New Media: Audience and Spectatorship - Star Wars Uncut

EXPERIENCING STAR WARS UNCUT
Using Star Wars IV: A New Hope, as a backboard, the creators turn to the fans to pitch in to a fascinating reel of “do it yourself” clips to be sliced together to create a different film. Star Wars Uncut achieves this convergence and immersion from spectator to film in many ways. I will analyze convergence as it involves the old and new as applied to the text, the spectator, and the media. I will also place a heavy emphasis on the spectator’s interaction with the original film by immersion as it is used to create a new film through active and participatory audience spectatorship, digital swimming and the creation of belief.

CONVERGENCE OF THE OLD AND NEW
Within this particular film there is a definite convergence of media from different sources. However, there is an interesting and fascinating convergence of old and new media. For example, the original Star Wars appeared in the 1970’s. Star Wars’ popularity branched beyond the generation that lived during its hay-day in so much that 40 years after its release, old and new audiences (children and adults alike) experience and enjoy the phenomena that is this media system. Convergence culture aims that “old and new media collide, where grassroots and corporate media intersect… the work and play that spectators perform in the new media system.” Not only is an old text being applied to new media (the ability to create and splice image and layer on sound and music) but also the older audience and their media converging on the newer audience as they work and play and perform within Jenkin’s convergence. In addition to the convergence of old and new media, keep in mind that the new text (the individual spectator clips) is brand new and during several moments of Star Wars Uncut, dialogue, sounds, and music from the original text is laced on. The film’s original recorded sound is more than 40 years old and has converged with the new media in a participatory way.

IMMERSION: PARTICIPATORY AUDIENCE SPECTATORSHIP
Star Wars Uncut’s purpose was to allow the audience to partake in the creation and imagination of the original Star Wars film. This active audience engages closely with the original text and a text image of their own. Murray emphasizes an “immersion” into the text and by so doing there is a creation of participatory theatre. Much like Multi-Use Domain or Live Action Role Playing, Star Wars fans collect, create, imagine, and fantasize themselves within the world of the story. In Star Wars Uncut, the audience is asked to actively participate in “the well-defined roles that provide the means for each individual participant to actively create belief in the illusory world.”  Within this participatory culture, spectators “gradually learn to do what actors do, to enact emotionally authentic experiences that we are not ‘real’” which supports the indivuality of each clip’s attempt to re-create an experience that has been designed emotionally and esthetically in Star Wars. This also involves structuring the world as a visit. Spectators (as they now take positions as creators) explore a world in which there are constraints, order, and codification of moments within the original film. Each spectator is now limited with time and space, but instead of participating as just an audience member, they experience it through this immersive world.

IMMERSION: DIGITAL SWIMMING
In addition to Murray’s virtual world analysis and its relationship to immersion, there are three experiences Murray provides that apply to Star Wars Uncut. Because immersion is likened unto the physical experience of being submerged in water, the same applies to being submerged in the world and reality of the test. Digital swimming constitutes the enjoyment of immersion as a participatory activity. As stated above, this film project is a large form of audience participation. However, most fluently is the ability to swim and experience the entire world (instead of just dipping your feet). This means that the spectator enters into the space, giving us access to emotions, thoughts, and behaviors that are not necessarily there in real life. How often is it that we come face to face with the force or Darth Vader? The audience interaction with the creation of each clip symbolizes the ability to be immersed and participate in a new world.

IMMERSION: CREATION OF BELIEF
Lastly, this particular film project emphasized Murray’s immersive phrase “the creation of belief”. The clips do not appear realistic or accurate to the original. Most of them are low quality and/or inaudible. So why would spectators be so fully immersed the ability to create a belief? The spectators simply do not want to suspend disbelief so much because they actively create it. The creative process “brings out cognitive, cultural, and psychological templates to every story as we assess the characters and anticipate the way the story is likely to go.” Many of the spectators have memorized quotes, character movements, plot points, sound and music motifs that they have in that place the way the story is supposed to go. The belief that is created is not based on the quality of the medium of the story, but on the immersive real-ness to their participatory involvement. Furthermore, the digital art mediums are an invention of belief-creating virtual objects that heighten our participation by giving us something very satisfying to do.
In conclusion, spectator participation is beyond just facilitating as an audience member. Star Wars Uncut provides a foreground at which spectators can converge and immerse themselves into Star Wars in multiple ways.

