Blog Post #3 Theory Summary

Different theorists

1. Mcluhan

2. Barthes

3. Neale

4. Propp

5. Strauss

6. Todorov

7. Derrida

Mcluhan
"The medium is the message"
-Message of any medium is the change in scale or pace or pattern.
Message isn't different or new, it is an enlargement of what was there already.
-Media is omniscient.
-People forgets/ignores the medium as the content of it is more alluring.
-Content doesn't Matter, the medium as well as its influences on society matter.
e.g: "The egg and the chicken." Which came first isn't important, it is the effect of it that is crucial; people can eat roasted chicken and the effect of that is that people feel good because the chicken tasted delicious.
-Mcluhan believes that more media makes the society more homogenized, because people have access to different types of media, and therefore destructs the unity that was present before when all was only typography.

This is a picture of a very well-known painting of a pipe (The Treachery of Images) by René Magritte. -"Ceci n'est pas une pipe" means "this is not a pipe", this puzzled many of the 1929 viewers of the painting, because no matter how you look at the painting, its content is still a pipe, they didn't realize the difference of a painting of a pipe and a pipe. People are used to believing and taking in what they see directly rather than processing it & reflecting upon the medium.

Barthes
Mythologies
-Myths are the ideas & stories that motivate daily behavior.
-According to Barthes, the special trick of myth is to present an ethos, ideology or set of values as if it were a natural condition of the world.
-Semiology
-Study of signs
-Signs consist of a signifier(a word, image, sound, etc.) and its meaning-the signified
-Denotations signify connotation
-Denotations and connotations are organized into myths-the ideological meaning. These make ideology seem natural.
Enigma code
-Enigmas are presented to the audience to build their interests and encourage them to continue to watch the film in order to figure out the answers. However, this is not always effective depending on the audience and how the enigma is presented(is it presented well? Or is boring?). 

In the opening of pulp fiction, a lot of enigmas are presented.

• Who are these people?

• What will they do?

• Will they succeed?

• They seem rather nice, were they forced to be thieves?

The enigmas are effective as some questions are answered so the opening isn't too empty(some audience would feel annoyed and confused if there are a lot of enigmas or if the smaller questions are unanswered), however the bigger questions are unsolved and the way they present the thieves are interesting (they chat about robbing places in a restaurant casually, in a laidback way). The juxtaposition between their "jobs" and the way they behave makes the narrative very intriguing.

Action code/Proairetic code
-Codes of behavior and actions that lead audience to expect certain consequences(based on other stories/films and their conventions)
-This builds tension
-Enigma and Action codes work as a pair
E.g:
Action
A group of people wearing masks walk into a bank with guns
Assumption
These people are robbers and will rob the bank and use their guns to threaten people or actually kill them.

Semantic code
-Connotative meanings of characters, objects, locations.
-We learn from experience about these denotations and connotations
-Iconographic features work in the same way
-This varies with the audience's background and experiences. To exemplify this, the color red in western culture suggests blood or sexuality whereas in China, when people marry they wear red because it symbolizes happiness. In western culture, when people marry they wear white because it is symbolic to purity and innocence, however in China people wear white at funerals since it is signifies death.

In "Anna Karenina" Anna wears a great deal of mink fur, this connotes wealth and aristocracy because from our experiences we know that fur is expensive. Therefore the fur accentuates the status and wealth of Anna Karenina.

The color white conventionally signifies purity and could also be a symbol of wealth as it can be easily tainted therefore wearing a white gown with jewelry highlights the fact that Anna is a woman of status and very much appeals to the conventional ideals of a woman needing to appear beautiful and delicate.

Here Anna wears a red gown, red can be a symbol of royalty and passion which matches the narrative of the film and her character.

Symbolic code
-Barthes developed Strauss' idea of binary opposition to analyze this.
-Similar to semantic code, but it acts at a broader and deeper level.
-Typically done in the use of antithesis, new meaning arises out of opposing ideas.
E.g:Without evil, there would be no good.
    Light & Dark
    Savage & Civilized

Cultural code
-Outside of text knowledge we commonly share to bring understanding of the meaning in the text. (Popular culture and historical events, e.g: World War Two, the French Revolution...)
-We use these cultural references to enhance our reading and understanding of the context of the film.

For example, "The Pianist" is set and revolves around World War II, our knowledge of this historical event prepares us for the brutalities and expands our understanding of this movie.

The "Cinderella myth" 
-The values and ideologies conveyed are that men are active and powerful in terms of finance and physicality whereas women are passive. Women's key role is to be sexually alluring.(This applies to the myth only and not to reality).

"Pretty Woman"

-The title itself sells out the "Cinderella myth" value

-A wealthy male finds a female prostitute very attractive and falls in love with her and rescues her from poverty.

"My Fair Lady"

-Professor Higgins is a wealthy, educated male and sets himself a "challenge" to turn Eliza Doolittle into an attractive, well-mannered(delicate, passive) woman.

