Health Check Homework- Thursday 2nd October

Analyse your film opening with regards to genre.

The chosen genre for my film opening was horror as it allowed me to approach it with an open mind as there are many sub genres within horror such as psychological or slasher. However when completing my research and planning, I gathered many conventions of horror films which I would either chose to follow or challenge. Many of the convention such as faded to black, the use of children, dark lighting, dolls, and a deserted location, I decided to follow, as I felt it would help appeal to my intended audience as well the creators of ‘ Women in Black’ following many of these and it being a massive success.  For example when looking specifically at fades to black, they helped keep continuity within the film as well as the opportunity to insert titles. The titles were white and flickering which gave the film a erie feel which is common in horror films. However with some of the conventions, I decided to develop them for example I used children actresses however I portrayed them as signs of evil opposed the stereotypical representation of sweet and innocent.

The theorist, Stephen Neal said that "Genre is a repetition with an underlying pattern of variations" which means that specific convention are essential in establishing a genre and should be repeated throughout the media. This relates to my film opening as i continuously showed short shorts of different convention such as lone characters, children actresses, deserted locations and fades to black. This would help keep the audience on edge as well as confident in that this is a horror film. However Stephen Neal also said that "Difference is absolutely essential to the economy of genre" which shows that variation can be used within a genre convention to ensure that each is unique to attract the audience. I followed this theory by changing the role of the children actresses as signs of evil opposed to innocence. This is also backed up by Tzvetan Todorov as he states that any instance of genre will be necessarily different meaning that  different is done by purpose for the better of the film. 

When thinking about establishing the genre to the audience, mise-en-scene plays a key part in this.  The location, lighting, props, make-up and costume all contribute into creating the correct atmosphere for the film to ensure it has a clearly established genre. This allows the audience to clearly recognise the genre then to determine whether they would want to watch it. When thinking about the location, it was set in  deserted, dark place as well as the main character being in her room at night. This followed the stereotypical convention of a horror setting. Also by having a lone character would allow the audience to sympathise with her and understand her vulnerability. The costumes of the two young actresses portrayed them as stereotypical children from the past, which helped add to the genre as it added another scary feature to the film opening. This contributed to the erie atmosphere that we wanted to create which we found was a common convention of horror films which are similar to ours.

Discuss the way that women are represented in the media. Use the work we have done so far to include a historical example and at least two contemporary ones to cover at least two different media types.

When thinking about how women are represented within media, there is a very narrow set of stereotypes in which the media follow. For example women being objectified purely for male pleasure, women carry a domestic role and women being less powerful and important than men. When focusing specifically on magazines as well as TV, women are portrayed as icons of beauty which can be linked to the fact that the media is made by men for men to watch, which is stated in the male gaze theory by Laura Mulvey. Furthermore the domestic representation of women is something that has been developing in the past due to women being shown cooking and washing in various times of media. Although that many would disagree, it may be fair to say that it has been accepted by society and has become a dominant ideology.

Women are represented to be purely for male pleasure and entertainment. This representation can be seen in many different Medias such as magazines, films and music videos such as the 'blurred lines' music video. In these women are objectified which can be shown though only showing parts of the women's body. This point can be linked to the hegemony theory which states that the media is run by a small group of people and what they will represent is what will become the dominant ideology. For example if the small group of people are white middle aged men, they will represent every other type of person such as women or other races in a negative and less powerful way and will ensure that there group of people(white middle aged men) will be represented positively by having the most power and authority.

In the blurred lines music video, the women are represented in a very stereotypical way for example as sex objects. This can be seen by the women wearing minimal clothing and red lipstick which can be seen as seductive. Also the women are being led around the room by the room portraying a sense of them having no control and that they are in the men’s power However as technology becomes more used, self-representation is becoming more effective and significant. This is due to it allowing prosumers to make their own media such as short films or remakes of music videos. Furthermore this allows them to show their audience who they are and their true representation. This can be seen in the female remake of the Blurred Lines music video. Compared to the original video, where women are dancing around the men, this remake shows an alternative representation of women as they are the ones with the power over the men. The idea of self-representation is supported by theorist Henry Jenkins as he believes cultural convergence, meaning that consumers have the power to annotate, edit and make their own media.

An historical example of representation of women can be seen in the film ‘Brief Encounter’. What clearly stands out from this film is the representation of women being emotional and physical weak. This is shown by the women being tormented by the work men and she was unable to handle it therefore she had to turn to a strong figure which was a man.  Also in Brief encounter women are represented to have domestic role due to the main female character completely all the household task such as ironing, putting the children to bed and shopping. However when looking at this from a current day perspective this would be seen as mythic which is shown in Barthes theory that representation are mythic rather than real.

Lastly the film sket represents women in a much more controversial and different way compared to the other examples. This is due to the women being represented to be in a violent gang who have no fear of beating someone up.For example the majority of their actions are violent and aggressive towards the other character who is also a women. This therefore shows a contrast in the women in this film due them being represented as violent as well as weak which is shown through the women on the floor who is helpless. This film can be seen as showing the different representation of women that there are rather than just one which is weak and have no power or control. 

Overall all these different types of media from different time periods, show a similar representation of women especially that they are less powerful than men. However these representations, which are mainly negative, are accepted in society as they have been seen as the norm for so long.