New Media Technologies and Hollow Documentary

NAVIGATING HOME

            In an age where technology has consumed our standard of living, it’s very easy to confuse necessities with luxuries. Our attachment to our cellular devices, along with other mediums, has dictated our sense of creativity. As we move forward, we trust that these mediums have become enhancements and necessary tools to navigate within the world we live. However, our attachment has left us distracted from when our lives used to be navigated by other mediums. The reliance upon technology as a crutch has distanced us from the things that mean the most. New media, though it lacks a focus on content, strives to put focus on the medium as a platform. This platform initiates a message that is not based on literary meaning as we have studied thus far this semester. In fact, the message is that of the mediums impact and influence on the reality in which we participate in. However, I would like to argue that in the interactive Hollow Documentary, we experience several mediums of our New Media era in which it navigates to provide a sense of home and feeling for a specific community that navigates their own world without these mediums. The interactive documentary as a medium provides a way to navigate the audience and this becomes the message. The medium as the message become clear when discussing the films structure and content with Bogost’s Proceduralist Theories: resonance and introspection

RESONANCE

Much like video and board games, Hollow Documentary provides a medium that allows for a ‘resonance’ in which the audience experiences the actual landscape. Bogost draws upon this further that rather than words or photos, we communicate meaning by navigating and experience the process ourselves. The documentary gave the audience the opportunity to swipe, click, play, listen, read, and watch a specific process at which the community relies upon their own sources to sustain their lifestyles. In their world, they navigate their lives minimally. They enrich their lives and dreams by building a community. Their own medium at which they experience their landscape is through community. Some thematic navigations as defined in their medium are through the people and their efforts and actions in the community; what resonates that their medium is the message is through their physical bodies. They identify that their community doesn’t have to be the best thought they experience financial strains; “it’s a beautiful place to live despite the ugly parts of it.” They also proclaim that the potential to navigate their landscape is “unlimited”. The medium at which we navigate this landscape is through advanced technology. This medium is limited unlike the community landscape. Additionally, there is new resonance in our ability to navigate our medium of technology because the further it progresses, the more complicated it becomes. Yet the community lives “simple, and that’s why they live happy… it gets in your soul.” Technology only has a way to capture this sense of home and community from other mediums.

INTROSPECTION

Introspection refers to the ability to look inward and reflect rather than for gratification. One young boy in this community has high hopes for change in the future, but his reflections are deeply rooted in the community. Much of the ghost town is old and falling apart. As members identify their needs for improvement, their concern is for the care of others and to give perspective. The young boy outlines that “logic dictates that most people won’t come back… to follow your dreams, you have to leave. But talking about the problems won’t solve them. Young people in the schools can help solve these problems – go off and be successful – that’s what they want us to do.” We look inside the reflections of this community on the world that surrounds them. There are things that they “remember from their childhood that they wish someone would’ve taken a picture… To go back in time to document life through something new… It’s easy to write about something you love.” Though this small community struggles, they make sure to reflect and appreciate what they have. This comparison of such a minimalist (yet happy) group of individuals are getting their word out through new media that intends to cause audience members to reflect on their own lives by interacting with it. From clicking pictures and videos to participating in surveys and reflect on similar situations, this documentary medium initiates a sense of home and community in both the audience and the text’s subject through introspection.

            Though our world is constructed with vast amounts of new media, technology is not the only medium in which we see and feel the world around us. Most documentaries attempt to provide a way to reflect on and navigate someone else’s landscape while simultaneously experiencing our own. The interactive documentary used technology in a way that we could understand from our perspective someone else home and community. And just by a click of a button, it brought two separate communities together. With our faces away from our cell phones and Facebook, we had the opportunity to use technology and media for good if we use it to navigate ourselves home. The medium led us to the message. 

Race, Ethnicity, and Culture in "Bamboozled"

PLEASE STOP SAYING THAT WORD!

