P2: TV Drama

 Tuesday 31st October 2023

Long Form TV Drama

LO: To explore the content of the unit, to explore the genre of TV drama, to establish key conventions of the genre

Exam Questions

1. Longer, comparative 30 mark question, apply academic concepts to two case studies

2. Shorter 10 mark, connect case studies to specific theory

Tuesday 7th November 2023

LO: To research the first text

Genre

War, Politics, Spy, Crime, 

A main storyline with interwoven subplots

Jess has moved on in 8 years

Dana is rebellious, not trustworthy, drugs

Combination of complex characters that are ambiguous or enigmatic, creating tension and questions for the audience

Jess, Brody were in a relationship, jess moved on, brody never died etc.

Central Characters whose motives develop with them

Wife (Jess)

Brody (Soldier)

Chris (Son)

Dana (Daughter)

Enemy

Army Guys-

Crime drama

CIA involved, secrets, terrosrist attacks

Teenager- Rebellious§, drugs, boys

Killing Eve

Killing eve was developed by BBC America, a subsidiary of BBC studios and AMC networks

Released

8th April 2018

Production team consisted mostly of women, several female executive producers

Killing eve awards

Best drama series nominee

Broadcasting press guild award

GLAAD media awards

Golden Globes, USA

Global events in 2018

Immigration crisis

Political advancement and allegations

Views 

3.5 Million- UK

Spy Thriller

Drama

Comedy

Homework

The Avengers- The Town Of No Return

Conventions:

Main character has gadgets/gimmicks that help or save them- Metal Hat

Villain poses a large threat, sometimes even the world, in this episode it is a foreign organisation trying to take over the country.

Sidekick/Side Characters- Emma Peel

Secret agents and espionage- We see that the whole town are agents placed by a foreign organisations, hiding and pretending to be other people. John Steed and Emma Peel also shown to be spies and skilled secret agents.

Monday 13th November 2023

Main Narrative Quest/Conflict Set up:

Eve is bored of her job, wants to be a spy, conducts illegal investigations.

Assassin is running rampant, killing people for her boss.

Enigma Codes:

Who is the assassins boss.

Who is eves boss, why still talking to her after eve fired her.

Why is frank lying

Individual Character Narratives:

Good friends with coworker.

Bill seems mean but is actually very nice and good friends with eve.

Villaneles assassinations.

Eve finds her husband boring.

Eve has obsession with female assassins, wants to find Villanille.

Eve, Bill and the assistant seen in the "next time" at end of episode.

MI5

Eve- Woman lead- subverting

Bill- Eves Boss

Assistant.- female supporting character, supporting

Niko- Eves Husband, male supporting character, subverting

Caroline- MI5, female in position of power, subverting

Frank- 

Dom- 

Villains

Konstantine- Boss, male character, in control, supporting

Villanille- Assassin, female lead, powerful, skilled, subverting

Tuesday 14th November 2023

Equilibrium- Working as normal, wanting to do more, being bored

Disruption- Assassination takes places, eve wants to help, not allowed to

Recognition- Eve wants to investigate the case but is not allowed to

Attempt to resolve- Eve illegally investigates the case, her witness is murdered, her and bill fired.

New Equilibrium- Caroline comes to talk to eve, invites her to talk, suggests still wants eves help

Tuesday 20th November 2023

Genre is just a process of spreading specific conventions among producers and audiences to create a type,, this means that genre is easily changed and influences by every new release therefore always changing in small and large ways. Sometimes fusing and mixing with other genres to create a new effect.

Spy Thriller

Majority of spy thrillers such as most available on TV

Genre Altered- majority of main characters are women, no male on cover

Genre Support- Secrecy, espionage, boring office setting, murders, surveillance

Posters, Disk cover, Online advertising- usually contains both women only in a close position

Killing Eve, Industry & Context

LO: To explore the production, Social and political context off set productions 

Historical:

How context relates to when the media product was set/released.

Economic:

The way of comparing media quality to finance, budget, private or public etc

Politicall:

If realistic, political opinions at the time, how that shows bias or situation, reflects modern political events or events occurring when media product was set.

Social:

How the media product influences the views of society on subjects such as politics, gender and crime

Cultural:

How media product affects audience consumption of culture and values, what values are evident in media product.

In response to a shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas that killed 17 students in a pizza place less than 100 yards from campus. In response to this, one 11th grade student started a movement and created a hashtag on twitter called NeverAgain on Twitter that become incredibly popular. Promotional material was also created that became popular featuring the surviving students from the shooting. Other students involved began peaceful protest including a march containing thousands of students all standing for gun law reform in america. This movement became very popular and can be generalised as a representation of america and its gun laws in 2018 media, Especially american representations in which the country is usually depicted as dangerous and unsafe. This could influence Killing Eve As MI5 is an american organisation that directly tries to defend against internal and foreign threats to the country such as school shootings and trying to discover and stop the planning of these attacks. This representation helps solidify mI5's Values and goals and Eve's part in it.

Tuesday 21st November 2023

2017 UK Suffered from many terrorist attacks of various severity.

LO: To explore the social and political context of set products. To apply relevant theory to contextual issues shown in the text.

Context is very important in influencing themes in killing eve as it shows and emphasises to difference of this spy thriller to other far more male dominated series that almost own the genre and how different this series portrays women compared to other stereotypical media forms, and how revolutionary of a media product this is compared to older, more stereotypical representations of gender in media. And how this show that portrays and massively subverts typical stereotypes can be very successful. 

Barthes- Semiology

Semeiology, study of signs

Signs consist of a signifier

Denotation of a sign is a literal meaning

Denotation signify connotations- associations of the denotation (e.g dogness- thoughts and feelings associated with dogs)

Denotations and connotations are organised into myths- the ideological meaning, These make ideology seem normal. E. G a bulldog might activate a myth of britishness.

Can be applied to any sign, language and image, tease out connotations and ideologies.

Useful for micro analysis

Levi Strauss- Structuralism

Structuralism is study of hidden rules that govern a structure

System of myths and fables was ruled by opposing terms

Can be applied to any cultural product

Can analyse LFTVD by analysing, e.g how they set up an inside and outside opposition

Male-Female

Funny-Serious

Ice Cream Childish, innocence

Older-Younger

Powerful-Subordinate

Monday 27th November 2023

Killing Eve- Characters Eve

LO: To explore the narrative and characterisation of Eve in set products.

Colonialism

the policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically.

1:

Formal

thinking

2:

Looking up

Concerned/nervous

seems inferior

How eve is represented:

Egotistical- Late, unorganised, food in meeting.

Confident

Defiant

Lighthearted- in bed screaming

Immature- bets money, screaming in. bed

Likeable- relatable, appealing

Informal- Late, drunk

Scene- Office, Investiatiom, Translation

Persistent- Phone call chasing down leads- Dialogue

Informal- talking to assistant "tits"

Funny- Dom and Niko translating- actions highlight this

Deceiving

Risk taker-

Cultural reference to drinking, just after getting over hangover, wants gin and tonic.

In season 1, episode 1 Eve is represented as persistent. After eve successfully translates the interview from Dom and Niko she immediately calls Elena to follow up on this showing her as persistant and passionate about her investigation. We can identify Eve as persistant through the dialogue and sound of the scene, the phone call between her and Elena, and it emphasises eves persistance as it shows how quickly she gets to the point of the phone call and how quickly she drops what she was doing before at the party. The social context of female roles is subverted her as we see her as very independant and confident in her illegal investigation. We can apply van zoonens theory here as Eves performance of a female gender role is very subverting and different to that of a stereotypical gender role of a female. She is consistently confident, controlling and shown to be skilled throughout the scene. The media language of the scene can be effectively used, especially sound as much of eves character and motivation can be revealed through her dialogue and audio such as being Skilled, defiant and straight to the point.

Tuesday 28th November 2023

Eve Determined-

Arguing, defending her point

Immediately disobeys orders

defends herself to frank

First scene- Camera, low angle mid shot of Eve, power

Close up on Eves face- put point across, serious nature.

Dialogue- Accusatory, high pitch, feminine

Props- Show research, determination, obsession.

Confident in criticising superiority even male

Confident in herself

Gender is created when a gender role is designated and performed. There is no identity about said roles. It is created in the performance of gender roles.

Gender is apparent in our actions rather than who we are, the meaning of gender can vary in different cultural and historical contexts.

