale Bank £10 note. For
example, Paul Drury’s story in The Sunday
Herald (2000) features pictures of the
banknote which link up to a detailed
description of the ‘Legacy of the Scots
missionary who is a saint to the people
of Nigeria’. Such features have raised the
general awareness of her narrative among
the Scottish public at large. However, a
later feature by Marcus Dailly in Scotland
on Sunday (2002) criticises the Clydesdale
Bank for not giving a donation to the
Mary Slessor Foundation in his article
entitled ‘Good enough for bank notes but
not for charity’. Indeed, the establishment
of a Mary Slessor Foundation in Dundee
in aid of charities in Calabar by a Dundee
doctor, Dr Lawrie Mitchell, and his Efik
wife, has also helped to feature Mary
Slessor more frequently in the Scottish
press both nationally in The Scotsman (e.g.
Johnston, 2004) and locally in Dundee in
The Courier (e.g. Anon, 2005). There has
also been much publicity given to her
through press notices about the recent
musical play ‘Mother of all the Peoples’
by Mike Gibb. Following a sell-out event
in Aberdeen, the Hame Productions play
was shown in Dundee in March 2004. It
was supported not only by the Dundee
City Council but also by the Scottish
Arts Council, and was widely reported on
in both the local and national press. In
2005, for example, the play was praised
in The Scotsman as having had five very
successful productions in two years
(Mansfield 2005).
26
Thus, Mary Slessor holds value to the
Livingstone, W. (1916) Mary Slessor of
References
internal and projected identities of both
Calabar: Pioneer Missionary
Missionary, London:
Anon (2005) ‘Hearing Mary Slessor Speak’
Scotland and Calabar. While there has
Hodder and Stoughton.
The Courier, Dundee: 8th April.
been a re-emergence of interest in her
Livingstone, W. (1931) Mary Slessor
Ben Akpan, A. (1996) ‘Mary Slessor Lives
work and identity in Scotland, a ‘living’
the White Queen, London: Hodder and
On’, The Guardian (Nigeria) Lagos: January
heritage has survived in Calabar where
Stoughton.
13th.
her legacy is omnipresent. Although she
Mansfield, S. (2005) ‘Gibb Keeps it Real
Dailly, M. (2002) ‘Good Enough for Bank
may be viewed as part of the traditional
in Gritty Musicals Dealing with Lives of
Notes but not for Charity’ Scotland on
cultural heritage of both nations and
Ordinary People,’ The Scotsman, September
Sunday, Edinburgh: 1st September.
a figure tied to the histories of both
14th.
Drury, P. (2000) ‘Legacy of the Scots
places, she may also be seen as a link
Meloche, R. (2002) Mary Slessor: Courage
Missionary who is a Saint to the People
between a reformulated past to serve the
in Africa, Seattle, Washington: YWAM
of Nigeria’, The Sunday Herald
Herald, Glasgow:
needs of a dynamic connected present.
Publishing.
December 24th.
Until recently, each geographic
National Commission for
area had sought to express her
Museums and Monuments (1986)
life without a clear-cut and
The Story of Old Calabar: A Guide
intentional process of connecting
to the National Museum at the Old
up to those narratives adopted
Residency, Calabar.
Residency
by the other. However, in recent
Okoroafor, E. (1995) ‘Mary
years, this is being undertaken
Slessor’s Mission: Conquest of
much more to provide a cohesive,
Okoyong’, Headlines (Nigeria)
more reconnected account. Her
September No.28.
story and letters from and about
Robertson, E. (2001) Mary
Nigeria, which are held mainly
Slessor: The Barefoot Missionary
Missionary,
in the Dundee City Archives and
Edinburgh: NMS Publishing.
Tucker, R. (1988) Guardians of the
Dundee Central Library, have been
An image from the Dundee Central Library Collection
transcribed by volunteers and are
Great Commission: The Story of
Jeffreys, M. (1950) ‘Mary Slessor –
now available worldwide on the Internet
Women in Modern Missions, Grand Rapids,
Magistrate’, The West African Review, Part
(www.dundeecity.gov.uk/centlib/slessor/
Michigan: Academie Books.
I (June): pp. 628-629; and Part II (July): pp.
mary.htm). These have been frequently
802-805.
Catherine Di Domenico is Director of
accessed around the world, including
Johnston, I. (2004) ‘Following the
Nigeria. They have given those with an
Postgraduate Research Degrees and
Footsteps of the White Queen of Calabar’
interest in her life particular insights
since 1993 has taught Sociology at the
The Scotsman, Edinburgh, September 4th.
into her character as well as presenting
University of Abertay, Dundee. Her main
Kingsley, M. (1897) Travels in West Africa,
intriguing historical images of and
research interests are in gender and
reflections on Scotland, her native country, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons,
women’s studies, biographies and historical
London: Macmillan (reprinted by
and Nigeria, her adopted land.
studies, and health, leisure and social
Everyman)
development studies (particularly relating
to West Africa).
Keep up to date with MEJ
Previous issues
MEJ 38
MEJ 36
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Horror film
Literary adaptations
Teaching Coronation St
Articles from St Andrews University
20 years of the MEJ
Media Studies in Scotland: Lessons from History
Sound
Articles from the University of Lincoln
MEJ 37
MEJ 35
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Media education in Europe
Media Studies in Scotland: the end of History?
Economic shaping of US TV drama
Race and the Scottish Press
Horror cinema
The Lord of the Rings campaign
Trains in British Cinema
Buffy the Vampire Slayer special issue
Articles from Glasgow University
Teaching Harry Pottter for 5-14
Teaching Pearl Harbour post-9/11
Copies of MEJ 38 are available for £8; all earlier issues
are £2 per copy including postage. See page 43 for
AMES contact address.
27
Teen pic as horror-science fiction:
Donnie Darko’s parallel universes
Nick Lacey
D
onnie Darko (USA, 2001) is an
excellent film to use in the
classroom because: not many students
are likely to be familiar with it; the
film offers a demanding narrative in
an engaging way; it sweetens the ‘pill’
of science fiction (SF) with the teen
pic; it will give students experience of
independent cinema.
It is also a film that lends itself to
a fruitful application of all the key
concepts; however it is certainly not
recommended that students should be
subjected to an in-depth examination of
all the concepts through one text.
Genre
Teen pics, horror and science fiction (SF)
all have readily identifiable repertoires of
elements:
Narrative
Teen pics: ‘coming of age’; conflict with
authority; often occurs in a short period
of time
Horror: vampire; possession; creation of
monster; slasher; rape-revenge
Science fiction: first contact; exploration
of space; the uncontrolled machine;
after a nuclear holocaust; time travel;
alternative worlds; doppelganger
Iconography
Teen pics: fashion; pop-rock soundtrack
Horror: blood; monsters; religious relics
(including crucifixes); kitchen knives in a
wooden block; creaking doors; screams;
skulls; thunder and lightening
Science fiction: ray guns; synthesiser
music; futuristic clothing; spaceships (i.e.
not actual spaceships); aliens; high-tech
gloss; computer generated special effects
Characters
Teen pics: cliques; bitches; jocks; figures
of authority (teachers - ha!), parents; the
‘law’); outsiders; new girl/guy
Horror: monsters; ghosts; vampires;
werewolves; mad scientists; ignorant
villagers; ‘maidens in distress’; zombies;
experts in ‘supernatural science’
Science fiction: man of action; engineer;
mad scientist
Settings
Teen pics: high school; ‘street’; home/
bedroom; club/diner
Horror: castles; old dark houses; suburbia;
Transylvania; cellars
Science fiction: time: past/present/future;
space: inner/outer
Whilst the repertoire of elements is good
for identifying genre, analysis is more
At the beginning of the film, Donnie wakes up on a mountain road . . .
fruitfully conducted into how a film uses
genre(s) to create meaning. Genres can
also be defined by associated themes
and oppositions, such as adult v. child
in the teen pic (hence the ‘coming of
age’ narrative); human v. non human
(monster/alien) in both horror and SF.
As a horror-SF-teen pic, Donnie Darko
is a hyphenate as it is combining three
genres without creating something new;
unlike, say, teen horror (a hybrid). The
SF element is most evident in its use
of the idea of parallel (director Richard
Kelly talks of ‘tangent’) universes (which
quantum mechanics suggests might
exist) and time travel. In relation to the
confused world of teens the film might be
suggesting that the world is a confusing
place and doesn’t just appear to be so to
the bewildered adolescent.
The film also draws upon horror,
particularly in Donnie’s (Jake Gyllenhaal)
encounters with Frank in the events
leading up to Halloween. The influence
of Expressionist cinema is also evident,
a form that attempts to externalise the
disturbed mind; in this case Donnie’s
schizophrenia.
Narrative
As in all time travel stories, the narrative
of Donnie Darko is potentially confusing
and, possibly, incoherent. In Todorov’s
structural terms:
Situation: Donnie living a typical
middle class teen life (apart from his
schizophrenia)
Disruption: aircraft engine lands on his
house but he survives (having been lured
away by Frank)
Resolution: Donnie dies thus repairing the
break in the space-time continuum.
28
Every US high school picture has a ‘going into school in the morning’ shot.
It is unusual to have a narrative end with
the death of the protagonist, though
this is necessitated because his elusion
of death causes the narrative problem.
In Proppian terms Donnie is the hero
as he resolves the narrative; the villain
is Frank as he, ironically, saves Donnie.
Donnie, like an action hero, shoots the
villain but then saves him by remaining
in bed to die. Donnie’s selflessness makes
him an appropriate hero; however his
laughter, just before he is annihilated,
is ambiguous – is he accepting death or
thinking he’s got away with it?
The narrative works to hook the audience
through the mystery (Barthes’ enigma
code) as to where the engine came from
and what is Frank’s (as the ‘rabbit’)
intentions? In addition, Donnie’s (and
to a lesser extent Karen Pomeroy’s
(Drew Barrymore)) conflict with the
school’s ‘new age’ lunacy serves to
create obstacles, to be overcome, in his
life. Another narrative layer is Donnie’s
pyromania, revealed to his psychiatrist,
and enacted, through Frank’s prompting,
on Jim Cunningham (and so revealing
Cunningham’s, and by extension
Beth Farmer’s – she fails to see that
Sparkleforce sexualises pre-pubescents
– hypocrisy).
In terms of the ‘story’ (to use Shklovsky’s
structuralist terms), the plot ends at
the beginning. The 28 days that form
the bulk of the narrative are ‘lost’ when
Donnie, through unspecified comic book
(yet another genre!) superhuman powers,
plucks the engine out of the sky and
sends it into the past. In saving the world,
the engine has to kill him or time will
forever remain ‘out of joint’, Donnie also
saves Gretchen; indeed she appears as an
‘innocent’ ‘little’ girl in the end as she’s
cycling and wearing dungarees. These
dungarees were seen being worn earlier,
presumably by Gretchen, on a trampoline,
presumably with Donnie; but it isn’t clear
in what timeline this occurs. This seems
to suggest that the world in which the
engine actually lands is not the one at
the start of the narrative; Gretchen’s not
a young woman here traumatised by her
stepfather; if it were meant to be the
‘original’ world then I think the narrative
becomes incoherent at this point.