DERACINIZED STEREOTYPES IN BAMBOOZLED

            As Minstrelsy became the foundation of the theater of the oppressed, it emerged to culturally represent Blacks by whites declaring and defining their identities. Regardless of Pierre’s attempt to satirize the separations in culture due to an on-going political struggle for blacks, his success only continues to “misrepresent black people”. Stam and Spence enforce this structure by outlining the references we call ‘racism’ and ‘representation’. This leads to the value that has been placed on the use of the N-word to define culture stereotypes, a negative persona, which was then represented onstage to enforce this identities as created and upheld for decades. What began as theater of the oppressed when Minstrelsy flourished, has transformed into personas that we have begun to stand by and uphold. More specifically, I will argue that as the Black identity is created and represented in the film, it also encourages entertainment over cultural ideals.

            Beginning with the term racism, they define it as “the generalized and final assigning of values to real or imaginary differences, to the accuser’s benefit and at his victim’s expense, in order to justify the former’s own privilege or aggression.” (879) In other words, there is an ‘otherness’. This designates how we see and portray certain groups of people. Stam and Spence heavily argue that racism is a result of the colonization process. Is it possible that theater of the oppressed exists because the victims of racism have identities forged for them? Now to construct all the evidence that overlaps this concept from the film, Bamboozled. Much of the distinctions of otherness were portrayed cinematically as dominant characters were given strong camera shots that put themselves into full, unobstructed, solid, and well-lit spaces. Their body language (along with camera angle) gave them strength. Whereas, weaker and oppressed characters were given poor quality shots in which the shot appears shaky or blurry, dark shadows, and images cut off at certain points. Some characters were dominant enough to be given the camera shot from their perspective; to see what they see. This attributes to one of the thematic devices of the film that the essentials have been forgotten and are now being focused on the aesthetics. Such remarks suggests that ideals have been structured for the sake of aesthetics. Pierre recounts, “The network does not want to see dignified blacks from the streets.” Pierre’s initial purpose of the show was to make the audience feel uncomfortable; a satire would provide a “racial healing”. By poking fun at minstrelsy, the show will poke fun at the dominating stereotypes and racial cultures that have been built for decades. In an effort to wake America up and for the audience to get offended, Pierre is determined that this will change the way things are. Dunwitty is the epitome of assigning generalized values to the Black culture. His relationship with Pierre defines the differences between dominant culture and oppressed culture. His assumes that his own use of so-called “black slang” and his preferences of famous black people have given him the right to define what being “black”. In his statement, “I am more black than you” begins to take away color of skin and pronounce that it is a character, identity, a persona that is adopted by cultural stereotypes. He takes away the essential part of being “black” and converted it to an aesthetic of “blackness”.

Representation of black people in the film is done on several racial stereotypes that have been constructed. The portrayal of characters within this film idolize the racial stereotypes that have been built for decades. A college roommate from North Carolina once announced that “I won’t call you a N***** unless you act like a N*****.” The use of the word is not only profane and offensive but has been the crux of an identity that has been placed upon Black people. Pierre attempts to satirize those representations. However, the response to his show was more positive than he expected. It’s aesthetic and entertaining value was more pleasing to the audience than its satirical message. As protestors began to line up and audience members donned their own black-face, it appeared that the satirical message never came through. The representation of black people fit into the world we have constructed and the audience was oblivious and ignorant to its racist elements. Protestors disagreed with this representation for it gave a re-birth to their oppression and they deemed it as highly racist material. These representations get escalated as the characters support either accusation against the “Millennial Minstrel Show”. One group, in particular, dislikes what the show represents and takes action. In the saddening murder of Manray in an attempt to send a message, they don their own black face and use violence to make a stand against racism. However, racism is and ally and a result of colonialism, and that the “logic of racism leads to violence and exploitation.” (879) Their own use of the N-word represents the racial stereotypes that have been thrust upon them. Only the values they have assigned are because they are fighting back against the accuser. What of their claims against the “Millennial Minstrel Show”? Nearing the climax of the film and Manray’s refusal to continue in this charade, audience members have appeared in black-face and have testified that “I am the biggest N***** here.” The use of the N-word in Bamboozled doesn’t fall short. Whether in casual conversation or used by whites in declaration, it has been given entertainment value and abused what it means to be black. Pierre’s father pokes fun at black people because that’s what sells Beyond being a sell-out he reports, “every N***** is an entertainer.” Actions become justified because that is what is representative of being black. In a contentious meeting, the dialogue suggests that the representation is built by the racist values placed upon black people. Dialogue as follows:

PIERRE: What is black? We’re not saying anything about African American culture. White people just don’t understand. It’s just nice, wholesome fun.

