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FEBRUARY 2010: THE ISSUE M M MediaMagazine

edia agazine Menglish and media centre issue 31 | februaryM 2010

Superheroes Dexter english and media centremedia and english Aliens Dystopia Apocalypses | issue 31 | february 2010 february | 31 issue |

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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 courses for teachers. If you’re studying English at A Level, look out e thought our last issue, on Reality, was one of our best yet, for emagazine, also published by Wbut this Fantasy-themed edition is just as inspired. Perhaps the Centre. our curiosity about the real and our fascination with fantasy are two sides of the same coin … The English and Media Centre 18 Compton Terrace By way of context, Annette Hill explores the factors behind N1 2UN our current passion for the afterlife and the paranormal, while Telephone: 020 7359 8080 Chris Bruce suggests ways of investigating fantasy across media Fax: 020 7354 0133 platforms from an examiner’s perspective and Jerome Monahan provides an Email for subscription enquiries: illustrated history of fantasy at the movies via Jung, the Gothic and the ghost story. [email protected] We have a volley of vampires from Buffy to ’s Bill, by way of Let The Right One In, and some persuasive and chilling accounts of how they represent real world Managing Editor: Michael Simons prejudices and fears. In a cluster of superhero articles, Matt Freeman explores the Editor: Jenny Grahame cultural significance of Superman, while Steph Hendry unpicks the ideologies of Editorial assistant/admin: superheroes and their relevance in a post-9/11 world – and identifies the world’s Rebecca Scambler first superheroic serial-killer. And if you want to explore the dream-like fantasy of the graphic novel, Andrew Webber’s introduction to the world of ’s Sandman Design: Sam Sullivan & Jack Freeman Artwork production: Sparkloop and DC Vertigo is an inspirational place to start. Print: S&G Group Elsewhere, the allegorical meanings of aliens and apocalypses are analysed by James Rose, Mark Ramey and Emma-Louise Howard. Chris Budd provides a really ISSN: 1478-8616 useful overview of the impact of music on the horror genre – a must-read if you’re Cover image: from Hansel & Gretel (2007) researching or producing practical work in the genre. And there’s plenty more to d: Pil-Sung Yim; courtesy of image.net stretch the imagination. Finally, if you’re about to prepare for your OCR A2 exam, you can’t afford to miss Pete Fraser’s essential tips for writing about your production work in relation to critical theory. And if you have access to our website, his blog is a brilliant source of How to subscribe clips, ideas and debate to fuel your revision and pump up your creative ideas. Four issues a year, published Our theme next issue is Humour – so hopefully we’ll be seeing less blood and September, December, late February hearing more laughs – which might cheer us all up in the run-up to the exams. and late April. And looking further ahead, our themes for the following two issues are likely to be Change and Creativity, so if you have any relevant ideas, experiences, inspiration, or Centre print-only subscription: artwork do mail them to [email protected] £29.95 2 year option: £49.90 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 | February 2010 | english and media centre MM contents

Front Page News The Legacy of Superheroes: the Recent news, views, reviews and Metropolis The imagery Impact of 9/11 Steph 04 previews. 30 of Fritz Lang’s 1927 silent 48 Hendry explores the ways The OCR A2 Critical dystopian masterpiece has Hollywood has reinterpreted the influenced countless science- ideologies of superhero Perspectives Chief fiction and fantasy movies. in the light of the War against Examiner Pete Fraser guides you 06 Jennifer Stakes discusses its Terror. through the demands of this ideology and legacy. new paper. From the Dawn of Jaws vs Alien: Man to Dawn of the Dental Nightmares Dead and Beyond: 32 Mark Ramey compares two 08 movies from opposite end of a Fantasy Film the fantasy spectrum, sci-fi Timeline Jerome Monahan and horror, linked by common traces the development of themes – not least, teeth... Neil Gaiman, The fantasy and its symbolic Sandman, and representations of society’s 53 Vertigo – the HBO anxieties from pre-history to the of Comics Andrew Webber nasties of the Noughties. explains why the comics and Dating the graphic novels of Neil Gaiman Dead: Our Love remain amongst the most 14 Affair with the inspirational fantasies ever told. Paranormal Professor Dexter: Annette Hill explores one of the 21st-Century Hero weirdest media phenomena of 58 for a 21st-Century recent years: tales of the afterlife. Audience Can a serial killer From Angel to District 9: Not So really be a hero? Steph Hendry argues that for his moral clarity Bill: The Decade- Emma- Alien After All and honesty, Dexter deserves Long Evolution of Louise Howard considers Neil 17 35 that title. TV Vampires They’re Blomkamp’s starkly realistic everywhere these days – and South African sci-fi movie and its Reading the they’re becoming increasingly significance as an allegory. Apocalypse In the light ‘humanised’. Emma-Louise Looking for Eric: 61 of global pandemics, James Howard investigates changing Rose re-evaluates the history representations of the Fantasy Meets and development of post- Social Realism Ken and what they reveal about 39 apocalyptic narratives. contemporary society. Loach’s films are venerated for their uncompromising politics and gritty realism; so how come he’s made a feel-good fantasy with Eric Cantona? Owen Davey is enthralled. Blindness: That’s Entertainment? Nick 41 Lacey reccommends a bleakly distressing fantasy movie for Music in Horror Chris Revisioning the Budd explores the use of the Vampire: Letting its insights into the power of human collaboration. musical score in the horror 64 21 the Right One In genre – and finds it has parallels A study of loneliness, a for All Time: with the development of paranormal love story or a The Eternal Appeal experimental music. powerful reworking of European 43 of the Superhero In mythology? Sean Richardson the midst of Hollywood’s current Cross-media debates the meanings and craze with the comic book crime Fantasy: Harper’s magic of Let The Right One In. fighter, Matt Freeman explores 66 Island and Harper’s Understanding the cultural significance of Globe How do you widen Superman... the audience demographic of a Chris Bruce Fantasy TV show appealing to an older unpicks some definitions of, and Cartoon Goom reveals the 25 age-group? You create an online theories about, fantasy from an secrets of Hollywood make-up. sister version, obviously. Duncan examiner’s perspective. 46 Yeates explains.

english and media centre | February 2010 | MediaMagazine 3 Free Realms the worlds of Beowulf and grasp of any young person The new sensation of the A Christmas Carol, already possessing a mobile phone internet gaming world, with condemned for rendering or digital camera and with front page three million users in its first their perfectly serviceable access to editing tools now year, and a focus on whole- actors as horrible shades of standard on computers. news family participation, Free themselves. http://www. Witness director Shane Realms (by Sony Online arclight.net/~pdb/nonfic- This is Meadows Entertainment) allows play- tion/uncanny-valley.html who clocked up dozens of Advertising participation, and claims ers to be, and do what they zero-budget shorts before (Re) Touching beauty that this element of the want, in a fantastic virtual New technology getting green-lit to direct The ways fashion game was out of keeping world (www.FreeRealms. and social something conventionally. magazines and Sunday with the rest of it – sug- com). The game is rated networking His message is that today supplements distort and gesting it may have been for players over 10, and Scams and security you don’t have to wait manipulate images to serve inserted partly to generate includes in-built controls to On-going concerns for permission to make a up an endless succession the sort of publicity the BBC keep its social networking about the dangers of social film. In the last six months, of impossibly beautiful were giving it. The coverage elements safe. The game’s networking for young uploads from mobile people selling us impos- included interviews with anthem is performed by people are addressed by phones to YouTube have sible lifestyles at impossible fans, one of whom admitted the band The Dares, who a number of new projects jumped 1,700%; with a prices has been exposed to having booked himself a recently won a Guinness from Learning. 400% jump in the week the online at DeTouch (http:// week’s holiday in order to Record for being the first Smokescreen is a 13-part new iPhone was launched. www.detouch.org/). Here play it – dedication above band to perform simultane- web-literacy game requir- YouTube suggest that a you can see some of the and beyond the call of duty! ously both live and virtu- ing players to uncover a major contributor to this tricks and cheats used in http://news.bbc.co.uk/ ally online in Free Realms, mystery on a fictional social exponential growth is their photographic publishing, today/hi/today/news- an online environment: network site. As players new feature which allows and what those picture id_8351000/8351759.stm http://www.youtube. unfold the plot so they contributors to share their perfect models looked like com/watch?v=hzHcZd_ learn about the real dangers videos through social net- before the touch-up art- F1Lo&feature=related information sharing can works. ist got involved. Drawing expose people to: http:// http://www.nsfw.org/ on a number of online www.smokescreengame. Long-playing YouTube sources, this site uses an com/ For The Science of In 2010 YouTube will open source tool called Scams, C4L have recruited be one of the key sites Processing to compare the Derren Brown to host a new to search for full-length images pixel by pixel and web show which seeks to programmes. Late last year generate visualizations of expose some of the tricks a new Shows section of the alterations. used by so-called paranor- 5,000 videos totalling over Coming soon is Cover mal practitioners: http:// 3,000 hours was unveiled Girl – an online game www.scienceofscams. (of which almost 4,000 were designed for Channel 4 com/ full-length programmes) Education where you can Lost without my from over 60 partners. manipulate images to cre- Missing out Uncanny Valley – mobile The section will feature an ate the sorts of de-wrinkled, If you don’t play games, games and learning The mobile phone’s role increasing store of Channel un-cellulited, demi-god you’re not just missing This term, coined in all our lives is analysed in 4 productions thanks to a models that people our out, you’re wilfully by Japanese roboticist a recent four-country study. recently announced col- magazines. Hopefully such ignoring the most rap- Masahiro Mori, encapsu- And while mobiles are now laboration between the exposure to the tricks of idly evolving creative lates the disquiet generated ‘essential’, it’s not for calling two companies. Full-length trade will render the end medium in human by encounters with avatars people that young people programmes available results far less desirable. history and robots – a discomfort (18-32) rely on them. In the through the Shows sec- says the irreverent cul- said to increase in propor- UK, the survey uncovered tion include: Peep Show, Games tural commentator Charlie tion to their apparent real- how 11% of respondents Derren Brown, Dead Killing innocents or Brooker in . ism. Research underway never use their mobiles for Ringers, The Day of the not – your choice Read it for his hilarious at Princeton suggests that this purpose. The multi- Triffids, This is Dom Joly The recent launch of Call description of the chal- our heebie-jeebies may functionality of mobiles (all BBC Worldwide), Adult of Duty Modern Warfare 2 lenges keen gamers face well be hard-wired into our came in for scrutiny with Swim (Turner Broadcasting), was hugely publicised (see in ‘tutoring’ a non-gaming evolution; in experiments one in ten of those sur- ITN News (ITN), Guinness Pete Fraser’s MediaMag relative or partner, and for Macaque monkeys have veyed using their phones World Records, He-Man December blog), including its eclectic list of beginner- proved to be hugely suspi- to browse the web, nearly (Classic Media), Baywatch a six-minute slot on Radio friendly games. Here you cious of avatars of them- four-in-ten taking photos (FremantleMedia), World 4’s Today programme. will find Grand Theft Auto selves: http://webscript. (38% of respondents), fol- Rally Championship (North The debate centred on a IV described as ‘satire’ and princeton.edu/~asifg/ lowed jointly by browsing One), The Listening Post, controversial third level Left 4 Dead celebrated as projects.php. One theory the web and playing games The Fabulous Picture Show sequence in which, in role a ‘fun’ ‘bonding experience’ is that anything looking (22%) and sending a photo (both Al Jazeera), and oth- as a deep-cover CIA agent, for participants. The article like them but not quite or video (18%). ers. All programmes will be you can decide whether or also signals the arrival of acting naturally is poten- http://www.lightspeed- available free-of-charge. not to become an active games reviews in the G2 tially sick and should thus research.com/pdf/lsr_pr_ Where the content owner participant in a terrorist section of the paper. http:// be avoided. Bad news for meandmymobile.pdf has enabled this, the attack on an airport. This www.guardian.co.uk/ Robert Zemeckis whose And mobiles have now programmes will be sup- raises issues about the dif- technology/2009/dec/11/ latest films use motion cap- placed film production ported by advertising. In ference between screen charlie-brooker-i-love- ture animation to render up and exhibition within the recent months YouTube has violence and this kind of videogames

4 MediaMagazine | February 2010 | english and media centre introduced features that • The BBC4 adaptation choosing and securing 5th March: Case 39, a 16th April: More historic enhance the YouTube expe- of HG Wells’ scientific places at secondary school Renee Zellweger vehicle horrors in City of Life and rience for those watching romance The First Men in for their children. Also look (http://www.imdb.com/ Death with a depiction of longer videos. This includes the Moon opens in July out for The Perfect School title/tt0795351/) – a the rape and massacre of the option to view them 1969 and, as the world in which education expert tale of a social the people of Nankin in in HD where the original waits with bated breath Dylan William will be set- worker saving a child from 1937 a film likely both to upload file is of sufficient for news of the Apollo 11 ting up an experimental seeming abuse only to dis- raise questions about what quality. astronauts, a young boy classroom in a secondary cover that the little girl in it is appropriate to repre- meets 90-year-old Julius school. Across one term, we question may not quite be sent on film and to provoke Small Screen Bedford (Rory Kinnear) are told: the victim she appears... a backlash from those in TV drama highlights: who tells an extraordinary he will be putting to Watch out for strong histori- story of two men’s journey the test some of the cal themes: to the moon, way back in most forward-thinking • BBC2 revisits the 1980s 1909. and innovative ideas with an adaptation of • A similar air of nostalgia designed to revolu- Martin Amis’s cult 80s also hangs over one tionise the standard of novel, Money starring of ITV’s first big drama education and the well- Nick Frost (Hot Fuzz, Shaun projects for 2010 – a new being of school children Of The Dead) as flabby adaptation of Agatha in this country. anti-hero, John Self in ‘a Christie’s Murder on the fable of greed and flawed Orient Express with a Film ambition’. stellar international cast Fantasy and historic • Royal Wedding, a new including David Suchet as horrors drama by Bafta award- the famous Belgian detec- February 12th: winning writer Abi tive, Hercule Poirot. Anonyma: A Woman In Morgan, set in a small Berlin comes covered in Welsh village against the Documentary: exam- international festival glory. backdrop of the much- ined life It is a tale of survival of one celebrated marriage of Family life is the factual of the estimated two million Lady Diana Spencer to the focus across the four BBC German women raped by Prince of Wales in 1981. channels: motherhood; Russian troops at the end of • The Secret Diaries of Miss fatherhood; growing up the Second World War – a Anne Lister, featuring and education. Two series crime that until recently Maxine Peake (Shameless, stand out: My Child Hates has gone unacknowledged Criminal Justice, Little Me, charting the stories of in Germany and Russia. Dorrit) as the Yorkshire two families coping with Read more at: http://www. landowner, industrial- an aggressive child, sup- guardian.co.uk/film/2009/ ist, traveller and diarist, ported by the work of the nov/26/anonyma-a-wom- 1791-1840, a lesbian who, family therapy teams who an-in-berlin. Also Battle for despite hiding her sexual- try to rebuild parent/child Terra, first screened in 2007, ity from society at large, relationships shaped by is an unusual animated sci-fi 12th March: The Girl Japan who are still in denial defied the conventions years of violent and anti- tale in which human beings with the Dragon Tattoo, a about what happened: of her times by living social behaviour; and My are the villains as they Swedish thriller based on http://www.imdb.com/ with her female lover Child Won’t Speak, featur- set about terra-forming a the bestselling novel by name/nm1283651/ and keeping a detailed ing three young girls with planet and so provoke bit- the late Swedish author Front Page News is compiled account of her life, loves a rare emotional disorder, ter conflict with its formerly and journalist Stieg Larsson and emotions. known as selective mutism. peace-loving inhabitants. http://en.wikipedia.org/ by Jerome Monahan. The programme follows Expect toleration and eco- wiki/Stieg_Larsson, the the girls as they struggle to sensitive messages: http:// first in his ‘Millennium overcome their phobia and uk.imdb.com/video/imd- Trilogy’. speak to people other than blink/vi1562314009 19th March: Season their parents for the first February 26th: The of the Witch brings more time in years. BBC2 will be Black Death is the first of 14th-century bubonic contributing several films two films in this round-up anxiety with Nicolas Cage about education including concerned with medieval as a monk responsible for Catchment, following the horrors, monks and magic. transporting pretty-yet- struggles families face when Crazies, a re-make of a 1973 evil young women across Georgio Romero horror plague-ridden Europe. classic, brings the apoca- 2nd April: It’s a lypse up-to-date with a tale Wonderful Afterlife direct- of a community made mad ed by Gurinder Chadha cen- by the accidental release tres on an Indian mother of a deadly toxin. http:// who takes her obsession www.imdb.com/title/ with marriage into the tt0455407/ world of serial murder: http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/It’s_a_Wonderful_ Afterlife

english and media centre | February 2010 | MediaMagazine 5 MM

how to write reflectively about your production work

You’ve done the course, you’ve done What do you have to do? task, and you had to undertake research, planning and post-production in order to make your coursework; now you’ve made The basics: you have two questions, each of which is worth 25 marks, each requiring half your products. The one you might not have had it through to the exam, and you an hour of exam-time. Between them, this is a to consider before is creativity – a big one in find you’ve got to talk about your significant proportion (12.5%) of the marks for relation to your work as a whole. the whole A Level, so you need to do a good job! How creative do you think you’ve been? Has a coursework yet again – what’s going set menu of tasks made it easier to be creative on? Well, this article is designed to Question 1a or would you have preferred a free choice on The first question asks you to consider the what you could make? Were you pinned down help you through it, no matter which whole of your practical work: too much by the task, or did it free you up to be tasks you may have done for your – your preliminary task at AS (e.g. the college creative within the boundaries of the task? magazine or the continuity sequence for film) Where does creativity come from? And what does practicals. And it comes straight from – and your main task (for example the film creativity mean anyway? the Chief Examiner Pete Fraser – opening or the music magazine) So how do you go about answering this first – and your main A2 task (such as the music question? so read and learn! video or film trailer) – and your A2 ancillary tasks (such as the Three essential tips for digipack and magazine advert or the film question 1a magazine cover and film poster). 1. Plan and prepare before the exam. There It can also include things you have produced is a limit to what can be asked. It can only be outside the course, such as production work a combination of two of the five things in the in other subjects like Film Studies, Art or list, and some combinations are more likely Photography, or even things you’ve just made for than others (like Digital technology + any other, fun, like a video on YouTube. or Creativity + any other). You’ll be asked to For this question, you have to consider consider how your skills have developed across how you have developed as a maker of media your work, so you should be prepared to talk products across your work. The question is all about everything you have done. You’ve only about skills and gets you to think about what got half an hour, which limits how much you you have learnt. You’ll be asked to focus in can say – so you must make everything count. particular on one or two from the following list: In advance, identify examples from your work • Digital technology which you can adapt to different questions. • Creativity 2. Consider the mark scheme. There are 10 • Research and planning marks for explanation, analysis and argument, • Post-production 10 marks for use of examples and 5 marks • Using conventions from real media texts for terminology. So even a brilliant piece Now four of these will be familiar from work at of argument will only score 10/25 if it isn’t AS and A2, where you were asked about digital supported by examples and doesn’t use media technology and conventions in the evaluation terms or language.

6 MediaMagazine | February 2010 | english and media centre MM 3. Think about where you are at the end of the might sound like a difficult one, but actually it’s a 1b Explain how you used course and what you have learnt in other areas bit of a catch-all concept: you can consider all the conventional and/or experi- of it. You’re not just giving an account of what specific technical features of your text, such as mental narrative approaches you did, but you’re sitting back and reflecting camerawork, editing, page layout or fonts. upon it in the light of all your learning. The mark scheme for question 1b is organised in one of your production We will come back to how to approach the in the same way as for 1a, so bear that in mind pieces. question at the end. when considering the balance of your answer. For this question you will need to select the piece which will work the best. Let’s imagine you Question 1b What might this look like in picked your music video. You can make some The second question is more specific. For this practice? general points about how music videos work one you need to take one of your projects (again Let’s consider what you might do to answer and that they don’t need to tell a story, though it could be something you have made outside the questions on creativity and digital technology sometimes they do use narrative; then home course, but it would probably be more sensible to for 1a and narrative for 1b (as in the sample in on your production to talk about what you stick with something major that you’ve discussed paper). decided to do with it. in class) and do an analysis of it in relation to If you’d done the film opening for AS and the A very brief account of the video, the artist, the one of the major concepts you will have been music video package for A2, what might you genre of music would suffice before you get into considering on the course. Again there is a list of write? Here is a possible structure for the answer your analysis. You certainly need to consider the concepts, any one of which could come up, so to each question. idea of structure and how you chose to organise you’ll need to be sure that either the project you the music video if not through a chronological know you’re going to choose to write about can 1a In your experience, how narrative. This would give you the opportunity to be analysed in relation to any of the concepts or has your creativity developed consider how far a narrative structure emerges that you have more than one project you could through using digital from it: use, depending on which concept comes up. The technology to complete your • What governs the beginning, middle and end? list is: Is it the music? Or the performance? Or is there productions? a story? • Genre Introduction • How have you played with time and space in • Narrative Explain the tasks you have done across the A the video? • Representation Level, and mention anything made outside the • How will the audience have understood it? • Audience course to which you intend to reference. There is not a single right answer here: • Media Language Main paragraphs whatever you write will need to be justified So, for example, if genre comes up and you did Start by writing about the technology you and explained with close reference to your the music magazine task, you’ll have plenty to have used, with some reflections on how you production. You will also need to consider it discuss, since your magazine must in some way got to grips with it initially, and where you went in relation to other examples that you have have made use of the conventions of the genre of from there. So you might discuss: your editing seen, to show how you either followed or broke music magazines. package, the camera, the blogging site you used, conventions. But it won’t simply be a matter of checking YouTube, Photoshop for A2 print work, and so on. It is also important to remember that the off your magazine’s features against a list; the You might make some observations about how categories which are not wholly discrete. Genre question will want you to go a little further and easy it is to get used to technology these days, will overlap with narrative and both will overlap delve a little deeper to consider the importance particularly for young people who have access with the concept of the audience, so don’t worry or significance of genre. to it outside of an educational setting. Refer about your response spilling over; that’s perfectly Likewise, if the concept is narrative, and specifically to how you used the technology in acceptable. you’ve done a film trailer, you might consider particular tasks. Just keep coming back to what is required in how far a trailer gives a sense of a film’s narrative Now open up the question of creativity: what the mark scheme: and how much you choose to reveal in yours as does it mean to you, and where have your ideas – explanation, analysis and argument are worth part of promoting the film. What you don’t want about creativity come from? What do other 10 marks per question to do is apply some theory like Todorov’s to try people say about what creativity might mean? – examples are worth 10 to prove that your film follows a pattern. The How have the tasks themselves encouraged – use of terminology is worth 5. task should be seen as an opportunity really to creativity? Refer to examples from what you have Make sure you do all of these and you will not reflect on how your chosen project actually done. go far wrong. Remember, it’s your production works as a text. Conclusion work you will be writing about, so you should You are also encouraged to use ideas which Finally, try to bring together these strands know about it! you have encountered in relation to Part 2 of the – technology and creativity – to answer the exam. A study of postmodernism might cast question. Here you might refer to ways in which Pete Fraser is Head of Media Studies at Long Road Sixth some light on issues around genre or narrative the technology has also allowed you to develop Form College, Cambridge, and is Chief Examiner for OCR which you could bring in to your answer. Or if you other skills – teamwork, organisation, planning, Media Studies A Level. He is author of Teaching Music have worked on collective identity, you might research, negotiation. You might finish by Video and Teaching Digital Video Production, BFI and is well be able to use some points if representation opening up to a wider conclusion – that digital MediaMag’s blogger. is the concept which comes up. technology has given media consumers the The key, again, is to be prepared but also to opportunity to become media producers too – be flexible. It would be a big mistake to pin all particularly via web distribution, and that this, your hopes on one particular concept coming up in turn, has allowed creative comment in wider to enable you to use a particular project in your communities such as YouTube. answer. Think seriously about which concepts fit each project and give you the chance to talk about what you know and plan for the exam accordingly. If Audience were to come up, you’d be able to talk both about how you targeted an audience for your product, but also about what response you’ve actually had from audiences – even down to how many YouTube hits. Media language

english and media centre | February 2010 | MediaMagazine 7 MM

Jerome Monahan traces the Spielberg’s priority in creating Jaws (1975) was is beyond the scope of this article to prove or almost certainly not to create a ‘Watergate’ film; disprove how far such an urge is a fundamental development of fantasy and its but its depiction of expedient and ultimately human inclination – do tribes-people in Borneo symbolic representations of society’s flawed local politicians covering up unpalatable ‘yearn for the fantastic’ in the same way Western news of a great white shark from their community film audiences might? It’s unlikely. And while anxieties from pre-history to the resonated loud and clear with American audiences there may be some very primitive forces at work nasties of the Noughties. still stunned by the resignation of President here, such a blanket dismissal of the relationship Richard Nixon due to his involvement in dirty between moments in history and the horrors and To the purist, fantasy cinema is a discrete genre tricks and corruption. Of course, the film grossed anxieties expressed in fantasy cinema risks missing – one that combines aspects of fairy-tale, folk lore close on half a billion dollars because of its a key means of understanding these powerful, and magical imagined worlds resulting in such (then) unusual story, superbly ratcheted tension, compelling narratives. It is their resonance with films as The Wizard of Oz (1939) or The Lord of the and occasional leap-from-the-seat shocks; but in which they are made which, in part, Rings trilogy (2001-3). Such clear-cut definitions it was also in touch with its times, and with a explains their continuing popularity. often end with the declaration that, while fantasy prevailing cynicism about elected authority. In There are many factors that could determine is usually considered separate from horror and the end it is perhaps significant that the beast or impact on the content of films at any given science-fiction, there are significant overlaps. Take is not defeated by anything mobilised officially moment in their 115-year history. This timeline a brief glance at the decade-by-decade Wikipedia by Amity Island’s council. Salvation comes in the could just as easily have charted the impact of list of fantasy films: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ shape of three mavericks – the sheriff, the scientist technological developments on the cinema List_of_fantasy_films and it becomes very clear and the old sea-salt. In fact, the final showdown of the fantastic or the work of specific directors how big those overlaps can be. is a duel between lawman and monster – a (Whale; Tourneur; Hitchcock; etc.) or perhaps The great thing about ‘fantasy’ films (for the comforting celebration of rugged individualism (a changes in audience tastes – and indeed all purposes of this timeline assumed to take in quintessentially American virtue so often reflected these will be referred to along the way. Of course, horror, suspense, and sci-fi) – is that at their best in its popular fictions). such influences could be applied to any genre, they are always symbolic. At times where direct All well and good, but it might just be that our but it is the contention here that charting the engagement with society’s cultural, political and project is fatally flawed from the outset. Carlos links between the underlying stresses and strains sexual fault-lines on-screen is either impossible Clarens, in his classic Illustrated History of Horror in society and fantasy films is a particularly rich due to censorship or audience resistance, their and Science-Fiction 1895-1965, writes: enterprise, and one with the potential to spark presence can be detected in the sub-text of the It would be logical to suppose that troubled off multiple lines of enquiry for Media and Film best fantasy films. Such movies are frequently art is born out of troubled times. But it would students. dismissed as impoverished or immature fare be wrong to be that simple or systematic about it. Image.net, the Kobal Collection, the BFI Picture Library, Channel 4 Press compared to more ‘respectable’ genres; and yet Site and images from: Tis Pity She’s a Whore Southwark Playhouse, 2006 what this timeline hopes to establish is that they Clarens’ view is that horror and fantasy have d. Joanna Morgan, photo credit Clive Barda; The Revenger’s Tragedy, are often profoundly hardwired into the anxieties their roots in far more potent ahistorical (non- Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester Photo credit: Jonathan Keenan; The time-specific) ground, namely a: Changeling at the Liverpool Everyman Playhouse, November 2007 Photo of their times. credit Stephen Vaughan; The Revenger’s Tragedy staged at the Royal Whether or not directors and producers …yearning for the fantastic, for the darkly National Theatre 2008 © Johan Persson www.perssonphotography. deliberately intend to layer in these ideological mysterious, for the choked terror of the dark. com; The Changeling and The Duchess of Malfi courtesy of Cheek by Jowl Theatre Company Ltd dimensions is neither here nor there. Steven All very poetic indeed; but it will not do. It

