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MediaMagazine is published by the English and Media Centre, a non-profit making organisation. editorial The Centre publishes a wide range of classroom materials and runs We had no idea when we chose our MediaMag themes for 2009 – courses for teachers. If you’re 2010 exactly what we’d end up with, but we certainly hit a winner studying English at A Level, look out with the Reality theme for this issue. We’ve been inundated with for emagazine, also published by articles, ideas and case studies, covering a fantastic range of the Centre. approaches to and definitions of the topic, so this issue is a real The English and Media Centre treasure trove. Indeed, we have so many goodies we have provided 18 Compton Terrace a special Online Reality supplement – see page 5 for details. N1 2UN Telephone: 020 7359 8080 There’s too much packed into the print magazine to mention everything in detail, Fax: 020 7354 0133 but here are some highlights: a superb case study of ’s online presence, Email for subscription enquiries: which will feed directly into your work whatever spec you’re following; an extended [email protected] interview with Professor Annette Hill; a post-modern look at ; ; the political realism of ; representations of the wars in Managing Editor: Michael Simons and Afghanistan; the best (or worst, depending on where you’re coming from) Editor: Jenny Grahame of Extreme Reality programming; a media teacher’s experience as a reality show Editorial assistant/admin: participant ... and online, Adam Curtis, the voice of Big Brother, Ledger and Phoenix, Rebecca Scambler hyper-reality, ‘being normal’, and much much more.

Design: Sam Sullivan & Jack Freeman Have you been following Pete Fraser’s weekly media blog on our website? If not, Artwork production: Sparkloop you should; so far, in four short weeks, he’s covered the anthropology of the web, the Print: S&G Group amazing music videos of Corin Hardy, the launch of the controversial Call of Duty: ISSN: 1478-8616 Modern Warfare 2 and the debates around it, and the strange but seductive sounds Cover image: from Desperate Romantics of Portico Quartet and their bizarre wok-like instrument – all lavishly illustrated © BBC, 2009 with video clips and suggestions from Pete about ways of using the material in your studies. And there’ll be more every week. Expand your horizons while imbibing the wisdom of a Chief Examiner! All we need now is for some of you to respond, add comments, or suggest new topics. How to subscribe If your school does not yet subscribe to the MediaMag website, perhaps this Four issues a year, published is the time to exercise a little pester power. Not only can you access the afore- September, December, late February mentioned Reality supplement and Pete’s blog, there’s also video from Annette and late April. Hill, and in the New Year there will be further MediaMagClips and presentations on Reality TV and how to make the best music videos. And as a belated Christmas Centre print-only subscription: present for your teachers, by the end of January there will also be a special £29.95 download of teaching resources on Reality TV – so spread the word. 2 year option: £49.90 Have a good break and a Happy New Year from all at MediaMag. Centre website package: £79.95 includes print magazine, full website access and an online PDF version of the current issue. 2 year option: £139.90 Additional subscriptions for students, teachers or the library can be added to either the print-only subscription or the website package for £10 a year.

MediaMagazine website MediaMagArchive on the MediaMagazine This magazine is not to be photocopied. Why not subscribe website (www.mediamagazine.org.uk) gives to our web package which includes a downloadable and you access to all past articles published in MediaMagazine. There are two ways of getting printable PDF of the current issue or encourage your access to the MediaMagazine website: students to take out their own £10 subscription? 1. Centre plus 10 or more student subs. (For full details, see www.mediamagazine.org.uk) 2. Centre website package: £79.95

2 MediaMagazine | December 2009 | english and media centre MM contents

Front Page News Goody and Boyle: E Pluribus Unum: Recent news, views, reviews and a tale of two (real) political reality and 04 previews. 24 women Steph Hendry 46 The West Wing How Reality goes online considers two contrasting reality authentically does this much- loved series represent the US Our special online reality stars and the role played of supplement. audiences and of old and new political environment? 05 media in their lives. The real world of Is this real? James Rose the newspaper Watching you, explores the ‘truth’ behind the industry: the watching me: 49 horror mockumentary. 06 breaking cinema’s Guardian online Neil 27 Paddison provides the essential 4th wall resource for OCR’s G322, an How to explore the conventions e-media case study, or an of realism through anti-realist institutional perspective. techniques. Reality bites: documentary in 10 the 21st century Faking it: a guide Carly Sandy explores the ways to the American documentary forms have simulacrum Where’s the adapted to the changing media 53 ‘reality’ in American Reality TV landscape. Hollywood make- up techniques shows – and how can Baudrillard Reality TV: an help us understand it? revealed Our regular interview with 30 cartoon, from Goom. Is reality becoming 14 Annette Hill more real? The rise MediaMagazine interviews Diary of a freaky 56 and rise of UGC Sara the Professor of Media at eater Media lecturer Pete Mills evaluates the power of Westminster University and 31 Turner describes his real-life the citizen journalist and user- Reality TV expert. experiences as a participant in generated content. BBC3’s food-phobia reality show. Hyper-reality and the Digital 59 Renaissance Stephen Hill argues that digital technologies can enhance, rather than undermine, our humanity. Xtreme reality: a sadistic future? Postmodern or past 62 Richard Smith surveys some of it? Masculinity and the more extreme examples of The context of Top Gear An analysis of the conflict: media 35 reality TV, and asks what they tell representations of enduring macho appeal of this us about audiences and ethics. 19 massively popular BBC brand. war A comprehensive view of recent film and TV fiction from Truth and realism in John Fitzgerald. ’s 39 Amistad Why did this powerful anti-slavery film fail to match the success of Schindler’s List? Gareth Calway investigates. Desperate Romantics: The acceptable face 43 modernising the of torture? The case classic mini-series 65 for classification The relationship between art Should explicit images of torture and celebrity explored through a be part of our mainstream surprisingly modern approach to viewing experience? Vanessa the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Raison argues for new forms of classification.

english and media centre | December 2009 | MediaMagazine 3 front page news

Past realities making and distributing – present films; and even enter relevance occasional competitions, some offering cash prizes The news has been and potential TV screenings. described as some kind of Once such opportunities eternal soap-opera which were limited to film school you pick up on halfway students and professionals, through the narrative – but in our (arguably) more which is why it’s often so democratic world there’s bewildering. Well, now you no reason why your film can get some back-story. illustrating an extraordinary On this day – the day I am life, an unusual lifestyle amount of interest in all en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ writing this – in 1985, the YouTube gets its or curiosity you’ve come things Sherlockian – so Michael_Wearing) OJ Simpson trial – probably groove back across couldn’t make the clearly its marketing will who also directed and the biggest celebrity drama Following major digital grade. Find out more at: also be something to produced the original. of the decade – ended, rights crises, YouTube has www.4docs.org.uk/ monitor and scrutinise: http://en.wikipedia.org/ with the star declared not announced the return to www.imdb.com/title/ wiki/Edge_of_Darkness_ guilty of the murder of his its ‘platform’ of music from Our island story tt0988045 (2010_film) ex-wife, Nicole. In 1952, artists signed to the Warner The UK Film Council • 8th January – The Road: • 5th February – The tea rationing ended, and Music Group. The deal is recently launched Stories What a way to begin 2010 Princess and The Frog: in 1944 the siege of the based upon Warner being We Tell Ourselves: The – apocalypse, cannibalism Will the girl sling him Warsaw ghetto came to able to recover income from Cultural Impact of UK Film and unmitigated misery against a wall to effect the its bleak end. All this and YouTube via advertising 1946-2006. This timely adapted from the Cormac necessary transformation more is on offer at the BBC’s and also ‘monetising’ the and stimulating report McCarthy novel. Before from amphibian to eligible ‘On This Day’ site where downloads people make. confirms that film has been viewing it, read the young royal? That’s the you can go for curiosity or To check on this and one of the most powerful article by Paul Harris original Brothers Grimm to find fantastic ‘pegs’ for other news from Google cultural and social agents who looks at the current version of the story, but articles or news stories you (YouTube’s owners) see: of the last 100 years. Taking preoccupation with ‘end Disney are notorious for may be planning for your www.google.co.uk/press/ 200 iconic films from the of the world’ films: http:// sweetening the original school newspapers or radio pressreleases.html past six decades, it traces www.guardian.co.uk/ earthy, violent folk tales broadcasts. Particularly how British cinema has film/2009/aug/09/ that came down to them. relevant just now with the The Guardian upheld some traditional hollywood-apocalypse- http://en.wikipedia.org/ recent anniversaries of the gets ethical British values – and movies-anxiety. Harris wiki/The_Princess_and_ fall of the Berlin Wall and A look at the newspaper’s mocked, challenged and also highlights a Denzil the_Frog the Armistice. http://news. sustainability report might undermined others. It Washington film, The .co.uk/onthisday/bsp/ be an interesting addition shows how important film Property Rights: Book of Eli, out on 15th to our major case study about_this_site.stm has been in sustaining January, also featuring the Kirby claim on page 6. Their motive in and developing the the hero’s struggle to Watch out for news of doing this was to prove to identity of the UK’s survive while crossing the lawsuit being brought their stakeholders ‘how we nations and regions, and a devastated America: by the children of Jack bring our values to life and in reflecting the changing http://www.imdb.com/ Kirby, creator of comic book embed them throughout face of Britain’s different title/tt1037705/ heroes, such as Spider- the company.’ From your communities. Visit: http:// • 29th January – Edge man and the Incredible perspective, it is good to www.ukfilmcouncil.org. of Darkness: Another Hulk, against the Disney know that newspapers feel uk/culturalimpact translation of a cult BBC corporation, which recently the need to be ‘sustainable’ Marvel thriller drama series into bought – the and what implications Coming soon to a mainstream film. The publishers of the cartoon a screen near that might have for their original was broadcast in adventures of all these editorial priorities, if any. BRITDOC reality you… 1985 and struck a chord characters. If they succeed, http://guardian.co.uk/ If you are interested • 26th December – with its bleak vision of the Kirby children will win a sustainability2009 in watching and making Sherlock Holmes: The governmental collusion multi-million dollar windfall documentaries, visit 4docs. supernatural and mystery with corporate corruption. and a share in any income Front Page News is compiled Here you can see some seem to suit the Christmas The new version stars Mel deriving from the rights by Jerome Monahan. of the most promising season, but how much Gibson and Ray Winstone which, in some cases, have short-form documentary of either Guy Ritchie will while its directors are nearly 50 years more to run. in a wide variety styles deliver is anyone’s guess. Martin Campbell (http:// http://pwbeat. (biographical, comic, It boasts a good cast en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ publishersweekly.com/ animation, experimental); including Robert Downey Martin_Campbell) and blog/2009/09/21/kirby- monitor a wiki packed Jr. in the main role and is Michael Wearing (http:// family-files-for-copyright- with practical advice about certain to spark a huge reassignment/

4 MediaMagazine | December 2009 | english and media centre goes online Reality a MediaMag special supplement! We’ve had a huge response to our Reality theme for this What’s issue – and so many interesting ideas and issues have emerged that we couldn’t fit them all in. in the mix So for this issue we’re offering a special extra bundle of online? MoreMediaMag articles on our website – make sure your teacher gives you the log-in details.

MediaMag meets Marcus The work of Bentley – the voice Adam Curtis of Big Brother He who controls the present Before it bites the dust, read our controls the past. He who controls the exclusive interview with the owner of The past controls the future (Orwell) that laconic Geordie voiceover about BB surveillance AQA examiner Steph Hendry introduces and its future, the role of a voiceover society you to the stimulating and provocative work of artist, and why he prefers to What’s the relationship between documentarist Adam Curtis, and walks you remain low profile. , new media, and through his imaginative and controversial government policy – and how far are installation event ‘It Felt Like a Kiss’. we becoming a surveillance society as George Orwell predicted back in the Hyper- 1940s? Bev Fenner offers some reality background. a Rough Guide Me, me, me David Bell introduces the why we’re all Jean complex and evoloving debates celebrities now Rouch – around hyper-reality and the effect Chandana Hall explores the father of Cinema of digital media forms on our real impact of Facebook on our ideas Verité and virtual experiences of the about celebrity, and the factors that world. Kevin Dunk introduces you to Playing have made it one of the most the work of this great, but little- with personas popular social networking sites in the world. known documentarist and his Heath Ledger, Joaquin impact on French New Wave Phoenix and ‘real Life’ cinema and beyond. Sean Richardson deconstructs I don’t need the epic narratives created around a man (or do I?) the lives of two very different The How ‘real’ is the Pussycat but equally talented young top five Dolls version of empowerment? actors. best-ever not- Emma Clarke deconstructs a yet-made reality TV music video to suggest that lyrics of show of all time! empowerment and feminism are Owen Davey looks to the future often undermined by the imagery and proposes some un-made The Boo Being and reality of a sexist music shows which just might make Radley paradigm normal industry. your fortune... How healthy is reality TV’s When it comes to realism, focus on extreme or marginalised the uncool sixth formers of behaviour? Tony Gears argues that Rudge Park Comprehensive enact hyper-real shows increasingly rely on some of the typical failures and the exploitation and humiliation of embarassments of teenage life so vulnerable people. you don’t have to, says Robin Makey.

english and media centre | December 2009 | MediaMagazine 5 MM

WatchingWatching the revrevolutiono If you’reyou’re fofollowingllowingO OCR’sCR’sA ASS Media Studies The real world of the course this year, then you will have the option of writing about newspapers in Section B of the exam (Unit G322: Key Media Concepts). This newspaper industry: article looks at the exam’s requirements and presents a case study of the online version of The Guardian. As the newspaper industry is changing a case study of the online version of The Guardian rapidly, this should provide a starting point for your own research, so that you can develop an individual case study to wow your examiner. There’s no need to reproduce the specification here, but it’s worth highlighting some key points. You only get 45 minutes to answer a question that is general enough to cover not just newspapers but five other media areas. Your answer can’t be vague though – you are expected to write about a ‘specific online version of a national/local newspaper’ and be prepared to discuss production, distribution, marketing and exchange, and audience consumption (including your own experiences). The context for your case study is ‘the contemporary newspaper market in the UK and the ways in which technology is helping to make newspapers more efficient and competitive despite dwindling audiences.’ That phrase ‘dwindling audiences’ may make newspapers sound like yesterday’s Media Studies, but what is happening in the industry reflects a global revolution in the way information is gathered, processed, then sold by media Whichever spec you’re studying for, institutions to audiences all over the world. When Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of the newspaper industry can give you advertising agency WPP says: invaluable insights into the ways I don’t think newspapers will die because they are the best way, or one of the best ways new technologies and e-media are along with TV, of reaching large sections of 1 changing how we consume news, the population it’s clear that newspapers are not going to and the economics of global media disappear overnight. However, WPP’s ‘pre-tax production. And in this comprehensive profits plunged 47% to £179m in the first six months of 2009’, so advertisers are facing tough analysis of The Guardian, Neil times as well2. Whether our newspapers can Paddison offers you the essential adapt to the changing media landscape remains to be seen; but there’s certainly never been a case study. better time to watch the newspaper industry…

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Ownership and profits The Guardian might not have survived in its It is important to recognise that The We might expect newspapers to disappear current form were it not for the fact that The Guardian’s status as a globally respected following the growth of the internet. As so Scott Trust draws profits from other titles such as source of news is partly due to its history of much information can be found for free, it Auto Trader, which it partly owns through ownership. But history aside, begs the question: Why would anyone pay for Trader Media Group. To be fair, the Trust was set how important is the printed newspaper today, a newspaper nowadays? The Guardian’s most up to ensure the survival of the newspaper by in relation to its online version? A closer look celebrated editor, C. P. Scott, provided one carefully investing its profits and that is exactly at production might help us to answer that possible answer3: what it has done. So the editorial freedom question. Comment is free, but facts are sacred… continues even though the ‘profitability’ of the The voice of opponents no less than that of newspaper might be questioned. As the chair of The production process friends has a right to be heard. GMG, Amelia Fawcett, puts it: The Guardian’s headquarters is in the brand He was writing in 1921, celebrating the While not immune to difficult market new Kings Place building in Kings Cross, London. centenary of The Guardian and affirming its conditions, Guardian Media Group is able to Kings Place is also home to two orchestras values as an independent newspaper. place long-term security before short-term including the London Sinfonietta, as well as 7 Let’s take a closer look at The Guardian. In profit. housing a concert hall and two art galleries. 2009, it is celebrating 50 years since it changed Whilst the printed Guardian might not be But music aficionados will not be disturbed by its name from The Manchester Guardian to ‘profitable’ by itself, Guardian Unlimited made the thunder of nearby printing presses, as The become The Guardian, and 10 years since The a profit of £1m in 2006, its first year ‘in the black’ Guardian Print Centre is seven miles away, in Guardian Unlimited network of websites was since it was launched in 1999 and after £20m of Stratford. For a short but fascinating look inside 8 launched4. It is the only UK national newspaper investment. the print centre, check out YouTube. Incidentally, wholly owned by a trust, which means that there are no shareholders to satisfy, and profits are reinvested to secure the newspaper’s future. Does The Guardian make a profit then? In short, no, but it’s more complicated than that. The Scott Trust owns a multimedia business, Guardian Media Group PLC (GMG PLC), whose ‘portfolio includes national, regional and local newspapers, radio stations, magazines, a raft of websites and B2B media5.’ Guardian News and Media (which publishes the Observer and Guardian, and produces The Guardian Unlimited website) is just one part of Guardian Media Group PLC, and it reported a loss of £36.8m for 2008/09. GMG PLC as a whole reported a loss before taxation of £89.8m. But the bigger picture is important – last year the group enjoyed a profit of over £300m, and each year the figures are complicated by deals involving joint ventures, restructuring, and links with subsidiary companies. If reading a company’s annual report sounds off-putting, at least download and skim through GMG’s 2009 report – it’s surprisingly colourful, readable, and will give plenty of ideas for further research.6

english and media centre | December 2009 | MediaMagazine 7 MM

Consolidating its position at the cutting edge of new media technology, the Guardian today announces that it will become the first newspaper in the world to be published exclusively via Twitter, the Print and digital operations are largely sensationally popular social networking integrated, where previously they were service that has transformed online physically separate. communication. He also pointed out that as well as regular As production of The Guardian website desks with computers ‘there are seven state-of- and print versions is seamlessly integrated, it the-art recording studios and 24 editing desks.’ becomes difficult to establish where production The Guardian is an online provider of news for of one ends and the other begins. And given a global audience and their new headquarters the wealth of extra content on the website, it reflect a new convergence of technology as is now hard not to see the website as being stories are written simultaneously for print of primary importance and the print version and the website. Podcasts and video reports as a brand-strengthening advert for online are also produced for broadcast, and live feed services. coverage of key events is now common. The The impact of the recession way the agenda is set is changing too: morning Finding up-to-date figures for the total news conferences can be attended via video- number of journalists and editors employed recent redundancies at the conferencing for Guardian employees not by The Guardian is difficult, though a recent print centre made headlines as physically present at Kings Place. industrial action was narrowly averted, showing report suggested that this year the editorial us that the downturn in the newspaper industry Innovation and integration staff at Guardian News and Media is shrinking is having a serious effect upon The Guardian. In terms of innovation, The Guardian has from around 850 to 800 through redundancies. Kings Place has been home to The Guardian been groundbreaking in many respects. It was One fear consistently voiced by commentators since December 2008, and such a recent the first UK national newspaper to use blogging on the newspaper industry is that the quality move means that The Guardian now has an software, the first to produce podcasts, of journalism will suffer as production costs office space ideally suited to the new media and, perhaps more radically, the first British are cut and reader-generated content becomes environment. Editor Alan Rusbridger, writing newspaper to produce web-first stories (i.e. more popular. The rise of citizen journalism at the time of the move, gave an insight into the on the web before being seen in print). It has has been well documented elsewhere (see changes it had brought: a reputation for enthusiastically adopting new page 56), but we can’t ignore their impact on technologies, which was played upon in its 2009 The Guardian and the ambivalent relationship April Fool article: which must now exist between professional journalists and accidental eyewitness reporters. A key story one might explore in this respect is The Guardian’s campaigning investigative coverage of 2009’s G20 protests in London and the death of Ian Tomlinson. The quality of news produced by Guardian journalists has been examined in Nick Davies’ Flat Earth News. He employed specialist researchers from to analyse stories printed in The Guardian and three other national dailies during two one-week periods. The result? A staggering 60% of these quality-print stories consisted wholly or mainly of wire copy and/or PR material. In other words, press releases or unchecked stories from agency journalists were forming the bulk of the domestic ‘news’ in print. Of the four papers analysed, The Guardian had the lowest percentage, but it was still more than 50%.9 Davies refers to this ‘copy and paste’ reporting style as churnalism. Is there any wonder that many readers would trust Joe or Joanna Public’s account of an event, over a ‘report’ filed by an overworked and underpaid ‘churnalist’? By the way, there are no hard feelings at The Guardian over Davies’ analysis – The Guardian news desk helped with the research, and Davies continues to be employed as a journalist by The Guardian.