MARKETING CHAIR: The show can’t be racist because Pierre is black.

SLOAN: He’s not black, he’s a negro.

Sloan reports that the relics of the past “Reminds me of a time when we were inferior. We should never forget.” The show has lost its purpose and meaning because it’s an art-form. It’s entertaining value is stronger than the essential ideals of the culture trying to make a change. “It’s the same bullshit, just done over,” Sloan states. In a final act, Manray appears not in black-face. He recalls the first entertaining thing he did upon the stage of the “Millennial Minstrel Show” and it points out the divisions and stereotypes that have been created in the world and have been supported and represented in the cinema. Just because it's the millennium, doesn't mean racism is gone. He says, “Look out your window. I’m sick and tired of being a N***** and I’m not going to take it anymore.” Look beyond our screens to the world that surrounds us. That’s where the change will begin. The change to eliminate the judgment and stereotypical values placed on others. Once that ends, the representations of them will change as well. Racism (as it performs a function in the cinema) is not a permanent entity of film. Things can change in our dialects, our interactions, our “institutionalized expectations”, and our “mental machinery” that will provide an awareness of the cultural and ideological assumptions that are impress upon the cinema.

Post-Modernism/Post-Structuralism and Community

“IT CAN’T BE THE END OF DAYS… IT’S NOT 2012”

Warm Bodies, Zombieland, The Walking Dead, World War Z, Night of the Living Dead, Dead Snow, and Fido. This vast obsession with the living dead has triggered a movement towards an eventual world’s end and apocalypse. Strangely, our fears are only triggered by the extreme constructions of such a time. In a Halloween episode of Community, there is a comic interaction with such a construction of reality that the hyperreal and simulacrum take over. This Zombie mania “prepares us to meet the power of imagination”, and yet the “absence of this reality is reality.” We have not yet been overpowered by Zombies, but our creations have altered and constructed a newfound reality.

            The hyperreal is a world that is remade in the image of our desires. With the countless threats of our world coming to an end, we can only imagine how this might happen. Now we are encouraged (not only by the church) to prepare to defend and protect ourselves from the “end of days.” “The hyperreal overwhelms the reality of the people we actually live among through a parade of images that project a life that consumers are encouraged to try to live.” As a holiday that surrounds satanic traditions, Community uses this opportunity to represent and project images in our reality. The episode then transfigures a new reality that are images and projections of the Zombie apocalypse. This leads us to simulation.

            Where there is simulation, there are four phases of an image that Community and the roaring Zombie apocalypse theories emphasize. Simulation is a complete reproduction (not a representation of imitation). This allows a new real to replace the original. So as actors play characters, they then dress up for Halloween to only become Zombies. The first phase, the image is reflection of a basic reality. Community follows a study group in a community college which reflects common middle-class lifestyles and situations that follow that reality. The second phase, the image masks and perverts a basic reality. This is done when the characters have dressed up, created, and acted like other reflections in reality. Halloween acts as a mask to disrupt and displace our conceptions of a basic reality. The actors attempt to create complete lifelike reproductions. For one day, there is a new real that replaces the original. The third phase, the image masks the absence of a reality.  Through this phase, we are the most lost in a reality that we cannot recognize as a reality. Once the rabies related pathogen converts the people into Zombies, reality changes and proves that it isn’t static. The loss of reality control distorts our conceptions of a basic reality. In one 30-minutes episode, the audience is asked to look in from the outside (through our own reality) of a reality that exists for only 30 minutes. This repetition of signifiers are everywhere, so this representation of an imaginary Zombie-like reality wants to makes us separate what is real from what is not, but the “real is no longer real.” This murders the real in our normal lives as we try to imitate the real. However, the imitation is two steps removed from any reality. The fourth phase, is that the image bears no relation to any reality whatsoever; it is its own simulacrum. As the Zombies take over in Community, it bears no connection to any reality we understand. It now is its own reproduction to replace our original understanding of reality. This leads us to believe that the realities we have conceived of as true or false is now the new real. Once the outbreak has come to an end, the memories of the Zombies are canceled at an attempt to replace reality. Amidst the confusion, one voicemail from one character to another outlines the indisputable un-relatable resemblance to any reality. It is its own simulacrum; “the simulacrum is true.” The simulacrum is “a counterfeit, sham, fake, or pretend representation that marks the absence, not the existence, of the objects they claim to represent.”  

