TASK 1- SCARFACE
Based in Miami a Cuban immigrant, Tony Montana takes over a cocaine drug syndicate through his motivation and dedication in striving to live the American Dream. The American Dream often known to be freedom, success, opportunity, wealth and prosperity offered in America. His greed becomes his downfall on top of going against his taboos blinding him of who in his life are loyal and trustworthy.
The film holds a stereotypical representation of women in regards to them being sexually objectified and unimportant where by their role and purpose is to sexually please their men. Elvera was seen as the most beautiful women involved in the social circle of Tony Montana, because of this she was seen as a ''trophy wife'' especially since she was married to Frank Lopez, the boss of the cartel of which Tony took over from. Elvera's reputation and role as the ''trophy wife'' also derives to the contribution of her marriage to Frank, of whom I had mentioned earlier was the former boss of the cocaine cartel. Where hierarchy and power is concerned amongst social circles and business dealings, Frank was of the highest ranking, obtaining the power to give Tony , as well as others, orders. Being Franks wife, this level of hierarchy was reflected on her negatively with the prospective that she was seen as a 'prize' for men to 'win', especially in Tony's case. This representation is seen as sexist as it portrays Elvera to be at the males beck and call. To do their bidding and not have the freedom to agree or disagree. When Tony had his place in the business as the new boss, it was shown that he felt that he owned Elvera just because of the promotion he got by killing Frank. Another contributing evidence of the negative portrayal of women is Gina Montana , Tony's younger sister. Gina was constantly being controlled by Tony. Based on his demands she was not allowed to date men Tony disapproved of, but in reality he did not want her to date anyone at all . The repercussions of her even kissing anyone resulted in domestic abuse and violence. A loud exchange of vulgur words and phrases were used alongside physical lashings of Tony slapping her and throwing her to the floor. When Gina got engaged to Tonys' best friend , Manny , he kills him without a seconds thought. This act clearly represents the level of control, power and cruelty Tony possesses. It came across as a shock as this act symbolized how Tony has lost his sense of critical judgement as well as loosing a sense of himself. Tony was known to believe in loyalty and he had been quoted in a scene when he was dealing saying ''all I ahve in this world are my balls, and my word ''. His loyalty however proved to an extent, using Frank as an example, he was dedicatedly loyal to Frank until he tried to have him killed, then Tony would sought revenge as consequences for breaking his trust and loyalty. In the eyes of the audience, Manny marrying Gina was not an act of disloyalty, but Tony killing him was. Tony killed him out of his greed to have his sister all to himself, he was extremely possessive and territorial over her. The wealthy flamboyant and lavish lifestyle Tony lived accumulated from his greed for power and wealth led him to live a life of extravagance that seemed unrealistic. This life he had acquired through his drug trafficking was presented to the audience through the linear narrative of which is also single-strand. flashbacks of the past or glimpses into the future were not present, the narratives content itself presented Tonys life from rags to riches through the series of events that occurred in his life. Events that represent society negatively. A common convention in gangster genres is how they portray society, providing the audience with a reason as to why the gangsters resort to crime in the first place. Scarface provides a insight into the family background he grew up in showing how he grew up in a single parent family whereby his mother had to provide for two children on her single income from a factory. They lived in a small bungalow with limited furnishings, and sparse space. They would be considered as a lower working class family. The scene where he reunites with his mother is bitter and unwelcoming causing much tension with Tony. The narrative represents her lack of hospitality due to her religious beliefs of which can be gathered from the picture of The Holy Mary, a religious figure in the Roman Catholic religion, being hung in her kitchen wall. Tonys mother proves that it is possible to survive on an honest job, that crime is not an option. But Tony begs to differ as he had an honest paying job as a kitchen porter but he was unsatisfied with his wages and his life. He wanted a life of extravagance.He did not want to live like his mother despite her leading an honourable life. Tony grew up poor, he may have suffered a little from poverty in Cuba as he tells Elvera '' I come from the gutter, I got no education'', but economical and social standing aside the film is continoulsy making Tonys' hatred for communists clear. In the beginning he mentioned he would ''kill a communist for fun '' and made references to communistic beliefs in his own words, saying '' they tell you what to do, what to say and what to think'' . He despises communists probably because they restrict his personal aspirations of living a life of freedom and wealth. Besides those negative political representations
the film portrayed the countrys legal authority as corrupted governance. Throughout the entire film Tony commits numerous crimes from murder,possession of drugs, drug intake and drug-trafficking, however he only gets apprehended by the police only once and that was for charges of tax evasion.This lack of social order and authority act further represents the American Dream, where wealth is adopted as American culture and the governments priority.