8 MediaMagazine | December 2009 | english and media centre MM total circulation for The Guardian than for many Conclusions of its rivals. In researching this case study I’ve found that Identifying the precise point of ‘exchange’ a lot has happened in the newspaper industry between publisher and reader is interesting in the during the past year, so by the time your exam case of newspapers as they run parallel online and comes around (or heaven forbid, a resit!) there Distribution printed content. An online reader might have seen may well have been other changes to cover in a headline on the website encouraging them to How is The Guardian’s news ‘distributed’? The your research. For example, by the time you buy the print edition, or have been encouraged to printed version, once it has been printed at one read this article, The Guardian may well be the go online by an advert seen in the print version. of the two Guardian Print Centres (London and most popular UK news website once more, so it’s And with subscription models to consider, how Manchester) is delivered to UK wholesalers by worth checking out the statistics available online. might exchange be usefully understood? For TNT Newsfast/Network Logistics. The Guardian However, rest assured that examiners are aware example, an online reader might be sent email is also printed internationally, in some countries it takes time to develop case study materials, so content or be paying for access to subscription- using OCE’s DNN service. For example: as long as you use clear examples and identify under the current deal The Guardian is able to only content, even when they neglect to check sources where possible, you’ll be credited with print 600 copies per day in Sydney and have their emails or use the site. Of course, buying a having learned your material, even if it’s not bang the copies on sale down under before their printed newspaper doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll up-to-date. readers in Europe have even woken up. read it either, so any discussion of ‘exchange’ must We’ve seen that The Guardian is at the cutting Digital newspaper printing‚ the missing link: be complicated as we distinguish between the edge of technology in the newspaper industry, http://www.inpublishing.co.uk/kb/articles/ physical product and its content. The transaction which helps to explain why it is one of the world’s digital_newspaper_printing_the_missing_ between publisher and consumer, of this product most popular news websites. However, we’ve link.aspx and its content is further complicated when we only scratched the surface here in terms of how look again at the issue of APIs and their role in The website is ‘distributed’ via the internet, of it is using sophisticated software to market its distributing content through other media. Clearly, course, but the content of The Guardian’s website content globally, especially in the USA. We’ve we cannot explore this fully in this article! is not only found by visiting also seen that the not-for-profit Guardian is not www.guardian.co.uk through a web browser. Audience consumption immune to the current unprecedented pressures RSS feeds, email headlines and mobile phone on the newspaper industry and that, like its At the time of writing, based on June’s services all allow Guardian readers to stay up to competitors, it is facing very tough times. circulation figures, The Guardian website is the date. And recently a major new feature has been second most popular UK newspaper website Neil Paddison is a Media teacher, freelance writer and added, as The Guardian has released its ‘Open after Mail Online. An online readership battle Platform’, a set of software developer tools which cartoonist. seems to be hotting up, with the top three was launched with a content API (Application (Telegraph, Guardian, Mail) boasting 27, 28 and Programming Interface). What this means is 29 million unique users respectively. If we average that web developers can integrate Guardian References this out over a month that’s nearly a million users content seamlessly into their clients’ websites, per day for each of the top three newspaper sites. 1. BBC News: ‘Media revolution: stop press?’: whilst The Guardian controls the adverts which The Guardian newspaper sells around 330,000 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7872154. are associated with the free content it provides. copies per day, so as a very rough guide it stm As Guardian director of digital content Emily Bell has three online users for every newspaper 2. WPP profits down by nearly 50%: http:// puts it, this will allow Guardian content to be purchase. www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/aug/26/wpp- ‘woven into the fabric of the internet’. This picture is complicated further, however, profits-down-nearly-50-per-cent Marketing and exchange as the number of copies sold doesn’t necessarily 3. The essay can be found here: http://www. equal the number of readers: many people We have already seen how software is being guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2002/nov/29/1 share their copy of a printed newspaper so the used to market The Guardian’s content through 4. A quick history of The Guardian: http://www. readership and/or circulation figures can only ever APIs, and the ways the printed newspaper acts as guardian.co.uk/gnm-archive/2002/jun/06/1 be a rough guide. They are vital to the industry an advert for online services. But The Guardian of course, because a newspaper which reaches a 5. Guardian Media Group (GMG): http://www. also uses other traditional media to advertise larger audience can charge more for its advertising gmgplc.co.uk/GMG/tabid/126/Default.aspx its newspaper and website, including some space, and newspapers make more money from innovative TV adverts. In common with other 6. GMG’s Annual Report: www.gmgplc.co.uk/ advertising than anything else. The cover price national newspapers, it also offers discounted Portals/7/GMG_Annual%20Report_2009.pdf in most cases will not cover the cost of production. subscription schemes and often runs promotions 7. Guardian Media Group plc (GMG) announces to give the newspaper away to university students Patterns and trends full-year results for 2008/09: www.gmgplc. as a way of encouraging a lifelong Guardian habit. co.uk/media/pressreleases/tabid/213/default. If you’ve used free online survey websites Free copies are a great incentive, and cutting aspx?pressreleaseid=127&cid=viewdetails such as www.surveymonkey.com, you’ll know across issues of distribution, exchange and how easy it is to gather questionnaire results 8. Guardian Unlimited in the black for first time: audience consumption, is the issue of ‘bulks’. for a coursework project without the hassle of http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectio These are large orders of heavily discounted copies distributing wads of photocopies. Try conducting ncode=1&storycode=33685 of the printed paper, typically sold to airlines and a survey of the newspaper reading habits in your 9. Flat Earth News, by Nick Davies, Chapter 2. hotels to be given away to their customers. This Media Studies class this term so you’ll be able to year has seen The Guardian break with another compare your own experience of newspapers tradition in this respect, as it announced it would with those of other AS students. Are there any become the first national quality daily to scrap trends or patterns? Any surprises? How do your distribution of all its bulks. MediaWeek reported survey results reflect the national picture of that Guardian News and Media claimed the newspaper readership? Remember that the mark move would ‘increase transparency across the scheme explicitly rewards discussion of your own newspaper industry’ – the implication being that experience. This section is the ideal place to put in its rivals inflate their circulation figures through the some well-researched data to back up your case use of bulk orders. We might wonder whether the study of The Guardian. move to scrap bulks was linked with the industrial action and redundancies at The Guardian Print Centre; though as the MediaWeek article pointed out, bulks represent a much smaller percentage of

english and media centre | December 2009 | MediaMagazine 9 MM

Documentary in the 21st Century From the herring fishermen of the The documentary form has come a long way Critics often point to the dreaded ‘dumbing since the pioneering films of in down’ debate when discussing recent 1920s to today’s exploitation of the 1930s. Grierson’s film-making evidenced a documentaries, suggesting the documentary South-East Asian tuna workers by the strong public service ethos, and had an emphasis form has been tabloidised with a stronger fast food industry: similar subjects, on education and raising awareness, rather emphasis on sensationalism and voyeurism than entertainment values. It was Grierson in order to make them more palatable to mass but worlds apart in presentation, who originally coined the term documentary audiences. This article aims to draw together an viewpoint and audience. Modern describing it as ‘the creative treatment of analysis of the modern documentary form whilst actuality’. Early Grierson documentaries such also looking at issues of audience and institution, documentary forms are frequently as Drifters (1929), an account of a North Sea in particular the rise of narrowcasting, castigated for tabloidisation, dumbing fishing fleet trawling for herrings, and Night Mail as opposed to more traditional forms of (1936) charting the Royal Mail’s delivery service broadcasting. down, and celebrity-led narratives. from London to seem a world away Carly Sandy analyses some recent from Danny Dyer’s Deadliest Men, Ross Kemp The rise of narrowcasting on Pirates and Blood Sweat and Takeaways, but Narrowcasting refers to broadcasting that examples to explore how ‘the creative what similarities do they share? How have the targets smaller, more tightly defined audiences treatment of actuality’ has adapted core principles of documentary making evolved such as 16-34-year-old men (Dave) or 8-12-year- to the changing media landscape and in an age of rating wars, channel proliferation old children (Nickelodeon). The ratings for some and audience fragmentation? What issues do of these channels may be small in comparison to audiences often believed to be documentaries raise about the institutions that to more traditional broadcasters such as ITV1 switched off from current affairs. produce them and the audiences who consume or BBC1 (QI on Dave attracting 0.61million them? viewers compared with ITV1’s Coronation

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Street audience of 8.65 million). But ratings has developed a very distinctive documentary documentary needs opposing characters, aside, what these channels offer advertisers style which they have designed with their young tension and a strong sense of narrative. Manos, (the lifeblood of commercial television) is their (16-34) demographic in mind. a 20-year-old ‘fast food junkie’, establishes his desired demographic on a plate. For example credentials at the outset of the programme by satellite channel Bravo targets the 16-34-year- The BBC3 approach declaring: old C2/D and E male demographic – a perfect Blood Sweat and Takeaways is the follow- I don’t know how they produce it, where they arena for advertising razors, beer, mobile phones, up to the highly successful Blood Sweat and T produce it, I don’t care. sportswear, lads’ mags... Shirts series which attracted both popular and Stacey is introduced as a ‘concerned consumer’ In terms of narrowcasting and audiences, the critical acclaim, securing a BAFTA nomination in and Jess will ‘only eat meat in the form of a ‘youth’ market, generously referred to as the 2008; sending a group of six young people to sausage or a burger’. Olu, Josh and Lauren 16-34 demographic, is seen by broadcasters investigate the true cost of cheap clothing and complete the line up. as both the most desirable – and most elusive. the impact of globalisation on the developing The young Brits are soon stripped of their Commercially the youth market is seen as the world. Similarly, Takeaways follows six young highly polished nails and sent to work in one of most desirable to advertisers because they have Brits to South East Asia to live and work amongst the leading tuna-producing factories for around a high disposable income and are the earliest families who work in the food industry. Again 40p an hour. But the pressure of working in the adopters of new technology (you are far more the emphasis is on issues of globalisation, factory soon proves too much and after just 10 likely to have an iPhone than your parents). exploitation and the human cost of mass food minutes Lauren collapses, and Olu pushes Manos In terms of PSB (Public Service Broadcasting) production. through a glass window pane. The dramatic channels such as BBC3, they are not trying to Borrowing from the hybrid documentary exchanges between them owes as much to Big sell products but rather their whole brand to an form of reality TV, the participants are clearly Brother as it does to traditional documentary audience who will one day be licence fee payers. selected with contrasting backgrounds modes of representation. In an effort to connect with this audience BBC3 and attitudes because, like scripted drama, The voiceover is a key documentary device

english and media centre | December 2009 | MediaMagazine 11 MM

used to direct audiences towards a preferred to raise awareness of economic exploitation The commercial approach: reading. In this case the informal, female voice amongst an audience not readily drawn to celebrity provides statistics about the hourly wages of more ‘traditional’ forms of documentary. Instead While BBC3 has opted for an informal mode Takeaways the tuna workers and their exploitation (factory adopts a more informal approach, of address and young people to front its factual non-diegetic soundtrack workers process 600 tins of tuna per day, for example using a programmes, Bravo and have enlisted the factory sells them for £300 and pays the featuring artists such as Lady Ga Ga and Elbow the help of celebrities to promote their most employee £3). and featuring participants who are all under successful documentary strands. The Ross Kemp Throughout the episode, parallels are drawn 25 and from a variety of ethnic and economic on… series for Sky One has been a banker between the comfortable, affluent lives of the backgrounds. programme for the channel since its launch Ross Kemp on …. Takeaways Brits and the lives of the tuna workers. For , like the majority of BBC3’s factual in 2006. Ross Kemp on sees the former example, the voiceover explains that Josh, programming, adopts an informal, upbeat EastEnders’ ‘hardman’ head to areas affected ‘although just 20’, already owns his own house. mode of address, despite the fact that it deals by /gun crime and interview everybody Jess later admits ‘all my family describe me as with serious and sensitive issues. Similarly in from gang members to the (then) Home Paris Hilton’, and this is reinforced through scenes Jess: My New Face, 17-year-old Jess Lees set Secretary, Jacqui Smith. Like many contemporary ; Image.net for stills from Western perceptions of of Jess applying make-up in her bedroom. The out to investigate documentaries, the series draws upon the ‘moral mise-en-scène beauty reveals a pair of red sparkly whilst also coping with her own facial panic’ surrounding gun/knife crime which Apert Syndrome high heels and a bottle of Moet and Chandon disfigurement as a result of . gives it a modern and relevant edge. Kemp’s close-up signify Jack: A Soldier’s Story champagne both shot in , to Across the schedule, voiceover frequently uses real-life cases to frame her wealth and lifestyle. Predictably the trip and approached the war in Afghanistan from the the narrative of each episode; in Liverpool, for Blood Sweat and T-Shirts the conditions that they live and work in, forces perspective of 23-year-old Lance Corporal Jack example, he highlights the murder of 11-year- and attitudes to frontline of a war the young Brits to re-think their Mizon whose bravery on the old Rhys Jones, a tragic of a turf war globalisation and cheap food zone . It’s a change was contrasted with his involvement in a between two neighbouring gangs. A montage epitomised by Manos’ piece to camera: pub brawl in the UK which almost earned him a of newspaper headlines, radio excerpts and I said some very silly things at the start when custodial prison sentence. Note from the titles tense non-diegetic music accompanies Kemp’s I said that economic exploitation was good of these programmes the way in which they recounting of the poignant events leading up interweave personal narratives with Blood, Sweat and Takeaways for me ... but now I really wanna take that attempt to to the murder, which provides a platform for his wider, more political issues and in doing so back after seeing all the effort and how hard investigation and subsequent interviews. offer a fresh approach to documentary-making they work ... it makes me look like an idiot. Following the success of Gangs (which won Blood Sweat and Like any documentary, for a generation of viewers often considered a BAFTA for Best Factual series in 2007), Ross Takeaways point of view switched off by current affairs. contains a and a Kemp in Afghanistan saw Kemp joining front line preferred reading; clearly this series is aiming

troops on their mission against the Taliban, and TVRicochet for images from

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fulfillingfulfillin of the personal relationships not a broadcaster struggling to compete for aandnd diversiond aspects of Blumler and an audience amongst hundreds of channels. KKatz’satz Uses and Gratifications theory And let’s face it, who really wants to watch a (1974).(19 documentary about a Royal Mail overnight delivery service? ... I’d settle for Ross Kemp every SomeSo key questions time. ClearlyC documentaries, like every otheroth genre, have developed to keep Carly Sandy teaches Media Studies at Palmers College, pacepac with changing audience trends Essex. and this has involved ‘borrowing’ from fiction,fictio particularly narrative techniques, structuresstructu and characterisation, leading References many to questionq whether entertainment Broadcast magazine – 19/6/2009, source of all valuesvalues are beingbe pursued over content. This is ratings and statistics cited in the article. certainly one wayw of looking at contemporary documentaries;documentarie but you may also want to Broadcast magazine – 30/11/2007 ‘Fighting for consider the following:fo young male viewers’, discussion of Bravo. • Does a factualfact programme have to be formal The Observer – 24/05/2009 ‘The Other andand authorauthoritarian in order to be informative? Side of Ross Kemp’, interview http://www. • Does it havehav to be presented by a middle- broadcastnow.co.uk/news/multi-platform/ agedaged professorprofes or ‘expert’ in order to have news/channel-report-has-nickelodeon-met- credibility?credibility? its-match/1139193.article – discussion of • Can any documentarydo ever really provide us Nickelodeon audience. withwith an ununbiasedb ‘truth’? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/ I would argueargu no to all of the above. entertainment/7005061.stm – news item Furthermore,Furthermore, I would suggest the subject matter discussing the rebranding of UK G2 to ‘Dave’. exploredexplored in ththe documentaries I have discussed is bothbothc contemporaryontemp and relevant to its audience. At their core they share a commitment to raise awareness of socially challenging issues (poverty, gang crime, globalisation) and openly seek to in 2009 Ross Kemp on Pirates investigated the challenge opinions. Yes, there is ‘the creative problem of piracy in South East Asia and Africa. treatment of actuality’ with a sharper edge than Kemp claims that: perhaps Grierson had envisaged, but he was the BBC don’t commission me. But I’m lucky I do have somebody who listens [Sky]. And I hope it’s a populist take Popular is the key word here; in the fiercely contested world of multichannel ratings Kemp scores highly with Pirates attracting a 0.7 million audience in its well-established 9pm slot. These programmes also seem to hold considerable appeal to a young male demographic, (53% of this audience was male and 30% aged 16-34). Like the Ross Kemp on… series, Danny Dyer’s Deadliest Men is another attempt to draw on the star persona of an actor, also known for playing ‘hard men’. The appeal of Dyer to young working-class males is considerable. His ‘wide boy’ image and use of cockney rhyming slang are used as a unique selling point; his film career (The Football Factory, The Business, Adulthood) reinforces this secondary persona and as a result has made Dyer a lucrative brand. Dyer’s first programme The Real Football Factories was described by Bravo’s controller, Dave Clarke, as ‘a photofit ideal’ for the channel. More recently in the Deadliest Men series, Dyer lives with ‘dangerous’ men learning about their life and criminal pasts. Now in series two, the programme continues to be a ratings winner for Bravo with a strong emphasis on entertainment values and the

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An interview with Annette Hill Love it or loathe it, there’s no MM: How would you define like news and documentary and fictional programming like soap opera or melodrama escaping it – Reality TV is everywhere. reality TV? To define reality TV is the million – and it works precisely because it blurs these MediaMag interviewed Annette Hill, dollar question because it really boundaries. So when you study it, it’s quite difficult to pull apart the crucial key elements Professor of Media at Westminster resists definition. We could say that there are two broad elements of that make something more factual or more University, academic guru and fan a genre that make it reality TV: an entertaining. But if you look at examples like 999 of the genre, on why there’s so observational strand, where you follow people there’s a very clear instruction; you can see around and see what happens, and a created it’s coming from a much more documentary much of it, its impact and appeals strand where you make a situation work in front frame, where you want to teach the public to to audiences, and where it’s going. of the television, almost like made-for-TV reality. improve their knowledge of something quite The X Factor Britain’s Got Both of those strands always rely on a mix of fact specific. Shows like or Talent Along the way she raises important and fiction, of popular elements of documentary on the other hand are lovely examples issues about its ethics and morality, or news, combined with popular elements of of programmes with a minimal amount of instruction and information; they are much broadcasters’ duty of care to its lifestyle or talk shows and even little bits of drama like melodrama or soap opera. more about working in an entertainment/drama participants, and its role in television’s The wonderful thing which makes reality frame, where the audience is brought into the entertainment to make a difference to the survival of the fittest. television so interesting to study is that it blurs the boundary between factual programming outcome of the story in the end. Reality TV is a hybrid of the two things coming together.

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MM: Why reality TV, why now? growth of the reality talent show genre as a direct One very recent example is Living TV, one What were the factors that response to this. So it’s always a creative and of the success stories of the multichannel have contributed to it? economic response to a crisis going on within environment, producing a show like Dating broadcasting. in the Dark – a lovely, crazy mix of lifestyle From the nineteenth century and something to do with senses and sensory onwards the development of MM: Is there a difference journeys. This would be almost an impossible popular culture has been about the between reality TV on BBC show for the BBC to make because it’s just too survival of the fittest in a difficult risky. Whereas for Living, it’s exactly the kind of economic creative environment: and on other commercial risky, sexy mix of different styles that they can get how does something survive and grow and broadcasters? away with. make money and be entertaining to the mass Public service broadcasters audience? Reality TV is a direct response to that. like the BBC came in early on the For example, in the 1980s, the growth and huge more instructional observational success of the talk show, with people talking styles of reality television. So 999 about themselves, arguing and debating and or the very popular lifestyle show fighting over their emotional and personal lives Changing Rooms were good examples of reality became high conflict situations, could be seen television which, though entertaining, also as a precursor of reality TV. In the 1980s there had an instructional public service element. was an actors’ strike and a big conflict around Meanwhile the response from commercial what was paid to writers of drama. And this broadcasters was much more about shows created a wonderful gap in the market which was which would produce income, for example, filled by reality TV. It also exploited the success voting revenue; that voting revenue didn’t feed of local news, which was a boom area in the back into a public service environment but into 1980s, where we had ‘on-scene/as-it-happened’ a direct commercial environment. , styles of news. Throughout the 1990s reality TV being a hybrid of public service and a commercial took over from the talk show and became the channel, can pick a format like Big Brother where most dominant genre in factual entertainment the revenue feeds back into the commercial in America and in Britain, and we’ve seen it environment of the show. The BBC has to be spread around the world with different kinds much more careful with the styles of reality TV of formats like Big Brother or Idols or Strictly that it adopts. So the created-for-TV type reality Come Dancing today. Now in the Noughties, we shows – especially the ‘high conflict’ shows – have strikes going on around writers’ pay and are more likely to be broadcast on commercial actors’ pay once again, and we can see the huge channels.

english and media centre | December 2009 | MediaMagazine 15 MM MM: What kind of impact has it had on other factual genres? The reality genre has had a huge impact on other kinds of factual genres. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that there’s been a more general restyling of many kinds of factual content, from news and investigative programmes, through documentary to lifestyle and reality TV as a whole. The mix of different styles – that focus on drama and entertainment, that focus on conflict – that characterises reality TV has become much more present within other kinds of factual programming. In the audience research I’ve done, one of the viewers described it as ‘things were becoming reality-infected.’ For many viewers this was a problem, a cause for concern. They don’t want their news to be like Big Brother, they want it to be trustworthy and good and proper, so they know about what’s going on in the world; and they want Big Brother to be entertaining and a game. MM: How do different audiences relate to reality TV, and how do they use it? It’s often claimed that reality TV only appeals to stupid people, and we have to start by saying that that’s just simply not true! Firstly, it’s precisely the experimental nature of it, the fact that it is a mix of the things you like in other shows, a bit of soap opera, a bit of documentary, a bit of a talk show. We’re attracted to that hybrid nature of the genre. Sometimes, in a programme like Britain’s Got Talent the experimental mixing of genres works perfectly. MM: What about different A second factor would be the emphasis on demographics – in terms of emotions, drama, relationships: our hopes class, gender, age, etc? and fears and dreams, and what makes us angry, Reality TV couldn’t be the success what makes us cry, what makes us happy. All of story it is if it didn’t appeal to lots that is performed within these kinds of reality TV of different kinds of audiences. shows. And we get to interact with these people, It’s an all-round pleaser, an all- whether through arguing with them, relating to round entertainer. It manages this them, or voting for or against them. And we get by drawing on the things we like about other to think about our own relationships and what genres. However, we do know some things: first we do in similar situations in some way. So the of all, it appeals to younger viewers. I would call ‘people’ element and the emotions is crucially some older viewers ‘reality refuseniks’, whereas a wonderful example of a programme in which important. lot of younger viewers, especially around 15-35 somebody who has made a lot of money and Another big factor is that because sometimes are much more attracted to the experimental taken themselves out of their working-class half of the population is watching one show at nature of the genre, and the fact that it’s about roots, goes back in to have another look at any one time we become part of the event of a people, about following ideas and subjects and it. Regardless of whether they’re rich or poor, reality TV show, where it builds up momentum emotions, and seeing what unfolds. Women tend viewers tend to have similar responses. So in this week by week. Strictly is a wonderful example to like it a bit more than men, and that’s certainly case, reality TV unites the public across gender, of that; it builds week by week on the BBC and related to the fact that much reality TV draws on and across class, and this makes it appealing we not only watch the show, but we read the soap opera which, traditionally, has been a genre to the audience, even though it’s representing newspapers about the show, we follow the that appeals to women. different classes within the shows themselves. training of the dancers, the comments of the Over the last 10 years it’s become much more celebrities, we vote for them. And the show appealing to both men and women, with big MM: What’s your own becomes like a big juggernaut coming towards talent shows like Strictly or The X Factor, while favourite reality show? us, gathering viewers, through to the end to the shows like The Apprentice or Dragons’ Den are Most recently my favourite show big finale. That’s a wonderful example of the way aimed specifically at a more male market. And as is anything to do with the chorister that the genre works so well in drawing in the the genre develops I think it’s going to need to Gareth Malone. In his recent series public so that they can participate in something cover both men and women. Unsung Town we see him taking a really truly social in society. The third area we should look at is class. deprived community that’s had its Different kinds of classes are represented in the share of problems and along he comes and tries shows themselves. The Secret Millionaire is a to persuade people that singing together can

16 MediaMagazine | December 2009 | english and media centre MM somehow make a difference in their lives. And it’s an uphill struggle, and in some ways it doesn’t matter if he succeeds or not because we want to see him struggle and go through the process. And, in fact, as the show unfolds what we begin to see is people initially reluctant to join a choir coming together and becoming more and more enthusiastic and making the community mend in some way. A wonderful feel-good story, with a fantastic character and a set of supporting characters within the community that make the story an amazing emotional and personal journey. MM: Can you talk about the moral panics around reality TV, and why it’s become so contentious? As a new genre, reality TV introduces a whole set of new and controversial elements into the existing media environment. It’s a new style using different kinds of techniques and technologies across the multi- media, multi-platform environment, all of which are unfamiliar and which can therefore feel scary issue of respect and disrespect was uppermost in MM: What about the broad- and frighten people. And their responses often their minds. They knew that this was something casters themselves? What is emerge as moral arguments and highlight that was not okay, and that fair treatment not their duty of care? Should a fear that something new can threaten the only of the celebs in Big Brother but of people current state of the quality of television. So there be more exercise of more generally, is really, really important. So control? some of the biggest and still most dominant there you have something negative going on Well, the policy environment for discussions about reality TV are precisely that it’s in a show that actually set up a much broader the treatment of trash TV, junk food TV. Reality TV as junk food dialogue, in a much more positive way. TV has become such a dominant discourse in reality TV is a fairly light-touch in society that even viewers who watch it are MM: In your research you’ve policy. And that’s enough for some repeating the same arguments back to us. And argued that reality TV is, by programme-makers; they feel that, that’s a natural reaction to something new. definition, a genre which if people have signed an informed consent Also, because reality TV is controversial in where they allow the programme-makers to film requires viewers to view and them in difficult situations and the programme- the way it mixes different things, it often makes debate critically. mistakes and can produce something that’s makers have the end choice about how that’s Reality television is very much a terrible as well as something brilliant. And these represented on screen, then that’s enough. And people-orientated kind of genre. It concerns are not only about the quality of the that comes from the documentary tradition is about emotional relations, social content – is it good? – but about the impact where signing an informed consent allows the relations, the way we communicate, of the content on the audience. Those are film-maker to create the story out of what they the way we don’t communicate. assumptions about the moral impact of a genre see unfolding. The problem is with the created- It draws people in and forces them to take on an audience which just don’t take into account for-TV types of reality shows, especially the talent a position, often a critical position, often by the audience themselves. We have to take these shows, which include a lot of ‘humiliation TV’, imagining, would I do that in that situation? recurring concerns about reality TV and put them signing that informed consent isn’t necessarily Would I behave in that way? In some ways it into a much bigger social, political, economic quite enough. provides a kind of safe space in your own home context and add some balance to it. We have to I think the editorial policy will have to catch up to watch the social relations, the way people make sure that we talk to people who watch the with the development of the genre, and with the fight and argue and love and hate, and so on. It’s shows, and to people who make the shows, in way people participate in reality TV shows. When what we might call a second order experience order to make an informed evaluation of reality people go into these talent shows, they know the of intense social communication; but from a TV. It’s here to stay, and we have to learn to deal formats but, at the same time, they’re really not distance, when we’re not actually there live with with it, to understand it, to analyse it and predict prepared for how programme-makers will make these people. I think it encourages viewers to be where it’s going in order to make sense of it. them look at the end. critical of people in the shows, and then to be Take an example like Brat Camp, where MM: Let’s take an obvious critical of themselves: ‘how do I feel watching the you have parents at the end of their tether, example – Jade Goody and show, you know, do I feel good about watching with teenagers with serious behavioural and the racism row. Could that be something like Big Brother? Do I feel good about emotional problems who supposedly go to my opinions about Jade Goody? Is it okay to have a camp that’s going to fix them – fix their seen as a positive learning these opinions?’ It brings up quite complex and experience for audiences and behaviour – in some way. This is a show that is messy moral issues which are difficult to resolve. absolutely about a high crisis situation. And for broadcasters? So it invites the viewer to be critical, for sure. you do feel for the families who are having to The elements of bullying and What reality TV does is bring up a moral issue cope with a teenager who’s really exhibiting accusations of racism within and make people confront it and say, well, what quite extreme challenging behaviours. One Celebrity Big Brother had an kind of position are we going to take? Whether it debate with the programme-makers is about the immediate impact on the public. The resolves the issue for people is another matter. fact that, in order to make the kind of show we thousands of complaints that came like to watch about high conflict situations and through from the public clearly showed that the

english and media centre | December 2009 | MediaMagazine 17 MM

challenging behaviour, they’re going to treat the teenagers in particular kinds of ways. Somehow we have to allow producers the leeway to do that. We have to weigh up how far do we want this kind of reality TV as entertainment and how far

we want the ethical treatment of people who are Secret Millionaire

really challenged within these shows. And I don’t and have an easy answer to it. MM: How much can we ‘trust’ reality TV? Dating in the Dark Renowned documentary maker, Roger Graef’s idea of chains of trust and distrust is a wonderful concept for us to use in the analysis of reality television. I would say at Site for Channel 4 Press its best, reality TV can invoke a chain of trust. Gareth Malone’s The Choir is a great example

of that, where the documentary elements really Changing Rooms;

allow us to place trust in the programme-makers and and build up that bond with the audience where we do trust that this show has been made fairly