Pre-history 1900 BC to circa 1125 BC 8 AD 450 AD -1066 AD

Pre-history 1900 BC to circa 1125 BC 8 AD 450 AD -1066 AD

8 MediaMagazine | February 2010 | english and media centre MM Pre-history this timeline are also a challenge: you could try to 1789 fill them for yourself! Having argued for the specificity of the horrors First there was Paul Philidor who created what and anxieties found in fantasy cinema, this may have been the first true phantasmagoria timeline begins with the metaphysical notion of 8AD show – a combination of séance parlour Ovid completes work on his huge work of ‘the collective unconscious’. The term coined by tricks and magic lantern projection effects. poetry The Metamorphoses. In this 15- volume the founder of analytical psychology Carl Jung Etienne-Gaspard Robert, a Belgian inventor and work he collects together some 250 tales of Greek (1875-1961) refers to the existence in us all of physicist, was also known for his phantasmagorical and Roman mythology. The stories are filled with shared dreams and symbols. These archetypes, productions. In 1797 he took his show to Paris, grotesque transformations, hybrid creatures and argued Jung, find their expression in the world’s where the atmosphere in the post-revolutionary grim punishments. For example, there’s the story mythologies and religions. It is perhaps (post-Terror) city was perfect for his elaborate of Actaeon changed to a deer for staring at the because of the collective unconscious that certain creations. In the abandoned refectory of a goddess Diana as she bathed. His fate: to be torn nightmare creatures – such as the vampire – crop Capuchin convent in Paris, he staged hauntings, apart by his own hunting dogs. Ovid injects his up widely throughout the world’s cultures. Could using several magic lanterns and associated tales with good humour too, but his irreverence it be that at some very primitive level we retain special sound effects effectively terrifying his lands him in trouble and he is eventually banished a memory of the fear of the dark, and of the audiences. from Rome by the Emperor Augustus. creatures that terrorised our earliest ancestors? 1796 1900BC to circa 1125BC 450-1066 The Monk by Matthew Gregory Lewis is The Dark Ages following the collapse of the The approximate era of the Mycenaean far from the first (or last) Gothic novel but it is Roman Empire. We should no longer really call culture in Southern Greece. The Mycenaeans first perhaps the most extreme in its catalogue of them this, but for the purposes of this timeline it tell the tales of men, monsters and gods that will horrors and human suffering. A strong strain seems apt: the period’s upheavals and population survive through to the second flowering of Greek of anti-Catholic sentiment runs through these movements which spread Germanic mythology civilisation under the great City States – Athens, stories with their scenes of medieval tortures and provide the origins of many of our contemporary Thebes, Crete and Sparta. Writing in a recent novel torments perpetrated by utterly remorseless nuns horrors: the witches, giants and dragons that The Hidden, author Tobias Hill points out: and priests. Others such as Horace Walpole’s The continue to populate our fantasy cinema. that to understand a people one must only Castle of Otranto (1764) – the progenitor of the comprehend its gods and monsters. genre – are also distinctly critical of aristocratic The word ‘monster’ derives from the Latin 1066-1500 despotism and injustice, which Protestant Britain The so-called Middle Ages, and the birth of ‘monstrum’ – a warning, but the link relates complacently regarded as principally a problem Gothic architecture and art. The disasters and well to Greek mythology in which messages from affecting its European rivals. cruelties of the times include The Black Death the gods often come in the shape of monsters. (1348-50) and general infant and maternal In other words, argues Hill, the monster is the 1816 mortality; witch hunts and frequent warfare with message. Their role is uniform: the monster Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, aged 18, meets their attendant massacres and calamities. These chastises the one ‘who wanders too far or her lover (and later husband) Percy Bysshe Shelley, events ‘enrich’ Europe’s folklore, which spreads and wonders too much’. The punishment meted out and Lord Byron at the Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva evolves through longstanding oral storytelling to Prometheus by Zeus for stealing fire for man in Switzerland and unleashes two of the most traditions. is typically cruel – condemning him to have his enduring ‘monsters’ of the modern era, later to liver eaten on a daily basis by a giant eagle. In the be endlessly interpreted in horror films. A ghost- 1962 drama the Eagle, 1580-1640 writing competition provokes Mary Shelley to Elizabethan and Jacobean horrors find Peter Wyngarde’s arrogantly sceptical academic create a fragment of what will later be the novel expression in the period’s popular theatre. is terrorised by just such a creature; the film has Frankenstein (1818). Another member of the Witches and ghosts both enjoy spectacularly arguably borrowed from this mythological source. party – Dr. John Polidori – goes on to write The influential expression in Shakespeare – Richard Its message is clear: to understand modern Vampyre (1819) creating a creature possibly based III, and Macbeth in particular. The sadism monsters you need to know their prototypes in on his patron Byron. Until then vampires had been and bloodshed in many of the period’s tragedies mythology. Forgive the Euro-centric focus; while rather smelly folkloric creatures, as happy to feast also have modern equivalents. Vindice’s exquisite most world cultures boast rich mythologies on animal blood as human. Now the vampire vengeance in The Revenger’s Tragedy (1607) – and folklore which find expression in their own as mesmerising aristocrat has arrived. Cinema’s poisoning his lover’s murderer by getting him to national cinema, there is no space here to draw of Frankenstein’s creature will be unkind kiss her poisoned skull – has an ornate quality as these additional threads. The fact that certain key – choosing to depict an inarticulate brute instead inventive as any of the tortures perpetrated by narrative ingredients crop up in such stories the of Mary Shelley’s highly articulate and well-read Jigsaw in the Saw franchise (2004 to date). world over is one possible defence. The gaps in man of many body-parts.

1590 - 1640 1796 1816 1825

1590 - 1640 1796 1816 1825

english and media centre | February 2010 | MediaMagazine 9 MM

1960

10 MediaMagazine | February 2010 | english and media centre MM 1825 moment special effects cinema is born. The first 1930 The House of the Devil (1896) and the The Brothers Grimm publish their collection In an effort to avoid government controls, the first sci-fi movie La Voyage Dans La Lune (1902) of German fairy stories in a small illustrated US film industry develops The Production Code are both his creations. Eventually his spectacular volume aimed at children. Previous editions had – also called The Hayes Code. In part this was a productions fall out of favour and he goes bust. been very scholarly and had not sold well. While response to the shocking content of early horror Many of his films have been destroyed or lost. they preserve much of the violence of the source films, both American and European. The Code sets material, Wilhelm Grimm made efforts to remove down strict guidelines concerning the depiction the references to sex in the stories. Many of the 1897 of crimes and ‘repellent subjects’. It starts to have ’s is published to good tales had roots in the medieval world – harsh times a major impact from the mid-1930s, contributing reviews but only moderate sales. Quite apart when life could be short, brutal and nasty. The to the gradual decline in the quality and impact of from its Gothic elements (castles, madhouses, Grimms’ Tales is now considered one of the most horror and fantasy films by the end of the decade. graveyards) it also articulates many of the concerns influential books ever published, with themes The code would remain in place until 1968. of the time such as fears about foreigners, and motifs that deeply inform the cinema of the disease and the greater emancipation of fantastic. Read, for example, ‘The Six Servants’ in 1930s women. Some of the elements now most which a prince meets a series of unlikely characters Unsurprisingly, as well as romantic comedies associated with Dracula, such as his appearance in on his way to quest for the hand of a princess – a and musicals, the early part of the decade is also full evening dress, owe more to stage productions formula which formula clearly prefigures the one of the golden ages for the horror film, so of the novel. structure of The Wizard of Oz (1939). great is the audience’s taste for distraction and thrills. These are supplied in particular by Universal 1855 1910s Studios which finds itself with a surprise hit Expressionism – an art movement focused The final removal of the Stamp Duty on with Dracula (1931). It follows this success with on the cultivation of powerful emotion newspapers and magazines paves the way for an Frankenstein (1931) starring Boris Karloff, The through the use of bizarre subjects and explosion in popular fiction, with Charles Dickens Mummy (1932), The of London (1935) distortion – comes to have a powerful influence at the forefront serialising such novels as Bleak and many others. on filmmaking, particularly in Germany. A series of House and Little Dorrit. Dickens – the editor of extraordinary silent films are the result. They boast Household Words and then in 1859 its successor, 1940s strange dream-like moods and weird sets and All The Year Round – championed the inclusion 1940s World War Two make-up, particularly Paul Wegener’s The Golem of ghost stories in the Christmas editions. These Wars have a habit of reducing an audience’s (1917, 1920) and Robert Weine’s The Cabinet of were often the most popular sellers – a treat for appetite for horror and fantasy, and the period Dr Caligari. They express some of the horror and the festive season – and the association between 1939-45 is no exception. If the creatures celebrated madness associated with the suffering endured Christmas and ‘spookiness’ became established. in the films of the 1930s appear at all, they are across Europe during the Great War (1914-18). either combined to create multi-monster pictures 1895 such as Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943) Cinema arrives! The first cinematic shock 1920s or made objects of laughter in vehicles for comedy The aftermath of the Great War and in derives from nothing more spectacular than a duos such as Abbott and Costello or the Ritz particular the terribly broken bodies of many of train drawing in at a platform. But Louis Lumiere’s Brothers. Typical of these times are the its survivors is said to have been an inspiration 50-second Arrival of a Train at a Ciotat Station comedy/horrors such as The Cat and the Canary behind the work of Lon Chaney – the ‘man with a apparently astonished and sometimes panicked its (1939) and The Ghost Breakers (1940). thousand faces’. His Phantom of the Opera (1925) early audiences. The Hollywood Studio system has been contains the first ‘unmasking scene’ in a horror compared to a production line. While major movie with the heroine Christine removing his 1896 stars and directors are allocated to ‘A’ features, mask. First we see her expression of horror in close Georges Méliès – magician, showman, and rising or falling stars and directors make endless up and then we see Chaney’s skull-like visage – the Parisian theatre manager develops an act based on quantities of 70-minute ‘B’ pictures needed to double-shock that such sequences would borrow stage illusions – ‘disappearances, decapitations fill out the ‘programmes’ offered in those days time and again. and devilry’. Always keen to experiment, he begins to cinema audiences. As well as the main film, including film strips in his shows. A story goes a movie programme also contained newsreels; that while filming in the Place de l’Opera in Paris 1929 advertisements; trailers, ‘funnies’ (cartoons) and a The Wall Street Crash heralds the start of his camera jams. He fixes it eventually and carries ‘B’ movie. Fantasy and horror films were largely a worldwide Depression. The job of cinema on. When he projects the film he finds that a jump consigned to ‘B’ picture status. At the RKO to entertain and divert comes into its own as occurred due to that hiccup in filming, and before studios, production constraints could not contain never before – particularly in America where his eyes a bus is transformed into a hearse. In that the talent of the producer and director team Val unemployment reaches 25%.

1855 1897 1910s 1920s

1855 1897 1910s 1920s

english and media centre | February 2010 | MediaMagazine 11 MM Lewton and who collaborated uniformity and the increasing confidence and Early 1970s on a number of moody, noirish horror films, status of women. Watch the hero Scott Carey end 1960s fantasy cinema has a strong element most notably Cat People (1942) – a film with a up living in a dolls’ house and being menaced by of hedonism, epitomised by such psychedelic monster suggested only by shadows and sounds: the household cat. movies as Barbarella (1968) and the often a brilliant way around a very limited budget that very camp re-workings of Edgar Allen Poe’s precluded expensive special effects. The plight 1950s stories by director such as of Cat People’s heroine Irena is included in The arrives: the great alternative to the The Masque of Red Death (1964). In the 70s, the Celluloid Closet (1996) – a documentary charting movies. Faced with this threat, some film-makers pendulum swings in the other direction with a the changing (often heavily coded) representations dream up ever more elaborate gimmicks to spate of fantasy films that appears to reproach of homosexuals and lesbians in the cinema. As tempt the increasingly youthful and thrill-seeking audiences for their pleasure-seeking ways. a member of a shadowy sisterhood of women audience. 3D classics from this period include The Michael Crichton’s Westworld (1973) sees robotic doomed to turn into leopards when emotionally House of Wax (1953) and The Creature from the fantasy entertainment turn on tourists, while in aroused, the connotations are fairly obvious to Black Lagoon (1954). Deliverance (1972) suburban men seeking white- modern audiences living in a more knowing age. water canoeing thrills come unstuck morally and 1960s emotionally thanks to the visitation of vicious A decade of sexual and social revolution. The 1945 Peace! mountain men. With the war won, it was possible for British studios decade begins with Hitchcock’s taboo-busting Meanwhile, Wes Craven’s The Texas Chainsaw to turn again to the macabre. One of the first such Psycho (1960). Quite apart from the lurid nature Massacre (1974) showers horrors on the kind of films is also the best. Ealing Studio’s Dead of Night of this tale of theft, serial killing and psycho- carefree pleasure-seeking youngsters who are (1945) is a fabulous portmanteau picture featuring sexual mayhem, it also features the first shot of a now standard prey in endless slasher movies – a adaptations of a number of ghost stories rendered lavatory being flushed in a mainstream film. One sub-genre spawned by the success of Halloween by different directors. The film is both nostalgic of Hitchcock’s motives in making the film is in (1978) and Friday 13th (1980). And if sex with and chilling, with Michael Redgrave’s disintegration response to the growing popularity of explicit someone in such films is a character’s death into madness in the The Ventriloquist’s Dummy a blood-spattered horrors associated with the sentence, then the poisonous fruits of sexual horror film equivalent of the derangement of the UK’s Hammer studios. Hammer had latched onto curiosity and promiscuity are underscored in protagonists in so many films noir. The trauma of a winning formula revisiting the Gothic stories once ’s influential Shivers (1974) war certainly enshrouds the film even though it is associated with Universal but upping the ante in which charts the horrible progress of a sexually not explicitly referred to. terms of their gore and sex. They then churn out a transmitted parasite through the population of a whole series of follow-ups to their original Curse of high-class apartment complex. 1950s Post-War Frankenstein (1957) and Dracula (1958). But the The popular fears of this period cast a long law of diminishing returns certainly applies to these Mid-1970s shadow over the horror and fantasy films of the franchises; by 1974 and the kung fu-filled Legend Finally, such intelligent low-budget fantasies decade. The Cold War, McCarthyism and fears of of the 7 Golden Vampires, the results look very make way for popcorn franchises. A new era nuclear annihilation could be addressed in such tired indeed. of spectacle is heralded by Star Wars (1977). films, albeit obliquely. So when the cool scientist A Hammer film worth mentioning is The Plague Suddenly, film studios favour effects-driven Dr Carrington speaks in awe of the creature in The of the (1966). Not only did it contain wonderment over more thoughtful subject Thing From Another World (1951): radical political overtones, with a dissipated matter. Of course, such a preoccupation is itself No pleasure, no pain... no emotion, no heart. landowner creating the perfect () workforce quite political – in keeping with the growing Our superior in every way for his uneconomic tin mine, but in a particularly conservatism that brings Ronald Reagan to power his flawed views could be a critique of either nasty dream sequence it also introduces shots of in the US, and Margaret Thatcher in the UK. Communist or conservative conformity. The same lumbering un-dead who become the norm in a Rather that forcing us to look at ourselves and our ambiguity applies to the wonderful Invasion of the later films. That is, until the zombies begin to run anxieties, the new vogue is for fantasy films which Body Snatchers (1955). Fears of the atom bomb around in films such as Cronenberg’s Rabid (1977) distract and divert us. also fuel a whole spate of films in which weird and 28 Days Later (2002). In a time of increasing science, nuclear tests and accidents spawn giant social unrest thanks to the Vietnam War and civil 1980s monsters capable of taking on the might of the US rights protests, many of the decade’s tensions are Fantasy films still occasionally challenge the military and trashing America’s towns and cities. articulated in George A Romero’s Night of the status quo and raise important questions. Ridley The best of the crop include Tarantula (1955) and Living Dead (1968), which expresses the idea that Scott’s Alien (1979) has a strong sub-text in which Them (1954). Another classic radiation sci-fi/horror America is literally consuming itself. the blue-collar astronauts of the Nostromo are seen fantasy of the 50s is The Incredible Shrinking to be completely expendable given the hidden Man (1957) which ends up a fascinating study of agenda of their employers in pursuit of the creature the crisis in masculinity in the face of suburban

1940s 1950s 1960s 1960s

1940s 1950s 1960s 1960s

12 MediaMagazine | February 2010 | english and media centre MM that is picking them off one-by-one. In the same vampire-hunter (Anthony Hopkins) is films associated with directors Alejandro film the changing representation of women was first introduced he is giving an illustrated lecture on Amenábar (The Others, 2001) and Guillermo del underlined in the shape of Sigourney Weaver’s venereal diseases. Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth,1997). Ripley. Scott follows it with BladeRunner (1982). Its Environmental concerns also find their • The impact of these films are part too of discussions of identity and the integrity of our expression in several films, most prominently in a general opening up of English-speaking memories in an increasingly technologically the first of the three Jurassic Park movies (1993) in audiences to such films from across the globe manipulated age resonate strongly then and which – in keeping with the etymology of ‘monster’ – most particularly Japan and Korea – each continue to do so – even more in the restored as ‘warning’ – the resurrection of velociraptors and reflecting their own culture’s distinct social director’s cut that is available today. a T-Rex only go to prove the dangers of interfering contexts and anxieties. Have fun. with evolution and the natural order. Amidst the Mid-1980s rollercoaster thrills and spills there is still time for Jerome Monahan is a freelance journalist and regular The arrival of domestic video recording discourses about chaos theory and the hubris of MediaMagazine contributor. generates the decade’s biggest controversy scientists and their financiers wishing to play God. concerning video nasties. The films are varied in Selected reading list content, mood and quality; moral panics about Late 1990s Gifford, D: A Pictorial History of Horror Movies them suggest there is something fundamentally Postmodernism and the self-conscious urge (1973) subversive about the new power of individuals to to pastiche also influences fantasy film-making. determine their own viewing. It is a concern that is Scream (1999) and its successors all boast a Clarens, C: An Illustrated History of the Horror alive and kicking in our age of the internet and its kind of ‘clever-two-shoes’ genre-knowingness Movie (1967) infinite choice – good, bad and ugly. that typifies the age, and has proven a boon Poppel and Kember: Early Cinema: From to Media Studies teachers the world over. The Factory Gate to Dream Factory (2004) Late 1980s internet proves that new forms of online viral AIDS first enters public consciousness. A new communication can generate a buzz about a film Jones, A: The Rough Guide to Horror Movies emphasis upon contamination enters one of the despite its beyond-humble budget. The Blair Witch (2005) most enduring fantasy sub-genres: the vampire Project (1999) was the first film to exploit the net Scalzi, J: The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies film. Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark (1987) is richly in this manner, and will not be the last – witness (2005) infused with the theme – exploring in detail the (2008). desperate adjustment of its hero Caleb Cotton to Interesting websites his emerging vampirism. And finally ... 2000s – Sci-Fi: http://www. Your decade! The challenge is for you to think tcm.com/thismonth/article.jsp?cid=86561& about the social stresses and strains revealed by Early 1990s mainArticleId=218757 Wes Craven becomes a true aristocrat of screen the recent trends in the cinema of the fantastic. horror and fantasy. His films from the really grim, Here are some questions to consider – many of Supernatural Horror In Pre-20th Century much reviled Last House on the Left (1972) to which are explored elsewhere in this issue of http://horrorfilms.suite101.com/article. the surreal Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) MediaMagazine: cfm/supernatural_horror_in_film_pre20th_ share common themes, such as a fascination • What does the success of the Saw films and other century for the fault-lines in families, and the tensions so-called ‘torture-porn’ movies reveal about The Horror Film: http://en.wikipedia.org/ in society generated by class, race and religion. our collective psyche? wiki/Horror_film These are idiosyncratically explored in his 1991 • Why the recent free flow of vampire films, both ‘gore comedy’ The People Under The Stairs with those geared to the tastes of adolescent girls and Horror Film History: http://www. its monstrous slum landlords whose traditional those such as Let The Right One In (2009) which horrorfilmhistory.com/ family values prove an excuse for myriad horrors appeal to more adult audiences? and perversions. It stands as an interesting Gothic • Notice the strain between big budget critique of the consumerism and conservatism spectacular films – often now with then in the ascendant on both sides of the environmental end-of-the world preoccupations Atlantic when ‘greed was good’ and it seemed the (The Day After Tomorrow, 2004) – and far ‘devil really could take the hindmost’. humbler but more visceral horrors associated with Frank Darabont’s The Mist (2008); Danny Mid-1990s Boyle’s 28 Days Later (2003) and most recently Vampirism and disease reappear prominently Paranormal Activity (2009). in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Francis Ford Coppola’s • Consider also the more subtle pleasures of the attempt to go back to the story’s origins. When spate of Spanish-language ghost and fantasy

1990s 2000s

1990s 2000s

english and media centre | February 2010 | MediaMagazine 13 MM

in the Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine the cheerleader-turned-chosen one Buffy fell Our Love Affair with Harris. The first novel in the series Dead Until in love with Angel, the vampire with a soul. The the Paranormal Dark won the Anthony Award for best mystery romance story worked alongside fighting evil, (2001). Nine novels in the series have been as the gang of humans, vampires, Professor Annette Hill explores released in eight other countries, including and witches battled with the hell mouth and Britain and Japan. Stephanie Meyers’ series of all that emerged from this dark world. Doctor one of the weirdest media vampire romance novels Twilight are also very Who is a classic series that mixes science-fiction phenomena of recent years: tales of popular. The fourth in the series Breaking Dawn with supernaturalism. The Doctor must fight sold 1.4 million copies in a day. Her books have aliens, and demons and shapeshifters. He lives the afterlife. been made into Hollywood films. The soundtrack in a reality where there are multiple worlds in a for Twilight was the biggest selling album of universe full of humans and non-humans fighting USA Today claimed the oddest trend of 2008 in the USA. Paranormal romance is a growth to stay alive. Like Supernatural, is a 2008 was dating the dead: ‘love with the living- area across popular culture. According to the successful example of drama that is also available challenged is a hot topic.’ True Blood is a hot Financial Times ‘escapism from dark economic across a range of platforms, from computer vampire drama from the America channel HBO. times is contributing to a boom in vampire- games and books, to iPlayer and mobile devices. The central character is themed entertainment.’ Perhaps dating the dead It was so successful it even inspired the spin-off telepathic, and her paranormal powers help her is a fantasy that allows people to walk on the dark series Torchwood. to solve crime. She is also in love with a two- side in troubling times. Another popular drama is Medium. Patricia hundred-year-old vampire called Bill. It’s not an Paranormal romance is not the only dark Arquette plays a psychic detective (she won an easy relationship – they can only date in the dark, trend. There are lots of young people in Britain Emmy award for her performance). Her character never cook a meal together, or have children. But, and America playing with dark entertainment, is based on the medium Allison Du Bois who Sookie loves Vampire Bill with an intense passion from computer games about demons and ghosts, helps with criminal investigations. In the past – he makes her feel alive. This fantasy of vampire to Gothic-inspired fashion and music. Even drinks the ghost as messenger was interpreted as a love is drawn from the historical tradition of have turned to the dark side, with a reported rise sign to investigate a death for evidence of foul the Victorian Gothic novel and Bram Stoker’s in drinking absinthe, the strange green liquor play. Medium provides a modern twist on spirit Dracula. In True Blood the fantasy is relocated to once associated with the Victorian Gothic. messages in the institutional setting of American the modern day American South. Now vampires law enforcement. The Ghost Whisperer on the have rights. Some try to live as humans, only Supernatural TV American channel CBS is another paranormal drinking synthetic blood. Others embrace their Demons rule prime-time television. There drama. Jennifer Love Hewitt plays a newly wed dark past and hunt humans for dinner. Vampire is American drama Supernatural about two who is also a medium. She helps troubled spirits Bill tries to live in both human and non-human brothers fighting evil entities. Supernatural is come to terms with unfinished business and pass worlds, battling against good and evil, inner also available on iTunes, X-Box Live (as a role on to the afterlife. Hewitt, who is known for her and outer demons. The drama addresses topical playing game) and fictionalised in novels and role in horror film series I Know What You Did issues of death and dying, human/non-human comic books. This series draws on the previous Last Summer won best actress in 2006 and 2007 rights, and multiculturalism. It’s about love success of supernatural dramas Buffy the at the Academy of Science-Fiction, Fantasy and without borders. Vampire Slayer and Angel. Both shows included Horror Films. CBS advertises The Ghost Whisperer True Blood is based on the bestselling books a strong narrative of paranormal romance, where as ‘Home but Not Alone.’