Tony chooses to embraces this ''American Dream'' lifestyle , he quotes ''here's the land of opportunity'' referring to America. He glorifies America thus having no remorse for the murders he commits, seeing it as part of the norm which emphasizes his love for money and power. He had told Manny his beliefs on life,''In this country, you gotta make the money first, you get the power.Then when you get the power, then you get the women. '' That line had represented his ideological thinking of what defines the ''American Dream'' . Besides that quote representing his psychological thinking of his life aspirations, it also provided a negative impression on women. It further represented how women are objectified and as I had mentioned earlier, unimportant where by their role and purpose is to sexually please their men ,to do their bidding and not have the freedom to agree or disagree, that they are materialistic and care not for themselves but for money, using sex to please and manipulate men. In addition to representation within the film include sterotypes and conventional themes of money connotating power, which is a theory Tony believed and represented through his extravagant purchase of a tiger. Having a tiger as a pet was the ultimate lavish extravagance, the tiger symbolised and represented his exorbitance of greed as well as his wealth and his dissoluteness lifestyle, the tiger in some cultures is believed to be an animal of strength and power, an animal that inspires respect and fear onto others. These values are possibly what attracted Tony into this expenditure in the first place.
The use of violence is filmed consistently throughout the entire film due to the linear narrative itself being naturally of a violent origin whereby the Beginning, Plot, and End involve mise-en-scene of guns,bullets,chainsaws, and drugs that used in violent methods and actions of the narratives characters to seek revenge. Themes of the film include vengeance, trust,lust,wealth, power, greed, love,friendship and family. The violent scenes include :
1) Chainsaw scene
2)Death of Tony
3)Tony and Monolo killing for a green card
4)Assasination attempt of Tony
5)Car bomb of wife and kids
6)Suarez Helicopterath of Monolo
7)Death of Frank
8)Death of Monolo
9) Death of Tony
Theses scenes are made to be violent so as to entertain and attract the targeted audience of which are mainly males above the age of 18.This is based on their interest and maturity of being able to watch a film of such violence.
Naturally it would appeal to male audiences around the world whom find crime and gangster themes such as drugs, guns, women, killings and money entertaining. The gangster genre is often pursued by a niche audience of viewers whom are fans of those themes. Mainly the male gender as they seem to enjoy these themes more than females.The certification viewing of the film has been rated ‘18’ for strong use of brutal violence, sex, language and drug content. In the U.K a rating of a ‘18’ classified film is restricted to an age requirement of 18 years old and over. I personally deem this as acceptable, however based on international standards of viewing certification, the film can be certified in other countries for audiences as young as 12 in some countries such as France to watch this film. In this case where these countries have certified the film as acceptable for viewing under the age of 18 years old , I strongly disagree. The content of the film holds explicit violent and disturbing scenes that an audience whom is not yet physically or emotionally matured is incapable of fully understanding the film as well as being able to have the capability to not let the films content influence them to an extent. Psychologically speaking, 12 year olds are at an age whereby they are becoming teenagers but yet are still too young to experience drugs, alcohol or smoking let alone witness it in such detail that is portrayed in the film to be a ‘lifestyle’ . Moreover teenagers as young as 12 years old tend to have ‘copy-cat’ tendencies whereby they are easily influenced by anything they find intriguing. Thus I strongly believe an audience below the age of 18 should not be exposed to such violent films. Especially Scarface as their scenes are highly disturbing whereby violence such as profanity,sex,nudity,drugs,and killings are glorified and not always condemned by disguising as an achievement of power and respect.
As Tony gets wealthier, he becomes greedier, loosing the people around him. His self-presumptuous and overbearing, cocky personality pushes the people whom love him away. Elvera leaves him not being able to withstand his attitude any longer. He kills Manny of whom was his most loyal and trustful accomplice as well as his best friend. He looses Gina indirectly because of his act of selfishness to keep her to himself. She barges into his room demanding an explanation but instead gets shot by enemies Tony has made along his rise to the top. In the end his death resulted in gun shots to his back where he did not notice his enemy creep up behind him. His death though deemed to be cowardly of the enemy and weak of Tony to die from especially because of his strong powered ego, his death represented how he literally had ''no one to watch his back''. The people he loved had left him alone and vulnerable all because of where his greed and lead him. The clear apex of his downfall was when he broke his taboo, ''don't get high on your own supply'' by burying his face in a pile of cocaine, representing and symbolising his destruct.
TASK 1- CITY OF GOD
With a non-linear,multi-strand narrative ( as shown in picture 1 and picture 2 depicted below) that incorporates flashbacks and three main ''stories'' as known in film as 'the story of Tender trio', 'the story of Lil'ze' and 'the story of Knockout Ned'.
