edia agazine Menglish and media centre issue 51M | february 2015

Empowering women SEXUALITY IN SF Coping with copyright Taylor Swift VIRTUAL REALITY The decline of the film star MM MM

This magazine is not to be photocopied. Why not subscribe to our web package which includes a downloadable and printable PDF of the current issue or encourage your students to take out their own £12 subscription?

Well, the timing may not be great, MediaMagazine is published by the but if you’re an AS student, as well as English and Media honing your analytic and production Centre, a non-profit skills for your forthcoming exams, you making organisation. really need to be keeping an eye open The Centre publishes a for the way the media are representing wide range of classroom our 7th May General Election. You materials and runs could kick off with Tom Brownlee’s courses for teachers. If article on the TV campaigns around you’re studying English the Scottish Referendum, then whizz round the party websites to at A Level, look out see how they’re constructing their identities, their representations for emagazine, also of the issues they’re highlighting, and their uses of different media published by the Centre. platforms and appeals. You’ll need all this stuff for next year’s exams The English and Media Centre – and you can get ahead of the game right now by allocating tasks 18 Compton Terrace London N1 2UN within your group: for example, someone to collect newspaper Telephone: 020 7359 8080 headlines, monitors for Facebook and Twitter, someone else to track Fax: 020 7354 0133 the online responses of opinion-formers and party leaders, or to Email for subscription enquiries: keep an overview of cartoonists’ work, and so on. You could even [email protected] write about your experience of the electoral campaigns for our Editor: Jenny Grahame MediaMag writing competition. Subscriptions manager: Emma Marron Powerful women are a recurrent theme of this magazine, with

Design: Sam Sullivan two really powerful non-British films ideal for A2 film students, Print: S&G Group and a research-based introduction to the new adaptation of Vera

Cover: Ivan Sutherland’s ‘The Britain’s Testament of Youth. But we’re also covering both Beyoncé Sword of Damocles’ (virtual and Taylor Swift, as well as Clean Bandit’s Grace Chatto – strong reality) women indeed. If you’re working on a mashup, parody or pastiche ISSN: 1478-8616 for your production coursework, you must read Julian McDougall’s extremely useful article on copyright and the new Copyright Users Portal. And anyone with the remotest interest in new technologies should have a close look at Damien Hendry’s introduction to the virtual realities in store via Occulus Rift and other such developments, where you’ll be in at the birth of a whole new range of codes and conventions. Finally, a reminder to everyone that time is ticking by for our two competitions – the deadline for both is Friday 20th March. On page 5 we’ve suggested a few ideas to get the ball rolling for student writing; and the entry forms for both competitions are downloadable from our home page. We’ve been expecting you…

In April’s MediaMag Russell Brand; Social media surveillance; Mockingjay; Bad language on TV; Owen Jones; cosplay; idedology and more!

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The Front Page Re-imagining and Wadjda and Female 04 The latest media news and 22 Hannibal 43 Empowerment views. The Media Concepts: 06 Representation Old and New In her latest guide to the Jonathan Nunns takes a key media concepts, Steph forensic and gore-splattered Preparing for the FM4 Hendry explores one of look at what happens when Specialist Study on the most powerful and an iconic and controversial Empowering Women? Mark controversial of them all, film is re-imagined for long- Ramey explains why this film and demonstrates how form TV drama. is so important. the changes in our media landscape have influenced Copyright Regulation The Male Gaze Cartoon the ways we view the world 26 (Remix) 48 and ourselves. Professor and examiner Julian McDougall outlines Deconstructing Taylor Your Country Needs You! what you really need to 50 Student Lydia Kendall uses 10 know about the issues media concepts to challenge around online regulation and the media representations copyright. of Taylor Swift – from the perspective of a fan. Virtual Dreams and Rifts 30 in Reality Un-straightening the What role did the media Damien Hendry reports on 54 Future – Sexuality in play in the battle for hearts the latest developments in Science Fiction and minds in perhaps Virtual Reality. Steve Connolly suggests the most important vote a less threatening way to in a generation – last An Interview with Grace approach issues around the September’s Scottish 33 Chatto of Clean Bandit representation of sexuality: independence referendum? Barbara Bleiman interviews through the ‘otherness’ of Expat Scotsman Tom one of the powers behind science fiction. Brownlee surveys the the hugely popular classical/ battlefield. pop group known for their Testament of Youth 2014 amazing videos. – From Memoir to Movie The Decline of the Film 58 14 Star? Covering Gender – 36 Beyoncé, GQ and Vogue Emma Calway compares the coverage of a global icon in two contrasting lifestyle magazines. Vanessa Raison introduces a Girls ‘n’ the Hood? Bande terrific case study example Nick Lacey dismisses rumours 39 de filles of the UK Film Industry at of the death of the movie- work – and a very topical star – and discovers that the introduction to research future is international. skills.

Cold as Ice? Viral Westgate – One Year On 18 Campaigns and Charities A powerful new film about 63 How is a world news story Does the use of viral girl gangs in the Parisian configured differently in campaigns by charities really suburbs is on its way. Roy different places? Expat make a difference, or does Stafford compares it with La Maggie Miranda compares it just make us feel better? Haine. her personal experience with Discuss! Clare Gunns fuels local and international news the debate. coverage of a terrorist attack that shook the world.

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The world’s biggest-ever Hobbit project?

Like’em or loathe’em, we need your in over 30 languages. Hoping to recruit thoughts about Hobbits. If you’ve seen over 50,000 responses at our website: Calling all any of the films in the Hobbit trilogy, www.worldhobbitproject.org. The Professor Martin Barker of Aberystwyth trouble is, we may be huge, but we are teachers – how University invites you to take part in a doing this on almost no money. So we inspiring are you? global research project exploring the are utterly dependent on people visiting appeals of fantasy for audiences. Read our site and completing the survey there Do you, or a colleague, use film to on to discover why, and how to get (20 minutes is all it should take) – and support topics in the curriculum involved. then telling relatives, friends, and ‘Friends’ or engage with students that about it. find traditional learning methods What’s the link between these? Game difficult? Have you ever used film of Thrones … The Maze Runner … to tackle challenging subjects like The Hunger Games … The Lord of the bullying or racism? Do you include Rings … Harry Potter … add your own. filmmaking activities in your lessons, It’s obvious, isn’t it? All blockbuster or encourage your pupils to develop movies. All ‘fantasies’. OK, but look at their critical analysis and literacy the differences. One mock-medieval skills by discussing films and writing version of the Wars of the Roses. Two If you’ve seen the films, it doesn’t matter reviews? post-apocalypse stories of teenage if you saw them because you are some survival. One near-allegorical version of kind of fan (of Tolkien, of Peter Jackson, To celebrate the value of film as the struggle between good and evil. One of Martin Freeman, whoever) or just a learning tool and champion coming-of-age school story, with added someone who likes to catch a big movie educators who are using the magic. Yes, but still all ‘fantasies’. around Christmas. It doesn’t matter if you medium interestingly and effectively thought (as some people have) the films in class, Into Film is inviting teachers And that’s the question. What might be were streeeetched too far from the book, to nominate themselves or a the appeal and importance of ‘fantasy’ or if you loved the three-year build up colleague for its ‘Most Inspirational to audiences? Of course there are a lot of – or just got dragged along by friends. Use of Film in Class’ Award. people who just use the word to dismiss Whatever your views on the films, we Nominations may be made by it all as cheap, throwaway, commercial need to hear them. teachers themselves, by a colleague, Who are ‘we’? We are university parent or student, and must include researchers interested in audiences, an example of work to demonstrate and how ordinary people enjoy and the inspirational use of film in the make sense of films. We are not linked classroom. in any way to the filmmakers – this is an The winner will be announced at entirely independent operation. And we an Awards ceremony at London’s are promising that everything we learn prestigious Empire Leicester Square will make its way back into the public on 24th March 2015. Film industry trash: ‘it’s just fantasy’. We don’t think domain, so audiences can learn about professionals will be attending that’s right. So we decided to try to find each other. From Brazil to South Africa to the ceremony, which also includes out. Using as our way-in the release of Slovenia to Japan, and of course the UK – other categories to showcase the final film in the Hobbit trilogy, we’ve please, take a bit of time to go to young people’s involvement launched a research project to gather www.worldhobbitproject.org and let in film and education. Entries people’s views of those films, and this your inner ‘critic’ speak to us! And then to the Inspirational Use of Film kind of story-telling as a whole. make your friends do it too … category must be submitted by When I say project, I actually mean the Thanks! 5pm on February 26th at http:// most humongous megaproject of all www.intofilm.org/awards2015- Martin Barker, Professor of Film & Television time. Research teams in 46 countries inspirational Studies at Aberystwyth University. around the world, gathering responses

4 MediaMagazine | February 2015 | english and media centre MM The MediaMag The MediaMag Writing 2014 Competition! Student Our very first writing competition has launched, and we want your writing. But what do you want to say, what form do you choose you say it in, and where do Conference you start? Writing from the heart Well, we loved it – but then we would The best ‘real’ writing (as opposed to the forms of writing required for say that, wouldn’t we? However, 930 coursework, exam answers, or practice essays) will come from a passion – students and teachers seemed pretty whether a response to a news event or debate which angered or provoked you, a excited to be part of a day topped and film or TV text which inspired you, or an experience – a game, a twitter exchange, tailed by two of the most influential a production or a gig – you’re immersed in or blown away by. Your choice will be journalists of our time, Jon Snow and personal, so there are no set topics or titles – but here are some prompts which Owen Jones, with creative inspiration just might get you started. from Destiny Ekharaga, Jake Wynne and Pete Fraser. Indeed, students were still Join the debate queuing halfway round the building to So far in this year’s news, we’ve seen the appalling events at Charlie Hebdo, and talk to Owen and Destiny an hour after the inspiring displays of solidarity and community Europe-wide, raising huge the conference closed, so we must have questions about free speech, censorship and extremism. The Royals have taken got something right. The complete talks, another bashing, with the news of Prince Andrew’s alleged indiscretions, and as well as interviews with the presenters, the Palace’s protection of its own. Controversy rages around the forthcoming are now available to MediaMag web electoral campaign TV debates and who will have a platform. Page 3 has gone subscribers – just ask your teacher for and come back, and the No More Campaign is still live. All these news stories your username and password. In our next reflect on the issue of the right to speak out. Do you have a view? issue we’ll be publishing interviews with Share your passions! Owen and Jon. Meanwhile in the world of media, it’s Awards season. Boyhood, The Theory of In the meantime, MediaMag’s favourite Everything, or Birdman – three entirely different frontrunners, all featuring the life- moments included Jon Snow posing for journeys and/or crises of their male protagonists. Which one would get your vote, hundreds of selfies with students before and why? Are you a passionate viewer of Broadchurch 2, Wolf Hall, Cucumber or pedalling off for an interview for Channel Banana, or even (dare we say it?) Mr Selfridge? Is there a social media platform, 4 News; Jake’s anecdotes about working an app or a piece of media technology which has changed your life, or without with the Spice Girls; and Destiny’s which you could not survive? Write about it! experiences as a black woman director, Is there an iconic or cult figure in any contemporary media form you feel deserves and her thought-provoking views on wider recognition in an article, whether a performer, writer, director, musician, diversity. columnist, thinker or theorist? Are you a fan – a Whovian, or a Sherlock-ite(?), a If you missed it as an AS Level student, Swiftie or a Little Monster? Share your passion, make your case, explain what all is not lost – our 2015 Conference is your icon means to you either as an expert ‘curator’, a journalist, or from a fan’s already in our sights, and this year it will perspective. be earlier, on 5th November. Our first Choose your own rules speaker is already booked – in response The only rules are length – 1000 words or under. Choose your own format – a to popular demand, Owen Jones will be feature article; an op-ed (comment) piece on a particular issue, an interview, returning for a re-match, so you’ll be able dialogue or imagined conversation; a graphic or photojournalism piece, or even to catch him for some (metaphorical) a treatment or a script. Nothing is out of bounds, except plagiarism or a practice fireworks. Make sure you watch out for exam essay. details as they appear on our home page! If you’re not sure whether your idea is a good one, run it past your teacher, or mail a one-paragraph summary to [email protected] and we’ll get back to you with some advice. You’ll find the entry form on the MM home page. Make sure your entry arrives by Friday 20th March. Good luck – we’re waiting for you …

The Front Page was compiled by Jenny Grahame.

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In the latest in her series again), and so the images and ideas work helps us to identify the way media we see on screen, in print or online are products create ideological meaning. of guides to the key media ‘removed’ from the original object. The concepts, Steph Hendry explores media intervene and stand between Representations and the one of the most powerful and the object and what we see – the act Mass Media of communicating the image or idea in controversial of them all, and Traditionally, the power to create some way changes it. representations has been in the hands of demonstrates how the changes For example, take the following image media producers working within media in our media landscape have created by the surrealist artist Magritte as institutions. In ‘old’ pre-digital media long ago as the late 1920s. forms this is still true. A film director influenced the ways we view the makes choices which will determine how world, and ourselves. s/he will represent the city in which the story is set; a TV producer will decide In my last article I argued that media if a positive or negative presentation products were constructed carefully of the subject will be created; a press in order to create meaning. It is the or TV news editor will decide on the combination of media language appropriate slant for a journalist’s story. choices that construct a representation. In print media the process works like this: Understanding how representations are created, and how they create meaning, is • The Duchess of Cambridge is a person central to an understanding of the media, – she is flesh and blood, she exists. as everything that appears in the media is The pipe may be a superficially accurate • A photographer takes her picture. If in fact a representation. portrayal – but it is a re-presentation of a pipe from Magritte’s perspective, rather this is an official picture, Kate and the The word representation itself holds than the pipe itself. royal team will have given considerable a clue to its importance. When we see thought to the outfit she is wearing, a person, place, object or idea being Representations are always, in some way, the location of the image, her pose, represented in a media text, it has in filtered through someone’s point of view, facial expressions etc. If this is an some way been mediated by the very and carry particular meanings or values. unofficial or paparazzi photo, Kate act of representation. A representation is In other words, they are ideological. Thus herself may have tried to control the a re-presentation (literally – to present an understanding of how representations image as much as possible, but the

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‘snapshot’ is now controlled more by the context of the image, and the other could help to create ideological meaning the photographer. media language choices that surround as just one element of the overall it. Try writing captions for the photos representation. • A picture editor selects the photo from above. You should quickly see how easily a whole series of images to be used to The values above can be seen as genre you could create both a positive and a illustrate a news story. The image may codes for soap operas, repeated time negative representation from the same be cropped, resized and, in some cases, and time again in different shows. This image. photoshopped. repetition of values and ideologies starts to feel very ‘natural’ to the viewer. • A news editor will decide on the way The How, Who and Why of The critical philosopher Roland Barthes the story will be presented, and the use Representation argues that the ‘naturalisation’ of of captions to pin down, or anchor, the When analysing representations, it ideas in this way actually acts to hide meaning of the image. is always essential to question who the ideology from view. It is present • The photograph of Kate Middleton is creating them, and why. All media within the text but we don’t recognise in the newspaper is a re-presentation products have a specific function which it because it comes across as being of what she looks like, with people will impact on the representations they common sense, just ‘the way things controlling and manipulating the construct. Producers will consider: are’. This is not the same as saying that image at various stages throughout the • the expectations and needs of the the media has a direct and immediate process. target audience effect on the audience. It does, • The Duchess herself, the person, is however, suggest that certain ideas • the limitations provided by genre some distance away from the image go unquestioned, which can lead to codes that is reproduced. ‘the silencing of difference’ (Barthes). If • the type of narrative they wish to something seems ‘natural’ then there is See above for two images from the create no point in questioning it. same event that create different ideas about the Duchess. Which picture would • their institutional remit. Another Approach to you use if you wanted to imply that the All representations, then, are the Ideology – the Work of Duchess had a bit of a drinking problem? cumulative effect of a collection of Stuart Hall The photograph, then, is a representation media language choices. Certain choices The cultural theorist Stuart Hall of the Duchess. It may look like her are made; others are rejected. The developed a hugely influential approach but, in addition to her likeness, it will representation itself is the combination to the ways readers/audiences make communicate ideas about her that are of these selections and rejections. The sense of the ideological meanings of created during the mediation process. elements that are rejected do not carry televisual texts. Hall’s critique is known The photographer, picture editor and the meaning the producer wants to as the ‘Encoding/Decoding Model’, and news editor are its ‘gatekeepers’: at each communicate. Even a simple element still challenges conventional assumptions stage of the representation process, such as the choice of wallpaper used about how media messages are attempts can be made to shape and to dress the set of a soap opera family’s produced, circulated and consumed. control the image, depending on the living room will help to create ideological Hall argued that audiences do not nature of the story, and the news agenda meaning – for example, by suggesting necessarily accept the ideology of texts at the time. Thus a photograph of the that the family are hard-up, show-off passively, but instead draw on their own Duchess could be used to help stir up and tasteless, or chic and fashionable cultural and social experiences to create positive support for the Royal Family; (see p.8). Of course, the wallpaper is not their own interpretations. In his view alternatively it could imply a critical view ideological in itself, but combined with ‘meanings’ and messages are not fixed of the monarchy. Much depends on the other representational choices, it by the creator of the text, but depend

english and media centre | February 2015 | MediaMagazine 7 MM Wallpaper Positive Representation Negative Representation Choice Old fashioned, Characters struggle for money Characters are assumed to be tatty and faded but place greater value lazy and unmotivated. They lead on family and supporting unhealthy life-styles and resent one another than on home others’ success. Family relationships improvements and ‘keeping may be stressful, and there may be up with the Joneses’. disputes with neighbours. New, clean and The characters are successful, The characters are successful but fashionable and hardworking. They take may value their financial success pride in what they have, and and material possessions over enjoy sharing their comfort friends and family. They have lots with others. The home is an of ‘stuff’, and enjoy showing it off, important place for them. but fail to value it and take their success for granted. Ideological In TV drama, the domestic setting and mise-en-scene are symbolic Meaning indicators of the broad values underpinning the narrative – in soaps, generally the value of hard work, strong family ties and the The carefully constructed social media importance of home. The wallpaper, like characters’ dress codes, body language or dialect, is one of the micro-elements that helps images below are examples of self- to create these ideological meanings. representation by Zoella, aka Zoe Sugg – the celebrity YouTube vlogger recently on the relationship between the reader/ We may define ourselves in a variety of outed for hiring a ghostwriter for her viewer, and the text. In the wallpaper/ ways. Our personal identities may be hugely successful first novel Girl Online. family values example above, you may based on the characteristics we see as Zoella’s expressions show she is aware of support the implied ideologies, and being part of who we are – e.g. our age, the camera and poses carefully to create therefore you might accept the intended gender, sexuality, ethnicity – or we may the visual image that supports her video meaning. However, some audiences foreground our cultural identities, based persona. Part of her appeal is that she may only partially accept the meanings on our sense of belonging (or not) to is perceived by her 2.6 million (!) Twitter being offered by a text; Hall calls this the specific cultures or groups. followers as a ‘normal person’ rather negotiated position. Other audiences There is, of course, some overlap here. than a celebrity media construction; but might reject them completely (the We may identify ourselves through our this identity is carefully constructed and oppositional position). personal sense of masculinity and/or maintained. Her audience identify with femininity but we may also associate her, and she offers an aspirational lifestyle Representations and New ourselves with particular cultural groups that her fans admire. Indeed the wave of Media based on gender identity. support from her 6 million YouTube fans With the rise of new media, audience when she temporarily ‘took a break’ from In these ways, the style of a specific selfie, members can now construct and vlogging when the ghostwriting was the identification with our favourite share their own media products, and exposed seems to confirm their knowing book or film, or the clothes we choose in websites, video-sharing platforms acceptance of her highly constructed to be seen wearing become the ‘media and social media there are more personality. language’ choices we make when opportunities for people to represent constructing our own identities online. Increased opportunities for self- themselves than ever before. Individuals We may have one consistent identity, representation also mean that previously can now engage in the act of self- but it is more likely that we have a range under-represented groups – for example representation, often on a daily basis, of different identities that we draw on people with particular minority faiths, through the creation of social media in different contexts. We may construct political beliefs or health conditions – profiles and content. these identities in slightly different ways may be able to create a broader media When we post an image on Instagram that relate to the groups we are in and presence. Less visible groups may be or some thoughts on Facebook, we are the way we identify with that group. able to address the use of simplistic constructing an idea of ourselves, and we stereotypes in the mainstream media; are distributing it to our followers or our friends. The choices we make in terms of which images to upload and which comments to create a construction of an idea about ourselves. Social media allow us to construct selective and controlled representations of the public identity we wish to communicate to the world.

