FEBRUARY 2010: THE FANTASY ISSUE M M MediaMagazine edia agazine Menglish and media centre issue 31 | februaryM 2010 Superheroes Dexter Vampires english and media centre Aliens Dystopia Apocalypses | issue 31 | february 2010 MM MM 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 London 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 True Blood’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 Neil Gaiman’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 fantasies 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 vampire 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 Heroes 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 England 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 Channel 4 Learning.