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| PICTURE 1 |
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| PICTURE 2 |
Located in Brazil in the Fravela which translated in English means slums, the film explores crime through the lives of their local youngsters. A similar convention City of God uses that is present in British gangster film, Lock Stock and Two smoking barrels is voice-over narration.A technical quality that adds more of a background story to the narrative itself that is not shown visually. Portraying the narrative through cameras and filming techniques produces a visual understanding of the narrative which is the main concept of film- to visually produce a story. However,combined with a voice-over narration creates a greater depth of emotion and exaggeration to the film providing the audience with information that is absent from the conventional technicality of just filming. A voice over narration also expresses a more creative platform for producing the narrative. The main protagonists in City of God are children. Whether the films director Fernando Meirelles, intended the audience to be children or not, he had definitely represented a child-likeness aspect to the narrative that is often included in child targeted films such as fairytales. This 'child-likeness' aspect that I refer to in his style of presenting the narrative is not only the voice over narration that is conventionally used in Disney films in introducing ''Once Upon a Time'' but also the 'message' of the entirety of the narrative. I believe the 'message' Fernando Meirelles is trying to put across to his audience is similar to the 'morals' of a story whereby the film leaves the audience with something to think about or something new they've leaned. Specifically these 'messages' the narrative portrays, I believe to be the following:
1) A generation learns from its generation before. Thus the present generation should lead as a good example to be followed by younger children.
2) A country lacking in social order, poor economical standing and poverty will likely make its people resort to crime for their only means of survival.
3) Crime is a cycle that is hard to get out of.
4) Society plays a major role in influencing crime.
Moreover the genre of the film reflects the narratives content of being violent through numerous gang rivalry of which I believe contribute to the Binary Oppositions within the narrative. An example of gang rivalry was with Lil'ze's gang and Carrots gang. Binary oppositions include :
Police vs Gangs
Honesty vs Dishonesty
Rich vs Poor
Values of women whom wanted their men to leave the gang life vs The men whom wanted to stay or found it very hard to leave.
Furthermore form the point I made about Genre, the film consists of themes that are conventionally present in the gangster genre. For instance, themes of loyalty, betrayal, money,drugs, drug trafficking, poverty, social inequality and corrupted governance are always present in gangster films though, represented diversely varying from film. Especially when mise-en-scenes such as guns,money and drugs drives the genre forward, it is no wonder City of God is no different despite containing certain controversial features that caused tention amongst its audience. Age of the characters being the main objective of controversy. A scene in the film where by childs foot is being shot with a gun by another child being forced to do so by Lil'ze . I label the scene to be utterly disturbing and awfully sad. The contributing connotation that the technical cinematography used, exaggerated the action of that scene , deeming it to be even more intolerable to withstand and watch.
The scene, pictured below was filmed shakily at a low angle, this angle is believed to be from Lil'ze's accomplice whom was about the same age as the victim you see in the screenshot below. So, despite this shot deeming to be a low angle shot, it is actually a point of view shot of the boy whom Lil'ze forced to do the shooting. This technique further enhances realism, thus making the audience feel even more fearful and uneasy. The boy being shot is seen to be realistically crying, begging and screaming extremely loudly overemphasising the connotation of his fears and the sympathy the audience should be feeling. The victims clothing of printed cartoon dinosaurs exaggerates the childs innocence deeming him to be even more childlike. Creating more of an emotional impact to the audience.
The screenshot of the same scene shown below was taken from a behind the shoulder shot of which I believe is another contributing factor of the technical cinematography techniques used to connote meaning within the film , aiding to impact the audience. The shot was taken at this position to possibly portray the action of 'spying' . An innocent child-like action children do.
Besides these specific examples of the technical conventions, throughout the whole film Point of View shots are used consistently as well as the Shaky camera cinematographic technique of filming which provides more realism to the scenes as it connotes a unprofessional , unplanned, unrehearsed and unprepared technique of filming. A wide range of filming techniques were used for this film including extreme close-up, close-ups, fade ins and fade outs as well as high angles, eye level angles, low angles, mid shots, medium long shots, long shot and extreme long shot can be seen below:
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The representation of crime is shown to be due to the distinct difference of social classes within the country Brazil. In the film, the rich and poor are represented by their surroundings and occupations. For instance, the rich state in the film was called Rio whereby people in that town were culturally diverse with Brazilian and Portuguese and Caucasian people. The streets of Rio was also often filmed with upbeat traditional Brazilian music filling every shop and household , it also was where the beach scene was filmed. The presence of nature is a contributing factor of wealth, in City of Gods case, it was the beach and the companies and occupational jobs the people acquired such as the journalist whom Rocket lost his virginity to and the newspaper company he began to photograph for. The Favela on the other hand was known as the 'Slums' according to the English translation of that word. The buildings within that town were dilapidated with open sewage's, dusty sandy floors representing the severity of poverty.Representing clearly social inequality. Another