8 MediaMagazine | February 2015 | english and media centre MM they can represent themselves actively, rather than simply being subject to the way media institutions portray them.

An Example: Representing National Identity in Old and New Media Old media forms have always attempted to define and construct an identity for their audience, using certain types of representation to prescribe how people think about themselves and others. National identity is invariably raised during national sports competitions. During the 2014 World Cup, The Sun sent a free newspaper to 22 million households in England which represented its own concepts of ‘Englishness’ by symbolic references – queuing, the Sunday roast, Churchill and The Queen – to heroes, values and behaviours that the paper (and its owners, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corps) defined as appropriate expressions of ‘English identity’.

understanding of the world comes from limited media representations circulated This representation may have helped by traditional media organisations. But some audience members to identify with digitisation has vastly expanded our a certain idea of national identity and opportunities for self-representation, our politicians seemed keen to represent and contemporary media forms and themselves in relation to it, reinforcing platforms offer more voices and more The Sun’s messages about what it means viewpoints than ever before through the to be British. diversity of representations they offer. However, social media forums and comment pages allowed many people Steph Hendry is a lecturer in Media at to voice their rejection of the messages. Runshaw College, and a freelance writer. Through self representation, they Follow her on Twitter @albionmill were able to show that they distanced themselves from the values in the tabloid MoreMediaMag newspaper. from the archive Representation of War in TV News, The way we think about representation MM45 is changing; traditional approaches that focus only on the large media institutions A Serious Business: The Politics of Two now seem a little out of date. We may American Sitcoms, MM38 find the different groups to which we The Ideology of The Batman Trilogy, belong are represented by the media in MM44 ways that may not always seem accurate Stuart Hall – A Beginners’ Guide, and fair; and as individuals we may MM20 find that much of our knowledge and

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Last September’s Scottish On September 18th 2014, Scottish media and old fashioned canvassing adults voted on the question, to outflank what it perceived as the independence referendum included pro-union bias of the ‘Better Together’ ‘Should Scotland become an independent 16- and 17-year-old voters for campaign. Yet while ‘Yes Scotland’ country?’ the first time. What role did the energised a wide sweep of the nation, ‘Yes.’ its message was ultimately rejected by traditional TV political broadcast ‘No.’ 55% of those who voted on the day. play in the battle for hearts ‘No, thanks.’ and minds in perhaps the most ‘Are you yes yet?’ Propaganda – Appeals to ‘Better Together.’ ‘ the Head and Heart important vote in a generation? So what do we mean by propaganda Aye!’ ‘ Expat Scotsman Tom Brownlee and how did the two sides try to win Naw!’ surveys the battlefield, in a brilliant over the Scottish public? Wikipedia’s ‘Mibbe?’ definition is as good as any: case study for anyone studying While new media played an important Information, especially of a biased or Propaganda, Politics and the role in the Scottish Referendum, both misleading nature, used to promote a political Media, and Media and Democracy. Yes and No camps relied heavily on cause or point of view. the propaganda role of traditional In a sense, propaganda appeals both to television political broadcasts to the head and the heart. influence the four million registered voters. This article considers three such One familiar and frequently analysed broadcasts to analyse their impact. template for propaganda in the UK is the Lord Kitchener WW1 recruitment In the pro-Union camp – vote ‘No’ – poster. Its message – ‘fight for your stood the Conservative, Labour and the country’ – is communicated through Liberal Democrats. The Independence direct address and the use of personal cause – vote ‘Yes’ – was led by the pronouns (Yes. YOU.). It further works Scottish National Party, the Greens, and by establishing relationships of a loose network of support groups such hierarchy and deference; and signifiers as Commonweal, which relied on social

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of class, position and authority are asserted through the military uniform, the flamboyant, hyper-masculine moustache, and the fixed male gaze. Combined, these signifiers cement Kitchener’s authority over his male audience. They are addressed as British men who naturally defer to their social superiors, using the iconography of masculine pride and patriotic duty. It seems crude now, but it established the generic conventions for propaganda for a sizeable portion of the 20th century and endures today: see the images of Vladimir Putin in heroic mode on horseback for a recent example.

The Role of Television Although in recent political history 1. Better Together: The starts with her sitting in her kitchen social media have played an Woman Who Made Up Her drinking a cup of tea while her increasingly important role in shaping Mind or #Patronising BT husband and children are away. Cast public opinion, in the Referendum Lady as the embodiment of the ‘supermum’ archetype she confesses that juggling the three-minute television campaign http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ the demands of job, home and family broadcast remained the most powerful uk-scotland-28951673 tool. I will analyse three key broadcasts has prevented her from following https://twitter.com/hashtag/ from the final weeks before the vote. the debate closely. By breaking the PatronisingBTLady Using the conceptual framework to fourth wall (i.e. speaking directly to the deconstruct this sample, we will see Polling suggested that a sizeable camera), the character seeks to create how a mix of advertising ‘know how’ proportion of women voters were a sense of complicity and identification and political spin can be used to shape genuinely undecided. These swing between herself and the female viewer. opinion. Opinion polling indicated voters were invaluable to both Her personal struggle with the decision that large sections of the electorate sides, and Better Together’s (BT) before opting for BT is supposed remained undecided throughout the August broadcast sought to speak to reflect a frank and non-partisan campaign period. Reaching them was directly to the concerns of this niche approach to politics. The producers the key to success. demographic. Thus was born The are using the popular advertising Woman Who Made up Her Mind. It technique of personalisation in order

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to characterise and play to a certain socio-demographic type. Previously market researchers have identified social types such as ‘Worcestershire woman’ or ‘Basildon man’, for instance, as a means to address their values and attitudes. The character in this advert might be called ‘Fearful Fiona’, the average woman anxious about her family and, by extension, her nation’s financial future. What the Better Together advertisers failed to anticipate was the scope for a subversive reading of the text. Their representation of the average housewife seems to have stepped out 2. Yes Campaign: ‘Look Out and metaphorically, the emphasis is of a ‘70s TV detergent commercial, and World: Here I Come’ on dynamic movement, whether it is might be confessing to substandard http://www.youtube.com/user/ within the frame or in panning and laundry. BT was swiftly accused of YesScotland tracking shots. This version of Scotland stereotyping Scottish women as is going places. Each section of society ‘I can dress myself’, whispered by a wee politically ignorant, family-obsessed – young and old, male and female, lassie, establishes independence as the housewives with lower levels of rural and urban – are characterised in theme of the Yes broadcast. Again, the education than men. ‘Yes’ campaigners the campaign video. To balance the main message is anchored by a woman pounced on the opportunity for some female spokesperson, the producers (that crucial demographic again!) who, mischievous satire by creating the place a muscular Scotsman (a modern ‘Patronising BT Lady’ meme, which symbolically, is a florist – the ‘flower day Braveheart?) seen running through went viral within hours of the first of Scotland’. Speaking frankly to the a rugged Highland landscape, which broadcast. The widely parodied Better camera she asks, rhetorically: has connotations of natural strength, Together broadcast wasn’t aired again. independence. It’s what we want in our lives – power and virility, both of the land and so why not for our country? its people. Overall it echoes Obama’s Bathed in an optimistic glow of bright ‘Hope’ message of 2008 and contrasts colours, the chorus of persuasive, with the fretfulness of the previous aspirational characters delivers a BT broadcast. ‘Look out world, here I message of sunlit hope. Both literally come,’ says a long-haired student, as

12 MediaMagazine | February 2015 | english and media centre MM advert stresses aspiration, movement and progress, BT’s brand values are of community, stability and solidarity. ‘Yes’ scored a majority with people aged under 50, while ‘No’ was the choice of the over 55s. While each side deployed the iconography of the Scottish landscape and buildings, they both resisted the obvious temptation to wrap themselves in plaid. Romantic ‘tartanry’ is the province of Visit Scotland, the country’s tourism marketing agency, and not the reality for the vast majority of people Highland lochs sparkle, children play both in the message and in its narrative living, working and voting in Scotland happily in the sunshine, and active old structure. A male voiceover (Voice of today. folks joyfully dance in a presumably God narration) guides and anchors our comfortable and fulfilling retirement. interpretation of the visual wallpaper Eventually, as we know, the majority on the screen. of Scots voted to keep the country in the UK. After two years of electrifying 3. Better Together: The only other spoken words come debate up and down the country, in Solidarity Forever from Gordon Brown, the soberly- classrooms and school assemblies, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ attired former Labour Prime Minister across the internet, in TV debates and uk-scotland-29230269 and redoubtable Scottish MP for in acres of newspaper space, at public Kircaldy and Cowdenbeath. Brown’s The subtext behind the final piece is meetings, over a pint and over the intervention is a classic example of the battle for the traditional Labour dinner table, Scotland can now boast the ‘Two Step Flow’ theory identified vote, which seemed to be drifting of having some of the most politically by Lazarfield and Katz in the 1940s. towards the ‘Yes’ camp. The narrative aware and media literate citizens in This is a process whereby influential falls into two portions – past and the UK. With the upcoming UK General opinion leaders filter and interpret present – but the message is simple: Election featuring resurgent Greens media messages and pass them on choose solidarity, not separation. and, of course, UKIP, it promises to to influence others. Speaking directly Montage sequences are used to build offer a thrilling clash of political styles to the audience, Kitchener-style, momentum throughout the piece. The and modes of political persuasion. the familiar figure of Brown offers first minute is devoted to a nostalgic General Election 2015 could prove just as exciting for students of political propaganda as last year’s referendum. Tom Brownlee is Head of Media at Richard Hale School, Hertford.

MoreMediaMag from the archive Politics, Propaganda and the Press, MM45 YouTube – Politics and News, MM21 Your Top 30 YouTube Political Clips, Your country needs you: Former Prime Minister and Scottish MP, Gordon Brown speaking directly to MM38 the audience tribute to the sacrifices of previous reassurance to an older, and perhaps generations, suggested through more cautious, target demographic flickering, black and white archive in a way that avoids the faux pas of footage of the labour movement, earlier broadcasts, and seeks to win including millworkers, hospital staff over wavering Labour supporters in and soldiers. ‘Real’ people are shown in the final days before the vote. But large groups as a metaphor for a social where Kitchener points directly at the solidarity which transcends nationality subject, Brown’s open-handed gesture or region. In its nostalgic pitch to suggests openness and friendship. He both older and younger voters, the has influence rather than power over producers emphasise traditional values, his audience. Where the earlier ‘Yes’

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14 MediaMagazine | February 2015 | english and media centre MM Here’s a name you may never have heard of: The ‘Biograph Girl’. Who is she? You may well ask – many thousands of her fans were once desperate to know the answer. When she was finally named, in 1910, as Florence Lawrence, she heralded the Hollywood star system, and became the first ever movie star. Nick Lacey dismisses rumours In the early days of cinema, film actors of the death of the movie-star were happy to remain anonymous, for they considered movies to be beneath – and discovers that the future them. Producers endorsed this anonymity is international. to stop actors demanding more money for their services. This changed when producer Carl Laemmle poached Lawrence from the Biograph Studio and, in a publicity ruse, announced that she had died in an accident. He then placed an advertisement in the St Louis Post- Dispatch suggesting that enemies of his production company had lied about her Let’s compare this to the North American death, and that he would prove that she top ten of 1994 (with stars in parenthesis): was alive by arranging an appearance in US Top Ten 1994 St. Louis to promote her new film. Crowds 1. Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks) swarmed to see – and from that point 2. The Lion King on, stars were used to promote films and 3. True Lies (Arnold Schwarzenegger) became integral to Hollywood for the rest 4. The Santa Clause of the century. 5. The Flintstones Film stars became extremely well paid 6. Dumb and Dumber (Jim Carrey) if they were successful, and are still 7. Clear and Present Danger (Harrison important to film industries across the Ford) world, particularly in India. Hollywood, 8. Speed (Keanu Reeves) however, seems to be falling out of 9. The Mask (Jim Carrey) love with stars. Consider, at the time of 10. Pulp Fiction (Bruce Willis, Uma writing, the current top ten films of the Thurman and John Travolta) year so far (end of October 2014) based (source: boxofficemojo.com) on the North American box office: Pulp Fiction actually featured three stars, US Top Ten 2014 although its success is best characterised 1. Guardians of the Galaxy by its status as a Tarantino film. Over 2. : The Winter Soldier half the films were star-driven, and 3. The Lego Movie only three of the films were based on 4. Transformers: Age of Extinction already-known properties. During the 5. Maleficent last 20 years Hollywood has increasingly 6. X-Men: Days of Future Past relied upon pre-sold material, whether 7. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes as part of a franchise, remakes or based 8. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 on television series and popular novels, 9. Godzilla rather than star vehicles. 10. 22 Jump Street In the last three years, focusing on the (source: boxofficemojo.com) top ten films, only Robert Downey With the exception of Guardians and The Jr., Johnny Depp and Tom Cruise can Lego Movie (and even these were pre-sold conceivably be considered to have been as part of the , and a well- a key factor in selling the films they known toy respectively), every film here is appeared in; and even these were all a sequel or remake of some kind. Of the part of franchises: , Pirates of 10, only Maleficent (based on a character the Caribbean and Mission: Impossible from Sleeping Beauty, US, 1959), and 22 respectively. Stars are no longer crucial to Jump Street are built around their stars, the success of blockbuster films. Angelina Jolie, Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum. english and media centre | February 2015 | MediaMagazine 15 MM This is not to argue that Hollywood has So are Hollywood stars in terminal given up on stars. In 2014 there was an decline, only striking box office gold if attempt to see whether Melissa McCarthy they are in a franchise? The answer to could carry a movie on her own: the that is ‘probably not’. answer is ‘probably not’, based on the The film market in North America, which $85m domestic box-office of Tammy includes Canada, has been ‘mature’ for a (US). The significance of stars has been number of years: the number of tickets superseded by franchises that are usually sold has been steadily declining even if special-effects-driven. annual box office revenues have been increasing slightly due to the inflation of The Rise of the CGI Franchise ticket prices. However, the international Although the blockbuster CGI franchise market (most of the ‘rest of the world’) movie isn’t new – Star Wars first appeared has been expanding rapidly; this is in 1977– in recent years Hollywood has especially the case in China, and stars are reduced the numbers of middle-budget still golden currency in these developing movies in favour of pinning all their markets. hopes on the few big-budget ‘tentpole releases’ that don’t use stars as their main The Tom Cruise Effect selling point. This is because during the For example, Tom Cruise, whose last film early years of the 21st century it became Edge of Tomorrow disappointed Warners clear that while movies starring A-list so much that they renamed it Live Die actors typically had higher box-office Repeat on its DVD release, is still able to revenues, the fees for those actors were generate massive box office revenue so high that they wiped out the extra internationally. Compare the takings of revenues the stars brought in – leaving his last five films and you can see the studios with the same profits they international market makes up 70% of would have made if they had relied on the revenue for his films. lesser-known creative talent. (Elberse, 2013. Blockbusters: Why Big Hits – and Big This compares favourably with the North Risks – are the Future of the Entertainment American 2013 Top Ten, which took Business) 63% of their revenue internationally, suggesting that Cruise’s star power Movies driven by CGI (computer- adds seven per cent. Admittedly these generated imagery) may cost a lot calculations are little more than a ‘rule of to make but, unlike A-list stars, the thumb’, and are not a robust statistical special-effects companies don’t take a analysis. But there’s no doubt that the percentage of the box office, and so these studios recognise that star power remains are more profitable for the major studios. important internationally. For example, In addition, it costs no more to market a $200m movie than one that costs $100m Cruise Films North American gross/ International gross/ to produce; so the more expensive a percentage ($m) percentage ($m) film, the more the promotional costs are proportionately reduced relative to the Knight and Day (US, 2010) 76/29 186/71 production budget. Given that it is the Mission: Impossible – Ghost 209/31 485/69 mega-budget movies that are the most Protocol (US-UEA-Czech profitable, this increases the studios’ Rep., 2011) profits. Jack Reacher (US, 2012) 80/37 137/63 In short, the studios have found that the only way to be profitable, following Oblivion (US, 2013) 89/31 198/69 the shrinking of the DVD market, was Edge of Tomorrow (US-Aus, 100/27 264/73 through the global success of their 2014) biggest movies, which are invariably their franchises. These, by their nature, are Totals 554/30 1270/70 pre-sold; and so the search for properties Jack Reacher (2012) was an attempt Source the-numbers.com that are serial, like ‘young adult’ novels to kick-start a franchise based on the such as the Divergent trilogy, or The character from Lee Child’s novels. Despite Hunger Games, is paramount. And after its poor showing at the domestic box purchasing Marvel Studios and the Star office, a sequel has been announced, Wars franchise, Disney seems to be a suggesting the $137m international gross prime example of this trend.

