Narrative

Roland Barthes-  "a galaxy of signifiers, not a structure of signifieds; it has no beginning; it is reversible; we gain access to it by several entrances, none of which can be authoritatively declared to be the main one; the codes it mobilizes extend as far as the eye can read, they are indeterminable...the systems of meaning can take over this absolutely plural text, but their number is never closed, based as it is on the infinity of language"

Genre
Character
Form
Time

What he is basically saying is that a media text is like a tangled ball of threads which needs unravelling so we can separate out the colours. Once we start to unravel a text, we encounter an large number of potential meanings. We can start by looking at narrative in one way, from one viewpoint, bringing to bear one set of previous experience, and create one meaning for that text. You can continue by unravelling the narrative from a different angle by pulling a different thread if you like and create a entirely different meaning, and so on. An infinite number of times, if you wanted to. (THERE ARE NO LIMITS TO NARRATIVE INTERPREATIONS)

Pam Cook- Stories/Narratives should have a beginning, a middle and an end (linearity) in which somthing happens (cause and effect) causing a series of problems (enigmas) which to be solved (resolution). THEY SHOULD ALL INCLUDE A BEGINNING, MIDDLE AND END.

Tzvetan Todrov- 5 stages of narrative;
1) A state of equilibrium (all is as it should be)
2) A disruption of that order by an event
3) A recognition that disrupition has taken place
4) An attempt to repair the damage of the disruption
5) A return or restoration of a new equilibrium

Vladimir Propp- Propps concluded that regardless of the individual differences in terms of plot, characters and settings, such narratives would share common strucural features.
He also concluded that all the characters could be resolved into only seven character types in the 100 tales he analysed:
1) The Villain- struggles against hero
2) The donor- prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object
3) The (magical) helper- helps the hero in the quest
4) The princess and her father- gives the task to the hero, identifies the false hero, marries the hero, often sought  for during the narrative. Propp noted that functionally, the princess and the father can not be clearly distinguished
5) The dispatcher- character who makes the lack known and sends the hero off
6) The hero or victim/seeker hero- reacts to the donor, weds the princess
7) [False hero]- takes credit for the hero's action or tries to marry the princess

Claude Levi Strauss- Binary oppositions
His ideas about narrative amount to the fact that he believed all stories operated to certain clean Binary Opposites e.g good vs evil, black vs white, rich vs poor.
The importance of these ideas is that essentially a complicated world is reduced to a simple either/or structure. things are either right or wrong, good or bad. There is no in between.

 



The Binary oppositions for this music video are:
Black vs White
Man vs Women
Domestic vs Breadwinner
Danger vs Safety

Representation

Possible questions:

1. How does your video represent different social groups/people/places/lifestyle? What values/ideologies are you representing/promoting?
2. Does you production create a hegmonic (dominate) representation/ Does it represent and reinforce the dominant ideology?
3. What positive/negative/sterotypical connotations and representation are you constructing/using/challenging.?
4. How are represenations in your production the products of your own culutural experience/background/ideology/value.

What would Laura Mulvey say about your production???

"the gaze is male whenever it directs itself at, and takes pleasure in, women, where women function as erotic objects" - Laura Mulvey.

Laura Mulvey is controversial individual in the media due to producing the term 'Male Gaze' in 1975. She introduced her beliefs that film audiences have to view characters from the perspective of a heterosexual male. For example, the video is based around women and using them sexually to create a viewing point for the males. However, females can see it in three set ways, how men look at women, how women look at themselves, and how women look at other women. I believe this has potentially played a big part of how society has been shaped and led to the insecurities of women today and how many feel the need to be 'perfect' and criticise the way they look, particularly if the focus is continually on women in a sexual way. Women often feel the need to change how they are for this reason.

Features of the Male Gaze include the camera shots and editing focusing on the female body and attractive parts of the body such as a women's figure and curves, exploiting their sexual aspects. There are also features regarding events which happen to the women but are presented in the aspect of the man's reaction. The way the women is portrayed, immediately produces the main focus on them and the way the male interact and view them. Although, there is also a slight focus on the male and the representation of the males and how the females view them. However, they are secondary and this is seen as not as important, showing how the main focus is from the male point of view.

 

Reflective view- Creating a identical replication. E.g News

Intentional view- Opposite of reflective, representation of person presenting. E.g an attractive person in a coke advert

Constructionist view- A Response to what has been seen as a weakness on the other two theories.

1. The thing itself

2.The opinions of people doing the represenation.

3. The reaction of the individual to the representation.

4. The context of the society in which the representation is taking place.

E.g the film Independance Day

 

John Berger- "men act women appear"

                      "men look at women, woman watch themselves being watched"

 

Barthes- Sexualisation

 

Walter Lippmann- a shortcut or ordering process  in ideological terms, stereotyping is a means byw hich support is provided by a groups differences against another. The way we see things automatically pick out things palcing them into sterotypes by us.

 

Richard Dyer (1997)

Details that if we are able to be told that we are going to see a film about an alcoholic then we will know that it will be a tale either of sordid decline or of insuring redervition.

Suggests that this is partisucarly interesting potentional use of stereotypes.