reflection of poverty are the characters themselves, their ages varying from 3 - 19 years old. None of them were seen attending school or receiving an education which is a possible reason as to why they've resorted to crime and have been brought up in such environment where crime is common. Economical issues aside, the film portrayed the government as corrupted. The lack of social order present when Lil'ze got away for drug trafficking and murder when the police accepted his bribery made it clear that corruption within a governance, poor economical and political structure that make its people suffer from poverty and social inequality influences and plays a part in its people resorting to crime. The film represented how society can be to blame for crime. This representation is conventional in gangster films. Other conventional representations include the portrayal of women. Women are sexually objectified but yet represented positively and negatively. I say this because Angelica and Bernice, girlfriends of Shaggy and Benny tried to persuade their boyfriends to leave the gang and 'start a new life' elsewhere , away from the violence and gang activities . This was a positive representation of women, how they hold morally righteous values . However they used their sexual hold on them to encourage them to do so,their only influence being sex.Both men die from trying to escape their gang life, making them partly responsible for their deaths. When Rocket looses his virginity to the female journalist, she had used sex to manipulate him, representing the only power women can obtain is through sex which portrays them to be extremely weak and incapable of getting what they want through other means besides sex. Power and hierarchy is witnessed in the film with Lil'ze in the position of obtaining the most power and authority in the Favelas. His power is represented through his cocky and confident personality of which he fears no one , not even the police, not even his own conscious thus he murders without an ounce of thought or remorse. He walks around with his gun in hand waving it around smugly, confidently assured that no one will dare cross him nor agitate or provoke him. Power is conventionally represented by the male gender. Men assert their power through their guns, murders,drugs and occasionally women. When Lil'ze raped Knockout Neds girlfriend, he enforced a hierarchy of power over Knockout Ned. Also the act of raping this girl was an act of sexual gratification as well as male dominance over women. An example of how power and women are represented. The act of the woman getting raped was not only disrespectful but also provided a derogatory representation of how women are sexually objectified.
The primary
target audience is made clear instantly when the language spoken in the film is
Portugese and the location suggests the film is set in Brazil. The title ‘City
Of God’ is an actual location within Brazil, which also clearly shows the
intended target audience are of Brazilian or Portugese descent. Besides this,
the films director, Fernando Meirelles is distinctly brazillian by his cultural
name. With these factors of Brazilian and Portuguese culture behind the background of the film, suggests
the film to have been directed and produced under a Brazillian film industry.
City of God was distributed by Brazillian based production and distribution company-
02 Filmes and Globo Filmes. It gained international recognition when it was
entered into the Cannes Film Festival in 2003. Like other film industries ,
actors, directors and producers are from
their local film industry due to convenience and understanding of culture and
languages. For instance in the Hollowood film industry people involved in the
production of Hollywood film are of American nationallity as well as other
English speaking nationals. The same theory is applied to Bollywood film, where
by crew and production members are from India. Because of this the primary
audience of City of God are most likely to be of Brazillian ethnicity as well
as of Portuguese national due to the likelihood of the film being in the
language of Portuguese. The actors
ethnicity, the films language and the directors cultural background suggests
the primary audience to be of a certain ethnicity and cultural heritage because
they deem fit to understand the language and possible themes of Brazillian and
Portugese culture within the film, the secondary audience is suggested to be
English language literate. This is because of the genre itself and that the
film is available with English subtitles. City of God is a gangster genre.
Naturally it would appeal to male audiences around the world whom find crime
and gangster themes such as drugs, guns, women, killings and money entertaining.
The gangster genre is often pursued by a niche audience of viewers whom are fans
of those themes. Mainly the male gender as they seem to enjoy these themes more
than females.
The certification
viewing of the film has been rated ‘R’
for strong use of brutal violence, sex, language and drug content. In the U.K a
rating of a ‘R’ classified film is restricted to an age requirement of 18 years
old and over. I personally deem this as acceptable, however based on
international standards of viewing certification, the ‘R’ can be audiences as
young as 14 in some countries such as Austria and 16 years old in Germany,
Argentina and Israel. In this case where these countries have certified the
film as acceptable for viewing under the age of 18 years old , I strongly
disagree. The content of the film holds explicit violent and disturbing scenes
that an audience whom is not yet physically or emotionally matured is incapable
of fully understanding the film as well as being able to have the capability to
not let the films content influence them to an extent. Psychologically speaking, 14 year olds are at
an age whereby they becoming young adults but yet are still too young to
experience drugs, alcohol or smoking let alone witness it in such detail that
is portrayed din the film to be a ‘lifestyle’ . Moreover teenagers as young as 14 years old tend to
have ‘copy-cat’ tendencies whereby they are easily influenced by anything they
find intriguing. Thus I strongly believe an audience below the age of 18 should
not be exposed to such violent films. Especially City of God as their scenes
are highly disturbing whereby violence such as profanity,sex,nudity,drugs,and killings are glorified and not always condemned
by disguising as an achievement of power and respect.