16 MediaMagazine | February 2015 | english and media centre MM was more than enough to compensate It is arguable that America’s cultural stars can be both local and Hollywood; for Cruise’s decline in popularity in influence is in decline; it’s just that we for Westerners, mostly it’s just the latter. America. in the West haven’t noticed. The villain How long will it be before the financial in Lucy was played by Choi Min-sik (in focus of the film industry moves, as it east Asia surnames are given first), a big The Power of International has done in cricket, to the East? Who will star in Korea. Whilst Choi is familiar to Finance be the Asian ‘Florence Lawrence’, and some Western audiences (see Oldboy / The internationalisation of Hollywood’s become a big star in the West as well as Oldeuboi, 2003), many other East and business is epitomised by the countries the East? involved in the financing of Cruise’s Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol: Nick Lacey teaches Film and Media Studies, United Arab Emirates and Czech is the author of several Film and Media Republic. Looper (US-China, 2012), which Studies textbooks, and is a freelance writer. was recently named the top science fiction film of the century in a British Film MoreMediaMag Institute poll, was part-financed by a from the archive Chinese company. This explains why the Starstruck, MM26 wife of ‘Old Joe’ (Bruce Willis) is Chinese (Xu Qing); the film’s Shanghai scenes South East Asian stars aren’t. For example, There Will Be Blood – Star Persona, were more extensive in the version Uhm Jung Hwa and Han Hyo-joo are MM24 shown in China (these were originally both regarded as big stars in South intended to be Paris). Similarly, in Iron Korea, and Hindi cinema still has a fully- Man 3 (US-China, 2013), Dr. Wu (Wang fledged star system including Kareena Xueqi) has a bigger role in the Chinese Kapoor, Deepika Padukone, Ajay Devgan version. and Salman Khan, names far less familiar One of this year’s surprise hits Lucy in the West. For film fans in East Asia, (France) looked like a Hollywood film, and starred Scarlett Johansson and Morgan Freeman. However, it was written and directed by Luc Besson and produced by his EuropaCorp company. Similarly, the tsunami disaster movie The International (Spain, 2012) was a Spanish production. The reason these films are made in English is to give them a greater chance of success internationally; English is the lingua franca.

The Cultural Influence of Hollywood While it may seem that these non-major studio films are challenging Hollywood’s hegemony, the films themselves look like conventional American products. Indeed, it’s highly unlikely that many realised that Lucy is not Hollywood-made. So although any success these films have will hit Hollywood’s profitability, they do reinforce a sense of American cultural imperialism. It doesn’t matter which country makes the film; in order to be successful globally it has to mimic Hollywood. And the concept of the star, for so long synonymous with Hollywood, has not yet waned.

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ARE VIRAL CAMPAIGNS UNDERMINING MEANINGFUL INVOLVEMENT FOR CHARITIES?

Did you do the ice-bucket At the beginning of July my Facebook causes whilst actually having very feed showed a single video of an old little meaningful involvement. UNICEF challenge to fundraise for a school friend dumping a bucket of built a recent campaign on this insight charity this summer? And, if so, iced water over his head. He then (see left), with a large advertisement is that where your commitment nominated three friends and dedicated advocating the message that it to another old friend, Tony, and Likes don’t save children’s lives. We need MONEY ended? Does the use of viral included a link to his blog about living to buy vaccines. campaigns by charities really with ALS called ‘Don’t Shrink.’ By the Charities are concerned that new make a difference, or does it just end of the summer, my newsfeed was an almost continuous stream of media spread the public too thinly make us feel better? Discuss! videos with people chucking, pouring, across a variety of causes, rather than Clare Gunns fuels debates which screaming, swearing, nominating, dedicating meaningful time, effort and dedicating and, in most cases, donating money into a small number of needy A2 students could use for AQA’s to various causes. groups. New Media and Identities, or The Twitter hashtag It seems that the ease with which it the OCR topic We Media and ‘#ALSicebucketchallenge’ was a is now possible to participate is both Democracy. viral success, resulting in massively an advantage and disadvantage to increased awareness and donations charities. Online lobbying groups such for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, a as 38 Degrees have benefitted hugely degenerative muscular disease that had from new media. Instead of spending previously struggled to find a footing in the public’s consciousness. Simultaneously, the movement attracted criticism from a range of places, including those concerned by water wastage, or alleging that those completing the challenge were ‘slacktivists’, who were more concerned about representing themselves as part of the phenomenon, than about those living with ALS. time and money gaining signatures Slacktivism on petitions in person, or persuading ‘Slacktivism’ is a term coined to describe people to write letters to their local the way new media allow an audience MPs, all it takes is a couple of clicks on a to feel they are involved in charitable standardised letter format, and you can

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used or contributed to a crowdfunding project where individuals can raise money for ventures that banks refuse to support. All of these examples of clicktivism are evidence that supports Shirky’s belief that digital media is not just about promoting a cause; it is also a way of ‘facilitating social change and activism’.

How Deep is Involvement? However, critics would argue that in the vast majority of cases, the public’s involvement in these causes is superficial. Micah White, the activist support any campaign of your choice. behind the Occupy Wall Street You will even receive email updates to campaign, holds a dim view of online prompt your involvement, and to tell activism. According to his article for The you how your local MP has voted. Guardian in 2010, White believes that Equally, it is much easier to donate clicktivists damage every genuine political and support charities and fundraising movement they touch. events than it has ever been before. He goes on to explain that the desire Online petitions are no longer used just for numbers overshadows actual by lobbying groups; many charitable and Amnesty International can dedication to a cause. By focusing on groups and non-governmental continue to garner large-scale ‘inflated figures’, campaigns often miss organisations (NGOs) are using this the opportunity to genuinely engage method to highlight their particular international support for their causes via online petitions; but now members individuals. Once the novelty of online cause. In his 2008 book, Here Comes activism wears off, people who were of the public may also use new media Everybody: The Power of Organizing socially active actually end up feeling to support their smaller ideas. Without Organizations, Clay Shirky that they didn’t really achieve anything describes the term ‘Clicktivism’ as For example, you may have been asked – making them less likely to get collective action that to sponsor someone via a website such involved the next time. challenges existing institutions by eroding as JustGiving.com. You may be involved the institutional monopoly on large scale in an online-organised boycott of But Does it Work? co-ordination. a company, as advised by Ethical Nevertheless, it is difficult to argue Thus large charities such as Greenpeace Consumer.org. You may even have with statistics that show how many

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people become involved and aware through online movements and, particularly, how much money can be raised through a successful viral campaign. According to a recent BBC report, from 29 July to 28 August this year the American ALS Association received $98.2 million, compared with $2.7m donated during the same period last year. Visits to the ALS Association website peaked at 4.5 million on the 20th of August, in comparison to an average 17,500 before the ice bucket challenge. Similarly, ALS’s followers on Twitter more than doubled, whilst the UK’s Motor Neurone Disease account had 6000 new followers. A recently released infographic on vox.com (see right) demonstrated the influence that awareness and engagement has on a charity, in comparison to the number of people actually affected by the problem. For instance, breast cancer came top in terms of money raised, with $257.85 million in the U.S. Second was prostate cancer and third was heart disease. In comparison, heart disease was actually the biggest killer by far, with 596,77 American deaths in 2011, followed by emphysema and chronic bronchitis in second place and diabetes in third

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place. Breast cancer’s pink media impact it was having on Tony and Follow it up campaign has been hugely successful his family. The donations may not in bringing awareness and engaging continue to the heights of this summer; http://www.dontshrink.com/Tony people through their personal and the majority of the people who Conway experiences. Encouraging people to run threw ice over themselves may forget Townsend, L. 2/09/2014. ‘How or walk in sponsored events in memory ALS, and move onto the next viral much has the ice bucket challenge of a friend or relative actively connects phenomenon. But for some people, achieved?’ in BBC News Magazine individuals with the charity. Similarly, this has highlighted a cause that they http://www.bbc.com/news/ the very gendered pinkness has made will continue to support because it has magazine-29013707 raising money for breast cancer a way engaged them personally. White, M. 12/08/10. Clicktivism for women to unite against a common The statistics speak for themselves but is ruining leftist activism. enemy. I’ll let Tony’s unquantifiable blogging http://www.theguardian.com/ demonstrate that clicktivism and commentisfree/2010/aug/12/ slacktivism shouldn’t be dismissed as clicktivism-ruining-leftist-activism a sign of modern superficiality. For Belluz, J. 20/08/1. The Truth about some people and causes, a genuine the Ice Bucket Challenge: Viral difference can be made: memes shouldn’t dictate our Ice Cold Thanks. Wednesday charitable giving. http://www.vox. September 10 com/2014/8/20/6040435/als-ice- ‘The wonderful thing for me, which mirrors the bucket-challenge-and-why-we-give- campaign, is the awareness I see increasing to-charity-donate Ali Costerton, Senior Project Manager among my friends and in my community and Shirky, C. 2008. Here Comes Everybody: with Public Life, an agency that builds the generosity my family has been shown in The Power of Organizing Without websites and branding for charities, the past two months. I’ve seen a huge number Organizations agrees that finding people who are of ice bucket challenges performed in my engaged with the issue is the key to honour. They, too, are humbling, uplifting, and MoreMediaMag success for projects. However, emotional to see. Every once in a while I get a from the archive as with the mass participation of petitions and message from someone asking how they can Too Shocking for Words, Barnardo’s viral campaigns, some action is better than donate some money to my family. The donation 2003 Campaign, MM7 – and every donation – is humbling, uplifting, none and this initial minor action can provide a Spreading the Word – Viral and Sub- and emotional to receive. Every time.’ route to these people. viral Advertising, MM11 Which brings me back to my friend Clare Gunns is Head of Media at the British Tony. At the beginning of July, like School of Brussels, and currently on most people, I had no idea what ALS maternity leave. stood for, let alone what a devastating

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22 MediaMagazine | February 2015 | english and media centre MM Jonathan Nunns takes a forensic and gore-splattered look at what happens when an iconic and controversial film is re-purposed, or re-imagined, for long-form TV drama. And he’s chosen two seriously wicked examples ... (NB contains spoilers).

There are times when an idea for a film or TV series just makes your heart sink, particularly if the idea includes the word ‘re-imagining’. Re-boots are fine: a freshen-up for a tired franchise has often worked wonders. Just look at the profits for Casino Royale (Campbell language – hey, audiences clearly can’t Hannibal Rising? Why tamper with 2006) and The Dark Knight (Nolan, be asked to read and watch pictures at these? What could be gained, other 2008). However, when ‘re-imagining’ is the same time – resulting, for example, than cheapening the memory of the mentioned, it usually refers to one of in the workmanlike but largely originals? two things. redundant English language versions Yet both series have aired to of Scandi Noir dramas The Bridge The first is, ‘let’s take something iconic great acclaim and have been (2011-present), The Killing (DR, 2007- and complete and try to extract some re-commissioned for subsequent 2012), The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo more money from it’. This is like saying, seasons. (Oplev, 2009) and Let The Right One In ‘let’s make Apocalypse Now the TV (Alfredson, 2008). show. Of course we’ll have to update ‘Have you ever danced it to Iraq rather than Vietnam, cut out Two recent TV re-imaginings, however, with the Devil in the pale the drugs since it’s for primetime, and have been unexpectedly successful. moonlight?’ lose the unpatriotic politics, as we don’t Who would have thought, for example, So said Jack Nicholson’s Joker in Tim want to upset the sponsors.’ Eventually that the much-loved 1995 Coen Burton’s Batman (Burton, USA,1989) not only do you often lose what was Brothers masterpiece, Fargo, set in the The term has its roots in folklore, and good about the source material in the chilly wastes of North Dakota, would means ‘Have you ever found yourself first place, you tarnish the memory of transfer so well to the small screen? in a horrifying situation when no-one the original. Or, for that matter, the Hannibal is around to help?’ As the Joker (the Lecter film franchise, which included The other approach is to re-imagine murderer of Batman’s parents) goes on Manhunter, Silence of the Lambs and the something originally made in a foreign to comment, ‘I say that to all my prey’. critically slaughtered (pun intended) Dancing with the Devil might be the ultimate form of extreme sports, but it’s unlikely to end well. Hannibal and Fargo both feature characters who take up the Devil’s invitation, which is in large part what makes them so interesting. However, in only one of them does the dancer pick up the smoky smell and really wonder who they are dancing with.

‘Aw Jeez!’ It’s Fargo One of the pleasures of this icy, snowbound TV series is that it replays none of the characters from the film. Instead it recycles the freezing mid- Western setting and precisely replicates the darkly humorous tone of the original. The plot and characters are entirely new.

english and media centre | February 2015 | MediaMagazine 23 MM ‘Is This What You Want Lester?’ (Malvo) Lester has a chance meeting with Malvo in a Vegas Hotel, months after the original Events. Malvo is clearly on another job, and is unwilling to acknowledge Lester while under deep cover, but Lester won’t let it lie. His genie won’t go back in the bottle, and he simply has to demonstrate his alpha male credentials, even (or especially) with someone as dangerous as Malvo. Seconds later, Lester has reduced Malvo’s meticulous plans to bloody tatters, and the two are set on a collision course, each becoming the other’s nemesis. Lester learns that Put-upon milquetoast* Lester Nygaard making a deal with the man downstairs is a loser on every level: a failed forty- (even by chance) doesn’t mean you something salesman, husband and get to ‘walk on water’. As for Malvo: brother, despised and browbeaten like Frankenstein, be careful what you by everyone, including a school bully create when you play God – it may be who has tormented him all his life. just as dangerous as you are. Lester, as played by Martin Freeman, the hangdog actor from The Office (BBC ‘I Do Enjoy Having Friends 2001-2003) and The Hobbit (Jackson for Dinner’ USA, New Zealand, 2012), initially Chigurh in No Country for Old Men. So comments the brilliant but very seems an example of tired typecasting. (Coen and Coen, USA, 2007). In a chilly Dr Hannibal Lecter (Mads Until, that is, he has a chance meeting subplot, a doltish personal trainer Mickelson) at one of his epicurean in a hospital waiting room. attempts a crime well above his pay- feasts. Hannibal is not only an eminent psychiatrist and go-to guy for the Lorne Malvo (Malevolent?) might just grade and becomes the victim of one FBI when they need help profiling be the devil himself. The drifter hit- of Malvo’s cruellest schemes, much criminals, but also a chef so Cordon man (Billy Bob Thornton) is a full-on like Brad Pitt’s equally doomed fool Bleu that his cooking makes the agent of mayhem and chaos. With a in Burn After Reading (Coen and Coen, MasterChef final look like a pit-stop at chance remark, Lester inadvertently USA, 2009). Finally for the true Coen a burger van. Hence his dinner parties sets this monster on his tormentor. obsessive, the little red windscreen are a hot ticket for the FBI’s great and Shortly afterwards, Lester’s school scraper, the marker for Steve Buscemi’s good. What the glacial doctor lacks in bully is dead. At the same time, Malvo buried loot in the original Fargo movie, warm repartee is more than made up unleashes in Lester the boiling rage and makes a timely reappearance, proving for by his world-class cuisine. Naturally, resentment of the little man who has first a blessing, then a curse. his guests are unaware of his more been thwarted and abused his whole Most fascinating though are the unorthodox ingredients. Suffice to say, life – the same fury that made Breaking characters, primarily Lester and Malvo, it might be best to avoid the good Bad’s Walter White (Bryan Cranston, but also (solve by Doctor’s sushi when bodies are turning USA, 2008-13) so compelling an anti- name and...?), the overlooked sheriff’s up with bits missing. hero, morphing from ‘the little guy’ into deputy who sees through Lester’s ‘Aw his deadly alter ego, the meth-cooking heck’ folksiness in an instant, whilst her Old Nick’s dance partner in Hannibal Heisenberg. In Fargo, Malvo lets the boss simply can’t believe anything bad is Will Graham (Hugh Dancy), an FBI genie out of the bottle and in no about ‘little Lester’. profiler of such quivering angst and time the horrified Lester has removed empathy he is able to project himself Lester is at first terrified but then another of his tormentors, shockingly directly into the heart of a serial empowered and emboldened by the bludgeoning his hectoring wife to killer’s psychosis. He is so completely possibilities of his situation. Finding death. empathic that he is able to use the his inner psycho, there is more than a results to solve the crimes. Naturally Amongst the show’s pleasures is little Heisenberg in Lester’s framing of Will has spent far too much time the time it takes to remind us that his own brother for murder, and in his inside the minds of madmen, and is we are still in the weird world of the rapid ascent to become Salesman of himself a complete mess. In freefall, his . Malvo, a supremely the Year, with a palatial new house and personality disintegrating, he is placed competent assassin, reminds us of trophy wife to match. into the ‘care’ of Dr Lecter. Javier Bardem’s role as the implacable