Eve- Nice job, comfortable financially, well educated in order to work at MI5, Asian

Villanelle- Living in a seemingly rundown apartment complex but also seen to have nice things in house, seen to often shop so must be financially stable

Sexuality- Eve and Villanelle revealed to have attraction for each other later in the season, opposes heterosexual norms

Monday 4th December 2023

In episode 1 eve is represented as immature, she is shown multiple times to not be entirely serious, such as in her first scene where she starts screaming in bed as a joke because her arms are numb, making her husband panic but she sees it as funny, later in that scene she also brags to bill about the MI5 higher up referring to her by name saying "She said eeeeve" in a silly voice. These examples use the textual detail of sound to convey her immaturity, specifically her dialogue. She's also shown on numerous occasions to be immature throughout the rest of the episode such as when

Alternatively she is also clearly shown to very determined in other parts of the episode and very passionate and dedicated to her work. Such as when she successfully translates the woman in the interview via her husband and immediately goes to follow up on this. The textual detail of sounds in this scene is used to convey her determination, specifically her dialogue as you can tell in her serious tone and lack of immaturity that she is determined and motivated to solve this case even when she's not supposed to. she also subverts her typical female gender roles by simply being a woman in power who is determined as the main character. Butlers theory of gender role performativity can be applied as we can see how she does not conform to female gender roles but more accurately acts out male gender roles and subverts the idea of gender being an assigned designation and is more realised in ones actions.

Killing eve:
Characters- Villanelle

LO: To explore the narrative and characterisation of villanelle in set products.

Anti-Hero:

Not with or against protagonist

Antagonist: 

Directly against protagonist

Villanelle- 

Feminine

confident

wealthy

Villanelle lacks empathy, inhuman, copy's server to try and connect with little girl, knocks ice cream on little girl, cruel, immature

Shopping and Apartment scene

Happy tune, kind, helpful, fits in, shopping bags, wealthy, maybe good friends with neighbour, apartment is classy, clean, using makeup, complimenting self, pretending to overdose, playing joke on man. Immature. Close connection with boss. 

Receives bonus, highly skilled, extra reward

Humorous- MES, makeup, alcohol, pills used to play dark joke, made to look like suicide, close relationship to boss

The representation of Villanelle and context of gender roles in this scene:

Villanelle is represented as humorous in episode 1, this is evident in the scene where she attempts to play a joke on her boss, trying to make him think she overdosed, the textual detail in this example is the Mis-En-Scene, she carefully uses her makeup to make herself look paler while carefully placing spilt pills and alcohol bottles to make it look like she has killed herself, this reflects the close connection she has with her boss, being able to make this kind of joke and laugh it off, the use of Mis-En-Scene reinforces her being represented as humorous as it shows how much she try's in order to make a joke and prank her boss, the close relationship she has with her boss is emphasised in her quickly after the joke is finished asking her boss if he wants to watch a movie with her. In this scene she does follow typical female gender roles and stereotypes, using makeup, coming home with lots of shopping, looking very feminine with dresses, being very kind and compassionate on the train etc. We can apply butlers theory of gender performivity here as her gender is created through her actions,descriptions and dialogue rather than her gendered designation.

Tuesday 5th December 2023

LO: To explore the narrative and characterisation of Villanelle in set products

Standing next to very metal bike, very masculine stereotype

Ruthless, Skilled, Feminine, Complex

Doesn't kill children, 

Bike

Establishing, Long shot, tracking, close up, 

Competent, scaling wall, close up

observing, pov shot

Smart, hiding in suitcase

No remorse, writing down name of designer while killing him

unfazed by little boy about to see dead grandpa

gets some kind of high from killing

Hairpin, weapon, feminine

lots of low angles, show her as powerful

Editing, slow, relaxed enhances shock

Villanelle- Powerful, Professional, unfazed, confident

The Mis-En-Scene in this part allows the audience to identify with villanelle as a character, in the very beginning of the scene she is seen riding a very metal motorbike, a very typically masculine image, skill and style. The use of a poison hairpin as her weapon of choice emphasises her feminine elements as a hairpin is typically used by women. The use of the pen to write down the designers name on her hand while the victim is dying infront of her shows her as ruthless and cold at times, her representation throughout the episode varys massively between feminine and masculine ideologies. She chooses to wear a very feminine blue dress with flairs etc when trying to blend in with the crowd

Hall: 

Stereotypes and ideology to to create a fixed meaning of a representation and that there is only one true meaning. Meaning is whats different and absent, creating an representation. Stereotypes should be studied and deconstructed to reveal what they say about ideology

Gauntlet:

A pick and mix of identity for the audience to pick from, audiences can find appeal in the consumerist lifestyle but repression of the assassin role within the character of Villanelle,

Monday 11 December 2023

Negative-

Dark Negative

Criminal

Cruel

Violent- LS Hospital Room, innocent nurses who been brutally murdered.

Malicious- 

Compare and contrast the techniques used to represent Villanelle in Episode 1 of killing eve.

KGB russia, uk still sees them as dangerous.

assassination standard procedurfre for villanelle. 

gender roles reversed almost, Constantine and villanelle.

In the opening episode of killing eve we see Villanelle introduced initially as a powerful character, the scene we this in is when we first see her in her apartment with her boss, presented as powerful and respected by her boss as he always seems slightly intimidated and almost nervous in her presence. This is shown through the camerawork, specifically camera angles, throughout the scene, Constantine is always presented with a high angle, making him seem smaller and weaker while Villanelle is always shown with a low angle, creating the opposite effect of her being stronger and more powerful. Mis-en-scene is also used to show her as powerful as her facial expression is always relaxed, confident and even informal. Showing she is entirely confident and relaxed in the presence of her boss, not seeming to be intimidated at all, while Constantine is. The use of her lack of nervousness and her bosses evident nervousness emphasises the gap between the characters, further promoting Villanelle as a very powerful, confident and skilled woman, perhaps the fact that she isn't intimidated at all by her boss is because she knows she can easily defeat him if he ever opposed her. This use of fear in her boss emphasises her as powerful. This scene reinforces social context in relation to the negative portrayal of Russia and their underhand assassinations represented via Villanelle. Van Zoonen/Butler Theory applying, Villanelle very much subverts her typical gender roles as she is presented as powerful over her own boss while he is shown to respect her and even ask her for help.

Alternatively, Villanelle is also represented as Ruthless and Violent, this is evident in the hospital scene where we see that she has mercilessly and apathetically killed multiple innocent hospital staff as-well as the witness using hospital equipment. Her aggression and lack of care is shown through the Mis-En-Scene of the hospital room, the staff are all very bloody and seemingly carelessly thrown around the room, it is also obvious that Villanelle used close quarters to kill all her victims, making it seem more personal and brutal than something such as a gunshot. The seemingly lack of struggle evident through the remaining neatness of the rest of the room suggests she very quickly, quietly and mercilessly disposed of these innocent people without difficulty, making them seem very insignificant and almost useless to her. The brutality of the attack is also emphasised by Eve reaction when she walks into the room, screaming for help. Villanelle again subverts stereotypes of typical female gender roles by being so ruthless and uncaring. the social context of the show is essentially exactly the same as reality so her actions would be seen as clearly subverting female gender roles. We can apply Van Zoonens theory of gender performativity by clearly seeing that Villanelle completely opposes and subverts her assigned gender roles by studying how she acts in this scene, apathetic, brutal and merciless.

Hardest bit: Context

Tuesday 12th December 2023

LO: To recap the representations in set products

James Bond

Jim Hopper- Traditional

Soldier Boy- Traditional, American, 

Konstantin- Authoritative, Father Role, Positive, Neutral 

Niko- Less Traditional, Cooks, Looks after Eve, Emotionally supportive, positive

Dom, Supportive, Helpful, Innocent, Young

Frank, Boss, Traditional, Serious, Older, Deceptive, Negative

Victims, Misogynist, Older, Predatory, Negative

Bill- Nice, Kind, Caring, Supportive, Older, Positive

Konstantine- 

Dismissive, uncaring for privacy,

Traditional masculine hair,clothing etc

 Intrusive, Controlling, Serious

Frank- 

Cocky, Serious, 

Irritable, Angry,

Formal, Bully.

Bluntly Insults Eve

Monday 8th January 2024

Killing Eve: Theory and Representation

LO: To explore the theory and representation in set products

Postmodernism:

Irony

Parody, Homage

Bricolage

Intertextual Reference

Fragmented Narrative

Self Reflexivity

Common Themes- What If?

Loss of Reality

Killing Eve:

creates a "real world", has a fragmented narrative, multiple pov's at different times. Not traditional for a post modern text. Narrative relates to real world via setting, London, Paris, Vienna, Tuscany. Representations of MI5 are a stereotypical modern simulations of the real thing, creates a simulacra of the real thing. Creates a hyper reality of the secret service, reference to M in James Bond via Carolyn.

Gauntlet;

The unique and diverse representations of race, gender and performance or gender roles can be used by the audience to think through their own personal identity.

Killing eve has familiar representations that attract international audiences. Spy and espionage are very popular genres in media. Most countrys having a personal variety of this. This increases the variety of representations in order to reach a global audience.

The power of the audience as actively interacting with media and may underestimate the power media conglomerate companies have in shaping culture and identity.

Hall:

Killing eve tries to create a dominating meaning through using the ideology of good vs evil to support preferred reading of those who create the and social norms in society.

Looking at typical societal representations of Gender, race, class etc. The representations are created by what is missing and the reality of things such as sexism, racism, economic struggle etc not being faced by the characters. 