TASK 1- LOCK,STOCK & TWO SMOKING BARRELS
A group of grown up men, involve themselves with a gangster, Hatchet Harry, through their poor plan of wanting to con him during an illegal gambling game of Three card Brag. Eddy, Tom, Soap and Bacon enter themselves into a heist, further incriminating them with more criminal acts. It's a non linear narrative due to the only flashback witnessed throughout the entire film, the scene whereby Bacon,Eddy and Tom walk into a pub and a man on fire comes running out from it. It is only as the narrative progresses, audiences find out that it was Rory Breakers doing,through a flashback. Despite the characters digging themselves a deeper grave as they go on this heist of getting back £100,000 by involving themselves in more illegal actives, Bacon,Eddy and Tom were already established small time thieves, selling stolen goods on the black market. The opening scenes showcases Bacon on a market stall, with a brief case of random miscellaneous items he hopes to sell to the customers of whom he entices through his comic tone of voice and language,he cracks a few Cockney jokes of which he then admits his items were ''hand stolen in Stepney''. The cockney language as well as the accent not only entices his customers, but also appeals to the target audience watching the film. Based on the opening scene alone, it is clear whom the intended target audience of this film is for. It is targeted at the British audience of whom would relate to the jokes of which are distinctly British.An example of cockney slang heard in the opening scene was ''Bacon Croggers'' and '' Don't stand there like 1 o'clock half struck''. Using the cockney language or dialect makes a clear reference of whom the intended audience are, while also representing British culture. Moreover the intended audience would also include the male gender over the age of 18 due to the films content. Its' exclusively male characters involved within the narrative contributes as a factor for the targeted audience. Based on the location of the characters- London and their accents, they are classified as Working Class, perhaps the target audience would be of the same social standing as the film would appeal to them more and be understood culturally and linguistically more too.
The certification viewing of the film has been rated ‘18’ for strong use of brutal violence, sex, language and drug content. In the U.K a rating of a ‘18’ classified film is restricted to an age requirement of 18 years old and over. I personally deem this as acceptable, however based on international standards of viewing certification, the film can be watched by audiences as young as 12 in some countries such as Japan. In this case where these countries have certified the film as acceptable for viewing under the age of 18 years old , I strongly disagree. The content of the film holds explicit violent scenes that an audience whom is not yet physically or emotionally matured is incapable of fully understanding the film as well as being able to have the capability to not let the films content influence them to an extent. Psychologically speaking, 12 year olds are at an age whereby they becoming young adults but yet are still too young to experience drugs, alcohol or smoking let alone witness it in such detail that is portrayed din the film to be a ‘lifestyle’ . Moreover teenagers as young as 12 years old tend to have ‘copy-cat’ tendencies whereby they are easily influenced by anything they find intriguing. Thus I strongly believe an audience below the age of 18 should not be exposed to such violent films.
Furthermore with regards to representation , the characters in the film represent a typical Middle class demographic in the U.K . This representation of their characters whom are defined as Middle Class purely based on their accents and location, reflects the U.K's social economical standing.Characters are not poor or suffering severely from poverty , despite this they still choose to turn to crime. A cycle that is lead by generations is now created. Why they've resorted to crime despite having been brought up in a comfortable environment, is uncommon. Crime is often influential especially in an environment whereby education has a strong presence . Parental guidance plays a major part in the influence of crime as witnessed in the scene in the film where children are involved in crime, following suit after the adults. The child i'm referring to is Lil ' Chris, Big Chris's son whom is only a little boy. Witnessing Lil' Chris accompanying his fathers in settling debts shown in the picture below.
Before the characters made the mistake of deciding to con Hatchet Harry at his own game of cards, the characters were already capable of supporting themselves, despite 3 out of 4 of them earning their living through theft, they weren't entirely suffering from their poverty neither were they completely unhappy about it. Their decision to con Hatcher Harry was out of greed and confidence that they will be able to succeed with their plan, little did they know that the game was rigged. Other factors that drive the film forward , especially in this gangster genre, such as guns, money and women are represented as obtaining power and respect . Eddy,Tom, Soap and Bacon often are seen wearing black leather jackets or coats, in fact majority of the characters in the film are. This item of clothing represents their masculinity while highlighting their toughness and solidarity to remain loyal to one another, a theme conventionally in the gangster genre. Women are conventionally objectified sexually as being strippers seen in strip clubs and most often seen nude. Where as the males are the dominant characters possessing authoritative roles in the film such as the gangsters,policemen,business men, pub owner, loan shark and gambler.
With themes and mise-en-scenes of drugs,guns,murders and illegal gambling the genre of Lock,Stock and Two Smoking Barrels makes their genre clear that is is a film filled with crime and illegal dealings, classifying it as gangster.
The picture below is an example of how women were sexualised in the film negatively.