24 MediaMagazine | February 2015 | english and media centre MM You might expect that Will would doctor his physician and friend, he At the time of writing, Fargo has just immediately see Lecter for what he is, cannot see the trap closing as Lecter won two Golden Globes, three Emmys since that is what he is so good at. But destabilises him physically, emotionally and American Film Institute Series of this time, the dancer does not hear and professionally. When Will coughs the Year. the clatter of the cloven hoofs. Since up something nasty, his blackouts and *Milquetoast (definition): Will is pure emotion, he is unable to delusional behaviour leave him without A weak or timid person. Derives from the character penetrate the utter logical coldness and alibi or credibility, neatly providing the Casper Milquetoast who appeared in the 1920’s US inhumanity of the emotionally absent FBI with a prime suspect. When Lecter newspaper comic strip ‘The Timid Soul’. Lecter. Hannibal couldn’t be more alien finally allows his mask to slip and Will if he came from Pluto. In one scene he realises what’s coiled beneath, seeing Follow it up: appears in a sci fi-ish hasmat suit, to his true adversary for the first time Fargo Season One DVD (2013) avoid getting gore on his impeccable proves to be of no help at all. Hannibal Season One DVD (2014) tailoring whilst cutting his victim a smile wider than the Joker’s. Does the Devil Have all the Vine, R. Fargo Recap: Season One, Best Tunes? Richard www.theguardian.com/ Having accepted his own odd tv-and-radio/series/fargo-episode- Both Fargo and Hannibal turn out to be proclivities, the Doctor has become an recaps (accessed 29/10/14) arch-manipulator embedded within the unexpectedly complex and creative. It’s FBI itself, shining the spotlight away been widely suggested that with HBO Hannibal Season One, www.imdb. from his own murders by aping the shows like Game of Thrones, Breaking com/title/tt2243973/ (accessed modus operandi of other killers, thus Bad and Boardwalk Empire, this is a 29/10/14) passing his crimes off as theirs. Feelings golden age for television. That Fargo Hannibal Season One, www. like guilt, remorse and empathy simply and Hannibal might join their ranks denofgeek.com/hannibal (accessed don’t apply to Lecter. He scrutinises is more than a little surprising. Who’d 29/10/14) have thought that ‘re-imagining’ could human beings like a scientist might ‘Have you ever danced with the be so imaginative? consider the contents of a Petri dish. He devil in the pale moonlight?’ needs what he needs, and has as much The advantage of long-form TV drama definition www. answers.yahoo. empathy with his victims as a great is its ability to develop and sustain com/question/ index?qid= white would for a tuna fish. His killings character arcs over a length of time, 20070109194950AAWipM0 (accessed are calculated and perfectionist in their and with a degree of depth impossible 29/10/14) orchestration, as is everything else he for film. For the show-runners of Fargo does. To quote Nicholson’s Joker again, and Hannibal ( and Bryan MoreMediaMag ‘I make art until somebody dies’; but in Fuller) to have made such complex from the archive Lecter’s case, considering his culinary and compelling narratives from such Is Hollywood Out of Ideas? MM44 interests, it might be more appropriate unpromising material, suggests that it to say ‘Somebody dies and then I make Fine Young Hannibal, MoreMediaMag might not be just Lester and Will who 2007 art’. have been dancing with the devil by No surprise then that Will can’t see the pale moonlight. what Lecter intends. Considering the Jonathan Nunns is Head of Media Studies at Collyer’s College and Moderates for the WJEC.

english and media centre | February 2015 | MediaMagazine 25 MM

Professor and examiner Julian Each year hundreds of A Level Media What Exactly is Copyright? students like yourselves choose to write Copyright is a set of rights through McDougall outlines what you about media regulation in their exam, which people who make media really need to know about the and it’s also a factor in your production of all kinds – writers, visual artists, work. As you progress to higher issues around online regulation filmmakers, musicians and other types education, especially on courses with of creators – can control the use of their and copyright, and introduces a more of a focus on creative industries work and get paid for it. Importantly, and working practices, it becomes an great new free resource which copyright protects the expression of even more pressing issue. should make a complicated topic ideas and not the ideas themselves. clear. But my experience of marking A LOT Therefore, although a creator can take of exam answers on media regulation inspiration from other people’s ideas, is that students tend to draw more to copyright his/her own work the on traditional ‘big media’ case studies, creator must express those ideas in his/ sometimes outdated in the focus: too her own individual way – otherwise, it much A Clockwork Orange, not enough doesn’t count as ‘original’. This is given Leveson Report. An obvious opportunity automatically: so as long as your work is being missed here – to compare is original and in permanent or fixed and contrast one of those more form, you have copyright. obvious examples with the complex, Copyright is obviously a form of media and perhaps less ‘clear-cut’ world of regulation. But to understand its online media regulation, in particular importance we first need to ask: what is intellectual property and copyright in media regulation anyway? ‘Media 2.0’ contexts.

26 MediaMagazine | February 2015 | english and media centre MM Media Regulation – approaching these complexities is to 4. Internet regulation – control of Protecting Who From What? think about the examples available at online gaming content/access the time of studying the issues as being compared to online copyright Media regulation is always intended to on a continuum. At one end is the regulation. protect. It relates to power in various more straightforward ‘black and white’ 5. Press self-regulation (PCC) compared ways. If we accept that the media stuff, where there is a ‘right answer’. At to online copyright regulation. are powerful, then regulating them the other extreme is the really messy 6. Online copyright regulation is necessary in terms of reducing case study where it all depends on compared to the regulation of social influence and ‘effects’. The media can be whose point of view you take, and media. regulated in terms of their content or which examples you choose. And in the 7. The regulation of media ownership their ownership and distribution. middle are those areas where there are compared to online copyright Media regulation is, of course, a kind different arguments, but it’s possible to regulation. of power – there are laws that prevent choose one or the other. 8. Online copyright regulation in the UK journalists, for example, from reporting compared to state media regulation For instance, we might position some things, and sometimes those in less democratic countries. copyright regulation of parody videos laws protect the powerful more than 9. Comparing online copyright on YouTube at the messy end, the the ‘little people’. And various media regulation today to offline/older regulation of harmful content in film institutions themselves would like to forms of copyright regulation. classification at the other, and the see more regulation of social media 10. Videogame/app access regulations outcomes of the Leveson Enquiry in and, for different reasons, of copyright compared to online copyright the middle. We’d all agree that we and of intellectual property. To make it regulation. don’t want children seeing certain even more complicated, the regulation explicit material; where you stand on of copyright isn’t just about Taylor Swift taking her music down from Spotify, but also struggling new artists trying to make a living; you may know someone in that situation – or it might even be you. Here are some of the key issues about regulation you will need to explore: – how media regulation now is different to the past – how different kinds of media regulation seek to ‘protect’ people in some way – the degrees of efficiency and impact of various forms of media regulation – how well do they work, and what difference do they make to people’s lives? – debates around the role of the the privacy/investigative journalism How Does Copyright Affect regulator in a democracy – arguments around press regulation You as a Media Student? arguments for and against various will be informed by broader views As a Media student – someone forms of media regulation. about the role of media in a democratic immersed in digital/social media and The best way to do this is embrace society. But your view on ‘remix IP’ is comfortable with downloading and the complexity. This means choosing probably more along the lines of ‘it adapting, modifying, remixing media case studies that offer different angles, depends’. content to put your own ‘spin’ on it – and contrast with one another – and Here are a few ideas for comparative there are a number of obvious ways finding contemporary examples that approaches: in which copyright might be an issue yield different responses to the key for you. You might be downloading questions above. 1. Copyright regulation online music or film/video from an ‘unofficial’ compared to the regulation of the source. You might be producing media ‘Complicated is Good!’ press and the Leveson Enquiry. coursework and having to use music 2. Classification of films (e.g. BBFC) provided under a ‘Creative Commons’ My ‘mantra’ with Media students compared to regulation of online approaching coursework and exams license. Or – and we’d like to think this copyright. is the case – you are a ‘creative’ and are that require an informed ‘weighing 3. Regulation of television advertising up’ of a critical debate is: ‘Complicated sharing your own work with the world compared to online copyright online. is good’. And a really smart way of regulation.

english and media centre | February 2015 | MediaMagazine 27 MM The Resource At A Level it is always important to know the context for any academic source rather than take it as face value as ‘the truth’ on a subject. The CUP is a broad ranging ‘user resource’ for anyone who needs to know their way around the regulations, how to access content without breaking the law and/or protect their own intellectual property. For the CUP research specifically devised to explore critical debates for Media Studies, we sent a short questionnaire to a broad range of copyright stakeholders. The responses generated an interesting landscape of Clearly, copyright is a lot more Understanding UK the different perspectives, including complicated now than it was before Copyright Law: the CUP the views of individual creators, Web 2.0, and especially YouTube. To tackle these complex issues, help is rights-holders, EU and UK regulators, Writing about ‘Fair Use’ of remix videos at hand. Researchers in Bournemouth collecting societies, lawyers and in YouTube for the Journal of Media University’s Centre for Intellectual academics among others. Practice, Collins (2014) observes: Property Policy & Management, and The questionnaire responses were in the University of Glasgow’s RCUK Digital technology has greatly eased the then collated and coded into the most Centre for Copyright and New Business process of remixing copyrighted works as well common issues. The researchers then Models in the Creative Economy, have as providing global platforms for distribution. brought together the responses to been funded by Research Councils UK The web is swarming with appropriations of illustrate the different stakeholder to produce a research-based Copyright copyrighted media remixed into innumerable perspectives on the most current User Portal (CUP). new works and this reality challenges the scope and pressing issues surrounding of copyright law and the function of fair use. copyright regulation and media. This The ultimate goal of copyright is the approach enabled the research team creation and spread of knowledge. to capture real-life examples, and Indeed one of the main purposes to provide students with robust raw of copyright regulation is to strike material which will help them debate a balance between production and this example of contemporary media dissemination of knowledge. In other regulation. words, copyright regulation has to reward and incentivise creators to Case Study: Online Parody Copyrightuser.org is an online produce new works, whilst allowing resource aimed at making UK copyright The CUP team presented to the public to access and use these law accessible to creators and members government a set of key findings works. One of the new challenges that of the public. The resources provided about the need for regulation of copyright faces today is the notion are meant for everyone who uses online parody. Parody of course, is of ‘the creator’. Media production copyright. CUP’s goal is to inform of particular significance in Media is no longer only for professionals. creators about how to protect their Studies. It brings together many of our New technologies enable everyone own work, and also to help everybody Critical Perspective topics: the study of to express their creativity, and have understand how to legally re-use the postmodern media (where the original inspired new ways of using creative work of others. and the parody, the producer and works, such as fan fiction and remix. the consumer, the ‘real’ and the ‘fake’ However, many of these new creative Last year, CUP researcher Bartolomeo are no longer so easy to distinguish); activities are restricted by the current Meletti and I tested some of the study of the online media age and the copyright regulation. The tension resources with A Level students (see difference this has made to producers, between what the law says and what link in the ‘Follow It Up’ section below). distributors and audiences alike; people actually do online raises The outcomes fed into the production arguments about ‘We Media’/Media 2.0, several interesting questions about of a set of resources by the Centre of participatory culture and democracy; contemporary copyright regulation. Excellence in Media Practice. These aim theories of global media (as it’s difficult to help students use CUP material to to ‘pin down’ the origin of YouTube inform their Media Studies A Level case parody videos) and, most obviously, studies. debates around media regulation.

28 MediaMagazine | February 2015 | english and media centre MM The study found that: Over to You Follow It Up • Parody is a significant consumer So – have a look at CUP and use it The Copyright User Portal: activity. On average, there are 24 either for your study of media or to http://copyrightuser.org/ user-generated parodies available help you operate in the regulatory for each original video of a charting landscape for your own media The case study resources for A Level single. production – or (hopefully) both. If Media Studies will be regularly • There is no evidence for economic you do use it in coursework or an updated at http://copyrightuser. damage to rights holders. The exam, make sure you reference it org/a-level-media-studies/ presence of parody content is (Copyright User Portal), for obvious Recently, the CUP’s resources have correlated with, and predicts larger reasons, given the topic! Either way, it’s been explicitly featured in an audiences for original music videos. an important area for Media Studies official report from the IP Adviser • The reputations of the original to get its teeth into. Comparing the to the Prime Minister. For more copyright holders are rarely regulatory landscape of online ‘citizen details, see http://www.create. damaged. Only 1.5% of all parodies media’ with, for example, ‘old school’ ac.uk/blog/2014/10/15/copyright- sampled took a directly negative arguments about press ownership, film education-and-awareness-create- stance, discouraging viewers from classification, or the more recent ‘moral and-copyrightuser-org-in-a-report- commercially supporting the original. panic’ about videogame effects, where by-mike-weatherley-mp-to-the- • Observed creative contributions were perhaps the lines of debate are more prime-minister/ considerable. In 78% of all cases, clearly drawn, can only facilitate the Creative Commons: the parodist appeared on camera kind of ‘real world’ media literacy the http://search.creativecommons.org/ (also diminishing the possibility of subject is designed to foster. confusion). Julian McDougall is Associate Professor of • There exists a small but growing Media & Education and Head of CEMP at market for skilled user-generated Bournemouth University and Principal A parody. Parodists who exhibit higher Level Examiner. production values in their works attract larger audiences, which can be monetised via revenue share with YouTube.

english and media centre | February 2015 | MediaMagazine 29 MM

Our culture is one of more often turning – one’s head in sensors built in, LCD screens positioned the VR environment. This is achieved close in front of their eyes, and exceptionally fast technological through the use of head-tracking computer software displaying images change. Media producers are sensors that ‘map’ the user’s movement on the screens. always on the lookout for the in the virtual space, updating what they visually perceive in a way that conforms A Mini-history ‘next big thing’ and it seems to their expectation of what should VR has been a long time coming, and is as if we are on the verge of occur in a real three-dimensional almost here. Where once in the 1950s another step change that will environment. it involved sitting in a clunky machine called a Sensorama, before mutating offer audiences new and exciting When done well, this can fool some of the senses – mainly the visual senses into the use of complex head-mounted experiences. The idea isn’t new – to such an extent that VR users feel devices, we now live in an age where but the technology has finally that they are in a three-dimensional companies like Samsung and Sony are space, even if they know that in reality developing VR headsets, and devices caught up with our imagination. they are simply sat in a chair, wearing a such as the Oculus Rift Development Virtual Reality is on the way. headset with various motion-detecting Kit that may well be available to Damien Hendry reports. purchase by spring 2015 (see Follow It Up for examples). Their availability and dissemination will pose some new Virtual Dreams and interesting questions for Media Virtual Reality (VR) is a computer students. simulated, non-real ‘reality’. VR technologies – both hardware and software – create this virtual reality by recreating sensory experiences, including taste, sight, smell, sound and touch, to the degree that the users’ senses are fooled into believing that what is being perceived is approximately on a par with the equivalent ‘real’ sensory stimulation. For example, using computer software, VR will soon be able to simulate a three-dimensional environment that the user can interact with in some way, An advert promoting the Sensorama: a ‘Revolutionary Motion Picture System’. most commonly through moving – or Man immersed in ‘virtual reality’.

30 MediaMagazine | February 2015 | english and media centre MM VR Codes and Conventions codes and conventions can, of course, satisfyingly for audiences. As a result, – Why Should They Matter be challenged and subverted. through a period of great filmic innovation and experimentation, they to Media Students? Film theorist Thomas Schatz has argued were ultimately replaced. What is particularly interesting from a that genres generally pass through a Media Studies perspective is that the number of cyclical stages during their In terms of the codes and conventions content for these future VR devices – development. in VR content, it is clear that the including games, educational resources, rulebook is still being written; currently • First there is the innovative stage, conventional 3D films and interactive VR content creation is in what Schatz where there is a high amount of 3D film – is still being developed. called the innovative stage. As Oculus experimentation with existing genre Furthermore, it’s been clear for some state in their guide to VR developers: conventions and often a merger or time that the codes and conventions of fusion of genres. The question of ‘What makes for effective traditional forms of media, such as films virtual reality?’ is a broad and contextual one, and conventional video games, will not • Second comes the classical stage, and we could fill tomes with its many answers. always work well in VR, although they when genre conventions are Virtual reality is still a largely uncharted are very influential in the creation of VR established and there are clearly medium, waiting for creative artists and content. defined differences between different developers to unlock its full potential. genre categories. Codes and conventions are the For a start, VR requires new ways of thinking generally accepted rules that arise over • Third is the parody stage, where about space, dimension, immersion, interaction time as to how a media text should be the audience’s familiarity with and navigation. For instance, screen-based produced to meet certain audience these established genre codes media tend to emphasise right-angles expectations. They can of course and conventions are used to bring and forward motion, and the edges of the be subverted, often in clever and attention to them in a tongue-in- screen are always present. This leads to what artistic ways, to deliberately challenge cheek fashion. cinematographers call ‘framing’ of shots. But audience expectations. But, generally, • Fourth there is the deconstruction in VR, there is no screen, no hard physical there are certain aspects that are rarely stage, where genre codes and boundaries, and there’s nothing special about up for negotiation. conventions start to be questioned, right-angles. subverted, broken down and remade. The Codes and Conventions New VR Codes and of Music Video Technology Triggers Conventions In the creation of a music video, for Innovation To date, there are a number of codes example, the audience expects, first The innovative stage can also be and conventions that have already of all, that there will be music. A silent triggered by new technologies. One been more or less established in VR. For music video may subvert expectations example of this is the introduction of instance, the use of in-app or in-game – but not in a particularly useful way! sound into commercial cinema in the menus in VR differs from a normal 2D Other codes and conventions may 1920s. Prior to this, cinema often used gaming or application experience. In include making the video more or less title cards with small snippets of text to 2D games, the menu is often a static 2D match the length of the song, and the illustrate, for example, what characters image, covering a large proportion, if use of visual and metaphorical imagery in the narrative were thinking or saying. not all, of the screen. With VR headsets, that attempts to reflect the themes In addition, it was common for there this kind of menu is often illegible, as and/or narrative of the song. You could to be live music played in the cinema the image will extend to the periphery further specify the particular genre where the film was shown. of the user’s vision, forcing them to of the music video; and this would strain their eyes to see the edge of the define a perhaps more restricted set menu. This induces nausea in some of codes and conventions to meet people, especially if the menu remains that specific audience’s expectations. static when the user moves their head. Dance music videos, for example, tend to share the codes and conventions This links to another established of having young, energetic and often code and convention: to create a sexualised men and (more often) comfortable user experience, VR women appearing in the video. These media must avoid static images, and the user’s head movement should be represented in the VR experience. Why? Because when the user moves her/ An example of a title card from the 1920 film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. his head there is an expectation that the virtual head will move in the VR Once ‘the talkies’ had arrived, the environment. When this doesn’t occur existing silent movie genre codes and the image on screen remains static, Lady Gaga creating codes and conventions for the genre of Lady Gaga and conventions no longer worked the expectation that it should move, music videos.