“Congrats! You did what Zombies do!” The persona of a Zombie-like reality is composed, constructed, and altered into its own simulacrum. The more we see it, the more it convinces us that not only isn’t it absent from our reality, but it has consumed our reality. “There was something in the air tonight” says Community character during this Zombie outbreak. What will it be like when the world ends? Everything that we have decided would happen in our relationship to each phase of the images of the Zombie apocalypse. What do Zombies do? Only what we have decided they do. Not only are these phases relevant to the media, but it has contributed to a hyperreality of the Zombie simulacrum. 

Culture Studies and Be Kind, Rewind

“STICKIN’ IT TO THE MAN”

EVADING POLITICAL ECONOMY WITH SUBCULTURE

            Cohen claims that “The Subordinate culture uses a ‘repertoire of strategies and responses’ as a way of coping and resisting. Theirs is a story of ‘negotiation, resistance, and struggle.’” This effort is designed to decode and fit into a system using specific subcultural styles. Be Kind, Rewind emphasizes these styles in an effort to represent a coping relationship in subcultures against its popular culture counterpart. Therefore, I offer that subcultures, such as the community in Be Kind, Rewind, have a value in its characteristics that are “distinctive in group-life and experience,” giving it purpose and validity above the political economy.

            Williams defines culture as “the study of relationships between elements in a whole way of life.” Be Kind, Rewind builds upon a small community in the wake of a financial crisis. This early introduction to this community expresses the struggle against political and economical forces (however, this view changes). Though the town offers unique history, the town officials hope to “transform this slum… to improve the life of the people.” Moreover, the transformation process from slum to presentable lightly taps into fears and struggles of the subculture community. Many of the town folk have negotiated and learned to live with the circumstances, claiming that “the projects aren’t so bad.” The whole way of life in this community is structured to “learn and adapt” according to the circumstances. Characters, such as Mike, generate more resistance and struggle against the political economy with it conspiracy theories surrounding the local power plant that it is brainwashing him with micro-waves.

            As a way of “learning and adapting”, subcultures enlist specific traits, goals, and lifestyles that seem to be recognizing and resisting the economic oppression. Mike states, “that’s your problem… you have zero ambition. You live in a dump, the whole city is a dump. What is so great about this town?… The people have nowhere else to go.” The action of the film is cascaded forward as there is severe pressure from popular culture to change and amend subculture lifestyles by demolishing businesses such as the small video store. Though it is revealed that the video store was not a historical landmark and lacks any real market value to the political economy, the subculture has negotiated a reason to fight for their community with a “nice story… even though it’s not true.” This is a selective tradition; that “certain things are selected for value and emphasis.”

            In an effort to save the video store, a remarkable thing happens; resistance. Thought the financial struggle and negotiation with the political economy seems most dominant, the community recognizes that financial contributions earned through the making of “The Life and History of Fatz Waller” means more for their community. The community works together and sees themselves as a part of the neighborhood that has roots. Roots give people purpose, passion, meaning that money couldn’t buy. “This is for us – the whole town is participating – our past belongs to us and we can change it if we want to.” For this community, changing the past meant changing the future. This community culture brings together the peoples through a shared history. Creating the documentary of Fatz Waller’s life was the crutch that created unity and history for the people.