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english and media centre | February 2010 | MediaMagazine 15 MM There are paranormal movies. characters (the vengeful ghost, the helper ghost, starred little boy Cole Sear famously whispering the troubled ghost), eerie and atmospheric ‘I see dead people.’ The Hollywood film 1408 is settings (the haunted house, night-time, based on the idea of the most haunted hotel in cemeteries), and strong story arcs (bereavement, America. The Eye explores pre-cognition and revenge, the battle between good and evil). transplant organ memories. In the film Jessica Classical theatre included ghosts as characters Alba plays a blind musician who receives a within plays. For example, in 5th century BC the cornea transplant only to find herself haunted by tragedies of Aeschylus included vengeful ghosts. visions of death that will happen in the future. Euripides used ghosts in the prologue, setting The Ring horror series is about occultism and the scene and introducing characters in the play. evil spirits haunting people through media The character of the vengeful ghost and the technology. White Noise explores electronic prologue ghost can be seen in horror, crime, or voice phenomena and is a story about ghosts romance genres, such as the vengeful spirits in communicating by using high frequency listening The Ghost Whisperer, or the ghostly voiceover in devices. Other films include the paranormal Desperate Housewives. comedy Ghost Town starring Ricky Gervais as Shakespeare knew the power of ghosts in an unwilling medium who, after a near death drama, with memorable ghost scenes in some experience, finds he can communicate with of his most famous plays such as Macbeth or ghosts. And of course the famous dating-the- Hamlet. Shakespeare’s ghosts are so influential dead film Ghost is about the intense romantic on modern drama because they may be real, or attachment between the two main characters a figment of the imagination. Is the ghost of the and the barriers the couple overcome to man Macbeth killed real or a projection of guilt? communicate with each other between human Is the ghost of his father real or a sign of madness and spirit worlds. in Hamlet? The ambiguity of ghosts as both a psychological and supernatural matter is evident The oldest form of in much television drama series. For example the storytelling? dark interior brooding of Shakespeare’s haunted Paranormal drama and romance draws on characters has influenced much modern horror, a rich source of material from theatre, art and serial killer, and supernatural genres, such as written and oral storytelling from the past. The the ‘vampire with a soul’ in Angel who, tortured ghost story is possibly one of the oldest forms by his past deeds, is forced to fight evil on the Ghost stories have been around for over five of storytelling, with a stock range of memorable streets of Los Angeles. hundred years. Why is it then that there are so many ghouls and vampires in popular culture today? Belief in ghosts is on the rise. American polls indicate two-thirds of people believe in ghosts and almost a quarter of people claim to have seen a ghost. In Britain polls suggest

almost half of the nation believe in ghosts. Images courtesy of image.net Recently, the World Values Survey showed 81% of Americans and 58% of British people believe in an afterlife. Whilst for some people an afterlife is connected to their religious beliefs, for others it is related to supernaturalism and the paranormal. In Britain people are interested in things that go bump in the night, be that ghosts, demons or witches. They are also interested in the paranormal, which is about things that have yet to be scientifically explained. This includes phenomena such as telepathy, the ability to read others minds. The character of Sookie in True Blood has this paranormal power. This drama is so successful because it mixes the history of ghosts and vampires with modern cutting edge science into strange phenomena. Paranormal drama and romance plays with ideas of ghosts and an afterlife. It fictionalises our hopes, fears and beliefs in things we cannot explain. One of the greatest questions we face is what happens to us when we die? People turn to ghosts and afterlife beliefs to explore this question. Dating the dead is a trend in paranormal drama that shows we are still searching for answers. The star of The Ghost Whisperer explains: if there really is a different adventure afterwards, then that is a lovely thought. That makes you feel not necessarily good about dying, but better about it.

Annette Hill is Professor of Media Studies at Westminster University. She was interviewed in MM30.

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The Decade-Long Evolution of TV Vampires They’re everywhere these days – encounters in Interview with the Vampire where Saga. What happened? Vampires are, as we he chooses to feed on animals as opposed to have traditionally seen, either dangerous, sexual and they’re becoming increasingly humans. Similarly, sneering human-hater Spike creatures or frenzied, violent killers. Edward has ‘humanised’. Emma-Louise suffers a microchip implantation which renders no ‘Angelus’ alter-ego, nor the wise-cracking, him unable to harm humans, and causes him cynical cold-bloodedness of Spike. Where’s the Howard investigates changing to fall in love with Buffy. Even following the bite? representations of the vampire and microchip removal he remains fiercely loyal to True Blood: the TV vampire what they reveal about contemporary her and in seeking the restoration of his soul, he explains his motivation: wanting to become the regains its fangs society. man she deserves. Indeed, for these vampires The answer has come in a controversial, the act of biting and feeding is akin to sexual violent, sexually-explicit US TV phenomenon: With the global recession, people have been transgression, whilst for others, frenzied attacks True Blood. Based on The Southern Vampire wanting to escape and go to a place where against human victims provide hedonistic and Mysteries novels, it takes the darker and more imagination goes. That’s kind of sexy, seeing bloody satisfaction. dangerous elements of Buffy and seemingly creatures living with normal beings. Buffy offered many interpretations of the mocks Twilight with its similar plotlines. In True , True Blood actor, on the vampire, from the animalistic, demonic form Blood, there are ‘vegetarian vampires’ too. The current popularity of the supernatural reminiscent of rat-like to the seductive, show’s title refers to bottled synthetic blood Vampires. They’re everywhere right now, from stylish vampire that has endured in the collective (‘Tru:Blood’), developed by Japanese scientists the cinema screens to our . One of the cultural consciousness. Yet over the years, the meaning vampires no longer need humans for themes that many of the current vampire texts vampire has seemingly become less dangerous. sustenance. Thus, they have ‘come out of the share is that of a relationship between vampire In the film 30 Days of Night the Nosferatu- coffin’ and are adapting to everyday society. and human, often with a male vampire as a esque vampires’ lack of empathy or emotion is They announced their existence in ‘The Great tortured hero, a dangerous yet misunderstood subverted in the closing scenes, where main Revelation’ on network television, and some have creature in love with a human female and character Eben becomes a vampire to save his since attempted to ‘mainstream’, living as fellow struggling with his sexuality, anxious over the fellow humans and dies as the sun rises in his citizens amongst humans and obtaining the vote potential to become ‘over-excited’ and cause weeping wife’s arms. He does not harm her via the ‘Vampire Rights Amendment’. The series is harm, conflicted about the desire to attack, yet all despite his killer instincts. He is compassionate, set in America’s Deep South, a traditional setting the while remaining fiercely protective over the empathetic and restrained. for vampire and Gothic stories (despite this object of his desire. This is the vampire we are seeing so much seeming somewhat incongruous for a region also In the TV series of now. Louis, Eben, even former cold-blooded renowned for its religious fundamentalism, right- (1997-2003), the titular character experienced killers Angel and Spike are all tortured and wing political beliefs and conservatism. relationships with vampires Angel and Spike, and conflicted in their vampire forms when it comes As with Buffy, at the centre of True Blood is the difficulties these couplings brought were to particular female humans. It is these vampires a beautiful blonde with secret powers. Sookie explored in full. Angel (formerly sadistic vampire that have paved the way for benevolent, Stackhouse is a telepathic waitress, and the ‘Angelus’) is ‘cursed’ with a conscience by gypsies, ‘vegetarian’ animal-feeding (channelling Louis), treatment of her power is evocative of Buffy as echoing the complications the vampire Louis chaste and harmless Edward of the Twilight the gift encroaches on her everyday life. Buffy

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struggled to balance vampire-slaying with centre of True Blood. Bill Compton, the first more fragmented due to multichannel packages school and relationships whilst Sookie cannot vampire to walk into Merlotte’s, captures Sookie’s and multiple TVs/viewing facilities in many form ordinary human bonds. She is frequently attention; she has harboured a desire to meet homes. Many shows (True Blood included) have distracted during her job because rather than one ever since they ‘came out of the coffin’. Eager the same episode screened twice in one week, being able to ‘listen in’ on peoples’ thoughts, to attend to him, she realises she cannot hear while online catch-up services and recording they bombard her in a confusing frenzy of his thoughts. This is comforting for Sookie; the facilities (for example, Sky+ or digital recording) white noise. Sookie has never had a boyfriend, lack of internal noise means she can enjoy Bill’s create the opportunity for bespoke viewing as being able to hear what her date is thinking company, much to protective Sam’s chagrin. Yes, experiences. Audience expectations have also has often proved somewhat difficult to say the Sookie is a human caught between a vampire changed and the supernatural genre (like any least! Like Buffy, Sookie is fearless and powerful. who instantly captivated her, and a shapeshifter that wishes to survive) must transform in order to The women also share a feisty streak; Buffy who’s a longtime friend holding a torch for her. avoid becoming too repetitive or clichéd. offering sarcastic quips at regular intervals and (Bella too is caught between two such creatures There are, of course, risks associated with Sookie speaking up for herself at every available in Twilight, signifying the somewhat satirical change; moving too far away from the generic opportunity. The appearance of the vampires in link.) expectations of the audience could provoke Buffy and True Blood is also comparable. Both dissatisfaction. Media producers, therefore, sets appear fairly normal in waking life, yet they Changing vampires, changing must try to balance repetition and difference. ‘turn’ – Buffy’s vampires undergo demonic facial TV It could be claimed that the success of Buffy metamorphoses, whereas True Blood’s dormant Charting the journey from Buffy to True Blood was due (in part at least) to the fact that it fangs emerge from a set of seemingly standard generates debate about how television has was a ‘hybrid’; in other words it incorporated teeth. changed in just over a decade. Viewing habits are the familiar codes and conventions of the There is something of a love triangle at the certainly different; audiences have become much supernatural genre whilst introducing elements

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from other popular genres such as horror, reads ‘God Hates Fangs’. This can be seen as a ‘humanised’ and ‘normalised’ vampires (feeding comedy, romance and soap opera. True Blood direct reference to the religiously and politically on synthetic blood and gaining citizenship) does the same. However, where Buffy succeeded right-wing ‘God Hates Fags’ slogan. It not only has arrived on our screens during an economic in claiming the supernatural genre for a teen highlights the show’s Deep South location but downturn. When a society is in economic audience, True Blood has, one could argue, also suggests a comparison between vampires recession it often looks for scapegoats. In reclaimed the genre (and the vampire itself) and homosexuals, underscoring their position of contemporary society immigrants, economic for adults.. It maintains familiar supernatural ‘otherness’. In the world of True Blood, vampires migrants and asylum seekers are often singled conventions whilst adding original touches have had to fight for recognition and citizenship out for attention. Allegations of ‘job-stealing’ and (the vampires ‘mainstreaming’ for example). in much the same way as gay males and lesbians being a drain upon already limited resources Also in an attempt to engage, excite and satisfy have. The reaction of some humans to the rights are commonplace. Society feels threatened, but its audience, True Blood dares to go where its afforded to vampires in True Blood could be the threat is not an external one, instead, it is predecessors couldn’t; it is darker, raunchier, more seen to mirror the responses of some sections perceived as coming from those who (like the sexually explicit and far bloodier. of society to the rights recently afforded to gay vampires in True Blood) live and work amongst At the time of its release, Buffy was men and women. The vampires even have their us, those who have been given the same rights as groundbreaking and forward-thinking. Its creator own anti-vampire religious fundamentalists to us, but who are never truly accepted (by some at said he specifically wanted to deal with, aptly named ‘The Fellowship of the least) as being equal to us. demystify the convention of the weak blonde Sun’. Recognition of civil partnerships (albeit in female who stumbles into dark alleys and gets very few American states) and the recognition Emma Louise Howard is a former A Level Media student, herself killed; Buffy was a hero who didn’t have of the rights of same sex couples to foster and has completed an MA in Critical Theory, and will soon be to sacrifice her femininity or good looks for adopt children (again, not in all states) are seen training as a Media Studies lecturer. strength. Despite the constraints of the WB by some as evidence that the moral fabric of network which broadcast it, it incorporated a gay society is being eroded. This is not dissimilar to character via Willow’s and ‘subtextual’ the reactions of some Bon Temps residents to relationship (implied, not depicted) in Season the ‘Vampire Rights Amendment’. Alternative 4, and after transferring to the more lenient sexual practices are also portrayed in True UPN network, Buffy became the first broadcast Blood, particularly those of the ‘fangbangers’ network TV series to depict a lesbian sex scene (humans who like to have sex with vampires and is credited with changing television forever. and be bitten). These relationships are frowned Compared with True Blood,, however, Buffy’s upon by most of the humans who believe that sexuality looks tame. Not only does True Blood relationships between humans and vampires present a number of homosexual and sexually are immoral (again echoing the cultural and ambiguous characters without drawing attention religious values often associated with attitudes to to their sexual identities or giving them ‘token’ interracial relationships in the Deep South). status, it offers a great many sexually explicit It is claimed that media texts (and the horror scenes. Yet perhaps none of this would have been genre in particular) tap into and exploit cultural possible without the pioneering Buffy. fears and anxieties within society, some of which So while there are definite similarities between have been addressed above. However, it is also Buffy and True Blood, the decade or so that interesting to note that Buffy, a series in which separates them has had its effect. True Blood has the vampire remained otherworldly and exotic created terminology that appears to resonate (neither Angel nor Spike could have considered with contemporary cultural, social and ‘mainstreaming’), began in the ‘boom’ years of political issues. A sign in the opening credits the 90s. True Blood, on the other hand, with its

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Letting the Right One In

‘Let the right one in/ let the old dreams die/ let ridiculous when you compare the two films. The the wrong ones go/ They cannot do what you want marketing of Let The Right One In, may have them to do’ pushed the vampiric elements, but at its heart, this film is one of the tenderest love stories. The If you thought Twilight (2008) was the best sub-text of acceptance and the nature of love and recent vampire you have seen then attachment is a rich element of the film, which you were wrong. Let The Right One In (2008), is yields rewards for film analysts and students. a rare delight. It is a multi-layered, genre-defying It is a mesmerising vampire fantasy, but gem of a film that re-envisages the vampire there is sub-genre hybridity evident. Within theme. Also, the title of the film comes from a the film, there are elements of the high-school Morrissey lyric, quoted on the title page of the bullying film and an exploration of the binaries of book from which the film is adapted. With a adulthood/children and violence. The film also sensibility linked to the lyrical Morrissey, the film has intertextual links with the horror movie, Eden is a complex masterpiece. Lake (2008). Fan reception of the film picked The narrative unfolds with a young vampire, up on and celebrated the love story and the Eli, befriending the character of Oskar, a bullied humanity of the film, with fan forums raging on schoolboy who is empowered by his friendship why this is the definitive . and growing devotion to Eli. She ends up killing The two central characters in Låt den rätte A study of loneliness, a paranormal for him with an electrifying final sequence that komma in are Oskar and Eli. Oskar is a withdrawn love story or a powerful reworking leaves the audience to imagine the worst. The 12-year-old who is bullied at school by Andreas, understated powerful climax reveals Oskar has Conny and Martin. Oskar notices Eli, a new girl of European mythology? Sean become the new guardian of his vampire friend. in his apartment block. This locale is one of the Richardson debates the meanings This Swedish film has become a worldwide key successes of the film. The concrete Swedish success and is the vampire movie you simply housing estate is a granite mass, unforgiving and magic of Let The Right One In. must see. Director Tomas Alfredson and and sprawling, further intensified by the icy scriptwriter John Ajvide Lindqvist have created Swedish winter. The tone and texture of the the most original and truly transformational mise-en-scène is cold and distancing, reflected vampire-themed feature in modern cinema. The in the characterisation of Oskar and Eli in the traditional codes and conventions can be found opening scenes. Eli’s ‘father’, Hakan, is seen in the hidden within the narrative, but the clichés are opening, in an isolated forest, thick with snow. gone. Twilight’s sub-Emo Gothic vampires seem He is draining blood from a body, which is hung

english and media centre | February 2010 | MediaMagazine 21 MM up by the feet from a tree like a carcass, slitting the contrasting approaches to the vampire the film, but the high school bullying theme the throat, like some macabre urban serial killer. mythology. dominates much of the narrative. The revenge The silences and crispness of the snow and ice The media concept of verisimilitude is fantasy that Eli allows Oskar to have is based are counterpointed by the warm red blood that important here. Verisimilitude comes from the on him overcoming the trio of bullies that pick flows into Hakan’s container. He is collecting the Latin verum meaning truth, and similis meaning on him for being different. Stand By Me (1986) blood for Eli. He is revealed to be her acolyte, a similar. It means the quality of being ‘verisimilar’, and Mean Creek (2004), are key filmic reference ‘’ in the traditional Dracula mythology. the appearance of being true or real. points. Oskar’s revenge sequence is a clever The symbolic red liquid is a recurrent motif scene as it uses Hitchcockian devices to let the through the film, but used cleverly by director Traditional vampire genre audience fill in the blanks. As any decent horror Tomas Alfredson, to create something more gritty codes and conventions historian will tell you, the finest horrors are often and visceral than has been seen before. Twilight Let The Right those that reveal the least. In the last act, Oskar Eli is a dark-haired girl, a binary opposite One In is cornered in an empty swimming pool – the to Oskar, who is blonde and pale. Actor Kare Dress Codes: Glamorous, Grubby, blood bullies have distracted all adults from the pool Hedebrant, who plays Oskar in his first feature, well groomed stained, odorous with a fire in a skip outside. The lack of adults is gives remarkable depth to the troubled boy. vampiric vampiric key, with texts like Mean Creek also removing Later in the narrative, Oskar will become Eli’s individuals, individuals with adults from the scene by setting the action in the new acolyte and blood provider as the two with coiffured, unkempt, lank great American outdoors. The binary opposition become infatuated with each other. Their initial highlighted hair. black hair. of childhood versus adulthood is reflected in meeting in the snow, outside the apartment Mannerisms: Powerful, super Gritty, realistic, Mean Creek, with adults distant and vague block is hindered by the fact that she smells of human, almost flesh wrenching creatures, more monstrous than anything else. decay. She is dying without a blood feed and comic book animal fury. The violent climax of Let The Right One In reeks of death until she can be satiated by Hakan. mannerisms. unfolds with an overhead facial close-up of This gritty detail of decay is part of the original Locations: Overtly Frozen Swedish the smiling Oskar, as he treads water in the take on the fantasy, with a rotting flesh motif. spectacular CGI Council Estate pool, listening to disco music from a transistor There are no coffins here, or lairs. ‘The Monster’s forests and lakes. apartment radio. The clever use of diegetic disco creates a Lair’ is a horror genre concept, where the blocks with contrapuntal effect as three bullies clear the pool darkened antagonist resides, but the traditional elements building, leaving Oskar trapped. The lead bully subways. are absent here. The ‘lair’ is a council flat and the wears an iconic leather jacket and brandishes a only method used to block out the sunlight is The Vampire Luxury glass and Cardboard at the flick knife, both with links to classic filmic hoods cardboard at the window. The Morrissey lyric Lair: timber mountain window, grimy which can be traced through, Rebel Without a cabin where the and realistic about letting the right one in and letting the old Cause (1955) to Stand By Me and Mean Creek. young vampire council flat, set dreams die is key here. Oskar accepts Eli, in all her Oskar is forced underwater, held breathless by friends prepare on a sprawling graphic vampirism, which is the central feature salads and drizzle frozen Swedish the lead bully, Jimmy. Jimmy’s clenched fist grabs of the narrative arc. He relinquishes normality to olive oil on council estate. Oskar’s hair at the top of the frame. Oskar must embrace the fantastical Eli, who in turn accepts mozzarella. stay underwater or lose an eye with the knife. In and is a true friend to him. The honesty of the long, powerful underwater medium close-ups performances allows the audience in and creates Despite being a fantasy in one sense, Let The we intercut between Oskar, desperate to hold a unique vision of vampirism. Right One In has an element of verisimilitude his breath and reaction shots of the weaker boys This delicate friendship is best exemplified that Twilight lacks. The Americanisation of the from the gang who consider the consequences when Eli attempts to accept a gift from Oskar. European Mythology is an excellent topic for an of what they are doing. Director Alfredson lingers Oskar and Eli are out together on a frozen extended investigation for any of the A2 speci- on the faces of the bullies as they cave in and beg evening: fications. The Swedish film retains a European Jimmy to stop. This parallel montage sequence Oskar: Here (Offering Eli some sweets) sensibility that is chillingly ‘real’ – whatever ‘real’ has real significance. The dawning adult morality Eli: No (Abruptly) means. is explored on the childhood faces, as violence Oskar looks crushed: Sorry The genre-defying nature of the film is evident is anticipated. The symbolic order and the laws Eli: (Facial close-up) I can try one... in its multiple intertextual references. The of the adult world loom large as the impact of a Several seconds elapse. vampire fantasy is the major marketing hook for possible murder is contemplated. Eli eats a single sweet with some trepidation. The fact that Eli is seen vomiting in the following scene, heightens and adds depth to her attempt to take Oskar’s gift. The bloody diet which Eli and other filmic vampires follow precludes worldly treats so it is fitting for her body to react violently to the sweet. Oskar clumsily enquires, ‘Are you alright...?’, as several silent seconds tick by, before giving her a hug. This emotional honesty and depth to these representations of youth is significant. The static camerawork and pause-filled dialogue in this sequence, and the film as a whole, is distancing and eerie for the viewer; the pauses and silences seem to create extra non-diegetic tension. If we look at another recent vampire and popular fantasy, Twilight (USA, 2008), and compare it to, Let The Right One In in terms of the codes and conventions of the genre, the originality and unique approach of the Swedish film shine through. The repertoire of elements that can create an identifiable genre for a target audience can be compared to get a sense of

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Oskar is struggling, but suddenly hears a loud A truly remarkable film that does the The main theme of the movie isn’t that bang. Eli the vampire has swooped to his rescue, impossible; something fresh from the of a romantic relationship, but rather an reversing gender roles. The camera goes into venerable vampire film. (Sam Buckley at exploration of what people will do to combat deep focus, leaving Oskar blurred in the right 15/03/2009) loneliness and isolation. In this case, it’s exemplified by all the things about Eli that half of the frame, the clenched, ringed hand of Yeah it’s vampires, and yeah there’s a certain should scare Oskar off ... but don’t, because Jimmy holding him, at the top right of the frame. sparseness to its rhythm and setting, but it’s he’s so desperate to forge any kind of Suddenly, in the deep focus, two legs are seen one hell of a good story and well shot, edited connection with another person. The reason thrashing as the body attached is dragged up the and acted film. I’m guessing a lot of folks are this works so well in the movie is that the full length of the pool. The fantastical revenge going to be kept away from this, for a while, excellent child actors help emphasise the begins. The legs are dragged up and out of the at least by either being tired of vampires or contrast of brutality and innocence inherent frame but the director has the strength of vision turned off by the ‘horror’ genre. This film is in the film. to remain underwater. Several beats go by. A ‘horror’ the way The Hunger was horror – in It can also be seen as a commentary on severed, bloody head enters the pool behind other words, not so much. It’s dark. People society. Oskar has all these people around Oskar who is still oblivious to what Eli is doing. die. But the mixture between that and all the him, and yet he feels completely alone. The audience is privileged with information in deeply human stuff going on is pitch perfect. The fact that Eli is a vampire is just a tool the left of the frame as the revenge begins from It’s just a really, really good shot the Right One in of Let the DVD Imagescourtesy and from of image.net used to emphasise the deeper themes. I the underwater perspective. The clenched fist with an artistry that fits the story’s mood to wouldn’t consider LtROI a vampire movie or holding Oskar jerks and then the whole hand perfection. (TomA at 15/03/2009) and lower forearm sink into the pool, blood even a horror movie in general at all. It’s a spurting from the severed limb into the blue I thought the movie was excellent, though I bleak drama about loneliness that happens water. Eli’s thin, pale, bloodied arm grabs and agree that the dialogue was simple and the to have vampires. (‘The Mash’) drags Oskar and the audience up out of the movie has a real cold-ish feel to it. However, This post from ‘The Mash’ illustrates the water. The audacious underwater sequence the idea that the young boy will grow to sophisticated reception that is out there for leaves the audience to imagine the worst and become her caretaker is unique and it is much film and particularly foreign films with ‘difficult’ most gruesome personal vampiric revenge different than the usual Hollywood drivel subject matter. The genre analysis as a ‘...bleak sequence; Oskar is then seen in extreme close-up, that are vampire movies today. (Locutus at drama about loneliness that happens to have breathing into life, gasping for air, at water level. 15/03/2009) vampires’ is a very sophisticated reading of the Eli’s big, luminescent eyes are seen coming into The ending doesn’t seem unexplained at all. feature. sharp focus. They share a tender, delicate smile rather reminds me of the old Dracula-story of Let The Right One In is being remade by as recognition dawns on Oskar. The climax of the BramStoker. Oskar becomes a human servant Hollywood, slated for release this spring. What sequence is a wide shot of the pool and poolside to a vampire, as was the man that hung out the Hollywood machine will ‘do’ with the film will area with the bloody aftermath of bodies with Eli at the beginning of the story. And at be interesting and raise all sorts of Media Studies dismembered and strewn asunder. The shot is a certain point Oskar will give his live away related questions. What remains clear, however, held for ten seconds as the violent events are too, to his mistress ... this movie is great, and is that the Swedish version will be the definitive considered. These beats of silence and powerful leaves you sad in the end, although it looks vampire fantasy film in modern cinema. Like all resonance take the film to a higher level and are like a happy ending. (Tiki at 14/04/2009) classics, the film defies genre classification as it daringly original. is concerned with the deeper human issues of The respondents clearly pick up on the existence and attachment to others. Try putting In the fan forums strength of the film’s narrative and its originality. that on the Multiplex poster? The originality of the feature was picked up ‘Sam Buckley’ notes that the ‘fresh’ angle that by the fan forums. Fan forums are populated by Alfredson the director takes with the vampire Sean Richardsdon is Head of Media at Penistone Grammar niche audiences who pick up on distinctive films fantasy rejects the ‘venerable’ stuffiness of the old School near Sheffield. and celebrate or attack them. Fandom is a growth codes and conventions. This verisimilitude and area of study in Media Studies. originality in approach creates the successful new In the forum at http://www.sfcrowsnest. hybrid. com/articles/media/2009/nz13469.php, these Consider another posting in a fan forum posts appeared, debating the success of Let The (http://forums.somethingawful.com): Right One In:

24 MediaMagazine | February 2010 | english and media centre What links genres as diverse as fairy stories, science-fiction, ghost stories, political parables, and epics set in other worlds? They all feature elements of fantasy – but what do we understand by this slippery and constantly evolving term? Senior Examiner Chris Bruce unpicks some definitions and theories, and tells you what examiners are looking for in your study of fantasy texts.