However as Gretchen doesn’t appear
until after the engine has landed on the
house then we can assume her life is very
different in the original world.
If we were back in the ‘original’ world, at
the end, then the hypocrites will continue
to prosper and so the world is a worse
place for the loss of Donnie. On the other
hand, Gretchen and Frank would survive
and Donnie doesn’t bring shame upon
his family by killing his sister’s boyfriend.
Most Hollywood narratives conclude with
the world being a better place; I don’t
think Donnie Darko does.
Representation
Clearly, as a teen pic, the film draws upon
generic types. These can be investigated
as part of representation by questioning
what messages and values are being
offered; for example, why are jocks
vilified?
Donnie Darko departs, somewhat,
from generic representations of the
parents and teachers. Donnie’s parents
are sympathetic and although we are
introduced to the Darko family with a
typical argument over dinner, neither the
parents are shown to be the cause of the
conflict nor repressive in their behaviour,
despite dad’s traditional gender views.
Similarly, teachers are more than figures
of hate and/or fun. Monittoff (Noah
Wiley) and Pomeroy, representing science
and the arts, both oppose the repressive
atmosphere of the private school (and coproducer Barrymore’s casting draws upon
her rebellious persona). These characters
are counterpointed with Beth Farmer
and Jim Cunningham representing the
hypocritical forces of reaction.
The casting of the ‘over-weight’
Chinese-American Jolene Purdy as the
outsider, Cherita, adds a racial edge
to the film (she does appear in an
extraordinary number of shots) and is
used to emphasise the hypocrisy of the
Cunningham-Farmer axis through their
reaction to her performance just before
Sparklemotion.
What is striking about Donnie Darko is its
attempt to represent the ideas informing
Einsteins’ theory of relativity. A colleague
(Jason Drewett-Gray, Benton Park’s head
of physics) informs me that the film is
accurate in its use of theory but the
energy required to create the EinsteinRosen bridge, that allows the engine to
time travel, is so vast that, in the context
of the film, it would not be possible.
Audience
Donnie Darko’s release, to coincide with
Halloween in 2001, suffered from its
proximity to September 11’s aircraft
‘falling’ from the sky (the ‘Arabic’ font
used for the titles had to be removed
before it was shown). It was given a
platform release in an attempt to build
the audience that wasn’t actually found
29
(in the US) until the appearance of the
DVD.
Cult movies rarely thrive in the cinema
(there needs to be an exclusivity
associated with appreciating the film)
and often have a narrative open to
numerous readings; Blade Runner
(1982) being a prime example. The
film also offers an alternative to the
more formulaic products of Hollywood
and so appeals to an audience seeking
intellectual stimulation as well as
entertainment.
In terms of ‘uses and gratifications’:
the teen pic is particularly good at
offering personal identity for its target
audience (one of the few genres that
can be defined by who it’s aimed at); it
may stimulate a search for information
about relativity and time travel (Stephen
Hawking’s A Short History of the Universe
is give a ‘name check’). The students
(year 10s) I showed the film to were
entertained (and puzzled) by the film and
a number were stimulated to socially
interact about the film after the lessons.
Institution
Many students’ experience of cinema is
limited to contemporary major studio
Hollywood product. The fact that Donnie
Darko is independently produced does
not guarantee a film outside or even on
the fringes of the mainstream. However
the film offers enough of the familiar,
via the teen pic genre, to engage its
audience and, for those with an enquiring
mind, gives the opportunity to engage
intellectually, as well as emotionally, with
the film.
Production companies:
Pandora Cinema (US)
Flower Films (US)
Adam Fields Productions
Gaylord Films (US)
Indie example: Flower Films (from:
drewfan.com/info/flowerfilms.php,
accessed May 2005)
About
Nancy Juvonen founded Flower
Films, Inc. with Drew Barrymore
in 1995. In the summer of 1997,
Flower began a two-year, first-look
deal with Fox 2000 Pictures, a
division of Twentieth Century Fox.
Juvonen is responsible for Flower’s
day to day operations and oversees
each of the projects on their
Producer Drew Barrymore plays Karen Pomeroy – the ‘liberal’ teacher in a private school.
development slate, including three
projects at Fox 2000, of which
Never Been Kissed was the first film
to go into production.
Since Flower Films has been
opened it has produced; Olive, the
Other Reindeer (1999), Charlie’s
Angels (2000), Riding in Cars
with Boys (2001), Donnie Darko
(2001), Charlie’s Angels: Full
Throttle (2003), and Duplex (2003).
Upcoming productions include;
So Love Returns (2003), Fifty First
Kisses (2004), and A Confederacy of
Dunces (2004).
[Fifty
Fifty First Kisses became Fifty First
Dates in 2004, Fever Pitch appeared
in 2005, the other two titles have
not been completed/released.]
Biographies
Nancy Juvonen: Raised bi-coastally
in Marin County, California, and
Connecticut, Juvonen majored in
education at the University of Southern
California. After college she settled in
San Francisco where, before joining
Barrymore, she assisted legendary E
Street Band member Clarence Clemons in
starting his company.
Richard Kelly, on the DVD commentary,
describes Barrymore as the godmother
of Donnie Darko. For financial backers
her appearance in the cast helps reduce
the risk. Flower Films’ slate suggest a
mainstream sensibility and so Donnie
Darko is something of an exception;
though if A Confederacy of Dunces (from
a famously quirky novel by John Kennedy
Toole) ever appears it is likely to be
somewhat offbeat.
Donnie Darko received a platform release
(58 theatres and probably the same
number of screens) in the hope that
positive word of mouth would allow this
to be increased. The opening weekend
take of a mere $110 000 (and a final
gross of $0.5m) meant this was not to be;
the release of the director’s cut, in 2004,
more than doubled the take.
Compare this to summer blockbuster I,
Robot (2004) that opened in over 3000
theatres with a $52m opening weekend.
We can be confident that this film cost
more than Donnie Darko, shot on a
miniscule $4.5m in 28 days.
The ‘Director’s Cut’ is more often used
as a marketing device rather than the
‘true’ version of the film shorn by studios’
meddling. Donnie Darko’s director’s cut
adds some good looking special effects
but attempts to explain more clearly
what’s happening through extracts
from Grandma Death’s book. Because
these read to me as pseudo-scientific
gobbledegook they actually serve to make
events more ridiculous and so detract
from the film.
Conclusion
This has offered brief suggestions of using
the key concepts to make sense of Donnie
Darko and has by no means exhausted
the possibilities. I think the original
version of the film will work better in the
classroom, if only because it’s shorter,
as students won’t feel obliged to try and
understand the narrative’s logic so much.
This piece is based on a presentation
given at the AMES conference at Stirling
University in May 2005. Thanks to
colleagues for their contributions to
the discussion, some of which has been
incorporated into the article.
Nick Lacey is Head of Media at
Benton Park School, Leeds. His latest
book, Introduction to Film, (Palgrave
Macmillan), is reviewed on p. 35
30
Teaching Whale Rider to the
10-14 age group
Margaret Hubbard
W
hale Rider is set in a small New
Zealand coastal village inhabited
by a Maori population who claim
descent from Paikea, the Whale Rider.
For 1,000 years a male heir born to the
Chief has become leader of the tribe. At
the beginning of the film, the wife of
Porourangi, the Chief’s eldest son, dies
in childbirth along with the male twin
she was carrying. The surviving child is
a girl who is given the name of Pai, the
traditional name given to the male child.
Porourangi is grief stricken and departs
for Europe, thereby leaving Pai to be
brought up by his father and mother (her
grandparents), Koro and Nanny Flowers.
Koro loves Pai, but refuses to accept her
as tribal Chief. He is convinced that the
troubles of the tribe are attributable to Pai
aspiring to be leader. He tries to train the
other boys in the tribe in the hope that a
future leader emerges but to no avail.
Far out at sea a school of whales respond
to Pai’s calls for guidance. They swim to
the little village but they become beached.
Symbolically the tribe will die. Only Pai is
willing and able to make the sacrifice to
save her people, and through this act Koro
accepts her leadership.
Not the kind of film which would
immediately spring to mind for the top
end of primary and the junior end of
secondary! A closer examination of the
film however bears fruit particularly in
looking at gender, race and culture.
What follows is one method of teaching
this film between the ages of 10 and 13.
I have outlined a suggested approach
and followed this with appropriate
Representation analysis tied to the
Narrative. Lastly I have provided image
analysis tied to key scenes.
Methodology of Teaching
In teaching the film begin by showing it
in full, and then inviting responses to it.
Many of the responses may be negative,
but this itself becomes a useful tool for
debate.
The second step is an image analysis of
the opening scenes of the film (see below),
and a thorough examination of how the
language of the film is tied to its meaning.
The teacher can then lead the class
through Representation by considering the
representations suggested below. This is
best approached by brainstorming initial
reactions, and following this with close
analysis of individual scenes in groups,
pairs or whole class work as the teacher
sees as appropriate.
Once this has been completed each group
should report back to the whole class so
that there is an overall ‘picture’ of the
construction and possible meaning of the
film. The resolution of the film i.e. the last
section needs to be studied by the whole
class.
Pupils should, by the end of the study, be
aware of how the key aspects construct
meaning in a film.
Representation
The representation of the Maori people
can be looked at under the headings
of male/female, Maori/European and
tradition.
Male/Female
The whole film is predicated on the
division of roles. Koro refuses to accept Pai
as leader despite her repeatedly showing
herself to be more capable of accepting
this role than any of the boys around her.
We see her challenging the old ways, and
undertaking the gruelling demands of
traditional warrior practice. It is she who
goes into the sea to bring back Koro’s prize
possession.
The casting of Pai is significant. Keisha
Castle- Hughes is a pretty child but this
has been down played because of the
point of the role. One of the ways this
is done is through her clothing. At no
point is Pai dressed in a feminine way.
Furthermore she has no female friends.
Thus in the construction of Pai we see a
girl rebelling against the traditional role
she sees in her uncle’s girlfriend and her
grandmother. Both these women exercise
power in the domestic world (Nanny
Flowers’ rebellion about smoking sets this
up), but are invisible in the public world.
The male world, on the other hand, is
the public arena, and it is that of action
and activity. This is true even in the role
of Porourangi who walks away from the
tragedy of his wife’s death, leaving his
daughter to be looked after by his mother.
By examining the key gender scenes of the
film pupils can reach understanding of the
gender relationships in the community of
the film. The resolution of the narrative
and of the gender relationships is in the
last scene, which will be examined in
detail below.