TASK 2- AUDIENCE THEORY,EFFECTS AND RESPONSES
Hypodermic Needle Theory defined as the theory of which audiences passively accepts information he/she has received from the media, without the audience making any attempt to process, challenge or interpret the message themselves, generating an ideological thinking that whatever the media produces is unrecognisable to them as false, due to them being unable to distinguish the difference between 'life' and 'film'. The theory was formed in 1920 when propaganda used media as an advantage to control the minds of people. Recognising and establishing media as having a powerful influence on society and its people through its ability to directly influence a person solely based on the theory.
The theory, until present has proven to be a major psychological aspect of media providing for its audience. Nowadays there are so many forms of media that include, advertising, publications, journalism, television and film of which sole purposes was innocently to entertain an audience, however with the ongoing development of technology always expanding and introducing new machinery and ideas, economies in countries are increasing and countries have become wealthier since the first introduction to media and so media is now deemed as a business. Its purpose is not to merely entertain but also produce a large profit of earnings. The hypodermic needle theory can psychologically have either a negative or positive impact on it audience. An advertisement ,for instance, encourages its target audience to purchase or be attracted to the product it is advertising.
Audiences can be classified in many ways, however the two main classification that relate to the Hypodermic theory is the Active and Passive audience. The Active audience allows for the media to not influence them, they are able to filter information received from the media and choose for themselves, what to believe and what not to believe. The Active audience is said to be the audience of which the media is influenced by. On the other hand, the Passive audience is known to be the audience of which is influenced by media because they are unable to independently think for themselves on whether to believe the information they receive from the media, thus allowing the media to control their thoughts as if the media was 'injecting' the information directly into their brains. Propaganda used during the 1930's was the Hypodermic Needle Theory set in notion. During the war, propaganda was used to politically persuade and influence a nation. During then, the public were greatly influence by what they heard on the radio, seen on television and posters and in cinemas before their film started and after it ended. Propaganda effected the public so much because it was first introduced as a communication platform for bomb sheltering signals as well as a transparency fallacy where news about he war was received through.Because of it's intended purpose, it was seen as a trustworthy by the people. Since then, media and technology has been advanced so much to the point we have changed our purposes of it, thus what we understand from it is based on our intentions of viewing it in the first place, which in turn enables the active audience to form their own opinion of it.
With regards to the theorys' effects on film and its audience, it has been proven that the theory has applied to a passive audience and has had an immense response in return. In 1993 a murder was committed by two , 10 year old boys in Liverpool, England. The boys had murdered a 3 year old boy, Jamie Bulger. They committed this murder influenced by renowned horror film , Chucky. The two boys, Venables and Thomson had abducted Jamie and constantly tortured him by beating and kicking him, putting blue paint into his left eye, stuffing his mouth with batteries, throwing stones at him as well as dropping a 10kg iron railway bar onto him, before throwing him under a train of which his body was severed in half. He had suffered a total of 42 injuries and was said to have been dead before being thrown under the train. These horrendous acts Thomson and Venables committed were recognized as scenes contained in the '18' rated horror film, Chucky, where a possessed doll is immortal and cannot be killed after many attempts of trying to do so.
Evidently, Thomson and Venable were underage when they watched this movie and should not have viewed the film in the first instance. The Hypodermic Needle theory effected them to such an extent that they were incapable to distinguish between 'real-life' and film , their moralistic values deemed as non existing as the film had influenced them greatly to the point of committing abduction, torture and murder; allowing for what they witnessed and understood from the film to control their minds,views,ideas and actions unconsciously without realising the psychological damage it had already inflicted upon them the second they decided to watch that film.
Unit 6 Critical Approaches to Media- Gangster Article
THUG CULTure
By Theresa Raj
The
release of The Musketeers of Pig Alley in 1912 marked
the beginning of the gangster era in film. A century and a '' there's
no turning back'' warning later, has proven that the genre is not going
anywhere anytime soon. It will in fact remain to be an acknowledgeable
contribution to the genres in film. Enjoyed mainly by male audiences for its
violent narrative and lifestyle of characters. Gangster films often revolve
around money, drugs, women, guns and power. A typical males fantasy, realistic
to an extent when you minus the drugs, guns and possibly the money and you’re
left with the ideology of a dominant male. It is no wonder women often despise
this genre and not because of the poor representation of women and how they are
sexually objectified, but because it fails to portray women as the dominant
character and chooses instead to symbolise them as the males submissive.
The
gangster genre may not be old fashioned but the stereotypes of women in its
films are. We are now living in a century where women are just as capable as
men in obtaining power and deserving of respect, so why not instil gender
equality values and either stop portraying women as mens personal sex drives or
have women be the lead in films and let them be the thugs instead?
Not only would it appeal to the male audience, but now
expanding to the female audiences too. Possibly doubling box office profits.
That is change I hope to witness in the future when it comes to target
audience. Sexist conventions aside, the main reason why the genre is so popular
is do with everything from the films’ narrative, cinematography, violent
content and representation.