Neale
"genres are instances of repetition and difference"

Genre theory
1.To what extent does a film follow the codes and conventions of its genre. It has to follow some to belong to that genre.

Audience enjoys this because it creates familiar feelings that they enjoy and they can participate in the enigma solving process.

2.To what extent does a film not follow the codes and stereotypes of its genre. This is necessary because in order to make the film intriguing and appealing, there needs to be some form of subversion to take place.

Audience enjoys this because the subversion is what makes that particular film different from the rest of the same genre, hence the feeling of surprise is enjoyable as well.

Vladimir Propp
-Studied hundreds of Russian folk and fairytales and decided that all narratives have a common structure.

8 distinctive character types-"Sphere of actions"
1.The hero
2.The villain
3.The donor
4.The helper
5.The princess(doesn't have to be a human, can be an object as well)
6.The princess' father
7.The dispatcher
8.The false hero

31 possible stages or functions in any narrative types
*Not all stories contain every function and not necessarily in the same order
*A large part of how we recognize and resonate with stories
*A tale may skip auctions but it cannot mix or shuffle their unvarying order.

1st Sphere: intro
*Introduces the situation and the main characters, setting the scene for the subsequent adventure.

2nd Sphere: The body of the story
*The main story starts here and extends to the departure of the hero on the main quest

3rd Sphere: The donor sequence
*The hero goes in search of a solution, gaining the magical agent from the Donor. This in itself may be a complete story

4th Sphere: The Hero's return
*This final and often optional phase of the storyline, the hero returns home.

007 James Bond--"Tomorrow never dies"

1.The hero: James Bond

2.The villain: Elliot Carver

3.The donor: Paris Carver, Q

4.The helper: Wai Lin

5.The princess: Wai Lin, prevent Missile from activating

6.The Princess' father: American and British military officials and Jack Wade from CIA

7.The dispatcher: M

8.The false hero: None

1st Sphere: A bazaar where large scales of illegal exchange of weapons are presented, M views this from her observation room with her colleagues, they recognize some terrorists and some weapons. A missile is sent by the officers to determinate half of the world's most dangerous people, but they receive the news that there are two powerful nuclear weapons that could be triggered by the missile they sent. Bond goes to try and prevent this, however he fails (many of the criminals die) and two villains escape. Bond steals a plane and eventually succeeds to take the nukes with him.

2nd Sphere: A British ship sank and accidentally bombed a MIG belonging to China, this causes political tension between the two countries. The British ship sank due to another ship of Carver, his assistant calls Carver and tells him that the first part of the operation is completed.Carver gives permission for the second part of the master plan. We understand that Carver's ultimate plan is to cause war between China and Britain. Bond is sent by the "dispatcher" M to investigate Carver's involvement with the ship wreck. Bond flies to Hamburg where Q gives him a high-tech BMW and some other smart weapons.

3rd Sphere: Bond attends a gala to find information where he also gets beaten by Carver's employees, but of course Bond being Bond he defeats all of them. He returns to his hotel and finds Carver's wife, Paris Carver waiting for him, they sleep together and she gives him information on his husband's evil plan. The next day Bond goes to steal things to help him and later he finds out that Paris Carver died because Carver found out about their affair. After series of action/fighting Bond returns to the head quarters and uses evidences he found to prove to the American and British military as well as a CIA agent that the ship was deliberately set off-course. After a series of events, Bond goes to finish the mission where he fights and meet Lin again. Lin gets thrown into the ocean and Bond saves her and they share a romantic moment and get picked up by the British army.

The evolution of characters
-These character roles are adjusted according to the films and texts. Nowadays, most films and texts use a more updated or modern version of this Sphere of actions.
-The most obvious change in role is that of the female. The female characters have a more powerful or impactful role in the narrative to suit modern contexts which reflect the changing role of women in society. This helps avoid male gaze shots where they objectify women.
-Before the female characters were mostly served as "the trophy" of a male hero and were considered vulnerable and dependent on men. Now this has changed and is slightly better, they have become more dominant in terms of their role and importance to the plot. They
have their own weapons and fight scene, therefore the sphere of actions have become more blurred.

"Charlie's Angels 2000" is an example of how the female character in the conventional "Sphere of actions" evolved. Three female agents aren't the prizes of any male hero, but they are the heroes themselves and saves the world.

"Frozen" "Moana" the Disney animations also challenge the female role from Propp's theory. However I believe it isn't Propp's fault that the female character in his theory serves as a prize because he just summarized the convention and pattern of the fairytales, society's view on women were like that. If Propp was to write a new theory based on society's view now, it would have been a bit different.

The TV series "Homeland" and "The Queen's Gambit" also illustrate female protagonists' intelligence, wit.

The biopic "Hidden Figures" present the hardships faced by 3 women during the 1960s due to their race and sex and highlight their unwavering courage and strength.

There are films that challenge this narrative structure and character roles:

"There Will Be Blood"

-There is no villain who causes a problem and a hero who goes to interfere and prevent the disaster, nor is there a female character who serves as a prize.