[Fantasy]…is unique, in stuff that will make your that it offers us almost load a little lighter and – if, unlimited potential in like me, you are a complete the exploration of all novice to fantasy – then you things pertaining to will begin to get it. Up until Humankind, Earth, and the now, I thought that the Universe beyond. Through fantasy world was inhabited speculative fiction, the by weirdos who dressed up reader is transported into on a Sunday morning and a world, either unknown or re-created scenes from their known to them, where the favourite texts. Instead, limit of possibility is the this world is a complex and challenging site of debates limit of the mind. to analyse texts that you which… with female characters and issues and one which, The Genre of know well and that you • Theories, Issues and in (fantasy) texts. Are as ever, is completely Speculative Fiction: have studied. Sometimes, Debates: You will need to there similarities? Are the connected to humanity, our An Overview for students study so hard consider contemporary writers of the (fantasy) contemporary state and Tasmanian Teachers by that they forget the media and cultural texts illustrating or the contextual zeitgeist. William Simon at www. ‘media’ part of Media theories, debates around highlighting a worry that tate.neat.tas.edu.au/ To understand fantasy… Studies. audience and genre, they have? The answer is ppt/specfiction.ppt read on! • Cross-media: Remember referring to articles usually yes! Don’t try and kid your that you are doing Media and arguments from Right…enough with the teacher that there’s nothing Fantasy? What Studies which means that, the internet/books/ boring exam stuff. What is out there on fantasy, do you need to although you might be newspapers that add a fantasy all about then? science-fiction, imaginative do with it then? focusing on one medium, new dimension to the fiction or speculative fiction; As well as looking in Some debates to give your essay/ argument/discussion that there’s oodles of really some detail at what fantasy answer a really sound you are mounting. about Fantasy good material waiting for is all about, I also want to • Genre or mode of footing, you must discuss • Wider contexts: You you. Your job, in trying to re-focus the reader (an A storytelling? texts in different forms need to ask yourself answer an essay question Level student, hopefully) Fantasy is considered a from film to TV to radio continually, ‘Why is the about genre or preparing on how to work out what genre by some, but for to newspapers to the text the way that it for an exam answer on exam boards and exam other critics and media internet to magazines and is?’ and ‘What factors any specific genre (or requirements are looking writers (have a look so on. indeed, genre in general), for in your study. It doesn’t have shaped this text?’. at Daniel Chandler’s is to differentiate between matter whether you are • This is not A Level You need to remember Taxonomies of Genre) what material seems to be with AQA, OCR or WJEC, English Literature: Please that ‘art is socially and it could be that fantasy ‘lightweight’ or just jolly, this will allow you and don’t write the same thing politically produced’. isn’t so much a genre as and that which seems to your teacher to get a for Media and English. Somebody in the media a mode of storytelling. have an academic edge better understanding of The skills are different, world wants to express a It has some parts of its to it. what we’re looking for. even though some of the view or an anxiety about ‘torso’ that are similar to The passage above is What follows is a summary theories may seem similar. something that is going other stories; but the term taken from an excellent of those criteria from an Carrying out a wonderful on now. For instance, is better thought about PowerPoint presentation examiner’s perspective: piece of psychoanalytic consider the vilification of in terms of the common that is available to analysis on a text might some prominent women aspects of the way that download from the internet. • Textual analysis: Don’t not be what we are in our contemporary the story is told. (NB: By It is simply bursting with forget that we want you looking for. Speaking of society, and compare doing this you’ve already

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entered into the debates writers have tried to just haven’t got time to this faith are incredibly seen to offer no choice; around genre.) explain this wide ‘area’ develop…but you have! important. These choices and yet Ofelia chooses the • The genre of the of genre through the are issues such as desire things that she does. Her impossible? concept of speculative Del Toro: Author versus tradition, pleasure actions become a metaphor Some theorists, like fiction. of the fantastic versus pain, sacrifice versus for fighting against William Simon (see • Rooted in the – or fantastic redemption, and so on. oppression. above) argue that science- environment author? These are the ‘monsters’ As del Toro has stated, fiction (sci-fi) has the There may be witches If we consider the fantasy that live in del Toro’s Ofelia’s journey into the possibility of coming true. and wizards, goblins work of imagination, and have done labyrinth is her quest. The For example, we might or goatherds; but (Cronos, Pan’s Labyrinth so since he was a child. labyrinth might be seen as discover life on Mars, most, if not all, of the and Hellboy) then we need Add to this narratives the civil war, or her battle or be able to facilitate fantasy texts that I will to focus on the film-maker that are set against very for her own identity. The the development of mention further on have himself. Why are his films bloody and brutal wars journey is to a centre point, producing superior a connection to the ‘shaped’ and influenced (WW2, Spanish Civil War) it is not about getting lost; beings through genetic earth or environment in the way that they are? and you begin to see the rather it is about finding the engineering. On the and if they don’t (ie: There are many reasons. genesis of these monsters. ‘heart’ of what will allow her other hand, Fantasy is they want to destroy it) Del Toro is in self-imposed Fantasy then, takes on a to move to the next stage seen more as the genre they will be punished/ of the impossible or banished/killed off! inconceivable; and that Fantasy, as I have already is what makes the genre/ said, has its roots in the mode of storytelling so earth, with wastelands, delicious and debatable. moors, forests and other • Fantastical worlds ‘potentially mystical’ Fantasies are set (not spaces. Fairies at the surprisingly) in fantastical bottom of the garden…? worlds that are hard to Never. Or are there… comprehend; but we ?This is something that are used to a willing haunted me when I was suspension of disbelief. very young: if I kicked the The worlds that are ball into my neighbour’s created are often full flower patch I believed of magic, myth and the fairies would come supernatural powers and up and grab my ankles. people. In some respects, Try rationalising that to a the term fantasy has nine year-old as darkness become a catch-all term descended! It was just to categorise texts which made-up myth. have roots in legends • Transgression and and folklore or have morality exile, having witnessed more chilling and complex of her existence. The war, fairy-tale elements. So the myth gets passed many atrocities in his feel to it when you study too, makes a ‘counterpoint’ They might often, but down the generations. native Mexico, including a little harder and probe a to the fantasy; it is only not always, have children We read fantastical the random kidnap of his bit deeper. In fact, for me, when you understand its in the character list, or stories to our children; father by bandits. This has the most interesting debate brutality that the fantastic adults who have child-like we expect them to influenced him to become within Pan’s Labyrinth is becomes more powerful tendencies; but this can understand that the film-maker that he is. the nature of the forbidden, and amplified. Del Toro also add a spin to the debate Augustus Gloop falling He is driven by innocence and the way that retribution uses other conventions around just what fantasy into a chocolate river but and brutality; and this and damnation seem to that echo what has come is. not drowning is plain, comes out in the titles that overhang the innocence before; for instance, facing • Speculation and good old-fashioned he directs. In fact, Pan’s of the young girl, Ofelia. a strange figure and having hybridity morality; in terms of Labyrinth and its ‘brother’ Under Franco’s Fascist to think ahead of your The magical landscapes the rules of the genre, movie, the earlier dated regime, fantasy is seen challenger (as in all the and supernatural Gloop ‘dirtied’ the purity The Devil’s Backbone, have as the antithesis of the Harry Potter films), and inhabitants of a fantasy of the land and got a similar themes and issues, new order; in fact, Ofelia’s being forced not to eat or text might also be good coating. Serves him concerning the choices actions are seen as an act of drink in the fantasy world hybridised with action, right; if he insisted on that the protagonists have treason, going against the (Hansel and Gretel). All of romance, melodrama, transgressing the ‘rules’, to make. Del Toro is, from state and against religion the protagonists in Cronos, comedy (ironic or then he deserved to be his own description, a and control. The monsters, The Devil’s Backbone otherwise), thriller and reprimanded. And this, lapsed Catholic; and the too, represent state and and Pan’s Labyrinth have elements of science- boys and girls, is another choices that are demanded church and politicians and youngsters that have fiction. Some critics and avenue of fantasy that I of people who follow dictators alike. Fascism is to make very grown-up Images courtesy of image.net and the Kobal Collection Images courtesyand the Kobal of image.net

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decisions to survive and plenty of scope for analysis and consequential reminiscent of The Princess well as visiting his sick continue their quest. and seeing what this film responsibilities. As often and the Pea. The ‘Home mother, to whom he is not might ‘mean’. happens in these chance For Happy Children’ is very close. The isolation, Hansel and The opening animated moments, his unwise and Eun-Soo’s sanctuary but its the Groundhog Day-style Gretel, Korean credits and Danny punishable actions catch candy-box veneer hides a repetition of him leaving style… Elfman-like music set a up with him; he is on his deep and dark secret. and not finding his way This lesser known feature very strong and strange cell-phone and skids to There are some very out through the forest, from Korea, directed by atmosphere. The mood is avoid some road-kill. The typical conventions at leave a sinister taste in the Yim Phil-Sung, is another unsettling and continues car is catapulted into the play here which on the mouth of the viewer. Like seemingly inconsequential as such throughout the woods and, concussed, one hand are immediately Pan’s Labyrinth, the film is film which on closer whole text. There are he collapses into a deep recognisable as fantasy/ a discussion of the infinite investigation is a modern some lovely details; the slumber... fairy-tale ingredients; but connections between parable on parenting lead character, Eun-Soo, It is when he awakens there is also a modest and good and evil, Satan and and what happens when drives a car full of toys, and is led to ‘safety’ by well-employed element Christianity, and adoration children are mistreated. gadgets and lighters that a girl in a red hood, that of horror that is subtle and abandonment. This film has been criticised swirl around as he takes things really begin to enough not to alienate The children (played by for retaining very little of the bends of the country develop. When asked audiences who don’t young actors who give the original Grimm’s story. roads at too high a speed. whether her parents would like too much blood and amazing performances) However, this is missing the He calls his girlfriend, who be worried about her being guts. Eun-Soo’s quest is to simply want to be loved point: all fairy-tales need reveals she is pregnant out so late, her reply is ‘I escape his incarceration and instead are treated updating and, in a different, and solemnly reminds came out to look for my and return to see his with disdain and, worse, Asian context, there is him of his recklessness sister’s hairpin,’ which is ‘prince’ being born, as misunderstanding and

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indifference. The scenes in you with the meat to carry Fantasy in print persecution.’ ran in a local newspaper in the dark dungeons of the forward an argument in an media? It is not very popular Cambridge which clearly child prison will make you essay. There are lots of very nowadays to criticise played on its audiences’ understand exactly how the witchcraft of Harry fear of the ‘unknown’ or And what about apposite and fabulous angry the youngsters are. references to witches and Potter. Regardless, the occult, witchcraft The whole story revolves radio fantasy? the occult that are reported Harry Potter is straight and human spirits that In your search to become around the evil of grown- almost on a weekly basis. out of hell. Count me challenge what most would a cross-platform exponent ups; this is a theme You will need to see what in as a ‘stick-in-the- see as the ‘norm’. of Media Studies, you may covered by a number of the institutional politics mud’ for God. If I’m a Demon ready to kill in want to forage in that often other fairy-tales. Adults are and operations of the stick-in-the-mud for city church woefully neglected area meant to be the barometers newspaper are, or indeed proclaiming that Harry raymond.brown@ called radio. By searching of morality and family- of other print articles such Potter is wicked and of cambridge-news.co.uk carefully, you will be able centric life. The reality in the as magazines. Who are they the devil, then so be it. Magus Lynius Shadee to access some really fantasy/fairy-tale is that this owned by? What is their Let the truth be known, A WITCH who plans to good material. Initially, my is taboo; one might argue outlook in terms of gender Harry Potter promotes open an occult centre in investigation led me to BBC here that fantastic genres politics, Marxism, etc? What the sin of witchcraft Cambridge says he has Radio 4. It might be useful often create a hyper-reality is the ‘make-up’ of their and encourages young conjured up a demon to think about why most that is more real than the journalists? What kind of people to dabble into – in the city’s Catholic audio narratives of the real thing itself…discuss! backgrounds do they come such wickedness. Church. fantasy genre appear on a The children, in a moment from? What is the editorial It is not my role to pass Magus Lynius Shadee Public Service Broadcasting of absolute bleakness policy of the newspaper/ moral judgement on this says the demon could station (or PSB), and what towards the end of the film magazine? Is it a paid- comment – but you may possess parishioners implications this has for spit forth that ‘We hate for text or a free paper? want to enter into the and drive them to writers, commissioners grown-ups’ and ‘If we start How might this affect the debate. Is Harry Potter suicide. and audiences who are to trust them they leave us.’ way that the subject is wicked and evil? You might He claims to have looking for material from You can see where they are represented? There are want to think about the instructed the evil the fantasy mode/genre. coming from; and when plenteous examples from Hypodermic/Effects model spirit to ‘dwell’ in My search eventually gave the villainous rapist of a the USA but try to collect and apply it here. Does the famous church to directed me to the National ‘father’ in the home gets those from the UK as these this huge-selling book/ ‘cleanse it’. Short Story Award that pushed into his own funeral will be easier to explain in film/merchandise franchise The occultist, who calls had been conducted by pyre one can only smile terms of the social, political, encourage young people himself the King of All BBC Radio 4. The winning contentedly. economic, historical and to fly around on brooms Witches, says he let tale, by Sarah Maitland, is The one slightly technological contexts. and dabble with the occult? loose the entity to prey entitled ‘Moss Witch’ and, disturbing aspect for me After a little searching, What evidence is there on worshippers at the as you’ve guessed, is a (but which may provide I found something both of its corrupting impact? Church of Our Lady and wonderful 29-minute affair a rich and fruitful area of peculiar and interesting. Certainly then, fantasy can the English Martyrs in where a normal human discussion for you) is the For those of you who are provoke debates about Hills Road. being meets a woman ‘granting’ of the ultimate looking at Wider Contexts morality and ideology in Fr Dick Healey has from the netherworld, with wish by Santa Claus. It is not for A2 Media and Film young people. What is your branded the occultist dire consequences. It’s a that I don’t believe this plot Studies then http://jesus- view here? Are there other ‘twisted’ and plans wonderful piece of story- twist (it would be silly to is-savior.com/beware_of_ viewpoints that might be to report him to the telling and one where you do otherwise – after all, this christianity_today.htm is useful to give a counter- police for practising think it’s all very tame until is fantasy…) but it may be worth reading. Here, the argument to this website? witchcraft in a church. the quirks start hitting you. that there is just too much fantastic pursuits of Harry Although published He said: ‘He should be Just go to www..co.uk/ of a cultural incongruity Potter are criticised, as the online only (http:// reported to the police. Radio4 and you will find it. here. I guess, ultimately, it quote below suggests: www.cambridge-news. It’s as if someone came doesn’t really matter…it’s It’s available as a podcast ‘Yea, and all that will co.uk/cn_news_home/ into your home and the debate that you have for you to download. live godly in Christ DisplayArticle. performed some sort over it that will provide Jesus shall suffer asp?ID=454587), a story of magic trick without

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your permission. camera. There is a real many of these specialist and affirms their niche exploratory expedition ‘He’s obviously a bit treat for media readers of sites have links to Twitter interest. It demands that into a fascinating topic. twisted to perform representation here. and . These regular users and visitors I hope that you enjoy witchcraft in a church.’ Please note, this is the groups have an opportunity alike donate ideas and your extended study in Clearly, there is much tip of the iceberg; there to ‘connect’ via virtual group get involved. It even has a this topic, and write well- of interest here for the are many, many more facilities; although they are drop-down menu offering informed essays whether Media student (and I stories crying out for geographically disparate, shopping – even fantasy for exam or coursework. won’t cover everything; deconstruction. Try out they can chat and feel as fans have to fetishise over you should continue the ones above first, and one united ‘niche’ group. their retail-fix. Overall, the Chris Bruce currently teaches your exploration further) then search for some of You might also look at the site has a friendly, personal in schools in north London and in terms of ideology, your own. Try to find a astonishing notion of global feel; it is welcoming and Berkshire as well as being a religion, fear, the loss of newspaper report about games’ playing, where, emanates the feeling that freelance trainer. He is a Senior innocence, the concept witchcraft/fantasy/ people can participate in this is a ‘labour of love’ in Moderator, Coursework Adviser of the ‘weirdo’, binary the occult, etc, which is fantasy console games that its owner writes for real and Question Paper Reviser opposites and moral supportive or sympathetic from across the world, all fans and aficionados with for AQA. panics. You might also want to the protagonist. What playing simultaneously! The intense interest and without to look at the journalistic does this tell you about the possibilities are limitless. a big impersonal media style and the way in which way that newspapers report The Radio Rivendell company interfering with Reading the paper ‘says’ things stories? What do editors website incorporates many the editorial content, form through implication. think about such features? features for fans of fantasy/ and style that only a niche Bettelheim, Bruno: The This can be achieved What do audiences really gaming. It boats 8,500 site like this can give. It’s Uses of Enchantment via analysing linguistic consider to be ‘the truth’? members across a global well worth a visit. http://www.encyclo- techniques such as editing, Do they care? Are they just community, claiming to In conclusion… pedia.com/doc/1G1- cropping, comments, etc, led to believe that what be the ‘one and only’, thus 161909183.html as well as who has been is printed must be true...? satisfying an audience As an examiner, I interviewed and who has Again, you will need to aware that this is an ‘elite’ sometimes despair of the http://news.scotsman. been excluded. Fr Healey’s evaluate your evidence and unit of experts and a fact that students have com/entertainment/ quote seems somewhat decide for yourself. niche outfit. This notion chosen to specialise in a The-Witch- banal and ill-thought of specialised and niche certain area for an exam report- pinpoints- through; many parents What about the positioning gratifies an topic or coursework and worst.4886653.jp allow conjurers into their internet then? audience not targeted by don’t do enough to ensure http://khanya. homes precisely because Finally, look at the the mainstream media. The that they have secured wordpress. they like the unexpected! It representations of fantasy site provides instrumental a media-wide or cross- com/2008/04/06/ seems almost a coup that worlds and narratives music for gaming and platform approach. The witchcraft-african-and- the ‘villain’ has the surname on specific gaming sites. audio accompaniment to internet now provides european/ Shadee. Hmm! When you I went to http://www. created images: musical learners with such actually investigate the radiorivendell.com and pieces/stings/ambient rich opportunities for hyperlink and the picture some others just to see excerpts which can be information and debate of the man himself, the what kinds of sites were played and downloaded that there is no reason photo is very blurred as if out there. They will often via QuickTime. It also to leave any platform to connote that he didn’t have a very enthusiastic provides hyperlinks to a unresearched. The genre want his picture taken outlook, be really keen to wide range of instrumental (or mode) of fantasy should and was embarrassed explain their rationale and composers who work in provide you with a rich to be spotted. He is what they do. Why do you this sector of the industry. and interesting area to uncomfortably close to think that this might be? Again, the site is ‘e-media negotiate. Remember, the the camera lens and looks What does the internet offer democratic’ in that it ideas/sources contained to be in ‘dynamic’ pose; he these groups that maybe has a forum, encourages in this article are not the seems to be almost lunging, other media perhaps can’t? interactivity and comment, answers but merely a aggressively towards the What is interesting is that ‘recognises’ its participants, starting point for your

english and media centre | February 2010 | MediaMagazine 29 MM

The imagery of Fritz Lang’s 1927 Newsflash! Those facts alone endear it to film fans. But Metropolis is also the first example of a silent dystopian masterpiece has In July 2008 film lovers around the world were thrilled by the news that missing footage of Fritz dystopian film, and one that has influenced influenced countless science-fiction Lang’s 1927 Metropolis had been science-fiction films ever since. and fantasy movies. Jennifer found in the arrives of an Argentinean museum, having been missing for 80 years. Dystopian? Dystopian is the antithesis to Utopian, Stakes discusses its ideology and The German film tells the story of a futuristic which has come to mean a perfect place or society where workers (who live below ground) legacy. society. A dystopia, then, is a society gone are exploited by the ruling capitalist class (who wrong, Responsibility most traditionally lies live in the opulent city above). Neither, however, with a government regime (Nineteen Eighty- can exist without the other, and the coming of a Four, Fahrenheit 451) or a non-governmental Mediator is the only thing that can prevent them corporation (Alien/Aliens, Resident Evil); from destroying each other. however, changes in social norms, such as At the time of its release, the film was hated by drug-taking or scientific advances (Brave critics and audiences alike, and was heavily cut New World, A Scanner Darkly) can produce by American distributors hoping to make it more a dystopia. A dystopia can also result from an palatable to US cinema-goers. This led to over- apocalyptic event (The Road, ), simplification of the plot and the marginalisation an alien invasion (Battlefield Earth), or can of key characters. The original version found in be an anarchic, ‘cyber-punk’ world (, Argentina is currently being restored and fills in -Runner). A dystopia could be formed by a these important gaps in the story. combination of these things, such as a totalitarian It was a good day for film buffs… but why government evolving out of a post-apocalyptic on earth were a few reels of 80-year-old silent event (The Handmaid’s Tale). German film thought to be so relevant that they Dystopian novels are a rich source of made the news worldwide? inspiration for film-makers. The film version of The scale of Metropolis Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel The With 37,000 extras used in filming and vast Road has recently been released, while upcoming sets, Metropolis was the most expensive dystopian films include the adaptation of Kazuo film ever produced, costing the equivalent of Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go, which focuses $200 million, something that would still put it on the human cost of rapid medical advances. in the top ten today. The resulting spectacle The remake of Fahrenheit 451 (the original was is impressive, even to modern eyes used to made in 1966), based on Ray Bradbury’s 1953 computer-aided special effects. novel about the outlawing of literacy, is due in

2012. (1927) Lang Fritz D. of Metropolis the DVD Images from

30 MediaMagazine | February 2010 | english and media centre MM Chronological timeline of dystopian books and films In a more comic and satirical vein, WALL-E depicts a dismal vision of the future where Novel/Comic book Year Film Year rampant consumerism and corporate greed has destroyed the environment. Back on Earth in Metropolis 1927 Resident Evil, the secretive ‘Umbrella Corporation’ Aldous Huxley: Brave New World 1932 - - accidentally unleashes a terrible infection. That - - Alien 1979 the corporations these films depict put profit - - Mad Max 1980 above human well-being is a recurring theme. Modern dystopian films which continue to Philip K. Dick: Do Androids Dream of 1968 BladeRunner 1982 challenge totalitarian governments are no longer Electric Sheep? inspired by the Cold War and Communism as George Orwell: Nineteen Eighty-Four 1949 Nineteen Eighty-Four 1984 was Nineteen Eighty-Four. Nonetheless, interest - - The Terminator 1984 in governments with absolute control remains - - Aliens 1986 (Judge , V for Vendetta). The remake of the 1966 film Fahrenheit 451, about the outlawing Batman (comic) 1940- Batman 1989 of books, is due out in 2012 and shows that while Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid’s 1985 The Handmaid’s Tale 1990 the films may date, the themes remain current Tale enough to warrant a revisit. 2000 AD (comic) 1977- Judge Dredd 1995 The first dystopia that dealt with the use of technology to dehumanise society was Aldous - - 12 Monkeys 1995 Huxley’s 1932 novel Brave New World (oddly, Battlefield Earth 1982 Battlefield Earth 2000 this has never been made into a cinema film). Metropolis (comic) 1949 Metropolis (manga film) 2001 Reading it again, the story seems surprisingly undated. The upcoming film Never Let Me Go, - - 28 Days Later 2002 based on Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2005 book, similarly Resident Evil (computer game) 1996 Resident Evil 2002 shows the effects of the darker side of medical Alan Moore: V for Vendetta (comic) 1980s V for Vendetta 2006 advances on its characters. A Scanner Darkly 1977 A Scanner Darkly 2006 The legal drug ‘soma’ was used to pacify the citizens of Brave New World, rather than risking : 1954 I Am Legend 2007 discontent. The visually-experimental film A - - WALL-E 2008 Scanner Darkly goes further in exploring the Cormac McCarthy: The Road 2006 The Road 2009 implications of a world where government- Kazuo Ishiguro: Never Let Me Go 2005 Never Let Me Go 2010 approved drug use is used to control the population; in this film the drug finally induces Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451 1951 Fahrenheit 451 1966/2012 madness. The fear that a controlling power could somehow degrade humanity has been a feature to its Futurist design, while the concept of the of dystopia since Metropolis. So what makes the ideas in If a remake of Metropolis is ever filmed it will Metropolis so current? layered city with its stratified workers is central to the visually dazzling Manga film based on Osamu be fascinating to see how it reflects the concerns The ideas and themes in Metropolis are still Tezuka’s comic books, also called Metropolis. of today’s society. thought to be as relevant to a modern audience as they were in 1927; at the time of the discovery Modern dystopia, modern Jennifer Stakes writes short stories and poetry and is of the missing reels, it was rumoured that a fears currently working on her own dystopian novel. re-make of Metropolis was being discussed in Society and technology changed rapidly over Hollywood. the first half of the twentieth century and the film Metropolis fact file What is particularly fascinating about and literature of the time, especially the growing dystopian films is that they explore or mirror fears Date: 1927 popularity of science-fiction, reflect these of the time they were made. Concerns about changes. The World Wars, the rise of Communism Country: Germany technological advances, the dangers of autocratic and the spectre of atomic warfare all left their governments or the breakdown of society are Director: Fritz Lang mark on dystopian books and films. universal fears, meaning they stay in our cultural If we look through the eyes of modern Plot: In a futuristic society workers (who live psyche generation after generation. dystopia, such as I Am Legend, The Road, 28 below ground) are exploited by the ruling The ideas behind Metropolis were very much Days Later or 12 Monkeys, the horrors of an capitalist class (who live in the opulent city a product of the political and social discourse of apocalypse certainly haven’t diminished. above). Neither can exist without the other and the times. In 1927, socialist ideals were sweeping Nowadays, however, the catalyst may be an alien the coming of a Mediator is the only thing that Europe and totalitarian governments in China, invasion or a virus, rather than a nuclear attack. In can prevent them from destroying each other. Russia and Germany were on the brink of waging these post-apocalyptic worlds the fight for power wars across the world. The world has changed Tagline: There can be no understanding tends to polarise. Either an absolutist government in 80 years and so perhaps these themes seem between the hands and the brain unless the rises from the ashes (The Handmaid’s Tale) or outdated. Metropolis, however, also explores the heart acts as mediator. anarchy reigns (Mad Max). fear of increased mechanisation and of reason Concerns about over-powerful corporations and emotion becoming divorced. These are also dominate modern dystopian films. This is universal fears and may translate well to modern not surprising, given the pace of globalisation. audiences. The hugely influential style of the film Science-fiction is able to take these trends and still barely looks dated. explore their imagined conclusions. In Alien/ Style Aliens ‘The Company’ is a shadowy organisation with a galactic reach, perhaps just as sinister as The stylised Gothic skyscrapers and menacing the alien itself: their immoral actions are entirely machinery of Metropolis certainly left their mark pre-meditated whereas the alien is merely an on later film-makers. The looming towers of instinctive hunter. Gotham City in Tim Burton’s Batman owe a debt