Maori/ European
This is the most problematic discourse in
the film. The Maori people are presented
to us in a less than positive light. Koro’s
younger son has grown into a beer
drinking, snooker playing unemployed
young man who has given up on his
heritage. His reason for helping Pai is less
to do with a belief in his culture than as
a way to needle his father. In an early
conversation with his mother we learn
that he, like Pai has never been good
enough for Koro. The music of the film at
this point serves to reinforce this.
31
Grandmother passes the new baby over to her youngest son with the grandfather seen through the window of the delivery room.
The Maori/ European dichotomy is also
explicit in the scene between Koro and
Porourangi when the latter comes back
from Europe. The framing of the scene
emphasises the gap between them.
They face each other literally across an
empty space, as they do culturally in the
more crowded scene with the slides of
Porourangi’s European art.
At the end of the film the community is
brought together through the traditional
culture. Porourangi has returned with
his pregnant, blonde European girlfriend.
The community is united with Pai as the
leader, but in this is the very problem. The
community and its people only attains
dignity through its past. At no point does
it move forward into the current century.
The film fails to address the articulation
between past culture and present society.
Thus the film locks the Maoris into a
stereotypical backward-looking past.
It is precisely this which makes the film
a useful tool of study. A close look at
the scene of Koro teaching the boys the
warrior ritual, and the scene when Pai
approaches his uncle for tuition raise
questions about the representation of the
Maori people.
As with the gender issue the last scene is
crucial to the sense of the film.
Tradition/Love
The two key scenes in this discourse are
the meal scene and the speech scene.
In the meal scene there is an awkward
silence. Pai has displeased her grandfather
because he has caught her trying to take
on the ritual of the male tasks. She loves
Koro deeply and his displeasure hurts her.
Both Koro and Nanny Flowers are also
hurting. He is angry; yet he loves her and
Nanny is torn between the two of them.
The emotional struggle in all three of them
is reflected in the construction of the
shots.
A breakdown of the shots is as follows.
It begins with a close - up of Pai. She
apologises to Koro but is unsure of his
reaction.
Cut to Koro glancing at Pai.
Cut back to Pai beginning to eat.
Only at that point does the camera begin
to pull back to reveal the whole table.
Nanny Flowers speaks to Koro. The slow
pan is contrasted with Koro’s violence as
he slams his fist on the table and a cup
falls to the floor.
There follows a series of cuts to all three
characters
.
The camera tracks Nanny Flowers as she
speaks and then cleans up the mess.
Koro begins to eat, as does Pai.
By breaking down the scene in this
way pupils can see how the tension is
conveyed through the language of film.
The atmosphere is reinforced by no
background soundtrack.
The speech scene is constructed
differently. It is shot in a wider focus as it
takes place in a hall rather than amidst a
compact group at a table.
We see Pai beginning her speech and
becoming increasingly distressed that her
grandfather has not come as her invited
special guest to the school concert. What
she is unaware of is that he has in fact set
out to attend the concert, but has been
diverted by the beached school of whales.
In the concert we see Pai in mid shot:
her isolation on the stage makes her look
more vulnerable as she struggles to speak.
By intercutting the exterior and the
interior scenes we see the link between
tradition and love. Pai is dressed in her
traditional costume telling the story of
the Whale Rider and offering her view
that society should change, while both
holding dear the traditions, and deeply
respecting the grandfather who has let
her down. This she says through her tears.
He meanwhile has overcome his fury at
what Pai has done to challenge tradition
out of his love for her. On the beach the
wide shots of him make him as vulnerable
and lonely as do the mid shots of her in
the hall. The two characters are wrestling
between love and tradition made explicit
in the framing at the moment the whales
are beached and the narrative moves
forward to its resolution.
Image analysis of the opening and closing
scenes:
The film’s opening credits are on the blue
of the sea with Pai’s voiceover setting the
story. The music has an eeriness about
it which underscores what she is saying.
The film then cuts to shots of a woman
in agony in hospital, accompanied by a
terrified husband. The shots are in closeup, and the camera moves in a discordant
way from the point of view of the woman
to indicate that the situation is slipping
32
is Porourangi’s pregnant blonde girlfriend
being accepted as one of the group. We
see the boat in the water, hear Pai’s voice
and then finally we see her with Koro in
the central position of the boat chanting.
Koro and Pai are shot in close- up, she
smiling at him just as she did in the
bicycle scene at the beginning. The boat
sails out to sea accompanied by chanting
and Pai’s voiceover, “Our people will go
forward with all of our strength”.
The final scene withe prow of the boat slicing across the screen
out of the doctor’s hands. A shot of a
silent scream is followed by crying which
is of much less intensity than is evident
in the visuals. The music conveys the pain
far more than does the voice. Here the
language of film is superseding the natural
sound in order to convey the intensity of
the pain. The film then cuts back to the
whale, as Pai continues telling the story of
her people. The next few shots are in slow
motion, as if time has lost its normality,
and when the shots go out of focus we
realise that the woman is about to die.
Her last words are to call the child Pai.
This is shown in very tight close-up on her
lips. The shot then bridges to the baby’s
mouth and then via out of focus shots to
his closed eyes. The shot only comes into
focus when we see the surviving baby
with one eye open. Only then does the
camera pull back on the whole scene and
we see the distraught man cradling his
dead wife with the two cots; one blue, one
pink beside the bed. The light shines on to
the pink one. We know by this that the girl
has survived.
Cut to the establishing shot of a hospital
carpark. There is no music as we track
an older couple into the building, so we
have no clue as to which parents they
are/how they are going to react. Again
Pai’s voice comes through, and we know
from what she says that she is the little
girl who survived. The culture is set up
through the ritual chant of one of the
older women and is contrasted with Koro’s
opening words, ‘Where’s the boy?’ The
split between Porourangi and Koro is clear
from this point. Koro has no idea how to
handle Porourangi’s agony and blurts out
the wrong words. The split is complete
when Porourangi says the child will be
called Pai as his dying wife had said, and
Koro refuses to accept this. This has been
shot in close-up but when Porourangi
breaks away from his father the shot is
mid to long .The physical space between
them echoes the emotional gap. This is
reinforced by the shiny harshness of the
polished corridor. The space and the shine
is used later in the film when Poourangi
comes back from Europe after twelve
years and they once again quarrel because
Porourangi will not take his place as the
next Chief.
After Porourangi has left the hospital we
see Koro looking down at the dead baby
while Nanny Flowers is visible in the
corridor with the living child. She hands
the baby to her younger son thereby
setting up the link between these two
characters which will be important later.
Twelve years elapse and we next see
Koro and Pai on a bicycle. She looks at
him adoringly. The weather is lovely, the
scenery is attractive and it is clear that
the old man has come to love her. The
gentleness of their relationship is evident
in the slow pans and the music.
By leading a class through a step by step
image analysis, pupils can see clearly that
the shot selection is inextricably tied to
the meaning of the narrative.
The last scene of the film provides its
resolution. It begins with the prow of
the boat slicing across the screen and
apparently rotating. The movement is slow,
the boat decorated, and set against the
blue sky the picture is uplifting and quite
mesmeric.
The film then cuts to the men pushing the
boat into the sea, and the chanting which
has been so far subdued becomes stronger.
The men are in traditional costume and
are tattooed. The camera moves round
all the characters who have played a part
in the narrative, while at the same time
keeping the audience wondering about
what has happened to Pai and Koro.
The entire narrative has moved to this
resolution and thus the characters in the
boat and on the shore serve as the build
up to the outcome of the narrative of Koro
and Pai. Among the crowd on the beach
The last scene makes clear that the
resolution of the gender issue and the
Maori/ European issue can only come
about by upholding a variation on the
traditional ways. Porourangi has come
from Europe and the family has been
reunited. The family wounds are healed,
as are those of the community family. It is
however not a comfortable resolution, and
gives rise to much valuable debate.
It is important, when doing an image
analysis with a class, to study each shot in
detail. Only by so doing can pupils really
grasp the link between the language of
film and meaning. It goes without saying
that the length of each section has to be
short. Shot- by-shot breakdown over an
extended piece of film would kill it. Thus
when different groups are working on
representation it is a good idea to give
different sections of the film to different
groups - thereby making it possible to
have a large number of sections of the
film studied in depth without loosing the
interest of the class.
Lastly it is valuable to study the key
aspects of Audience and Institution for
this film. Who is the intended audience?
Is it big budget? Who were instrumental
in its making? How would Hollywood
have done the story differently? Pupils are
thereby introduced to a non-Hollywood
film, which for many may be entirely new,
and this educational experience alone
makes a study of Whale Rider valuable.
Resources
The New Zealand film website at
www.whaleriderthemovie.co.nz/new_
zealand/ has an Education Pack for free
download. It was produced before the DVD
and has a useful synopsis.
Margaret Hubbard was, until 2004,
Principal Teacher of English and Media
at Craigroyston Community High School,
Edinburgh. She was convener of AMES for
4 years and editor of the Media Education
Journal for 5 years. She is a bfi Associate
tutor and a Media Studies setter for SQA.
33
reviews
Guardians of Power
Power,
David Edwards and David
Cromwell, Pluto 2006,
£14.99, 241pp, ISBN
0745324827
Finally, here is a book
that examines the role of
the British ‘liberal’ news
media and their integral
role in the functioning
of state-corporate power.
Until David Edwards and
David Cromwell formed
the media watchdog Media
Lens (www.medialens.org)
in 2001, there was scant
sustained and regular
critique of the performance
of mainstream news
organisations.
The main thrust of
this book deals with the
contradiction in terms of
a corporate ‘free-press’.
The authors discuss
this contradiction in
detail throughout with
numerous case studies to
back up their claim that
“media performance is
shaped by market forces”
and that “the corporate
mainstream functions as a
de facto propaganda system
promoting and protecting
state-corporate interests.”
In Chapter 1, Edwards and
Cromwell examine Chomsky
and Herman’s landmark
work, Manufacturing
Consent and discuss their
‘propaganda model’ in their
analysis of the US media,
indicating that the same
‘filters’ determine what
becomes news in the UK.
This introductory chapter
thus sets a framework for
understanding the nine case
studies that follow.
Because media
institutions are part of
the corporate world, as
in any other corporation,
employees (in this case
editors and journalists)
share with those who own
and run those institutions a
common ideology inherently
supportive of statecorporate power. Employees
of corporations (media
corporations included)
are expected to run the
company in the interests
of the company and its
shareholders without always
needing to be told what to
do. It’s not hard to imagine
the consequences this
has for the ‘neutrality’ of
professional journalism. How
can journalists, the authors
ask, report independently
of, indeed challenge, the
corporate system of which
they are an integral part?
That’s the first filter.
Secondly, the authors
point out that papers like the
Observer, the Independent
Observer
on Sunday, the Independent
and the Guardian rely on
advertising for 75% of
their revenue. Edwards
and Cromwell argue that
this reliance on advertising
compromises neutral
journalism. Newspapers sell
a product – the readership
– to advertisers and have to
compete for their niche in
that market.