-The characters are very much "grey" and are more complex in that sense. It is a movie about family, betrayal/loyalty, religion and business.

"Amélie"

-This romcom drama is about a curious, kind and funny girl who likes to collect objects. For some she discovers the stories behind those objects and helps other people to solve their problems and takes pleasure in making them happy.

How is this theory successful?

Because this is a distinctive narrative structure and rather a cliché, movie audiences do enjoy this familiarity. This doesn't mean that they don't enjoy movies that challenge this structure, but they do have an odd excitement when the plot goes exactly the way they imagined it to be, a sense of pride you could say. For example, a good James Bond movie will always have the "I'm Bond, James Bond" and because as an audience wMalf in an action film, there isn't a scene of car chase or cars exploding it doesn't feel right.

However...

Most of the films that do follow this structure often don't change the role of the "princess" and still present women through "the male gaze" ( Laura Mulvey's theory). This repetition of this message that women are feeble and are the "prize" of a heroic male isn't a good influence on the society especially to the younger generation as they are often more exposed to media. Therefore, this ideology subconsciously affects the audience and makes them believe that that is how it is supposed to be like.

Levi Strauss

-Believed that our world is described in binary opposites
-Narratives are structured in pairs
-When looking at themes with stories, they consist of differences, contradictions and conflict or opposites.

Life & Death
Night & Day
Young & Old
Good & Bad
Light & Dark
Male & Female
Love & Hatred

-Narratives are about the tension between an opposite, at some point maybe resolved or has reached some type of equilibrium.
-Strauss believed these oppositions are fundamental to our ability to make meaning in our lives.
>we understand good when it is opposed to evil
-He believed opposition offered structure to a text

"Batman" follows this theory structure

-A rich man dresses as a bat to make his true identity hidden to the public saves the world from villains.

-It is the tension between the villain and Batman that creates the narrative.

"Batman" trailer:

-Most Marvel and DC movies use the binary opposition between the good and the evil to create the narrative and as the audience we know the good heroes don't die and they always succeed somehow.

But the Noir genre films usually challenge this as their characters are normally "grey" and make it hard for the audience to decide whether they are good or bad, they are often in the middle. An example of this is "The Joker"(2019) where they explained the life of the Joker villain from Batman. It is a spectacular movie and justifies the Joker's behaviors and almost draws sympathy from the audience on to the "Villain".

'The Joker' trailer:

The problem with this "binary opposition" narrative structure theory is that oppositions lead to a status of hierarchy; one side has to "win" the conflict, which ties to the structure of the narrative. Due to this, the audience are expected to agree with and favor the "winning" side.--> This can create a dangerous "norm".

E.g: Especially before, all heroes were handsome, brave, strong and muscular young white males.

Todorov

1.Equilibrium
2.Disruption
3.Recognition
4.Repair
5.New equilibrium ( This doesn't have to be nice nor does the initial one, it is just a new state after the repair)

"Princess Diaries"

Equilibrium: Mia is a high school student who lives with her single mother, she isn't a popular student and is considered as "ugly".

Disruption:She finds out that her father who has passed away is the King of Genova and she should be the Princess of Genova, Mia creeps out.

Recognition: Mia agrees to fulfill Princess duties in the summer however her royal grandmother asks her to take Princess lessons with her right away. The paparazzis exposes her identity and she becomes very popular and beautiful, however her relationship with her best friend Lilly has gone bad. Josh, Mia's crush asks her out for a dance and kisses her in front of the press and Mia realizes that he only did it for exposure.

Repair: Mias breaks up with Josh and apologizes to her best friend Lilly.

New equilibrium: Mia is friends again with Lilly and goes in to a romantic true relationship with Michael and accepts her identity as well as duties as a Princess.

Films don't necessarily need to follow the chronological order of this theory, the ending could be presented first.

Different ways of structuring a narrative:

>Standard Hollywood narrative structure

-Linearity of cause and effect within an overall trajectory of enigma resolution.

-High degree of narrative closure

-A fictional world that contains verisimilitude especially governed by spatial and temporal coherence.

(Flashbacks, split-screen narratives, flash forwards, 3 strand narrative)

> Narrative range

-Unrestricted narration

-A narrative which has no limits to the information presented ( gives as much information as possible)

E.g: "Big Fish" with a narrator

>Restricted narration

-Only offers minimal info regarding the narrative (lots of enigmas)

E.g: "Brick" provides little information

>Narrative Depth

-Objective character identification

-Viewer is given unique access to a character's pov(mind, dreams, memories, fantasies)

E.g: "Birdman", we enter his fantasies; when he flies and imagines that he is the birdman, we constantly follow his actions.

In "Morgiana", we have the unique access to the pov of the cat and we can see a lot of details that the human characters would miss.

This further accentuates the duplicitous actions of Morgiana and how immoral it is for her to poison her own sister.