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Mark Ramey compares two movies in particular, has successfully reappeared in genre that made him. More recently we find, other media, such as video games, where it has The Mist (Darabont, 2007, USA) and Cloverfield from opposite ends of the fantasy teamed up with another sci-fi movie monster, (Reeves, 2008, USA) – all still playing with the spectrum, sci-fi and horror, linked by Predator (McTiernan, 1987, USA) in the face off idea of apocalyptic creatures. The 1950s science- – AVP: Alien Vs Predator (Anderson, 2006, USA). fiction Creature Features were generic hybrids common themes – not least, teeth... This move represents a phase in the lifespan featuring scientists creating or discovering of a hybrid sub-genre, the ‘creature feature’ horrific new species: evidence of an ideological A great way to answer the AS Film Studies (discussed later); a phase of extreme genre and psychological anxiety emerging from exam: Section C: US Film Comparison – is exploitation as illustrated by the heavyweight the Cold War, with its fears of moral division, by fighting off the combined menace of two mash-ups, King Kong versus Godzilla (Honda, foreign invasion and nuclear annihilation. of Hollywood’s finest and most toothsome, 1963, Japan) and more recently Mega Shark Unsurprisingly, one the 1950s most popular monster-movie franchises, Jaws (Spielberg, 1975, versus Giant Octopus (Perez, 2009, USA). Creature Feature cycles started with Godzilla USA) and Alien (Scott, 1979, USA). What is it that Alien’s original sci-fi literate screenplay and (Honda, 1954, Japan) and emerged from the only has made these modern classics so loved by fans the more mainstream screen adaptation of Peter country in the world to have been attacked with and academics? A closer study of their generic Benchley’s best-selling novel, Jaws, suggests atom bombs. and narrative characteristics will help answer this that on face value these films will have little in Aside from a sociological and political question. common. Jaws is a contemporary-set action- basis Creature Features also play on our more Jaws, released by Universal and directed adventure and Alien is a futuristic science-fiction primitive, psychological fears, our natural by Steven Spielberg, is a film widely regarded film. The iconography of outer space, aliens, terror of the unknown, the monstrous and the as helping launch the New Hollywood era, androids and planetary exploration places very large, and in doing so such films enter the Hollywood’s response to the death of the Studio familiar terrain of the horror genre. Jaws features System. New Hollywood can be understood as Alien alongside such films as 2001: A Space a creature, a great white shark, that has grown a style of contemporary American film-making Odyssey (Kubrick, 68, USA) and Star Wars (Lucas, to huge proportions and developed a taste for which focuses on heavily marketed, saturation 1977, USA). However, despite such apparent human flesh. The Alien creature, on the other releases, targeting mainstream holiday audiences differences, I wish to argue that these two films hand, is large with razor sharp slobbering teeth consumed with merchandising mania. This are in fact linked by their generic character and business model, coupled with the creation of narrative structure. and yet its particularly horrifying characteristic high-concept plot lines, defines New Hollywood’s is its evolutionary adaptability and cunning. love of genre and was most famously illustrated Introducing the creature Psychoanalytic feminists like Barbara Creed go when Alien was pitched to Fox executives as: feature one step further and read Alien’s horror as: ‘Jaws in Space.’ Taking genre first I believe both films are great a complex representation of the monstrous- The use of ‘stars’ is another feature of the examples of a specific type of genre film, the feminine in terms of the maternal figure as Hollywood marketing machine and, interestingly, Creature Feature. A Creature Feature is a high perceived within a patriarchal ideology.’ Or, both films featured a relatively untried cast concept film by definition – a film that features in other words: ‘in a male dominated society and crew: it is now the directors, Spielberg creatures, deadly and destructive ones, causing women are scariest when being ‘mothers’. and Ridley Scott (both then working on only havoc. One of the earliest examples is RKO’s King In terms of the genre cycle, Creature Features their second features), who have become Kong (Cooper, 1933, USA). Later formulations have gone in and out of fashion but the rise of a the most bankable names. However, in Jaws are found in the science-fiction B-movie cycle postmodern sensibility among audiences and and Alien, the creatures are the stars and any of the 1950s with films such as Creature from the happiness of producers to plunder and spoof A-list upstaging would unbalance both the the Black Lagoon (Arnold, 1954, USA) and Them other genres have led to such parodies as Snakes narrative and marketing. Both films have led (Douglas, 1954, USA). In the 1990s Jurassic Park on a Plane (Ellis, 2006, USA). The CGI revolution on to a further three direct sequels and Alien (1993, USA) heralded Spielberg’s return to the has also given some renewed credibility to the

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english and media centre | February 2010 | MediaMagazine 33 MM actual monsters depicted on screen, monsters alien is either a man in a suit or a mechanised endeavour and Brody by a sense of duty and fear that are often derided as inept and laughable. model, the gleaming carapace and salivating for the safety of his family. Both Jaws and Alien, seen from our digital jaws communicate a strong sense of reality at Finally, in terms of Levi-Straus’s binary perspective, can seem clumsy and unconvincing the same time as channelling into our darkest opposites, we find plenty of oppositional forces (the rubberised mechanical shark of Jaws and dreams. Alien’s demonic creature is truly a illustrated and dealt with in both films. Alien the ‘man in the suit’ in Alien) but what gives representative of the ‘monstrous’. To quote from features class conflicts between crew members: both these films the audience thumbs-up some a seminal science-fiction film of the 1950s, The Ripley, representing the officer class, clashes with 30 years after their release, is that they are still Forbidden Planet, (Wilcox, 1956, USA), it is ‘a the ship’s overall-wearing mechanics, a battle highly effective horror films. The nightmare of these monsters is made credible by the superb model designs and animatronics. Similarities and differences In terms of the horror genre, partly what distinguishes Jaws from Alien, is the use of lighting: Jaws is largely shot in high key light to help define its summer setting (Amity, holiday island) whereas Alien, aside from the heavenly and radiant opening and closing sequences, largely takes place in hellish, shadow-filled corridors or industrial, deserted hangers. The iconography of Alien screams ‘horror’ and we are reminded of the film’s famous tagline: ‘In space no one can hear you scream’. This marketing device clearly indicates the film’s generic character by emphasising the film’s effect on its monster from the Id’. The Id is Freud’s theoretical, echoed in Jaws between the old fisherman, audience, as well as playing on the classic horror primitive unconsciousness, where our most Quint, and the young rich scientist, Hooper. Rules ideas of isolation and loneliness. Alien, along with elemental terrors lurk: the monster in Alien is are flaunted for greed and in both films this ‘slashers’ like Halloween (Carpenter, 1978, USA), such a demonic creature, emerging from the dark leads to disaster: Ash countermanding Ripley, by pioneered the ‘final girl’ narratives: loved, because into our primordial nightmares and Jaws too allowing the infected Kane into the air locker and, they show resourceful, victorious, women at represents a murderous sea creature, a leviathan, in Jaws, the Mayor ignoring the pleas of Hooper the centre of narratives from which they are that attacks us invisibly from the black, aquatic and Brody to close the beaches. Other themes traditionally marginalised; loathed, because they deeps. tackled in both films are the battle between seem to satisfy misogynist desires to witness the In terms of narrative it is possible to apply the animal world and the world of man and drawn-out terrorisation of strong girls. most of the classic theorists (Levi-Straus, more broadly, anarchic nature versus orderly The micro-elements in both films clearly Todorov and Propp) to both films and illustrate civilisation. There are themes of loyalty explored communicate a sense of dread and unease, interesting structural similarities and differences. and famously, in Alien, themes of race, gender Collection Images courtesyand the Kobal of image.net for example in their use of musical scores and Both films have linear development and take and sexuality that do not really appear in Jaws. place over a short time frame of a couple of days. The world of Alien is more tolerant of other Both films focus on relatively small groups of races and genders whereas in Jaws the white characters (arguably, six in both Alien and Jaws). male world triumphs and women are positioned And both films share a sense of equilibrium stereotypically as ‘carers’ or ‘screamers’. Famously, being disrupted and then returned too after in Alien, Sigourney Weaver kicks extra-terrestrial the creature has been destroyed. Both films also butt and thereby revises a genre. have relatively up-beat endings, in that the In conclusion, these two American films share beast is dead and there are survivors, although generic and narrative characteristics. Audiences Alien, more than Jaws, leaves us with a sense recognise them as Creature Feature horror films of disquiet, for whereas Hooper and Brody are and their producers clearly do so as well. Quint’s united, energised and joyful in their triumph, grizzly death and Kane’s stomach-bursting scene Ripley is silent, exhausted and alone. nail the iconography of horror by dwelling on In terms of a Proppian analysis, ghastly bloody death in way that a thriller or despite Ripley’s heroic status being treated action movie would not do. Alien is the more conventionally it is initially concealed from us, radical of the two texts, developing along less and so her eventual role as ‘victorious last classical narrative lines in the depiction of the survivor’ is surprising. However, both texts beast’s heroic destroyer. However, what these contain well-defined villains, the creatures two films broadly share is genre and narrative. themselves, and false friends and blockers in Jaws and Alien both play on our basic human the shape of the Nostromo’s science officer and anxieties: their terror lies in their depiction of the Amity’s mayor. Dispatchers can be found in Alien monstrous and deadly. In some very real sense in the role of The Company and its on-board both films are defined by their teeth: they have in particular with the eerie cello work of John mouthpiece, Mother. In Jaws, Brody acts as a a bite that hurts and whether one is in a dark, Williams’ Jaws theme music: the most iconic, dispatcher, in that he organises the trip to hunt industrial space ship or far out at sea the thought and certainly the most disturbing of musical the shark. The goal in both films is, at its most of being bitten by a giant creature is enough to motifs. The realism of both films comes through simple level, survival through the destruction make us all panic and scream. convincing mise-en-scène, naturalistic dialogue, of the creature; but interestingly there are also Mark Ramey teaches Media Studies at Collyers College, and long takes which all help to make the shocks, minor goals that motivate key characters: in when they do come, all the more terrifying. Alien the crew are desperate to get home and West Sussex. Scott, in particular, set Alien in a very believable spend their wages, and the alien, thanks to the far future: a testament to his renowned control callous Company, is stopping them achieving of mise-en-scène and the inspirational organic this by pursuing its own goal of survival. In Jaws, designs of Art Director, Giger. Although the Quint is driven by revenge, Hooper by scientific

34 MediaMagazine | February 2010 | english and media centre MM

Emma-Louise Howard considers relocation of the alien refugees from their present residence in District 9 to a new camp, aptly The 46-year South African apartheid regime Neil Blomkamp’s starkly realistic named District 10. was a system of racial segregation which South African sci-fi movie and its District 9 offers up many potential readings removed citizenship from Black people, provided which I will go through to clarify the allegorical significance as an allegory. them with inferior public services (healthcare, process. It involves looking just below the surface education etc.), and incorporated ‘forced Allegory: the expression by means of for double meanings, hidden implications, removals’ to ensure separation. Indeed, the word symbolic figures and actions of truths or symbolism, but also trying to identify events or ‘apartheid’ in means ‘separateness’. generalisations about human existence. concepts which the text might be representative This system was legally enforced yet eventually (Penguin English Dictionary definition) of or referring to. When a media text becomes abolished in 1994. , , 1989. An metaphor, we call it allegory. The resulting violent conflicts of apartheid are enormous spaceship hovers ominously over the city (reminiscent of 1996’s Independence Day). When an exploratory group finally penetrate its exterior, they find to their shock approximately one million malnourished alien beings, crustacean in appearance, skittish and frightened. The conclusion is drawn that the aliens are seeking refuge. And so the scene is set for District 9, not your average sci-fi alien movie. It doesn’t have the creepy suspense of Alien, or the vast intergalactic battles of Independence Day. There’s no cuddly extra-terrestrial like ET, and it’s not as stylised as Men in Black. The little men aren’t green, and, perhaps most unsettling of all, there are no good guys or bad guys. It is, however, starkly realistic, with minimum CGI, hand-held cameras and a documentary style employed to create a sense of claustrophobia and verisimilitude. The ‘footage’ follows the mission undertaken by Multinational United (MNU), the

Images courtesy of image.net private military corporation ‘responsible’ for the

english and media centre | February 2010 | MediaMagazine 35 MM

36 MediaMagazine | February 2010 | english and media centre MM evoked in District 9’s riot scenes, in which aliens torture, religious persecution and breaches of The pseudo-real promotional material that battle with locals. A particularly ironic touch, fundamental human rights. The segregation of accompanied the film’s release was hugely however, is that all of the ‘footage’ shown involves aliens in District 9’s holding facility could be evocative of the historical symbols of segregation Black people attacking aliens. The paradigmatic argued to reference this. in the US. Signs stating ‘Restrooms for Humans choice to depict Black people mistreating aliens (a term used to denote racial Only – Non-Humans Banned!’ were posted as part in a way that they themselves have historically intolerance) is examined in District 9. This can of the viral advertising campaign, and as extreme been mistreated could be seen to suggest that only occur via the comparison of something as this might seem in the context of modern the human race as a whole is flawed, and that ‘alien’ (excuse the pun) to one’s own way of society, this practice was a reality in America less given conducive circumstances, we all have the life. Post 9/11 the ‘alien’ cultural and religious than 50 years ago; more recently in South Africa. potential to oppress our fellow human beings. values of Islam were scrutinised, criticised and The use of separate facilities signified that other Perhaps the most obvious comparison to draw ultimately, feared. Arranged marriages, the races were thought of as ‘alien’, making District 9 is between the movie title, District 9, and Cape treatment of women, female dress codes and look like even more of a literal metaphor for racial Town’s real-life District 6, a cosmopolitan area even food preparation were cited as evidence segregation. of mixed-race inhabitants that endured forced of Islam’s ‘barbarism’ and ‘backwardness’. As is so removal of non-whites in the 1970s. One of the often the case, what we fail to understand, we Slavery main reasons cited for this under apartheid law fear. It is against the Muslim religion to eat meat It could be argued that the antecedent to was that interaction between races generated other than that which is ‘Halal’, (the preparation all forms of racial and cultural segregation was conflict. District 6 was labelled a slum, with of Halal meat involves slitting the throat of the the system of slavery. People were effectively government officials affirming that prostitution, animal and allowing the blood to drain away kidnapped from their native land and taken to gambling and drinking made it a den of vice. before butchering). There is a moment in District the West to work for their keep, domestically or Aptly enough, the same issues are cited during the clearance of District 9 in the film. Members of MNU are depicted talking anxiously about inter-species prostitution, likewise during the infiltration, main character Wikus notes that the aliens ‘have been doing a little drinking here’, and cat food, which has a narcotic effects on aliens, is being sold to them at extortionate prices. The company Multinational United (MNU) at the centre of the District 9 evictions echoes the presence of racist organisations that emerged during South African apartheid, such as the CCB (Civil Cooperation Bureau), AWB (Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging, a far-right White supremacist organisation), SAP (South African Police) and so on. Terrorism While it might be a less obvious link than that of apartheid, much of what District 9 deals with 9 which evokes this practise so suggestively, one in larger organisations. Upon becoming a slave, can be considered culturally representative of cannot help but draw comparisons as an alien their identity was stolen. They were designated recent world events, specifically those involving drains the blood of a cow to nourish its own eggs. a Westernised name that had no resonance with 9/11 and ‘The War on Terror’. In 2001, when it their own culture, like ‘Christopher Johnson’ (one was revealed that the hijackers of 9/11 were part Segregation of the most Western names imaginable), the of a Muslim fundamentalist sect, not only did Early apartheid coincided with American racial leading alien in District 9. Adult slaves who were international war ensue, so too did cultural and segregation. Following the abolition of the slave often older than their owners were infantilised social war. A climate of fear took hold of the trade, racial tension was tangible, and just as in by being referred to as ‘boy’ or ‘girl’. Like slaves, Western world, a fear that led many Westerners apartheid, Blacks were considered to be second- the aliens are given new identities and forced to to perceive all Muslims (and anyone who looked class citizens. Not only did they have to use live by them, and suffer the use of derogatory like they might be Muslim) as potential terrorists. separate facilities to Whites – public bathrooms terms. They are labelled ‘prawns’ due to their The war in Afghanistan that began in the wake of and such like – they were forced to use different arthropod-like appearance. The motivations 9/11 saw large numbers of suspected terrorists entrances in cinemas, bars, clubs and so on. As behind this nickname are to insult, and belittle. rounded up and relocated to Guantanamo bay well as this, they had to sit at separate ends of Prawns are tiny crustaceans with small brains, and (a detention centre in Cuba operated by the US public transport and give up their seat if a White basically exist without intelligence, emotion and military). Controversy has surrounded this facility person asked for it. higher thought. Therefore the label ‘prawn’ has with proven evidence of wrongful imprisonment,

english and media centre | February 2010 | MediaMagazine 37 MM multiple negative connotations for an advanced species with bio-mechanical technology far more advanced than our own. Like ‘boy’ or ‘girl’, the term belittles and implies lower status and intelligence. From genocide to general inequality There is a moment in District 9 when Wikus sees the harvesting of alien eggs and destroys them with a flamethrower, calling it ‘abortion’. Depicting just how polysemic (having multiple meanings) this text is, such an occurrence evokes historical genocide, perhaps the most iniquitous of which was the Holocaust. The similarities between the representation of the aliens in District 9 and the Jews by the Nazis are striking. Jews were referred to as rats and parasites and the Jewish race as a whole was effectively de-humanised. They were scapegoated during a period of economic depression and accused of stealing jobs and disrupting the economy weapons. Ironically Wikus finds himself in the (only some of which are explored here), we (similar to contemporary economic migrants position of a fugitive – the hunter has become should also perhaps ask why. Does it have a to the West). Jews were hunted down, rounded the hunted. Having escaped MNU captivity (his moral? up and placed in camps... are you spotting a employers intended to vivisect him prior to The film’s stance remains fiercely ambiguous, recurring theme here? While the aliens in District the complete transformation) he takes refuge offering both the human and alien perspective in 9 are not massacred, the culling of their eggs is in the very place he formerly invaded: District equal measure. We see the corruption of humans tantamount to genocide. In captivity Jews were 9. No longer human and not quite an alien, he and the maltreatment of aliens, but we also see experimented on for ‘medical research’, just as the remains at an uncomfortable midpoint, not fully evasive and violent aliens which might explain aliens are. belonging within either culture. The mutation of why they are feared. We see the difficulties District 9 employs a very interesting tactic in Wikus means that he is forced into feeling a sense that integration brings, but also the dubious the narrative. When seeking out alien weaponry, of empathy with the aliens; living amongst them machinations of a multinational company Wikus is accidentally sprayed with fluid from he better understands them and their culture and with a politically correct facade. But perhaps an alien canister, and begins to transform. His values. most importantly we see a fairly xenophobic arm mutates, taking on the appearance of an While we may argue that District 9 allegorises human transform into that which he fears. This alien appendage, enabling him to operate alien an almost endless series of events and ideologies highlights, via the employment of an allegorical reading, that while every one of us is capable of prejudice, we are also capable of empathy, and if we choose not to utilise it, it may be forced upon us. A possible reading is that we fail to learn from history and seem doomed continually to repeat the mistakes of the past. The aliens in District 9 don’t resemble any particular racial or cultural group within society; this could be perceived as a means of representing all those who have suffered due to their ‘alien’ status. It could also be seen as a warning that any group could be next.

Emma Louise Howard is a former A Level Media student, has completed an MA in Critical Theory, and will soon be training as a Media Studies lecturer.

Not so Alien After All

38 MediaMagazine | February 2010 | english and media centre Fantasy Meets Social Realism

Ken Loach’s films are because it gives them a little kick to watch from venerated for their their Republic, through uncompromising Loach’s candid binoculars, the steadily privatised politics and gritty demise of the British realism; so how working class. A previous come he’s made a Palme D’Or winner with The Wind That Shakes The feel-good fantasy Barley and now eight times with Eric Cantona? nominee, Loach barely needed to turn up with Eric Owen Davey is Cantona on his sleeve and enthralled. in his film in order to gain respect. But respect is one thing, popularity another. As often happens, the Cannes film festival made Looking for Ken an excitable entrance into Ken Loach is probably the media and influence a name most people have of 2009, only to slip away known for a long time but through the disorientation without knowing why. some time later with its Most people have heard of prizes. Did it open with Kes, either because they’re Pixar’s UP? Tarantino and approaching middle-age his Basterds were certainly and remember the original there, and the inevitable release with a little giggle flinch rippled out from Lars – forgetting the film’s von Trier’s ever-cutting hard-edge – or because edge in Anti-Christ, but this they’ve just spent their unexplained title only stuck teenage years sniggering in my mind post the British at the inexplicable Kestrel press giving it the second that follows Avid Merrion’s third-degree some time Craig David around. I think later. Michael Haneke’s The everybody would recognise White Ribbon won; I just its cover – low-res image narrative fiction on film. I solace from his inevitable human cast, as realism. Googled it. But, other than of a boy flicking the V at us believe, however, that the future down a pit by This is not to say that it isn’t all of this, the real winner, in all – whether they know it aforementioned films in stealing, rearing and flying almost entirely relevant to Britain at least, and if we’re or not. particular will more or less a wild kestrel. The crude our real lives, but rather that talking about exposure, was Between Kes, in 1970, bookend Loach’s career, but effective symbol of it makes its real point and Ken Loach’s Looking For and Looking For Eric, have artistically and popularly, freedom or, in Loach’s eyes, depiction whilst smuggling Eric which has just hit the come films from Loach not just because they are social mobility that this in and wielding a device DVD market. every one or two years, two of his finest examples memorably improbable usually unjustly reserved Finished article aside, the increasing in frequency of this trademark style title character brings, for escapism. If anything, people, intention and clever as the director grows and subject, but because makes the truly grim reality this film is confrontism at delivery behind this film older. A true pioneer they marry two genres of the story all the more its most confrontational, virtually ensure its success, and originator of the that rarely meet in their poignant and elevates as was Kes: one using the both here and in France. documentary-like, hand- extremes: reality and the film’s message and reality of a soaring bird to First of all, Ken Loach is a held, semi-scripted and fantasy. memorableness, to a ledge give perspective on real life, gnarly old socialist who naturally-lit depiction of Kes, in fact, is not of immortality that Loach’s the other using the legend has portrayed the plight of non-actors in real settings technically a fantasy, but other purely human and, – fantasy – of Eric Cantona. the proletariat in his ‘back that has since become it harbours a real and inevitably, more mortally to basics’ films for decades. known, for better or worse, symbolic escapism within grounded films cannot Fantasy Loach- The French love that kind as British cinema’s grim its story that suggests reach. Until Looking For style of shizzle (I’m trying to and gritty style stereotype, enough for the audience Eric. Looking for Eric does As good as ‘fantasy’ is, sound cool, not demeaning Loach has actively sought to make up the numbers; a the same trick backwards. It Loach has helped prove – that kind of shizzle is to document Britain’s boy, living in rural Yorkshire, is a fantasy – no two ways that it doesn’t have to mean actually quite important), unfortunate truths without options at home about it – disguised, in the a 3D bombardment of particularly, I suspect, through the medium of or at school, finds fleeting grounding of its purely Gilliamesque transformer Images courtesy of image.net and from the DVD of Looking For Eric, D. Ken Loach Ken D. Eric, For of Looking the DVD Images courtesyand from of image.net

english and media centre | February 2010 | MediaMagazine 39 vampire mermaids. It can, Loach’s forty-five year if used cleverly, become career. a device to further stories that we can all relate to. If Little film, big you don’t trust me, another story good and recent example The real trick that this that you’ll most likely know film has pulled, however, better is Eternal Sunshine is that it isn’t a gimmick, rounds, it’s Eric Bishop, Eric Cantona. underbelly. Most crucially Of A Spotless Mind, the sci- the likes of which we know played by relatively But don’t take this as though, and not out fi fantasy break-up. These can bring bums and seats unknown Steve Evets, an excuse not to bother; of character for Loach, films are seen as unusual, together, but a great little who is the star of this film, there is more to this film’s this film is a shamefully but why? They work well film, only the likes of which and it is his disjointed and narrative and impact than rare and useful piece of and demand less, in budget can keep bums and seats dismantling real life, not the bittersweet salvation advice. Loach’s real gift is at least, than your typical in happy companionship. the legendary triumph of that you probably expect. to be able to uphold the fantasy of purest CGI. It just so happens that, Cantona’s career, that is Football fans may come principles of responsibility Because this exploit is as with the best of teams dealt with in this fiction. away forgetting why they within his story-telling so overlooked, Looking behind the best of stories, With trademark, handheld went in the first place, and without ever seeming For Eric is pitched as an this film appeared at the dedication to story and film fans may come away preachy, and I think ‘unlikely’ and ‘surprising’ right time, in the right place character/actors, Loach with a strange new respect Looking For Eric, along film, and its inevitable and with the right people. proves once again that for football, but the film is with the excellent Sweet success equally so, but, Someone once said that audiences don’t (and neither a glorification of Sixteen, demonstrates his honestly, Don Draper ‘a good independent film film-makers shouldn’t) fantasy or reality. Through continuing refusal to settle couldn’t have sold this director has to be a good necessarily give a bleep the relationship that for less. Issues shift, and film any better. (He’s the entrepreneur’; and the best, about the Hollywood develops between the dismantled workforces hot-shot ‘ad man’ lead from in my opinion, are those conventions of lighting, Erics, it seeks to reveal and become disenfranchised HBO’s good-but-depressing who achieve their financial sound and image when embrace the uncertainties youth, but at least there . If you already success not via the unseen confronted with the results and inadequacies of both are a few people around know, high-five.) Loach’s and unrelated backroom of intuition. The escapism and realism, who are clever enough preceding reputation and deals of Cannes, but via the results are unusually in film and real life, and to offer depiction or even ingenious paring with story they wish to shoot. believable, funny and somehow achieves represent resolution to such national hero, Cantona, Woven into the coupling therefore touching. It’s satisfaction in this literal issues. And, let’s face it, Eric could only have re-affirmed of celebrity and reality testimonial, again, to the and metaphorical meeting Cantona’s a flipping legend. his films’ courtships with that ignites the story of film’s ripe exposure that of ideals. It is a humorous the French media and, in Looking For Eric – and I say most of you know what the premise, and this humour is Owen Davey is a recent Britain, basically the same this with admiration, not story has in store for you key to the film’s success in graduate in Digital Screen Arts reasoning will only serve cynicism – is an inherent, before even setting foot in overcoming the more hard- from the Surrey Institute for to galvanise the universal leggy marketability that the cinema: A middle-aged hitting elements of its story; (but particularly British) needs little more than room Art and Design, Farnham. Mancunian postman hits a reason perhaps for the obsessions of film and to run. dead-end, from which he advertised emphasis of its football into what I would Despite Eric Cantona is helped by the once hero comedy and more powerful be willing to bet on being doing and and now imaginary friend, shock of its unmentioned the largest audience of the chat-show promotion

40 MediaMagazine | February 2010 | english and media centre MM Images courtesy of image.net

That’s Entertainment?