Similarly, the media
are not in the game of
overspending either
resources or time on
in-depth independent
journalism when they can
easily get information at
little or no cost from official
sources like the government
and the military. This
reliance on official sources,
as shown throughout the
book, has skewed the debate
on the war in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
In addition, flak
emanating from either the
government or the corporate
sector (or both) also has
the effect of pressurising
journalists and editors to
conform to the dominant
ideology. The authors cite
the Blairite campaign against
the BBC and the resignations
of Andrew Gilligan, Gavyn
Davies and Greg Dyke as
one such example of this,
even though claims made
by those who opposed the
war were subsequently
vindicated.
During the Cold War,
anti-communism acted as
a filter of news reporting
and journalists who
questioned the legitimacy
of government foreign
policy both in the US
and the UK were often
dismissed as apologists for
Stalinism. Similar straw
man arguments exist in
these times as the Blairite
rhetoric of anti-terrorism
replaces anti-communism,
demonising those who
question the benign
objectives of the Bush/Blair
coalition.
These five filters have
had an enormous impact on
the way in which the British
public perceive and interpret
the world. There’s no
conspiracy, for built into the
news media are structural
characteristics that filter
out challenges to the statecorporate system.
Bearing all of this
in mind, Edwards and
Cromwell study a number
of cases in which the media
played a pivotal role in
justifying official policy.
These range from coverage
of climate change, US/UK
support for Suharto’s
genocide in East Timor, the
withdrawal of UNSCOM
weapons inspectors from
Iraq, the invasions of both
Afghanistan and Iraq as well
as the NATO attack against
Serbia. They find that the
‘liberal’ media’s gung-ho
coverage, parroting official
and military statements
and censoring by omission
arguments that contradicted
official policy, helped justify
and legitimise attacks which
killed thousands and caused
unspeakable suffering. The
authors argue convincingly
that the role of the ‘liberal’
media has been one of
complicity in some of the
world’s current horrors.
The more you read
Guardians of Power the
more you find yourself
disturbed by the pitiful
performance of the ‘liberal’
media on key political issues
of our day. Their findings
are corroborated by other
case studies on the US’s
pivotal role in the overthrow
of Jean Bertrand-Aristide
in Haiti; the apologetic
coverage of Reagan’s
terrorist interventions
in Central America,
particularly Nicaragua;
Clinton’s numerous bombing
campaigns against Serbia,
Sudan and Iraq. The
subservience of the media
to the interests of power
– backed up with copious
evidence – in these cases is
stunning.
34
The authors conclude by
arguing that a corporatemedia system whose prime
motivation is the increment
of profit will always fall
in line with the ideology
of the state and business
sector, of which it is part.
While they argue that it
is possible to influence
and pressurise journalists’
performance, this does not
resolve the central issue
of the media’s structural
flaws. Yet for Edwards
and Cromwell, democratic
and compassionate media
are already beginning to
have some considerable
influence. They cite the
example of South Korea
where the Internet has
played a fundamental role
in that country’s recent
democratic opening. In the
West, many ‘alternative’
media organisations, like
Z Magazine and its web
counterpart ZNet, are nonprofit and don’t advertise
yet produce excellent
articles challenging
Thatcher’s maxim that ‘there
is no alternative.’ Such
organisations are becoming
increasingly influential and
important for those sick
and tired of the mainstream
acquiescence to elite
interests.
It’s hard to imagine a
book more relevant to our
times. Current mainstream
media performance, as
explored in this book,
makes Orwell’s nightmare
almost look quaint. This
book will prove an excellent
resource to those who wish
to look outside the bubble of
mainstream media newspeak
as well as encouraging them
to participate in a more
compassionate and humane
media.
Peter Watt
University of Aberdeen
Bernard MacLaverty on the set
of Bye-Child
Poetry in Motion DVD,
‘Bye-Child’, Educational
Resources
[For purchase details see
article notes on p.39]
How do you fancy spending
a day in the company of
Bernard MacLaverty and
Andrew Bonner, listening to
them discuss the transition
of Seamus Heaney’s
captivating poem ‘Bye-Child’
into a Bafta nominated short
film? I recently attended
their development day for
teachers, ‘Poem Into Film
Will Go’ and was both
captivated and inspired. The
subject of the day appealed
to teachers of English and
Media Studies with its dual
focus on poem and film
and while the content was
informative and stimulating,
the presentation was wellpitched and entertaining.
Bonner made it obvious
from the outset that he
intended Bye-Child to be
used in an educational
context. The itinerary for
the day was divided into a
number of sessions covering
material contained on the
‘Poetry in Motion’ DVD
resource that was issued
to delegates and that is
available to purchase
independently. This is an
impressive educational
resource including: film,
director and producer
commentaries, original
shoot rushes, a reading
of the poem and various
PowerPoint presentations.
The seventeen-minute
film that we watched at
the start of the day forms
a tender and harrowing
adaptation of Heaney’s
“lunar distances and
henhouse intimacies”.
MacLaverty recommended
that pupils watch the
film before they read the
poem, a recommendation
reflected in the content
listing which places filmic
material ahead of the poem,
though obviously the
users will decide viewing
order for themselves. The
director’s commentary
explains decisions made,
such as why the depiction
of the moon changes;
MacLaverty emphasised
how he sought to take the
viewer on a journey that
centred upon the paradox
of man’s backward capacity
for cruelty at a time of
technological advancement.
Significantly, the film begins
and ends with shots of the
moon – in darkness at the
start of the film and in
daylight at the end, with a
bleeding across of sound.
The producer’s
commentary gives insight
into practical considerations
of making the film.
Bonner outlined for us his
experience of acquiring
funding, then worked
through: pre-production
– storyboarding and
testing ideas to minimise
opportunities for failure;
production – Bye-Child was
shot over six days and used
a real life church that had
been moved to a museum;
and post-production
– editing pictures, balancing
colours, checking prints,
dubbing sound, recording
music etc. He also offered
tempting tips for those of
us interested in, or striving
to use, video and digital
media in the classroom. An
interactive and appealing
aspect of the resource is
the inclusion of original
shoot rushes from Scene
1 that may be used by
pupils, so allowing them
to handle professional
standard footage and to
extend their literacy in the
semiotic domain of film.
The reading of the poem by
MacLaverty does the poem
justice. Finally, instructions
are given how to access
a range of PowerPoint
presentations using a Mac or
PC. Such presentations cover
storyboards, screenplay,
and production. They
include a range of resources
and activities, are highly
effective and work equally
well when projected on
a whiteboard as part of
whole class teaching, or
when viewed on a PC/Mac
by pupils working in small
groups.
In addition, and from
a teacher’s perspective
most welcome, was the
revelation that a whole
range of differentiated
lesson plans and worksheets
devised in co-operation
with bfi Education (and the
PowerPoint presentations),
are available on a website
dedicated to the resource
and accessible through the
password given in a booklet
that accompanies the DVD.
Such material covers English
and Media Studies and is
geared towards Scottish
pupils aged 14-18 and
Key Stage 4 of the English
National Curriculum. It
focuses on, “the process of
filmmaking through literary
adaptation: how printed text
becomes moving image text”
and is designed to promote
creativity, with units of work
shaped around learning
outcomes that encourage
print and performance
based responses to the text
– writing poetry and using
it to create a screenplay,
performance and video
production. Bonner’s hope is
“that students and teachers
enter their own worlds of
poetry and film, and produce
something that stands as a
truly ‘poetic’ piece of work.”
At the end of the day,
MacLaverty led a Question
and Answer session
providing further insight
into such matters as the
35
time spent making ByeChild (three and a half years
– there were a number of
false starts), visual motifs,
and the role of family
and fathers. Once done,
everyone decamped to an
adjacent bar for a convivial
chat that rounded off the
day supremely. This was a
terrific in-service – engaging
and inspiring – led by two
former English teachers who
have created an excellent
resource for the secondary
classroom. Should you have
the opportunity to attend
MacLaverty and Bonner’s
development day ‘Poem
Into Film Will Go’, fill in
the form and go. (The pack
is included). If not, buy a
copy of the DVD Educational
Resource Pack
Karen Milne
Cults Academy, Aberdeen
Introduction to Film, Nick
Lacey, Palgrave MacMillan
2005, £16.99, 336 pp, ISBN
1403916276
Anyone familiar with Nick
Lacey’s previous books
will look forward eagerly
to this comprehensive
introduction to film. Lacey’s
personal involvement with
film was already evident
from his choice of image
for the covers of his two
earlier books, Image and
Representation (1998) and
Narrative and Genre (2000),
both key texts. The first has
Rita Hayworth as Gilda,
veiled in tobacco smoke
and smouldering like her
cigarette, the second has
more of Hayworth, this
time with her then husband,
Orson Welles, in a still from
The Lady from Shanghai.
Lacey’s latest book gives
him the opportunity to focus
purely on film, to which he
brings the double perspective
of film buff and academic
enthusiast.
Indeed, this book is
addressed to his fellow film
buffs and enthusiasts, and
its great strength is that,
although it is academic,
serious and comprehensive
(of which more later), it
is always informed by
Lacey’s own film watching
experience and personal
taste.
The content is sequenced
logically, beginning with
film language, which Lacey
identifies as ‘the point of
pleasure, the film itself.’
Acknowledging the need to
make conscious and explicit
the unconscious, implicit
understanding of film
language that we all share,
he begins with mise en
scène, arguing persuasively
that accompanying diegetic
sound belongs within any
analysis of the still image on
the screen. The examples he
cites to demonstrate aspects
of film language come from
recent films, such as The
Others, Minority Report
(both 2002) and The Perfect
Storm (2000), while his
section on the significance
of stars as texts, based
on Dyer’s categorisation
(1979), cites Tom Cruise and
Cameron Diaz, analysing
their star personas in Vanilla
Sky (2001).
This (and other analyses
in each chapter) is ‘boxed
off’, literally, from the rest
of the chapter and there
are a further five of these
boxes in chapter 1. While
it makes some sense to
have these boxes within the
chapters rather than at the
end of each as appendices,
it does make for a somewhat
disrupted flow (for this
reader) and the darker type
used within the boxes can be
visually distracting, at least
initially.
The second chapter on
Film Genre and Narrative
follows the same format,
with no fewer than eight
boxes covering science
fiction, romantic comedy,
the ‘slasher’ sub-genre,
Hollywood action films and
melodrama (in the case of
genre) and the narrative of
the early cinema, an analysis
of 28 Days Later based
on Propp and postmodern
narratives.
Perhaps it takes time to
become accustomed to this
unusual format, since by
now the embedding of these
boxes within text seemed
more illuminating asides
rather than distracting
digressions. This is a hugely
complex area, of course, and
it is to Lacey’s credit that
his analyses and exposition
loses nothing of their clarity
and persuasiveness despite
the challenge of having to
compress such an enormous
topic into a single chapter.
In his consideration of
Film as Industry (chapter
3), Lacey focuses on
Hollywood, justifiably so
since it is certainly the
largest and most influential
film industry in the world.