Masculinity in Killing Eve:

There are many diverse representations of masculinity in killing eve, supporting and subverting typical cultural stereotypes spanning across the male characters of killing eve.

Niko:

Constantine:

Bill:

Represents a very tame variety of masculinity, Stern in the face of argument, serious when appropriate but also unserious in multiple occasions, emotionally supportive of eve after hospital situation

Frank:

Represents a very intense representation of masculinity. Supports very typical masculine and male stereotypes, is aggressive and unkind toward Eve in regard to her failing to keep the witness alive, remains very stern, serious and uptight in every appearance. Keeps his appearance in very high standard, wears suit, neat facial hair etc, physically fit etc.

Dom:

Represents a younger, less confident form of masculinity, unsure of his own place and actions. Willing to help eve even though partly aware its illegal, lying to parents to sneak out etc. Shocked and afraid in the face of violence and death. Overall brave yet timid

Tuesday 9th January

Theory: Audience Industry

LO: To explore the audience and industry theory and apply to set products.

Audience theory:Hall

Media producers encode meanings in their texts that are decoded in 3 different ways by the audience.

Dominant Reading- Accepts typical preferred and ideological meanings 

Negotiated Reading- Some of the message decoded by the audience is accepted but some is also disputed so the audience changes it to fit their experience and preference.

Oppositional Reading- Both the preferred and idealogical meaning/assumptions in the text are rejected

Killing Eve:

Draws attention to the potential meanings within the episode. The audience will question eve and villanelle and their  methods and motivations while also agreeing with certain aspects.

Acknowledges the power of media in creating a dominant messages and values in television.

 

Audience Theory: Bandura

The media can influence people directly, aswell as influencing directly and indirectly through other platforms such as social media so we can become influenced without being exposed to the original media.

Audiences may imitate behaviours and representations shown in media, especially those that contain violent and aggressive content as it is the most striking.

Human values, judgment and conduct is can be manipulated through direct models in media 

Violent and Aggressive content is especially prone to imitation by the audience, 

apply to many media sources, More complex respresentahions in LFTVDS are less likely to be imitated due to a possible slight lack of understanding.

Audience Theory: Gerbner

The effects of violent representations on people suggest that tv programs that promote this representation make the world seem like a dangerous place with negative events. 

Supports the idea that tv should be regulated to prevent harm.

The large amount of violence in the hospital can create a representation of the world. Causing mistrust of the world in the audience.

Conspiracy in the MI5 created when spread of misinformation is shown, creates mistrust of MI5 in public even though its an unsupported representation of the MI5.

Curran and Seaton

Patterns in ownership and control are in important in media functions.

Media Industries are very capitalist and aim to increase concentration of ownership, narrows opinions represented in the media, affecting plurality.

Owners will always pursue profit at expense of quality or creativity

Media ownership is the most significant factor in the way media industries work 

Killing Eve Theory Industry:

LO: To explore the industry theory and apply to set products.

Killing Eve:

-Made by BBC America

Killing Eve, representations

Diverse representations:

Race

Britain

Gender

Sexuality

Supermassive media conglomerates strive to gain a vice-like control over their respective sector.

Hesmondhalgh: Cultural Industries:

Cultural industries use standard ad typical capitalist patterns of increasing concentration and integration, Production is owned and controlled by only a few conglomerates.

Risk is particularly high in cultural industries due to the struggle and difficulty of predicting success.

Risk is only seen through the loss of money in a production of a media product and how much return it makes. 

Media products are seen as public goods and are not consumed upon release but can be reused to generate further profit. This is evident in companys reliance on repetition in popular releases, rebranding the product for more profit.

Killing Eve:

Sandra Oh, Reliable, well established. 

Genre of spy/thriller very popular in US, reliable audience interest

Subversion:

New actor, Jodie Coner, not as reliable, paid less that established actors such as Sandra oh.

Livingstone and Lunt:

Consumers are individuals who seek hidden and private benefits from the media and require regulation to protect themself. Citizens are social, seek public or social benefits from the media and need regulation to promote public interests. 

Media regulation offers a variety of purposes and must cater to a large range of consumer/citizen needs

Traditional forms of media regulation are challenged by new online and globalised media culture resulting from technological developments such as the internet.

Regulation required to promote consumer interest.

Tuesday 16th January 2023

LO: To apply theory in exam responses. Demonstrate analysis of set product linked to an exam question.

To what extent do TVD create contrasting representations in contemporary media products.

Contrasting representations:

Dom-Frank Masculinity

Eve-Villanelle Good evil

Eve- Niko, Determined, passive

Villanelle- Eve, Organised, focused- emfatuated

Frank- Traditional

Niko- caring, non traditional

Bill- Casual Boss

Constantine- Traditional boss but female

LIAR

Overall Eve is represented as strong and determined 

TVD's create contrasting representations, this is evident in Killing Eve through specific character representations and narratives. The representation of strength and bravery is represented on extremely different levels through characters such as Villanelle and Dom.

Villanelles strength and bravery is evident through the Mis-En-Scene and camerawork throughout the entire Tuscany assassination sequence. Her physical strength is immediately displayed when she climbs the pipe on the side of the house in order to get in. Not only does this express her impressive physical ability, it suggests she has sufficient experience and doesn't fear a riskier entry. The mid shot used to show this feat is used in order to emphasise her effortlessness in doing so, there is never a need to focus in as its such a standard activity for her. Once inside the house and just before the actual assassination, the lighting becomes much colder, completely contrasting the much warmer and brighter outside. The lack of sounds and people inside the house emphasise the idea of a much more sinister environment. The focal shift used to change from the target behind to Villanele sitting casually expresses her lack of fear despite being in a total strangers house who has just immediately sexualised her and who she is about to try and kill. This highlights typical social contextual stereotypes of men and women as a man immediately initiating a sexual interaction is typical and a masculine stereotype and conforms to standard social contextual stereotypes., these social contextual stereotypes are also subverted by Villanelles overall performance and clearly displayed skill, almost acting more stereotypically masculine in how she acts, physically strong, brave, confident, skilled. Additionally we can link this to Butlers theory of Gender Performativity as the target in this scene conforms to typical gender roles, while Villanelle instead subverts this as she acts almost stereotypically masculine and does not conform to typical female gender roles.

In comparison to Villanelles impressive strength and Bravery, Dom, as a character is represented as far weaker. This is primarily evident through Mis-En-Scene and Sound. Dom's entire demeanour and body language suggests he is less confident and nervous in the face of what he is doing, despite the security of being led by Eve and being in a typically standardly safe place, a hospital. This insecurity is evident in the scene where Dom and Eve enter the hospital and it is immediately noticeable that Dom is fidgeting, looking around and overall acting very uncomfortable, this is backed up and emphasised by him quickly following up these actions with asking if what they are doing is legal, clearly worried for his own wellbeing and if hes doing anything he shouldn't be. 

Monday 22nd January 2024

Lupin

LO: To explore the narrative, theme and characters in set episode.

Central characters whose motives develop with them

Tokyo

Professor- Money, Fame, Robin hood mindset, take from rich give to poorer etc.

Berlin- professional thief

Moscow-

Denver-

Rio-

Helsinki-

Oslo-

Nairobi-

All want money

All unique skills and personalitys

Motives may change

Main storyline with interwoven subplots

Robbing spanish mint, 2.4 Billion euros

Tokyo-past, what happened, who is she, how did she get caught

Professor- Why is he helping them, who is he, past, how is he so smart, slanders education yet is clearly educated, why, why does he want to rob the place

Hacker guy- why is he tokyo's "weakness"

A combination of complex characters that ambiguous or enigmatic, creating tensions and questions for the audience.

Lupin:

Netflix created the series.

George Kay is British and scripted the show in english and Francois Uzan translated the show into a french context.

Won the satellite award for best actor in a drama series, was the most succesful non english language program on Netflix at the time.

Episode 1 was released in 2021 and was the first french series to reach the top 10 list on most watched at the time.

Netflix created a part 3 due to the huge success 

Tuesday 23rd January 2024

Watching Lupin

Main Narrative Quest/ Conflict Set Up:

Mans father is a chauffer for a very rich man who owns a priceless necklace, the father is accused of stealing the necklace when it goes missing and commits suicide in prison, the son is given a book before his father dies and decides to base his life around it, much later in life he decides to steal the necklace by conducting an elaborate heist using the techniques in the book given to him by his father. The people he hired to help him with the heist betray him in an attempt to get the money for themselves but he planned for it and manages to bring a copy and swaps them, securing the necklace for himself, after the heist he visits his son and gives him the book his father gave him.

Enigma Codes:

What happened to mains father

Who actually stole the necklace

What drove mr of family to set up father

Individual Character Narratives:

Main- seeks revenge on the family for essentially causing his fathers death, very intelligent and smart, bases his technique about a book.

Father- Cleaner for very rich man, accused of stealing when a priceless necklace goes missing, commits suicide in prison

Mother- Presumably an ex lover of main, refuses child support money, independant, possibly knows about heist, remains playful and flirty with main.