english and media centre | February 2015 | MediaMagazine 31 MM together with the jarring reality of the static image, creates an uncomfortable feeling. Consequently, a menu system should either be a 2D image ‘projected’ on what is effectively a virtual cinema screen in front of the user, thus allowing them to move their head A ‘cockpit view’ in VR: inside a car. to scan across the menu items, or it should be represented in three Keeping it Real with the dimensions, perhaps as objects in Right Sensory Experience the VR environment. Using either of Because VR is about simulating reality, these techniques provides greater user the codes and conventions for a comfort by avoiding a potential nausea successful VR media text must simulate trigger, as well meeting the users’ often the ways people naturally perceive intuitive expectations of how they and interact with the equivalent real- Follow It Up should naturally interact within a VR world experience. This is why the A VR example: The Occulus Rift world. conventions of film, such as fast editing, Development Kit (DK1). non-naturalistic framing of scenes, Developed by young entrepreneur or anything where the user is not in Palmer Luckey, Oculus Rift was direct control, can be so disorientating. financed through Kickstarter by Getting the media text wrong in VR, in donor developers who contributed to essence, is not just possibly subverting testing and developing the headset, the audience’s individual and culturally- and creating games and apps for it shaped expectations, but is potentially which would later be made available contradicting a more fundamental and to consumers. A new prototype, the hard-wired sensory expectation. This A ‘floating’ menu that allows the user to move their head around to Crystal Cove, or DK2, was created, look at the content of the menu. The two images seen here are a two- makes it particularly challenging for dimensional representation of what would be two different images – in and Oculus has recently worked with VR media producers and other content terms of perspective – that are sent simultaneously and separately to Samsung – one of the largest mobile each eye, creating the illusion of a three-dimensional space. developers to get the experience ‘right’. phone manufacturers in the world Another code that renders the VR Nevertheless, the arrival of a new – to create a VR headset accessory experience more comfortable is the form of media consumption and the for Samsung’s latest ‘phablet’ the use of a form of ‘cockpit’ view. The best opportunities to create and develop Galaxy Note 4, called the Gear VR. way to understand this is to imagine entirely new forms of media – and Such devices will probably be on yourself either as a pilot in the cockpit their genre codes and conventions – is the commercial market by spring of a plane, or as a driver in a car. The a rare and exciting occurrence. There 2015, and already major players world appears to move around you is still much work to be done on both in the industry are taking it very when you move the plane/vehicle, the technological and creative sides on seriously indeed. Sony, for example, but you can also independently move establishing the codes and conventions has developed its own VR headset your head around the cockpit/inside of of the media consumed in VR before for the PlayStation 4 called Project the car. If this was happening without Virtual Reality headsets can become a Morpheus. Perhaps it is not long the virtual cockpit – imagine flying widespread consumer product. now until the ground-breaking VR promises of the 1950s come to through the air like Superman – then, But it’s clear that there are currently fruition. however fun this may be initially, the unprecedented opportunities for issues of clashing sensory expectations those willing to experiment with the (your visual system ‘experiencing’ technology and development of media forward motion versus your balance for VR more generally. Understanding system telling you that you are sitting the concepts that are integral to perfectly still) can, over time, become media creation and consumption uncomfortable. A fixed reference point are fundamentally important for (the car interior or the plane cockpit) those wishing to get involved in the reduces the possibility of conflicting development and analysis of future VR sensory information. Moreover, most media texts. people have already experienced the world appearing to move fast around Damien Hendry is a freelance writer and them when in a car or plane, so they social media marketer. He is the author of a are already used to this kind of visual political blog which can be found at experience. www.proletarius.net

32 MediaMagazine | February 2015 | english and media centre MM

Barbara Bleiman interviews one of the powers behind the hugely popular classical/pop group known for their amazing videos.

Clean Bandit. Their name means ‘Complete Bastard’ in Russian, and you can hardly fail to have heard their massive Number One hit ‘’, an instantly recognisable mix of classical strings and electronic beats, created by Holland, a UK tour, a gig with the BBC It got a lot of attention, about 30,000 the genre-bending pairing of classically Philharmonic Orchestra, the iTunes views in the first few weeks, compared trained musicians with -pop and Festival, Europe, and now, the US. They to about a hundred plays in two years deep house afficionados. are now huge. And they’ve done it all on the MySpace MP3! And so we Band members Jack Patterson, Grace themselves, videos and all! realised the power of having a visual Chatto, and Milan Neil Amin-Smith met element to our work. Barbara Bleiman spoke to Grace Chatto while undergraduates at Cambridge to find out how they got it all together. You’re well known for your amazing University, where Grace and Neil videos. What role have they played How did you get started? Did social were playing in a string quartet. Jack in your success? media and the internet play a big recorded their gigs, began mixing in Since making ‘Mozart’s House’, which role in getting your music known? electronic samples and drum beats cost us about £100 to make, we’ve We got together at university and put from his brother Luke Patterson, and made a music video for each new on gigs there ourselves. Facebook a new fusion genre was formed, using song that we’ve written. This made was by far the most effective way of tunes from Mozart, Beethoven, Dvorak, the production of the music itself a promoting the gigs. We had a MySpace the input of powerful guest singers, lot slower than it could have been, page for a couple of years, with a few cultural references, and a dash of because the kind of videos we wanted homemade recordings on it, including humour. Their first single, ‘A+E’, peaked to make, with no money, took several our song ‘Mozart’s House’, but it was at 100 in the charts in 2012; three months each to produce! But they’ve quite hard to gain followers. Later, singles and an album later, their fourth, been really important, not only because when we were living in Moscow and ‘Rather Be’, featuring , was we love doing it and it completes the made our first music video (‘Mozart’s released in January 2014, and topped songs for us, but because they are House’ again), we put it on YouTube the UK Singles chart. Since then, there what caught the attention of people and posted to our friends on Facebook. has been a slot on Later ... with Jools who have helped us get the music off

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the ground. Rather than having them to do all the things in our videos, and reaching out to friends of friends of promoted in advert breaks, Channel using YouTube tutorials and reading friends’ aunts’ friends and beyond, and 4 aired several of our videos as their manuals. I find this really impressive; approaching complete strangers where own short programmes, as part of but it is mainly having the confidence necessary. C4‘s Random Acts series: ‘UK Shanty’, to try new stuff that has made it For example, in our video ‘Telephone ‘A&E’, ‘Telephone Banking’, ‘Mozart’s possible to do all the special effects, Banking’, Jack wanted a ‘huge child House’. They originally heard about the like modelling and animating the giant orchestra of Japanese cellists’. I tried videos via Facebook, and saw them on gold snake in ‘A&E’. He didn’t know contacting Japanese schools in YouTube. When I first tried to get our how to do this before, but when we London, and various Japanese societies, music on the radio, I think this support decided we wanted a massive snake to but doing the risk assessments [a from Channel 4 helped legitimise our health and safety requirement for all project in their eyes. I managed to get productions, as music video-makers AllMusic.com and Radio 1 to play our know only too well!] were all going to song ‘Mozart’s House’. Then, once the take too long for us. So I tried scouting radio began playing it, lots of music on the streets – I’d seen people lawyers, managers, agents, publishers scouting for models outside Topshop and record labels began calling me. on Oxford Street, so I did the same! I We then signed a record deal and since went to Knightsbridge and as I came then, have been able to spend rather out of the tube station I met a beautiful more than £100 on our music videos! family of Japanese tourists who were I’m not sure if this has had that much interested in the project and agreed effect on the quality of the videos, but for the two children to play in the it has meant we can make them a lot video. They also said they would bring more quickly. friends. I then met another Japanese Unusually, you’ve made them all slither through the London streets and girl and her mother in Harrods, and yourselves. How did you do all of Underground, he knew he had to work gave her my card. She later watched that? Tell us about how it started out how to do it! our other videos at home, and called and how it’s evolved. me up to say she’d love her daughter As the producer of the videos, I’ve My partner Jack is very confident to take part. I found ten extras like this, enjoyed the challenge of trying to about experimenting with technical and it was a wonderful day filming with make Jack’s crazy ideas happen, on ideas. He had little or no experience them! We had ten tiny borrowed no money. Often this means brazenly making films before ‘Mozart’s House’, from a school I was working in, and asking everyone I know for favours which he directed, shot (with help from set up a green screen so that we could – Can we film in your house? Can we two friends) and edited himself. He then multiply the ten children into a film in your school? Will you be in our had studied some cinematography in massive orchestra. I taught them all to video? Will you lend me your clothes/ Moscow, but completely taught himself hold the instruments, and pluck the tripod/car? Endless requests like that,

34 MediaMagazine | February 2015 | english and media centre MM strings. They didn’t speak English, and money. I think live gigs is where bands We’re in the USA right now, which is I don’t speak Japanese, but we had make money. Also song writing. amazing so far. The crowds are very a great time! Because it was our first Can you talk a bit about the warm compared to at home. ‘Rather experience of using a green screen, industry, the team that surround Be’, our single that was Number 1 in we made a technical mistake and you and the pressures on you, England back in January 2014, is still framed the shot wrongly: we cut off both personally and as a classically growing in the charts here, so it feels the children’s legs and so when we trained musician? like things are a bit behind and growth multiplied them in rows, the second We have managers who oversee the is much slower but it’s really exciting. row and beyond had no legs and were whole operation: the record label, We do have a foot in both the pop/ just floating bodies. So we had to come publishing label, booking agents, rock industry and the classical world. In terms of music itself, I think it’s all the same thing. But the way the industries are run is quite different. In the classical world everything is much more regulated and efficient, from what I’ve seen. And because we are working across different genres, we are still finding it hard to define our sound/what we do, but we are being encouraged to do so. If I were giving advice to someone going into the business, I’d say that you need to be prepared to work longer hours than anyone else you know. And keep hustling! Grace Chatto was interviewed online by Barbara Bleiman, Co-director of the English and Media Centre, which publishes MediaMagazine.

Clean Bandit are working with Microsoft to help create a music video for their next single. For the first time ever, the band will be crowdsourcing creative inspiration by reaching out to their fans and YouTube creators from six different countries. Each YouTube creator will be tasked with putting their own distinctive spin on a re-imagined music video for ‘Rather Be,’ all of which will be shot using their Lumia device. The producer of the most creatively inspiring submission will be invited on location by the band to join them as a crew member on their up with a solution, and this was to add lawyer. They are all independent from new video. plants into the shot. So this is why you each other. can see a fantastical jungle location in Building your own business is tough, I the video for ‘Telephone Banking’! think in any industry, but particularly You do masses of gigs and touring. when the business is a ‘band’. There Do bands these days make their can be added confusions, especially money on CD sales, or gigs and when there are personal relationships tours, or in other ways? involved and this is often the case We don’t earn any money yet, even when a band starts, unless you are put though we’ve had a global hit. But we together by Simon Cowell. are now getting booked for bigger gigs, which is where we should make some

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Emma Calway compares the coverage of a global icon with something to say in two contrasting lifestyle magazines.

What happens when two very different magazines, one targeting women, the other men, feature the same star, or cover a similar story? One such example is the superstar Beyoncé – a global A-list celebrity, who appeals to both sexes and can sell pretty much anything she puts her name to (perfume, Coke, American Express, Nintendo DS and L’Oréal to name a few of her endorsements). She has graced more magazine covers than any other black star in the world. And last year Beyoncé made her debut in both British Vogue and the US GQ, showing off her post-baby body. Beyoncé is of course a wonderful gift for magazine editors. She can cross boundaries so can appear in a high fashion magazine such as Vogue, a ‘gentlemen’s’ magazine such as GQ, and, because of her ‘newsworthiness’, the full range of newspapers from The Guardian (a broadsheet) to The Mirror (a tabloid red top). Her mass appeal means she has the power to reach out to massive audiences regardless of race, age, gender or class. It is claimed she is fiercely controlling of her own image and representation, and she appears to have been able to keep much of her life to herself – which makes her an enigma, and thus appealing to her fan base.

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Two Magazines, Two producers will also be aware that the content and her top skims her cleavage while Nations, One Owner – and must also appeal to the 27% of readers who are her pants reveal her extremely toned Beyoncé female. stomach. She gazes directly at the camera in an attempt to attract the male Vogue is an iconic upmarket fashion and Available from UK newsagents for £3.99, gaze. Post-baby, her message is: ‘I’ve still lifestyle magazine that’s been on sale its readership is 73 % male, of whom got it.’ She looks younger than on her since the autumn of 1916. Originally 63% are reported as single. Like Vogue, Vogue cover, and flirtatious rather than published in the US, it is now a global GQ is available for monthly download on fierce. product with editions in 17 different the iPad. countries. A go-to for anybody who’s Beyoncé wears red knickers and blue anybody in the world of fashion, 85% Representations and top; mirrored in the letters ‘G’ and ‘Q’ in of its readership agree that it’s the Readerships the top left hand corner. The strap line ‘fashion bible.’ Published monthly by So what representations of Beyoncé are ‘The World’s 100 Sexiest Women’ fills the Conde Naste Publications, it has a UK offered to these different but related left hand side and alongside the image circulation of 220,000. Its readership readerships? of Beyoncé is designed to attract and is predominantly female; it combines titillate. The caption ‘Pants back on’ in fashion and celebrity and many A list Beyoncé ’s GQ cover came out first, in the top right hand corner adds to this stars strive to get their ‘Vogue C o v e r ’, February 2013. Interestingly, Beyoncé seductive effect – although on closer seen as a real achievement and very appears lighter-skinned on the cover inspection it clearly refers to a fashion prestigious in high fashion circles. In of GQ than the later Vogue image; this story; and further down the page ‘Dads order to differentiate itself from less elite was a source of contention, as she was gone wild’ has the effect of appealing to fashion mags such as Look which costs accused of using skin-lightening creams. an older, male market. £1.80, it is priced at £3.99. However, She has vehemently denied this; in fact Inside the magazine, her comments in British Vogue is a magazine whose it is more likely that both magazine the interview are juxtaposed uneasily financial success is based upon its covers have been Photoshopped and with the suggestive nature of the cover advertising rather than its sales revenue. airbrushed. image: GQ magazine first came into being Equality is a myth, and for some reason everyone in 1931 in New York City, and is now accepts that women don’t make as much money an international monthly men’s as men do. I truly believe that women should magazine distributed in 20 different be financially independent from their men ... countries. The publication focuses on They define what’s sexy. And men define what’s all aspects of lifestyle (fashion, style, feminine. It’s ridiculous. culture, food, films, sex, music, travel, sports, technology, politics and books). GQ is making a statement with this Originally titled Gentlemen’s Quarterly feature. Although in some ways it shares it was re-branded as GQ in 1967; the conventions with less prestigious lads’ rate of publication was increased from mags such as Loaded and Nuts, I’d argue In GQ Beyoncé is dressed in primary quarterly to monthly, and in 1983 Conde that it’s trying to differentiate itself: it’s colours – a theme continued in the Naste bought the publication to add to saying yes we will also put a half-naked masthead font and iconography of the its already upmarket portfolio: woman on the cover but we will also cover. The colours are bold, masculine cover serious issues for the aspirational, This magazine targets the niche demographic of and patriotic. Beyoncé’s stance is a middle-class man. In the event GQ came the ‘metrosexual male’ – a type of magazine for provocative one: her arms are held under fire – but was it placed in a no-win the busy, modern urban man. The magazine’s above her head – clutching her hair –

english and media centre | February 2015 | MediaMagazine 37 MM position by attempting to address feminist issues via titillating imagery? Beyoncé’s UK Vogue cover debut was timed to perfection to promote the UK leg of her ‘Mrs Carter’ tour. The cover art features Beyoncé dressed in a dark blue-sequinned leather pencil skirt and blue and white stripey top. Her midriff is bared, and her hands are placed on her hips in a position of power: this stance connotes that this woman means business and she is not afraid to speak her mind as well as looking uber-fashionable. This power is echoed metaphorically in the headline ‘mega- watt fashion’ in the middle of the page, further amplified in the text at the top left hand corner: ‘the electrifying Beyoncé ’. It is no accident she appears right in the centre of the cover – she is placed where the ‘G’ in Vogue should be. In the coverlines, words like ‘pretty’ ‘fantasy’ and ‘glamour’ are all clearly designed as teasers for the female consumer. However, the words in bold below, taken from the inside content of the main cover story, show a grown-up Beyoncé – arguably in response to the controversy around her GQ cover story. But I guess I am a modern-day feminist. I do believe in equality. I feel like Mrs Carter is who I am, but more bold and more fearless than I’ve ever been. It comes from knowing my purpose and really meeting myself once I saw my child. I was like, ‘OK, this is what you were born to do’. The purpose subject that is once again increasingly foregrounded in its covers. But the initial of my body became completely different. present in the collective consciousness, power of the cover in both cases attracts thus broadening a debate on which the the female gaze in Vogue’s case and the This article may have been a reaction to reader – whether male or female – will male gaze in GQ. You really should judge her much criticised appearance in GQ have an opinion. a magazine by its cover when looking at magazine, where her references to the gender. subject of feminism angered many of Nevertheless, the differences in her critics. It was not the nature of her representation are striking: on the Emma Calway is content writer at My comments on feminism that angered cover of Vogue Beyoncé looks powerful; Big Fat Brighton Weekend and Brighton them – it was more the pairing of such women can look up to her, relate to her Holiday Homes. comments alongside her front cover and want to be like her. This continues image. Notably, neither cover referred inside the magazine: her discussion on explicitly to her editorial comments identity, motherhood, marriage and MoreMediaMag from the archive about equality. her work will hit a chord with female readers. In GQ the star has assumed Magazines and Gender, MM17 The editors of GQ and Vogue have one the position of a pinup. Her scantily- primary interest that unites them: to clad body alongside straplines which sell as many copies as possible. By objectify and reinforce her sexuality landing their Beyoncé covers – and the attract the male gaze while also subsequent branding that goes with dressing it up as lifestyle. GQ readers them – they each get mass appeal, from aren’t buying/reading top shelf – consumers as well as sponsors. But both they are periodically offered serious publications also dare to touch on a debates inside, even if these are rarely