            The efforts were to save the video store. When the funds weren’t able to be raised, the roots were not destroyed. In fact the roots remained and grew stronger. Subculture intends to resist the political and economical strains that cannot replace community dress, music, ritual, or argot. All these things remain in place and intact (encoded) in each individual community. Each subculture faces the dominant in various forms decoding the dominant as a way of coping; some must negotiate more than others, or resist more than others, but all experience struggle against the political economy. Communities find a way to cope in their formation of their communities and their selective traditions (their roots). Most notably, Jazz and suburban cultures relate on this remarkable level that resists the political economy and strives for a complete and rooted community; to arrive ‘home’ - “Swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home.”

            Jack Black has always resisted and portrayed the dress, music, ritual and argot of various other subcultures, the push back remains (in the School of Rock):

“Because the world is run by the Man. The Man, oh, you don't know the Man. He's everywhere. In the White House... down the hall... Ms. Mullins, she's the Man. And the Man ruined the ozone, he's burning down the Amazon, and he kidnapped Shamu and put her in a chlorine tank! And there used to be a way to stick it to the Man. It was called rock 'n roll, but guess what, oh no, the Man ruined that, too, with a little thing called MTV!... But, you can't just say it, man. You've gotta feel it in your blood and guts! If you wanna rock, you gotta break the rules. You gotta get mad at the man!... Come on man, we're on a mission. One great rock show can change the world...”

Be Kind, Rewind has proved its purpose and validity as a representation of subculture negotiation, resistance, and struggle. The political economy fuels the communal roots that expand beyond economic constraints. By coping, we recognize the presence of the political economy, but we decode that we “are not cultural dupes” and that “power cannot be explained by capitalist relations of in economic terms.” The power is within the values and relationships we have placed in our subculture coping strategies such as community building, the arts, friendship, music and much more. Be Kind, Rewind has shown us not to “let the man get us down, to rise above.” (Much thank to the School of Rock for also blending this unique artistic and communal force against the political economy.) 

Media Effects and Son of Rambow

“I BLAME THE PARENTS”

OPINION LEADERS AND AUDIENCE EFFECT

For someone that doesn’t watch television, you might believe what you see. But for the Son of Rambow, it’s about experiencing media; that’s what you think is true. The characters are structuring the world based on what they do or do not see. However, any sway for against the arguments of Media Effects must realize that it comprises of two controllers: Opinion Leaders and the Audience. Both the Opinion Leaders and the Audience (Will Proudfoot and Lee Carter) are effected by the media in multiple ways. However, their backgrounds and experiences differ and that causes the Opinion Leaders and the Audience to effect each other more than any real evidence that media is the prime suspect.

There are two types of Opinion Leaders in Son of Rambow; the parents and the Brethren. Though all the adults (including the academic instructors) may fill that position, the most effect characters are Mary Proudfoot (the mother) and Joshua (one of the Brethren). These Opinion Leaders are under the assumption that media does harm. They support the Gerbner model of the negative effects of social realities as presented in the media. As adults, they can construct Will’s interaction with media by restricting all forms of media. Once Will has discovered the world beyond what he sees, the Opinion Leaders live in fear that the content is immoral, violent, and wrong. As Mary reveals her own story, the film blocks the content of media that she was being banned from. Instead, it was about her parents subtracting such horrible media without Mary understanding why. This approach is the Mean World Syndrome model which states that there is a “pessimistic view of the real world based on the violence within media.” As Will gets pulled into creating a film that mimics True Blood it is evident that there is violent media. However, Will rules these ideas as real. The Opinion Leaders try to draw connections to his friendships and behaviors to the media without Will every understanding why. Joshua warned that the media will lead him “to a path astray towards the outsiders.” Will trusts these Opinion Leaders and therefore acts upon the warnings and perceptions of the media from others. The Opinion Leaders respond to the Laswell model of audience effect by the relay function of Conductance. They simply receive information, edit it, and then pass it on. The weakness is that it does not fully account for the Cultivation of the viewer’s perspective of the media.