He traces the growth
of Hollywood from the
early days of the studios
and the movie moguls,
the vertically integrated
major studios with their
mass production methods,
through the slow post-war
decline of the 1950s and
the blockbuster 1970s to
‘package Hollywood’, where
script, stars and director
are packaged together as a
means of securing finance,
and the studios as part of
massive media corporations.
He also includes sections
on marketing, film festivals
and the influence of ‘the
DVD revolution’ in what
is again a compressed but
comprehensive topic but
one that is notoriously
labyrinthine for students.
In chapter 4, which is
addressed to students rather
than film buffs, Lacey again
makes an area of film studies
that can seem both daunting
and inaccessible, neither of
these; indeed, he succeeds in
introducing the student to
film theory without, in his
words, ‘inducing (too many)
headaches.’ Such a change
of gear into the academic
rather than the recreational
is achieved smoothly and
each of the sub-sections
(which range from realism,
structuralism, auteurism and
ideology to psychoanalysis
and feminism) contains
helpful advice about further
reading. Far from being dry
or academic, this chapter
is enlivened by examples
drawn from a wide range of
films as diverse thematically
and chronologically as
Young Mr Lincoln (1939)
and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
(2001). Lots more boxes here
too but by now they are
familiar and helpful.
Chapter 5 on Film and
History continues to cite
examples from both US
and other cinema. His
history of film in fifty or
so pages is, of necessity,
‘potted’ but it includes an
excellent (boxed!) piece on
The Cabinet of Dr Caligari
(1920) in the context of
German Expressionism, and
of A Taste of Honey (1961)
and Blow-Up (1966) in
Sixties British Cinema. There
are also suggestions about
further reading and viewing,
together with five useful and
informative appendices on
film in nations ‘neglected’
elsewhere in the book
(Australia and New Zealand,
the Balkans, Canada, Hong
Kong and Mexico).
By deciding to examine
the concept of national
cinema with reference to
Britain in his chapter on
Film and Representation,
Lacey does not ignore the
representation of African
Americans in US films
– thanks to a box on Spike
Lee! Once again he is able
to clarify the extraordinarily
36
complex chain of
involvement in a film which
could claim to be British in
terms of its cultural content
but whose roots, in areas
such as production and
finance, can stretch far and
wide. He traces the rising
and falling undulations
of British cinema through
the decades, culminating
in the current situation
where some films do reflect
our multicultural society
(e.g. Bend It Like Beckham,
2002) but where the only
recent recognisable genre
cycle was the gangster films
attempting to exploit the
success of Lock, Stock and
Two Smoking Barrels (1998).
He also cites the romantic
comedies from PFE (the
not-really British Polygram
Filmed Entertainment)
and Working Title – the
two Bridget Jones movies
(2001 and 2004) and Love
Actually (2004), all three of
which present a particular
– and successful – view
of Britain and the British
to America. As to what, if
any, ’imagined community’
is being offered by films
to a larger audience,
Lacey acknowledges the
impossibility of an objective
perspective (from those
who are, by definition,
subjective) being presented
on the screen. This is a
thought provoking chapter,
all the better for avoiding
glib conclusions while
recognising that “cinema is
the one medium that can
directly communicate about
nations to other countries”
and that “studying one’s
own cinema and that of
others cannot but help in
creating a dialogue between
self and others”.
Technology seems
destined to be the ‘and
finally . . .’ in most media
contexts, from the key
elements in Media Studies
to the final chapter in this
book – and, I confess, in my
own personal priorities. That
said, Lacey’s brief treatment
encapsulates the key aspects
and links them to their
‘aesthetic implications.’
There is also an extensive
bibliography.
Having overcome my
initial aversion to those
boxes and with just a
passing regret that the
stills from films are so
disappointingly reproduced,
more shades of grey than
crisp black and white (the
still from The Mexican
(2001) on page 140 features
a quite unrecognisable
Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt
apparently strolling through
a dust storm), I have nothing
but admiration for Nick
Lacey’s book, his mixture of
infectious enthusiasm and
lightly worn erudition, his
clear and uncluttered style,
his original and idiosyncratic
choice of examples, and his
patent love of a medium
so rich that, as he says,
‘we could spend a lifetime
indulging ourselves in its
grasp.’
If you teach film, study
film or just love film – buy
this book!
Liz Roberts
Hitchcock and 20th
Century Cinema, John Orr,
Wallflower Press, 2005,
£16.99, 205 pp, ISBN
190476455x
This book will, I believe,
appeal to the Hitchcock
academic fan and to
adherents of an auteur
approach to cinema. For
myself, I had quite a few
reservations. This is partly
to do with the critical
approach taken in the book.
I think a reader’s response
will vary according to
their taste in this area. And
their knowledge of critical
writings on Hitchcock,
besides the films that is,
will affect how much they
get out of the book. It is
worth noting that John
Orr considers Eric Rohmer
and Claude Chabrol’s 1957
volume on Hitchcock, The
First Forty-Four Films, as
still the best text available.
Ian Christie in Sight and
Sound (January 2006) was
impressed with Orr’s work
and thought that: “A book as
suggestive as this can only
leave us asking for more”.
The book is
certainly informed by a
knowledgeable scholarship
of Hitchcock’s films and the
wider cinematic context.
It is also full of suggestive
comments, references and
comparisons. The discussions
will, I think, prompt fertile
ideas for Hitchcock study;
both in writing about him
and in class sessions devoted
to his films.
Orr studies both
influences upon and
influences by Hitchcock,
though the latter
predominates. There are
chapters on Weimar Cinema,
British film, Hollywood stars,
the Nouvelle Vague and
Film Noir and Neo-Noir. In
each case there is a detailed
commentary on one or more
important films. There is
also a productive study of
other important filmmakers.
Under Weimar Cinema Orr
engages with both Fritz
Lang and F. W. Murnau.
The British Connection
includes Daphne Du Maurier,
Joseph Conrad and Graham
Greene. (Yes, The Third
Man is there). The Nouvelle
Vague chapter has most of
the famous names, but he
pays attention not only to
the obvious candidates like
Truffaut and Chabrol, but
also directors like Resnais
and Rohmer. With Noir and
Neo-Noir, Orr considers
films from the classics of
the 1940s and more recent
examples like those of David
Lynch. At different point
he also fits in Wong KarWai and Christopher Nolan:
filmmakers influenced by
Hitchcock’s ‘sensibility’.
The chapter on
Hitchcock’s Actors deals
with the films after his
move to the USA’s film
capital. This is a pretty
original discussion. Orr
works through some key
Hollywood names, with
special attention to Cary
Grant and Ingrid Bergman
in Notorious, and to James
Stewart with Grace Kelly
in Rear Window. There
are plenty of good ideas
both about Hitchcock and
Hollywood star acting.
Orr tends to write about
all these topics from the
point of view of Hitchcock’s
contribution. Quite often I
felt there could be an equally
convincing argument to
be made about the wider
influences, of genre, of the
mores of the times, of other
filmmakers, and of writers
and composers. For example,
there is an extended
discussion of Daphne Du
Maurier, a novelist who
was the source for three of
Hitchcock’s films. But there
is nothing about Cornell
Woolrich when he reaches
Rear Window. And there
are only three references to
Bernard Herrmann, the great
musical collaborator.
Orr’s discussions could
be treated as a selection
of possible readings for
Hitchcock films, and in
this sense they are very
stimulating. However, Orr
himself claims a stronger
status for them, frequently
labelling an alternative view
as ‘wrong’ and occasionally
using the term ‘objective’.
My most serious
difference with his discourse
is in an early chapter, which
draws parallels between the
Scottish philosopher David
Hume, and Hitchcock’s films.
Hume was an empiricist,
37
privileging the role of
sense experience in human
knowledge. Orr argues that:
“His films always engage our
sense of the senses.” He sees
Hume’s approach (complex)
in “Guesswork, inference,
the vivacity of senseimpressions . . .” repeated in
Hitchcock. This is clearly an
interesting idea, but Orr is
arguing philosophically. Like
many writers on Hitchcock,
he also brings into play the
ideas of Sigmund Freud.
Philosophically if Hume is a
materialist then Freud is an
idealist. There is a serious
contradiction here which I
think Orr does not resolve or
explain.
As I suggested earlier
I think your response to
this book will depend on
where you stand with the
competing theories and
analyses on offer in Film
Studies. Orr’s book is clearly
a stimulating series of essays
for lovers of Hitchcock the
auteur.
Keith Withall
Reading Six Feet Under
– TV To Die For
For, Kim Akass
and Janet McCabe (eds),
I.B.Taurus 2005, £9.95, 249
pp, ISBN 1850438099
This review begins with
something of a confession.
Along with the DVDs of the
first four series of Six Feet
Under (and, yes, as soon
as series 5 is available I
intend to have it) replacing
the tottering towers of VHS
recordings of each episode
as it was broadcast, I also
possess two volumes linked
to the show: Six Feet Under,
The Unofficial Guide (Paul
Condon’s episode-by-episode
guide to series 1 and 2 with
an appendix on awards and
nominations) and Six Feet
Under, Better Living Through
Death (an HBO/Channel 4
publication that purports to
be a history of the Fisher
family, complete with
letters, photographs and
other memorabilia). Lovely
stuff for a fan but scarcely
at the critical cutting edge;
more tie-in and trivia than
serious discussion of the
ground-breaking television
phenomenon that is Six Feet
Under.
Reading Six Feet Under
does not, however, entirely
eschew the visual appeal or
humour of these more lightweight texts. The title of
each part is inscribed on a
dedication card tucked into
funeral flowers and each
essay has its author’s name
engraved on a tombstone
– just as Alan Ball’s name as
Executive Producer appears
in the opening credits of
each episode. And none the
worse for that, for this is the
essential appeal of the book
– it manages to combine
the serious with the comic
and ironic, just as its subject
series does.
For the uninitiated
– and given its woefully
inconsiderate scheduling by
Channel 4 close to midnight
(not to mention the latter’s
decision to show series 5 on
E4 only) this may include
many MEJ readers – Six Feet
Under focuses on the Fisher
family, funeral directors in
Los Angeles: widowed (and
later remarried) matriarch
Ruth, sons Nate and David,
daughter Claire and their
circle. So far, so predictable
– a dysfunctional family,
domestic drama with a
touch of soap or even sit
com, as some of its original
detractors alleged. But, in
truth, Six Feet Under is
dark, complex, bold and
original, casually subverting
our expectations, callously
dispatching a new character
every week in order to
bookend each episode, and
taking viewers into what
is arguably the only taboo
area left in the 21st century
– death and its immediate
aftermath in the embalming
room, the mortician trade
and funerary rites. The
Fisher’s home is also their
work place and for them,
unlike us, death is an
acknowledged part of daily
life – Claire even drives to
school in an old hearse!