Most Haunted and ethically and with a lot of consideration. If 2008 BBC Craig Revel Horwood, Photo Library Arlene Phillips, Len Goodman, Bruno Tonioli © BBC Judges (L-R) the genre continues to deal with big issues to do with health and education and mind, body and spirit matters or family breakdown, or the ‘broken

Britain’ theme, then the programme-makers Strictly Come Dancing really need to build trust with the viewers. ; Twenty Twenty TV Choir; Image.net for for images from The Twenty ; Twenty

Britain’s Got Talent by kind permission of Dragonfl y Film and Television Productions Ltd; Productions y Film and Television by kind permission of Dragonfl

the programme-makers even to be covering. It we relate to our dead relatives – getting in was so contentious that, in fact, I felt maybe this touch with them; speaking to psychics. These wasn’t a topic for television, and it was something issues are already featuring in daytime TV, and Autopsy Life and Death for images from Rex Features.com that should have been kept private. talk shows; Most Haunted is one quite long- They’re dealing with serious issues and this running example. I expect to see examples of requires a basis of trust that people have been MM: Can you foresee where spiritual transformation shows in the future. treated fairly, that it’s a well-made programme we might be going next with We can also expect to see even more short-term with an ethical consideration to participation. reality TV? examples of programmes that deal directly MM: Can you give an example The trend that we’ve seen already with the economic crisis – how to make more that you think really shouldn’t set over the last few years for reality money, how to improve your CV, how to get a talent shows is going to continue, for job in a difficult environment. So we’ll see some be broadcast? lots of reasons. One is that variety short-term responses to specific issues that One personal example for me is an absolute fundamental part of we’re dealing with right now and I think, some of an area where I think reality TV popular culture, and it’s part of its history from longer-term trends that clearly raise much bigger maybe crosses the moral line and day 1, and it will continue to be a crucial part of questions to do with what happens to us when where you have to say no, I don’t the way popular culture develops in the future. we die. And I think reality TV will absolutely deal want to watch that, I wish that hadn’t And secondly, economically and in terms of with that. been made, is a show on Five called The Baby production issues, the birth of the format, which Mind Reader. This was a show where a psychic allows a particular show to be reproduced around Annette Hill was interviewed by Jenny Grahame. felt that he could improve the lives of very, very the world, will continue to ride the wave in distraught families by somehow psychically popular TV genres. MoreMediaMag accessing the minds of their babies. And whilst Looking at social and cultural trends more he made some behavioural improvements with Watch Annette Hill discussing reality TV in broadly, I think we’re going to see some kind the show, it was so incredibly difficult and it MediaMagClips. of move towards issues to do with the mind, was in such a grey area of belief and hopes and body and spirit, perhaps to do with religious faith in something that felt just too personal for beliefs but, more importantly, in the way that

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media representations of war

John Fitzgerald explores the changing values of media interpretations of ’real-life’ conflicts, from Vietnam to Iraq, and finds no easy answers.

english and media centre | December 2009 | MediaMagazine 19 MM a variety of approaches to cataloguing the war. The first wave of films included The Deer Hunter (1978) which explored the impact of the war on a small mining community in Pennsylvania, although it is possibly best remembered for its Russian roulette sequence and for the many criticisms of how Vietnamese characters are represented. Coming Home (1980) looked at the problems surrounding veterans returning from the war, trying to readjust to a normal life. Francis Coppola’s dreamlike epic Apocalypse Now (1980) transposed the Joseph Conrad novel The Heart of Darkness to the depths of the Vietnam jungle. The second wave of films came over a decadeade after the end of the war, and saw the emergenceence of a Vietnam auteur who had served in the country and seen combat. Oliver Stone’s trilogyogy of films Platoon (1987), Born on the Fourth of July (1990) and Heaven and Earth (1993) tookok a variety of angry perspectives on the war and its aftermath on both the men who served there, and the local population. Other noteworthy films were Stanley Kubrick’s brilliantly realised minimalist Full Metal Jacket (1987) and Brian DePalma’s more conventional, but nonetheless extremely powerful Casualties of War (1988). There were also variations on the genre with the very successful comedy-melodrama and Robin Williams’ vehicle Good Morning Vietnam (1988) and later with the simple tale of a simple man (1994) whose wartime exploits turn him into a national hero. The problem for television and film producers concerning the more recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan hasn’t been so much how to offer a broad perspective to the events, but how to garner the mood of a prospective audience. The alleged illegality of the war in Iraq and the mounting fatality and casualty rate amongst allied soldiers both had to be taken into account. There was also the initial, misguided link between the invasions and the defining moment of the decade, the 9/11 attacks, which to an extent still resonates deeply in For many media and film students, finding made during its long duration, John Wayne’s The an area of study which is explicitly or implicitly Green Berets (1968), was a flag-waving, overtly linked to real social, cultural and political contexts patriotic mission in damage limitation and can create many difficulties. This may be partly was in direct contrast to the growing opposition due to a lack of engagement with the news to a deeply unpopular military campaign. It media outside of celebrity gossip and innuendo, took some time for film-makers to confront the so that your knowledge of major stories of the horrors and realities of that war in an upfront day may well be patchy. This is a great shame, manner. Unlike World War Two where the Allied because fictional media texts very often debate forces had saved the world from the possibility and reflect on current conflicts in extremely of a Fascist dictatorship, the war in South-East revealing ways, enlightening the audience with Asia had cast the US not as an all-conquering a range of scenarios rooted in an interpretation hero, but as a big bully meddling in the affairs of real-life events. The recent military incursions of a poor and weak country. Of course, the in Iraq and Afghanistan by the films that followed World War Two were often and their allies, including Britain have, perhaps simplistic, morally unambiguous combat movies, surprisingly, provided a wealth of both television mainly centring on the mixed band of comrades and film interpretations of the conflicts extremely confronting German or Japanese stereotypes. quickly. These films, for example, avoided addressing the horrors of the Holocaust or the atomic Far from Vietnam nightmares of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These films are quite unlike those representing In comparison, the first wave of Vietnamas films the last major war that the Americans were released from the late Seventies onwardsds ttookook involved in – Vietnam. The only major war film

20 MediaMagazine | December 2009 | english and media centre MM the American psyche. The legal status of the Robert Redford’s Lions for Lambs (2007) was a The Hurt Locker invasion of Iraq and the widespread opposition film that took a largely political take on events Perhaps the best film to emerge so far is to the war was also a key factor in determining around the War on Terror; but despite its high Kathryn’s Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker (2009) and audience response. Certainly any attempt to octane cast of Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep, it in cinematic terms it seems to set the standard. tackle these complex subjects would require a was disappointing and incoherent in its view of The film, set in , focuses on a three-man degree of levity. events. The only real spark in the narrative comes unit of the US Army’s elite Explosive Ordnance from a confrontation between Streep’s liberal Disposal Squad during the last few weeks of Filming Iraq – the horror, the journalist and Cruise’s Republican hawk. a year-long tour of duty. The film is filled with shame and the ramifications unbearable tension as the squad work their way It is interesting that two of the most critically The impact of news footage through a number of terrifying bomb disposals One of the main visual benchmarks for any acclaimed films about the war in Iraq actually and Bigelow uses all her experience of the action film, however, was the sheer amount of news concern the first Gulf War, fought in 1990 after movie when we see the team pinned down by footage to emerge from the invasion and the invaded . Three Kings a group of local insurgents, seemingly destined subsequent occupation of Iraq and to a lesser (2000) is a wonderfully-realised war caper movie to meet a pretty brutal end. While the film extent Afghanistan. The proliferation of 24-hour where the moral boundaries are extremely might be seen to be shackled by some of the news channels, the continuing growth of the blurred; and Sam Mendes’ underrated Jarhead main conventions of the war film – men under internet and the availability of digital cameras (2005) deals with the boredom associated with pressure, loyalty to comrades, maverick leaders, to soldiers and civilians, meant that there was young men hanging around waiting to fight. professionalism and the clash between life at a huge amount of footage documenting the Perhaps there is something to be said for a home and on the battlefield – it also manages wars from a variety of different perspectives. degree of perspective and the passage of time to add a complexity and depth to the characters’ Redacted played off this use of mise-en-scène by when looking at how well these films work. The motivations which elevate it far above a great having some of the events shown by hand-held current crop of mainstream Hollywood films deal of mainstream Hollywood dross. related to the second Gulf War has been more cameras, giving the impression of a verité style. variable. Two of the directors of the best Vietnam This is particularly true of Nick Broomfield’s The Small screen warfare: films have focused on Iraq in very different (2007) which also follows this Generation Kill ways. Oliver Stone deals with the build-up to template. It is a harrowing drama-documentary In many respects the predecessor of The Hurt the invasion in an acerbic fashion in his film based on the real-life murder of 24 civilians Locker was to be found on the small-screen. on President Bush, W (2008). Brian DePalma’s in the town of Haditha in 2005, a retaliatory HBO’s mini-series Generation Kill (2008) scripted Redacted (2007), on the other hand, is a brutal strike for a terrorist attack which resulted in the by The Wire’s Ed Burns and David Simon and insight into out-of-control infantrymen who death of one US Marine. The film follows three based on the book by Rolling Stone journalist the Marines rape a young Iraqi woman and kill her and sets of characters: firstly , a mixed Evan Wright. It was shown here on the FX channel her family, high on their own sense of power. bunch, some gung-ho types, others terrified and terrestrially broadcast on Channel 4 this the ordinary Meanwhile, in The Valley Of Ellah (2007) young men. The second group are autumn. It follows the build-up and first few people concentrates on the aftermath of the war, and , trying to cope with the disruption of weeks of the Iraq invasion focusing on the Bravo its dehumanising impact on a group of soldiers the war; and the final storyline focuses on the who murder a colleague after a drunken brawl. terrorists. Certainly a common bond between the insurgents and the occupiers is their easy manipulation by their leaders. The low-budget nature of Haditha certainly adds to the sense of authenticity demanded by Broomfield. What the film also serves to do is to show the different positions of the main protagonists of the war in an honest and revealing fashion.

english and media centre | December 2009 | MediaMagazine 21

MM Stray Dogs Company of the First Reconnaissance Battalion, of interaction between those in command and and joking – but it soon emerges that his life in Generation Kill, and runs up to the liberation of Baghdad. The those taking the orders rather than any major set- the UK is an empty shell of paid-for sex, a mother black humour that runs through the seven hours piece battle scenes. who no longer recognises him, drug use and , Artifi Credit: First Light Productions/Kingsgatefi Bigelow (2008) cial Eye; Locker, d. Kathryn The Hurt lms / The Kobal Collect HBO; HBO; of the piece is well-observed, as is the underlying While looking at these films can be an a suicide attempt. He is ‘saved’ by an American

incompetence of the military command. Its extremely worthwhile exercise in terms of colleague who encourages him to set up a Battle for Haditha resolutely non-star cast acts to enhance the assessing aspects of representation, applying security business linked to the reconstruction realism of the piece; and although Generation audience theory and looking at wider political of Iraq. Danny drafts in Hibbs and sets out to

Kill follows some conventional lines, the overall contexts, other media texts can also offer a re-invent himself in the new post-Saddam world. , Contender Home Entertainment; feeling is one of minimal plot development variety of different viewpoints to the unholy mess Occupation may in parts feel melodramatic, coupled with angry criticisms of a war which that has occurred in those blighted countries. but it manages to cover a number of key issues has been under-prepared in terms of resources. The British, of course, were a major part of the in a short space of time; because of the quality of On many occasions weaponry malfunctions, invasion of Iraq and continue to deploy a large the writing it gives a pretty comprehensive view bad decisions leave men in trouble; many of the force in Afghanistan. Their story is as much part of the changes in Iraq over the time period. The actions of the commanding officers are more of the overall picture as the American army and invasion and reconstruction has led to militant

concerned with getting up the ladder than trying it has been documented on television incredibly groups springing up, widespread corruption Occupation, to do the best job they can. effectively in Occupation (BBC1, 2009) and The and no determinable rise in the quality of life for

Generation Kill manages to give the Mark of Cain (Channel 4, 2007). normal Iraqi citizens. What is interesting is how BBC DVD; impression of a war which is out of control, the ‘liberation’ of the country has conversely

Brits in Basra – bringing the where the boundaries are blurred and the led to the gradual erosion of women’s rights. Mark of Cain directives handed down are constantly war back home This is encapsulated in Aliya’s character who at questioned. There is clear sympathy with the men There was widespread British opposition to the the start of the Episode One is a confident, wise- on the front-line – but they are not portrayed as war in Iraq, culminating in a huge march through cracking medic but by Episode Three has become , Revolver Entertainment; clean-cut heroes. On the contrary they are foul- London in February 2003 when reportedly a a frightened woman, wrapped in a head-scarf mouthed, in many respects amoral characters million people protested against invasion. The unable to talk to Swift without a chaperone, only whose motivations are driven more by loyalty to then Prime Minister Tony Blair had allied himself able to do her job out of sight.

the Battalion than any ideological basis. The use with George W. Bush on the war on terror. A There is also a clear sense of the Standard Operating ProcedureStandard of the camcorder as an official record of events month later a coalition force, largely consisting transformation of the characters. Mike loses ion; Image.net for images from Generation Kill, Redacted and W is also cleverly employed, especially the final few of American and British troops, started their everything – his marriage, his son (also a soldier) minutes of the series when an edited synopsis offensive on the Iraqi borders, and their cities and Aliya – without really knowing why. Danny’s of shots set to Johnny Cash’s ‘When The Man began to be heavily bombarded. The dominant greed drives him to exploit the uncertainty Comes Around’ gives a chilling coda to the overall voice about the conflict has so far emerged surrounding the new Iraq, diverting UN funds feel of the series. It is an involving and at times from America, but very many British servicemen to his security firm – but ultimately he knows slow watch – but its power lies in the subtleties have been killed, injured and damaged by their that he is morally compromised; he is as much , Sony;

experiences. Occupation, broadcast at peak time a part of the problem as the fundamentalists Taxi To The Dark Side in June 2009, is, to date, the most high-profile and former Baathists tearing the country apart. portrayal of the British experience of the war. Perhaps Hibbs’ character is the most optimistic Written by Peter Bowker (Desperate of the group; he makes friends with an Iraqi

RRomantics) and deftly directed by Nick Murphy, translator Yunis, who is subsequently killed by , Velocity;

tthe narrative is incredibly plot-laden but all the insurgents. He returns to Basra to compensate bbetter for that, focusing on the experiences Yunis’ family with his earnings, but is snatched Turtles Can Fly oof three soldiers, Sergeant Mike Swift (James by militia-men and narrowly escapes having his NNesbitt), Corporal Danny Peterson (Stephen throat cut. Although he is clearly damaged by

Graham) and Lance Corporal Lee Hibbs (Warren his experiences he ends up as a counsellor for , ICA; Brown) over a five year period. The opening veterans. The dénouement is extremely bleak sequence sees the men in Basra in 2003 hunting offering little in the way of solutions. This is down a sniper in an incendiary start which sets consistent with the overall feeling of the piece the tone for the entire series. Swift becomes that the war and its aftermath in Iraq have many a hero by saving the life of a young girl losers and few victors. and meets an Iraqi doctor Aliya Nabil Tony Marchant’s controversial, BAFTA (Lubna Azabal) who becomes the love- award-winning The Mark of Cain was first interest in the story. What Bowker and broadcast in April 2007 and in a similar way Murphy brilliantly manage to convey examined the soldier’s point of view. Rather over the three-hour narrative are the than a wide-ranging approach to take in the repercussions of events in Iraq and the whole of the conflict, The Mark of Cain instead effect on the men and their families. On concentrated on two teenage squaddies, Mark returning to the north of England, all (Gerard Kearns) and Shane (Matthew McNulty) three central characters fail to settle. and their role in the torture of two detainees in Haunted and in thrall to what they their custody. The film examined the culture of had seen in Basra, their lives are bullying, peer-pressure and class inequality permanently fractured. Swift starts a in the British Army, based around this horrific chaste affair with Aliya and is unable event. In many respects Marchant wrote the film to connect with his family. as a harsh rites-of-passage for the boys, exploring Hibbs picks up some casual the gap between moral courage – that is, loyalty work as a bouncer but is in to the group – and the incessant gnawing conflict with his sister who away of their own consciences. It is a powerful believes that the war was text, based on real-life accounts of beating wrong. Danny is perhaps the hooded Iraqi prisoners and the taking of ‘trophy most complicated character. photographs’. It is also an excellent film for He comes across as a looking at representations of teenagers. Both cocksure Scouser laughing Mark and Shane are mere boys, expected to do a

22 MediaMagazine | December 2009 | english and media centre MM human rights abuses, and Standard Operating Procedure is a dispiriting and difficult watch. That said, the combination of talking-head interviews and dramatic reconstruction offers a rewarding exposé of what was an incredibly dark moment in the grim aftermath of the war. Non-western voices? The voice of the Iraqi and Afghani people has been quite in the growth of the films and television dramatisations from the US and the UK, but two standout films, very much in the neo-realist tradition give a sense of the war in both countries. Turtles Can Fly (Ghobadi, 2004) is as far away from Hollywood as is possible. It focuses on a group of orphaned Kurdish children living near the Turkish border during the lead- up to and first days of the American invasion. Their desolate life is at the core of the narrative, as they earn a pittance for finding landmines. In many respects the film avoids the more liberal, anti-war approach of many of the films discussed in this article, by actually giving some sense of the horror of Saddam Hussain’s long reign. Stray Dogs (Meshkini, 2004) also has children at the forefront of the narrative as a brother and sister try to reunite with their mother who has been imprisoned by the Afghani authorities. It shows a country in total disarray, still under the fear of constant attack from all sides. But crucially much like Turtles Can Fly, it also highlights young children scarred by war with a hopeless future. All these films share a desperately downbeat outlook, but one which is strangely refreshing in the light of many previous mainstream war texts. The clear, shared message of all these films/ television series is that these appalling conflicts have no simplistic easy closure, as lines of hearses containing British servicemen continue to pass solemnly through quiet English towns.

John Fitzgerald teaches Film and Media Studies at Wyggeston and Queen Elizabeth College, Leicester, and is an examiner for Film Studies. man’s job. They are scared and clearly unaware of inhuman interrogation techniques favoured what they are doing. Like Occupation, The Mark by American forces, but also about the web of Cain pulls no punches in its climatic scenes. of silence that surrounds these highly illegal There is a clear avoidance of a rounded, easy activities. But the essence of the Taxi To The Dark resolution. Side is to provoke a reaction, especially against the men in power, and in particular Vice-President Other perspectives, other Dick Cheney, who through their words and approaches actions gave carte-blanche to what happened in There are other moving media texts that also the darkened cells of US military prisoners. provide a great deal of scope for analysis. Taxi Standard Operating Procedure looks at To The Dark Side (Gibney, 2007) and Standard the scandal surrounding the infamous digital Operating Procedure (Morris, 2008) are two photographs showing US soldiers posing for stark, angry documentaries which like The pictures while they dehumanised and tormented Mark of Cain explore the torture and murder Iraqi prisoners. The images were soon spread of prisoners. Gibney’s film takes as its starting around the world, and became the subject of point the death of an Afghan taxi-driver Dilawar, almost universal revulsion. The still images are inflicted at Bagram Air Base. Gibney broadens incredibly shocking and this is enhanced greatly the issue by encompassing various allegations of in Morris’ film. The soldier who stood out was a human rights abuses at Abu Ghraib in Iraq and young female recruit, Lynndie England, who from the detention centre at Guantanamo Bay. The her interview in the documentary seems pretty film uses a variety of narrative methods including unashamed of her actions. The conspiracy of many interviews with soldiers, ex-government silence, of commanding officers issuing unofficial officials and the families of incarcerated men. orders to largely uneducated subordinates to There is also evidence of a leaked report which do what they want with prisoners is central to outlines a military investigation into two deaths the film. Couple this with the Americans sinking at Bagram. Gibney’s film is not just about the to the awful depths of Saddam’s regime of

english and media centre | December 2009 | MediaMagazine 23 MM

a Tale of Two (Real) Women

During 2009, tabloid press coverage Jade Goody Jade was in the process of rebuilding her career when, on India’s version of Big Brother (Big has been dominated by the stories The story of Jade Goody is a tragic one. The death of any 27-year-old mother of two is Boss), she was given the news that she had of two contrasting reality show sad, but in itself not particularly newsworthy; cervical cancer. From this time on, her media saleability increased as her illness, her treatments contestants and the involvement of however this event was the resolution of the tumultuous narrative the media and Jade and ultimately her death were all reported in a both old and new media in their rise herself had presented of Jade’s life. As a Big range of media forms. Towards the end of her and fall. Steph Hendry explores Brother contestant in 2002, Jade was vilified life she was being filmed by Living TV and the by the tabloid press and despised for being image of her physical deterioration was used in the central and ambivalent role of ‘fat’, ‘ugly’ and ‘thick’. Despite not winning Big tabloid newspapers and in gossip magazines audiences in the lives of Jade Goody Brother, she went on to be the most successful along with a range of stories following her and ex-housemate in terms of her public profile her family’s responses to the illness. and Susan Boyle. and earnings. She became a regular fixture in Jade’s story was that of an underdog making magazines such as heat, OK! and Now! and was good. She was an ordinary girl, who escaped the subject of fly-on-the-wall documentaries from the mundanity of everyday life and found which consolidated her fame. At the height herself in the privileged world of celebrity. Not of this time of positive representations she possessing a saleable talent, Jade’s unique It’s been an odd year in the world of ‘reality’ followed the lead of other celebrity ‘brands’ selling point was her ordinariness and the television. Big Brother’s 2009 broadcast was less and a perfume was released under her name. fact that she represented a belief that ordinary than enthusiastically received with declining Her popularity was hit when she was accused people, with limited talent, little education and viewing figures suggesting the country’s of racist and bullying behaviour whilst taking from poor and troubled backgrounds could love-affair with BB and its tabloid spin-offs is part in 2007’s Celebrity Big Brother and, until experience a life of wealth and fame. Her illness at an end. This was confirmed by C4’s recent her illness, this scandal damaged her earning and death became public property and it was announcement that they will no longer broadcast potential and her media presence dwindled. recognised that this trying time in her life could the show after 2010. On the other hand, reality TV’s dominance in mainstream culture seems to have hit maximum capacity several times this year. Two events dominated the world of reality TV in the first half of 2009: the death of Jade Goody and the rise of Susan Boyle. Coming within a month of each other in March and April, the public and media responses to these two stories can be seen to represent the changing nature of modern media as we enter the second decade of the century. There is a decrease in ‘old media’s’ dominance in leading the way celebrity events are mediated and the phenomenon of Jade Goody was largely driven by ‘old media’ such as television broadcasting, tabloid newspapers and magazines. The Susan Boyle story symbolises the start of ‘new media’s’ power in disseminating information and allowing audiences to be part of the construction of a story; at the same time it highlights the rise in influence of new technologies such as YouTube and Twitter.