Lee Carter is a problem child as designated by several Opinion Leaders. However, Will is drawn to his experiences and ideas because they are cultivated in a different way other than Mary and Joshua. Will is immersed in new ideas and experiences that are different than how he’s seen the world before. Within his first encounter with Rambo, he truly believes that “he is the best” as the video clip was stating. Why? Because he knows nothing else to compare it to. Beyond that, as he cultivates the images, he views social reality in a different way. It opposes the pessimistic view of the real world based on violent media as Will brings to life the Son of Rambow and uses those conceptions to create a new world in which his father can be saved from death. Its how he’s sees the world and how he hopes to think about it. The pressure from others (Opinion Leaders, Lee Carter, and schoolmates) contributes to complicated shifts on his perspective of mainstream media. Will struggles to satisfy the Brethren, his mother, and Lee Carter, all while trying to satisfy himself. A symbol that appeared most often throughout the film was a watch. This represents time. Lee Carter said that “time heals all wounds,” and as opinions, rules, and experiences flooded Will’s perception of the media, it took time for everyone to understand how several worlds can collide without disaster. This promotes Resonance: messages that resonate and amplify cultivation. Soon enough, Mary was on Will’s side and Joshua was left on his own. This demonstrates exactly how Opinion Leaders need to understand and connect to the audience in which they are communicating too. It seemed that all it took was time for Mary to see positive effects of media on Will, and for Will to see possible threats of the media on himself. There is a balance to which media you place certain value on and participate in.

Lee Carter stands as the mediator between the audience and the Opinion Leaders. Lee Carter had less interaction with Opinion Leaders and therefore lacked direction in his actions and choices. However, his influence on Will was as an Opinion Leader AND Audience member. This meant that the information that was passed on was also experienced alongside Will so that a trust of media perception was formed. In fact, as “the problem child”, Lee recognized much quicker the dangers that Will was dabbling in when different crowds of people and ideas were bombarding their film. Makes you wonder why the cool guys didn’t care much for Lee, but Will thought the world of him. Being “of the world”, Lee had the opportunity to choose the information he wanted to accept as reality. This meant that complete Cultivation of the media is positively enforced when the audience has the support and information from all sources (media, Opinion Leaders, etc.). Lee Carter once said, “Parents… you’re better off without them.” I don’t believe he meant to say that parents should disappear but that his world is constructed without them and he feels his perception of the media is just fine without them. When Will and Lee were filming a rescue scene with an elderly man playing Will’s father, they assured the old man, “we are just pretending… we’re not going anywhere.” This abolishes the negative effect of media with the perception that media might not even effect or change an individual. Once you know it isn’t real, you might not go anywhere. Many of the characters changed their negative perception of the media and translated it to a positive influence of the world. Will and Lee were constructing the world innocently and to them it’s pure – to other, it’s rubbish.

            So is media really the culprit? Or is it just the medium? Or the means to an end? I believe that the Opinion Leaders and the Audience form their own structures of media and relay that to the world around them. This movement tends to shifts ideologies of media effects. However, the increasing numbers of opinions distract from the actual impact or lack of effect media has on its audience. All perceptions of the media and social reality should be accounted for. And in reality, negative things were happening before television came along. So if we educate each other on our perceptions, we will find that media may or may not affect us but there should always be a choice.

Maltese Falcon and Femme Noir

OH NO SHE DIDN’T!

NOIR WOMEN

            Film Noir has become a style that isn’t equated to a genre. In fact, Noir is far from a stylized genre because its thematic structures are so variant. Yet, there is a recognition of Noir elements in mid-twentieth century films that “portray a world of darkness.” These dramatic elements are cinematographic features such as scenes lit at night, deep thought and inner turmoil, romantic narratives, and non-linear story telling. Maltese Falcon explores this through the use of the villain female character. Specifically, Noir highlights the power and manipulative nature of female characters; Femme Noir.