Heist helpers- Dodgy people who are very rough and end up betraying main after they think they successfully steal the necklace.

Mrs of Family- Much kinder than husband, very rich, feels guilt for not speaking up about father not being the culprit.

Mr of Family- Very mean, evil man, aggressive, rude, very rich etc

Monday 29th January 2023

Lupin- Genre And Narrative

LO: To explore the narrative theory and genre theory. To apply the theory to the set text.

Narratology:

Narratology is the study of narrative, how parts fit together in media texts to make a whole. All narratives have a movement from one equilibrium to a new one, a disruption is what causes an equilibrium to transform into a new one.

This movement from one equilibrium to a new one triggers transformation (e.g the hero embraces their heroism and defeats a villain). This transformation represents what the narrative values and its beliefs.

Todorovs theory is widely applicable meaning its possible to identify the key elements of the theory in LFTVDS.

This theory was not designed to explain long serial dramas but instead linear media texts with clear resolutions. Cannot explain complex narratives where climax and resolution are delayed.

Equilibrium-

Fairly comfortable life with occasional struggles of being a black single parent family in the lower class racist society

Disruption-

Father being accused of a crime and dying while he was a child

Recognition Of Disruption-

Realising/Knowing his father was set up and are responsible for his death, cursing as woman at his dads funeral

Attempt To Resolve-

get revenge, firstly by stealing the necklace his father was accused of stealing

New Equilibrium- 

Equilibrium-

Instability in his fatherly role, struggling

Disruption-

Recognition

Attempt To Resolve

New Equilibrium

Non-Linear narrative structure filled with flashbacks and red herrings, serves 2 purposes 

Non-Linear narrative used to misdirect the audience, adding to the tension and suspense in the first episode.

Provides an overview of assanes plan and explains how Babakar's mistreatment led to the central context of the narrative,

Genre Theory: Neale

Genre is a process where standard codes and conventions and stereotypes are shared amongst producers and audiences through repetition in media texts.

Genre's are not grounded but are instead constantly changing and evolving with each new addition to said genre, experimenting with genre codes and conventions and becoming hybrids with other genres.

Originally developed to only be applicable to film genre but can be applied to LFTVDS as they are the most film like form of television media output. 

Many LFTVDS  have the resources to rely on elements such as high production values, the star system, tone and excotism rather than relying on genre to market themself.

Genre And Lupin:

.

Crime Thriller, Mystery, Heist.

Oceans 11, Sherlock Holmes, Money Heist.

Lupin- Heist, Strong, Confident, Protagonist, Sherlock, Police- Negative- Others focused on criminals.

Both Killing Eve and Lupin have serious social issues/themes addressed.

Poker Face:

Todorov:

Linear Narrative

Equilibrium:

Woman lives comfortable, normal life, learns she can realise when someone is lying

Disruption:

ability to detect lies gets her in trouble with police when she accuses someone who is supposably proven innocent.

Recognition:

Goes on the run, always moving, lives in car, 

Attempt to resolve:

Finds out original accusation was true, tries to prove his guilt, get revenge

New Equilibrium:

Goes place to place, cant help but solve mysterious crimes with her ability

Neale:

Genre: Crime Thriller, Mystery, Realistic Magical

Protagonist: Unskilled, Curious, Intuitive

Tuesday 30th January 2023

Lupin- Context

LO: To explore the context of the production , and contextual themes in set episode.

Lupin written by a british writer and scrip[teed in english

French writer who co-wrote some episodes translated into  a french setting and situation.

Very successful internationally

 Opening Scene 0-7 mins

Mis-En-Scene:

Clothing: Industrialised

Lighting:

Camerawork:

Sound:

Editing:

 Assane being immediately underestimated by the drug ring leader due to his overall demeanour and likely involved racism. Assanes constant underestimation is used by him to appear as unthreatening and uninteresting. This emphasises the class and power difference between the working and upper class in Paris.

Economic:

Lupin is entirely set in france compared to Killing Eve which just the first episode takes place in several countries and different places, this shows the economic context of both shows, Where killing eve can afford to be high quality all over the world while lupin has a clearly lower budget as its location is constricted and specific.

KE- Filmed in various high quality production locations.

LP- lower budget than KE

LP- Lower budget, french language series. but very succesfull, mostly on Netflix

Social:

How the audience consume and interpret LFTVDS, how does it affect and influence the views 

Class KE- one main class represented

Lupin classes- variety of classes represented

Poverty: 80% of Paris

Cultural:

How modern forms of LFTVDS affect audience consumption , modern binge watching expectation of constant content, specific want

Gender equality

Use of the mona lisa, internationally known

The book Arsene Lupin- Gentleman Burglar

Shots of eiffel tower

Lupin links to pink panther and the saint

Shows of the rough banlieue reference slums in french tv

Historical Context:

How Lftvds are influenced by historical facts and society of different time periods, significant events etc

Class divided in 1900's was extremely evident and obvious, part pf standard society, Peregrines to Assane and his father, Racism also seen as far more acceptable, far more evident and aggressive in 1900"s

Political:

How political circumstances can affect a media text,  national identity and variety, politcal viewpoints and ideologies.

Prison- Abusive, Overbearing, Unfair, Racist

Class Divided of higher class to the slums of paris, unfair, unhappy, lack of care from government

Crime is a huge indicator of social decay

The racial tension in Lupin is acknowledged within society through the divided of those in power being white and those living in poverty and slums are people of colour.

Flashbacks show assanes life with his father working as immigrants for a higher class family and the inequalities that surround that.

Was released in 2021 during the pandemic and everyone was staying at home, boosting viewership of all online shows dramatically.

Context may be considered within broader themes of drama as a genre, including social inequality corruption and the marginalisation and the under representation of the immigrant experience.

Influence of historic political context and politicians who massively affected immigration such as Marine Le Pen.

Monday 5th February 2023

Lupin- Male Characters

LO: To explore the narrative and characterisation in set products

Representations

Father- Older, respectful, stereotypical gentleman.

Assane- Polite but informal at times, strong, determined

Mr Pellegrini- Cheat, Manipulative

Loan Sharks- Stereotypical in appearance, violent, Muscular gang member- Appearance,

Jeweller- Skilled, Assane

Weaker, Inadequate- Scrawnier gang member, lack of education 

Assane- Unstable, Unreliable as a father/provider

Scene Analysis-

Assane-

Intelligent- Dialoge, Editing, Camera

Logical- Dialoge

Challenges the gang

Brave

Details- Intelligent- Camerawork

The Gang Members-

Location- Lower Class

Violent- Camerawork

Merciless- Camerawork

Greedy- Dialoge

Brutish

Blunt

Lazy- Camerawork

Rude- Dialoge

Prey on vulnerable

Babakar-

Polite- Dialoge

Skilled

Charming- Dialoge 

Intelligent- Dialoge 

Friendly

Chivalrous

Gentleman

Socially Aware

In Lupin men are represented in a range of ways, but within the planning scene the gang members are represented as violent, Rude and Brutish. In the scene were Assane goes to the gang members disguised as a lower class citizen we see them act extremely aggressive toward Assane. This is emphasised through the dialoge in the scene, "Sounds like a shitty job" regarding Assane telling them about were he works and other comments such as "How does this get me my money" And "alright, throw him over". Showing how they are extremely greedy and only interested in getting their money and very quickly resort to violence to solve an issue, this is made more apparent later in the episode. The gangs violence is shown to be related to their class through the many establishing shots used to show the area as typically lower class, unclean, messy, looks stereotypically dodgy. We can relate this to the social context of france, where it is very apparent that there is a very clear class divide in the city, emphasised by Assane saying "Those at the top dont see us at the bottom" Referring to the higher class disregarding lower class people and ignoring them. In this entire scene we can apply Butlers theory of gender performativity, we clearly see the fulfilment of stereotypically masculine gender roles within the gang, being physically strong, acting dominantly, confident etc.

We can compare this representation of masculinity to the representation of Babakar in the flashback. Babakar is almost immediately shown to be very intelligent and friendly, through his use of words such as "Presumptuous" and congratulating his son on spelling it correctly. Then continuing to fix Mrs Pellegrini car and drive her to her destination while speaking gracefully and politely throughout the whole scene, a complete opposite of how the gang members acted toward Assane. 

Tuesday 6th February 2024

LO: To explore the narrative and characterisation in set products.

What happens in the scene:

Assane arrives, flashback to babakar helping Mr pelligrine inside, pelligrine is rude, ordering etc, we learn about the necklace, history etc, Flashback to Assane and pelligrenes daughter at pool, she challenges him to swim across the pool and she will kiss him, both flashbacks have discrimination against race and/or class.