24 MediaMagazine | December 2009 | english and media centre MM financially benefit her, her family and a range of Whilst the web is part of the communication magazine contained her ‘last words’). Although media outlets. She epitomised a relatively new of these stories, celebrity exposés and the the magazine was dated March 24th 2009, it was, media phenomenon, that of the celebrity who ongoing reporting of these reality stars’ in fact, on sale from the 17th March – five days lives their life on camera – she has subsequently lives suits the tabloid format well. Tabloid before Jade’s death on the 22nd. The magazine been replaced by ‘Peter and Katie’ (and now newspapers like , The Star and The claimed that this was following the family’s ‘Peter’ and ‘Katie’ separately, of course) and Kerry Mirror are constantly searching for front page wishes but, given the practicalities involved Katona, who have film crews documenting the stories/images that will persuade readers to buy in printing and getting a magazine to the day-to-day details of their lives as well as the their publications. One of the conventions of the newsstands, it’s as likely that this was a cynical more glamorous activities they undertake. All tabloid is that they tend to use emotive stories move by an organisation who knew Jade had of these celebrities turn the events of everyday to engage their audience – the emotion itself very little time left and was determined to beat life – children’s illnesses, marital disputes, bad isn’t all that important: shock, outrage, anger, the competition in getting the ‘memorial’ edition moods and tantrums – into dramatic conflicts pity, sadness or joy all work well. The reporting to the public. for their televised or reported narratives. Peter of Jade’s illness saw several narrative devices and Katie’s recent split and Kerry’s bipolar being employed as she was transformed from disorder, cocaine habit and assorted problems a figure of hatred and mockery into a tragic have become threads in the ‘soap operas’ hero the audience could identify with due provided for their audiences. At times it seems to her ‘ordinariness’, and admire due to her as if these lives are being presented to us as courage and strength in adversity. Her whole a way to make us feel good about our own family were recast into roles that supported lives as the audience is shown the downsides this view (both her husband, Jack Tweedy, of celebrity life and we are often positioned and her mother, Jackiey Budden, had received to sit in judgement as celebrity marriages fray, almost exclusively negative press before careers take downturns and we see the human news of Jade’s illness broke) and the weaknesses behind the ‘public face’. Of course emotional story of Jade’s illness and what we are shown is not their private life at all; subsequent death were used to the public watch lives that are carefully edited sell newspapers. Tabloid/gossip and constructed into stories. The audience magazines also contributed gratifications received whilst watching such to the dominance of this programmes or following tabloid reporting story with their weekly or are complex: the aspirational desire for the monthly front covers being lifestyles we see, combined with the pleasure devoted to the ‘next we take in seeing these figures suffering, has instalment’ of the story been described as the modern equivalent of of her illness. OK! even the medieval practice of public punishment. went as far as to print However, Jade’s illness took these ‘pleasures’ to a special memorial another level as her ‘punishment’ didn’t fit her edition before Goody ‘crimes’: she died the way she lived, with the died (including public watching. the claim that the

english and media centre | December 2009 | MediaMagazine 25 MM Susan Boyle Where Big Brother’s ratings have been on a steady decline, the TV talent show has really hit its stride in 2009. One of the biggest stories of the year came out of reality television: the story of Susan Boyle who rose to national prominence when she took to the stage for Britain’s Got Talent in April 2009. The original broadcast of her performance was swiftly uploaded to YouTube and, thanks to Twitter, word rapidly spread about the ‘shock’ performance on the show. Hollywood stars, politicians and the news media quickly got involved in discussions about Boyle and the discussions included comment on the relatively new phenomena that has been developing over the last few years: the power of e-media technologies to spread information quickly and across national borders. Within days, Boyle’s’ performance was the ‘most watched’ video on YouTube and the singer had achieved international fame by the end of the week. This was, of course, just the start of the Susan Boyle narrative which continued for several weeks and had several threads: her past was scrutinised and judged; her next appearance on Britain’s Got The role of e-media Talent was eagerly anticipated; the impact of the judging panel and the audience which were in the Boyle phenomenon sudden fame on a ‘simple woman from Scotland’ clearly based on her appearance. What is clearly is also significant. The speed with which her story was discussed and her physical appearance and visible in people’s faces is mockery and disdain spread, not only across the UK but also across the its changes became a story in itself. The story because Boyle did not present the image expected globe, makes this a unique news phenomenon. Twitter built to the climax that was the TV programme’s of women singers. She was immediately judged on comments and the accessibility of the ‘other’, YouTube final. This climax became more of an anti-climax her appearance and seen to be an outsider video ensured that within 24 hours though, as Boyle came second to a dance troupe in a culture that favours physical perfection, those who had not seen the original broadcast and the excessive media interest in her seemed to grooming and youth. Piers Morgan reacted with were aware of it and had access to it. The fact celebrity support have tarnished her talent in the eyes of the voting disgust when Boyle, responding to a question that was given to Ms Boyle, audience – perhaps a victim of media saturation. about her age, challenged the preconception of notably from Demi Moore, added to the story’s After losing the competition, Boyle had a stint her by saying that being 47 was ‘just one side of newsworthiness and as more traditional news in ‘rehab’ and ironically the media that couldn’t me’ while gyrating her hips. Morgan reflected the outlets picked up on the story its impact increased. YouTube get enough of the Boyle story began to blame contemporary focus on youth culture by being At the time of writing, the original video the producers of the television programme for revolted at the idea that an older woman could has had over 79 million views (and there are not protecting her from the pressures of stardom be sexual – until she started to sing. Boyle’s voice several other versions of the same clip). created an unexpected juxtaposition to the – perhaps that should have been the pressures Some conclusions of media attention? A subsequent tour had Boyle expectations created by her physicality and shone naturalised Both of these stories identify the importance pull out of a number of performances and she has, a light on some contemporary values, of the audience in today’s media landscape. until recently, been off the media radar as she is forcing people to re-examine them. In Boyle’s case, the audience response turned working on the recording of an album. However, as the story progressed, Boyle’s a non-newsworthy event into something that Now the hype has died down it’s worth emotional breakdowns became the focus of the kept the world’s press busy for several weeks. The considering what the story was really about. story and reporting began to consolidate the ideas real story here was about the audience, not ‘Woman can sing’ is hardly news even if ‘contestant her performance had originally challenged. Her Boyle. The fact that millions of people found her in TV talent show can sing’ is slightly more lack of urban sophistication and what was seen performance noteworthy and, perhaps, felt guilty unexpected. Boyle appeared to be newsworthy as her sheltered existence reinforced the notion about their initial response to her appearance, in the first instance, not because she could sing that she is different – ‘not one of us’. The fact that was central to the media’s response. Similarly, the but because of the way she looked. Susan Boyle she found the media attention difficult to handle media’s focus on Jade’s illness and death was also surprised people because she does not meet reinforced that she was an anomaly, a response to audience interest. If reality shows audience expectations: she is a middle-aged, suggesting our initial surprise was, perhaps, the did not attract viewers and reality-show-led front plump woman who has talent. Any exploration of right response as she clearly was not cut out page headlines did not enhance newspaper and the news values of the Boyle story has to explore for the glamorous and exciting world of media magazine sales, it’s safe to say the story would not the idea of the representation of women, given celebrity. Boyle underwent a makeover and began have dominated in the way it did. Given that these that the most common positive representations to look more polished but nothing could alter the two events were followed by another celebrity of women, in today’s media are as being thin, fact that she is a plump, middle-aged spinster from media frenzy after the death of Michael Jackson young and attractive. Despite the recent ‘Size the country – not the usual candidate for tabloid (announced on a gossip website and passed 0’ debates, the idealised physical image of attention. round and commentated on via Twitter), it seems women is still very narrow and often a woman’s The original performance created a mini- hero the modern audience may have been turned off accomplishments are secondary to her physical narrative in itself where an unlikely rose problems conflicts by Big Brother of late, but the lives and deaths appearance. Myleene Klass for example is a against the and in front of her goal of celebrities big and small capture the public’s classically trained pianist. This fact has been played to reach her . As the story developed further interest. New media are playing a major role in on in recent Pantene ads but the main point of the conflicts came to light and the heroic victory Boyle Britain’s Got Talent spreading the word and enabling audiences to be campaign has been that Myleene has great hair. initially achieved on the stage part of the story. The surprise that was created by Boyle, is began to diminish. It is still not clear how this story will resolve. evident in the video of the original performance Steph Hendry teaches Media at Runshaw College and is an where the cuts focus us on the responses of the examiner for AQA. Channel 4 Press Site for images from Big Brother; Rex Features for images from Britain’s Got Talent Site for images from Big Brother; Rex Features Channel 4 Press

26 MediaMagazine | December 2009 | english and media centre MM

Watching you, watching me: breaking cinema’s 4th wall Realism ... a style, a genre or a state both the act of spectatorship and the political, Wall-breaking ideological messages displayed on screen as of mind? Mark Ramey unpicks this Accidents can happen: the camera crew can representing profoundly different realities. As I come into shot (perhaps reflected in a window complex concept through investigating said earlier, it’s a can of worms. or mirror); water droplets and sun-bursts can This article, however, aims to introduce the anti-realist technique of breaking fall on camera lenses; microphone booms can ‘realism’ by the somewhat less difficult route of suddenly drop into the top of a frame; sets can the 4th wall. stating what it isn’t, rather than what it is. The wobble and with location shooting the public can most obvious starting point then is to draw stop to watch. Continuity errors, the beloved ‘Cinematic realism’ is a complicated can of attention to what are often called ‘anti-realist’ preserve of every film obsessive, are also classic worms: open it and before long, you are, like film devices and techniques. These techniques examples of the fourth wall crumbling. But none Neo in The Matrix, wondering about the very engage us precisely because they challenge our of these examples are intentional and so not truly nature of reality itself, let alone the reality you see understanding of what is real: collectively their anti-realist. It is the conscious desire to destroy represented on screen. Such deep philosophical effect is known as ‘breaking the fourth wall’. realism that interests us. An accidental breaking musings are best left to students on university of the fourth wall is trivial in comparison to its courses and action heroes in SF dystopias. But a The 4th wall intentional use by an artist. student of A Level Film should nevertheless know So what is ‘the fourth wall’? It is a term that how to use ‘realism’ as a term of analysis, and derives from theatre and it represents the Extra-diegetic exempla appreciate its radical character. invisible wall that separates an audience from a The most obvious instance of ‘breaking the Simply put, ‘reality’ is a battle ground performance. It is the invisible wall that allows fourth wall’ is when an onscreen character where we find, amongst others, the following the audience safely to observe stage/screen suddenly connects directly with the audience combatants: Soviet revolutionary realists; French events without becoming part of those events. either through their gaze and/or their dialogue: poetic realists; Italian neo-realists; British social It is in effect a distancing device. Without that the technical term for such an event is ‘extra- realists; surrealists and of course documentarists distance we literally become involved in the diegetic’. So what examples are there? Curiously in all their forms. Aside from such manifestations narrative space of the art work. ‘The fourth wall’ enough they start appearing at the very dawn of of ‘the real’ students need to recognise the realist thus allows audiences to engage in the ‘illusion cinema. style of classical Hollywood in comparison of realism’. We suspend our disbelief and allow In one of the first Lumiere films of 1895, to the more avant-garde work explored by ourselves to become immersed in another world, Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory (a such film radicals as the French Nouvelle Vague another space and time, a separate narrative 46-second reel depicting exactly that) we see and Scandinavian Dogme movement. Finally universe. ‘Breaking the fourth wall’ is therefore the workers clearly looking at the cameraman, throughout an A Level course there is reference the act that reminds an audience that they are doffing their hats and play acting. The first to theoretical interpretations of film such watching a performance. It is like roughly waking narrative Western, The Great Train Robbery of as psychoanalysis, feminism, Marxism and from a lucid dream only to realise that it was all a 1903 by E. S. Porter, features a bandit shooting postmodernism. These different theories see delicate fantasy. directly into the camera (and so the audience)

english and media centre | December 2009 | MediaMagazine 27 MM his dead ally, Joe Pesci’s psychotic gangster, towering over us (and him – perhaps it is a memory or a dream) with a gun pointed into all of our cinematic hearts; the rounds Pesci fires literally and metaphorically destroy the genre, its audience and its main protagonist. However, for the sake of brevity we will now focus on the genre most commonly associated with the act of breaking the fourth wall: comedy. The 4th wall of humour Early attempts at direct audience address or extra-diegesis can be found in numerous early comic masters from both the golden age of silent comedy and the early ‘talkies’. In most Laurel and Hardy films we are invited to identify with Oliver Hardy’s resignation and despair as Laurel once again messes up at his expense – the extra-diegetic gaze of Hardy is here particularly poignant. Similarly their contemporary, Groucho Marx, was making witty asides to the audience a feature of much of the Marx Brothers’ film work. The comedy derives from our sense of being directly involved in the moment through the performer’s extra-diegetic gaze and dialogue. In The Big Store he tells the audience that a dress and it could be used at the projectionist’s when it is used in traditionally realist genres. is red although the black and white film cannot discretion at the beginning or end of the film to The gangster genre is renowned for its social show it because, ‘Technicolor is so expensive.’ either shock or unsettle respectively. realism (its accurate depiction of working-class More recently films like Alfie or Ferris Bueller’s More recently we find Clockwork Orange reality) so when the fourth wall crumbles as Day Off have used audience address to drive the starting with Alex staring unblinkingly at us the in the beginning of Gangster No 1 or, more narrative – rather like an intimate confessional audience, as the camera then tracks slowly away famously, in the final sequence of Once Upon a between the performer and the audience. from this troubled and troubling young thug. Time in America, the effect is startling. Likewise, Comedy delights in reminding us of the fourth- Conversely Psycho ends with an unsettling track in the final two scenes of Scorsese’s Goodfellas wall’s presence because we laugh both at the in to Norman Bates’ eyes, whose piercing stare is we first see Ray Liotta’s character gazing forlornly irony of our situation and the film-maker’s wit. chilling. at us, the audience, as we all realise that he has Examples are numerous. All the Austin Powers ceased living the exciting life of a high-rolling films subvert any pretence of realism with Austin Gangsters’ gazes hood and is now living in dull suburban obscurity frequently addressing the camera. Woody Allen extra-diegetic gaze The (a character gazing under a witness protection scheme. The final in his early films frequently talks to the camera, at the audience) also has the ability to shock scene is then even more poignant as we see

28 MediaMagazine | December 2009 | english and media centre MM and in The Purple Rose of Cairo unusually breaks farcical Broadway show and anchored by two broken down. Indeed Mel Brooks frequently the fourth wall from within the film’s narrative: male comedians, the film plays with the audience breaks the fourth wall for comedic effect. In Mia Farrow’s character idolises a film actor she is through numerous asides but more importantly Robin Hood: Men in Tights the characters review watching at the cinema (the intra-diegetic gaze) with the business of being a member of the the script of the movie during the archery only for him to then step out of the film and into cinema audience actually watching the film. Anti- competition scene and Spaceballs features her life. Monty Python were masters of the anti- realist devices used in the film are numerous: the a particularly paradoxical scene which takes realist moment: in The Holy Grail whenever the comics ask the projectionist of the film to rewind the film within a film conceit to a whole new narrative sags or gets too silly the film cuts to and fast forward scenes which he does; they level. Two characters, Dark Helmet and Colonel various characters yelling at the film to ‘Get on then scold the actual cameraman filming them Sandurzz borrow ‘Spaceballs, the Video’ from with it!’ and at one point in The Meaning of Life for following pretty girls rather than the main their ship’s rental store and fast-forward through the supporting feature film invades the feature action involving them; they frame the narrative previous scenes until they reach the current film in the form of a pirate attack on a corporate around a Hollywood writer pitching the story to scene, which depicts them looking at a video of boardroom meeting. a director (the film-within-a-film conceit); and themselves ... looking at a video of themselves… Certain comic sub-genres, unlike more realist finally they introduce fake cinema message looking at a video of themselves – an infinite genres such as romantic-comedies, have the cards asking a certain Stinky Miller to leave the fourth-wall destruction! ability it seems to destroy and build the fourth auditorium – in the end the actors resort to To get your head around the complex idea of

(1983) D. Terry Jones Credit: Universal/Celandine/Monty D. Terry (1983) Python Kobal Collection /The wall at will. Aside from the obvious tongue-in- talking directly to Stinky who, as a silhouette, cinematic realism, awareness of the fourth wall cheek self-awareness of audiences and artists reluctantly stands and leaves the cinema and the represents a useful way in. By highlighting the in spoof films like Airplane and more recently film. By the time Hellzappopin reaches its insane odd unreality of film, cinematic artists can make the Scary Movie franchise there are films which finale the fourth wall is left a crumbling ruin. us laugh, frighten us, and at times make us think; specialise in surreal audience address before A similar comic destruction of the ‘illusion but their demolition of realism is never dull returning to the flimsy business of the narrative. of the real’ occurs in Blazing Saddles which because it is in such moments that we glimpse unexpectedly jumps from the Wild West to the true nature of film.

Monty Python’s the Meaning of Life Hellzapoppin: surreal modern day LA through a riotous Western brawl deconstruction spilling into an adjacent film set where a musical Mark Ramey teaches Media Studies at Collyers College, A particularly fascinating example is the 1941 is being shot. In this instance the fourth wall, in West Sussex. film, Hellzapoppin. Based on a chaotic and the form of a studio wall at MGM, is quite literally Michael Palin in Palin Michael

english and media centre | December 2009 | MediaMagazine 29 30 MediaMagazine | December 2009 | english and media centre MM

Jeremy Kyle… Big Brother… Freaky Eaters… Why do people keep jumping at the chance of very public humiliation on reality TV shows? Ever wondered what it would be like to be the star of one? Pete ‘The Meat’ Turner spills the beans on his experience as a ‘Freaky Eater’.

In 2008 I was a contributor on a BBC3’s observational documentary called Freaky Eaters. You may have seen it. Or you may have seen Harry Hill mocking it on his Saturday night TV Burp. If you haven’t seen either of these then what about any of the other observational documentary/freak shows that are increasingly

english and media centre | December 2009 | MediaMagazine 31 MM

32 MediaMagazine | December 2009 | english and media centre MM

taking over the airwaves? Embarrassing Illnesses, and the potential to be involved in such a project – Beth begins to prepare her evening meal the Bodyshock series, Supersize vs Superskinny? spurred me on and I quickly shot a series of Peter looks on A quick look at the TV schedules reveals a huge interviews with my family, Beth and her family – Beth and Peter walking by the river number of these formatted documentaries and myself and sent it off. A crew consisting of – Interview Beth with channels such as BBC3 and More 4 leading the researcher I had been speaking to and a – Travelling set up – looking through photos the way. The rise of these programmes could be camera/soundman came round the next day. – Peter chicken bucket style shot on seen as part of a more general trend in modern They filmed a series of interviews to make sure driveway television: the rise of reality TV. The X Factor, they got the back story from Beth and myself. – Interview Peter Come Dine With Me and Britain’s Got Talent all They also asked me to try some foods that I did – Evening – general views revel in public humiliation. The producers find the not eat. Strawberry, tomato and carrot. I suppose I was immediately stunned that I would be freaks and the rest of us watch and laugh from this was to determine how I was going to react ‘produced’ and that the filming was structured the comfortable distance of our seats. Until that on camera during the making of the programme and tightly planned. Being naïve, I had assumed is, I became the subject of one… when faced with new foods. They got what they that in reality TV shows they just filmed the I had watched some episodes of the first series wanted. The cherry tomato popped as I bit into subjects going about their normal lives as of Freaky Eaters and was stunned that there it and virtually made me sick. The researcher they normally would. As you can see from the were other people out there that seemed to have actually laughed. It didn’t take a genius to see schedule this is not exactly the case. The majority the exact same phobia of trying new foods as I how other people might react to my strange food of these shots were for the introduction of did. Following this, my vegetarian girlfriend Beth phobia. The fear of how I would be portrayed set the programme. There would be a voiceover decided to contact BBC3 to put me forward for in. introducing me for the viewers with a montage the second series. of clips showing my normal life. However, my Production ‘normal life’ had to be reconstructed for the Pre-production Shooting began on 2nd September at Beth’s cameras as they could not have followed me On 14th May I got the call from a researcher parents’ house where we were living at the time. around all day every day. These series of shots for the programme. An hour later I had given her Two days before I had met the producer/director and the accompanying voiceover set up my my life story and answered every question she and assistant producer of my episode. I had also character, the programme format and the could possibly have about my peculiar eating signed a contract so I could not back out from beginning and disruption to the narrativised habits. This was the first time I had discussed my this point. On the first day of shooting Beth and I documentary. The voiceover (written and freaky eating in such detail with anyone, let alone got a real shock. recorded much later in post-production) stated: a stranger. It did not yet occur to me that this We were given a shooting schedule for the day Pete is 26 years old… has a normal life… was only the first stage of the process and there which included the following scenarios: normal girlfriend… normal job… BUT IS would be a lot more questioning and explaining – Peter cooking normal breakfast meal in ADDICTED TO MEAT! to do in the future. morning – dressing gown & eating in The researcher asked me to make an audition bedroom alone – Beth still in bed tape and send it to the production company as – Peter cooking evening meal (different soon as I could. My interest (as a Media lecturer) clothes)

english and media centre | December 2009 | MediaMagazine 33 M M 34 This felt rushedandby the endofday I what wasneeded outofmefor theprogramme. through alltheresearcher’s notes andknew with thepsychologist. Hehadobviously read tears. Ithenhadabouthalfanhour oncamera was closeuponmy face waitingto catch any This wasemotionalandIcould feel thecamera to eatlikeasensible, normal, healthy person. witness my friendsandfamilyappealingto me Very strange! takes Ifelt justasnervous. calmerbuthadto act few to meetthembuttheninthenext nervous like me, thismeantinthefirsttakeIwasvery as Ihaddoneinthefirsttake. For guy anervous and Iwould to beexpected ‘act’ inthesameway once, thecameraset-up wouldexperts change forto thecamera. After meetingthe perform to notice howstarted muchIwas beingrequired Nathalie Iremembered from 1of Series London. Imetthe him? Stay tunedto findout. Will hisvegetarian girlfriend keepputtingupwith viewers to become engagedwith.Can hedoit? my dietandmy life setsupa andthefouraddiction weeks Ihave to change with equilibrium. The a fairlynormalandlikeableguybegins my story My story: narrativeMy story: structure recognised from the Eaters Savona thenutritionist. Stephen Briersthepsychologist andNathalie I wasthentakento ascreening room to Over thefollowingOver week Ispenttwo days in Drawing intheviewers by showing meto be

MediaMagazine . It wasduringmy thatI introductions . It experts experts |December 2009| Wife Swap disruption Stephen Iimmediately in Leicester Square; story english andmedia centre seriesand ismy meat for the Freaky Dr a retching! For many peoplethere, themealwas andeven atesurvived thewholemealwithout and family!Despite alongday offilming, I eating atotally vegetarian mealwithmy friends andready to completehungry my final challenge: are required.re-takes 7thIwastired, ByOctober nomatter how manyto shotsor perfection, They donotrushandare absolutely committed work late intheevening andontheweekends. shows. They longhoursandoften work very greater for respect thepeoplewhowork onthese time whennotatwork andIdeveloped even unrealistically drastic. I wasprepared to cutdown butthisseemed with thecountry. Four weeks withno meat! because Iwasinnomoodfor sharingmy feelings terrifying nightandIdidnotdoavideodiary my newmeat-free food schedule. This wasa my freezer drawer fullofmeatandstarting However, day we thenext were throwing away arest andabreakI wasexpecting from filming. things! me trying my of face andadirector wantingmore close-ups stressful experience, letalonewithacamerain newfoods. Ahorribleand nutritionist trying the crew to setup. much timeIwould besittingaround waitingfor andhow getwiththeexperts, I would actually process. really dawned It onmehow littletime felt disillusionedwiththeprogramme making the director constantly askedpeople to repeat quick lessoninthe unreality ofreality TV The wholeprocess took upmostofmy free theLondonWhen Igothomeafter shooting dayThe wasspentwithNathaliethe next as wanted. the houseaboutsixtimesto gettheshotshe andgotustothemselves walkin (for close-ups) you canhandlethehumiliation! therefore recommend itto anyone… aslong ofareality programmemaking andwould TV andhadfirst-handexperience ofthe industry IhaveMedia. inthemedia madeusefulcontacts when teaching ontheBTEC NationalDiplomain programmes, whichhasbeenincredibly useful have factual learntagreat dealaboutmaking YouTube sothere really isnoescapingitnow. I aftermath Post-production and Harry Hill’sHarry day andwasthenteasednext somemore on being ridiculedonScott Mills’ 1show the Radio Iheardsurprised. myself IthinkcameoutOK. programme withfriendsandwaspleasantly represented? Spoilt?Childish?Ridiculous? transmission oftheshow. How would Ibe began theagonisingfour monthwaitfor the to seeifIhadkeptto my newdiet.Andthen Wokingham College. Peter Turner isaMediaLecturer at Bracknelland On theday oftransmission,Iwatched the A monthlater we hadonelastday offilming Somebody haspostedSomebody TV Burp TV . Freaky Eaters on