Nick Lacey recommends a bleakly suggest that it is one of the more explicitly so he casts light on what it means to be human. escapist genres. Unlike science-fiction (sci-fi), it FlashForward (HBO Entertainment-ABC distressing fantasy movie for its doesn’t root its narrative in scientific possibilities; Studios, 2009-), at least on the basis of the first insights into the power of human rather it presents ‘alternative impossibilities’ (del half dozen episodes, is similar in that it uses its Rey: 1979: 6-9); though it has to be said that premise – that everyone blacks out and sees collaboration. the borders between fantasy and sci-fi are, to 134 seconds of their lives six months hence – Why would anyone go to see a film in which say the least, porous. Fantasy films are often to investigate how people might respond to the human race goes blind and, in the ensuing set in worlds in which our laws of physics do knowing a part of their future. A happily married chaos, people behave in a disturbing fashion not prevail. Although these won’t necessarily couple are confronted with infidelity; those who suggesting that civilisation is a very thin veneer be worlds that audiences would want to live in see no future, because they are dead, need to covering great cruelty? That’s what we’re offered (Mordor, anyone?), they are usually a place with decide how to live in the little time they have in Blindness (Canada-Brazil-Japan, 2008), directed no moral ambiguity; good and evil can fight left. As in I Am Legend, there is as much a focus by Fernando Meirelles, who came to prominence out a straightforward battle for supremacy. In on the positive aspects of humanity as there is with City of God in 2002, and starring Julianne Blindness, ordinary good people can do terrible on the negative, which is to be expected from a Moore and Mark Ruffalo Interested? things; the boundaries between good and evil mainstream text. McQuail, Blumler and Brown (1972), with are uncertain. The suggestion is that everyone Spoiler alert their ‘uses and gratifications’ theory, suggested (including you) is capable of great evil. Blindness In Blindness we follow several characters that that ‘diversion’, or escapism, from everyday life is not a date movie! However, I do believe that are struck blind and then quarantined in what is a crucial appeal to audiences of media texts. Blindness is a film that you should see. appears to be an old hospital. One woman, the Richard Dyer stated that: The film’s premise is a world where a virus Doctor’s Wife (Julianne Moore – characters aren’t Two of the taken-for-granted descriptions strikes virtually everyone blind – all they can given names, suggesting they are symbolic), of entertainment, as ‘escape’ and as ‘wish- see is whiteness – and, as this is technically can see but wants to remain with her stricken fulfilment’, point to its central thrust, namely possible, it hardly qualifies as fantasy. It could be husband and so keeps her ability a secret. utopianism. Entertainment offers the image characterised as sci-fi if we consider the setting Meirelles, and cinematographer Cesar of ‘something better’ to escape into, or to be an alternative world and this is certainly a Charlone, convey characters’ blindness via the something we want deeply that our day-to- valid reading of the way a variety of locations are mise-en-scène: the whiteness of floor tiles in a day lives don’t provide. (Dyer, 1992: 18) used by the film. However, it can more readily Chemist’s; the thief is ‘blinded’ by headlights; A film that represents a world that is grimmer seen as an example of fabulation where: rack focus, where the depth of field suddenly than our own is hardly a place that most of us fantastic changes… in everyday reality [are] changes making the scene blurred and indistinct would want to escape to. But that didn’t stop I for the purposes of satire, rather than for dramatises the sudden loss of sight. They also Am Legend (US, 2007) grossing $585,055,701 the creation frissons of horror or romantic end numerous scenes with a ‘fade to white’. worldwide (source: www.the-numbers.com); in adventure. (Clute and Nichols, 1995: 410b) The setting initially appears to be in North it a virus has decimated humankind, apparently The film is based on Nobel Prize winner Jose America, although the first character to go blind leaving Will Smith as the last person on Earth. Saramago’s 1995 novel of the same name. In is Japanese. He’s helped by the Thief, who has a However, despite it’s rather bleak premise, the another of his novels, Death With Intervals North American accent (Don McKeller, the actor, film focuses upon Smith’s character’s humanity. (UK title, 2005), one New Year’s day it suddenly is Canadian), although the bystanders appear Blindness, on the other hand, considers humans’ becomes impossible for anyone to die. Saramago to be multinational; most major cities in the inhumanity. So why should you see it? is interested in a ‘what if…’ premise and then Western world are a ‘melting pot’ of different Connotations of the word ‘fantasy’ might investigating how humanity might react; in doing cultures. A little later, when the Doctor is taken

english and media centre | February 2010 | MediaMagazine 41 MM

into quarantine, the assumption that the setting say about humanity. As in William Golding’s reminds us how important it is to think of others is USA is reinforced by the behaviour and novel The Lord of the Flies (1954), where public and not just ourselves. dialogue of the security forces; in addition both school boys cast adrift on a desert island revert Despite the grimness, and the ambiguous Mark Ruffalo (the Doctor) and Julianne Moore are to savagery, the film shows the depravity that nature of the ending, the inherently social nature American. I suspect most people will ‘read’ the ensues when the Doctor’s benign attempt at of human beings is finally celebrated, where setting as America simply because it is almost the cooperation amongst the inmates is superceded people help others and don’t concentrate upon default setting for English-language cinema. by the King of Ward Three (Gael Garcia Bernal). their own self-interest. However, toward the end of the film when By hoarding the food, Ward Three force others to the protagonists leave their prison, the setting pay for food with jewellery and then, when that Nick Lacey is Head of Media Studies at Benton Park School is clearly not North America. The streets are source of income has been exhausted, with sex. Technology College, Leeds and author of several Media narrow, ‘decorated’ with palm trees, have ‘non-N. In a grim tracking shot, that is mercifully Studies textbooks. American’ zebra crossings and the architecture shrouded in a dark noir mise-en-scène, the is distinctly Latin American. At first it appears rape of the women who volunteered in their Reading that they have been quarantined in another desperation for food, we see (and more potently Arroyo, Jose: ‘Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’ Sight & Sound country; however the Doctor and his wife do hear), the depths to which humanity can vol.7. No.3 (March, 1997) walk home. The effect is that the world of the film plunge when societal rules are abrogated. The is an amalgam of different locations: Sao Paulo, soundtrack is one that might suit a vision of hell. Clute and Peter: The Encyclopedia of Science- Montevideo and Toronto according to imdb. Whilst the dialogue ‘May I suck on your nipples?’ fiction (1995 update) com, which may have been a function of the is not necessarily obscene, in the context of Lester del Rey (1979) The World of Science- multinational production, necessitating shooting male, exploitative power, and in the polite, crisp fiction, 1926-1976: The History of a Subculture in different countries in order to access the delivery of the Accountant (Maury Chaykin), it (Ballantine: New York) finance. The confusing nature of the postmodern becomes a terrifying line. In addition, the moans world is emphasised by these melded locations: of the distressed women stand in for the moans Dyer, Richard: Only Entertainment (1992) Constructing a world which combines the real of pleasure that are meant to accompany sex. The McQuail, Blumler and Brown: ‘The television with the imagined… results in a depiction episode ends with one woman being murdered audience: a revised perspective’ in ed. McQuail of a sense of time and space which is quasi- for not moving. I can think of few other more Sociology of the Mass Media (1972) mythic. (Arroyo, 1997, p. 8) distressing scenes in cinema. So while the discontinuity may appear to be At this point the Doctor’s Wife, who’s been Strinati, Dominic: ‘Postmodernism and Popular confusing it actually suits the allegorical aspects presented as a brittle, suburban housewife who Culture’ in eds. O’Sullivan and Jewkes The of the film: it is not a realist text but one that is drinks too much, decides upon revenge. That Media Studies Readers (1997) making a statement about the human condition. such a gentle character as the Wife can be forced The mishmash of locations also suggest into such bloody violence again emphasises postmodernism: that all human beings can potentially do terrible Because of the speed and scope of modern things. mass communications, because of the Ironically, that is why you should see this relative ease and rapidity with which people film. For if we are reminded of the potential and information can travel, time and space for inhumanity inherent in the human become less stable and comprehensible, more race (headlines from Doha, Sudan, and the confused, more incoherent, more disunified. exploitation involved in sex trafficking are (Strinati, 1997, p.424) sufficient evidence that terrible things are Unlike postmodernists texts, however, happening now in our world) then that helps Blindness does have something concrete to us to remember the way we should behave. It

42 MediaMagazine | February 2010 | english and media centre MM

The Eternal Appeal of the Superhero

In the midst of Hollywood’s current to explore the significance and the appeal of Superman, examining the Christian imagery in craze with the comic book crime Superman: The Movie (Richard Donner, 1978) fighter, Matt Freeman explores the and Superman Returns (Bryan Singer, 2006) while questioning the all-important nature of cultural significance of Superman... heroism and the hero’s burden of alienation. Is there, for instance, a relationship between being If there is someone like me in the world, and a great saviour and facing an existence based I’m at one end of the spectrum, couldn’t there around loneliness? Is living as an outcast the price be someone else the opposite of me at the for being born with such extraordinary abilities? other end? Someone who doesn’t get sick, In many ways, the theme of alienation is who doesn’t get hurt like the rest of us? A crucial to comic book lore, particularly Superman. person put here to protect us. To guard us. So too is a superhero’s profound weakness, Samuel L. Jackson as Elijah Price, in because, like us, they all have one. Whether it’s Unbreakable an emotional flaw like the Dark Knight’s guilt- Christmas, 1978. What a time for a hero to scarred past or a more physical disability like fly. Multiplex rows were bursting into the aisles; the Man of Steel’s lethal Kryptonite, such traits enthusiasm was brimming from children and and themes present an extraordinary superhero adults alike. After a gruelling production shoot as something more identifiably ordinary. And that was drastically over budget and reportedly without ordinariness lurking behind the cape and romance, all jumbled into one action- a whole year over schedule, Superman: The and cowl of a hero, would anyone really care? In heavy package. Since the new millennium, the Movie had finally flown to the silver screen, and truth, no matter how otherworldly a superhero’s glossed-up pages of comic books have become audiences embraced it like a child. Standing for powers may be, that dangerous Kryptonite, that synonymous with the Hollywood blockbuster values of truth, justice and the American way, destructive Achilles heel that all heroes must format – our summer seasons are now dominated Superman is surely the most famous, popular bare, ultimately grounds these God-like idols as by men of steel, caped crusaders, swinging web- and beloved hero the comic book medium has mere beings, as troubled by burden, conscience heads and other equally exceptional heroes who ever created. Soaring through the clouds above and weakness as the rest of us. And for that, they battle to right the world’s wrongs. like a God who watches over us and answers our draw on our empathy as we see ourselves in their Blockbuster-potential aside, however, crying prayers, Superman is a saviour, a loving admirable search for a brighter and better world. protector sent from another star. Originally Superman was a multimedia phenomenon conceived by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in the Beneath the cape before today’s generation of cinema-going teens 1930s, Superman, like so many of his peers, has They can be a great people, Kal-El, they wish were even born. His first appearance was in been embedded in popular culture ever since. to be. They only lack the light to show the Action Comics #1 in June 1938, and since then Some would say that superheroes are the way. For this reason above all, their capacity he has been featured in no less than five cartoon Greek Gods of contemporary culture. In fact, that for good, I have sent them you... my only son. series, several film serials, two radio series, five much is certain – and it seems that superheroes Marlon Brando as Jor-El, in Superman big-budget Hollywood films, and four live-action television shows. But despite his long-standing will continue to rack up box office receipts faster Understanding the appeal of the superhero history, Superman and his extraordinarily heroic than a speeding bullet. But precisely what social might seem a fairly easy task. In cinematic terms, peers have never been as popular or as in forces led to the creation of comics? What was at least, the comic book movie is a commendable demand as they are today. Superheroes, it seems, the evolution of superheroes? Why do we need godsend for the movie geek – a genre mish- are idols predominantly tailored for the twenty- them? And what is it about comics and their mash of almost every form of fiction, including first century. heroes that continue to fascinate us? I want science-fiction, fantasy, mystery, magic, myth,

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Images courtesy of image.net; Superman – The Movie, 1978, Dir: Richard Donner, Credit: Warner Bros/DC Comics /The Kobal Collection

44 MediaMagazine | February 2010 | english and media centre MM But why is the costumed superhero so are, or stronger, or faster.’ It seems that as long as Not fly away perfectly suited to the modern Western world? superheroes are in the world, we can all strive to You wrote that the world doesn’t need a Michael Caine, who of course portrays Batman’s be just that. saviour, but every day I hear people crying father-like butler Alfred in the recent Christopher Of course, the goodness of a superhero like for one. Nolan crime epics, has commented, rather Superman means very little without the evil of Brandon Routh as Superman, in Superman interestingly, that ‘Superman is an embodiment a villain. In the world of comic books, heroes Returns of how America views itself’, in turn suggesting and villains will always be deeply connected, ‘These are mediocre times. People are starting that the altogether darker and more deeply almost like two halves of the same coin or an to lose hope. It is hard for many to believe there troubled Batman actually represents ‘how the oppositional clash that fit together like a yin/yang are extraordinary things inside themselves as rest of the world views America’. It’s a fascinating symbol. Just think about the parallels between well as others.’ Such words, uttered by Elijah idea, but Superman is so much more than a Superman and General Zod, or Batman and the Price in Unbreakable, M. Night Shyamalan’s piece of timeless Americana, gently bathed in a Joker: each hero and his enemy fight the same comics-inflected story of ‘a last son of Krypton’ soft red cape. While Glenn Yeffeth, author of The war but battle for opposite outcomes – order hero who has yet to discover his rightful destiny, Man From Krypton: A Closer Look at Superman, versus chaos, love versus hate, salvation versus can be seen to draw on the eternal appeal of the suggests that the iconic man in blue tights and annihilation. In spite of all that they stand and superhero. Before his untimely passing in 2004, his impenetrable moral code is ‘a timely nostalgic fight for, heroes and villains exist on the same actor Christopher Reeve, the Man of Steel himself, look at an American icon’, Superman stands for mythic curve, albeit at opposite ends – a lot like, looked back with strong feelings of escapist joy more than a host of idealised American values, perhaps, God and the Devil… And so it becomes for what the icon of Superman embodies. ‘The such as truth, honour and doing what’s right no apparent: Superman’s tales of heroism are those appeal of flight is what really captures people’s matter what the circumstances. He stands as a of Biblical-like fables, teaching us what it truly imagination,’ Reeve once enthused. ‘To take two bright star of unrelenting hope. And in a world means to be a hero, even if that means being or three running steps and soar into the air – forever shrouded in uncertainty and compromise, alone. that’s everybody’s dream.’ And it’s a dream, albeit a world where people continue to perform Consider the aftermath of the epic finale in one of fantasy, that is built around real ideas of despicably destructive acts upon one another, it Superman: The Movie, for example, where an freedom and greater possibility. seems that such hope will never die. enraged and broken Superman holds the dead, Still, while Superman can leap tall buildings lifeless body of Lois Lane in his arms. After with a single bound and fly faster than a Superman as Messiah keeping his promise that he would go after Lex speeding bullet, the childlike glee of imagining Superman, then, is a kind of contemporary Luthor’s first nuclear missile and thus knowing he what it might be like to possess extraordinary faith, a symbol of salvation who will always be could not possibly stop the second from hitting powers in an ordinary world is not necessarily there and will always believe in us even when its target, we realise that it is Superman’s own what makes the costumed-clad crime fighter so we ourselves do not. Consider the moment uncompromising dedication to the saving of truly everlasting. Rather superheroes are symbols in Superman Returns, when the Man of Steel people that results in his failure to save the one of untainted hope. They inspire us. They are proof slips into some form of coma after lifting a he holds most dear. And that is the real burden of good in a world constantly beckoned by evil. Kryptonite-laced island into outer space. Falling of being a hero. Humanity may be the Man of Above all, they give us something to believe in. to Earth like a hero falling from grace, Superman Steel’s greatest strength, but it is also his greatest And there’s nothing wrong with that. plummets whilst laying in the crucifixion pose weakness. Superman is like the messianic son to – director Bryan Singer clearly drawing on Jor-El’s God, a force of benevolence, certainly, but Matt Freeman is a freelance film reviewer who has written Christian imagery to suggest the almost fatal one that is driven by innately human emotions for Total Film, Twenty Four 7 and What’s On UK. destruction man has inflicted upon its saviour. of love – impenetrable to bullets and bombs but Interestingly, let us remember for a moment not to heartache. And this instinctive sense of that Superman does indeed have an alter-ego. humanity, both in his desire to do absolute good Clark Kent, a bumbling newspaper reporter, is and in his desire to feel an intimate connection to the sole surviving Kryptonian’s disguise on Earth, the Earth’s inhabitants, even if he can never truly a hiding place where Superman can pretend live as one of them, is perhaps why the Man of he is one of us and live a quiet existence where Steel has endured as such a timeless hero. those around him will accept him. In spite of this alternative, the Man of Steel actually chooses to live as what his is – an alien outcast from a distant star that exists no more – because he must. Just like the son of God before him, he has been sent to us as a gift, to send a message of peace and change. Prepared to suffer for the sake of others, Superman, perhaps, is a fantasised messiah for the comic book era, a time when people spend more time gazing upon the silver screen and its cinematic heroes than they do reading the ways of the Bible. Similarly, cult comic book writer Will Eisner, perhaps best known for creating The Spirit, believes that superhero stories are about more than escapism and romping adventure. For Eisner, ‘the superhero is absolutely essential, especially to young male readers who want to get in touch with their manhood’. Superheroes are figures of awe and wonder, not just for children in their pursuit of greatness whilst speaking eternal truths about the moral line between good and evil, right and wrong. As Samuel L. Jackson, The Spirit star and devoted comic book fan, puts it, ‘we all want to be greater than we

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SuperThe Impact of 9/11 heroes Steph Hendry explores the ways in New York and Washington but the shockwaves as being safe from external attack. This was the of the events went much wider. The shock and first attack on US soil from a non-American Hollywood has reinterpreted the horror felt in the West and the political and social source since Pearl Harbour in 1941 and it shook ideologies of superhero fantasies in changes that it led to have created another the confidence of this global superpower. similar cultural divide as World War 2. We now America had been shown to be vulnerable. the light of the War against Terror. speak of the pre-9/11 and post-9/11 context. • Whilst, tragically, many lives were lost that What this means is complex and will often day, the impact of the day was not simply Comic book heroes are everywhere at the depend on ’s own viewpoints; but based on the human cost. The targets for the moment. Bat-men, Spider-men, Iron-men, Watch- the trauma of the 9/11 attacks can be seen to attack were chosen carefully for their symbolic men and X-Men (amongst others) have been have impacted on Western culture in a number importance. The targets represented three staples of Hollywood blockbusters for the last of ways: crucial aspects of US power: decade and we never seem to be too far away • The live reporting of the event meant that – capitalism (The World Trade Centre) from another franchise instalment. As their stories people watching the news at the time were – the military (The Pentagon) span a number of years this makes them ideal not protected by the usual mediation of the – political power (The Whitehouse) sources for contextualised readings. attacks by news reporting. Reports of the first The world, quite simply has not been the same ‘explosion’ were being broadcast as the second since that day. The West reeled from the shock 9/11 and the post-9/11 plane hit in New York and the confusion and of seeing a vicious and premeditated attack on response terror felt by the journalists at that moment Western values and ideals and can be seen to Often, major events act to define a particular reflected the confusion and terror of the have slipped into a ‘culture of fear’. Terrorism period. Some events are so catastrophic that viewing audience who witnessed the event. became the main cultural concern and nations they change the culture dramatically. We Rather than receiving explanations of what had tightened up security, changed laws and fought divide the 20th Century as pre-war (before happened, as would usually be the case after wars in an attempt to take back some control 1939) and post-war (after 1945) as World War 2 a terrible tragedy, the audience saw events of after the feelings of helplessness caused that day. irrevocably changed the world. On the morning the day unfold live on air and the public were The ‘war on terror’ was not a war like those that of September 11th 2001 the attacks on the World drawn into the story in a way they had not had gone before. The enemy was hidden and Trade Centre, the Pentagon and the failed attack previously experienced. unidentifiable and the fear was that they could on the Whitehouse caused physical devastation • Prior to this event America had been perceived strike again at any time.

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Given the idea of the ‘hidden enemy’ these brought in by Hollywood to provide the answer ability to protect others weaker than themselves. fears can be seen to have translated into a to our social problems. The extra-terrestrial This theme in the idea of the superhero general fear of otherness and difference. It might superhero Superman (1978 onwards) was a culminated in The Matrix (1999) where Thomas not be a complete surprise that Hollywood’s popular figure who came to earth with a host of Anderton simply needed to discover his true response was to create heroes. Classical superpowers and solved problems for us. This identity; once he began to believe in himself, he Hollywood narrative provides reassurance and speaks of a pessimistic culture where mankind found he had the power to control (quite literally) this structure was applied in the retelling of itself is seen to be responsible for the problems in his own environment. stories which gave us powerful heroes who save the world and Superman plays to fantasies about the day. These fantasies responded to the post an outsider coming in to sort things out on our Pre-9/11 and post-9/11 super- 9/11 context and provided some comfort in a behalf. heroes time when danger seemed very close. The 1990s At the end of this period two films were in As we moved into the 1990s, the culture production. X-Men and Spider-Man. X-Men was Pre-9/11 Superheroes appeared more optimistic. Batman was released in 2000 and although Spider-Man was The 1970s and 1980s reinvented in the late 1980s as a tortured soul; released just after the 9/11 attacks (2002), it was Since Superman first donned his spandex in but he was a man who could help rid Gotham of in production beforehand. The X-Men franchise 1932, superheroes have reflected contemporary its criminal element (Batman, 1989) and Batman spans the years 2000 to 2009 and there are concerns and fears. The 1970s saw the first Returns, 1992). As this cycle developed, he currently three films in the main series: X-Men signs of an ecological awareness; the world was became a cartoon superhero and lost his more 1-3 (2000, 2003, 2006) and a fourth ‘origin’ film, entrenched in the Cold War arms race and was introspective side as the series became an action Wolverine (2009). Spider-Man 2 was released in having to deal with economic problems which spectacle (Batman Forever, 1995) and Batman 2004 and Spider-Man 3 in 2007. Both franchises spanned the decade and included huge rises and Robin, 1997). Even though superheroes have further instalments either planned or in in oil prices, unemployment and strikes. New are by their very nature outsiders and different production. Each film within the trilogies can be York nearly went bankrupt in 1975 and it was a from ordinary humans, at this time the popular read as reflective of cultural attitudes which relate city where street crime and violence was rising, superheroes were often simply ‘special’ human to the pre, post and even post-post 9/11 context seemingly out of control. Hollywood tends to beings who, because of their own personal in which they were made. provide the culture with the heroes it needs so it sacrifices (Batman), science accidents (Spider- might not be surprising that ‘alien’ heroes were Man) or natural evolution (X-Men) have the

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Title Narrative Theme X-Men The film deals with living as a minority group in an In the film a minority (but powerful) group are threatened by an (00) intolerant culture. The X Men are split into two groups intolerant majority. In the construction of Magneto as a villain, active – those that respond violently to oppression (led by resistance to discrimination is not shown as the way forward. The Magneto) and those that seek to help their oppressors X-Men themselves represent the idea that even the oppressed need to in the hope they will become accepted (led by Professor be tolerant of their oppressors. In this way the film can be seen to be X). The film challenges the intolerance of humans who optimistic and relevant to its pre-pre-9/11 context where a confident negatively judge those who are different; it also questions culture views itself in a positive way. The film acknowledges that the whether oppression is best fought by using violence, tolerant ideal is not yet in place but it offers hope and shows the power of further discrimination and division. The film clearly favours communication and cooperation. In the final action sequence, Magneto notions of tolerance and acceptance. can only be overcome when the X-Men themselves show tolerance towards each other and work as a team. Each team member is needed to defeat the villain and this is achieved when they put away their personal differences. X2: X Men The two groups of mutants are united against a X2 provides a complication in that the villain of the first film becomes United (03) common enemy in the second film. A ‘rogue’ human part of the heroic team. However, the actual villain of X2 is more simplistic threatens the X-Men and Magneto’s group by heightening than in the first as Magneto, having been shown to be responding to human’s fear of mutants; but the real threat is to the the oppression mutants were experiencing, may have generated some mutants themselves. One man (Striker) seeks to wipe out sympathy. Striker, however, is a man motivated only by hatred and a all mutants and one key member of the X-Men has to need for revenge and is a straightforward villain. X2 develops the idea of sacrifice herself to ensure that all mutants are saved. teamwork and cooperation from the first film but identifies that when the threat is big enough a more violent approach may be needed. In the immediate post-9/11 era, the idea that the terrorist attack drew Americans (and the West) together was an important one as the trauma began to be dealt with. The West seemed to draw comfort from the actions taken to attempt to stop future attacks and to try to find the culprits. As a post-9/11 film, the villain (Striker) acts to unite the mutants and humans against a common threat and they work together to produce enough force to eliminate the threat. X-Men: The A mutant-cure has been found – the cure would The final film of the main trilogy takes a different thematic turn. Rather Last Stand eradicate all mutant difference by turning mutants into than celebrating difference the plot can be read as one which seeks to (06) ‘regular’ humans. The response to the cure divides the eradicate it. Rogue is treated sympathetically in her desire to be more mutants both in terms of Magneto leading a radical group ‘normal’ and when Mystique is made human she is rejected by Magneto who see the cure as a form of genocide, and also within who has always been prejudiced against humans. Whilst other characters the X-Men themselves. The cure is seen as attractive do criticise the idea of a cure, it is the villainous Magneto who fights by those who seek to be integrated within society against it and is ultimately stopped by it. This film can be read as one that (Rogue) but is rejected by those who celebrate their own takes a very conservative post-9/11 approach. ‘Otherness’ is seen to be difference (Storm). the problem within this film and any fight to retain difference is shown to be unacceptable. The film appears to reflect the fear of outsiders experienced after 9/11.