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A powerful new film about girl gangs in the Parisian suburbs In May 1995 a young filmmaker presented his new film at the Cannes is on its way over here. Roy Stafford compares it to its closest Film Festival to great acclaim. Later that predecessor, Mathieu Kassovitz’s renowned La Haine, and argues month it opened across France and that it breaks new ground both in style and in its representation was soon recognised as an important and influential youth picture in both of a social group normally excluded from representations of inner- the UK and US as well as its domestic city life. An excellent text to kickstart an FM4 specialist study on market – one of the best films of the Empowering Women, or Urban Stories. decade. La Haine by Mathieu Kassovitz was so good it was re-released in the

english and media centre | February 2015 | MediaMagazine 39 MM UK in 2004. It is currently one of the few French films listed in IMDB’s ‘Top 250’. But one of the few criticisms of the film is that the female friends and relatives of the three central male characters have only minor roles. In May 2014 another (relatively) young French writer-director, Céline Sciamma, presented her latest feature at Cannes, again to acclaim. In October 2014 it opened successfully in Paris and by the time you read this Bande de filles violent protest against police action on Juppé for senior government officials. (Girlhood) should be on release in the the estate, during which a young man, Ten years on things were not much UK. This film is about a young woman Abdel, is the victim of a police ‘accident’ better and La Haine still seemed of 16 and the ‘gang’ she joins, which (‘bavure’) and hospitalised. In the melée relevant when Nicolas Sarkozy as changes her sense of self. a police revolver goes missing. Vinz has Minister for the Interior made critical Although the film is not in any way a the gun and he vows to avenge Abdel remarks about the youth on the estates, ‘response’ to La Haine, that film is an if his injuries prove fatal. The film covers calling them ‘scum’. important touchstone, and Sciamma the events of the next day and night has discussed how her approach as the trio wait to hear whether their A Note about Les Cités and differs from Mathieu Kassovitz on friend has survived. Les Banlieues his earlier production. Bande de filles The youths are in their early to mid-20. The estates featured in La Haine and has the potential to be an enjoyable All three are unemployed, like most of Bande de filles were originally built and productive case study for A Level their friends, and all live in families with for factory workers, many of whom students, and here I want to discuss absent fathers: references are made to were migrants from North Africa, West some ideas generated by the film, relationships with potential surrogates Africa and the Caribbean. Most of the taking a comparison to La Haine as a (Saïd’s older brother, leader of the factories have since closed, or at least starting point. North African youth on the estate, reduced staffing levels; and the estates and Samir who is a ‘community’ police have many of the problems associated Anger in Les Cités officer and tries to help). Mothers, with unemployment. La Haine is one The title La Haine translates simply as grandmothers and sisters are either of several films which have sometimes ‘hate’; and the film reflects the genuine ignored or sometimes patronised by been categorised as ‘films of les anger felt by its writer-director and the trio – but the women largely ignore banlieues’. the three actors who play the ‘beur, the young men in return. ‘Banlieues’ translates as ‘suburbs’ in blanc et noir’ – Saïd the North African, The fictional world created by Mathieu English, but suburbia means something Vinz the Jewish and Hubert the Black – Kassovitz was a shock to the French different in the UK. The Parisian estates inhabitants of a workers’ estate on the establishment, and the film was are more like British inner-city high- outskirts of Paris. The film begins with a actually screened by Prime Minister rise estates – except that they are symbolically separated from the city centre by the Parisian péripherique (ring road) and this becomes important in the film narratives. The youths on the estates are ‘marginalised’ geographically as well as socially and economically. ‘Cité’ seems to be used in this context to refer to ‘districts’ or to ‘cities’ in a metaphorical sense, i.e. the estate is a world of its own. The reference to ‘beur’ – back-slang for ‘arabe’ – was common in the 1990s, but people with origins in North Africa are now more often known as Maghrebis or North African French.

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The Consumer Culture of into the middle of a game of gridiron ‘known’ in the male world. The film has 2014 – American football – set to music and an open ending. We don’t know what played at night by teams of young Black will happen to Vic, but we have learned Bande de filles is similarly set in les women in the full regalia of padded kit a great deal about the life that she and banlieues and the young women at its and helmets. Is this a fantasy? We then her sisters face in les cités. centre are from similar families with see (possibly) the same group loudly working mothers and absent fathers. walking through the cité where they live Marieme at 16 is responsible for her two The Comparison at night. But as they split off in ones and younger sisters as her mother works In aesthetic terms, La Haine and Girlhood twos, their shouts and general chatter shifts as a cleaner. She tries to avoid share an attempt to show young people die away. Eventually Marieme is on her her older brother who intimidates her. in les cités as being part of a specific own in the darkness, avoiding the young However, the thrust of Bande de filles is environment with cinematography men loitering. Together the young very different to La Haine. using long takes and tracking shots. women can be strong, but they need Sciamma also decided to abandon the Sciamma has said in interviews that courage to make it alone. standard widescreen ratio, and shoot in she first saw groups of young Black The ‘inciting incident’ in the opening 2.35:1 CinemaScope, arguing that this women in the shopping malls of Central section of the narrative is when a was the best way to frame groups of Paris and at the Gare du Nord, and was dejected Marieme, learning that she girls. But whereas Kassovitz processed impressed by will reluctantly have to go to vocational his colour footage as black and white their charisma, their style, the way they talk ... I school, meets a trio of seemingly tough for dramatic effect, fearing colour would was seduced. ‘gang girls’. Their leader sees something detract from the atmosphere he wanted to create, Sciamma foregrounded the She decided to make a kind of ‘coming in Marieme, and eventually invites her colour palette. Although she shot all the of age’ story about these girls, which to join the group. Marieme changes her exteriors on location, she chose to shoot would complete a loose trilogy after her hair, her taste in clothes and her name. interiors in the studio, commissioning previous films Water Lilies (2007) and She gets out of the summer job her sets with carefully designed colour Tomboy (2011). mother has organised for her, and she is renamed ‘Vic’ (for victoire/victory?) schemes. Both films rely heavily on The film’s English title – Girlhood – is, by the gang leader, ‘Lady’. Collectively music, with standout sequences. The for once, more useful than the French, the girls have fun – even if it involves most memorable in La Haine is a mash- since it alludes to both that long petty crime and fights and shows of up by Cut Killer of ‘Nique la police’ (Fuck period of finding a female identity, bravado – before Marieme/Vic is forced the police) and Edith Piaf’s ‘Non, je ne as well as the suggestion of girls in to make decisions. These inevitably regrette rien’, with its strong political the neighbourhood. The ‘hood’ has involve young men – the boy she has message; but in Girlhood it’s the four usually been seen in American films as a relationship with, her controlling young women miming to Rihanna’s exclusively male (a view also adopted in older brother, and the local ‘boss’ for ‘Diamonds’ as they celebrate after a La Haine). Sciamma’s film opens with an whom she works, and who affords shoplifting spree. astonishing sequence. We are plunged her ‘protection’ once she has become

english and media centre | February 2015 | MediaMagazine 41 MM accuse their teacher of serious anti-social behaviour. Meanwhile, Girlhood’s success follows on from Samba (France, 2014), the second hit for Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano after the global success of Intouchables (France, 2011). This time Omar Sy is an immigrant who needs help from Charlotte Gainsbourg as a civil servant. But despite the success of Samba and Girlhood, France’s Black community still needs better representation in French film and television; and both films were made by white directors. There is simply no equivalent to Girlhood in the UK. The wide release of Belle earlier in 2014 in the US and the UK showcases the work of Black British director Amma Asante and rising star Gugu Mbatha-Raw. But although focusing on a young mixed-race woman in a CinemaScope presentation, Belle is a costume drama set in the 18th century. Where are the films about growing up as a Black British teenage girl? One of the differences between France and the UK is that Céline Sciamma was able to find a The main differences between the two between different racial groups; there production budget much bigger than films concern the representations of is also little mention of the police. As the average UK feature budget. I urge gender and race and the overall ‘feel’ Ginette Vincendeau (2012) points out, every MediaMagazine reader to go and of the films and how they engage since 1995, racial politics in France have see what she does with it. with commentaries on French society. changed markedly and les cités have Where La Haine is about male anger been stigmatised as being ghettoised Roy Stafford is co-author of The Media and frustration that erupts from long with less concern for integration. Student’s Book. periods of listlessness, Girlhood is about Some cités are now seen as ‘recruiting exuberance and swagger (although grounds for radical Islamists’. In it too has moments of reflection and reclaiming the ‘hood for young women, Follow it Up moments of violence). It’s worth noting Céline Sciamma has sidestepped Vincendeau, G. 2012. ‘La Haine and too that in La Haine two of the young the politics of race while leaving in after: Arts, Politics, and the Banlieue’ men are played by professional actors, place questions about the narrow life accessible at: http://www.criterion. whereas Karidja Toure as Marieme and opportunities open to all the youth of com/current/posts/642-la-haine-and- most of the other young women in les cités. Mathieu Kassovitz was open after-arts-politics-and-the-banlieue Girlhood had never acted before. about his political commitment in 1995, Girlhood is profiled on cineuropa.org and he finally returned to ‘political One of the striking features of La (look under ‘G’ in Films in Focus) filmmaking’ with the sadly neglected Haine is the focus on ‘beur, blanc et Rebellion in 2011. Girlhood/Bande de filles will noir’ characters – sometimes seen as be released in the UK on 24th an unlikely racial alliance and perhaps European Cinema February. You can see the selected to emphasise a collective trailer at blogs.indiewire.com/ resistance to French government Girlhood is one of three European films shadowandact/20140908 authorities. Girlhood features an almost to be nominated for the LUX prize in 2014. The three nominees will all be completely Black cast of second and MoreMediaMag third generation ‘Sub-Saharan’ Africans subtitled in every language of the EU, from the archive and people from the Caribbean. It’s ensuring their accessibility. Intriguingly, Ghetto Culture, MM35 debatable whether this is more or less all three titles are about young people ‘realistic’ as a representation of the past and present. Ida (Poland-Denmark, communities of certain cités. What it 2013) features an 18-year-old in 1960s does do, however, is to take out of the Poland, and Class Enemy (Slovenia, narrative the possibilities of a clash 2013) sees a class of senior students

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If you’re a Film student preparing In the 1980s a Tory minister apocryphally told the legion for the FN4 Specialist Study on unemployed to ‘Get on your bike!’ Empowering Women, here’s In other words, ‘find work and stop another one you should not miss: scrounging off the state’. a film about a little girl and her The quote is a somewhat inaccurate tabloid construction, but its punitive bike, from a country with no film spirit is clear. However, in the mind of industry or cinemas, directed the more liberal amongst us, a bike is a by a woman under a patriarchal symbol of self-propelled opportunism and personal freedom. Cars are more regime where women are complex devices: they require licences invisible, silenced, and banned and certificates, garages and petrol stations, and as a consequence, money. from driving or riding bicycles. Cars confer status. Mark Ramey explains why it is so The bike, on the other hand, is a important. truly proletarian device – a simple the moon in E.T. (Spielberg, USA,1982), mechanism for working-class self- or the impoverished protagonist propulsion. It’s a utilitarian machine of the Bicycle Thieves (De Sica, Italy, that opens doors and offers an 1948), stealing a bike in desperation escape, even if only temporary, for the to find work. The bike as a metaphor downtrodden and oppressed. Think for escapism and empowerment is of alienated Elliot and ET flying across therefore a familiar trope.

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How strange then to find it forming and hearts at its Venice film festival are in place we need to know some the narrative centrepiece of a film premiere in 2012 and has now reached of the cultural and religious contexts from the world’s second largest oil an international and critically receptive underpinning life in Saudi Arabia. producer – Saudi Arabia. Indeed, no audience largely via DVD and TV – and film work reveals the bike’s liberating this adds further weight to its cinematic About Saudi Arabia ideological potential in such a powerful importance. So what is Wadjda about? Saudi Arabia is the 13th largest country way as Wadjda (Al Mansour, 2012, Saudi Wadjda is the social-realist tale of a in the world and the only Arab country Arabia/Germany), the only feature ten-year old Saudi girl’s quest for a to be part of the G20 group, thanks film to shoot solely in Saudi. But what bike – something she is discouraged solely to its vast oil reserves. It’s an makes it astounding is that Wadjda from owning by her family, and which absolute monarchy and has been was written and directed by a woman is legally forbidden. In Saudi Arabia run by a family dynasty, the Al Sauds, – Haifaa Al Mansour – and is largely women cannot ride bikes; nor, for ever since the country’s birth in 1932. about the contemporary Saudi female that matter, can they drive cars. Strict From the early 1980s the dynasty experience. In fact it makes Wadjda social and religious rules do not allow has championed an extreme form of unique – not least because it was made women such freedom of movement. Sunni radicalism, leading in part to the in a country without a film industry To understand why these restrictions banning of cinemas. It has long been or cinemas. The film won awards

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(multiple wives) is still practised. The headteacher, who is perhaps full-length, black robe (abaya), head overzealous because she too had once covering (hijab) and face veil (niqab) been a free-spirit like Wadjda. are relatively standard issue for the The film therefore explores the majority of Saudi women when in an ultra-conservative country, and the problems of Saudi patriarchy through public; this doctrine is further enforced plight of its women in particular has both Wadjda and her mother. The mum by the mutaween (religious police). drawn criticism from human rights has fallen out with her immigrant male Since the Arab Spring, there is some activists and feminists. In 2013 it driver, and is unable to secure work evidence of relaxing attitudes, as scored 145th out of 148 countries on as she is now virtually house-bound. well as regional differences; but the the Gender Inequality Index, making She is also about to lose her husband dynasty’s grip remains strong, and it marginally even less equal in its to a second polygamous marriage as the appeal of traditional values is not treatment of women than the much she is unable to bear him any more significantly declining – even amongst poorer nations of Afghanistan and children – this is a culture where only women. Yemen. sons matter. One heart-breaking scene This is something Wadjda carefully shows Wadjda scribbling her own name In Saudi Arabia, women are often illustrates in the complex female on a scrap of paper and adding it (if segregated in public, and sometimes representations of, firstly, Wadjda’s only temporarily) to an illustration of at home, fuelling accusations of a conflicted mother, torn between her her father’s, male-only, family tree. gender-apartheid. Women cannot frustrations with, and observance of, divorce without legal representation As Wadjda’s director Al Mansour notes: patriarchal tradition; and secondly, her from a male guardian, and polygamy ‘Women in Saudi are always invisible fiercely conservative and doctrinaire

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but they are also silenced’. Indeed, the popular Saudi saying, ‘A woman’s voice is her nakedness,’ is used by the headmistress when chastising Wadjda for being too vocal and non-conformist. As a counterpoint, we see Wadjda using her voice beautifully to recite a poem from the Koran in a school competition with a cash prize. Although Wadjda, like the film as a whole, has shown little interest in scripture and steers clear of any religious posturing, the cash win offers her the possibility of buying her dream bike. But Wadjda’s headmistress insists the prize money is donated to charity. This is Al Mansour’s thinly- veiled critique of a misogynistic system some Middle-Eastern pedigree with was in an extremely conservative area, that erases both the visual and aural the very successful Waltz with Bashir which meant Al Mansour had to direct signs of womanhood. Saudi women (Folman, Israel, 2008). from the back of a van, lest she be seen should be neither seen nor heard, mixing with men in the street: because to be seen and heard in public Another crucial member of the is shameful. It is against this crushing production team was the Saudi King’s I had a monitor, a walkie-talkie and a ideology that we witness Wadjda’s nephew Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, a telephone. We would rehearse the scene and almost trivial acts of rebellion such as liberal and one of the richest men on the Director of Photography would block it. her choice of navy blue sneakers with the planet. Acting as another producer, Then I would disappear but my voice would stay purple laces and her azure nail polish. he brought links to his various media there… interests (he is a 7% shareholder of This triumphant cycle ride shows News Corp) and helped with local red- Making the Film Wadjda racing ecstatically towards a tape, which meant the film could be The making of the film is yet another crossroads with open land beyond. It shot in the streets of Riyadh. However illustration of extreme patriarchy at is a moment of personal freedom for even there the Prince’s influence was work, and testimony to Al Mansour’s her, achieved neither by overthrowing limited, as Al Mansour noted in a resilience as a filmmaker. She was patriarchy, nor by using her ingenuity spoiler interview with the BFI. In the forced to seek much of the finance to fulfil her dream. The bike is a gift: final scene, when Wadjda rides her bike, and technical personnel for the film rather than buying herself a red dress she wanted to pan around an urban overseas, eventually teaming up with a to win back her husband’s affections, landscape and end up on an open German company, Razor Film, who had Wadjda’s mother buys her a bike. It’s horizon. But the only suitable location

46 MediaMagazine | February 2015 | english and media centre MM a beautiful moment in the film – shot In early 2013 the mutaween announced him on a bike and beat him. Her dream with mother and daughter on the that women and girls would be allowed comes true, and Abdullah’s reaction rooftop of their middle-class home, to ride motorbikes and bicycles in is one of shared joy – a testament to sharing a moment of togetherness as designated areas, for ‘entertainment’ Al Mansour’s non-confrontational and women as much as family, whilst the – but only in the company of male inclusive aims: fireworks from her husband’s wedding guardians. As Al Mansour comments in I really did not set out to make a film that is party illuminate the sky. The bike a Cineaste interview of 2013: loud and that clashes with society … To me, it Wadjda’s mother gives her daughter The bicycle is a very modern concept. It is an is not about making a big change; it is about is much more than just a gift – it is an acceleration… In the film I wanted to show the touching people on a very basic level. If a man invitation to be free. By severing one tension between tradition and modernity in watches the film and buys a bicycle for his small link in the chains of patriarchy, Saudi Arabia. daughter, it means something to me. Wadjda’s mum enables her daughter to briefly escape. Maria Garcia, Cineaste, October 2013 Maria Garcia, Cineaste, October 2013 Children exist at the intersection of Mark Ramey teaches Film and Media Tradition and Change tradition and modernity, and through Studies at Sir Richard Collyer’s College, Through the Eyes of a Child their eyes we see the hypocrisy of our Horsham, Sussex. Change is apparently afoot in Saudi cultural norms. Despite this it is still a Arabia; but (according to Wadjda at pleasant surprise to find that Wadjda’s MoreMediaMag least) it will consist of minor acts of one male ally is a young boy, Abdullah, from the archive personal sacrifice and rebellion rather who is unspoilt by misogynistic Waltz with Bashir, MM26 than an Arab-Spring styled revolution. attitudes; she hopes one day to race Persepolis: Representations of Iran and the West, MM27

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Student Lydia Kendall uses media concepts to challenge the media representations of Taylor Swift – from the perspective of a fan.