Mourners view each week’s
cadaver, rendered acceptable
by the in-house embalmers,
in the heart of the Fisher’s
home and the everyday
fabric of their lives, unlike
ours, is interwoven with
the contemporary rituals of
death. Grim, yes, but blackly
humorous too.
The essays in this volume
are grouped into five
categories, each focused
on particular aspects of the
series: the first two are on
death – ‘Memento Mori’ and
‘Mourning and Melancholia’;
the next two about gender
– the female subject and
masculinities; and the last is
on ‘Music and Melancholia’.
Most of the contributors
are academics but two of
the most interesting and
affecting essays are by nonacademics – the foreword
by British journalist and
broadcaster Mark Lawson
and the epilogue by IrishAmerican writer and funeral
director Thomas Lynch,
each of whom casts his own
particular light on the series.
Lawson addresses its
particular take on the taboo
subject of death, dismissing
the stylised approach
adopted by crime and
pathology series like Silent
Witness, which use the
corpses merely as incidental
characters whose demise
is somehow ‘conquered by
the optimism of finding
someone to blame in the
final frame,’ and placing
Six Feet Under (and other
HBO series like Sopranos
and Sex and the City) as
genuinely innovative drama.
According to Lawson, “In 20
years as a television critic, I
have only rarely felt myself
pulled forward on the sofa
by the absolute shock of
the new . . . But this feeling
– that this programme has
never happened before
and cannot actually be
happening now – has never
affected me as strongly
as while watching a press
video of the pilot episode
of Six Feet Under”. He also
claims that the series has
genuine political resonance,
arguing that, in dressing up
and presenting for public
view their soon-to-rot
corpses, the Fishers provide
a sardonic commentary on
the spin doctors of American
politics, who are also “going
ever deeper into deceit”,
preventing TV coverage
of the bodies of American
soldiers being flown home
from Iraq. At least Six Feet
Under insists “on keeping
the body in shot”!
Lynch’s essay, ‘Playing
in the deep end of the pool’,
begins by drawing parallels
between his real life and that
of the fictional Fishers. “Like
David,” he writes, “when my
father died I embalmed him”.
Lynch and Sons, funeral
directors, are a family firm
in Milford Michigan, while
their television counterparts
are based in LA. Although
television fiction is not
reality, Lynch argues that
the “purposeful distortion”
required by an entertainment
medium allows viewers of
Six Feet Under to see the
truth, due in large part
to Alan Ball’s “knack for
getting sex and death, the
good laugh and the Godawful, the ridiculous and
sublime, in the same scenes”.
As did Jessica Mitford
in her American Way
of Death (1963), Lynch
takes us into his own
experience of the ‘Godawful’ and the ridiculous
in place of the sublime
38
– ‘visitation vignettes’ at
the funeral home, from
the stage arranged around
‘life symbols’, one of them
looking “like a rainbow trout
jumping from the corners
of the casket” onwards (and
downwards?) to ‘Big Mama’s
Kitchen’ (don’t ask). Lynch
sees himself in all this as
“less the funeral director and
more the memorial caddy
. . . within a theatre that is
neither sacred nor secular
but increasingly absurd.’
What Lynch perceives
as the series’ great strength
is its insistence on dealing
with the dead who are
everywhere – it “puts the
bodies back in funerals”. The
Fishers themselves have to
bury their own dead – father
Nathaniel in the opening
episode, Nate’s wife Lisa in
series 4 (and Nate himself
in series 5, which was
broadcast after this volume).
Instead of tidy metaphors,
we are given ‘humanity
– aching, uncertain, ragged
and struggling, weeping and
giggling at the awkward
facts of life and facts of
death.’ And that is why
Lynch believes that Six Feet
Under operates ‘in the deep
end of the pool.’
One of the great
strengths of this collection
is that the editors have
chosen contributors who
have more than a formal
academic connection with
the issues addressed in their
essays. While death is an
overarching theme, each
contributor seems to bring
something of his or her own
life and enthusiasms to the
task. David Lavery’s opening
essay, ‘It’s not television,
it’s magic realism’, sees Six
Feet Under as functioning
in many registers, not
the least of these being
the grotesque - fanciful,
mysterious, terrifying yet
comic, the fantastic (hinting
at a mystical interpretation
of ritual events) and magic
realism, mixing the real (life
in the Fisher household,
school, church, work) with
the supernatural (ghosts,
talking corpses and the
ever re-appearing Nathaniel
Fisher) - a ‘plurality of
worlds’ beyond our own.
Mark W Bundy’s essay,
‘Exquisite corpse’, combines
much of the intimate and
the personal, including his
own illnesses which forced
him to face his own sense
of mortality and his work
as a pharmacist (on the
graveyard shift – a sense of
black humour here!), with
an identification of Six Feet
Under as representing the
‘New American Gothic’ - ‘a
contemporary culture where
the living and the dead are
both separate and together
at the same time.’
Other contributions in
the first two parts focus
on related topics: the
pornography of the morbid,
death and transformation,
other aspects of American
Gothic, gay mourning in
contemporary America – all
seen through the prism of
Six Feet Under and none
overstretching the links with
the series.
Although the funeral
business is the archetypal
Fisher and Sons, the female
characters have a central
role in the series, none more
so than Ruth, who (as Kim
Akass argues) is far more
than ‘just another smother
mother.’ Even before her
husband’s death, Ruth
has broken free from the
conventional wife/mother
chains to have an affair
with Hiram the hairdresser
and, as a widow, she ‘forces
her children to grow up’
by acknowledging their
mother’s sexuality. But Ruth
is complex, maintaining
a precarious balance
between her Madonna
persona (the idealised
mother) and the old Eve
(aggressive sexuality, albeit
with the unacknowledged
contribution of David’s
ecstasy pills, which she
thinks are aspirin!)
The other key females
in Six Feet Under are given
equally favoured space.
Within their respective
narratives, Claire the wouldbe artist strives to find a
‘unique voice’, while Brenda
works through her own
issues of identity to find her
‘real’ self.
A father and his sons has
provided the basis for many
great American dramas, from
plays like Miller’s Death
of a Salesman and All My
Sons to films like Coppola’s
Godfather. Although the
father in Six Feet Under is
killed within minutes of the
start of the pilot episode , his
is a pivotal dramatic role in
exploring the ties that bind
fathers to sons and brother
to brother. The first essay
in part 4, ‘Fisher’s sons’, is
particularly enlightening
about David’s move to head
of the family over the course
of the first three series. It is
he who provides the focus
of the following essay,
‘Queering the church’, while
in ‘Revisiting the closet’
Claire’s boyfriend Russell,
who has still to come out, is
compared with David who,
despite his family’s lack of
insight, always knew he was
gay.
Tacked on, almost as an
afterthought, is an excellent
essay, ‘I’m dead, wow, cool’,
which made me realise how
incurious and uncritical I
had been about the music of
Six Feet Under and its filmic
and historical pedigree.
Is this a volume only
for the dedicated viewer?
Certainly, the resonance
of having watched
every episode makes for
more enlightened and
enlightening reading, but
for those who read the book
first and subsequently want
to see Six Feet Under for
themselves, I have a stack
of used tapes, only some of
which have been recorded
over – and the DVDs are
widely available.
Liz Roberts
Subjects and Sequences: A
Margaret Tait Reader
Reader,
Peter Todd and Benjamin
Cook (eds), 2005, LUX
£15.00, 184 pp, ISBN
0954856902
Filmmaker and writer
Margaret Tait died in Orkney
on 16 April 1999. Soon
afterwards her husband,
Alex Pirie, deposited with
the Scottish Film Archive all
the film materials gathered
in Orquil Studio, Orkney,
since she made the former
church her workplace in
1984. These included some
150 reels of 16 mm film in
rusting cans.
This begins the story
told by Janet McBain
and Alan Russell of the
Scottish Screen Archive in
A Margaret Tait Reader.
‘Preserving the Margaret Tait
Film Collection’ places Tait
in the context of Scottish
film culture, stressing her
independence outwith the
centres of cultural activity,
the structures of the film
industry and the tradition of
the ‘factual’ in filmmaking.
It is a moving story of
painstaking discovery
which describes the range
of problems affecting the
collection and the challenges
and dilemmas in restoring
the films (from which a fine
selection of stills is used to
illustrate the Reader).
The difficulties were
compounded by the
condition of the original
negatives. Anxious about
losing material, Tait had
these returned to her own
studio rather than storing
them in the film laboratory
vaults. That caution may
seem paradoxical now,
but Alex Pirie’s insight is
illuminating:
“Margaret . . . worked
in the present, making
films which she
regarded as artefacts
belonging to the time in
which they were made.
She knew the value of
her works and wanted
them to be shown as
39
widely as possible.
But . . . ‘posterity’ was
something she gave
little thought to.”
The importance to Tait of
the details and significance
of the present moment is
further revealed in artist
and writer Lucy Reynolds’
descriptive analysis of the
films in ‘Margaret Tait:
the marks of time’. And
in ‘Where I am is here: a
patchwork for Margaret
Tait’, Gareth Evans (director
of LUX) ‘stalks’ the essence
of Tait’s work, trawling the
writing of artists (including
Tait) for ideas which might
inform an understanding
of her work. He reflects
on the words ‘Blue Black
Permanent’ (the title of
Tait’s only feature film) and
the idea she explored that
nothing is fixed or finally
defined. Here he includes a
fragment from Mexican poet
Octavio Paz:
“Memory is a present
which never stops going
past.”
He also quotes tellingly
from Tait’s poem, ‘Now’:
The thing about poetry is
you have to keep doing it.
People have to keep
making it.
The old stuff is no use.
Once it’s old.
As with poetry, so with
film. And with all art. People
have to keep making it.
Some might demur at Tait’s
assertion that the old stuff
is no use. In ‘The Margaret
Tait Years’, writer Ali Smith
contributes an illuminating
examination of the films but
also points to her work as
a writer. Why, she begins,
were there no poems by
Tait in the “most definitive
so far” volume of Modern
Scottish Women Poets? And
why are so few people who
are well read in Scottish
literature aware of her work?
She goes on, regretfully, to
‘Place of Work’ by Margaret Tait
answer: “Because things slip
away from us all the time”
and because, “women artists
do tend, historically, to
. . . fall off the back of the
canonical.”
But the answer also lies,
Ali Smith says, in the sort
of artist Tait was. As with
the films, she published the
poems in her own individual
and uncompromising way.
Subjects and Sequences,
The Hen and the Bees and
Objects and Elements were
published independently in
1959 and 1960. (Pleasingly,
the covers of the three
poetry collections and two
short story collections are
reproduced in the Reader.)
The collections were not
widely distributed and they
were ignored by critics. It is
hard to see Tait the writer
as an influential voice – but
there seems little question
that in her poems as in her
films she was, as Ali Smith
asserts, ahead of her time, “a
far sight.”
Peter Todd and Sarah
Wood include poems from
each of Tait’s collections
in the Reader. They are
characterised by the
directness and intimacy
of their speaking voice; a
discursive and exploratory
style; indignation at the
constraints on women and
the muffling of their voices;
the insistence on observation
as essential to living fully.