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english and media centre | February 2010 | MediaMagazine 51 MM Spider-Man Peter Parker is bitten by a radioactive spider whilst on The idea of power and responsibility is central to the film. This could (02) a school trip. The film then follows his ‘awakening’ as the be read as a representation of America’s perception of itself as a Spider-man and his final recognition that ‘with power powerful nation that has a responsibility towards using its power for the comes responsibility’. However, it takes the violent death good of others. This would tie in with a pre-9/11 confidence and speaks of of his Uncle for him to realise what his new role in the a nation where the use of its power is seen to be benevolent and it has a world should be. He finds a father-figure in his best friend’s responsibility to use it. The film was in post-production when the attacks father but soon learns that Osborne Snr is not what he occurred and as a response the film makers re-edited the film to remove seems. This fake-father becomes his enemy who threatens all reference to the twin towers, and removed a teaser trailer that showed not just Parker, but his family and the inhabitants of New bank robbers being caught in a web constructed by Spider-man between York. the towers. In the climactic scene on the Queensboro Bridge a threatened, but far from victimised New Yorker shouts at the Green Goblin, ‘You mess with Spidey you mess with New York’ whilst another adds, ‘You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us’. This was a post-production add-in to remove the idea of New York being a victimised location and reinforcing the determined stand made by the US post-9/11.

Spider-Man 2 Parker finds himself a new role model in Dr Octavius. More clearly a post-9/11 film than the first, Spider-Man 2 reflects the (04) He is the man Parker wants to become – a successful idea of New York itself being a strong and unified place: the villain in scientist and a loving husband. However, Octavius’ job this film is not evil as such but a personal obsession based on pride which gets between him and his true love (like Parker). Parker threatens the safety of the city. What the film does make clear though is is struggling with his desire for a normal life and the that once a responsibility for other people’s protection has been taken demands of being a superhero which impacts on his on, it cannot be shirked. Parker is torn between the two binary opposites friendships, and his family relationships, as well as his he feels he must choose between: a normal life or the life of a superhero. potential romance with Mary Jane. For a while, Parker He attempts to rid himself of the role of Spider-Man and acts on a selfish attempts to quit being Spider-Man but he realises that desire to be a regular student and boyfriend to Mary Jane. The uncertainty others would suffer if he continued down this path and he Parker feels as to who he wants to be creates a lack of confidence which is returns to the superhero role. In his attempt to save a train seen to be a problem both for Peter and the people of New York. There is sabotaged by Doc Ock (as Octavius has become) Spider- discussion within the film about society’s need for heroes who are defined Man is physically strained but is supported by the people as being those who act for the good of others but may have to sacrifice of New York. Ironically, in the final battle between Ock and their own needs for the greater good. Ironically, once Parker has made Spider-Man, Parker reveals his true identity and pleads the choice to remain as Spider-Man it appears he can have it all as he with Ock who sees reason and destroys his fusion reactor wins back the heart of Mary Jane and the film ends with her acceptance and himself, saving the city of New York. Mary Jane, who that she will share him with the city. The narrative resolution is the most now knows about his alter-ego, leaves her fiancée at the reassuring of the whole trilogy and the film depicts a strong New York altar to be with Parker/Spider-Man. and a resolute hero who chooses the social good over his personal needs and is rewarded for doing so. Spider-Man 3 At the beginning of the film Parker seems to be getting This is the most complex of the trilogy which speaks perhaps of its (07) some sense of balance between being a superhero and distance from the events of 9/11. It uses the metaphors of sand and ‘oil’ having a normal life. Things are going well for him in terms referencing the desert warfare in the Middle East. The film identifies three of his love-life; he is a successful student and New York has different types of villain – one that is motivated by evil (Venom), another taken Spider-Man to heart turning him into a celebrity and by misplaced revenge (Green Goblin – not unlike Spider-Man himself) a local hero. There is, however, a sense of over-confidence and a third who makes a bad choice when faced with an impossible in Parker and it becomes clear he has let his success and circumstance (Sandman). Even the inherently good Peter Parker is happiness go to his head. In the meantime an escaped shown to be open to corruption, suggesting that actions can be read as convict has been turned into Sandman and a black ‘goo’ good or bad, depending on motivations. In the post-post 9/11 context comes to earth in a fallen meteorite. Parker learns some the complex outcomes of the West’s responses to 9/11 have begun to new information about who killed Uncle Ben (it was the surface. Questions about governments’ motivations have been raised man who has become Sandman) and after the symbiotic and evidence of the inhumane treatment of prisoners of war and the black goo has infected Parker (creating a black Spider- changes in laws regarding the imprisonment of suspects and citizens’ Man) he fights Sandman. In the battle he shows that he is freedoms have changed the way people have viewed the previously motivated by revenge rather than justice. Whilst ‘infected’, unquestioned moral rightness of the actions taken against those Parker realises that the symbiotic goo is heightening the suspected of being involved in terrorism. The film creates villains that we darker side of his personality. After a struggle, Parker gets are able to feel for (Sandman) or who can change and become heroic rid of it but it immediately infects a rival, creating the (Green Goblin). The film also shows how people can be corrupted and that villain Venom. After a final battle, in which Parker loses his heroes can be susceptible to the potential abuse of power (Spider-Man best friend, Venom is destroyed but Sandman is revealed himself). to be a misunderstood villain. Peter forgives him for killing Uncle Ben, and Peter and Mary Jane end the film together although their relationship has been damaged by the events of the film. Post-post 9/11 perhaps indicates the culture’s more questioning eradicated but applying techniques of analysis As we move further away from the events and challenging attitudes towards authority. through the media concepts allows a more of 2001 the culture is shifting away from its This trend can also be seen on other recent in-depth reading of the values and ideologies immediate post-9/11 responses. By looking at superhero films such as Iron-Man (2008) and influencing a text’s creation. these films it is possible to identify changes Watchmen (2009). The hardest context to Steph Hendry teaches Media at Runshaw College and is in the cultural context that surrounded them. recognise and understand is our own. When we an examiner for AQA. Spider-Man 3 breaks away from the reassurance are within a cultural context its fears, desires and of classic Hollywood narrative, creating a preoccupations appear ‘normal’ and ‘natural’ to complex representation of good and evil that us. Our subjective position cannot be completely

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The HBO of Comics Andrew Webber explains why the comics and graphic novels of Neil Gaiman remain amongst the most inspirational fantasies ever told.

If you are looking for the greatest ‘fantasy’ writing of the last two decades, then rather than turning to the likes of Stephanie Meyer or JK Rowling, you should instead get yourself down to your local comic shop and ask for anything

english and media centre | February 2010 | MediaMagazine 53 MM published by DC Vertigo; in particular anything in the mid-1980s to write regularly for a range of The genius of Gaiman written by Neil Gaiman, the British writer who international publishers, including DC (home, of The Sandman, much like the writings of Alan has recently had success with the extremely good course, of Batman and Superman). Their work Moore, is a wholly original work and yet one adaptation of his children’s book Coraline (by was often mature and challenging, and began which capitalises on the reader’s prior knowledge Nightmare Before Christmas animator Henry to attract an audience of people who did not both of comics (in this case the so called DC Selick); the dullish but popular film Stardust previously read comics (including myself, a reader Universe), the worlds of literature (Shakespeare and his script for the Robert Zemeckis’ motion- of comics as a child who like so many others had features heavily in the saga) and classical capture animated version of Beowulf, starring ‘grown out of it’ during adolescence). In the early mythology; the Sandman’s son is Orpheus, for and a whole truckload of CGI. And 1990s, under the editorship of Karen Berger – a example, he of ‘the Underworld’ fame. Thus, just if you have got as far as asking for anything by vital player in this ‘explosion’ – DC launched the as Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing character exists in Gaiman, then the chances are that the comic Vertigo imprint, as a home to their writings, and a world also inhabited by Batman and Superman shop proprietor (who, from my experience, loves as an ‘adult’ outlet for grown-up storytelling. (Gotham City and Metropolis are just as real as to make recommendations – rather like your The flagship monthly comic for this new

Media teachers, no doubt) will put a copy of The imprint was Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, by then New York and Louisiana in the stories) and his Sandman into your eager hands (with luck, issue on its 47th issue. It went on to run for 75 issues League of Extraordinary Gentlemen brilliantly number One, or the first collected graphic novel in total, subsequently published in ten stand- brings together characters from a wide range of entitled Preludes and Nocturnes). Like all great alone graphic collections, although there have Victorian literature from H Rider Haggard, to HG stories, it makes sense to begin at the beginning. also been spin-offs including the very popular Wells, via Conan Doyle, Bram Stoker and Robert Neil Gaiman, like his mentor, the comics Death stories, a belated return of the Sandman Louis Stevenson, so The Sandman marries DC genius Alan Moore (Watchmen/League of characters in the graphic novel Endless Nights characters with characters such as Oberon and Extraordinary Gentlemen), is one of the small and a recent 20th anniversary four-parter based Titania from the realms of Faerie, Hell and Greek, group of British writers (which also includes on his illustrated short story The Dream Hunters, Egyptian and Norse myth, alongside some Garth Ennis, Pat Mills, Peter Milligan and all published by Vertigo. unforgettable creations by the author himself – Grant Morrison) who, having been inspired to So why am I claiming that Gaiman is the most notably the Endless. write comics by both their love of the medium author of the greatest fantasy writing of the last and their exposure/involvement with the few decades? legendary British weekly comic 2000AD, began

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english and media centre | February 2010 | MediaMagazine 55 MM who has quit his ‘realm’ and whose departure has torn the family apart. Meanwhile his brother/ sister, the androgynous and untrustworthy Desire, is attempting to bring about his downfall via various plots and schemes. The Sandman himself has invoked the curse of the Furies who will hound him in subsequent tales and finally force him to renounce his Kingdom – but what will happen when one of the Endless finally reaches their own ending? After all he has gone off looking for Destruction, hasn’t he? However you define ‘fantasy’ writing, this is certainly the work of a powerfully imaginative writer, but, although Gaiman is obviously the creative force behind the stories, as his chosen medium is comics, it is also fair and proper to acknowledge the contributions to the overall impact on the series of its artists, letterers (yes, such a job exists), inkers and cover designers. The art behind The Sandman Dave McKean, graphic designer par excellence (the man also behind the interesting Gaiman film collaboration Mirrormask) created all of the covers for the initial run of 75 issues. His ‘look’ is definitely a part of the appeal of the work as a whole. Combining stunning photographic and montage effects juxtaposed with text and occasionally 3D material, McKean’s beautiful covers ensure that The Sandman looks unique, eye-catching and enigmatic.) He rarely uses paintings or drawings – and in this he is very unusual in the comics world. (His work can be enjoyed in The Sandman: Dustcovers collection.) Gaiman also makes no bones about having worked with some of the best comic book artists in the business. The 75 issues are all linked by the story of the Sandman’s potential ‘ending’; but within this wider narrative arc are approximately ten ‘chapters’ which are all self-contained, rather like a complete season of, say, , which then fits in with the series as a whole, by playing its part in the bigger arc of the narrative in its entirety. These ‘chapters’ form the basis for the ten graphic collections of the comic, which bring together seven or eight issues in each volume). Some stand alone ‘one-offs,’ are illustrated by an impressive list of talented individuals including Jill Thompson, Michael Zulli, Charles Vess, Colleen Doran and Kelley Jones. have always been there and will continue to be The Endless Letterer Todd Klein deserves a special there forever, for they are, as their name suggests, The Endless, who all have names beginning mention too; his work throughout the series endless. However, at the start of the series, early with D, is a family of siblings including Desire, reminds us of the importance of the layout of in the twentieth century, Dream has been made Death, Delirium, Destiny, Despair, Destruction text in this medium and, just like Alan Moore’s the captive of a black magician, loosely based and Dream aka Morpheus aka The Sandman. Swamp Thing, who ‘speaks’ in orange (green on infamous occultist Alistair Crowley, and is That’s right; as you might have expected from would have been too obvious), the Sandman has held hostage for several decades before he his name, The Sandman is ‘the keeper of Dreams,’ his own unique ‘voice’: white text against a black finally breaks the spell binding him. In a sense, who spends most of his time in his superbly background, which helps readers identify his the remaining 74 issues follow the Sandman’s realised kingdom The Dreaming. This is a place character (especially when he appears in disguise, attempts to restore The Dreaming which has sort of between sleep and wakefulness, which which he does when travelling in the ‘waking fallen apart somewhat during his absence, is also inhabited by Cain and Abel, Matthew the world’). The Delirium character (who used to and to make amends for the time he has spent Raven, Lucien the librarian, Merv Pumpkinhead be Delight when she was younger) also ‘speaks’ imprisoned on earth. Along the way he must and a whole host of other brilliantly conceived – in impressively designed bubbles, sometimes reunite his dysfunctional Endless family. Death is and illustrated – supporting characters. literally. It all makes sense if you read the thing. his sister, and remains one of the best characters If I haven’t already lost you, this is the basic Back in the early 90s, when I made my belated in the series – she’s a punky goth with attitude, premise. return to the world of comics, I got so excited and readers fall in love with her, whilst he himself Outside of all the man-made worlds of gods by the medium that I stopped reading novels, is a more sombre, serious intellectual-type, always and myth, but existing in parallel kingdoms gave up on TV and, for a while, bought every dressed in black – you know the type. He later are the Endless, physical embodiments of our single comic published by Vertigo every month – greatest emotions, fears and aspirations. They goes on a quest to find his brother Destruction

56 MediaMagazine | February 2010 | english and media centre MM sometimes as many as twenty titles, including the reading it all at least five times in bursts of without doubt, for anyone coming to this for the still going strong John Constantine: Hellblazer. comics mania. The Sandman also led me back first time, The Sandman remains one of the most Constantine crops up in The Sandman at crucial to Alan Moore who remains the king of comics, engaging, intelligent, thought-provoking and points (please ignore his deplorable appearance with Gaiman as his second in command, to Pat occasionally disturbing fantastical tales ever told. on screen in the guise of Keanu Reeves, of all Mills’ breathtaking Charley’s War (which I had In my opinion it even surpasses the works of people – he is both blonde and British), Garth also read as a child in the weekly Battle comic CS Lewis, Frank Herbert and (gasp) JRR Tolkein. Ennis’ Preacher (rumoured to be Sam Mendes’ in the 70s, but had completely forgotten about In its marketing, Vertigo describes itself as next movie project), Grant Morrison’s The – anyone studying the First World War should ‘the HBO of comics,’ drawing parallels with the Invisibles, Shade – the Changing Man, House of certainly give it a look) and to Frank Miller, the American TV that’s home to Six Feet Under, Secrets and, more recently, 100 Bullets. Whilst American visionary behind Sin City, although if The Sopranos, True Blood, Deadwood and the none of these really matched The Sandman in truth be told, he’s not in the same league as the awesome Generation Kill. Believe me, Vertigo terms of vision and complexity, and whilst today British writers (a view I am sure anyone would really is that good). So it would probably be fair my monthly Vertigo ‘hit’ has been reduced to the share after sitting through his debut directorial to return the compliment by telling you that Neil afore mentioned Hellblazer and new monthly feature film, the truly dire The Spirit). Gaiman’s The Sandman is a fantasy work that House of Mystery (which also has a Sandman Gaiman’s subsequent work as a novelist you owe it to yourself to read. To paraphrase link – Cain lives there in The Dreaming), I still (American Gods, Neverwhere) is a bit some of HBO’s marketing for : there are maintain that, as horror novelist Peter Straub disappointing, and when re-read in the cold light those who know that The Sandman is one of the declares: of day, it would be fair to say that The Sandman greatest works of fantasy…and then there are if this isn’t literature…then nothing is. comic, after an absolutely superb run of about those who simply have not read it. 55 issues (the fact that Gaiman was churning Get down to that comic shop now and join A life-changing experience this out, like Dickens, month after month, is with the former. Going to sleep will never be the In other words, my ‘discovery’ of The Sandman also testimony to his genuine skill as a writer) same again. was a genuine epiphany, changing the way does lose focus in its latter arcs, in particular I thought and continue to think about the The Kindly Ones, which for me is spoilt by Marc Dr Andrew Webber is Head of Media Studies at Chatham media in general and comics in particular. I Hempel’s art work and the increasing sense that Grammar School for Girls. have returned to the series on many occasions, Gaiman is taking himself a little too seriously. But,

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21st-Century Hero for a 21st-Century Audience Can a serial killer really be a hero? However, as the series developed and we willed position he sees the shortcomings of the police on the sympathetic characters fighting against and justice systems where some villains are not Steph Hendry argues that for his oppression, clear-cut notions of ‘right and caught or, even when they are, the courts cannot moral clarity and honesty, Dexter wrong’ were challenged as they chose to fight always punish them effectively. Like many in by becoming suicide bombers. The programme the audience perhaps, Dexter rails against the deserves that title. provided justified logic for acts which culturally unfairness of people literally ‘getting away with we see as morally reprehensible. murder’ and wants to do something about it. So Heroes traditionally embody wish fulfilment as Similarly in Dollhouse, a group of people far, so good and this could well be the set up for they strive to reach goals that are often shared are trafficked to wealthy people so the latter a masked and spandexed vigilante/superhero by the audience (to save the day, to get the girl can live out their fantasies or fulfil their needs story, but Dexter acts on this unfairness in his etc.) and are all in some way fantasy figures. From without consequence. This appears to be morally own unique way: he is in fact a serial killer who the superhuman heroics of comic book heroes reprehensible until we see that the ‘dolls’ have makes villains his victims. This too is close to such as Superman to the idealised versions of volunteered for their roles, and thus often their familiar territory. Serial killers have often been masculine strength seen in war movies and ‘slavery’ enables them to act in noble and heroic received as twisted heroes by audiences, perhaps Westerns; from underdog tales such as to ways. Of course, contemporary TV drama still best exemplified by Hannibal Lecter (The Silence the all-action hero epitomised in the throws out its conventional heroes, and in many of the Lambs), a psychopathic monster who series, heroes can show us what a culture procedural dramas the main character (however became a hero of sorts when he helped the FBI wishes to be, and are thus as fantastical for flawed) acts heroically and ‘saves the day’ whilst catch a killer, or Jigsaw in the Saw series who audiences as narratives that deal with magic, taking a moral stand that all can admire. But, from dispenses his own form of justice. vampires and science-fiction landscapes. Heroes House and his drug addicted, anti-social ways to Dexter’s story may sound familiar; but he is no tell us a lot about the culture that created them the Hell’s Angels of Sons of Anarchy, heroes are masked avenger, nor a simple psychotic monster. and the audience that took them to their hearts; often not quite as simply ‘heroic’ as they used to Dexter’s apparent ‘normality’ and the fact he is and an investigation into popular contemporary be. Heroes for example takes good characters, so average is simply a reflection of the audience heroes may tell us a little something about turns them bad, and then brings them back to itself; but beneath the surface, something else ourselves – or indeed what we wish we could be. the side of ‘good’ (and vice versa) – sometimes entirely is going on. Dexter loves to kill. He has In modern media drama texts it is often within the span of just a few episodes. From the urges of a serial killer which are channelled difficult to identify who the heroes and villains the current crop of TV heroes, one stands out, into a morality which, whilst not quite fitting are. What used to be thought of as simple binary however, as being more morally reprehensible into what we may see as normal and acceptable, opposites, the idea of ‘good and evil’ and ‘right than all the others and his name is Dexter. has its own logic and clear-cut understanding and wrong’ has been complicated in many of ‘good’ and ‘evil’. Dexter behaves in a way we television and film narratives. In Battlestar Who is Dexter? cannot condone; but he tries to ensure (as far as Galactica (season 2) we were sympathetic as the On the surface, Dexter is a fairly mild- he can) that his victims are only those who have ‘heroes’ were oppressed by the evil villains of mannered guy who does not seem particularly killed, maimed or abused the innocent in some season 1. The TV series had already complicated remarkable. He sits in the background working way and this is how he gains the support of the the idea of hero because so many of the villains in the lab of the Miami police department whilst viewing audience. looked like the heroes, and we knew that some others (including his sister) run around doing members of the heroic group were villains in traditionally heroic stuff like chasing and catching disguise (even if we were not sure which ones). villains and saving victims. However, from this Images courtesy of image.net; 58 MediaMagazine | February 2010 | english and media centre MM

english and media centre | February 2010 | MediaMagazine 59 MM A ‘heroic’ moral code knows that to avoid detection he needs to be motivations and respond erratically to situations. It is Dexter’s strict moral code and his seen to ‘fit in’; he brings a tray of doughnuts However, social niceties mean this is rarely voiced absolutist view of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ that makes to work in the mornings to demonstrate to his in the way Dexter is able to. He is honest about him a heroic fantasy figure for the audience. colleagues how ‘normal’ he is, and he maintains a his feelings of isolation and alienation and views In the modern day where all morality appears relationship with a divorcee and her two children. social interactions with a cynical eye. Because relative and ideas of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ are complex However, his sociopathic tendencies make him Dexter is so consciously constructing a persona and confusing, Dexter’s easy identification of who feel alienated from all those around him, and in to make his daily life easier, he reflects the way deserves to live and who does not taps into a voiceovers the audience are given an insight into we all have to accommodate our behaviours to desire that the world could be indeed that simple how he sees the world and his place within it. fit in with social norms. Dexter is heroic because and fair. In a world where one person’s ‘terrorist’ Dexter has to keep who he is and what he does he is honest about his own confusion, social is another person’s ‘freedom fighter’, or where secret from those around him and, therefore, his dislocation and the construction of his social morally troublesome acts such as torture are relationships are shams where he feels he can self. He voices these ideas in a way that the justified as being expedient if lives can be saved, never be himself. In one episode he fantasises audience may feel they cannot, which provides (see MM30) Dexter’s simplified view is deeply that his true nature is discovered and that an emotional catharsis. attractive. Whilst the character struggles with his everyone accepts him as a hero. This fantasy of Dexter may ‘slice and dice’ his victims but he own morality in almost every episode he has a course could never be fulfilled as exposure would has a simple, clear morality which allows him the code which, when applied, makes it easy for him lead to his arrest and imprisonment. The third comfort of certainty in terms of his own actions. to decide how to act. Even 24’s Jack Bauer has series centres on a friendship he has with a man As an honest observer of society and human moved away from the position of being morally who knows what he does and therefore knows interaction he is a fantasy hero for the 21st certain: the most recent season (#7) of the action the ‘real’ Dexter. However, the friend who accepts century. He cuts through the surface of people’s thriller series included many moments where him for what he is turns out to be a bigger presentations of themselves, and provides the Bauer’s previously accepted acts of violence were monster than Dexter himself. audience with an honest voice that identifies the questioned as the notion that the ‘end justified This can be seen as another aspect of the wish- often unspoken feelings of alienation generated the means’ was challenged. Dexter, however, does fulfilment provided by the character. Dexter is in the modern world. Dexter may be set in the not question his morality – it is firm and fixed. His able to voice the complications and irritations real world of contemporary Miami but he is a conflict comes in the fact that his morality does of having to live in a world where human hero, allowing the audience to live in a fantasy not tie in with the social norms of the culture he interaction cannot be avoided. His inability to feel world of moral clarity and honesty that the real has to live in. Dexter’s problems are external, not emotions means he is always confused by other world does not always allow. internal. This simplicity and certainty makes him people and his attempts to emulate appropriate Steph Hendry is a Lecturer in Media Studies at Runshaw heroic: he does not bend to social norms, and responses to situations often go wrong. This College, Lancashire. She is a Senior Examiner, freelance stays true to his code regardless of how others flaw, explained as an emotional lack, is however respond. He shows strength of character that is extreme, perhaps not too far away from the writer and trainer. aspirational for the audience. audience’s own experiences. Other people Dexter’s life, however, is a paradox. He are mysterious and confusing; they hide their