Box
office $65.9 million renowned film, Scarface has rumoured to have set the
standards for all gangster films .With a linear narrative revolved around Cuban
immigrant, Tony Montana, played by Al Pacino, who ventures into America to
pursue ''The American Dream'' with nothing but his witty tongue and cocky
little attitude and high ambitions. He aspires to be a millionaire, declaring
his claim on America as his motherland, a ‘land of opportunities’. The film
showcases his rise to power from having little money and respect to becoming a
Drug Lord, distributing and shipping drugs for millions of dollars, gaining the
respect of other gangsters and the trophy woman, Elvera , played by Michelle
Pfeiffer. A narrative with an outline of an average mans dream of wanting to
earn more money and having to work his way up. Because it is a realistic
expectation of society, it’s relatable, thus attracting and pleasing the
audience.
This
brings me to another conventional theme often incorporated into gangster films
- politics. A corrupted government where the criminals like Tony Montana get
away scot free for murder and drugs but yet get charged for not paying the
correct taxes. The corrupted governance and lack of social order is a
conventional aspect of the gangster genre. City of God, another renowned
gangster film, represents how poverty and a country lacking of social
economical standing will in turn effect it's people by making them resort to a
life of crime to survive on illegal money. It strongly represents how society
has a major influence in crime. The characters in City of God, known as Rocket,
Lil'ze, Shaggy, Benny, Carrot, Knockout Ned, Goose and many more of their
accomplices are all children of which we see grown up into teenagers later on.
Witnessing them grow up reflects how the involvement of crime is a cycle that
is really hard to come out from. Likewise for Scarface and Lock Stock and Two
Smoking Barrels. This cycle of crime is also seen in Lock Stock and Two Smoking
Barrels where a little boy called Lil Chris accompanies his dad, Big Chris in
settling debts.
The
involvement of children further exaggerates how crime is a cycle that
incorporates the generations before the resent generation. The backstory of
crime always derives from the economical standing of a country. Politics always
has a part to blame in crime, a reoccurring theme I've noticed having watched a
handful number gangster genre films. If you promise not to shoot, and with my
hands up from behind my back, I'll be honest and say-‘I think they’re right’.
Peoples involvement in crime would not exist had society not provided them with
the means to a strict education system enforced by families whom have received
a more disciplined approach to education. The gangster genre reflects its
narrative as well as it characters lifestyle through the technical conventions
of the genre. Their crimes involve dealings hosted in dark back alleys of
run-down streets in poverty stricken town areas, filmed in dark lighting away
from prying policeman eyes. The gangsters are either seen wearing black leather
clothing, emphasising their tough masculinity and ruggedly expressions shielding
their secrecy as a mystery or like Tony Montana in neon suits and mismatched
patterns that go with his tacky flamboyant leopard printed cushions in his
car’s interior.
Either
way, the gangster characters as well as the gangster lifestyle are cinematographically
represented through the technical conventions, throughout the
films Point of View shots ; used consistently as well as the Shaky camera
cinematographic technique of filming which provides more realism to the scenes
as it connotes a unprofessional , unplanned, unrehearsed and unprepared
technique of filming. A wide range of filming techniques were used for this
film including extreme close-up, close-ups, fade ins and fade
outs as well as high angles, eye level angles, low angles, mid shots, medium
long shots, long shot and extreme long shot , and panning that follows gun shots
connoting fear and weakness of the character as well as the strength of the
bullet, incorporating cut aways to exaggerate fighting scenes and violent
emotions, pans and tracking to track characters movement as well as shots taken
close-up to portray emotion and feeling engaging the audience even further.
Varying shot types have been used for various reasons such as low angle to make
the subject appear imperia and high angle to deem them inferior, these
techniques are witnessed in City of God, Scarface and Lock,Stock and Two
Smoking Barrels.
Furthermore,
representations within the Gangster genre are mainly misogynistic, and
egotistic of the male gender. In summary, females are sexually objectified
often acting as strippers, prostitutes dressed proactively or portrayed as the
‘trophy wife' as seen in Scarface. Women are merely the pawns of male dominance
in gangster lifestyles, submitting to sexual desires and fantasies. Men on the other
hand are represented overly masculine. The genres mise-en-scene’s contributes to
a big part of this masculinity through the characters costume colours of
monochrome and black leather jackets as seen in Lock Stock and Two Smoking
Barrels. The colour black is often associated with power, death, mystery, fear
and negative connotations. White associates with themes of strength, power,
cold and wealth. These themes and emotions drive the narrative of the gangster
genre forward. Without these representations connotating and denotating
violence, the gangster genre will cease to be a success. Weapons as wells as
drugs and a corrupted governance represent the gangsters personalities to be rebellious
and unruly. Ultimately their lack or morals and social behaviour represent their
role as gangsters within the narrative. As previously mentioned, the gangster
genre often represent a lower class demographic , whereby people of less affluent
backgrounds turn to crime to escape their poverty stricken lifestyle. This representation provides not only a
distinct understanding to gangsters choice of lifestyle but also the entirety
of the genres purpose of the protagonists striving to be rich.