            The bad woman who seduces a man to do bad things is none other than what we consider to be femme fatale. O’Shaughnessy entrances Spade in her charms and through her lies and deceits convinces him to do things against his normal character. Though her influence on him is overpowering, the fatal trap she has laid out backfires and the prison she has created throughout the film becomes a literal prison. This prison is a stylized product of noir cinematography to capture the emotional roller coaster and dark, unknowable nature of the femme fatale. The low-key lighting and unusual camera angles emphasize the nature of her emotions, tactics, etc. Assumed to be the most powerful female in the film by use of her charms to lure Spade to fatal scenarios, she cries, lies, and turns away to reveal so that she is actually manipulating others to her will. But in fact, she is trapped in her own emotional prison. Vertical lighting conveys this prison. In a particular scene, she wears striped pajamas, the furniture is striped, and the slivers of light coming through the blinds are much like cell bars. At the end of the film, there are literal bars on the elevator cage when she is taken in for custody, apparently on her way to prison and eventually execution.

            Though O’Shaughnessy, exaggerates her inner turmoil, the camera highlights these features by contrasting her character among other female characters. Possibly the most simply dressed female character, and yet her face speaks volumes of deep thought and wild emotion. Close ups of her grasp the dark tension inside of her character. Shadows on the face, clothing that creates specific angles, and camera angles makes her appear lost, confused, and tormented by something that isn’t quite revealed until Spade has adopted some of the emotional complexity much like O’Shaughnessy. The narrative structure dictates the psychological and moral disorientation that ties back to Freudian psychoanalysis; repression, fear, etc. O’Shaughnessy is then constructed by the views of women during this historical time period. The complicated nature of her character is designed by these fluctuating and uncontrollable emotions that possess her to be fatal. Downward camera angles or profile camera angles evoke pity and sorrow, along with the shadows that darken her conflicting emotions. But even love won’t save her now.

            Noir tends to eliminate the value of love and leans towards justice; justice in the sense of finding truth. Near the end of the film, O’Shaughnessy pleads to Spade in the name of love. Kisses, charm, and manipulative tears won’t save her. Not only is Spade a detective, but lies and deceit are not justified through love. The act of the femme fatal was fatal to her. The final battle between O’Shaughnessy and Spade is an emotional roller coaster. Spade dominates O’Shaughnessy, as she crumbles. From camera angles to blocking, she cannot hold her ground as he tears at her for the truth. Spade turns her in regardless of his feelings for her. His personal code and dedication to justice is how he sees the world. Once he discovers that she killed his partner to implicate her unwanted partner (in order to keep that Falcon to herself), Spade avenges his murder.

The femme fatale is beautiful, manipulative, and dangerous. O’Shaughnessy is a compulsive liar when she tries to use her feminine wiles to charm Spade into believing what she says and doing what she wants. As the beginnings of femme noir:

  

“The quintessential femme fatale of film noir uses her sexual attractiveness and ruthless cunning to manipulate men in order to gain power, independence, money, or all three at once. She rejects the conventional roles of devoted wife and loving mother that mainstream society prescribes for women, and in the end her transgression of social norms leads to her own downfall. Film noir's portrayal of the femme fatale, therefore, would seem to support the existing social order — and particularly its rigidly defined gender roles — by building up the powerful, independent woman, only to punish her in the end.

But a closer look at film noir suggests an opposite interpretation. Even when it depicts women as dangerous and worthy of destruction, film noir also shows that women are confined by the roles traditionally open to them — that their destructive struggle for independence is a response to the restrictions that men place on them. Moreover, these films view the entire world — not just independent women — as dangerous, corrupt, and irrational.” (http://www.filmnoirstudies.com/essays/progressive.asp)

This commentary on society is a reflection of the emotional state of the time period; World War II. The uncontrollable, manipulative nature of Germany at this time overshadowed most of Europe. The emotional and physical havoc of the war was not justified by reason. Until America and Britain stood ground and found back, justice prevailed. In fact, the mystery and fate of the Maltese Falcon remains a symbol because once it was found, lives were no longer lost and fights were no longer fought. The struggle for freedom and independence for women remained a battle and yet their corruption destroyed the very rebellion of the ideal female.

            Is it possible that Noir could be stylized by anything other than a “dangerous, corrupt, and irrational” female character? Is the emergence of the femme fatal what draws the tension and darkness into most Noir films so that erotic and emotional characters are the exact elements necessary for such cinematic and thematic designs? I believe that femme fatal is a crucial and integral stylistic component of Noir. The reflection of the characters of women in plot and design construction elaborates the thematic points of Noir; “to portray a world of darkness.”