Cleaners entering, gang setting up for heist

How is Assane Represented:

Slightly nervous, acting as higher class, polite, confident, successful, 

Segregated, awkward upon entry- Clothes, Lighting, Setting

Why this scene is affective and significant for the plot:

Shows history of necklace

establishes characterisation for pelligrine

Shows class and racial difference

How does this highlight class differences in french society:

Clothes

Above and below- Positioning

Colonialism- Power of white western civilisation

How is the Mis-En-Scene used to show this:

There is an extremely prominent presence of white western cultures history being evident in modern representations and being standardly treated as superior to the blend of other cultures now apparent across the world.

Historic colonialism and overall superiority of white western cultures in history still influence attitudes today.

There are many unique and contradictory messages in media texts that individuals can use to think through their identity and express themselves.

It is now an expectation for people to express their own unique identities.

Online media offers a route to self expression.

Hyper Reality- Representations are more real and powerful than reality

HyperReal- Representations aren't of reality but are representations of representations.

Simulacra- Representation that is not able to know the difference between Representation and reality

In modern societies, representations are stronger than reality. 

In the auction scene, the contextual issue of class and the state of it in france is clearly represented through the divided of the people at the auction and the janitors. We see a continued parallel of the auction and the janitors throughout the scene, comparing their different situations. Through mis-en-scene alone we can establish the clear divide, the Buyers are dressed and groomed incredibly well, looking very distinguished and presentable while also looking much happier and interested, The camerawork used to represent the buyers is also incredibly more graceful and smooth as it gradually rotates around the priceless necklace and the buyers. This creates a total parallel to the janitors, who we see are already physically lower than the buyers, entering through an underground entrance as to not be seen, almost like they are an embarrassment and are hidden. We also see that everyone is in the same uniform and looks far less happy than the buyers, less well groomed, rougher outfits, aswell as the camerawork also opposing the elegance of that used on the buyers and necklace. Seeming far more rough and standard, showing these people are less privileged and fortunate.

Monday 19th February 2024

Lupin- Race and Class

LO: To explore the social context of class and race through the characterisation in set products

Villanelle-

Professional- always neatly dressed, clean, high quality outfits, almost fancy, coordinated, middle/higher class- lavish outfits etc, brighter colours, more feminine, well kept

The Gang- Very rough and typically masculine, clothing is very casual and affordable, unremarkable, maybe slightly dirty.  standard outfits, darker colours, standard clothing of lower class.

France immigration- Public has strong negative perceptions on immigration in france 56% believing it is negative, 

Multiculturalism in killing eve is represented by the wide of ethnicities within the cast members 

Sandra Oh- Asian american. 

Dom And Nico- Polish

Villanelle And Konstantine- Russian

Eves Assistant- Black

Accepts people, Positive representations

immigration and multiculturalism is represented in Lupin via protagonist ethnicity

Negative representation, racism, more evident in flashbacks.

Class issues in Lupin

Cleaners, very casual clothing, Hidden away underground

Muted lighting- unhappy

Security- Mistrust, divide, rigorous security, 

French Suburbs- Graffiti, casual clothing, dirty, large, rough lifestyle, lack of enforcement, dull muted lighting, concrete

The gang- Filthy apartment, very messy, muted, darker, very rude, aggressive

Clothing- Hoodie, hide identity, social decay, gangs etc

Tattoos- common trope of prison, violence etc

Apartment, very small, cramped, every apartment the same

Sportswear, typical 

The Gang- Violent solutions, failed at original plan, tapping uselessly at keyboard, poor choice of car, immediate decision to betray, sat with engine running told off etc.

Flashbacks- Blatant prejudice in society in historical context

Barthes- signs

On entrance into the louvre the janitors go through rigorous security check, depicting mistrust for them, Divided between them and security guards, they report to to the guards etc. Janitors are dressed in casual wear when entering.

Officers refusing to hear both sides of babakars story in flashback and immediately arresting him due to racial prejudice and class divide, hesitant to accuse Mr. Peregrine as he is very high status and would be very contraversal. While Babakar is lower class and suffers from racial prejudice.

Levi Strauss- Opposites

Racism- Equality

Tuesday 20th February 2024

Representation- Gender

Van Zoonen:

Gender is created through performance of specific gender roles 

Women are commonly sexualised and objectified in media

Historical and cultural context impacts gender roles

Gauntlet:

Media has a complex relationship to identities

Certain representations and identities in media can be adopted by audiences to their own identity.

Gender-

Masculinity- 

Assane, Skilled, Smart, typically attractive

Gang Members, aggressive, strong, reckless, shady. traditional

Mr Pellegrini- Masculine in historical context, Rich, Demanding, Unkind, presumptuous

Babakar- Described as gentleman, takes on mother role aswell

Femininity-

Assanes Ex, Single mother, independent, caring, 

Janitor, Undermined, lack of character 

Mrs Pellegrini, submissive, caring, kind

Peregrine Daughter, sexualised

Hall- Representation

Meaning is created by a representation bit it is whats present and absent that create a representation

Stereotypes should be pulled apart to better understand what they say about ideology

Using stereotyping and ideology, people in power try to fix a meaning of a representation to a preferred reading that suggests there is only one true meaning behind a representation. 

Social Issues- lupin

Racial Inequality,  Internalised racism within french society

Class Inequality, Very clear divide between classes in france, sheer amount of suburbs show the huge amount of lower class people compared to the very few higher class people

White Patriarchal, capitalist society, Lack of positive female representation.

Social Issues- Killing Eve

Gender Equality- Women seen as inferior, weaker, less capable

Multiculturalism as part of everyday life, 

Career Focused women- Lack of support and representation of women focused on their career.

Demonisation of Russia, Foreign power seen as negatively represented.

How are the lead protagonists in Lupin and Killing Eve used to reflect societal issues?

In Lupin, Assane is used to reflect societal issues in French society such as Class Inequality. In France, Class inequality and divid is an extremely real and prevalent issue, within the episode we see Assane experience and/interact with Lower, Middle and Upper class society, the most represented of the 3 being Lower and Upper class. In the scene where we first meet the gang members, the lower class society of france is very strongly represented as unhappy, The mis-en-scene of the establishing shots of the specific building in the french suburbs show many negative elements such as, A very large amount of graffiti all over the building, suggests a dangerous, criminal environment and a lack of care from enforcement in preventing crimes such as vandalism, The overall colour pallet on the inside and outside of the building is extremely muted, being predominantly grey and darker colours, suggesting a lack of care for beauty and cheap construction prioritised over comfort and happiness, further emphasising a lack of care from the government for the lower class. The outfit Assane wears while in this environment also depicts typical tropes of lower class areas, wearing a grey hoodie and joggers, worn to be very casual and unremarkable, hoodies also commonly used by criminals to hide identity etc. The personality of the gang members themselves also reflect a lower class area stereotype, a very violent, reckless, greedy and overall negative personality tropes are common in typical representations of lower class areas. Overall the lower class suburbs of france are shown to be extremely negative representations and reflect societal inequalities of France. We can apply Levi-Strauss's theory of binary oppositions to emphasise the difference between the higher and lower class in this episode, the binary opposition of higher-lower and rich-poor creates an extremely prevalent difference between the classes. The higher classes wealth and comfort is emphasised when we see the lower classes accommodation and daily life and the lower classes situation and struggles are emphasised when we see the higher classes fancy clothing and attitudes. Just the basic opposite elements of life make the other seem better/worse.

In Killing Eve, Eve is used as a character to reflect societal issues such as the unsupported and inequality in the treatment of career focused women by society. In the first meeting scene of eve and her coworkers discussing the recent assassination, Eve is clearly very passionate and determined in her suspicions and is very much disregarded and undermined with her very viable opinions, possibly due to internalised sexism and the struggle of career focused women. Throughout multiple scenes, Eve shows discontent with her current working position and clearly wants to do more and advance her career, but it clearly struggling due to the attitude of society to woman who want to focus predominantly on a career, this is such an issue and struggle for eve to a point where eve illegally conducts her investigation possibly in an effort to prove to her higher ups and society in general that she can advance in career and is capable of doing more than they think she can. The media language used to emphasise the societal issue of the lack of support for career focused women is predominantly Characters Dialogue and their physical actions.

Monday 26th February 2023

Lupin- Representation Gender

LO: To analyse a selection of scenes using accurate media terminology.

Gang is represented as quick to violence and aggression, while not being very intelligent in their use of the chloroform and lack of knowledge of how chloroform works, the immediate turn to aggression after the original plan doesn't immediately work reflects the gangs personality, use of handheld camera makes the scene seem more chaotic and violent towards the guards as it makes it seem as if the viewer is in the room with them, aerial shots also show the scene in detail and reflects each character and their personalitys.

Upper class are represented as very powerful and mighty, clear divide established between them and gang is attitude and behaviour, upper are very polite etc

Almost all shots used to represent the upper class people are low angle shots, making them all seem more powerful and significant, divided established with assane, as a pov shot puts us on his level, making him seem almost inferior etc as they are all made seemingly higher through camerawork, specifically auctioneer and main rich person.

There is very little multiculturalism in the auction hall, assane is actually the only black person there, potentially represents white dominated patriarchal society in France.