This article is written from the point of view of a Media Studies student who is also a Taylor Swift fan. As a key objective of our subject is to enable students to use its academic concepts to analyse our own media consumption, tastes and how our identities are partly ‘mediated’, I’ve tried here to use Media Studies concepts – particularly gender representation and postmodernism – to explore the mediation of Taylor Swift in recent Fearless, Swift has headlined three she has taken a sharp turn away, months. tours and received seven Grammys, representationally, from Cyrus, who has whilst also experimenting with several chosen to escape her ‘Hannah Montana’ Presentation of Self genres of music. As a star growing up label through overtly sexualised and in the public eye, Taylor has kept her controversial performances, signifying Taylor Swift, born in Pennsylvania in reputation as a more ‘organic’ singer/ her distinction from the Disney Channel 1989, released her self-titled debut songwriter, consistently for almost a child star. country album in 2006, at the age of decade. Like Miley Cyrus, who became 16, and has since released four more Like Lady Gaga, Swift reinvents her an icon in the same year as her own albums, including her most recent musical style with each album. While debut, Swift has been in the public eye venture into the pop genre, 1989 at 2012’s Red was filled with devastating from late childhood into adolescence the age of 24. In the years following songs about heartbreak that collided and early adult life; however, the release of her second album, with a mixture of pop and country,

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2014’s 1989 is ‘80s pop Taylor’, and is all about New York and a new attitude. Each tour is filled with new costumes, new stages, new ideas. However, there are differences. Gaga is viewed as an ‘artist’, and the re-construction and subversion of what she represents as a female singer/performer is discussed as the (re)presentation of her ‘character’; but Swift has not been granted this license. Instead she has been consistently trivialised throughout her commercially. Meanwhile, any sense of In a recent interview with 2DayFm, career, assumed by her critics to be protection of the ‘country girl-singer’, Taylor stated: presenting herself in the same persona or respect for her as a more ‘grassroots’ You’re gonna have people who are going to see with each new release. I’ll focus on singer-songwriter, has disappeared. In the depth from which you approach a song, the three aspects of the way Swift has been part, this comes with the territory. But a fact that you put your real emotions into it and characterised to argue that she has great deal of the hostility (bordering on that that’s valuable and that’s good and that’s been undervalued as a postmodern hate) has been gendered. artist, a feminist, and an inspiring role real, and then you’re going to have people who model for her fans. As a fan of Taylor Swift, I have never are going to say ‘she just writes songs about her understood the double standard set in ex boyfriends’; and I think frankly that’s a very Gender Trouble? place for female and male artists, so I sexist angle to take. No one says that about Ed wanted to explore this question: why Sheeran, no one says that about Bruno Mars, 1989 boldly transcends Swift’s are male artists celebrated for songs they’re all writing songs about their exes, their previous genre associations, moving about their lives, while females are current girlfriends, their love life, and no one into mainstream ‘retro-pop’ with a labelled as ‘desperate’, ‘immature’ or raises a red flag there. huge marketing campaign and clear even ‘slutty’ for doing the same thing? intention to move to another level

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describes as ‘the death of the avant- garde’ and as such mocks the idea of a connection between Gaga and Warhol – she is giving her a more ‘serious’ label by calling her postmodern. The same respect is not granted to Swift. But why not? Laura Mulvey’s (1975) theory of the ‘male gaze’ suggests that the camera takes the point of view of the male subject, which is looking at the female object. Swift’s video for ‘Shake It Off’ is an interesting ‘playful’ subversion of this, in the form of four minutes of Taylor making fun of herself. The critics say she can’t dance? She’ll try to dance alongside professionals. And she’s right. While Sheeran is With her new album, she has turned She’ll carry on dancing. Again, she celebrated for his sensitive lyrics about media representations back on is acting as a parody of herself, or love and heartbreak – and more so themselves. ‘Blank Space’, is written in twisting her representation back to recently in his angry hit ‘Don’t’ about a the voice of the person people think the media – she’s exaggerating the cheating ex-girlfriend – Taylor receives she is, whilst ‘Shake It Off’ parodies negative representation, whilst playing the opposite kind of attention. She these rumours. This frivolous, arguably out gendered meanings from other has been named a ‘serial dater’, and postmodern, style of spinning the pop videos. Indeed, the very notion of has been the butt of this joke at award representations around is similar to that ‘shaking off’ media representation in shows and in magazine articles for of Lady Gaga, but Taylor is given no the form of a media representation is years. equivalent ‘art statement’ credibility. worthy of more ‘serious’ analysis as a When Lady Gaga appeared on The postmodern statement. From Serial Dater to X Factor recently, it prompted this Feminist Icon response from Suzanne Moore, Paratexting Swifties I’d argue that Swift has recently referencing artist-cum-broadcaster Fan theory (Hills, 2002) and ideas about become something of a feminist icon. Grayson Perry: ‘paratext’ (Gray, 2010) can also be easily In an interview with the Guardian It’s all very postmodern, for although she applied to Taylor Swift. earlier this year, she described the may reference Andy Warhol as easily as she message of 1989 as: The extras, or ‘paratexts,’ [promotional texts like references Miley Cyrus’s flesh-coloured bikini, blurbs, cover art, sleeve notes, merchandising, when you go out into the world and make she can be incorporated into primetime TV. advertising copy] that surround (media) changes in your life on your own terms, make Gaga is deemed suitable for ‘a family show’. The experiences are far from peripheral, shaping friends on your own terms, without literally promise of subversion is brought into the arena our understanding of them and informing our saying ‘C’mon girls, we can do it on our own!’. of light entertainment and demands little more decisions about what to watch or not watch and than that we applaud the spectacle. She told Cosmopolitan: even how to watch before we even sit down for I’ve learned that just because someone is cute Guardian, 30.10.14 a show. and wants to date you, that’s not a reason to Whilst Moore is not celebrating Gaga Gray, 2010: cover blurb sacrifice your independence and allow everyone – indeed, she claims her postmodern Paratexts can be created by the media to say whatever they want about you. performance signals what Perry as part of the ‘hype’ for a TV show, as

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Gray describes here, or they can be share references and why ‘Swifties’ are created by fans – remix, tribute, parody so important in the representation or homage videos. But fans themselves of Taylor Swift, as well as the hidden can also be seen as paratexts, and they paratextual meaning hidden in the play this semiotic role at Taylor Swift light-up posters and signs at every concerts. show. If you find yourself at one of her gigs, Lydia Kendall is a GCSE Media student at everywhere you look people will Kings Norton Girls’ School in Birmingham. be wearing homemade shirts and signs with Swift fandom references Follow it Up across them. You could say that her relationship with her fans is a Hills, M. 2002. Fan Cultures. as the cultural theorist Henry Jenkins big part of the ‘meaning’ of Taylor. calls it, ‘spreadable’ – way, surrounding Gray, J. 2010. Show Sold Separately: ‘Swifties’ across the country show the actual music itself. The close bond Promos, Spoilers and Other Media their appreciation of her using these between the star and the fans, and the Paratexts. references, through social media references only those within the group online and physically by waiting understand could be described as outside venues or in concerts. In ‘paratextual meaning’. MoreMediaMag return, Swift likes and comments on from the archive her fans’ online posts, giving them In conclusion, a Media Studies analysis Fan Culture, MM25 advice and acknowledgement. Before of Taylor Swift can help deconstruct Amanda Palmer, MM43 many concerts on her worldwide both gender and genre categories, tours, her mother will walk around helping us to understand that gender No Second Acts – Lana Del Rey, the arena, picking members from the does play some part in our tastes and MM41 audience who are demonstrating their how we view people in the media. knowledge of ‘fandom references’ for As well as this, it can also stimulate the chance to get closer to the stage. discussion about what counts as ‘art’, and whether our perceptions of art Prior to the release of her most recent are distorted. As both a Media student album, Taylor invited 89 fans to each and fan of Taylor Swift, I am able to of her houses and hotel rooms to hear identify the problems with misogyny the album months before everyone in the media, and view her as not only else, playing it for them casually in her someone of whose music I am a fan, sitting room and baking them cookies but also to see why she has changed to eat during their five-hour stay. This the way she reacts to the media, and is a very significant indicator of the her views on feminism. It has helped relationship between Swift and her me to interpret my own fandom on fans, and ensures that the ‘meaning of a more interesting level – why we Taylor’ circulates in a reciprocal – or,

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Writing about representations Sexuality: an individual’s sexual orientation, aspect of sexuality, it is highly unlikely preference and capacity for sexual feelings that it is the one that will be explored of sexuality is a challenge, in your textual analysis exam! Instead, Those of you who are sitting a Textual especially in coursework or approach the representation of Analysis exam for AS or A Level Media sexuality through the clues that the exam mode. Steve Connolly Studies in the forthcoming months audience is given about the complex may be struggling with questions of suggests a less threatening way and diverse nature of sexuality via representation, and how technical things like costume, acting, dialogue to approach the topic: through aspects of the moving image, such and camerawork. Making connections the ‘otherness’ of science fiction. as camera, mise-en-scène, sound between these things and sexuality and editing are used to explore such Read on if you’re preparing for – defined as an individual’s sexual representations. the OCR TV Drama unit, or A2 orientation, preference and capacity for One area of representation which sexual feelings – will allow you to write Critical Perspectives topics on frequently gives students (and a strong answer which analyses the representation, identity, ideology, teachers) some difficulty is that of representation of sexuality in a mature and much more – and follow sexuality, quite possibly because and sophisticated way. both parties – mistakenly – think that Science fiction is an excellent place his tips for tackling unexpected teaching the topic will end up in a to start when learning about or conversation about sex, along with all unseen exam extracts. practising the way we should write the sniggering behind hands that this about sexuality because, in the realm entails. This view is mistaken, however, of the fantastic, it is easy to find writers because while sex is an important and directors presenting audiences

54 MediaMagazine | February 2015 | english and media centre MM with more diverse representations Similarly, in Nathan Hertz’s 1958 It is not surprising perhaps, that two of of sexuality: representations that go classic Attack of the 50 ft Woman, the these more relevant examples originate beyond the traditional, heterosexual central character of Nancy Archer is from the work of Russell T. Davies, ‘boy-meets-girl’ kind of relationship. only permitted to go on a rampage of the man behind the re-imagined and When you are writing about ‘the alien’ vengeance for her ex-husband’s sexual re-booted Doctor Who. Davies’ most every day, it becomes very easy to treat infidelity once she has encountered an notable contribution to TV drama prior the kinds of sexuality which may be alien creature and grown to the same to resurrecting the time lord in the blue seen as alien by mainstream culture, size as an electricity pylon. It is as if box was to write for the 1999 series in an everyday way. Consequently, in her feelings of sexual jealousy towards Queer as Folk – a groundbreaking but recent years, sci-fi film and TV has come her ex-husband and his new girlfriend controversial drama about a group of to be seen as a place where a diverse can only be validated by becoming a young gay friends in Manchester. In range of sexualities are represented. fantastical creature. Doctor Who, and it’s adult-orientated spin-off Torchwood, Davies chose to put How it Was – Sexualised How it is – Anything Goes! a gay character front and centre in the Women as Aliens (As Long as You are a form of Captain Jack Harkness (played It wasn’t always this way, however. Lizard….) by John Barrowman) and an analysis Quite often in some of the earlier These relatively rare examples of female of ‘Captain Jack’, as he is affectionately examples of the genre, women were sexuality – as something other than known to Whovians and Torchwood confined to roles which saw them submissive and virginal damsels in fans, provides a good starting point as weak or submissive. A look at the distress – have given way to stronger for understanding how we might write poster for a film like The Day the Earth and more realistic character types – the about the representation of sexuality. Stood Still (1951), or even King Kong (1933) would reveal a genre in which women were often at the mercy of evil alien robots or giant apes, having their dignity – and often their clothing – stripped from them. Here the evil aggressor, in whatever form, be it ape or robot, is in some way posing a sexualised threat to the half-naked but pure virginal woman who is seen as needing to be rescued from the masculine threat seeking to violate her. In this 30s era of sci-fi, women were not seen as people who were sexualised; indeed, they were not seen as sexual beings at all. Or at least, women from earth weren’t. If a female alien was on screen, then quite often they were seen as offering a much more provocative representation of sexuality, precisely because they were alien. For example, portrayals of Princess Aura, an alien woman who appeared in the Flash much lauded relaunch of Battlestar Initially, Captain Jack’s sexuality is only Gordon films, TV and comic strips from Galactica, for example, had an entire hinted at – probably because Doctor as early as 1936, frequently feature narrative that was driven by powerful, Who is considered family viewing, her as provocatively dressed, with independent and, in some cases, highly and references to any kind of sexual heavy eye make-up and seductive sexualised female characters. However, behaviour, heterosexual or otherwise, voice. Many of the Flash Gordon stories these characters were, like those of need to be kept oblique. At the end feature her attempts to seduce the early sci-fi, still very much heterosexual of the episode ‘The Parting of the hero of the story, Flash Gordon, into in their orientation. More recently Ways’ when Jack says goodbye to the becoming one of her many lovers. Even writers and directors have felt able Doctor and Rose, he kisses them both, in 1936, this representation of female to go beyond the straightforward (or separately. Other than this, Jack’s sexuality seemed permissible because perhaps just straight) portrayal of male sexuality is left to the audience to work Princess Aura was an alien, and behind and female heterosexuality, and move out from some of his one-liners. In an this mask of the fantastical ‘other’, such towards something altogether more episode in which a series of events has behaviour was seen as acceptable. complex and, consequently, perhaps created three versions of the Doctor, more relevant. Rose comments on the fact that she and Jack are standing in front of three

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56 MediaMagazine | February 2015 | english and media centre MM show, even if it is in quite a fantastical, and therefore, safe way.

Analysing the Representation of Sexuality You might use any of the texts above as a means of practising your textual analysis skills for a question about representation. Just find a clip which seems to accentuate the sexuality of the character, and then write about some of the ways that it is being presented. Pay attention to the costume of the character, the way they speak, what they talk about and their ‘Doctors’ to which Jack replies ‘I can’t relationship to other characters of even tell you what I’m thinking of right either sex. Composition and framing now’. This line suggests a physical and are also important; a close examination sexual attraction to the doctor, and of Captain Jack will often reveal that hints at Jack’s latent homosexuality. In he is framed in medium long shot or Torchwood, the post-watershed spin- medium close up in order to emphasise off from Doctor Who, Jack’s sexuality is his physical attributes. Finally, sound more openly presented, largely through might also have a part to play in telling the physical relationship he shares with us how a character feels about another Ianto, one of his co-workers. character, so incidental and other A close look at any still images music might also play a part in the of Captain Jack will reveal some representation of sexuality. interesting points of analysis in terms It is also worth mentioning that we of mise-en-scène. He almost always are surrounded by images of sexuality appears in a military uniform – this is all the time, from music videos to because at various points in history advertising, but most frequently, he has been a soldier, and continues this is only one type of sexuality; the to take the role of battling against she meets and employs Jenny, a human ‘straight’ hetero kind. There are other aliens. This costume is traditionally very woman who has been cast out from types out there, and science fiction masculine and, indeed, there are many her family because of, in her words, her provides some good opportunities aspects of Captain Jack’s appearance ‘preferences in companionship’. Jenny to study them. Because your textual which are hyper-masculine (he is tall, and Vastra become a couple, referring analysis task or exam might expect muscular and well built, with short to each other as ‘wife’, mirroring you to look for something out of the hair, and clean cut features) reminding the acknowledgement of same-sex ordinary, rather than those typical us of the importance of not conflating relationships in the real world through representations, ‘exploring the alien’ is gender with sexuality when we write gay marriage and civil partnerships. definitely something to be encouraged! our analysis; Jack Harkness may be gay, Some audience members might feel Dr Steve Connolly is a Media Studies but this does not mean that he is not a aggrieved that this portrayal of a stable teacher, examiner and freelance Media and man. same-sex relationship is only facilitated Film Studies consultant. by the fact that one of the two partners Steven Moffat, Russell T. Davies’ replacement, further complicated the appears to be a carnivorous lizard, representations of sexuality in the show rather than another human being. MoreMediaMag with the introduction of the characters However, there is still something quite from the archive of Madame Vastra and Jenny. In the adventurous about putting a same-sex Battlestar Galalctica, the Original Doctor Who-niverse, Vastra is a Silurian, relationship at the centre of a family- Space Opera, MM22 a female humanoid lizard, who is orientated show that goes out early initially captured by the Doctor after on a Saturday evening. Vastra, despite he found her terrorising the citizens being a lizard, is clearly meant to be of 19th-century London. After he female; she dresses as a woman would pacifies her, she agrees to settle into in Victorian London, has a woman’s life on earth as a kind of detective, voice and clearly holds sexual attraction investigating odd phenomena in the for Jenny, who is a lesbian human. Victorian era. In the course of this work These aspects of the representation of sexuality are still being explored by the