For many years Peter
Todd (an independent
filmmaker and programmer
himself) has worked to
ensure that the films of
Margaret Tait are preserved
and screened in this country
and abroad. As editors of
A Margaret Tait Reader he
and Benjamin Cook (director
of LUX) have offered a rich
and fascinating overview of
Tait as filmmaker, poet, film
poet and artist which should
invite a wider audience to
read both her films and her
poems. The inclusion of
excerpts selected by David
Curtis from interviews given
by Margaret Tait for BBC
Scotland and Channel 4;
the chronology of Tait’s life;
the filmography and list
of documentary resources
offer starting points for
further study. The work on
restoring the films continues
and perhaps one day, as Ali
Smith and Peter Todd hope,
a Collected Poems will be
published.
Yvonne Gray
English teacher and poet,
Stromness, Orkney
Documentary: The Margins
of Reality
Reality, Paul Ward,
Wallflower Press, 2005,
£12.99, 144 pp, ISBN
1904764592
Paul Ward’s book states in
its introduction that the
aim of Documentary: The
Margins of Reality is to
“give a brief introduction
to and overview of some of
the key features, moments
and theoretical debates
of its subject matter,
documentary.” This short
and largely accessible
work achieves this aim but
provides much more for the
student or teacher of Media
Studies to consider.
Although this work
is largely evidenced
through well known and
contemporary film and
television, some of the more
40
complex issues raised in
later parts of the study rely
upon rather more obscure or
marginalised texts to further
the discussion. This is both
a strength and a weakness
as, for use in the classroom,
the source texts may prove
difficult for the teacher or
student to locate and study
in detail.
That said, the strength
of this approach is that the
book does indeed study
‘the margins of reality’ and,
through looking critically
at texts which have pushed
definitions and boundaries,
raises many wide ranging
and intriguing questions
on the evolution of the
documentary at the start
of the 21st century. This
involves discussion of
documentary not only as a
mode or genre, but also as
it is decoded by increasingly
media-literate audiences, as
well as the political nature
inherent in the construction
of any text whose purpose it
is to interpret some aspect of
reality in a creative way.
Divided into five helpful
(though arguably somewhat
arbitrary) chapters the
study begins conventionally
with Grierson’s dictum
(that documentary is the
“creative interpretation of
reality”) before moving on,
in chapter 1 to raise many
of the difficult issues which
surround the categorising of
any text as ‘documentary’.
This chapter provides a
valuable way into the
discussion for both student
and teacher alike though the
language is, as in the rest of
the study, most appropriate
for students at Higher or
above. Of particular interest
was the section which seeks
to explain Bill Nichols’
documentary ‘modes’, which
should provide students
with a more effective means
by which to categorise a
documentary text; indeed
the main point raised here is
that it is in the very tension
and difficulty of definition
that the most interesting
study of documentary can be
found.
In chapter 2 Ward turns
his attention to the idea
which underpins this study
– what is fiction and what
is non fiction, and is there
a clear distinction to be
made? Starting with Samuel
Johnson’s “seldom any
splendid story is wholly
true”, this chapter ably
demonstrates the truth in
this statement. Further it
gives the reader a clear
insight into the blurred lines
which, in all ‘non fiction’
texts, divide (or as is argued
do not divide) the fictional
from the real. It is at its
most convincing in the case
study of the various texts
which deal with the Aileen
Wournos story.
Chapter 3 takes a
close look at the issues
surrounding the historical
documentary and argues
that this sub-genre has a
vital role in the expression
and understanding of our
history both political and
social. Once again however
the problems discussed in
chapters 1 and 2 are clear
– that any version of a
story is, in the act of telling,
subject to some form of
fictionalising, be it in the act
of production or in the act of
receiving. That this is often
a political and deliberate
act is clearly argued and the
reader is convinced through
engaging case studies of,
amongst other texts, ‘The
Battle of Orgreave’.
In one of the bolder
sections of this book,
chapter 4 discusses the
increasingly used, though no
less controversial, binding
together of the seemingly
opposed modes of comedy
and documentary. Again,
through close examination
of contemporary texts,
such as Brass Eye, The
Office and The Mark Steel
Lectures, Ward’s book ably
demonstrates both the
potential for comedy modes
to be used in documentary
to creatively interpret
reality and reveal truths,
as well as the potential
for documentary modes
in constructing thought
provoking comedy which
also creatively interprets
reality and reveals truths.
Chapter 5 turns its
attention to the use of
animation in documentary
and the reader will not be
surprised by this stage to
be persuaded that, although
these modes appear to be
diametrically opposed,
Ward is right to assert
that animation is every bit
as capable of creatively
treating actuality as live
action. Though Ward
accepts that audiences
are inclined to view live
action in documentary as
somehow indexically ‘true’,
he argues convincingly that
there are some actualities
– the actuality of autism,
blindness etc. – which
cannot be represented
through live action. Again
this contention is explored
through a wide range of
texts, some more accessible
than others.
Paul Ward’s book is
a welcome addition to
the debate surrounding
the growing field of
documentary. It provides
an interesting history of the
genre in conventional terms
as well as a fascinating
exploration of the ever
widening canon of texts
which broadly owe much
of their construction to
documentary modes. This
study will be of interest to
any teacher who wishes
to further their knowledge
and ability to explain
documentary to students of
film and television.
Martin Cairns
Broughton High School
Edinburgh
Radio in Context
Context, Guy
Starkey, Palgrave 2004,
£16.99, 272 pp, ISBN
140390023X
Community Radio Toolkit
Toolkit,
Ally Fogg, Phil Korbel,
Cathy Brooks, Radio Regen
£20.00 large format, spiral
bound book, 212 pp ISBN
0955170702 (order from
www.radioregen.org)
As far as broadcasting is
concerned, more people
throughout the world
listen to radio than watch
television. Indeed there is a
strong case for arguing that
broadcast television is no
longer a ‘service’ but merely
one of a myriad of platforms
for visual programme
provision. Yet in schools,
radio, a more fundamental
form of communication, is
rarely studied to the same
extent as its visual partner.
There are many reasons
for this. Firstly it is not as
‘sexy’ a subject to attract
students and both schools
and colleges want bums
on seats to justify their
financing. What is more
important, however, is
that there is little resource
material and the teacher
can be far less neutral
than in the delivery of
other subjects. Taking this
second aspect first, there
is the ‘shibboleth’ versus
‘sibboleth’ coding. We define
whom we are, ‘One of us’,
much more by how we
sound than how we look.
It can easily be argued
that sound is the basic form
of communication. Yet even
41
the Radio Studies Network
pays scant attention. It is
regrettably unlikely that
only a minute minority of
schools and colleges will
find a space in the schedules
for any such modules. Still
hope does spring eternal.
One problem for
textbooks is that they are
bound to be out of date
by the time they become
available, with even fairly
recent books omitting to
refer to concepts such as
Ofcom and ‘G3’. So, if there
can be few textbooks on
the nature of radio and its
platforms, what is available
for the teacher? There are
resources but they take time
and money – attendance
at a number of symposia
and conferences. There
is a paradox here. It is
easier to teach structure
and organisation than to
teach content, let alone
doing much practical
programme making. (Again
for practical work equipment
soon becomes out of date
- Minidisc, CD, DVD and
microphones.)
There is, too, a paradox
in that the less subjective
subjects quickly become
out of date whilst the
more emotive and creative
subjects are long lasting.
For instance one of the best
books on radio drama by
Gordon Lea was published
in 1926 and is now very rare
and extremely expensive. So
too is Donald McWhinnie’s
The Art of Radio dating from
1959.
Another problem is that
modules tend to exist in
closed boxes. There is rarely
a holistic approach. One of
the class exercises valid for
students from ten to twentyfive that the present writer
uses is based on Edwin
Morgan’s poem ‘Canedolia’.
It is not only an excellent
way of teaching microphone
usage and timing, but also
involves a knowledge of
Scottish Geography and
Gaelic traditions.
All is not despair,
however, for anyone still
interested in teaching a
radio/sound module. Guy
Starkey’s Radio in Context is
far and away the best book
of its kind to have appeared
for many a year. The
writing is good and clear,
the exercises ‘do-able’ and
pertinent. May any would-be
teachers of radio be brave;
do it but have Guy Starkey’s
book to hand!
Community Radio Toolkit
is a rather sumptuously
produced book and as
far as its primary aim
is concerned it is most
effective and informative.
It would, however, be
only marginally of use
for the teaching of any of
the relatively few radio
courses for schools. Whilst
acknowledging that in
today’s world most teachers
have a decreasing amount
of time for extra-curricular
activities this volume would
be of considerable value
for anyone considering
establishing a school radio
club.
This volume, whilst it
would be of value as an
informed background to
some existing radio courses,
has considerably greater
value. A school radio club/
station has a very wide
range of values. It need
not be expensive. It can
mount short-term restricted
service licenses. It can
positively involve aspects of
studies in music, literature,
current affairs, history and
community involvement and
for all concerned can be fun.
Further programmes may
be recorded and exchanged
with others, or, when it is
possible, put on the net.
The present reviewer
admits to a certain bias, but
a school group running its
own radio society can, in
a variation of Lord Reith’s
phrase “Learn, contribute
and enjoy”, and this book
would be an excellent aid in
such an enterprise.
John Gray
Studying Gladiator
Gladiator, Sandy
Irvine, Auteur 2005, £15.99,
A4, 80 pp ISBN 1903663571
`Win the crowd` (Proximo in
Gladiator
Gladiator)
Each chapter in this book
by Sandy Irvine starts off
with a tagline. Most are
appropriate. I also think
that with teachers of Media
Studies this textbook will do
the same.
Auteur is a relatively
new publisher but already
it has a fairly substantial
back catalogue of media
text books. In common with
another reviewer of their
previous publications I can
say that this particular book
is “stimulating, learned,
useful for teachers – and
above all it makes you
laugh!” Well, forget the last
bit! Anyway three out of
four is not bad.
The author, Sandy
Irvine, shows not only a
considerable knowledge
of the film itself but also
places it in context with
the key developments in
the entrepreneurial aspects
of the film industry, both
in terms of institutional
contexts and advances in
technology but also in terms
of audience expectation and
the current trends in popular
culture.
The book is set out
clearly with the introduction
giving `teaser trailers` as
to what is to follow. The
idea of reviving an old
and somewhat forgotten
film genre is explained
and linked to the future
development of the genre
post-Gladiator. The position
of technology, especially
CGI, is identified as is
the concept of auteur
theory. At the end of the
introduction reference is
made to the political and
social discourses which this
film purports to address, just
in case anyone is inclined
to miss them. All the key
aspects required for the
Scottish curriculum are
catered for, although some
ferreting out is required.