Mr Pelligirni-

Very stern, uptight, unkind toward babakar, accusatory, potentially racist toward babakar, immediate accuses him after necklace goes missing, always busy, higher class. A fake gentleman, uncaring for his workers, especially babakar. Conforms to stereotypical gender roles of time.

Mrs Pellegrini-

Kinder, Sympathetic, nice toward babakar and assane, lets him take a book for free, submissive toward Mr pelligirni, gender inequality of historical context, doesn't speak up when babakar accused. May also be racist, immediately locks car when it breaks down and babakar come over to help. Conforms to stereotypical gender roles of time.

Babakar-

Very kind, Skilled, well spoken, gentleman- Drives car, Open door, cleans etc,  polite, good father, defensive, speaks up for himself when accused, gets frustrated at Mr pellegrini, Brave.

- The gang is represented as incompetent, unintelligent and very quick to violence, while also shown to be greedy and unkind. These attributes are emphasised by Assane's representation of being a Gentleman, his wide variety of skills, quick thinking and high intelligence and skill at planning. While also being shown to be kind and polite.

Meaning is established and representations emphasised by opposing elements and attributes, the opposites create difference.

Flashback plus next stage of plan scene-

We can apply Levi Strauss theory of binary oppositions in this scene through the clear divides established between groups, In the carrying out the plan scene, there is a binary opposition of higher and lower class in the Auction attendees and the janitors and gang below. While not only are the attendees physically higher up, they are represented as polite, well humoured, well dressed etc while the janitors and gang are shown to look less well kept and dressed establishing a clear binary opposition of higher class- lower class. This binary opposition is emphasised in the flashback as we see a similar application of higher class individual's seeming more well kept, dressed and wealthy. Compared to babakar who is less well dressed and less well kept, Unironed shirt, no jacket etc.

Close Up/Mid Shot used to clearly show Assane's mistrust and disapproval of what the auctioneer said evident through his expression and camera angle showing him and auctioneer on same level.

Mid Shot used to emphasise assane and necklace as most important things in frame as well as quickly cutting between them to show a connection, Assane perhaps almost has a prejudice or distaste for the necklace as it was the reason his father was imprisoned and killed himself. Flashback of the initial accusation is a intense scene, with babakar becoming extremely frustrated and lashing out, due to the extreme prejudice against him in this scene.

Mid low angle shot shows babakar as inferior and weaker while showing he is surrounded and helpless, emphasised when he is held back and dragged away.

Car is very conspicuous and stands out, opposite of whats needed for a heist, dialogue- the gang are constantly arguing and insulting each other, inefficient and disruptive.

White gloves- Connotation, handling something very precious, the necklace, worth millions, very important.

Formal suits and outfits- Suggest an element of higher class, politeness, distinguishment.

Safe- Suggests an emotional connection in scene switch, trauma of father getting arrested.

Establishing long shot, shows whole prison, fairly tame representation compared to other countries representation of law.

Prison is represented as fairly tame environment, everything under control, visiting is ethical, kind etc. 

French law and justice represented as fairly positive representation, efficient, ethical etc, aside from historical context of prejudice and racism. 

Lots of speaking in prison, clanging of bars, cramped environment, tense, nervous etc.

Assane refers to Mrs pellegrini as madam, being polite until last line, "Go to hell, madam" mocking how his father spoke to her and how polite he was and how she ultimately led to his death.

Dominant Reading- Audience accepts representations of law perhaps that the suicide was unavoidable, accepts representation of prison in france in general.

Negotiated Reading- Audience accepts representation of Prison, Law and justice in france but disagrees with effectiveness when neglect of Babakar is clear when he commits suicide in his cell.

Oppositional Reading- Audience disagrees with representation of French prison, law and justice system and how the suicide took place with neglect of babakar from the prison staff.

Many media texts can fabricate a negative and misinformed view of the rest of the world in viewers, In Lupin we see a very negative representation of france through Poverty, Class Divide, Racism and general societal issues. These representations, while very real life issues, may be slightly enhanced or exaggerated in media texts, especially dramas such as Lupin or Killing Eve. Long term exposure to media texts Like Lupin may create a negative opinion of the rest of the world in the audience as it represents different countries negatively predominantly through representations and societal issues. This especially creates an opinion in viewers who have never been to these places and this creates a mental image of these countries that may be incorrect.

Long term exposure to media texts in general may create this negative opinion of the world (Mean World Syndrome). as many media texts can create a misinformed opinion and mental image of the rest of the world in people who have never been to those places.

Genres- Mystery, Crime Drama, Thriller

Crime Drama- Car crash hanging from glass roof, glass shards everywhere, shouting etc

Mystery- Inquisitive music playing in background, Detective talking about mystery novel Lupin etc, other detective suspecting Assane

Thriller- Intense, interesting etc

Police Procedural- Questioning, using forensics to test necklace, "Send it to the lab". Suspects caught and to be questioned etc

Low angle long shot- Shows care hanging from glass roof, officers apprehending criminals, necklace on ground etc

High angle mid shot- Makes gang seem weaker and losing to officers

Conforms to previous iterations of Mystery and Crime Dramas as genres, follows stereotypes of current state of Crime drama, (Intense, intriguing, twists etc) Further secures these stereotypes as matching to genre (Crime Drama, Mystery).

Matches current audience expectations of crime drama as a genre.

Monday 11th March 2024

Modern representations are now more powerful than reality, expectations match that of representations of things rather than the reality, representations are no longer related to reality. Postmodernism challenges standard order and shows fixed representations about identity.

Hyperreality- Representations are more powerful than reality

Hyperreal- Dont represent reality, are representations of representations

Tuesday 12th March 2024

Stereotypes:

Lower class- Messy, Dodgy, Dangerous, unhappy, aggressive

Rich- Polite, Uptight, colourful, happy, cowardly, dramatic

Police- Prejudice, unkind, 1 step behind

Migrants- Equal, Kind, Intelligent, Mistreated

Family Unit- Single mother, absent/disappointing father

Racism- White upper class people who are racist, workers are predominantly black.

Realism

Events- Family events, Assane and his son interacting etc, Babakar and Assane being treated poorly

Characters- Pellegrini- Accurate attitude for the time, historical context. Babakar, experiences extreme prejudice and racism.

Ideology- Racism, accurate representation of racism in culture and society, not only in france but globally

Narrative-  

Lupin- Industry theory applied

LO: To explore the industry theorists and how these can be applied to the set text

There is little variety in opinions in American TV Due to dominations by very few very large networks, prioritising profit over, variety, creativity and quality, as per the system of Curran and Seatons model.

HBO- Subscriptions and satellite meant less advertisements and higher quality entertainment. This paved a way for subscription services such as Netflix, a counter argument to Curran And Seaton as they create critically acclaimed series.

A very political and economic approach to the media- arguing patterns of ownership and control are most important in how the media operates.

Media industries follow standard capitalist pattern of increasing concentration and ownership in less and less hands, this leads to a very narrow range of opinions represented and pursuit of profit is prioritised.

Cultural industries follow the now standard capitalist pattern of increased concentration and integration.

Risk in cultural industries is defined by profit and therefore the loss or gain of profit, the only risk in these industries is loss in profit. Many industries and services such as Netflix depend on big hits the fund them and future endeavours. This means that industries depend on stars, repetitive use of franchises and narratives in order to minimise the risk of failure and risk, scarcity of such products is then forced through copyright laws allowing a company to independently own a franchise.

The internet has created new IT corporations, digital tech has sped up work, commercialised leisure time and increased the surveillance done by government and companies to catch any infractions and rule breaking of copyright laws.

Traditional regulation is put at risk due to increased globalised media industries such as Netflix, who avoid this typical regulation posing a risk to vulnerable audiences, this may result in new regulation values and law in order to combat this lack of regulation in popular media industries.

Monday 18th March 2024

The Show Runner

Individual or small team, usually writer or producer who places a personal stamp on the drama and gives it authored quality.

Killing Eve- Featured a team that was majority women who all perviously had critical aclaim and recognition from previous productions. Phoebe-Waller-Bridge was main producer in Season 1.

Lupin- George Kay, wrote/co-wrote all of the episodes, collaborated with Francois Uzan a paristan, who was responsible for translating the international themes in to a glamorous french context, possibly the reason the show performed so well on release.

Lupin- Audience Theory Applied

LO: To explore the Audience theorists and how these can be applied to the set text.

Textual poachers wish to use products such as LFTVDS to create their own personal culture in individual respected fan sites of these products, basing an online persona around these culture in some cases.

Many LFTVDS such as Lupin achieve a cult status, this only increases the value and rate that which theses textual poachers incorporate a product into their own culture on respected fan sites.

 This idea that online audiences and these "Textual Poachers" create a culture based around a product of a succesfull LFTVD suggests a very positivie representation and seemingly gives an audience more control over a product like the LFTVDS that online cultures are made around. Severely underestimating the power that smaller groups of high status people have in controlling and shaping a media product.