With
violence surrounding gangster films, it specifically refers to the murderous
crimes committed lacking remorse and compassion to its victims, killed with
lethal weapons all due to the involvement of a frivolous insignificant
substance known as drugs. Without all the contributing factors of violence,the
film would not be classified as a gangster genre. The violence is used to drive
the narrative forward, it is a vital component in gangster films. Without the
murders, the drugs, the illegal actives, and stocks of guns the film would fail
to exist as a gangster genre.
I once
was questioned whether gangster films are too violent, my answer was ‘no’. It
is expected that a gangster film be violent, cruel and brutal to the best
possible extent. If there’s going to be any inhumane murders and killings
scenes in a film in general, it would be in a gangster film. How little
violence a film considers to be ‘gangster’ is debatable, for instance some
argue that Lock, Stock and Two smoking barrels is more comedic than it is
‘gangster’. Based on the characters backgrounds, occupations and if there was a
gun pointed at my face (hopefully that wouldn’t be the case) I would say,
without a doubt, that the film qualifies as Gangster. The limitation of the
exposure to the violence however is immeasurable. There is no limit. Gangster
is gangster. Crime,murders,drugs and sex is limitless. It’s a gangster genre,
afterall.
Nonetheless
the genre has to be Audience Certified accurately and accordingly to the degree
of violent content it contains. The content of
the film holds explicit violent and disturbing scenes that an audience whom is
not yet physically or emotionally matured is incapable of fully understanding
the film as well as being able to have the capability to not let the films
content influence them to an extent. Psychologically speaking, anyone
under the age of 18 are teenagers and yet too young to experience drugs,
alcohol or smoking let alone witness it in such detail that is portrayed in the
film to be a ‘lifestyle’ .
Moreover teenagers tend to have ‘copy-cat’
tendencies whereby they are easily influenced by anything they find intriguing.
Thus I strongly believe an audience below the age of 18 should not be exposed
to such violent films. Especially when the genre contains scenes that are
highly disturbing whereby violence such as profanity,sex,nudity,drugs,and
killings are glorified and not always condemned by disguising as an achievement
of power and respect. Films of such
violent cultures should be strictly certified of at least ‘R’, allowing only an
audience of and older than 18 years old to watch it to ensure they have
physically and psychologically reached the age of where there are able to watch
the film without it having a negative influence on them as well as being
capable to decipher and filter on their own accord, what they want to abstract
from it.
Assuming the role of the Active Audience
themselves. Anyone under the age of 18 are incapable of doing this simply
because of their mental and physical state.The
Passive audience is known to be the audience of which is influenced by media
because they are unable to independently think for themselves on whether to
believe the information they receive from the media, thus allowing the media to
control their thoughts as if the media was 'injecting' the information directly
into their brains.It has been proven that the theory has applied to a
passive audience and has had an immense negative response in return of which
the audience allowed for the film to control their minds, views, ideas and
actions unconsciously without realising the psychological damage it had already
inflicted upon them the second they decided to watch that film.
A theory known to better understand this, is the
Hypodermic Needle theory.
Defined as the theory of which audiences passively accepts
information he/she has received from the media, without the audience making any
attempt to process, challenge or interpret the message themselves, generating
an ideological thinking that whatever the media produces is unrecognisable to
them as false, due to them being unable to distinguish the difference between
'life' and 'film'. If a child was to watch a film classified as gangster,
it would have to employ vast amounts of censorship leaving nothing but a film
that is not gangster. Audience classification must be taken seriously and
monitored that children do not watch it by ‘mistake’.
Interestingly enough, however the viewers certification is
always revolving and does not always stay the same. For instance, Lock Stock
and Two Smoking Barrels was released in 1998 with a ‘R’ rating certification
standing for ‘strictly above 18’ aged audience for its strong use of language,
violence and sexual content. 23 years later it is now a ‘16’ classified film
for audiences of 16 years old and above. Rating standards and films audience
classification laws has greatly changed over time. This is possibly due to the
constant introduction of new governing laws and classifications for films as
well as technology evolving and becoming more familiar to our society .
Boundaries are consistently being challenged with regards to the filming
industry and thus laws must be updated to allow the entertainment business to fulfil
its’ audiences expectations. A film that used to be rated a ‘R’ in 1912 is
rated a ‘PG’ 2015.It’s human nature that human beings evolve and develop
through their generations and as a society
, our cultures become more acceptive and tolerant of certain attitudes and
conducts.
Until Gangster films are banned and deemed entirely unacceptable
of which then cease to exist; for now, I suggest you ‘ead down to the Nags Head
and grab ‘urself a pint of lager and stay away from the coppers.
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