Betty TV for images from Freaky Eaters MM

Masculinity and Top Gear

Whether you see it as a sexist boys’ Representation of the world, like the world The first line-up comprised , club or post-modern self-parody, Top itself, is the work of men; they describe it Jason Dawe and , which was from their own point of view, which they amended later when Dawe was replaced by Gear is one of the BBC’s most popular confuse with the absolute truth. in 2003. factory brands, and has increasingly Simone de Beauvoir The notion of ‘boys and their toys’ has always One of the BBC’s flagship programmes, Top been central to the success of the show, and the adopted the conventions of ‘reality’ Gear returned to BBC2 in 2001, after being axed combination of fast cars, exotic challenges and programming. Fay Jessop explores for falling viewing figures in 1999. At the helm blokeish banter has certainly proved popular were the duo who were mainly responsible for over the years. However, it is interesting to note its representations of masculinity, and its content in the mid-Eighties and early-Nineties, that the audience demographic has shifted the personas of its larger-than-life presenter Jeremy Clarkson and executive from being predominantly male to a more equal producer Andy Wilman. On its return, the show’s gender split. As of September 2008, 42% of the hosts. audience demographic was predominantly male. television audience was female. This can be

english and media centre | December 2009 | MediaMagazine 35 MM

seen clearly by comparing the gender balance of Jeremy – alpha male rows during his career. These have included a the studio audience in the early seasons of the Jeremy Clarkson’s TV persona is outspoken, very public ongoing feud with Piers Morgan show to the more recent studio makeup, which forthright, middle-aged and seemingly dominant. and being accused of insensitivity following a is now far more balanced in terms of gender. He is the alpha male in the pack. In terms of jibe about lorry drivers murdering prostitutes So the question is: What has brought about this narrative structure, his role is reflected by the fact in the most recent series of Top Gear. However, change in audience appeal, and how do the that he is the first to speak in every show – the his position as one of the BBC’s most highly representations of masculinity and masculine camera pans from a high-angle shot of the whole paid broadcasters is seemingly secure, and he traits inherent in the show reflect and influence studio to Clarkson as he delivers his opening line, is often asked to participate in other television its appeal? which is the typically all encompassing ‘Hello shows such as Have I Got News For You and A key area to explore is the way in which the and welcome.’ This greeting firmly establishes QI. It is interesting to note that on such shows, team of presenters represents and promotes Clarkson as the leader of the gang. He embodies his persona is often more muted than it is ‘typical’ male values, and how far these classic hegemonic male values of strength, on Top Gear, giving rise to the idea that the values are also subverted. The representation dominance, heterosexuality and arrogance. He representation of masculinity and male values in of the three presenters as characterised by is the one who does the road tests, takes very Top Gear is mainly constructed or exaggerated stereotypically masculine traits is balanced by expensive cars out onto the track and makes their for the format of the show. more individual characteristics with which the tyres smoke. He demonstrates mastery of the audience can associate each presenter. Whether machines under his control (for the most part) Richard the rival Similarly, Richard Hammond’s Top Gear by encouraging audience identification with one and his use of similes and hyperbole to describe ‘character’ embodies many of the masculine or more of the Top Gear presenters or purely as the features of these machines escapism, Top Gear demonstrates various aspects That [Pagani] Zonda, really! It’s like a lion traits that are conventionally to be admired. of Uses and Gratifications theory. Clarkson, in orange dungarees. Kind of fierce, but Although often ridiculed by Clarkson for his May and Hammond may baulk at the thought ridiculous all at the same time clothing, his hair, his height and even his teeth, Hammond shows the stereotypically male traits of being role models, but there is a certain reinforces his dominance over the machines of dominance (challenging Clarkson frequently aspirational aspect to watching three middle- themselves, and, indeed, the narrative of the about the positioning of cars on the ‘Cool Wall’), aged men ‘cocking about’ in very expensive cars, show. heterosexuality (being accosted by dancing girls) indulging in foreign travel and blowing things up. Never one to avoid controversy, Clarkson has and courage (driving the Vampire jet car). These been at the centre of some spectacular media

36 MediaMagazine | December 2009 | english and media centre MM

race. The angled mid-shot of May dipping his head in utter defeat after Hammond has spun off the track is brief, but illustrates clearly the emotional weight of the incident. There is no non-diegetic sound, merely the dialogue, bridged from the previous mid-shot of Richard Hammond behind the wheel of the battered BMW saying, ‘I’m sorry.’ This shot, constructed for maximum emotional impact, reinforces the camaraderie, a typically male trait, between the three presenters, clearly hegemonic values reinforce the notions of Wine Adventure, he admits himself he doesn’t but also subverts the notion of ‘the lone hero’ as masculinity that are prevalent in the format of the ‘fit in with the petrolhead gang’ of Clarkson and all three are shown to be reliant on the support show itself. Hammond, a comment that is surely intended to of each other. suggest and underline his separateness from the Similarly, Jeremy Clarkson breaks down in tears James the fall guy other two members of the Top Gear Trio. at the end of the race, which could be perceived If Clarkson and Hammond are the two battling May is often the butt of jokes about his hair, as a feminine response to stress, subverting his alpha males, then James May is the mediator his sexuality, his driving and his dress sense. alpha male onscreen persona. The fact that this between the two. Although pilloried as ‘the new These can be interpreted as typical reactions by sequence remains in the final cut of the episode boy,’ it is now difficult to imagine what the show battling alpha males Clarkson and Hammond suggests at least a passing nod to the female would be like without his influence. Nicknamed to reinforce gender stereotypes and draw audience, who, in terms of hegemony, will ‘Captain Slow’ by Clarkson, May is represented as attention to May’s separateness from dominant respond to the emotional impact of a scene like methodical, sensible, a bit of a throwback, and hegemonic male values. However, it is clear that this. until very recently, homosexual. much of this is a construct intended to cause In addition, the representation of James May as This representation acts as a good foil conflict in the narrative of the text. An example ‘Captain Slow’ and apparently less masculine than to Clarkson’s bluster and Hammond’s hot of this is the placing of the rainbow flag, a well- his co-presenters is often subverted. A notable headedness, and has in some way contributed known symbol of Gay Pride, next to May’s name example of this is when May takes the Bugatti to May’s success in other presenting arenas. He on the rally car during the Silverstone 24-hour Veyron to its top speed around a German test has arguably had the most success of the three endurance race. May is clearly complicit in track. This is greeted with good humour by his with credible independent projects, fronting this kind of representation, and does not pass co-presenters; Clarkson makes the typically male the hugely popular Big Wine Adventures with comment on the fact that the Union Jack is next gesture of support by clapping his hand heartily Oz Clarke, and branching out alone with 20th to both Hammond and Clarkson’s names while on May’s shoulder after the VT has run and the Century and Big Ideas, both in conjunction the rainbow flag is next to his. camera returns to the studio, and the editing of with the Open University. These have served the sequence itself does a great deal to reinforce to cement his image as the ‘sensible’ one of Male bonding the masculinity of this particular act. the three presenters; an image that is by turns This separation is typical but also subverted promoted and subverted by Top Gear. Indeed, by the emotional responses that the trio shares in response to Oz Clarke in the first series of their during the very difficult moments in the 24-hour

english and media centre | December 2009 | MediaMagazine 37 Image.net for images from Top Gear M M 38 posted onthe that theouttakefrom thatfilmingsequence was pandering to subversive Given maletactics? double bluffnothingmore thantheaudience virtues ofstrength anddominance virtues sexism’ double bluffwould notseemsooutlandish. sending himselfupintheprocess, thisnotionof byseen to begettingvisiblydistracted thegirls, of the Veyron sequence suggest by turning typically male characteristics into malecharacteristics by turning typically gender stereotypes, itmightbeargued that such astheabove to reinforce mightserve team. Althoughitcould besaidthatexamples typically its distilledsubversion ofthe Male mise-en-scène metaphor asa skirts topsandshort models inbikini accused Women’s College, StudiesatRuskin Oxford has three different Porsche 911modelsusing sequence where Jeremy Clarksoncompares at variouspointsover itslongrun. The infamous humour once hebegins to slow thecardown. by May’s admissionthathis ‘eyes are watering’ This isonlyslightlysubverted, perhapsfittingly, soundtrack alsocontributes to thisideaofpower. machine inhischarge, andthenon-diegetic to reinforce theideaofhisdominance over the shotsofMay’sClose-up handsandeyes serve and thelightinginsequence ishighkey. dressed indarkblueoveralls for thechallenge) and blacksare usedextensively (May ishimself guided by falling into thetrapofallowing ourselves to be seriously. pure sequence. The what theywere whentheywrote this courting era, thatClarksonand Wilman didnotknow isimpossibleto believe,It inthispostmodern and theother, to quote Clarkson,is ‘all woman’. to enlargehad cosmetic herbreasts surgery Louise Livesey The cool, muted colours inthemise-en-scène The show hasalsobeenaccused of But then,by admittingthis, are we asviewers

MediaMagazine and having a Top Gear Top Gear here? And in fact isthiselaboratehere? Andinfact masculine idealsofpostmodern is acaseinpoint.Onemodelhas Top Gear , tutorand inSociology of thatitisdifficultto takeit |December 2009| Mulvey-ness ‘entrenched, institutional ‘boys’ club’ website, andClarksonis Male Gaze english andmedia centre typically male ofthisgesture, production production . Blues misogyny , isso female

alluringly Teutonic bombshell’! in herfield, even ifsheisalsoreferred to as ‘an the ring, asanexpert andsheisacknowledged attempt to beatJeremy Clarkson’s timearound expense whenSabineenters her thestudioafter Several jokesare Hammond’s madeatRichard as equalarole asmenintheworld ofmotoring. at leastanoddingacceptance thatwomen play the Nurburgring, seemsto suggestthatthere is on expert thewell-known of SabineSchmidt, thatLouisementality Livesey criticisessoheavily? merely controversy? inorder to court theory Orisit Wilman’s subversion knowing Gaze oftheMale filming. Could thisagainbeexecutive producer Welch Championships duringtheSpanishRally about theinclusionofglamourmodelMadison discussion inthepress andonmessageboards Sexism orself-parody? Grumpy OldMen programmes suchas stereotypes inmuchthesameway as TV comedy, show, statingthat: ofsexism onthe reacted strongly to assertions sustained initscurrent format. Andy Wilman has rise to thequestionofwhethershow canbe ratio ofmaleandfemale presenters hasgiven that allBBCshows shouldhave arepresentative into question. line-up The apparent insistence have brought thefuture of one oftheirown sex. only appreciate aprogrammeifspoken toby enjoy ashow’s presentersonmerit, butcan itassumeswomenwomen, can’t because patronising ofclaptrapisvery to this sort Recently touted Alternatively, theinclusioninseveral episodes In thecurrentIn series, there hasbeensome Top Gear Top Gear panderingto the ‘boys’ club’ . subverts malegender subverts changes toequalitylaws p ex s of p nt format. Andy Wilman has ssertions o ssertions enters onmerit, butcan rogramme assumes women can’t Gavin andStacey

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Spielberg’s Holocaust movie Schindler’s List won seven Oscars, and was voted 8th in the Top 100 American Movies list; four years later, his slave-trade movie Amistad won 4 nominations but no Oscars, and earned less than half the box office. Gareth Calway considers why two films on similar themes received such different critical and audience responses, and ponders the difference between period Realism and Truth.

Spielberg, like Hollywood, is an institution. And audiences saw two sides to him in 1993: the Indiana Jones-high-concept action movie entertainer achieving his career-best box office hit with Jurassic Park (1993) – still 10th in the worldwide box office chart with gross profits of just under a billion dollars ($919,700,000); and

english and media centre | December 2009 | MediaMagazine 39 MM

the Nazi-buster with his trademark cartoon hero July 31st 1941 and lasted four years – albeit four trade (with the blood of African slaves all over replaced by a real historical one. Schindler’s years of unprecedented intensity in the history it). The economy of the southern United States, List (1993) was both a commercial triumph of human evil – sending six million Jews and five dependent on cotton and tobacco as picked by and the recipient of seven Academy Awards million others to the camps. The Atlantic slave slaves, would be decisively set back by abolition. (among numerous others) including Best Picture trade (‘trade’ meaning the selling and shipping Hence the pressure on the President in this film and Best Director. In 2007, the American Film of slaves not just their seizure) was the biggest – a Democrat and an Abolitionist but reliant on Institute ranked Schindler’s List eighth on its list most notorious slave trade of all. It lasted four southern votes – to take the judgement to the of the 100 best American films of all time. If its centuries. It can be traced as far back as 1444, Supreme Court of Appeal. worldwide box office rating of 183rd (it grossed when the Portuguese invaded Lagos and started Of the twelve million Africans shipped to the $321,200,000, one below The Devil Wears Prada) sending African slaves back to Europe. It ended Americas from the 16th to the 19th centuries – is relatively high for its ‘serious’ subject matter, its in America in 1865. The slave trade kidnapped 24 and the similar numbers who died in the ships critical reputation is unassailable. million Africans and sent about half of these to – an estimated 645,000 were brought to what Box office is a raw measure of audience the Americas to work and/or die on plantations – is now the United States. The slave population keenness but it’s difficult to argue with so many the other half died en route, mainly at sea and in (overwhelmingly black Africans) there would people. horrific pain, fear and sickness. grow to four million by the 1860 Census. For context, the gross earnings to date of the Neither subject is exactly Hollywood material; Spielberg’s choice of Amistad in 1839 as his three best-selling movies of all time are: Titanic Spielberg found real Hollywood heroes in both focus ensures it is the Spanish and their nasty (1997) $1,835,300,000, : and an uplifting Hollywood narrative in what little queen rather than, say, the British who are The Return of the King (2003) $1,129,219,252 must be the two most hopeless miseries of represented as the bad guys. In fact, more and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest human history. But why was Amistad so much slaves were shipped by the Portuguese (to ) (2006) $1,060,332,628. less of a success than Schindler’s List? than anyone else; and though both Iberian powers were trading slaves to the Americas Spielberg’s achievement was to make a The meanings of Amistad Hollywood blockbuster out of a profound centuries earlier than anyone else (Britain had La Amistad is the ship on which the slaves are and traumatic issue. So when this maker of a to obtain an asiento – permission – from Spain taken from one Cuban port to another. These critically-acclaimed Holocaust masterpiece turned in 1712 to import them there) all European slaves have already been transported there from Schindler’s List (1993) to the slave trade countries except Switzerland and Russia were from Africa on the Portuguese Tecura. Amistad with Amistad (1997) there was every reason to engaged in the Atlantic slave trade and, by 1792, is Spanish for the ‘friendship’ that later grows expect the same seismic impact in the cinemas in its Prime Minister’s words: between the slaves and their white defenders. of America and Europe. Yet Amistad does not no nation in Europe ... plunged so deeply in But it is also the set for the explosive African appear at all in the box-office chart of 372 films. this guilt as Great Britain violence against white slavers. The name is both And it received just four nominations. The representation of Great Britain in this more ironic, and problematic, in that context. The USA-only box office figures are equally film is restricted to her enormously creditable Slavery is a trickier subject than the striking. The chart, which includes 483 movies, behaviour after abolition, during which the ships concentration camps, on both sides of the pond. only includes films grossing over $100,000,000. of her Royal Navy vigorously policed the world’s At the time the film is set (1839-40) it was still Schindler’s List just misses with $96,065,768. oceans arresting slavers and freeing slaves – for thriving in America. It was abolished by the 13th Amistad made $44,229,441 – good, but nowhere both moral as well as economic reasons. The amendment after the Civil War – partly fought on near the chart. America didn’t love it like they Royal Navy captain who gives evidence with the slavery issue – in 1865. The British slave trade loved Schindler’s List, and neither did the world. impeccably stiff-lipped moral superiority in this had been made illegal throughout the British So who watched these films – and who didn’t? film (Harry from ) is a genuine tribute to Empire in 1807, though slavery itself remained And why not? Britain’s reversal of her earlier guilt. But Britain’s legal there until 1833 (and effectively until 1838). active slave trading went on for two centuries: Common themes Slave owners were richly compensated by the her active anti-slavery for about 50 years. Perhaps Both films deal with incomprehensible – all British government: slaves were not. Great Britain Spielberg is courting his British audience here? but unwatchable – evil and suffering. The ‘final in 1807 owed its position as the richest nation But perhaps the fact that he does so at such solution’ represented in Schindler’s List began on in the world to its trade, not least to the ‘African’ length – with another scene later where the good

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old British navy blast the slave fort to kingdom there, as he might in his adventure movies. traders owners, even while they wrote this great come – indicates some audience unease? Is it bold of Spielberg to go against his brand treatise on ‘equality, liberty and the pursuit of Only one seat was filled to watch Amistad for and attempt dispassionate analysis? Or is it a happiness’, as Tom Paine pointed out at the time. every two who watched Schindler’s List. Was this failure of nerve? The kidnapping by Africans of But why debate the legal position at all? Our because its villains are Americans and Europeans: Africans and the horrors of the ‘Middle Passage’ guts tell us what is wrong here, just as they do not the Evil Empire, but ‘our’ Empire; not Them where men and women are brutalised by being when we watch Nazis round up Jews for the but Us? fed (or not) like animals, thrown overboard in a camps. Why so much courtroom debate, and Some say Schindler’s List won seven Oscars chain to drown as a cargo-lightening exercise and no glimpse of slaves worked to death on the against Amistad’s four nominations because of so on. All these are well-documented historical plantations? the relative cultural power of Jewish Americans facts about the slave trade, and they went on The action scenes – notably that superb dark to in America, notably in for four centuries. Spielberg does not shirk ECU opening on the agonised African face, then the institution of Hollywood. But this again is presenting them, however uncomfortable they hand – then the slave in the darkness of the an easy way out – it blames someone else. It’s are for white American and European audiences; hold scratching away at his chains, fingernails probably more likely to be that being white and but does he then draw back behind protocol? bleeding, prior to leading the mutiny – are watching Amistad is the nearest most of us get Both Baldwin and John Quincy Adams, the Spielberg’s best contributions to the debate. to feeling what a modern German might feel two defenders of the slaves, quiet abolitionists, Spielberg the adventure movie-maker had been watching Schindler’s List: guilty. show the same caution. They are reluctant at accused of being all action and no depth; but the first even to engage with the case, and insist on depth of this subject – the messages and values Realist or realistic? doing so as a legal game. Cinque’s passionate being dragged out through a courtroom – is the The technical codes used in Amistad, and African outbursts in New England captivity are of action. its messages and values, give a further insight a piece with the violence of the mutiny itself. His Amistad is based on a true courtroom story into Amistad’s relative failure. Some analysis of language has no word for what ‘should’, only what – and more-or-less faithfully reproduces it, with these will also help us to distinguish between the ‘is’ and we need to hear his howl for freedom, much period and courtroom ‘realism’ or surface technical term ‘realism’ and the value judgement however hard it is to take. Blood still defines the realism. But it is least ‘truthful’ in the courtroom. ‘realistic’ with which it is often confused. uneasy relationship Europe and America has with Schindler’s List is based on a novel (itself based The main set of Amistad is a courtroom and Africa and – outside of these African outbursts – on a true story) and its fairy-tale character and the prevailing tone is – like a courtroom – a too much of Amistad seems strangely bloodless. narrative are reflected in a cinematic super- debate, a weighing of evidence. There are other When Spielberg puts us on the edges of our realism. In Amistad, without the sifting mediation sets which, in contrast, carry great emotional seats, as in Indiana Jones, this film is worth every of a great novel, period ‘realism’ may have force – the slave ship Tecora; the African village one of Anthony Hopkins’ thousand courtroom replaced ‘truth’. in which the tribe’s leader Cinque is kidnapped words in what must be one of the longest for sale by a rival tribe; the symbolically decaying uninterrupted defence speeches in legal history. A realist visual style white slave fort, the Amistad and its brief but This speech risks losing its audience; it blurs its Much of the photography attempts ‘realism’ bloody mutiny, and so on. But within the context own messages and values by arguing Americans – authentic sepia-brown staidness. Cameras of the whole film these action sequence sets cannot be ‘what they are’ without being ‘what are often focused and framed at a modest are crime scenes visited from the detached they were’ when they wrote the Declaration middle distance, in keeping with the courtroom emotional centre of the courtrooms. So Spielberg of Independence, while framing Hopkins in detachment. They move slowly and linger on chooses to ‘try’ the events after visiting them between statues of founding fathers like George long speeches. The spooky-humorous use of (briefly and compellingly) rather than to thrust Washington, who infamously owned slaves. ‘What Quakers and the powerful use of darkness are them into your face, in your gut, and leave them they were’ – at least in some cases – was slave exceptions to this ‘realism.’ Much of the trademark

english and media centre | December 2009 | MediaMagazine 41 MM slow, plodding, like the thoughtful ruminations of a juror taking in all the evidence. But it’s the wrong set. The real set should have been the Tecura. When the Tecura is mentioned in court, the slaves all groan in fear and this moment is one of the most telling in the film, and introduces one of the most effective sequences. Exciting – as in exciting of pity – and harrowing. It’s the real story of what happened to Africans on such ships. In the same year Amistad came out, another ship movie broke all box office records and Realist mise-en-scène remains the biggest selling – and quite possibly A major indicator of any film’s realism (or not) the wettest – movie of all time: Titanic (1997). is its sets. The courtroom sets of Amistad, like its Eleven Academy awards, $1,835,300,000 box

Schindler’s List Schindler’s characters, are very ‘dressed’ – ‘realistic’ in terms office receipts worldwide and a more Irish- of period, but with much of the costume drama American view of the English – the arrogant about them. aristocrats America was founded to dispossess By contrast, the shipped Africans are bronzed – Titanic set the movie where the real action was: beauties to a man and woman. The real slaves on the ship. Maybe Spielberg, like many of us, on those ships were typically so sick that before was too scared to look hard and long at the slaver sale they needed to be painted and their hair rather than the courtroom – though he deserves blacked if and when they reached port. This is not real credit for looking at all. That slave ship necessarily unrealistic – Spielberg is depicting remains the skeleton – or millions of skeletons – the beauty and power of Africa that slavery took in our cupboard. And the biggest black hole in away – but it is not realism. To depict the truth our shared history. below the surface is the opposite of realism. It is allegory or perhaps expressionism, a technique Gareth Calway is a NATE consultant and a former Head used in Schindler’s List where the colour red of English and Media. He is currently writing a novel for is symbolically woven into a black and white children about the Bristol- slave trade. narrative. Amistad is better when it shows this inner story rather than the costume realism of the courtroom. On the other hand, the powerful impact in Holocaust movies of the ‘musselmen’ – starved d. Steven Spielberg (1997) Credit: Dreamworks Kobal Collection; Image.net for images from Llc/The d. Steven Spielberg (1997) sick skeletal victims – is sacrificed in Amistad

to showing beautiful African bodies rather Amistad Spielberg quirkiness – rich colour, wild camera than their destruction. Spielberg does show movements, tracking, dolly shots, very swift dehumanisation in brief shocking frames – and cutaways from blood and guts – is reserved for in his trademark use of colour in the bloodshed flashbacks and other scenes involving Africa or – but he seems reluctantnt to lilinger.nger. It is as Africans in chains or behind bars. if he doesn’t want to lookok – or ffearsears hhisis Language, including the language of seeing, audience won’t want to.o. is portrayed as a mystifier: we see the worthy In Schindler’s List, Spielbergpielberg uses hymn-singing Quakers – the first slavers, but black and white. This allowslows us to also the first abolitionists – through African look. It removes us one degree fromfrom eyes: ‘Are they entertainers? If so, why are they the tragedy, makes it lookok a bit so miserable?’ This is a wonderful comment on less like modern ‘real life’,e’, while the way sober Quakerdom is contrasted to the at the same time givingg it tthehe proto-Christian mysticism and joyousness of the hard reality of that period.od. It Africans. ‘Everywhere [Jesus] goes the sun follows says, this was very real indeed,ndeed, him.’ all too real then, but (thankank We also see the Africans through American God) it is not now. eyes at the time – shouting, raging in a language The full colour of Amistadmistadd, we can’t understand, frightening and alien. when used, is usually associatedssociated At first, they don’t even have subtitles; the with Africa and the Africans,cans, not Portuguese slavers – white/Europeans like ‘us’? – the ‘dull’ New England theyhey araree do. The Africans howl and growl in righteous fury taken to. It is the brilliantnt cocolourlour at enslavement – we have to work this out for of sunshine and blood aandnd ourselves, overcoming the barrier and suspicion passion – as seen in Africaica and of difference. The learning of communication on the sea. But most of the comes before language – both for the characters film (especially the dominantminant and for us as viewers – but it is swiftly followed courtroom) is in muted anand/ord/or by it. The slaves in court (in contrast to the rest) cloudy tints. are shown twitching and gradually overcome David Franzoni (thee writer)writer) with passion – fearful close-ups of chained legs and Spielberg’s use of the and wrists, increasingly hammered and clanged courtroom as the main set is tthehe in a powerful chained rhythm, into an irrefutable real error: realism withoutout trtruthuth. chant: It is authentic in terms ooff pperioderiod Give us us free! Give us us free! Give us us properties, woodenness,s, gravitas, free! and costume, drably coloured,loured, very ‘real’ in terms of cameramera work:

42 MediaMagazine | December 2009 | english and media centre Desperate Romantics: modernising the classic mini-series

Historic context & institutional factors Genre and text Tom Hollander whose Brenda Hamlet The practice of adapting heritage texts by Desperate Romantics credits include In the Loop, investigates the recent the Brontë sisters, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens is in many ways a Valkyrie and Elizabeth: The Golden Age. The younger, BBC reconstruction of and Henry James has been characteristic of the conventional BBC ‘classic BBC ‘classic mini-series’ for the last fifty years. mini-series’. Adapted from more celebrated poet the raunchy rompings But it is only since 1990 that the BBC has tried a novel, set in Victorian and painter is played by Aidan of the Pre-Raphaelite to extend its reach beyond the typical target England amongst a group audience for BBC classic drama (30+ ABC1). of artists, the Pre-Raphaelite Turner, the young star of Brotherhood, and The 1990 Broadcasting Act required that Brotherhood, its themes Being Human. Though the deftly crafted its relevance for 25% of all television network production be are associated with British commissioned from independent producers. society and high culture. narrative, which condenses modern audiences as Initially, this enabled the BBC to offload some The £4,000,000 estimated over twelve years into a case study on the of its production responsibilities as well as budget reveals the high six suspenseful one-hour enter into lucrative global partnerships with production values normally episodes, is characteristic of relationship between American and Australian producers. However, associated with ‘the best the genre, Peter Bowker’s art and celebrity. the Broadcasting Act also removed some of of British’ television. lively writing makes the the more stringent regulations restricting Detailed and authentic most of the rivalry and affection between John Question: What do a group ownership, popular programming and mise-en-scène, expensive Ruskin, John Millais, Dante of nineteenth century artists, financing in the commercial sector. As result, sets and sumptuous Gabriel Rossetti, Holman the Sex Pistols and Jade the BBC has come under increased pressure to costumes construct the Hunt, William Devrell, Goody have in common? compete with independent producers for niche ‘filmic quality’ attractive to William Morris and Ned Based on the popular audiences and specialist groupings within its global audiences. As is the Burne-Jones: the artists best selling book Desperate mainstream demographic. The new Digital case with the cinematic who founded the Pre- Romantics by Franny Moyle Economy Bill will provide further challenges costume drama, the cast Raphaelite Brotherhood. (2009), the series of the same to the BBC as proposals include top slicing includes an impressive array In doing so, Bowker name was broadcast as a six the license fee to pay for the costs of ITV of experienced television simultaneously deals with one-hour weekly classic mini- regional news. On the other hand the possible actors lending the genre two important issues for series on BBC 1 at 9pm on partnership under consideration between BBC its value added prestige the BBC classic mini-series. Tuesdays throughout August Worldwide and C4 would provide the BBC with credentials. John Ruskin, Firstly, he distances himself and September. the under-30 demographic necessary to its a celebrated art historian survival as a public service broadcaster. and critic is played by the from the ‘heritage’ label television and film actor associated with the genre

english and media centre | December 2009 | MediaMagazine 43 and its connotations of of the artists’ group, sexuality, drugs, death, experiences of the Pre- Realism as applied to the nostalgia for times past Rossetti was perhaps most disease, infidelity and Raphaelites between the television mini-series has with its elitist ideologies. influential in establishing miscarriage. Far from years of 1850 through to often relied heavily on a Secondly, and perhaps both the artistic aesthetics the restrained stoicism 1920, Desperate Romantics lavish mise-en-scène of as importantly, Bowker of the movement as well of an Emma or even the achieves an authenticity horse-drawn carriages, and provides contemporary the bohemian lifestyle of cheeky optimism with which is not only factually mannered performances of audiences with a reason the group. According to which Bridget Jones plots correct, but true. well-heeled gentlemen and to view dramatic works; screenwriter Peter Bowker, to change her status from The feminist art historian, corseted ladies to construct identification and Rossetti and Siddal are singleton to smug married Linda Nochlin defines the illusion of the real. involvement with a Victorian version of cow, Lizzie Siddal, model the nature of Realism in Thinking outside the box, characters. Central to notorious punk icons and muse of the Pre- representation as: Bowker in his own words Bowker’s concept for the Sid Vicious and Nancy Raphaelite Brotherhood, the ability to uses: series was a need to: Spurgeon because of their dies a tragic death from give truthful art as a jumping off do something different ultimate punk-like demise. a deliberate overdose of objective impartial point and being true with art history… laudanum (an over-the- representation of the to the Pre-Raphaelites something different Representation counter-form of opium real world based on passions, interests, with what we know and realism popular with Victorians). meticulous observation in terms of their love about their lives and Perhaps the most Burned out from years of of contemporary life. lives, in terms of I hope…a series important departure living a Bohemian lifestyle, The means by which their emotional and that still reflects on for the BBC in this suffering from anorexia and that truth is achieved varies even their political contemporary Britain classic mini-series is in two miscarriages, Lizzie greatly between genres development. today the unconventionally is ultimately humiliated and forms. Traditions of www.bbc.co.uk/ www.bbc.co.uk/ realistic representations by Rossetti’s affairs with social realism and drama- desperateromantics desperateromantics of nineteenth-century his subsequent models, documentary production Using tableaux (scenes The characters at the Victorian England. Lacking and chooses suicide. widely responsible for reconstructed as stills heart of this vision and the ‘upstairs-downstairs’ Such storylines as used in representations of the from painting) of the perhaps the Pre-Raphaelite mannerisms of classic contemporary television contemporary in gritty artists’ best-known works Brotherhood themselves adaptation, or the genteel dramas are not necessarily drama serials have including Millais’ Ophelia, are Lizzie Siddal and respectability of an Austen everyday events for previously remained Holman Hunt’s Scapegoat Dante Gabriel Rossetti. text, Desperate Romantics most people, but here unexplored by producers and Rossetti’s Beata As a founding member breaks into new territory in recounting the daily of the classic mini-series. Beatrix, Bowker achieves with its real-life stories of

44 MediaMagazine | December 2009 | english and media centre Amy Manson as Lizzy Siddal and as Dante Gabriel Rossetti in Episode 3 of Desperate Romantics BBC Photo Library © BBC Desperate Romantics world. documented theirown ineffect locals, theartists sometimes prostitutes and and theirgirlfriends, wives, including fellow artists around themasmodels, canvas. Employing those their own dailylives onto the PRBtransformed and biblicalallegories, from medievalmyths choosing to recreate scenes themselves. Although artists bythe timeasdepicted of an authenticportrayal lives andloves, follows basedontheir story This licence intheirart. yet tookimaginative world aroundthem, inspired by thereal Brotherhood’ were ‘Pre-Raphaelite of theday. The establishment the art young menchallenged century, agroupof In themid-nineteenth The openingtitlesof read: of thedrama,Bowker has work to theforeground in bringing theartists’ British painting. However, toto bringanewvitality ideals, theirmainaimwas complete withromantic of Renaissance painting, was basedonarevival and fame. relationship between art namely thenature ofthe a current andtopic: television audience on twenty-first century- anda artists century between thenineteenth- adialogue constructed Turner, explains: in thesamespirit. to sellpaintings, oris it and thepublicorisit people, otherpainters to beknown by other questions success, isit whole thingand the ficklenessof begins tounderstand with fame… andashe hasanobsession Dante So, althoughthePRB Actor Adrian though founded on a very though founded onavery be famous. The Pistols, Sex theywantedAnswer: to Goody have incommon?’ Pistolsthe Sex andJade artists, nineteenth-century article: What doagroup of ofthis posed atthestart and audiences Representation half before anda to that acentury And Ithinkhetwigson fromthat.a fortune makefame andyou can their five minutesof which celebritiesget these moderntimesin kind ofstuffrelates to and sellingfor and that paintings aregoingfor know him,how much how many people that wholethingabout upin he getscaught believe isright?And to strive for what you Back to thequestion desperateromantics www.bbc.co.uk/ Big Brother . a clear, Bowker includes To makehisviews perfectly Jade Goody career. butsensational short oftheir only asmallpart non-melodious tuneswas discordant soundsand Employingglam rock. with aviolentattackon their break-through pledge, engineered unromantic anti-aesthetic television, Bowker blatantly heavenpop-rock orreality celebrities andthoseof between Victorian by Lizzie’s death. of hislife hewashaunted attheend cost himdearly; Rossetti’s flagrant betrayals William Morris. However, friend andformer student Burden, thewife ofhis an openaffairwithJane of hismodels, butalsohad he notonlyseduced most Both daringandseductive, glamorous oftheartists. was perhapsthemost Rossetti Dante Gabriel than theothersofPRB, commercially successful Though lessproductive and and alienatingthepublic. herhealth neglecting relentless pursuitoffame, ofherown as avictim tragic deaths. Similarly, control to theirearlyand before spirallingoutof their bohemianlifestyle media fascinationwith Spungen Nancy Charles Dickenswas indeed ‘pleasure gardens’. fact In oninthe the PRBparty to ‘fallen women’, whilst passing outpamphlets featured asadouroldman than onescene Dickensis Whitehouse. more In Victorian forbear ofMary of themanhimselfasa form ofarepresentation and itsestablishedvalues expectations ofthegenre subverts audience Dickensian values farcical send-up of In drawing parallels In Sid Vicious and Sid Vicious may beseen english andmedia centre |December 2009| exploited inthe .

with thefacts: taken countless liberties Bowker admitsthathehas audiences canengage. century- whom twenty-first with engaging characters place, whilstcreating accurate to thetimeand events, butitremains the fashioningofdramatic license in employ artistic ofevents maydepiction in thatway, Bowker’s and private letters. Taken in newspaper critiques and bohemianlifestyle of their ‘fleshy figures’ who wrote disapprovingly ofthePRB a contemporary and WycombeCollege. Media Studiesat Amersham Brenda in Hamletlectures brotherhood. to thespiritof think Ihave beentrue history…Andnot art I a pieceofdramaand is that thisisforemost reason Ihave donethis months oftime. The of 12years into12 reduced theevents there, andI’ve actually who weren’t really put peopleintoscenes I’ve conflated events, desperateromantics www.bbc.co.uk/ MediaMagazine

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E PLURIBUS UNUM: political reality and The West Wing

Much loved by idealists, liberals and There has been no other television drama as consultants for the series, advising the creators politically groundbreaking as The West Wing. on both political and social issues. Many former lovers of high-end US TV drama, The It is the most successful and globally viewed White House staff members spoke of how realistic West Wing used ex-White House political drama on television, spanning seven the programme was, particularly members of the consultants, characters based on rising series and providing an inside glimpse into the Clinton Administration who, upon visiting the set, most powerful democracy in the world. The asked to have a photograph taken behind the political stars, authentic protocols series has won three Golden Globes and 27 Resolute desk. and a realist style to represent US Emmies, holding the record for most award The programme presents an idealised view wins by any television series. The series has also of public service and liberal presidential politics government more convincingly featured many of the acting world’s finest talent whilst touching on key domestic and foreign than ever before. But how accurate including , Glenn Close, and Kristin issues. The episode ‘Isaac and Ishmael’ (Season 3), is its portrayal of the US political Chenoweth. broadcast after 9/11 was solely devoted to issues Created by Aaron Sorkin and first broadcast of racism and racial profiling, breaking the show’s environment – and how far does its in 1999, the political drama centres on the trend of several issues unravelling alongside optimism and idealised president blur administration of Democratic President, Josiah each other in a single episode. It highlighted the Bartlet (). The television series producer’s flexibility to cover current events, the boundaries between fiction and addresses the three branches of the American the episode being filmed in just two weeks. The political reality? Journalism student government: executive, legislative and judicial, series also addressed situations which mirror Laura Dunn casts her vote. as well as the devotion of Bartlet’s staff to public issues in our current political climate. Episodes service. Inevitably, the lines between fiction and have featured nuclear disputes with North Korea, political reality are often blurred. the genocide of an African country, information Sorkin hired former White House Press leaks by senior staffers and the personal scandal Secretary Dee Dee Myers, Reagan speech of a President. Chris Lehman argues that The writer Peggy Noonan and Democratic political West Wing presents a: consultant Lawrence O’Donnell to serve as

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high minded conscience-haunted upgrade workforce, whilst promising to change and heal The character of Abby reflects the changing of the Clinton White House ... a version of America’s divides. Art is clearly imitating life! The role of women, balancing the expectations of Clintonism with both moral gravitas and fictional Santos opponent is also eerily similar to the traditional role with involvement in political political backbone. Obama’s opponent, John McCain. Arnold Vinick issues. The First Lady ‘gained’ a new role as The series also highlights the bitterness (Alan Alda) is an older Senator, battling to win the presidential advisor, most notably through the involved in partisan politics, showing the party’s conservative base. It is now widely known agendas of Nancy Reagan and Hillary Clinton, extremes to which some officials will go. In ‘A that The West Wing scriptwriters based the both determined to offer their political advice Good Day’ (6.17), Congressman Santos (Jimmy character of Santos on the politically ‘emerging’ to their husbands. Abby Bartlet is consistent, Smits), camps out on Capitol Hill with other Obama in early 2004. West Wing producer Eli pressing the President on the Congressional Representatives to ensure that he is Attie told The Guardian in 2006: voting system and her support of the Violence supporting will pass. This partisanship bears When I had to write, Obama was just Against Women Act, whilst also attending resemblance to the recent determination of both appearing on the national scene. He had events expected of the more ‘traditional’ role. parties, and the passing of the economic bailout done a great speech at the convention [which The programme highlights the issues faced by package. nominated ] and people were First Ladies in becoming too ‘close’ to a particular beginning to talk about him. issue. For example, when Abby begins practicing The Obama/Santos parallel The character and the inspiration later met medicine again, issues are raised by members The show humanises the often unseen in September 2005, and the parallels have been of the Executive team. This draws similarities members of the White House, presenting dissected ever since. with Hillary Clinton’s drive to push through the aides, secretaries, and advisors as wholly affordable healthcare, and the damage it did to dedicated to the President and his agenda. The role of the First Lady her reputation. There are clear parallels between characters on There are also similarities between First Lady the programme and their real-life counterparts. Michelle Obama, and The West Wing’s ‘Lady- Downplaying the role of Most notably, the obvious parallel is between in-Chief,’ Abby Bartlet (Stockard Channing).Both women President Obama and President Santos. A are successful in their careers (law and medicine The West Wing also presents a highly young, charismatic candidate from an ethnic respectively), and both support particular causes, provocative portrayal of the role of the female background takes on the established DC such as military families and women’s issues. in the Executive branch. In earlier seasons,

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Press Secretary CJ Cregg () is realistically. The dated representation of the a White House social event. This would never the only woman present in the ‘inner circle,’ and Vice-President is perhaps its main failing. happen in real-life, particularly not in public, as this ratio remains the same at the end of the Vice-President John Hoynes (Tim Matheson) it would lead to heightened partisan power and series. Even though her job is as important, if not is portrayed as the outsider, not welcome or tension, something the President cannot afford. more so, than her colleagues, she is ‘left out’ of invited to cabinet discussions, and only selected The programme does, however, highlight the important discussions, such as that surrounding to unite the Democratic Party. This is almost strains on personal lives, with individuals such the President’s multiple sclerosis. This is similar hard to comprehend compared to recent Vice- as CJ sacrificing her independence to serve their to the ‘real’ West Wing, with Dee Dee Myers Presidential selections. Perhaps the strongest leader. recalling her exclusion from discussions in the Vice-President in terms of influence was Dick It is evident that The West Wing presents a Clinton Administration. Other women are shown Cheney. His political experience and knowledge glamorised and overly optimistic representation in a supporting, secretarial role, most notably of Washington DC surpassed that of President of the workings of the White House, omitting (Janel Moloney), as the assistant George W. Bush, and Cheney is credited with the competition, factionalism and isolation that who seeks a promotion but finds her boss, Josh being the driving force behind the wars in both the characters face in the real West Wing. It does, Lyman (), unwilling to advance Afghanistan and Iraq. The current Vice-President, however, stay faithful to the re-creation of the her career. Joe Biden, was selected for his experience in interior decor of the Executive Mansion, as well as In the ‘real’ and current American political foreign affairs and, as in The West Wing, President the positive representation of the dedication and scene, women dominate the cabinet. Secretaries Obama appointed former rivals Hillary Clinton diverse personalities who ‘serve at the pleasure Hillary Clinton, Kathleen Sebelius, Hilda Solis and and Biden to Executive and Cabinet positions. of the President’. The Presidency is the equivalent Janet Napolitano hold vital cabinet positions. A to an American monarchy, sacred yet vulnerable, close Obama friend, Valerie Jarrett is an advisor, Authenticity or idealisation? and it is only through The West Wing that we will and Nancy Pelosi is the first female Speaker of the So how accurate is the portrayal of American get anywhere close to the ‘inner circle.’ House. Whilst ahead of its time on some issues, politics on The West Wing? There is no doubt that The West Wing was definitely lagging behind Aaron Sorkin uses the audience’s anti-Washington in its representation of the power of women feeling to portray a vision of executive liberalism, Laura Dunn is a former A Level Media student, now in the workplace. However, the portrayal of whilst capturing the structure and mood studying journalism at Cardiff University, and is hoping to dedication and ideological commitment of the of the White House. We see the limitations intern on Capitol Hill next year. staff corrects the anti-DC view and journalistic of executive power: the bargaining and assessments that see Washington officials purely co-operations with others, as well as the siege interested in power and self-advancement. The by outside forces who do not share the interests characters in The West Wing look out for each of the President and his administration. In terms other, and are not competitive to the point where of failings, the programme does not show they would stab each other in the back. staffers on endless telephone calls or in tedious meetings, and fails to address the growing role Vice-Presidential of the Vice-President within the Administration. misrepresentations It also presents a HolIywood ‘fantasy’ of a There are some instances where The President, particularly in the episode ‘Midterms,’ West Wing fails to address certain aspects where Bartlet belittles a conservative guest at

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Footage of cannibals, recordings of A spate of recently released films – Cloverfield ‘real’ at all. Just like all the other films within the (Matt Reeves, 2008), Rec (Jaume Balagueró horror genre, they are fictional. Yet their claim to supernatural occurrences, images of a and Paco Plaza, 2007) and its American remake be real has given rise to a new sub-genre within hideous monster stalking the streets Quarantine (John Erick Dowdle, 2008) – are horror, the mockumentary: although a clear unified not just by their classification as horror academic description for this term has yet to be of New York. We are told that all of but also by their mode of presentation. Each of fully resolved, a general definition of this type these events are true but did they these films, and a few others beside, claim that of film would be one that first and foremost they are actually real: instead of being a work presents itself as a work of fact as opposed really happen? James Rose tries to of cinematic fiction they are presented to the to a work of fiction. Defining themselves in expose the truth behind the horror audience as a work of fact, a recording of real this way suggests they are a documentary and, mockumentary. events happening in real time before the camera. as a consequence, such films exploit the visual But, in reality, of course, these films are not qualities of the documentary mode to heighten

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its false sense of realism – hand-held camera visual tropes of documentary film-making to work, raw and uncut footage, poor sound his shoot. The fictional events are recorded on and image quality, unscripted dialogue. location via a shaky hand-held camera on raw, When combined with a horror narrative the grainy and, at times, poorly exposed film. The resulting film effectively deceives the audience sound is crude and often pops and the lighting into believing what they are viewing is actually is natural, all qualities which signify everything real, regardless of how far-fetched the actual taking place within the film as real. The effect of events may be. In essence then, what these this strategy not only makes the audience believe films rely on is the illusion of authenticity and what they are seeing is real but also brings to the realism, a quality which when combined with the fictional narrative an immense sense of emotional traditional tropes of the horror film – monsters, intensity and intimacy, qualities which not only zombies, serial killers and the supernatural – draw the audience into the lives of the characters makes for a very frightening experience indeed. but also further into believing the realism of the footage. Origins The narrative description also reveals the For many the first horror mockumentary was film’s subtextual potential: according to sources the incredibly successful low budget The Blair on the production of the film, the idea came to Witch Project (Daniel Myrick & Eduardo Sánchez, Deodato when he reflected on news coverage 1999). But whilst this film may have signified the of certain violent events. He felt that what he possibilities of this mode for a contemporary footage draws to an end, a series of violent and had been watching had little integrity in terms audience, it was definitely not the first. The barbaric assaults that include more sexual assault, of reporting events truthfully and instead relied first was, in fact, Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal disembowelment and beheadings. upon showing the horrific acts perpetrated. Holocaust: released in 1980, the film has become From this brief outline of events it is clear that In this kernel of a response, Deodato began an acknowledged classic of the horror genre due Cannibal Holocaust is an immensely graphic to establish the narrative for Holocaust by to its originality, horrific content and subtextual film. And whilst the described events are all exaggerating the mode of reporting to the content, as well as the many controversies staged – that is to say they are based on a script extent that the reporters themselves perpetrate surrounding the actual film itself. The narrative and that the injuries, rapes, mutilations and the violent acts themselves in order to get the is concerned with a group of four documentary human deaths are all acted out in conjunction ‘story’ they believe will sell. As a consequence, film-makers who go missing in the Amazon with special effects and are therefore fake – the the film explicitly suggests that the savagery of rainforest. When a search party goes looking sheer ferocity of the imagery combined with modern man is far more violent and brutal than for them they find their skeletal remains and its claim to be a documentary makes the film a that of the alleged cannibalistic tribal ‘savages’. their cans of exposed film. When played back, truly horrifying, gruelling and disturbing piece of It also suggests that the media is increasingly this footage shows the deceased crew staging contemporary cinema. The reason for this sense concerned with depicting the poverty and violent events for the camera, raping a young of ferocity is Deodato’s deft and skilful directorial misfortune of other people to such an extent tribeswoman, killing live animals and, as the decision to film the fictional events as if they that it can be considered to be exploitational. were actually real. To do this he applies all of the