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58 MediaMagazine | February 2015 | english and media centre MM Vera Brittain’s life and future The new film adaptation of Vera to its pages, which are often written by Brittain’s Testament of Youth, released somewhat partisan communications were shaped by tragedy and on January 16th 2015, is the perfect publicists; but it does allow for updated loss in World War 1, where case study for the UK Film Industry. The information and context, so will be she volunteered as a nurse promotional campaign began many worth checking out as the film’s profile months before, with a prestigious develops after its release. on the frontline. Her powerful launch at October’s 2014 London Film autobiographical memoir Festival. The critics gave a range of Production and Funding Testament of Youth, hailed as feedback and BAFTA audiences loved The film is produced by HeyDay films (I the film. Because the film is both one of the great feminist anti- am Legend, Gravity, Paddington), with so new, and based on such a well- the BBC. How far will this film attract war masterpieces, is now a film. loved literary memoir, it would make global audiences, and how are they an excellent research project for AS Vanessa Raison explains why it being targeted? HeyDay Films has had students, following the trails below. phenomenal international success with would make a terrific case study the Harry Potter films, and The Boy in the example of the UK Film Industry Personal Consumption Striped Pyjamas (another adaptation) at work – and a very topical You could chart your first awareness made about £26 million at the of the film (perhaps it’s actually this international box office – so Testament introduction to research skills. article, right here, right now?) through of Youth may perform comparably, with to its position by the time you sit your a book tie-in which will introduce it to exam in May. Synergy, the creation European audiences. of a coherent campaign across all the BBC Films funded the film for £1.5 different media platforms, is the best million; the rest of the £7.1 million way to market a film; and you can budget came from a combination watch the campaign develop online, of Screen Yorkshire, Heyday Films, in print, in cinemas, on TV and on the the British Film Institute, the Danish radio. company Nordisk, the post-production Look out for the trailer in the cinema, house Lipsync and a contribution from and the posters on buses and in tube the film’s UK distributor Lionsgate (see stations. Note down the dates and Nick Lacey’s article on Lionsgate in places you see marketing material. MM50). Gap financing was provided Watch out for TV spots and radio by Ingenious, and the production coverage, features in the weekend benefited from the UK tax credit, which magazines, and a tie-in with a new is 20% of 80% of the budget. edition of the original book. You can To become profitable, the film needs use this information for questions on to make at least twice its budget in synergy, convergence, distribution, box office sales so its target is more audience appeal and your own than £14.2 million at the box office personal consumption. worldwide. A sales agent, Protagonist, The aim of any distributor is to create is currently trying to sell it to different a buzz around a new release. The territories around the world to achieve cheapest and most powerful marketing that; they are negotiating with different is word of mouth; convergence opens sales in different countries. the doors to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and is a free way to spread the word Launching the Film to the fast and far. Watch for this on your Right People in the Right social media newsfeeds. Places... Your web research will divide into Who is the target audience for this film? three categories: file-sharing, social Scriptwriter Juliet Towhidi says, networking and institutional sites. Because it’s a drama it can potentially appeal Try Googling first of all, and look at to all age groups. There’s an appeal for older the film’s official website. The Internet audiences who’ve been through their own Movie Database (www.imdb.com) is losses and life stories and also for school age a reliable site which gives detailed and slightly older people who are discovering industry data about cast, director, the war for the first time and also are the age production company, distributors and that the characters in the story were at the scriptwriter. Wikipedia is sometimes less time ... James [Kent, the director] wanted to reliable because anyone can contribute make sure that the characters felt young to

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drive home quite how appallingly innocent and young they really were ... Teenagers are ready to embrace very searing experiences. When you’re young and looking for meaning, to see such a meaningful story in terms of the waste of human life and what war can do to a whole generation is a powerful thing. The film launches in Denmark in April 2015, and it is hoped there will be a large Scandinavian audience because it stars Swedish-born Alicia Vikander. However, a US distributor has not been fixed, and the American market may be tougher to break into because the First World War is ‘culturally much less significant over there.’

The Impact of the Premiere event included a talk by Vera Brittain’s shooting the movie on muddy moors in Testament of Youth was chosen as the daughter, Baroness Shirley Williams, a Yorkshire. But it was Baroness Williams Mayor’s Centrepiece Gala in the 2014 hugely influential political figure in her who summed up the point of it all: own right. London Film Festival – a real coup, and We must try to bring war to an end. particularly timely in the anniversary In her Preface to Brittain’s The BBC Films’ coverage of the event year of World War 1. The line-up on autobiography, Williams said of her is worth researching here; it includes stage was exciting. Mayor Boris praised mother, interviews with the cast and director the film with his usual wit and gusto It was hard for her to laugh unconstrainedly; on the red carpet. The press conference – before admitting he hadn’t seen at the back of her mind, the row upon row of shows producer Rosie Alison explaining it, and promptly leaving the cinema. wooden crosses were planted too deeply. her love for the project, and how she is With warmth and panache, producer moved by Vera Brittain Rosie Alison introduced director The star of the film, Alicia Vikander, James Kent, writer Juliette Towhidi, speaking from a shoot in New Zealand going through the worst the world has to offer and the cast: actors Kit Harington, by video link, hinted at the joy to come and not giving up. in the film; you could feel the fun and Taron Egerton, Colin Morgan, Dominic http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfilms/interview/ camaraderie these guys must have had West, Emily Watson. To crown it all, the testament_of_youth

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The Trailer There are now two trailers on YouTube which you can deconstruct to define the film’s Unique Selling Point. Look at mise-en-scène, sound, editing, camera angle, movement and framing. Analyse the font, the tagline, the launch date, the institutional information, the length and the difference between the two trailers. (The second has quotations from critics following the film launch at LFF.) Note down the first time you see the trailer in the cinema, and track the in-cinema presence of popcorn holders, standees, posters or programmes. Work out what kind of cinemas the film has opened in, and why.

Meanwhile, watch out for the poster (He may be out of touch with the campaign on buses and at stations and 15-25 year old audience demographic, work out how it promotes the film’s however.) The Hollywood Reporter loved USP and ties in with the trailer. The it. poster is on Google images and again you can deconstruct it for audience You could read the newspaper reviews appeal. online, and pick out a sentence from each which sums up the critic’s view. Press Have a look at The Telegraph, The Times, So far the critics are divided. The The Guardian and The Evening Standard. If the reviews following a premiere Evening Standard gave it four stars The Daily Mail, Express and tabloids are good, the buzz they generate will while The Guardian was sniffy. Peter have already featured plenty of pre- keep people hanging on until the film’s Bradshaw wrote, release celebrity coverage and it will be release. A film of Brittain’s remarkable interesting to see their perspectives on memoir was always guaranteed to raise A plangent mood of regret settles on this the film itself. interest, but what impact will the critics beautifully costumed, well-furnished, have on its reception by audiences? respectfully performed period drama.

english and media centre | February 2015 | MediaMagazine 61 MM Adapting a Real-life Memoir Once you’ve decided what the narrative framework should be you have to select ruthlessly and leave a lot out. Part of my job is to distill the essence of the book and find other ways to get those emotions across. It’s a process of distilling as well as reinventing. You do have to make very hard choices. Making a three-hour film would have been counter-productive. [The autobiography] feels quite wordy, and it takes its time to make its points in many ways, but at the same time you get this modern vivid woman’s voice shining through which could be a voice of today almost. I think the overall feel of the film is that it is layered with the poetry and the letters.

Writer Juliette Towhidi’s approach in A book of this kind has no value unless it is It will be a fascinating exercise to chart adapting Vera’s memoir was to focus honest. how teenagers, parents and pensioners on her journey. She sees Testament of respond to this telling of a story which Towhidi calls her film adaptation ‘a Youth as has stirred historians, feminists and warning and a mourning.’ a distinctive woman’s point of view. I identified pacifists since it was first published in with Vera and it felt surprisingly modern, ... Getting the Timing Right 1933. [Brittain was] a natural feminist. She didn’t see Vanessa Raison is a journalist and teacher why she shouldn’t have the same rights as her The launch of Testament of Youth has at Acland Burghley School. brother and she was very angry and frustrated missed Armistice Day, but avoided

not to have those rights... She was always the crowded autumn marketplace, in questioning and testing things. which newly-released films can easily get lost. By the time you read this, it Towhidi celebrates the fact that you see will have recently opened in cinemas. little actual warfare in the biography, in There is, therefore, plenty of time for which you to be able to analyse the marketing the Front is distilled into a couple of scenes impact of the poster and trailer, and presented in classic brush strokes ... It is a follow the continuing promotion, woman’s point of view of war. Opening Weekend box office, and the use of social media, word of mouth Brittain wanted Testament of Youth and audience consumption to spread to be ‘as truthful as history, but as interest in the film’s first few weeks at readable as fiction,’ saying, home and abroad.

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ONE YEAR ON

How is a world news story configured differently in different places? Expat Maggie Miranda compares her personal experience with local and international news coverage of a terrorist attack that shook the world. This important case study raises important questions about representations of Africa for anyone studying global media, post-colonialism, news values, collective identity, and so much more.

News Values When Nairobi’s Westgate shopping taking control of the whole shopping What Happened at mall was attacked in September 2013, mall. Everyone in the Kenyan capital Westgate? the world’s media came to cover the was surprised as attacks on this scale September 21st 2013 is a day I will never siege. In terms of news values this story are not usual. There was continuity forget. We had been living in Kenya for had immediacy. The siege started on as the world’s media reported for four just five weeks when armed gunmen a Saturday morning, and the world’s days as the siege continued and then attacked the nearby Westgate mall. Many press descended quickly, camping out finally ended. It was a terrible event, people were mindlessly gunned down. to report events as they happened. and, of course, negativity always feeds When we heard the news, we cancelled The story had amplitude as the attack the news. was on a grand scale, with the gunmen our plans and stayed at home. We’d been walking there over the previous

english and media centre | February 2015 | MediaMagazine 63 MM weeks, picking up our groceries, buying phone credit, grabbing a coffee: ordinary, mundane things that people do all over the world every day. The media told us that the terrorists had rented a retail space for several months, ‘casing the mall’ and deciding when to strike. All the time they had been watching.

Why Did it Happen? Some Background Kenya entered Somalia in 2011 to launch an assault on the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab group of militants. They did this after the extremists had kidnapped tourists in Kenya, acts which have had lasting effects on the country’s tourism. At first al-Shabab were pushed away from the Kenyan border. The African Union Mission and the Kenyan defense forces thought that they were weakening their enemy. But since then al-Shabab has inflicted several attacks on Kenya, wanting Kenya to withdraw its troops from Somalia. The four-day siege of Westgate Mall is the most serious of these. The world’s media descended upon the suburb where I live, and reported the story in myriad different languages across the globe. On 21st September and the days that followed, the local and international news often contradicted each other. The number of gunmen was widely debated. At the time the media told us it was possibly 12. Now the official version is four. But is it believable that only four gunmen could inflict such a bloody assault on this suburban mall?

Personal Experiences A friend was trapped in the mall during the four-day siege. When the al-Shabab gunmen stormed in, firing randomly, thankfully she instinctively ran and took cover. She headed upstairs in the supermarket complex and hid under a bed in ‘Home Furnishings’ for four hours. Her mobile phone was muted so we couldn’t reach her. We hoped and we waited for news. That night she walked home, escorted by a BBC journalist, and recalled her horrific ordeal. We went to sleep to the terrifying sound of gunfire, and we woke up to it too. The gunmen remained inside the mall with hostages. Helicopters patrolled overhead. The deep, whirring noise of

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the chopper blades would rip through our home each time they passed by. From our garden we heard thuds of grenades going off, sounds that I have never heard in my life. Over those four days we monitored the events from our home, just a few hundred metres away from the mall. We relied on the media to give us the facts. The world’s media watched and commented that week; but then of course the next big story took its place. But for audiences in Kenya the news coverage on KTN, KBC and K24 continued, an example of media proximity. It was a local story, of interest to us; and the analysis of the events of Westgate continued for much longer. that there had been clear warnings attack. Beyond that it gets ‘woolly’. It that this attack would happen; but if seems ludicrous that the world’s media Theories, Rumours and so, why was everyone so unprepared? informed us of this story, but in essence Censorship And there was talk of censorship. the details and the real truth has never One theory quick to circulate was that Following the attack, the Kenyan Police been fully reported. Will we ever know some of the gunmen escaped during force threatened to sue some Kenyan the truth about this attack? the siege, using a nearby sewerage journalists over reports alleging that I tried to make sense of the attack and tunnel to flee into the surrounding police officers and security guards were put it into some perspective. I took stock area. The number of dead was severely looting in the mall after the attack. The and remembered that these attacks can underestimated. Rumours spread that police denied this, and claimed that it happen anywhere. This was not the first SAS officers had witnessed rapes and was war propaganda. Yet a week later time that I had been affected by acts beheadings; local news channels were two police officers were fired for their of terrorism; I grew up in London with arguably pressurised to report that looting in the mall after the attack. threats and random attacks by the IRA in things were under control before they There were so many theories, so many the late 1970s. I remembered when the really were. On the Kenyan TV news one rumours. Where is the truth? One Royal Mail adapted our iconic red post evening, we were told that the siege was thing that we know for sure is that boxes, making the slit so much smaller over; the next morning at 0900 hours, al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the for fear of letter bombs. There was the there was more gunfire. Some claimed

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attack at King’s Cross station, the nail One year later, the media circus has story. One year on she also re-visited this bomb in my old party haunt, Soho, and come back to town. The majority of attack and recalled on BBC World how she the bus that was blown up at Aldwych people in Kenya have spent most of the saw trucks ferrying bodies in the streets as I finished my shift at the Savoy hotel last year doing their best to forget. It all nearby. To camera, she asked, nearby. And there have been others: the started again several days before the Why did the siege last for four and a half days, and Tamil Tigers’ attacks in Sri Lanka, ETA’s one-year anniversary with a special BBC how many gunmen were there? attack on Atocha station and 9/11. But broadcast on BBC World. There followed should we ever begin to think about several ‘Remembering Westgate’ special Again many unanswered questions come these attacks in any rational way? Should features, which dominated the media to the surface. The BBC reported that we ever see them as part of life? And how here all weekend, along with an HBO President Kenyatta had promised to set should the media report on them? documentary with shocking, graphic up an enquiry into Westgate, but that to footage, content that raises questions of date no such enquiry has happened. One Year On... media ethics, ‘what to show’ vs ‘what not On the evening of the one-year One year on, Westgate mall stands to show’. anniversary, Kenya’s KTN network as a monument to the horrors of the Terror at the Mall shows footage from broadcast Bottom Line, a live studio terrorist attack. Bullet holes are still clearly more than 100 security cameras, audience debate, from Charter Hall, visible – a haunting reminder of the and features previously unseen mall Nairobi. A panel including a government gunfire we heard for four days. Windows surveillance video. But one year on, how spokesperson fielded questions. The are still left shattered and broken. The much more do we really know about the studio audience was highly critical of official comment is that the mall is being siege at the Westgate mall? government and security. I watched and repaired; but no-one has any idea about listened to all the comments. There was At the time of the attack a BBC Nairobi- when it will re-open. much talk but very few answers. Kenyan based reporter, Anne Soy, broke the

66 MediaMagazine | February 2015 | english and media centre MM It Shocks Me to See How Little People Think of Africa (Dayo Olopade) Most people associate two things with Nairobi: ‘Nairobbery’ (the city’s reputation for crime) or Westgate. But who has heard of Silicon Savannah, entrepreneurs and IT innovation in Nairobi? Who has heard of Fafa, the Festival for African Fashion and Arts? There are success stories but they are not widely reported. Last year, less than two months after Westgate, The Film Africa Documentary Film Festival was held in Nairobi to celebrate Kenya @ 50, the anniversary of 50 years of independence. Its documentaries told another story: they depicted a different Kenya and a dynamic Africa, and its accomplishments in sport, progress and good governance. The films celebrated successes. How and when will the rest of the world’s audience access these stories too? In Africa there are many established and emerging broadcasters and filmmakers, and in Kenya there are now more writers and directors. People across the continent are harnessing digital technology to tell their stories. The challenge to those who are running the TV networks and the production companies is to work to tell another story, to give a more balanced account and to open the eyes of people worldwide about the other side to life in TV stations ran coverage of the Terror But in the last year what has been countries such as Kenya. Attack Memorial which had been held at documented about Kenya apart from the site of Westgate earlier that day, and Westgate, al-Shabab and politically Maggie Miranda is a freelance MediaMag footage of the memorial at Karura forest, motivated violence? A plethora of contributor based in Nairobi. where 70 trees were planted in memory negative imagery is perpetuated by of the dead. But had we not been told the world’s media. And it raises several Follow it up that the official death toll was 67? The questions: http://www.aljazeera.com/ evening news showed coverage of the • How does one show a story like this indepth/opinion/2014/09/ Muslim community marching through sensitively? mysteries-linger-over- the predominantly Somalian suburb of westgate--201492171737803205. Eastleigh, united in their condemnation • How do you report on a terrorist attack html of the attacks, and saying they were not like Westgate without sensationalising http://www.bbc.com/news/world/ representative of Islam. The march got no it? africa international coverage. • How does the media report a disaster http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/ without reinforcing negative images terror-at-the-mall So What is the World’s View coming out of the continent? of Kenya Now? http://www.nytimes. Do news, documentaries and The continuous terrorist threat and com/2014/04/13/books/review/the- other media texts do enough to concerns about security have had some bright-continent-by-dayo-olopad counterbalance the negative image of international media coverage. The the African continent? And who is telling travel advice given on various embassy the story of Africa rising? This topic is websites reinforces people’s concerns, explored in Dayo Olopade’s book Bright with the result that many tourists Continent, a positive account of the continue to stay away and the economy African continent on the rise; but the has suffered. media doesn’t always do the same.

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