Textual poachers are people who take elements from media text and incorporate and create their own cultur.

Modern development of 'New" media has accelerated and caused Participatory culture to thrive. Participatory culture are audiences who are active and create participants rather than passive audiences and consumers. These active audiences create online communities, produce new creative forms of media, collaborate with each other and shape the flow of online media. Creating collective intelligence.

From this perspective, convergence is a cultural process rather than a technological one.

Jenkins prefers the term "Spreadable Media" rather than terms such as "viral" as his term emphasises the participatory element of new media.

Killing Eve

A fandom Wiki site that describes every episode, season and character in detail, offers detailed and accurate depictions and opinions through descriptions, is able to be edited by anyone, allowing fans to collaborate and interact.

Many online communities amongst majority of major social media, Reddit, instagram, twitter etc all featuring discussion of characters episodes etc, offering varying opinions and ideas for anyone to read and interact with.

Online shopping sites feature many fan produced products of killing eve, referencing events in the show, objects with skilfully made fan made illustrations such as birthday cards, tarot cards, posters etc.

Many objects embedded with quotes from the show such as rings, mugs, keychains etc.

Lupin

Online fan products produced such the gentleman burglar book recreations, many fan made posters.

A few online communities that discuss Lupin opinions etc as well as lupin fandom wiki that accurately talks about every episode, characters and plot offering opinions through description.

Lupin features far less fan sites, fan made products, and fan communities than Killing Eve due to not being nearly as popular or succesful as Killing Eve

In new media, every consumer now has the capability to be a producer, older fashioned and traditional producers would filter and then publish but these new producers are not employees of the production company and instead publish and then filter.

These new producers have very different motivations than traditional professional producers, these new producers value autonomy, competence, membership and generosity. All of the user generated content creates emotional connections between people and triggers online relationships through people who care about something. This can generate a cognitive surplus, E.G wikipedia can collaborate many peoples free knowledge and talent to a produce value that no traditional medium would be able to match.

The "Audience", a mass of people with very predictable behaviour is gone, behaviour is now variable across different sites and fandoms, some create content, come synthesise content and some consuming content. This new media provides a platform for people to provide value to each other.

Draws attention to idea that LFTVDS can provide value to each other through websites offering, comments, parodies, merchandise etc.

Cannot and does not apply to Broadcast TV

Although streaming services do not reflect the view of typical online media communities so far, as many primarily operate like "old media" offering centrally produced content by large organisations that are able to shape this product as they please.

Puts positive light on audiences having control and power, underestimates and ignores the power of the oligarchy  in media organisations and conglomerates and how much they power they have in shaping and controlling produced media.

Prosumers- Previously predictable consumers who have evolved with introduction of modern and new media.

Tuesday 19th March 2024

Lupin- Exam Practise

LO: To explore the exam format, to plan a comparative response to the set texts.

IAMR

How far = judgement must be made

Contexts ness to be explored, historical, political, economic, social, cultural

Analysis of the texts and theory applied

Refer to all theoretical framework.

Social Group:

Age, Ethnicity, Gender, Class, Sexuality

In LFTVDS such as Killing Eve and Lupin, social groups are shown to be different through varying representation. For example in Lupin we see clear social groups defined through their representation, such as the French suburbs shown to be unclean, bland and messy while at the auction, there is clear representation of formality, cleanliness and varying colour shown through clothing.

SG Lupin- Race, Ethnicity, class

SG Killing Eve- Gender, Ethnicity, Age

Theorists:

Van Zoonen, Gilroy, Levi Strauss, Butler, Hall, 

Intro

SG 1-6 Lupin

Social group 1-6 KE

Comparison

Social Group 2- 1-6 LP

Comparison

Social Group 2 KE

Conclusion

To what extent do LFTDS represent Social Groups Differently?

In LFTVDS such as Killing Eve and Lupin, social groups are shown to be different through varying representation. For example in Lupin we see clear social groups defined through their representation, such as the French suburbs shown to be unclean, bland and messy while at the auction, there is clear representation of formality, cleanliness and varying colour shown through  Mis-En-Scene such as clothing. While in Killing Eve

Within Lupin, Ethnic social groups are represented very differently than they are in Killing Eve, in Lupin Ethnic groups are shown to be treated poorly and severely prejudiced against by society, both in the flashback and modern scenes. within the flashback scenes including Babakar, racism and prejudice against Babakar is extremely evident clear and normalised, this is clear in the car breakdown scene when Mrs Pellegrini immediately locks her car upon noticing Babakar knocking on her window and offering to help, its extremely suggestive that this was racially motivated, emphasised through the use of Mis-En-Scene when the car clearly shown to be locked. This heavily reflects the historical and social context of the time, when these flashbacks are set, racism is widely acceptable and generalised to be a standard globally. But this does not take away from the representation of social groups in modern day as racism is still prevalent in the scenes that take place in 2021. We can apply Gilroys theory of colonialism as we see very typical white western culture attitudes toward ethnic groups in both the flashback and modern day scenes. Evident through the immediate dismissal of Babakar as innocent during the police investigating the theft of the necklace. This clearly represents how Lupin represents the social group of Ethnicity within the episode. Anyone who is not directly white or follow stereotypical standards of white western culture is treated very poorly and extremely prejudiced against.

Whereas in Killing Eve, ethnic groups are shown to be a very 

Monday 25th March 2024

Q4 Exam Practise

LO: To explore format for Q4 and prepare a planned response.

10 mar question

Barthes:

1. Study of sign sand

 semiology

2. Signs create denotation- implied meaning

3. Connotations are created from these to create meaning

4. Connotations create myths in society and idealogical meaning that are natural.

Hall- Representation:

Those in power in media use stereotyping and ideology to make it seem that a representation has only one meaning.

Media doesn't change reality, representations can have several meanings.

Stereotypes that try representing a singular meaning should be pulled apart in order to know what it tells us about ideology

Representations may intend a preferred meaning that can be corrected by an audience.

P1- Stereotypes are enforced by people in power in media in order to try and give one meaning to a representation.

Halls theory of representation suggests that people who have power in media such as larger conglomerates and extremely influential producers and the way these people work together attempt to assign singular meanings to a representation, this "preferred" meaning can be corrected by audiences as representations are capable of housing several meanings and denotations. These compressed representations that attempt to identify as a singular meaning should be pulled apart and deconstructed by audiences in order to understand what this tells us about modern ideology in media texts.

Within Killing Eve, the character Eve is represented as a rule breaker and rebellious due to her conduction of an illegal investigation in her strive to find an assassin. Due to her being one of few females in a predominantly male filled workplace, it would suggest that the intended or "preferred" meaning is that stereotypical and patricharcal values of women being treated poorly and differently in the workplace are in effect here, concluding that modern workplaces may follow more general and older ideologies that oppose women being in the workplace. Evident through Eves struggle to achieve higher than where she is due to possibly gender motivated prejudice. This representation is enforced as a singular meaning by the producers, the people in power of this media text and follow the standards set by majority of large scale media industries and conglomerates. The enforcement of this representation should be dissected so we can understand modern ideologies, in killing eve it is clear that typical stereotypes and values about women in the workplace are both represented and supported but also subverted by the shows future plot. Now, this may be a very strong meaning linked to the representation of Eve and her coworkers but it is not the only meaning, Media does not manipulate or change reality, representations can have several meanings. other meaning may include that, Eve is possibly disliked in her workplace possibly due to her slightly overbearing, eager and informal attitude among her coworkers who seem far more mundane, unmotivated and standard this would explain the possible prejudice against her for being very different in her personality. Or perhaps Eve simply is to eager, That its not her gender that causes her struggle but simply her position in the workplace, not yet having made her way up to a position she desperately wants to be in. There are severely in depth possible meaning behind the representation of Eve and her coworkers. The streamlined and overbearing preferred meaning in Killing Eve can be corrected into its several multiple meanings by active audiences who think in depth about the representations.

Within Lupin, Representations of patriarchal, white western society and the racist values it brings are shown to be very typical and generalised, especially within flashbacks. Halls theory is less effective here as the preferred meaning of this is that due to the time and place in which the flashbacks are set, Racism such as the mistreatment of Assane and Babakar is generalised and expected. This preferred meaning is backed up by reality and extremely reliable historical and social context of Paris. While there is this very strong preferred meaning, This representation can be pulled apart in order to understand the values of the historical context that are constructed within Lupin that is exactly as reality and historical accuracy.

In Conclusion, Halls theory is applicable to several situations and can identify several meanings from a representation rather than a singular, enforced "Preferred" meaning. But it cannot effectively deconstruct meanings of a representation that is incredibly set in stone and truly has a dominant singular meaning.

Tuesday 26th March 2024

Media Language Theory

LO: To explore media language theories within LFTVD

Semiology: Barthes

Denoliteral- Denotation = Literal

conoassociiate- Connotation = Associated 

Percy is a dog- Percy is a mammal that barks

Percy is a dog- Percy is wild, sometimes smelly, disgusting, cute.