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The film’s conclusion – in which the film-makers The post-Cannibal Holocaust the rules of cinema by having its characters are captured, raped, beaten, murdered and mockumentary gaze directly into the camera and verbally address it then eaten – indicates, quite blatantly, that the Cannibal Holocaust remains a ground- : the most famous of these sequences exploited will eventually turn upon those that breaking piece of genre cinema. As such, is when Heather, ostensibly the director of the wish to exploit their poverty. Deodato’s film has subsequently influenced the documentary, confesses to the camera her fear Yet while the film can be read as this cruel films of the mockumentary mode, defining of the situation she and her friends have found critique on the media’s desire for sensational for them the visual and textual strategies by themselves in. She apologises to their families footage in both the daily news and in film, which to convince the audience that what and declares her love for her own. Heather’s Cannibal Holocaust itself is as much a they are watching is indeed real as well as terror is all the more palpable not only because perpetrator of these activities as those it attempts defining narrative events: subsequent horror she looks directly at the audience (and so to critique: amongst the many controversies mockumentaries would use similar visual effectively confesses to them as much as the her surrounding the film, the most brutal is the actual strategies to Deodato (hand-held camera, camera) but because, at that point in the film, on-screen killing of live animals. Various animals real locations, natural light, raw and grainy situation seems so believable: Heather’s terror are killed during the film, including one explicit footage) and position their protagonists in is the audience’s terror. Blair Witch and protracted death of a turtle. These scenes compromising situations. And as each narrative Although was a significant are truly and undeniably horrific. When asked to draws to an end, these protagonists would all success, very few mockumentaries followed. This defend these actions Deodato commented that end the film dead. is possibly because the central conceit of the the animals were going to be killed and eaten The next horror mockumentary was The mode – a truth which in fact is a lie – had already anyway. Whilst these deaths are inexcusable, their Last Broadcast (Stefan Avalos, 1998) which become too worn and obvious for an audience inclusion in the film has the perverse effect of was then followed by The Blair Witch Project. that was demanding increasingly sophisticated conditioning the audience further into believing Following the example set by Deodato, both viewing. Even so, a number of mockumentaries The Last Horror Movie that the human mutilations are actually real: films claim they are made up of real ‘found’ followed: (Julian Richards, Eaten Alive! Italian Snuff Movie The writing about the film in footage and uses opening title cards (as does 2003), (Bernard Rose, 2005), Cannibal and Zombie Movies Zombie Diaries , Lloyd Kaufman Cannibal Holocaust) to set up the context of (Kevin Gates & Michael Bartlett, Rec Diary of the Dead states: realism. Whilst Broadcast functions almost like 2006), , (George A. Romero, Quarantine The audience has already seen actual death a documentary (for it is made up of interviews 2007) and, more recently, and Cloverfield on screen, and have been subtly brainwashed and discussions as much as it is of raw footage), . into assuming they’re now seeing a woman Blair Witch unfolds almost in real time as the Whilst none of these films have gone to the Cannibal Holocaust [impaled on a] stake. The brain has been three student protagonists find themselves lost extremes that went to, conditioned to accept that which it’s now in the Burkittsville woodland and are increasingly they retain a connection with it not just through seeing is real. This mixture of real and staged assaulted by supernatural elements. Their footage the mimicking of the documentary visual style the violence, combined with the handheld is crude and raw, full of jerky and shaky images, but also with the subtextual readings: majority of these films can be read as being camerawork and the rough, unedited quality some shot at night with only a single light to preoccupied with contemporary anxieties of the [film] is certainly enough to convince illuminate the horrors that seemingly surround which use the mockumentary mode to bring a someone what they are watching is real. them. Their footage also deliberately breaks

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residents were never seen again. No details. No witnesses. No evidence. Until now. In both slogans there is a clear emphasis on the factual through the use of a specific date and specific location. These ‘facts’ connect the fictional world of the mockumentary to the real world of the audience. The places identified are known locations (Maryland, ), tangible spaces in the real world in which terrifying things could possibly happen. Following these facts is the sense of the film’s ‘secret’, that the footage is something found and unedited and so is therefore real. This element also piques the potential viewer’s curiosity, arousing within them the desire to see something that is both horrific

and (allegedly) real. Koba ca/The Cinematografi Credit: Fd eld courtesy Kobal Collection; Cannibal Holocaust, d. Deodato Ruggero (1980) of The Cloverfi Just as Cannibal Holocaust defined the sub genre’s template in terms of conceit, aesthetic and shocking content, it also predictably defined this marketing strategy through what can be considered shock tactics: the taglines for Blair Witch and Quarantine directly mimic one of the taglines used to sell Deodato’s film: In 1979 four documentary filmmakers disappeared in the jungles of South America while shooting a film about cannibalism ... Six months later, their footage was found’ whilst others – greater sense of reality and intimacy to these we need to see something ‘real’, to witness the The men you will see eaten alive, are the preoccupations. For example, with its virtually ‘truth’ in order to safely shock us back into reality. same who filmed these incredible sequences unseen monster dropping out from the sky and Cruel, Barbaric, Authentic’, ‘Savage! laying waste to New York, Cloverfield can easily Marketing the (un)real Terrifying! True!’ be read as a meditation on the September One of the essential tropes of the horror Those who filmed it were devoured alive by 11th terrorist attacks whilst The Zombie Diaries mockumentary is to amplify its narrative conceit cannibals! not only makes allusions to these attacks it also through the film’s marketing and promotion: work in the same manner as their suggests that the virus that is reanimating the many of the taglines for these films clearly predecessors by directing the viewer’s attention dead is a result of a pandemic similar to the ones indicate that the footage is (very) real and that, to the shocking reality of the film by juxtaposing that would result from a virulent and aggressive for one reason or another, it is either secret, the horrific with the real – Barbaric/Authentic, strain of Bird Flu or Swine Flu. hidden, or lost and then found. Either way, these Terrifying/True, eaten alive/incredible sequences, Whilst the central conceit of the taglines suggest that the footage is something filmed/devoured alive. Because of the heavily mockumentary has, by now, lost its initial impact, horrific that has been actually recorded and constructed nature of these promotional taglines, the potential of this sub-genre still remains: its should not be seen by anyone. These qualities they can themselves be read as part of the subversion of documentary tropes allows for an are clearly seen in the tagline for The Blair Witch mockumentaries generic traits for their purpose incredible intimacy between the audience and Project: (after selling the film to a potential audience) is to the fictional characters and so creates genuine In October of 1994 three student film-makers consolidate the reality of the (fictional) footage. fear whilst its subtextual potential allows film- disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, James Rose is a freelance film-maker. His latest book on makers the opportunity to comment on societies Maryland while shooting a documentary…A del Toro’s The Devil’s Backbone, has just been published. concerns in an equally intimate manner: the year later their footage was found horror of these films may indeed be fictional but This text is reflected in the tagline used for the horrors they actually represent and symbolise Quarantine: are very real indeed. Perhaps in this age of On March 11, 2008 the Government sealed off increasing vanity, apathy and compassion fatigue an apartment complex in Los Angeles. The

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American Reality Exactly how real are the contemporary society our purposes’. Paradoxically, are they documenting US’s popular, glossy reality system of representations, ‘reality’ is constructed real events, or are the shows – they’re shows like Laguna Beach: symbols and images within a genre that claims events staged? The idea glossy, manipulative, The Real OC, The Hills and has become so vital, it to give the audience of feigning occurrences Real Housewives of ...? supersedes the truth it the ‘truth’ as it actually to enhance a ‘reality’ and highly addictive. [The producers ] totally claims to signify to the happened. In other words, show certainly reflects And they often open set up the BBQ scene extent where that truth they create a ‘truth’ that Baudrillard’s proposal that for Brody and I to meet fades into oblivion, or fails never has, or arguably the simulacrum creates a with the words: each other ... they said, to exist at all. Cynical as never would have existed more interesting, ‘valuable ‘Some scenes have ‘The audience would this may seem, think of in reality. truth’ when reality will no been recreated get a kick out of seeing the experiences of actors While it has existed longer suffice. the ex talk to the new portraying soap opera in various forms since for entertainment guy’ ... It was some villains who have been entertainment television’s From The purposes’. So where of the best acting I’ve publicly chastised by conception, it was at the Osbournes to ever done. viewers. To this audience, turn of the millennium The Simple Life exactly is the Gavin Beasley on his the actor’s persona with a spate of ‘fly-on- In 2002, MTV created ‘reality’? Emma stint as Lauren Conrad’s is irrelevant; it is the the-wall documentaries’ The Osbournes, which date in ‘The Hills’, 2007 character they engage and the first UK version claimed to follow the Louise Howard French philosopher with. Baudrillard’s theory of Big Brother that the everyday lives of metal gets to grips with the Jean Baudrillard argues is particularly appropriate term ‘reality television’ singer Ozzy, his wife Sharon in his book Simulacra and to the study of reality became part of our and their two younger genre, and finds the Simulation that: television and to the everyday vocabulary. With children. The show adopted ideas of theorist Jean The simulacrum is never exploration of the idea many British reality shows a ‘warts and all’ approach Baudrillard useful in that which conceals the that on TV, we rarely see translating successfully to its depiction of the truth – it is the truth a ‘true’ reality. Situations stateside, the US has since family; however, siblings unpicking it which conceals that are manipulated, events are generated its own breed Kelly and Jack protested there is none. dramatised and incidents of ‘reality’ entertainment on a MADtv episode that He is essentially are staged and enhanced shows that prompt the editing process made suggesting that in ‘for entertainment controversial questions – it appear as if they used

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word ‘allegedly’. It blurs portrayed are of interest the boundaries between to audiences, hence their reality and fiction further production of ‘reality’ still as it does not specify versions. The New Jersey which scenes are ‘artificial’. edition of Real Housewives One could argue that any on Channel 4 recently scene involving ‘unnatural’ focuses on the ostentatious situations has been ‘created wealth of the five women for entertainment purposes’ in question, and despite per-se. However, ‘created’ the documentary ‘look’ and scenes could mean any ‘feel’ of the programme, it additional pre-filming is set up to be viewed like processes, such as staging a drama or soap opera. or scripting. We are given teasers of This boundary-blurring what is coming up, and the crops up frequently when opening credits present reading any media text. If the show’s subjects as a television programme, characters, posing in front film or advertisement of a gold background with profanities more than they conscious characterisation adopted a mock-Southern claims to represent ‘reality’ their respective families actually did. Linked to this as a stereotypical ‘dumb accent and regularly in any form, a mediation in tow, their monikers manipulation, misleading blonde’, with editors taking appeared to ridicule the process has taken place glittering. episodes later appeared pains to incorporate similar girls for their ineptitude. between what transpired While it supposedly incorporating pranks at incidents of puzzlement Whereas The Osbournes and what one sees on depicts real events, The the audience’s expense, and ensure she had a and Newlyweds filmed the screen, whether this Real Housewives of New arguably highlighting the ‘dumb moment’ at least its participants’ supposed is simple cutting room Jersey embraces the family’s complaints that once an episode. Along everyday lives, here, the recontextualisation or conventions of a TV drama the edited portrayal is with careful editing – show put its celebrity the falsification many with its careful editing sometimes inaccurate, and re-using and lengthening subjects in situations US ‘reality’ shows have to incorporate mystery emphasising how easily shots, creating montages, extremely unnatural to been accused of. These and tension. It introduces viewers can be duped into adding incidental music them and recorded how boundaries become even us to four closely linked thinking a situation is real. – less satisfactory reality they coped… or didn’t. more indistinct when the ‘characters’, and with perfect In 2003 MTV produced is manipulated and a new ‘Some scenes have been reality show itself has been timing, presents a fifth, the another celebrity ‘reality’ ‘truth’ is manufactured. created for entertainment inspired by fictitious TV ‘outsider’ Danielle. Unlike programme – Newlyweds: The popularity of these purposes’, a disclaimer drama. the others she is a single Nick and Jessica, based celebrity-based shows appearing briefly at the divorcee with a somewhat around the married lives with their exploitation of opening credits of many (Desperate) ‘colourful’ past. She has of ‘wholesome’ singers participants for comic effect US reality shows including Housewives of already been befriended by Nick Lachey and Jessica eventually spawned The The Simple Life, is arguably New Jersey one of the group, and in a Simpson, implementing Simple Life, a merging of a kind of catch-all phrase Laguna Beach: The camera interview the friend, a similar ‘truth-telling’ the sitcom format with that that ‘covers the backs’ of Real OC and The Real Jacqueline, ‘hopes the approach whilst editing of reality entertainment, the programme creators Housewives… are obvious others will accept Danielle’, footage out of context initially placing arguably for manipulating situations. examples. Observing Cue dramatic non-diegetic (recontextualise). For ‘lazy’ socialites Paris Hilton It’s a strategy familiar the popularity of teen music that builds to a example, Simpson’s and Nicole Richie on a farm to audiences of shows drama The OC and the crescendo as the camera infamous confusion at the to live and work. It followed like Have I Got News for Desperate Housewives zooms in on a ‘concerned’ tuna brand name ‘Chicken a ‘documentary’ format with You where the panellists saga, producers have Jacqueline. What could of the Sea’ which endeared an informative voiceover; prefix potentially libellous obviously engaged with have been a simple her to the public led to her however, the narrator statements with the the fact that the lifestyles declaration of genuine

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concern is dramatised via within a very short space call from Teen Vogue course MTV edited the Baudrillard declared that the editing process as an of time, make the show asking if she can attend scene to make it look we value a ‘simulated ominous foretelling. Clearly, look more like its fictional an interview in a mere like I’m force-feeding real’ over what is real. the others will not accept predecessor The OC than twenty minutes. Of course her the salmon that she The contrived ‘version’ of Danielle, and just in case a programme recording this is not impossible, hates ... reality provided by the the less than subtle media real events. Non-diegetic perhaps unlikely, but it Even the show’s shows examined here language didn’t make this music is taken to the adds a sense of drama and producers, creators and is evidently considered point clearly enough, we extreme with fashionable tension to the scenario. The spokespeople have more compelling than the have already been exposed recording artists providing sight of Conrad frantically confirmed that some more authentic ‘boring to teasers in which one a ‘soundtrack’ effect ironing her skirt with hair scenes are filmed simply footage’ Rupel describes. ‘wife’ declares, ‘And then she (appropriate for an MTV- straighteners while Montag to add ‘continuity’ to the The skewed perception of came along,’ and another produced programme), excitedly squeals may be programme. reality that leads a soap fan tips a table in Danielle’s and camera interviews a lot more entertaining Defending the editing to reprimand an actor for direction. are replaced with intimate than Montag simply giving processes underpinning their character’s actions, Merging reality television conversations with the Conrad a tour of the reality television, David leads us to the recognition with drama even further is ‘characters’ whose names apartment as they’d initially Rupel who helped edit The that audiences are quite MTV’s The Hills, a Laguna are provided at the bottom ‘envisaged’, but is it reality? Real World states: content to value soaps as Beach spin-off ‘starring’ of the screen as they Controversy dogs The Hills One of the most real. Therefore, why not Lauren Conrad from the appear, evocative of MTV’s at every turn. According to common complaints I value reality as soap? original series (the term The Real World (one of the a fellow diner supposedly heard was that people ‘starring’ complicates the original reality shows that present at Conrad’s ‘date’ thought we edited Emma Louise Howard is a reality concept further). prompted questions as to with Gavin Beasley: things too much and former A Level Media student, Conrad has left Laguna just how ‘real’ that world It was clear that this… that we weren’t telling has completed an MA in Beach to pursue a fashion was). is not a reality show. the real story… Trust Critical Theory, and will soon career, studying at design Should we feel the They took five takes of me – as someone who be training as a Media Studies school and interning at need to suspend our Lauren ordering dinner. has literally watched lecturer. Teen Vogue. However, while disbelief whilst watching Additionally, tens of thousands of a voiceover is provided, this something that purports recontextualisation via hours of raw footage, is no documentary. Conrad’s to be a reality show? In the editing also rears its head, nobody is interesting narration takes the form of first episode, no sooner with Beasley stating that: all of the time… if you a confessional diary and has Conrad arrived at I ordered that salmon watch every second the style in which is it shot, her new apartment and roll for myself and of someone’s life, the coupled with numerous met housemate Heidi Lauren said she would majority of it is quite events taking place Montag, she receives a like to try a piece, so of boring. Channel 4 Press Site for images from The Real World and Real Housewives...; Image.net for Make Me a Swan Real World Site for images from The Channel 4 Press

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The rise and rise of UGC

Sara Mills explores the rise of the citizen journalist and considers the impact of user-generated content on news stories, the news agenda, and the role of the professionals.

Once, it was all quite simple…the big institutions created the news and broadcast it to a variously passive and receptive audience. Now new technologies mean that the audience are no longer passive receivers of news. The audience have become ‘users’ and the users have become publishers. Audiences now create their own content. We are in the era of user generated content (UGC) where the old divide between institution and audience is being eroded. Key to this change has been the development of new technologies such as video phones and the growth of the internet and user-dominated sites. Both who makes the news and what makes ‘grassroots journalists’, or even ‘accidental the news have been radically altered by this journalists’. As technology improved over the growth of media technologies and the rise of the years, incidents of this kind have become more ‘citizen journalist’. There were six days of riots, 53 people died, and and more common. Millions of people have We first felt the effects of the new technologies around 4000 people were injured. The costs of constant access to filming capability through way back in 1991. Video cameras had become the damage, looting and clear-up came in at up their mobiles, and footage can be uploaded and more common and more people could afford to a billion dollars. If George Holliday hadn’t been rapidly distributed on the internet. The power them…unfortunately for four Los Angeles police looking out of his apartment window and made to make and break news has moved beyond the officers! Having caught Rodney King, an African- a grab for his video camera at the time Rodney traditional news institutions. American, after a high speed chase, the officers King was apprehended, none of this would have It is not only in providing footage for the surrounded him, tasered him and beat him with happened. King’s beating would be just another news that citizen journalists have come to the clubs. The event was filmed by an onlooker hidden incident with no consequences. The film forefront. UGC now plays a huge role in many from his apartment window. The home-video footage can be still be viewed. Try looking on aspects of the media. Most news organisations footage made prime-time news and became an YouTube under ‘What started the LA riots.’ But include formats for participation: message international media sensation, and a focus for be warned – it makes for very uncomfortable boards, chat rooms, Q&A, polls, have your says, complaints about police racism towards African- viewing, and even today, it is easy to see why this and blogs with comments enabled. Social media Americans. Four officers were charged with minute and half of blurry, poor-quality film had sites are also built around UGC as seen in the four assault and use of excessive force, but in 1992 such a huge impact. biggest social networking sites: Bebo, MySpace, they were acquitted of the charges. This acquittal, This was one of the first examples of the YouTube and Facebook. People also turn to UGC in the face of the video footage which clearly news being generated by ‘ordinary people,’ sites to access news: Wikipedia news, Google showed the beatings, sparked huge civil unrest. now commonly known as ‘citizen journalists’, news and YouTube score highly in terms of

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where people go to get their news. hard-hitting and emotive. An audience used The natural disaster of the Asian Tsunami on to relatively unmediated reality through the December 26th 2004 was another turning point prevalence of reality TV can now see similarly for UGC. Much of the early footage of events was unmediated footage on the news. provided from citizen journalists, or ‘accidental The desire for everyone to tell their own story journalists,’ providing on-the-spot witness and have their own moment of fame may explain accounts of events as they unfolded. Tourists the huge popularity of Facebook, MySpace and who would otherwise have been happily filming other such sites. It also had a more negative holiday moments were suddenly recording one outcome in the package of writings, photos and of the worst natural disasters in recent times. video footage that 23-year-old Seung-Hui Cho, In addition, in the days after the disaster, social an undergraduate at Virginia Tech, mailed into networking sites provided witness accounts for a NBC News. Between his first attack, when he shot world-wide audience, helped survivors and family two people, he sent the package from a local members get in touch and acted as a forum all post office, before going on to kill a further 30 those involved to share their experiences. people. In his so-called ‘manifesto’ Cho showed A second terrible event, the London his paranoia and obsession, likening himself to bombings on July 5th 2005, provided another Jesus Christ. The reporting of the terrible events at Virginia Tech that day was also affected by citizen journalism, and the footage that student Jamal Albarghouti shot on his mobile phone video camera. Rather than concentrate on saving his own life, he recorded events from his position lying on the ground near the firing. The footage, available on YouTube and CNN brought events home to a worldwide audience. We now expect passers by, witnesses, or even victims, to whip out their camera phones and record events, an instinct almost as powerful as that to save their opportunity for citizen journalists to influence own or others’ lives. Perhaps the news now seems the mainstream news agenda. No one was closer old-fashioned and somehow staged if it lacks to events than those caught up in the bombings, the raw, grainy low-quality footage provided by and the footage they provided from their mobile citizen journalists. phones was raw and uncompromising. This Twitter and flickr came to the forefront first-hand view, rather than professionally shot during the Mumbai bombings in India in late footage from behind police lines, is often more November 2008. As bombs exploded across the city, the world’s media got up-to date with events

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through reports on Twitter and Flickr. There were blogosphere, for example, provides an those who have little else to do but make posts questions raised, however, that by broadcasting opportunity for independent, often minority and The risk of being dominated by defamatory their tweets, people may have been putting their niche views and news to reach a wide audience. or racist or other hate-fuelled content raises own and others’ lives at risk. In fact uniting disparate people in ‘micro- questions about unmoderated content: ‘free It was on Twitter again that the story of the communities’ is one of the web’s greatest abilities. speech’ is great as long as you agree with what Hudson River plane crash on January 15th 2009 How else would all those ice fans communicate everybody is saying! was broken to the world. With a dramatic picture without the ‘Ice Chewers Bulletin Board?’ And the If there will be fewer jobs for trained of a plane half sinking in the river, and passengers only place for those who like to see pictures of journalists, will there also be less profit for crowded on the wing awaiting rescue Janis Krun dogs in bee costumes is, of course, ‘Beedogs.com: the big institutions? This seems unlikely. tweeted: the premier online repository for pictures of dogs Although how to ‘monetarise’ UGC – how to There’s a plane in the Hudson. I’m on the ferry in bee costumes.’ make money for both the generator and the going to pick up the people. Crazy. On a more serious note, the change in the host of the content – is still being debated, The picture is still available on Twitpic, landscape of the news means that groups who bigger institutions have been buying up social under ‘Janis Krun’s tweet.’ While national news had little access to self-representation before, networking sites for the last few years. Rather organisations quickly swung into action, it was such as youth groups, low income groups, and than launch their own challenge, they simply buy the citizen journalist, empowered by social various minority groups may, through citizen the site. Flickr is now owned by Yahoo!, YouTube networking sites, that first broke the story. journalism, begin to find that they too have a was bought by Google, Microsoft invested in voice. Facebook, and News Corp., owned by Murdoch, So who’s keeping the gate? bought MySpace. Are the gatekeepers still fulfilling their old What about the There is a whole new world out there. With function of deciding what is and isn’t news, professionals? it comes new responsibility. There is enormous and what will and won’t be broadcast? In some Do journalists fear for their jobs now everyone potential to expand our view of the world and ways, yes. You can send in as much UGC to the is producing content? It is likely that in future our understanding of what is happening. Our major news organisations as you want, with no there will be fewer and fewer permanent collective knowledge, and wisdom, should grow. guarantee that any of it will ever be aired. In fact, trained staff at news organisations, leaving a On the other hand, in twenty years time, the last year a BBC spokesperson reported that a smaller core staff who will manage and process news could be overrun by pictures of people’s large proportion of photos sent in to the news UGC from citizen journalists, sometimes known as kittens and a few bigots shouting across message unit were of kittens. While this may represent the ‘crowd sourcing.’ Some believe that the mediators boards at each other. interest of the audience, or users, it still doesn’t and moderators might eventually disappear turn the fact that your kitten is really cute into too, leaving a world where the media is, finally, Sara Mills teaches Media Studies at Helston Community ‘news.’ unmediated. This does raise concerns however. College, Cornwall, and is an AQA examiner. The way around the gatekeepers is with Without moderation sites could be overrun by the independent media on the web. The bigots or fools, by those who shout loudest, and

