In the lectures and seminars on representation, we firstly looked at the typical representation and stereotypes that films often apply to the locations and characters and then looked into the way film makers have begun to challenge representation, including locations and sexuality. Because films have to convey a lot of information to the viewer in a small amount of time, the film makers have to create stereotypes for us to catch on right away what type of character we are being introduced to and how the fit into the story. However, this can become dangerous due to the viewers then assuming everyone in the real world who is female, gay, black ect has the same characteristics as they see in all these films.
Films portray representation of people, places, objects, events and cultures. I learnt that when these factors are represented in a certain way, not everyone will absorb that representation in the same manner. Such as if England was represented as a posh, polite and elegance place within a movie, Americans may think this is a great representation of England. However, if English people were to watch this who lived around the country, may have to completely different view on the real England.
The first film we watched, with a reference to representation, was Enchanted, about a fairytale group who find themselves stuck in the real world of New York City. This film is a great example of typical Hollywood representation and stereotypes, beginning with post feminist text with the typical classic fairytale and outdated feminism. Such as the main character, Giselle, is dependant on the two men to save her and help her out. She is vulnerable and a pretty, delicate woman. Giselle is also portrayed as immature. which is even compared visually when she is with the mature 6 year old girl. Then we have the hero prince and the man who takes her in. These two characters combined represent the typical man stereotype with the prince being strong with his sword and the man with his high-end job as a lawyer. However, this film was openly aware of their stereotypes and sexism with the characters,, with the fairytale theme, taking it to an extreme. This includes The angry black pump woman, storming off the bus. A very big stereotype we see in Hollywood productions, especially children's programmes, such as Hannah Montana and Drake and Josh, portraying large black woman as scary.Enchanted also contains the Jamaican men singing with their maracas, very happily, another stereotype with happy Jamaicans. The tramp and ugly old woman, who are both old, shown as evil and the young shown as good.
However, although Enchanted is widely stereotypical, i think the film-makers had my next topic of discussion, challenging representation, in mind as they cleverly show the ridiculousness of the classic Hollywood fairytale narratives and representations against reality, bringing the fairytale characters into the 'real world'. Showing them singing openly in central park and rodents cleaning up the house.
In the second lecture on representation, we watched La Haine (Kassovitz,1995), about 3 young boys living in France, showing the barrier between the middle-class and working class. This film did not show the typical representation of France however, showing the outskirts of Paris and the rough gritty realist areas of where they are living, rather than what the rest of the world would imagine Paris to be. When I think of Paris, I think 'beautiful romantic city' like many others, as that's how it's been portrayed in most other films that is our window to the world. However, this film shows you a different angle and even bases the narrative on Hate which La Haine is translated to. This therefore begins to challenge the stereotypical representation of films. Although I couldn't quite follow the storyline, i did however find the different angle of representation very interesting and a breath of fresh air.
I have previously spoke about the representation of black people in the film Enchanted and it's extremely stereotyped. However, A big TV series in 1977 was to change the typical representation and show a black history from their eyes with the ABC series Roots (ABC,1977). This shined a light onto black slavery and the struggles and torture they went through around this period. Having watched this series myself, it's enjoyable to watch the realism of the black slavery period from their bias view. For this programme to become a success in 1977, this must have been a large move for black representation on TV, with white people not having much of a honest knowledge on black people at this time, just the white history stories of them.
Films portray representation of people, places, objects, events and cultures. I learnt that when these factors are represented in a certain way, not everyone will absorb that representation in the same manner. Such as if England was represented as a posh, polite and elegance place within a movie, Americans may think this is a great representation of England. However, if English people were to watch this who lived around the country, may have to completely different view on the real England.
The first film we watched, with a reference to representation, was Enchanted, about a fairytale group who find themselves stuck in the real world of New York City. This film is a great example of typical Hollywood representation and stereotypes, beginning with post feminist text with the typical classic fairytale and outdated feminism. Such as the main character, Giselle, is dependant on the two men to save her and help her out. She is vulnerable and a pretty, delicate woman. Giselle is also portrayed as immature. which is even compared visually when she is with the mature 6 year old girl. Then we have the hero prince and the man who takes her in. These two characters combined represent the typical man stereotype with the prince being strong with his sword and the man with his high-end job as a lawyer. However, this film was openly aware of their stereotypes and sexism with the characters,, with the fairytale theme, taking it to an extreme. This includes The angry black pump woman, storming off the bus. A very big stereotype we see in Hollywood productions, especially children's programmes, such as Hannah Montana and Drake and Josh, portraying large black woman as scary.Enchanted also contains the Jamaican men singing with their maracas, very happily, another stereotype with happy Jamaicans. The tramp and ugly old woman, who are both old, shown as evil and the young shown as good.
However, although Enchanted is widely stereotypical, i think the film-makers had my next topic of discussion, challenging representation, in mind as they cleverly show the ridiculousness of the classic Hollywood fairytale narratives and representations against reality, bringing the fairytale characters into the 'real world'. Showing them singing openly in central park and rodents cleaning up the house.
In the second lecture on representation, we watched La Haine (Kassovitz,1995), about 3 young boys living in France, showing the barrier between the middle-class and working class. This film did not show the typical representation of France however, showing the outskirts of Paris and the rough gritty realist areas of where they are living, rather than what the rest of the world would imagine Paris to be. When I think of Paris, I think 'beautiful romantic city' like many others, as that's how it's been portrayed in most other films that is our window to the world. However, this film shows you a different angle and even bases the narrative on Hate which La Haine is translated to. This therefore begins to challenge the stereotypical representation of films. Although I couldn't quite follow the storyline, i did however find the different angle of representation very interesting and a breath of fresh air.
I have previously spoke about the representation of black people in the film Enchanted and it's extremely stereotyped. However, A big TV series in 1977 was to change the typical representation and show a black history from their eyes with the ABC series Roots (ABC,1977). This shined a light onto black slavery and the struggles and torture they went through around this period. Having watched this series myself, it's enjoyable to watch the realism of the black slavery period from their bias view. For this programme to become a success in 1977, this must have been a large move for black representation on TV, with white people not having much of a honest knowledge on black people at this time, just the white history stories of them.
"Independent films provide alternate ways on knowing black people that differ from the fixed stereotypes of Blacks in Hollywood." (Ibid, 7).
Independent film-makers then began creating more and more films on places and characters with realist angles and representations, such as on places, such as Paris in La Haine, characters and races, as well as sexuality, beginning to see gay people on TV. Television has come so far in it's representations and comforts along with society, accepting people and places for what they are. For example, the most popular current TV talk show host is Ellen DeGeneres, who is in-fact gay and very open about it. Her coming out was actually shown on her TV sitcom, where she wasn't represented in any stereotype manner. Whereas, although we now have sitcoms based on gay couples such as Modern Family, the gay couple within this is still very stereotypical Hollywood gay. Happy go-lucky and the chubby partner, yet is still a great successful show proving that it works for the audience and sometimes stereotypes have to be used to create humour and characteristics.
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