WEEK 3- STRUCTURALISM

Today’s lecture focused on the concept of Structuralism. In order to grasp this complex term, Richard began by using a simple example we may encounter on a daily basis that demonstrates a series of opposites that create meaning. For instance, the human brain is able to differentiate between the actual word ‘cat’ and the mental image of a cat. In this sense it is the grammar that makes the meaning possible. However, within films, instead of using words and grammar we use pictures and imagery, thus structuralism is formed. From this it then became apparent that structuralism can be applied to almost all movies. In relation to American cinema, structuralism acts a framework that carries the story. A vast majority of films will use binary opposites, such as good and bad, strong and weak, that will depict the narrative to the audience. Richard asked us all to think of our favourite film and discuss how these binary opposites within the film help structure it. My favourite film ‘Taken’ by Pierre Morrell, highlighted binary opposites such a ‘good ‘and ‘bad’ and ‘inside society’ and ‘outside society’. We then concluded with discussing how Laura Mulvey’s theory of feminism can be applied to a number of movies such as ‘Bend it like Beckham’ which we will be looking at next week. Again structuralism is used throughout this film, and we see binary opposites such as ’identity’ and ‘gender’.

James Bond Lecture

James Bond Lecture
This lecture concentrated on the phenomenon that is James Bond, with particular attention paid to the novel ‘Casino Royale’. The Bond books were one of the first cheap, affordable paperbacks available to the consumers of Britain, the first being Casino Royale (written in 1952). This was the premier of the James Bond character, he was presented as a gambling, drinking, smoking(70+ a day), luxury consuming jet setting spy, with the confidence of a ‘colony controlling’ Britain behind him. James Bond was a symbol of consumerism; he was a promoter of Great-er Britain, and anti Americanism, perhaps considered a xenophobe.

The reason perhaps for the success of these James Bond novels was a combination. The novels were readily available for the masses to buy, through paperback production, but also the spy-genre of the books interested a lot of people at the time, with the cold war still present in people’s minds spies were a reality, the media were always publishing stories about the capture of spies. The books also could be considered to present this capitalism vs communism war.

The author of the Bond novels, Ian Fleming was educated at Eton and Sandhurst Military school, he like Bond worked in the secret service and was arguably through his presentations of Bond was a Pro-English supporter, the middle class man also as Bond did, played cards, and consumed luxuries. He was once described by Dominic Sandbrook as having “mystery” and “arrogant charm” (similar to Bond). When Fleming was told the next James Bond would be Sean Connery he was unhappy, James Bond was English and always had been, however he came round to the idea after watching Connery play the role and even then wrote Scottish ancestry into the character.

The James Bond novels were incredibly successful during the 20th century; by 1964 they had sold 22million copies. The novels were successful due to their accessibility; they were an insight for the working class, to experience luxury lifestyles and exotic locations. They appealed to a range of people, and when they eventually hit the cinema their success continued.



Kieran Hipkins

093585

Newspapers and Magazines

Session 9: Newspapers & Magazines

In the previous lecture we found that the film Quadrophenia is about Media construction and representation of events of the 1960’s, primarily through newspapers. This lecture showed how the media still plays a large part in modern popular culture.

In recent times there has been a dramatic change in the focus and style newspapers are presented. During the 1830’s-1850’s newspapers contained just text and no pictures. All headlines were of a serious tone and certain papers were targeted at certain audiences. Plus they were often written in small concentrated. However in contrast, today’s newspapers often contain large colour pictures with small text and tend to centre on more trivial topics such as popular TV show ‘The X Factor’. Such a focus has also found people questioning some newspapers priorities.

One such newspaper is ‘The Sun’ which contains serious stories but with a more relaxed and joke-like attitude. The ‘demotic’ tone used in this paper can be related to ‘the voice of the people’, which in order to appeal to the mass amount of people means prioritising shallow news over serious news.

In more recent times newspapers and magazines have become more of a commodity, which for some have taken on an entertainment stance in order to sell more. This is the commercialisation and commodification of the media. In 1896 the Daily Mail newspaper was founded and was designed to be “a compact reader friendly newspaper” aimed at the lower middle class.

Overall, the newspapers have lost their original aim – to tell the news. Many are now a commodity companies sell to certain groups to make money.