The author puts all the
main features of the film
– finance for example – into
detailed contexts. The role
of Universal Vivendi is
explained along with its tieup with Dreamworks, Scott
Free and Mill Films, but
also clear exemplification
points us to an explanation
of the complex nature of
film finance and ownership
with detailed breakdowns
of how Dreamworks is
financed and operates. This
is a characteristic technique
employed by Irvine for each
of the key aspects.
However, the book is not
a quick fix for Intermediate
1 and 2 classes. The
language is complex and
the ideas are somewhat
involved. Often there is a
carryover of aspect from
one chapter to another.
This is not a fault – but it
does make the book very
challenging for less well
motivated and informed
students. The physical page
layout, with a section at
42
the bottom of each page, is
very useful for those cryptic
notes that teachers like to
make. Goodness knows
what graffiti might be found
from students. The idea of
the classroom worksheets at
the end of the book is also
a bonus but they do require
to be tweaked to suit local
conditions.
Overall this is a very
useful textbook for teaching
staff and for senior pupils
at AH or Higher. The major
bonus is that this text opens
up another genre for use
in teaching media studies.
Whilst it cannot be claimed
that the film is particularly
deep in the metaphysical
sense it does have the
advantage of being a
`cracking good yarn` which
classes do enjoy.
Keith Thomas
St Columba’s High School,
Dunfermline
Alternatives to Hollywood:
A Teacher’s Guide,
Sarah Perks, Isabelle
Vanderschelden and
Andrew Willis, Auteur 2005,
£16.95, 150pp A5, ISBN
1903663253
This is a useful volume,
with some good materials
and discussion of areas
of increasing interest for
Film and Media Studies
teachers. However, I feel
that the subject area is
somewhat problematic. The
volume defines its territory
as French, East Asian and
Indian Cinemas. These
are clearly alternatives
to Hollywood. However,
the back cover suggests
something called ‘nonAnglo-American cinema’.
I don’t think ‘AngloAmerican’ is a very helpful
way of defining several
areas of cinema. There are
UK films which rely on
Hollywood funding and
industry muscle. But there
are also films that compete
with and differ strongly
from the USA mainstream
model. Plus, Hollywood is
not the USA, and the USA
is not America, just one
among over 20 states in two
continents.
The same contradictions
bedevil the alternatives
discussed here. There is a
long way between French
cinema and Bollywood:
and also as much distance
between Bollywood and the
political Parallel cinema
included in one section.
And it is not only the
‘alternatives’ that needs
to be clarified: important
concepts in the book are
Auteur, New Waves, and
Art Cinema. All three
have developed multiple
meanings and their terrain
becomes extended year by
year. Whilst the volume
does address the underlying
conceptual questions I
found the treatment uneven.
I would hope teachers
recognise the need for these
issues to be addressed in
such studies.
At a more practical
level the three essays in the
book do offer information,
analysis and comment on
particular cinemas. They
add to these useful sets of
possible study questions:
filmographies and DV/
Video availability, and
bibliographies.
I found the French
section’s introduction the
weakest, partly because
it tries to cover so much
ground; the historical
overview was too brief to
be informative. The section
is on stronger ground with
its detailed discussions of
the French New Wave and
François Truffaut’s Les
Quatre Cent Coups (The
400 Blows, 1959). The ‘Film
du look’ and that recent
success Amélie follow this.
These sections are strongly
informed by the idea of
the ‘auteur’. The case study
includes discussion of ‘key
scenes’, a device repeated
in the other essays. Such
an approach should be
useful both for teachers and
students tackling the films.
The East Asian New
Wave Cinema covers Japan,
China, Hong Kong and
South Korea. However, only
the last three are discussed
with detailed case studies.
I think the omission of a
section on Japanese film,
so influential in the region,
is a mistake. The overviews
are informative and the
connections between these
dominant cinemas in the
area are drawn out. The
choices of study films are
very recent: Chungking
Express (Hong Kong 1994, a
predictable choice), Suzhou
River (China 2002), and
Take Care of My Cat (South
Korea 2001). It is worth
noting that a few years ago
there was a project to tour a
selection of films from North
Korea. The package never
materialised. This is sad, as
those films offer much more
than stereotypical ‘socialist
realist propaganda’. Forever
in Our Memory (1999) has
the exuberant motifs and
mise en scene of a musical
as army and peasants battle
to dam a flood that threatens
the harvest.
The Indian section
concentrates on Hindi
and Bengali cinema. The
former details the Bombay
or ‘Bollywood’ industry.
The latter Satyajit Ray
and Mrinal Sen. Among
the detailed case studies is
Monsoon Wedding (2002,
also discussed in detail in
MEJ Issue 33). There are also
discussions of recent popular
successes such as Kabhi
Khushi Kabhie Gham and
Mohabbatein (2000). These
films circulate in the UK, not
only in alternative venues
but also increasingly in the
multiplexes. And they turn
up on Channel Four’s regular
Bollywood seasons.
Overall the essays are
rather self-contained. I
thought the book could
have offered more crossreferencing between the
studies, both in terms
of concepts and in the
relationship between
filmmakers. For example,
the influence of the French
New Wave in India and
Hong Kong could relate to
both sets of materials. This
would also help address the
ambiguities associated with
the key concepts treated in
the book.
The three essays, but
especially East Asian and
Indian, will be found really
helpful by teachers tackling
those films and industries,
especially if they are not
too familiar with them. It
should be said that there
are not that many resources
available on the Asian
cinemas. And the film case
studies are up-to-date; your
students will remember
them, if they have seen
them. I also think they are
likely to have enjoyed them.
Keith Withall
Children’s Comics: A
Teacher’s Guide, Wendy
Helsby, Auteur 2005,
£14.99, 110pp (A5), ISBN
1903663202
Classroom Resources,
£22.50, 68pp (A4)
In addition to Children’s
Comics, Wendy Helsby has
written a number of Media
Studies books (Language
Puzzles, Scholastic 1993,
Teaching African Cinema bfi
1998, Teaching Television
Advertising, Auteur,
2004, Understanding
Representation, bfi, 2005).
She has had experience
of teaching a wide range
of age groups including
primary school pupils,
higher education students
as well as presenting INSET
43
for teachers and lecturers.
The Children’s Comics pack
invites the teacher to:
“. . . enter the world
of Batman, Dennis the
Menace, the Four Mary’s
(sic), Spider-Man and
others; collect your free
spidey glider and read
on to meet the jampacked, web spinning,
wall-crawling action.”
Children’s Comics comes
as two separate booklets, a
teacher’s guide and a set of
related classroom resources.
The teacher’s guide begins
with a short history and
goes on to apply theories
of language, institutions,
audience and representation,
to the analysis of comics.
The guide includes a
glossary, a selected website
list and a bibliography.
The classroom resources,
consisting of worksheets and
practical classroom exercises
of varying difficulty, relate
directly to the chapters of
the teacher’s guide. The
resources are stimulating
and would be suitable
for senior school pupils
or college students. The
spirally bound materials are
attractive to look at, handle
well and are clearly laid out.
The short history section
packs a great deal of
information into eleven
small (A5) pages. Sufficient
information is provided for
the teacher approaching
comics for the first time.
Indeed there is sufficient
information in the pack
for an entire Media Studies
introductory course using
comics as the object of
analysis. Each subsequent
chapter begins with a
thorough account of the
analytical theory being
employed. Accordingly,
the chapter on language
includes an explanation of
how the term is interpreted
in Media Studies as well as
a comprehensive analysis of
the specific language of the
comic. This covers elements
such as semiotics, graphics
and typography, narrative
and genre.
Helsby goes on to look
at the marketing of comics
and the effects of changes
in the means of production
and in the next chapter sets
out to look at censorship
and regulation. Comics
were (are?) regulated and
censored in much the same
way as films. Whereas
filmmakers found ways to
subvert the regulations and
maintain their audiences,
this was not the case with
comics – and their sales
declined. ‘Popular Culture
and Audience’ form the
subjects of the next chapter
and, as in previous chapters,
there is an initial definition
of the terms followed by a
discussion of popular culture
and the debates surrounding
it. Next, Helsby defines
the term ‘representation’
and applies the theory to
representations of (mainly)
women and racial types.
In the penultimate chapter,
‘Superheroes and Naughty
Kids’ she begins by offering
a ‘superhero lexicon’ which
demonstrates the defining
elements of a superhero. This
is followed by the section on
‘naughty kids’ as personified
by Dennis the Menace and
Beryl the Peril. The author’s
enthusiasm for children’s
comics is confirmed in
the closing words of her
concluding chapter:
“I hope that children will
be able to curl up by a
tree, on a step, under
the bedclothes with their
own favourite comic into
the foreseeable future
and enter that special
corner of children’s
literature”.
Membership of AMES, the
Association for Media Education in
Scotland, will enable you to have a
say in the future direction of media
education in Scotland.
AMES is the subject association for
media studies and related disciplines
in the Scottish education system.
AMES has been strong and
successful because it has actively
involved teachers from all education
sectors in the varied aspects of its
work.
I have a few reservations
about the pack. The work
would definitely benefit from
more rigorous proof reading.
There are a few typos – some
of which actually generate
misinformation – and the
inconsistency of word
spacing becomes distracting
after a while.
The tone of the teacher’s
guide is variable and I
have the impression that
it has been adapted from
a larger academic work
– and the adaptation is not
entirely seamless. Formal
theoretical terminology sits
uncomfortably alongside
informal and occasionally
repetitive language. Sections
of analysis sometimes
seem to be addressing an
experienced, adult audience
while at others are pitched at
the Media Studies ‘virgin’–
who is either very young or
very old!
There is much of value
to be drawn from Children’s
Comics for the teacher or
lecturer – particularly one
who shares the author’s
enthusiasm. By raising the
key historical and political
issues surrounding comics,
Helsby offers students the
opportunity of discussing
and understanding the wider
issues of Media Studies.
Tina Stockman
Harlaw Academy, Aberdeen
Annual Membership
(the fee is tax deductible)
Personal: £20.00
Institution: £35.00
AMES is active in lobbying and
negotiating with education planners
at all levels in Scotland.
Members of AMES receive FREE
copies of MEJ and the AMES
newsletter.
Enquiries about membership should
be addressed to:
Des Murphy (Secretary AMES)
24 Burnett Place
ABERDEEN
AB24 4QD
email: [email protected]
mej
Extra copies of the current journal and issue 38
are available at £8.00 per copy. We also have
back copies of earlier issues at £2.00 per copy.
The complete set covers more than 20 years of
debate, theory and practice. See page 26 for
details and page 43 for AMES contact address.

Issue 39 Spring/Summer 2006

Transcription

Similar documents

tierney gearon - Zeitgeist Films

CARPRO 1 DAY. ENTRY LEVEL

NCFD – Trivia! () - National Canadian Film Day

Bandyke Moving Pictures

ergophobia - Student Cuts

Join us for a free screening of First Generation —

Film quiz 12 May 2011

40 dias

Page 19 - Films - Magazine for the Arts