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In the light of global pandemics, Origins they struggle to find medical attention and care, food and water, issues compounded by images James Rose re-evaluates the history It can be argued that the British post- apocalyptic genre has its origins in the science- of the police shooting at civilians and an image and development of post-apocalyptic fiction of HG Wells and John Wyndham. Of of a bucket of wedding rings taken from the narratives. their works, the most influential were (and deceased. remain) Wells’ The War of the Worlds (1898) and Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids (1951). Threads Throughout the steadily evolving history of Due to its many similarities, Threads (Mick Although both are concerned with an alien the post-apocalypse genre, those narratives Jackson, 1984) can be seen as either a remake assault upon the Earth, the impact of these based within Britain, whether on film or on or reworking of The War Game for it too is a attacks are focussed on mainland Britain. Using broadcast television, have a dominating combination of documentary-esque drama and a realist style, the authors define the essential preoccupation with two concerns: the cold, factual voiceover. Based upon the research tropes for subsequent post-apocalyptic fictions: contextual/political background to the conducted for director Jackson’s QED documentary a believable construct for the destructive story more often than not reflects the A Guide to (1982), Threads is assault, a strong male protagonist whose nation’s contemporary anxieties whilst its concerned with the lives of two Sheffield families leadership skills come to the fore and who is drama focuses on the plight of one or two after the UK is drawn into a nuclear exchange challenged by varying groups of survivors – families. When combined, this family becomes between the and the US. The Kemp groups which present different types of ‘family’ a metaphor for all families and so, in effect, and Beckett families are united when Jimmy and/or political systems. The protagonist must come to represent the national experience Kemp and Ruth Beckett decide to marry due to an navigate his way through these assorted ‘families’ in the face of real-world concerns. Perhaps unplanned pregnancy. As the families’ lives entwine in order to define for himself how the post- predictably, these issues have a tendency to shift through this impending marriage, the tensions apocalyptic society/family should be organised. only slightly, fluctuating between the horrific between the USSR and the US escalate. It is worth Out of these ‘debates’ emerges a need for trust, consequences of a full-scale nuclear assault on noting that, at the start of the film, this impending reliance and a purer way of living, suggesting mainland Britain to viral pandemics devastating conflict forms – quite literally – the background to that our downfall will be through technological the populace. In both scenarios, the casualties the narrative: snippets of news reports are heard advancements and our reliance upon such will be extremely high, their impact irreversibly on the radio or television but are largely ignored equipment. From this template many variants in changing the nation. And whilst these narratives by the protagonist families. Instead, they argue literature, film and television would emerge but, are horrific, they function as a means of over a more pressing national concern in light of regardless of the medium, the message remained chronicling the social and political modes and the unplanned pregnancy. As Dave Rolinson states, consistent: perhaps we have advanced too far, shifts within the country. In this respect, fictional these arguments indicate that: and maybe our overreaching for technology will narratives become works of fact for they respond Ruth’s unborn child would suffer in a country be our eventual downfall. clearly and without hesitation to the fears of facing recession… [The Nation’s] anxiety over a the nation. With such destructive threats, the The War Game future of unemployment… is starkly depicted family – or at least what remains of it after the The foundations of the British post-apocalypse in post-apocalyptic wastelands which could initial assault or outbreak – also shifts, from a narrative within film and television begins with be read as a metaphor for social collapse in normal functioning family unit to one that is at Peter Watkins’ controversial The War Game [Margaret] Thatcher’s Britain. the mercy of a collapsing society: failing law and (1966): following on from his experimental As with The War Game, the programme steadily order, civil unrest, lack of food, fresh water and Culloden (1964) which combined drama with documents the experiences of the surviving sanitary systems alongside looting, martial law, documentary techniques (interviews, vox-pop, members of the Kemp and Beckett families: vigilante law and rape. voice-over to present and explain statistical through their eyes the horrors of a nuclear assault Out of all these elements emerges a data and hand-held camera work to document become apparent as family members struggle to further recurrent element within the British ‘live’ events), Watkins turned his attention survive injuries, burns, blindness and radiation post-apocalyptic narrative: in terms of its to the increasing threat of nuclear assault. sickness. Food supplies are severed and the military representation, these films and television serials Involving himself in extensive research, Watkins use tear gas and marshal law to protect what little have a clear preoccupation with realism. conceived of a mockumenatry that would chart food, water and fuel is left. As these events unfold, Instead of showing the consequences of assault the collapse of relations between the East and the clean and clinical voiceover describes events or pandemic in abstract terms, they are shown in West and the ensuing nuclear attacks. For his on a national scale, identifying, as The War Game clear, brutal and graphic images, each time the narrative, Watkins chose to focus his concerns on did, the futile attempts of the local and national camera lingering on the dire impact of a national the impact of the assault solely on Kent, using emergency services. catastrophe. Within these visual texts, then, the this local and familiar landscape to depict the Whereas The War Game concluded, rather horror not only parallels but also warns us of our harrowing consequences of the attack: shot in bleakly, on the first post-apocalyptic Christmas possible futures. stark black and white, The War Game chronicles Day, Threads went further and used its narrative the steady collapse of British society. The film’s of fact and realism to predict what society would brutality leaves little hope for the survivors as degenerate into. Having survived the initial nuclear

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attack, Ruth gives birth to a girl, Jane. As a child of as rudimentary steam and hydroelectric power that accompanies it to embrace a much more the apocalypse, Jane witnesses the final collapse of sources are established, suggesting that, eventually, harmonious relationship with nature and society. British society as law and order finally break down, society would re-establish itself once more. Abby’s approach to living begins to change those food and water become scarce, and eventually Whilst obviously presenting a return to around her, particularly Al and Tom: Al steadily finds people, so sick, give up. The programme ends as normality, these concluding elements of Survivors within himself a different, less selfish person to the a bleakly as it began – the fallout has caused a again pose the question of technology: in an extent that he develops a very protective, brotherly nuclear winter, destroying virtually all the crops effort to return to normality the post-plague society (if not paternal) relationship with Najid whilst Tom and contaminating land, preventing further crop adapts by regressing to early forms of technology. uses the pandemic literally to erase his past and growth. Those that do survive have little food, little This raises the question that although things may start afresh. With these changes taking place it hygiene and have lost the capacity for speech. be stable now, what will happen in the future, would seem that Abby’s societal vision does indeed Despite the establishment of a rudimentary when society begins, once more, to advance their change the people she encounters. electricity supply, the country is devolving. technological status? Will events repeat themselves, With such graphic imagery these nuclear coming full circle once more with a second Some conclusions war narratives raise one very serious and blunt accidental release of a viral strain? From this brief account of the major themes of question: is survival worth it? By asking this British post-apocalyptic narratives, further recurrent question, they also implicitly suggest any nuclear Survivors (2008) positive elements emerge. The family can unite assault is MAD: standing for Mutually Assured It would seem with the BBC’s recent revival disparate people and provide a common goal for Destruction, this acronym defines the argument of Survivors that the post-apocalyptic narrative them all; and the painful struggle for survival soon that regardless of who launches first, there will be within the UK has indeed also come full circle. gives way to a new, more rewarding, way of life. no victors in this type of war. Everyone loses, either Borrowing the storyline and the protagonists from But they also suggest that society would fall into in the initial strike or much later in the resulting its predecessor, the 2008 Survivors suggests that factions, fighting almost tribe-like on the borders collapse of society. As such, these programmes the original’s intended message of survival only of shopping centres to steal what little food and can be very easily positioned as anti-war and pro- comes through a return to a much simpler way of water remains. They also continually remind us of nuclear disarmament narratives, which not only life; and that a new (and perhaps better) society our reliance on technology, and suggest that the clearly and precisely show the consequences of can only exist through a coherent sense of unity smallest thing – the atom or the germ – will be our such weaponry, but also its sheer futility. and common goal sharing. With such motivating final downfall. As the Soviet Union collapsed as a Super concepts, it is possible to suggest that the revised Power, the fears generated by the Cold War slowly Survivors does not necessarily take an overtly James Rose is a freelance film-maker. His latest book on dissipated into a general anxiety over nuclear bleak perspective on the consequences of a viral del Toro’s The Devil’s Backbone, has just been published. weaponry. As international governments worked pandemic. Throughout the six episode run, there is together to reduce nuclear arms and to prevent the intimation that indeed a new and better society others from developing nuclear capabilities, a new can be forged out of the ruins of the Old World Post-Apocalypse Narratives Order: once again, protagonist Abby Grant sees this national fear would steadily develop: the viral British Post-Apocalyptic Literature potential and draws to her an array of survivors in pandemic. The War of the Worlds (H. G. Wells, 1898) order to form a ‘new’ family for a ‘new’ era. Amongst Day of the Triffids (John Wyndham, 1951) Survivors those who join her are an escaped convict (Tom The Death of Grass (John Christopher, 1956) Between The War Game and Threads, the BBC Price []), a wealthy playboy (Al Sadiq), The Fog (James Herbert, 1975) broadcast Terry Nation’s Survivors (1975-1977). a doctor who is rejecting her profession (Anya 48 (James Herbert, 1996) With a that depicted the accidental Raczynski [Zoe Tapper]) and Najid, a young boy leakage of a virulent germ and scenes of people who has lost all of his family to the pandemic. British Post-Apocalyptic Film falling ill, the series anticipated future concerns over With this ‘family’, Abby reverts to a much simpler When the Wind Blows (Jimmy T. Murakami, viral pandemics. Nation’s intention for the series way of life, one that rejects the comforts of the 1986) was not to discuss the potential consequences modern world, opting instead for a more self 28 Days Later (Danny Boyle, 2002) of a plague-induced apocalypse, but more to sustaining lifestyle. Whilst this comes as a bit of Children of Men (Alfonso Cuaron, 2006) examine what would happen to modern society a culture shock to Al – a young man who is used 28 Weeks Later (Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, 2007) in such a situation. Consequently, Survivors was to the latest technology and whose financially Doomsday (Neil Marshall, 2008) preoccupied with how humanity would cope successful father means he has never had to work British Post-Apocalyptic Television without the essentials of clean water, fresh food – the others soon find their own place in Abby’s The War Game (1966) and electricity, a scenario played out through a vision of this New World by adapting their Old The Last Train (1999) handful of survivors led by Abby Grant. As a strong World skills to start to live in sympathy with the The Changes (1975) woman, Abby takes on a matriarchal role, finding land. In many respects this offers a vision of World Survivors (1975) her new ‘family’ of survivors a home to live in and War 2 Britain, when citizens were encouraged to Threads (1984) coordinating their attempts at survival. Soon, the grow their own vegetables and adapt their skills Tripods (1984) narrative is set for a return to a ‘past’ life in which to both an economy and landscape ravaged Survivors (2008) the skills of agriculture need to be learnt and by the war. Yet it also correlates to a vision of tools made to work the land. Although initially an Alternative Culture, one which forsakes bleak, the series began to slide towards optimism the grind of modern living and the technology

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Chris Budd explores the use of the The challenges for the horror film composer Arnold Schoenberg had proposed a new are more complex than for any other, but with ’twelve-tone’ or ‘serialist’ method of composing musical score in the horror genre – one overarching simple intention. The score must music, which used mathematical grids to create and finds it has parallels with the support the structure and narrative of the film of melodies and harmonies, and sometimes course, without overtly drawing attention to itself, rhythms. The resultant music is very unusual: to development of experimental music. as well as providing the usual dramatic tension some ears unlistenable, but to others fiercely and release, and perhaps include recognisable expressive as it represents a great freeing up of and repeatable themes. However, the level of the composer to concentrate on the dynamics tension produced by the score must be ratcheted and feeling in the music. Other experimenters up much higher than usual, to keep viewers in, like Igor Stravinsky were creating ‘primitivistic’ or near, a state of fear. No other genre requires pieces that concentrated more on rhythms and such manipulation of the audience. To this end, dissonance (clashing chords) rather than on horror film scoring has often been a hotbed of smooth harmonies and soft melodies. experimentation and an area where a great deal No doubt due to their unsettling nature, many of interesting work has been done, particularly in of these influences naturally found their way into Britain. As we will see, the development of music music for horror films – Waxman’s own scores had in the horror genre has also closely mirrored the a definite atonal, angular sound which leant itself development of experimental music throughout well to creating a feeling of tension and unease. the 20th century. During the era of the Studio System of film production that followed, many in-house staff The early years of horror: composers produced similar-sounding scores. Waxman’s work However it was the English composer Elisabeth The early film composer Franz Waxman Lutyens who pushed these ideas furthest. In the composed one of the first horror scores for The 1960s she composed for Hammer and Amicus Bride of Frankenstein (1931) While it is a largely films a number of serialist pieces, expanding traditional orchestral affair, drawing heavily on Schoenberg’s ideas, which defined the sound of traditional romantic and classical music, as befits horror films in that era. Most noteworthy is The Waxman’s background, it is still a complex and Skull (1965) with its tense, frantic, juxtaposed modern sounding score, using the orchestra in rhythms and repetitive atonal motifs. new ways to evoke sounds and atmosphere, and it was hugely influential. Many horror movies The British dimension which followed (and the genre was very popular British horror movies are curiously double- in the 30s and 40s) utilised similar sounds. perspectived, often looking back to an imagined Waxman would have been very aware of some past (how many Hammer movies are set in an very avant-garde composers of that era who were unidentified Olde English village?), but just trying to find new ways of composing music as often concerned with modern science and that would shake up the old romantic model of inventions like electricity and macabre biology. large orchestras and lush, harmonious melodies. Skilful use of music in these films is one method The Exorcist, 1973, Dir: William Friedkin, Credit: Warner Bros/The Kobal Collection Kobal Bros/The Warner Credit: Friedkin, William 1973, Dir: Exorcist, The Collection Kobal Universal/The Credit: Whale, 1935, Dir: James Bride Of Frankenstein,

64 MediaMagazine | February 2010 | english and media centre MM of giving them a tangible consistency. due to its popular use in cartoons, where ways. For example the Saw movies use a However it took a while for a British onscreen action is reflected very closely in the consistent main theme, which has echoes of compositional style to appear in movie scoring. music. the industrial sound of Carpenter (Charlie Where European classical music developed Clouser who composes the Saw scores has been massively in the nineteenth century, Britain Graphic images, cult sounds a producer for Nine Inch Nails, among others), really achieved very little in that time, with the By this point in movie history, loosening with some orchestral instrumentation to evoke exception of brass bands and ‘light music’. While censorship and improving special effects the semi-religious sound of the classical music American movies were pushing ahead with the technology had allowed horror films to appeal from the Exorcist score. modern orchestral scoring style that had largely to much more graphic tastes. The 1970s Horror movies have always reflected the grown out of opera and ‘programme music’, equivalent of the weirdness and terror evoked particular fears of the times in which they are which recent European immigrants such as by 12-tone music or shrieking violins was the made, so it is wholly appropriate that horror Waxman had brought with them (and many other unsettling sound of electronic instruments, then movie composers try to find and develop new early film composers were European immigrants a relatively new phenomenon. John Carpenter’s sounds and new ways of scoring to keep even the to the US), some composers, such as James own music for his classic Halloween (1978) is most postmodern jaded audience on the edge of Bernard, created a new sound for British horror, often cited as a groundbreaking score in this their seats. evoking a more Gothic, baroque feel. regard, and Carpenter certainly brings some unique elements to the music of horror – Chris Budd is a freelance lecturer, journalist and composer. James Barnard and Hammer popularising the ‘heartbeat pulse’ in his music Bernard scored numerous horror movies, (showing how music and sound effects cross mostly for Hammer, and usually orchestrated over very closely in horror scoring) along with Landmark horror movie his own work (something reasonably rare for a repeated slow ostinatos (or short melodies) music film composer of his stature). His scores focused to ratchet up tension, as well as heralding the Horror Sadly not all available on DVD, or even more on evoking a mood or atmosphere than post-modern era and giving Quentin Tarantino regularly screened, these are nevertheless strong melodies. He used sparse, dissonant ideas by using diegetic music like songs on the some landmark moments in the development harmonies (for example, harmonising a melody radio to comment on the narrative of the movie of music in horror films. If you’re not easily one tone above) to unsettle the audience, (for example Blue Oyster Cult’s Don’t Fear The scared, hunt down copies or set your videos for and is remembered for creating fast-paced, Reaper). any late-night screenings. frantic-sounding scores utilising a great deal However, Carpenter has cited the music of percussion. His theme music would often from The Exorcist (1973) and the Italian movie Franz Waxman: The Bride of Frankenstein rhythmically and melodically mirror the title – for Suspiria (1977) as influences on Halloween. (1931) example, Taste The Blood of Dracula (1970) has Suspiria is something of a cult classic, (although a Max Steiner: King Kong(1933) a theme to which one can effectively sing the good example of how European movies followed title. (Bernard wasn’t the first to do this – Frank James Bernard’s model of frightening frantic Frank Skinner and Hans J Salter: The Wolf Man Skinner’s score for Son of Frankenstein in 1939 scoring) but The Exorcist is a great example of (1940) uses a deep, heavy three-note melody that seems the ‘temp track’ becoming the main score – Lalo James Bernard: The Curse of Frankenstein to say the name of the eponymous inventor). Schiffrinn’s music was rejected in favour of a (1957), Horror of Dracula (1958), The Devil In fact, ‘motifs’ for different characters are collection of quite odd sounding experimental Rides Out (1968), many others often a staple of horror scoring, the short theme classical music including Penderecki, and Webern for King Kong in the 1933 film of the same (a contemporary of Schoenberg), which the film Bernard Hermann: Psycho (1960) name being a good early example. But there are had been edited to, bringing horror film music in Elisabeth Lutyens: The Skull (1965) numerous modern examples where a sound or many ways back to its roots. Various Artists: The Exorcist (1973) short melody signifies the presence of danger or In the modern age, since the arrival of tension, not least Friday the 13th (1980) where postmodern pastiches of horror movies such John Carpenter: Halloween (1978) the sound of swelling horns and pizzicato strings as the Scream series, as well as a more serious, Harry Manfredini: Friday the 13th (1980) heralds the arrival of the killer. violent strand of movies presided over by the likes of Sam Raimi, anything goes. The various Psycho, Hitchcock and different conventions of horror movie scoring Herrmann which we have looked at are all used in different In the meantime, of course, American movies had moved on from the early efforts of Waxman et al, and with Psycho (1960) a new type of horror scoring was born. Director Alfred Hitchcock maintained that Psycho was a black comedy, but it does contain moments of terrifying horror, made most effective by composer Bernard Herrmann’s score. For the famous shower scene he uses shrill, dissonant (augmented 7ths or diminished octaves, depending on your point of view) string stabs to mirror the on-screen violence, and although nothing is graphically shown (except a lot of chocolate sauce which stood in for blood in the black-and-white era), the audience is left believing that they have witnessed a very violent murder. Blurring the line between music and sound effects in this way, to mirror onscreen actions, is nothing new, but it was done so effectively here that a great many films which followed were audibly influenced by it, notably Friday the 13th (1980) and Carrie (1976). The effect is known as ‘Mickey-Mousing’, The Exorcist, 1973, Dir: William Friedkin, Credit: Warner Bros/The Kobal Collection Kobal Bros/The Warner Credit: Friedkin, William 1973, Dir: Exorcist, The Collection Kobal Universal/The Credit: Whale, 1935, Dir: James Bride Of Frankenstein,

english and media centre | February 2010 | MediaMagazine 65 MM

Harper’s Island and Harper’s Globe

How do you widen the audience exception. However, where it differs from other an obvious promotional tool to engage and shows is the breadth of opportunities it offers maintain the interest of the show’s targeted demographic of a TV show appealing its viewers to identify with its cast. Most shows audience demographics, this also serves as a to an older age-group? You create feature one or two rounded characters that way to engage more casual viewers with the fit into conventional stereotypes to appeal to show via the promise of accessing personal an online sister version, obviously. a mainstream audience. However, Harper’s relationships. Participants in the game are Duncan Yeates explains. Island offers viewers a wide range of characters even offered the chance to invite their friends designed to appeal to both conventional and to play, thus offering the show even more free With its blend of mystery and horror codes cult audience demographics. These range promotion. The show’s continual murders serve as well as an attractive cast, Harper’s Island has from the psychologically disturbed and heavily as a talking point and method for fans to build all the generic conventions to attract a broad tattooed JD to the flirtatious and apparently relationships with more casual watchers of audience. However, how have the producers airheaded blonde Chloe. The fact that most of the programme – these can then be further of the show used the internet to broaden its the cast are supposed to be in their early to strengthened and developed by regular viewing. appeal and engage an even younger audience mid-twenties also offers the generic codes of Additional support is also offered to less regular demographic? slasher films, which could potentially help to watchers of the show with the ‘Recaps’ section, Harper’s Island has been constructed extend the show’s appeal to a teenage audience which offers a summary of the events of each deliberately to make it difficult to miss an who characteristically enjoy this kind of movie’s episode alongside an explanation of who has episode. Its central premise is of a wedding party emphasis on creative butchery and slaughter. fallen victim to the show’s serial killer in the last of mainly young, attractive and likeable guests Therefore, from a producer’s point of view episode. being picked off ‘one by one’ by a serial killer on this kind of programme should attract a wide The idea of personal relationships is also a remote island until no-one’s left. Every episode range of potential audiences, including those developed by the site’s character profiles promised at least one inventive murder, and that fit into sub-cultural and mainstream social section. Each one of the show’s characters (and when the show was in its infancy, these were demographics. victims) is reduced to a reductive stereotype particularly hard to predict. At this point it is The show’s emphasis on personal identification that offers viewers of the show one simplified worth considering the nature of the programme’s is also deliberately developed by its official dominant reading: such as ‘The Outsider’, ‘The cast and structure from an institutional point of website, featuring as it does the game of ‘Pick Black Sheep’ and ‘The Flirt’ This is then enhanced view. the Victim’. Here viewers can participate in by the ‘I’m a Fan’ hyperlink provided underneath, All television programmes offer their viewers an online game where the participant who giving fans of certain characters the opportunity the opportunities to experience Blumler make the most accurate number of predictions to form relationships by discussing them on the and Katz’s Use and Gratification of personal about who would get murdered in each site’s online forum. identification, and Harper’s Island is no episode wins a $1000 prize. As well as being So far we have considered the appeal of

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66 MediaMagazine | February 2010 | english and media centre MM

Harper’s Island to a relatively broad social If you look at the way kids consume however, many users of Harper’s Globe have demographic ranging from the cult to the entertainment says EQUAL cofounder Miles described the web series as being full of red mainstream. However the fact remains that Beckett they take it, they remix it, they herrings and non-sequiturs that failed to develop aside from the generic codes of slasher movies, edit it, they report it. They want to feel like their understanding of the TV programme itself. there is little here to engage a younger audience they’re part of their entertainment. (www. This makes us wonder how effectively this use demographic – especially teenagers. Most of ew.com/ew/article/0,,20268063,00.html) and gratification has been provided by the the show’s protagonists are young adults with This component of interactivity is borne out institutions behind the programme, and how professional jobs – these kinds of people are by the Harper’s Globe website itself where its engaged users of Harper’s Globe really are with unlikely to tempt or appeal to an audience barely ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ section is at pains Harper’s Island. in or out of their teenage years. This is an issue to explain that the web series is an ‘online To sum up, it is reasonable to conclude acknowledged by the Executive Producer of show and a social network where you can that Harper’s Globe really only functions as Harper’s Island, Jeffrey Bell: watch and participate in an exciting story’ a promotional tool for a younger audience The typical CBS [the channel on which (www.harpersglobe.com/faq). It also states demographic who enjoy social networking Harper’s Island is broadcast] viewer is ... that ‘videos, photos, and blogs posted by sites. Its complete lack of promotion has been the polite word is ‘older’ (www.ew.com/ew/ characters on their profile pages’ (www. deliberate, to create a sense of verisimilitude article/0,,20268063,00.html). harpersglobe.com/faq) will help to give users of and to enable viewers to promote via word To address this issue, CBS have not restricted this site a deeper understanding of the events on of mouth. This may also explain some of the their use of the internet to a single official the island. frustration hinted at earlier with some (possibly companion site. As Bell observes: However, can this element of interactivity add more mature) viewers suggesting that it fails to [Harpersglobe.com] might be a way to get up to successful promotion and raised viewing function as a stand alone series, producing too the people who are younger to watch as well. figures to a younger audience demographic? many enigma codes which remain unresolved (www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20268063,00. The fact that viewers of Harper’s Globe are either by the TV series or the site itself. html) able to interact with the show’s central character, Harper’s Globe is a sister web series to Robin, via her online profile also added a sense of Duncan Yeates teaches English and Media Studies at Harper’s Island which offers a parallel narrative social relationships and community. This is likely Helston Community College, Cornwall. to the events unfolding on the island. Its basic to specifically appeal to an audience of teenagers plot revolves around a girl called Robin, who is who are avid users of social networking sites. invited onto Harper’s Island to digitise articles Users of the website are able to warn this central from the local newspaper and create an online character about upcoming events due to their community for the island’s residents. As the dual perspective as well as interacting with other events take a murderous turn, she becomes users of the site, thus further developing the involved with the TV programme’s narrative. show’s promise of personal relationships. It would be fair to suggest that a sister web Furthermore, the parallel plot lines mean series has a limited ability to engage viewers who that fans of the web series need to watch the are not already a fan of the TV show. Watching television programmes to fully understand what’s a web series online is no longer the height of happening. From a theoretical point of view, originality – companion sites for Lost and Heroes therefore, it could be suggested that both the completely failed to attract an audience beyond programme and the web series offer the viewer the shows’ hardcore fanatics. Therefore one is left the use and gratification of surveillance, as wondering what Harper’s Globe might offer to each informs the viewer’s understanding of the engage a younger audience demographic who other, and offers negotiated readings of some were initially disinterested in Harper’s Island. The of the show’s characters as they appear in both show’s producers have obviously given this idea Harper’s Island and Harper’s Globe. The fact that some consideration when producing their site, as they can interact with the show’s characters also evidenced below by the following comment: means that they become more engaged with the events on the TV programme. Interestingly

english and media centre | February 2010 | MediaMagazine 67 FEBRUARY 2010: THE FANTASY ISSUE M M MediaMagazine

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