58 MediaMagazine | December 2009 | english and media centre MM Hyper-reality and the Digital Renaissance

In this article Stephen Hill explores advancements in technology. From a theoretical By the same token audiences have been standpoint, this concept has been recouped extremely imaginative in the way in which new the way in which the use of media by various thinkers who have characterised media technologies have been incorporated technologies confront audiences the proliferation of media technology and the into their day-to-day existence. Who would collapse of the distinction between the real have thought that cinema pioneer Eadweard experience of reality. He argues that and simulated as ‘simulacrum’, ‘hyper-reality’, Muybridge’s experiments with stereoscopic far from undermining our humanity ‘parody’ and ‘pastiche’. And, indeed, this is a line images in the 1870s would develop into a of fault that many media texts self-consciously staple venue for romantic courtship in the they often serve to reinforce it. explore; the last thirty years has seen a twentieth century: even today going to see profusion of films, television and pop music a movie is one of the most popular activities that play with audience expectations in their for couples on a date. Likewise, television has Introduction use of intertextual references and self-reflexive become embedded in the social fabric of every From the telephone to Facebook, the way allusions. However, perhaps what marks out day life: both shaping and reflecting society’s in which audiences appropriate new media the genuinely postmodern from ironic critique ideas about contemporary social issues. While technology has, historically, been characterised is the way in which audience appropriation of the kind of current affairs programming by the collapse of the distinction between the new media technologies is both naturalised and characterising a channel like BBC News 24, real and the simulated: the substitution of face creative. was probably close to what John Logie Baird to face interaction with a hyper-real experience had in mind when he began experimenting mediated by technology. When Alexander Cinema and television with duotone images in the first part of Graham Bell launched the telephone in 1876 is Throughout the history of television and the twentieth century. Formats produced was not simply a revolution in communication cinema, audiences have traditionally been principally for entertainment, like soap opera systems but it also sewed the seeds of a more very accepting of the ways in which media and sitcom, have arguably done more to wide-ranging transformation about the way in texts invite the viewer to confront their own influence popular opinion about contemporary which society thought about itself and culture. perception of reality. As the silent movie social issues including abortion, single- In substituting the human voice for synthesized era moved into that of the talking picture, mothers, homosexuality and immigration than copy transmitted through sound waves and for example, audiences did not recoil with anything else. electrical signals, Bell in effect invented post- incredulity that the image projected on to the modernism: the routinised use of technology screen was actually speaking, but accepted The internet and the proliferation of the virtual realities. the concept as natural and unaffected. Of course the proliferation of the internet Indeed, the history of media technology Likewise, when the first television sets became from the late 1990s onwards has accelerated in the twentieth century was built on this commercially available in the 30s and 40s, and heightened people’s routine use of premise: cinema, television, music video and audiences embraced the new medium, inviting technology in their day-to-day engagement computer games all invite the audience to it into their homes to occupy pride of place in with society and culture. And, indeed, it is suspend disbelief and inhabit a parallel fantasy the sitting room: displacing the fire place as the befitting that the proliferation of laptops, world made possible only by successive focal point of domestic living. wireless and broadband technology in the

english and media centre | December 2009 | MediaMagazine 59 MM increasingly confined to parochial factions Noughties has liberated people from viewing the terms of our own definition. of college and work mates, so too has the computer technology as fixed to work stations What social networking sites offer is the proliferation of digital images on social previously associated with word processing opportunity to enter a hyper-real utopia networking sites emphasised issues of body and gaming. As an antidote to pre-Millennium in which all participants are equal because image for it participants. Andy Warhol once fin-de-siecle (end of a century) narratives the signifiers of social belonging and the predicted that everybody would be famous for of cultural decline and moral decay, the invocations of prejudice no longer matter. The fifteen minutes, but for contemporary users of proliferation of digital technology and the technology that underpins social networking Facebook and MySpace that duration can be internet has infused contemporary civilisation is based on the premise that whether you are extended as they face the same pressures of with a new vitality that can be felt across slim or fat, black or white, gay or straight does living in the public eye that just five years ago various media forms including television, film, not matter in the media-induced reality of was the preserve of reality TV stars and minor pop music and the press. cyber-space. And yet it does. As every instance celebrities. Contemporary use of ICT embraces not only of cyber-bullying and internet harassment the interactivity of hardware that allows us testifies, the way in which audiences use Skype to listen to music, watch television, surf the social networking has been routinised and In the wonderful cycle of perpetual internet and talk to our friends all on the same naturalised; and endemic to this is that it return that characterises patterns of media machine, but has reframed the way in which draws out of its participants some of their less consumption, one of the most innovative media institutions conceptualise their own pleasant characteristics: vanity, insularity and forms of media technology today is Skype. business infrastructure: in the post-digital age petty prejudice often seem to characterise the Principally a software application that allows the most successful brands are those that exist way consumers engage with sites like Facebook users to make voice calls over the internet, the across multiple platforms: BAUER’s Kerrang!, and Bebo. service duplicates the features of a regular land- for example, is a website, TV and radio station. Just as networks and friendship groups are line with the addition of video conferencing Likewise, the increased interactivity between audience and institution has refined their relationship, with niche market programming proliferating at the expense of broadcasting, and small-scale media industries often producing a healthier profit margin than cumbersome and unwieldy corporations. However, it is perhaps the proliferation of social networking that exemplifies best the way in which audience engagement with media technology has become naturalised and framed by consumer creativity. Social networking On the face of things, social networking sites like Bebo, Facebook and MySpace embody postmodern culture: they are virtual reality spaces in which the distinction between the real and the simulated is neither here nor there and audiences are free to construct their identity from a bricolage of pop culture references: applications invite us to list our favourite albums, films and adverts and details about age, sex and national identity are totally unverifiable. In theory these sites encourage us to adopt new idealised personas, free from the constraints of our corporeal everyday lives in which we can embrace the aspirational codes of consumer culture and reinvent ourselves in

60 MediaMagazine | December 2009 | english and media centre MM facilities and free international connections. old, some Skype users have experimented with trial: a convenient bogey man to be blamed Unlike a conventional telephone system, Skype more innovative social interaction that includes for all society’s evils. However, just as the use utilises built-in speakers and microphone the ‘Skype-party’ where multiple participants of Facebook to bully classmates cannot be systems on laptop computers and so lends socialise informally in video conference calls, attributed to its creator Mark Zuckerberg, so itself to multiple speaker interaction. As with that may cross time zones, but are accompanied too is it impossible to take a moral stance Facebook, early adopters of the service were by a musical soundtrack, alcoholic drinks and on media technology. To do so betrays an middle-class Western students wanting to dressing up as if for traditional night on the ignorance not only of the technology in communicate peer-to-peer without the cost town. question but also the nature of humanity. One of mobile phone calls and texts. The up-surge More mature users have also been known might just as well bemoan the invention of the in global travel amongst this group as part of to engage in ‘Skype dinner parties’, in which wheel as the proliferation of social networking: gap year programmes and independent travel participants endeavour to eat the same food both can be used for good and evil and both popularised the service with friends and family and drink the same wine while engaged in represent major advances in the development wanting to keep in touch with loved ones. the kind of convivial chitchat that would of civilisation. As with Facebook, Skype’s success with accompany a suburban soiree. According to one this highly influential demographic has participant, such events are particularly popular The Digital Renaissance underpinned its distribution to a much wider with couples with young children, avoiding For further evidence of the very positive community of consumers who in turn have the cost of a babysitter and the inconvenience benefits of media technology, just listen to the incorporated it into their own portfolio of and expense of travel. And so, media some of the answer phone messages left by communication choices. It is Skype’s success technology has come full circle. If Alexander the victims of the September 11th terrorist with this younger demographic that has given Graham Bell’s telephone inaugurated the attacks on America in 2001. Without exception rise to some more innovative uses. Not content postmodern sensibility that characterises so the sentiments expressed are not those of with simulating the traditional phone calls of much contemporary engagement with media rage and anger but love and affection. It is technology, it is befitting that Skype, a direct the message not the medium that triumphs. descendent of Bell’s invention should be at the And from this two very clear lessons can vanguard of media-induced reality. be learnt. In the first instance, while media technology challenges the distinction between Criticism of new media the real and the simulated, the way in which technologies these technologies are embedded in our lives Of course the proliferation of new media reinforces traditional structures of society and technology is not without its critics. For every culture. Secondly, the massive explosion in enthusiastic consumer there are usually audience’s use of information technology in the several detractors who predict that the use twenty-first century, from the proliferation of of telephones/television/the internet are creative digital hardware to social networking, all symptomatic of society’s decay and our represents a re-birth in the way in which impending decent into a hellish abyss in which audiences think about society and culture in the humanity and morality have no place. And developed world; and in this sense it could be indeed, various theoreticians have argued said that we are living very much in an age that that the appropriation of media texts is will become known as the Digital Renaissance. symptomatic of cultural malaise. Frankfurt School theorists like Theodore Adorno, for Stephen Hill is Head of Media at the Burgate School, example, viewed the gramophone record and Fordingbridge. cinema as a means of distracting the working class from their disadvantaged social positions. Likewise, though Jean Baudrillard’s work is pivotal in understanding terms like hyper- reality and simulacrum, he expresses anxiety about a society alienated from itself. And, indeed, from Albert Bandura’s The Bobo Doll Experiment (1961), to ’s Bowling for Columbine (2002) the media is forever on

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a sadistic future?

There’s a strange world of bizarre man to five women and voting one person off In a society where the media holds dominion, each week? Nothing new: Chained (E4). With so the contestants battle it out to the delight of the factual programming out there, from much terrain already covered, reality TV is in a viewing audience who accept death, gore and live autopsies to erotic hypnosis. desperate state. violence as mainstream entertainment. Japanese television exhibited one effect of And when reality formats kick in too, this desperation with Nasabi where one man Prank TV things get really strange. Richard (Nasabi) was locked in a room naked, alone and At its simplest, reality TV is friendly and fun in a tiny flat with nothing to eat. He was told he but the prankster show has mischievously shifted Smith surveys some of the world’s was taking part in a TV project but was not told over the past few decades, from Beadle’s About more extreme examples of reality TV, he was broadcast to seventeen million Japanese and Trigger Happy TV where light-hearted and wonders what they tell us about viewers. Nasabi could only win food through pranks are played on the public to Jackass and magazine competitions and could only leave Dirty Sanchez where their immense physical audiences and ethics. once he had won prizes to the amount of five pain is our immense joy. The USA have stepped thousand pounds (One Million Yen). One year it up even more so with Scare Tactics where Not content with killing culture as we know and three months later, he managed it. Is this contestants are set up to believe, amongst it, reality TV is at it again and it doesn’t care who imprisonment a sign of things to come? Should other things, that they are legitimately going to it takes down with it. It is the quintessential compromising our human rights be used for be killed at the hands of a psychopath (actor). televisual Marmite: you either love its novelty or entertainment? Or be so entertaining? Similarly Enfarto (Mexico) translated as ‘Heart you want to chase it off your land with a shotgun. The world of fiction occasionally explores the attack’ tricks unknowing victims into facing the It is breaking taboos in ways we haven’t seen, in grim future of reality TV with classics such as The possibility of their own death. The audience gets countries we haven’t even heard of. Gone are the Running Man (1987) and Battle Royale (2000) to witness this real terror and sits back laughing days of Big Brother race rows and here are the addressing the notion of death as the ultimate in their voyeuristic armchairs. It is this move from days of a genre that bathes in its own torturous mainstream entertainment. Both The Truman friendly prank to spiteful bullying that raises taboos. Show (1998) and Ed TV (1999) take a lighter look questions about our notion of contemporary How can reality TV cover new ground when at the genre but there is one text that stands as a entertainment. Ultimately though, the shows so much has already been covered? How about profound warning. Series Seven: The Contenders exist because there is a demand for them to exist. depriving contestants of sleep and the last one (2001) is a satire about a media-saturated culture Criminal Russia (USSR) continues the theme to finally snooze wins? Been there: Shattered and is set in the immediate future where five of death and investigates murders with one (Channel 4). How about watching relationships contenders are given no choice but to participate. twist: the murderer takes us through his crime. crumble with a live lie detector test? Done that: A television crew follows each of them as they Crime scenes are revisited and weapons are Lie Detector (Live TV). How about chaining one are given a gun and told that they kill or be killed. reconstructed as the murderer jumps into the spotlight to give us a step-by-step account of

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his murderous rampage. A victim’s family cannot Exploit-a-child TV Relationship busting TV only watch an account of how the victim was Perhaps the reward for contestants should Perhaps we need more emotional turmoil and killed but simultaneously watch the murderer be something more valuable than a car; how graphic violence in our shows? Cheaters (USA) celebrate his deed and become something of a about an unborn child? Be My Baby (ABC News) sees TV producers hire private investigators to TV personality. follows a pregnant 16-year-old who puts her film unfaithful partners who are confronted and Due to poor ratings, Big Brother is calling it child up for adoption. Instead of documenting quickly put face to face with the person who a day in 2010 and audiences are going to want this event, ABC decided to turn it into a reality has been cheated on. Naturally, much violence ‘fresh meat’: a new format and new victims to game show where families audition and compete ensues and in one episode, the charismatic satisfy our voyeuristic demands. Maybe it should against each other to win the ‘trophy’. Thirty two presenter Joey Greco, manages to get himself have considered following in Germany’s footsteps million viewers watched as she handed over her stabbed. Now there’s a way to guarantee ratings. where their Big Brother production team hold newly born child in one hand and signed the This imploding of relationships on air is a the view that ten weeks in a house is simply adoption papers in the other. The exploitation tried and tested format. Fidelity Test (Brazil) not enough so built an entire village where and devaluation of human life is a theme that not sees suspicious partners set their lovers up in a contestants sign up for life: a real Truman Show only keeps reoccurring but becomes more and ‘honey trap’. This trap films whether their partner (1998) philosophy where surveillance is intrusive more controversial with each show. Programme will become intimate with someone when from the cradle to the grave. by programme, reality TV is testing the waters propositioned. Meanwhile, a live studio audience If Big Brother is dying a death then where will and straddling the line of decency. watches the bedroom antics on a big screen television look towards in order to fill this void? If you can win a child then why not a parent? along with the heartbroken other half. Surely How about Russia where endangering the public Who’s Your Daddy (USA) took a long-lost father, there are some real moral issues here; but seeing has real entertainment value? TV producers have put him amongst other actors and asked the these relationships disintegrate before your very teamed up with the police force on the streets contestant to guess who was their real father. eyes is both disturbing and very ‘moreish’. of to produce Interception (USSR), Coined ‘the Daddy of all game shows’, this ‘guess- which is a weekly, prime-time, hour-long show your-pa’ quiz show had ten series made though Bodyshock TV that challenges members of the public to steal only one was ever aired. The actors go out of Reality TV’s fascination with the human body a car and avoid being arrested for 45 minutes. their way to provide fatherly advice and construct is an area where no stone is left unturned. It is If they are not tracked down by the police (who profound emotional moments but all in all it is a medieval instinct that draws in the crowds use live ammunition), they win the car they have the television equivalent of dangling a paternal who want to see the gruesome, gory and down successfully stolen. Probably not the best use carrot in front of an orphan’s face. right wrong. It was somewhat of a mini hurdle of police resources or in the interest of public when this year’s Big Brother had contestants safety but it’s accepted as it’s all in the name of experiencing real pain through the administering entertainment. of electric shocks. Of course they had the option

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MM Before

After

not to participate; but this is still a significant step in a scary direction. This obsession with the human body is taken to the extreme with Anatomy For Beginners and Autopsy: Life and Death (Channel 4). The human body is preserved then cut and dissected into its individual parts in the name of anatomy. If we are currently airing human bodies after death then is it only a matter of time before we are airing Before an actual death on live television? With taboos becoming more widely accepted, are we running out of shocking things to address? Body makeover TV After Another cause for concern is the ideology underlying some of these ‘real’ situations. The future is Japanese Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (USA) will The real possible future of reality television demolish a house to the ground, start from though lies in the Japanese entertainment scratch and create a brand new house in its place. girl is a virgin. The show then follows the girl industry. Japanese reality television has taken ‘Well that’s not controversial’ I hear you mumble. in extreme detail as she loses her virginity. seedy exploitation to a new level where Maybe not; but how about applying the same Producers justify the show by claiming that it is a boundaries are pushed and acceptable television techniques to a face? The Swan (USA) takes three ‘documentary not extreme pornography’ but it is is questioned. With shows like Erotic Hypnosis ‘ugly ducklngs’ who undergo extensive plastic a show that stretches the boundaries of decency which sees members of the audience strip surgery and therapy to become a beautiful swan. more than any other. Ironically, this demonstrates and perform upon command, we can begin to These swans are then compared against each a loss of innocence in more ways than one, not understand the darker direction of this genre. other and the best one goes through to the just for the contestant but also for the reality Sky Television aired Being Miriam to final where they parade their plastic parts in a genre itself. something of a media maelstrom where male desperate attempt for recognition and approval. As the reality genre morphs into a shadow contestants competed for the chance to be The strange (or perhaps inevitable) thing though of its former self, it moves into previously Miriam’s boyfriend. Contestants were unaware is that, post-surgery, they all look the same as unexplored areas to provide us with edgy and that Miriam was still technically a man and each other and all unique beauty has diminished. groundbreaking entertainment, the result of post-broadcast, lawsuits were underway. Japan Equally, I Want A Famous Face (MTV) takes this being the exploitation of the insecure takes this one step further with Transexuals real people and follows them as they go under and the ridiculing of the ignorant. More In Transition where gentlemen are filmed the knife in order to look like their idols: cue and more institutions are able to sacrifice being intimate with a lady, only to find out she the creation of the freaky Brad Pitt twins. their responsibility of care for the sake of is in fact male. Perhaps it is a reflection of the These Frankenstein shows promote a seriously entertainment but as an audience apparently vast differences between our cultures when superficial message namely, if you are unhappy gripped by televisual controversy, do we care considering the values underpinning such shows. with yourself then get expensive surgery to sort enough to switch off? Reality TV in Japan has moved from prankster- you out. Accepting who you are is not an option related fun to what we would regard as ritual as that would not make great TV. Instead, it’s Richard Smith is a Media teacher at Herne Bay High School humiliation and degradation. This is reflected in more entertaining to see insecure people sliced in Kent. the most controversial of TV shows: The Virgin and diced in order to turn them into the plastic- Show (Japan), a weekly 2 hour-long programme wrapped versions of their former selves. that begins with contestants guessing which The Kobal Collection for The Truman Show image; Image.net for Make Me a Swan Truman Kobal Collection for The The

64 MediaMagazine | December 2009 | english and media centre xxx The acceptable face of torture? The case for classification

What’s at stake when 12A Hollywood blockbusters and popular peak-time BBC drama series show explicit scenes of torture? How far should children be exposed to images of violent interrogation, waterboarding or persecution? Media teacher and parent Vanessa Raison argues that we should perhaps be there is,’ she wistfully said he had agreed to do to stop isn’t me acting. interrogation measures observed. Danny Boyle’s the scene because he was The psychological ‘reflected, in my view, us thinking of new , hailed told by experts that it was a damage of doing that losing our moral bearings’. forms of classifying by critics as the ‘Feel-good ‘humane way of extracting to someone for even Casino Royale (12A) Movie of the Decade’ in its information without hurting a minute would be shows James Bond violent on-screen promotional sales pitch, people’. However, he said indescribable. being literally bollocked content. opens with the protagonist his view changed after his The Times 27.10.08 in a torture cell; sitting hanging from a rope and experience: Obama has published on a chair naked, he is Guantanamo Bay was being electrocuted from I was strapped to a the Bush administration’s flagellated from below. The allowed to exist outside UN the feet to ascertain how pallet and laid at an justification for BBFC justify the 12A rating Human Rights regulations he cheated in Who Wants angle with a cloth waterboarding. CIA sources because the blows are for seven years; Obama to Be a Millionaire. At placed over my mouth. have previously claimed off-screen; only the sound has had the moral sense least that film is a 15; but My arms and legs that waterboarding and effects suggest the violence; to begin the process of how much ‘harm’ is caused were tied, and we had other forms of torture have and Bond’s flippantly closing it down. In the by the representations of agreed a signal that saved lives because vital ironic remarks reduce the meantime, TV and film have torture in 12A films such when it became too information about terror impact of the violence. spawned torture sequences as Casino Royale and The much I would bang plots has been discovered. Writer and broadcaster and made torture as a Dark Knight? The need my arms on my legs. Obama, on the other John McCarthy, who was visual image acceptable. to protect children from You start to breathe in hand, argues that CIA held hostage in Lebanon In Spooks in 2008 Richard particularly disturbing and out, but when the Armitage was subjected to images is high on the water fills everywhere waterboarding. Jo Portman BBFC’s stated agenda, yet up it just hits you. It begged Adam Carter to a child of any age can see changed my opinion kill her and was left for those movies, provided completely. I realised dead after her horrific they are accompanied by that it really is a torture by mercenaries an adult. form of torture that who kidnapped her for During the Spooks shoot, shouldn’t be used. I onward sale to al Qaeda. Armitage was actually only lasted five to ten ‘Not torturing people is the waterboarded to ensure seconds, and the sound closest to a moral absolute authenticity. The actor, 37, of my voice crying out

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for five years, argues, hiding place of the District for torture apologists to watch the clown-masked violence and sustained however, that the sequence Attorney Harvey Dent and everywhere. villains casually murder threat.’ The trailer is a 12 ‘makes a mockery of the his girlfriend Rachel Dawes. John McCarthy one another in the opening and ‘Contains scenes of pain, humiliation, and The Joker here is flippant John Surnow, co-creator sequence. The slickness moderate personal threat degradation felt by the real and wins some sympathy of the thriller series 24, told of the ‘Wanna see a magic and violence’; this misleads victims of sexual assault.’ (Heath Ledger’s brilliantly an interviewer recently: trick? I can make this pencil the viewer as to the extent The torture scene in charismatic Joker won If there’s a bomb about disappear’ sequence, the of the sadistic violence in The Dark Knight, which Best Supporting Actor in to hit a major US city, neat dialogue, the three the film. originally derived from the Oscars this year) while and you have a person frames of the pencil on Tarantino’s infamous ear- a kids’ cartoon strip, was Batman is a grim-faced with information ... if the table, the accuracy of removal scene in Reservoir rated acceptable for a 12A bully beating a defenceless you don’t torture that the shot when the head Dogs choreographs the under the classification man. person, that would is thrust onto it, and the torture attractively to the ‘fantasy violence.’ Batman At 12A this clip seems to be one of the most absence of pencil is gob- upbeat soundtrack ‘Stuck our superhero abuses his condone torture as a means immoral acts of your smacking for a viewer in the Middle With You’, as power and uses surprise of extracting truth. life. of any age. There are no Michael Madson jokes and as a tactic to extract The ‘ticking-bomb’ The 12A rating is justified sound-effects of pain from dances round the police information from the Joker. scenario, in which by the proviso ‘fantasy the victim. Perhaps an officer before cutting off A bright light comes on torture is justified violence’; but the effect eight-year-old would miss his ear. The technique is in the cell and the Joker’s if there is a limited of this slickly-shot and the whole sequence. but the same as the torture head is slammed down period in which to edited film is a far cry from perhaps s/he would have sequence in Casino Royale; onto the table. Batman, prise from a suspect reading a DC Thompson nightmares. the sound-effects suggest revealed behind him, slams information to avert comic, and surely demands The DVD is a 12 and the ear being amputated a fist into the Joker’s face a catastrophe, is the a 15 classification. A parent carries the warning: without the viewer actually and punches his hand. argument of choice could take an eight-year-old ‘Contains strong fantasy seeing it since the camera The good men of Gotham looking on through the glass window visibly recoil and when Batman props a chair against the wall so that no-one can enter, the Commissioner seems unsure when he mutters, ‘He’s in control.’ Repeated high angle blows goaded by the Joker splatter blood on the white tiled walls and lead to a confession of the

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pans away to a fixed shot Millionaire in National find it difficult, if not of the warehouse wall. The Schools Film Week, said of impossible, to witness difference is that this once- the opening sequence: on screen images of the controversial sequence is We thought of it as deliberate infliction of in a film aimed at an older comic. In India the pain by one individual audience and that had been scene is not considered on another. classified 18. offensive. In the West it John McCarthy The BBFC sticks rigidly is greeted with silence. And perhaps the 12A to its guidelines, Die In India there is a lot classification doesn’t work. Hard is a 15 because of of censorship you have As Iain Duncan Smith stated ‘repeated blows’. At 12A the to obey when filming in a letter to The Times on violence ‘must not dwell ... but the police the 5.08.08 about The Dark on details. There should be interrogation is fine Knight: no emphasis on blood or because nobody above There is no way that injuries’, ‘easily accessible the rank of Inspector a parent could have weapons should not be is involved...India is a been guided by the glamorised’, ‘sustained democracy but you can classification and moderate threat and walk round and see realised what they menace are permitted’ handcuffs and leather were about to see. Parents now need to and ‘mature themes are whips being used in the preview 12A films before acceptable, but their prisons. taking their kids. Or treatment must be suitable Is torture the latest trick perhaps we should bring for young teenagers.’ There to sell films? John McCarthy back the 12 category for is as yet no category for (who was captured by film as well as DVD. If we torture, for the depiction Islamic Jihad in Beirut and ‘relish for depicting the soldier admitted he and his have a classification system, of what McCarthy calls, ‘the imprisoned in solitary for darker side of human colleagues in Iraq copied we need one that parents twisted delight of inflicting two months and then held nature’ and ...’ it is interrogation techniques can trust. pain’ and the damage that in a tiny cell shared with becoming increasingly learned from television. might cause young people. Brian Keenan for four years) clear that what we Whether the depiction Vanessa Raison is Head of of torture reflects or As representations certainly thinks so. enjoy as entertainment Media Studies, Camden School shapes the world in dictates human behaviour, of violent interrogation Torture scenes have for Girls. become more prevalent become prized which we live. I think the issue should in society around us, are ammunition in the US Army Brigadier be assessed in a separate we being desensitised to battle of the box office General Patrick Finnegan category by the BBFC. the immorality of torture? and the television met the producers of It has been 16 years Danny Boyle, introducing ratings war. Film- 24 to suggest they tone since I regained my the screening of Slumdog makers now have a down the content. One US freedom, but I still

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