These conno/denotations are organised into myths, an idealogical meaning.

E.g a pug may trigger a myth of historically cuteness motivated dog breeding.

Narratology: Todorov

5 Steps

EDRAE

Equilibrium

Disruption

Recognition

Attempt to solve

New Equilibrium

Transformation shown is what the narrative values.

Story of a new phone

New

Dropped

Cracked

New Screen

Fixed

Genre Theory: Neale

Genre is defined by repetition from industries and repeating genre codes and conventions.

Genre is not fixed and can change with each new addition.

Intertextual Relay- Products that refer to a media text such as critical writings or advertising material.

New cool thing

Everyone do new cool thing

One person decide to modify new thing

Everyone do new modified cool thing

Original cool thing has changed

Monday 15th April 2024

Structuralism - Levi Strauss

Structuralism- Study of hidden rules that govern something

The human mind could be investigated and understood by researching underlying values of fables and myths from around the world, Had the idea of binary oppositions, that these myths and fables were run by a system of opposing terms, the opposite of something emphasising it. Showing something hot and then something cold emphasises how hot the object is. 

Modern renditions of the modern version of this theory use the idea of ideology rather than human conscious, making it easily applicable to modern media texts.

This theory can be applied to any LFTVD and/or cultural product

Can be used to understand and analyse TVD narratives by clearing assigning and seeing how outside and inside oppositions are established, sometimes manipulating and playing with this opposition to disorientate audiences.

Postmodernism- Baudrillard

Postmodernism is the idea that society has surpassed "modernism" ands has instead changed into something new, this applies to things such as art and culture as-well as things like belief in progress.

Baudrillard argues that this new form of society is far more centered around simulation, a play on signs and images rather than "modern" societies focus on production of goods and so on.

No longer important elements of "modernism" suffer an implosion and loss of interest or need such as differences in gender, class, culture dissolve and become irrelevant in a world were people construct their own personal identities. 

This new world of hyperreality- Media Simulations, such as Disney Land, amusement parks as a whole, shopping malls and anywhere that media representation are evident is more real than "real", controlling how this "postmodern" society behaves and thinks.

KE:

Individualism- Villanelle and her organisation committing illegal acts that oppose the modern collective control of those power.

Consumerism- Product placement, computers, Villanelles shopping bags being emphasised etc

Perspective- Eve and Villanelles perspective, Eve as a woman feeling undermined in the workplace due to gender prejudice while villanelle is very free and does her job with little protest while doing it.

Ethnocentrism- MI5, Russian espionage

Patriarchy- Many of the most powerful figures within the episode such as Eves and Villanelles bosses are older white males.

Globalisation- Global monuments, travelling the world 

Lupin:

Individualism- Assane committing crimes skilfully in defiance of the collective powers that in the past falsely criminalised his father and led to his death.

Consumerism- Product placement, apple computers, assane real apartment, Museum items through glass.

Perspective- Assanes perspective, occasionally babakars, show the clear racial prejudice against them both as-well as their opinion on the people they interact with.

Ethnocentrism- Pellegrinis

Patriarchy- Auctioneer, Pellegrini Family, Mr Pelligirini, Police officers. Those in power and especially those who had power over Assane and his father are Older white males.

Globalisation- Eiffel tower, 

Industry Theory

LO: To explore industry theories within LFTVDS

Power and Media Industries: Curran and Seaton

A political economy approach to the media, arguing that economic elements such as ownership and control are the most important factors in media and how it operates.

Media industries always follow the capitalist ideal of higher and higher concentration of ownership, having fewer and fewer people owning an industry and therefore gaining more control and influence.

This results in a very narrow and unvaried opinion of an industry, striving for and massively prioritising monetary value over creativity and quality.

The internet does not offer an equal playing field for diverse voices to be heard, silenced and concentrated by state censorship and nationalism, however news is still controlled by powerful news organisations and industries, who have successfully defended their oligarchy.

Studying this idea and television as an industry draws attention to issues such as the ever shrinking concentration of media industries as-well as work practises of businesses and of risk and probability.

Lupin 

Premiered on Netflix and conformed to its rules and regulations, Netflix operates outside the jurisdiction of Regulators such as of-com so not many national regulation expectations are enforced. 

Cultural Industries: Hesmondalgh

Cultural industries follow the standard capitalist pattern of increasing concentration and integration in the pursuit of monetary gain and control over a product. Cultural production is owned and overseen by very few media conglomerates who vertically integrate in order to reduce risk (Loss of money).

Risk is especially high in cultural industries due to mass difficulty in predicting success, high production costs and so on and cause huge monetary losses for a conglomerate if a production fails to succeed, this prompts these conglomerates to repeat formulas and strategies that are successful, such as using famous and succesful actors again and again to ensure audience interest and increase the chances for success, this repetition of actors and plots etc makes the market for new actors extremely tight and difficult. Plot ideas and cliches that are repeatably used cause a product to become less successful this same plot element is used, eventually prompting the need of a new plot element or idea to maintain interest and originality. 

The internet has created very powerful new IT companies and has not transformed cultural productions in a liberating, powerful way . Digital tech has sped up work, commercialised leisure time and increased surveillance by government companies.

Regulation: Livingstone and Lunt

Regulators like ofcom are serving a modern audience that are seen as consumers and/or citizens. Consumers have specific wants and want exclusive treatment from media, use their language of choice and require regulation in order to protect them from being harmed. Citizens are are social, want special treatment that offer public and social benefits and require regulation in order to promote public interest.

Traditional regulation is at risk due to increasingly globalised media industries, digital media and media convergence.

Applies to LFTVDS from european and american public service broadcasts and cable streaming services as-well as streaming services.

Gauntlet: Identity

Modern media representation have a wide range of complex and different representations that can allow audiences to establish their own identities.

Identities such as gender and sexuality are far less fixed and imposed than they have been in the past.

Online media allows people to express themselves effectively and explore their own identities in a comfortable environment.

Can be applied easily to LFTVDS, several of which contain several complex and diverse representations that audiences can use to explore their identities. Killing eve and Lupin have diverse characters and representations that audiences can relate to and use to explore their identities.

Van Zoonen: Feminist Theory:

Women are often objectified in media representations

Gender is seen as socially and culturally constructed, this means gender can vary on historical and cultural texts.

Gender has a massive range of diversity and is expressed uniquely on the internet.

Can be applied to LFTVD, especially in gender representation.

Hall: Representation Theory:

When studying representation the focus should be on the link between representations and reality but instead on the actual meanings constructed.

The key focus for representation should be on who or what is represented and suggestions of difference.

Representations may intend to assign specific meanings through ideologies and stereotyping but audiences are able to rebel against these meanings.

Applies to a wide range of media products including LFTVD, but doesn't very specifically or effectively apply to LFCTD as its a general theory about most media in general.

Bell Hooks: Feminist Theory:

Feminist critiques of media focus on going against patriarchal stereotypes.

Intersectionality approaches to feminism draw attention to the importance of considering how the interaction of identities results in oppression.

This theory also argues media representations often reflect these oppressive ideologies.

Butler: Gender Performativity:

Gender is not something we are born with but instead expressed through the performance of gender roles

Gender is constructed through the performance of socially learned and expected behaviours.

Can be applied to LFTVD, especially gender

Gilroy: Ethnicity and Post-Colonialism

Colonial history continues to influence attitudes to ethnicities with an assumption of the superiority of white western cultures.

Can be applied to LFVTDS, especially to do with race, ethnicity and the post colonial world.

Doesn't specifically explain anything in LFTVDS as its a general theory in almost all media productions

Monday 22nd April 2024

Audience Theory

LO: To explore Audience theories within LFTVD

Bandura: Media Effects

Media can have a direct influence on the values and behaviour of audiences, media can also have indirect influences through complex social networks.

Films showing people of specific countrys as a specific trope, usually good or bad generates a potentially inaccurate opinion of that place in audiences 

Audiences may imitate behaviours shown in media, a very sudden and reactive response to media.

Applies to a wide range of media products, including LFTVD's, draws attention to the direct effect of LFTVD's on consumers. supports arguments that dictate that media products should be regulated to avoid public damage.

Gerbner: Cultivation Theory

Gerbner suggest that media can influence audiences over prolonged periods of exposure to TV, People who watched alot of television were more likely to have a very negative view of the rest off the world (Mean world syndrome) than people who did not watch a lot of television.

The repeated representation of a certain places or environments in media (Representation of prisons) may cause an inaccurate opinion

People who collectively watched alot of television had very similar views, suggesting a similar effect of prolonged exposure to television, called "Mainstreaming"

May apply to a wide range of media including LFTVD's

Draws attention to the need to explore the effects of prolonged LFTVD consumers

Suggests that television causes the belief that the world is a dangerous and violent place, emphasised by negative events

Applies to a old style media of fewer channels, services and choice, new media containing vast amount of choice may differ or lessen effects.

Hall: Reception Theory

Producers of media products encode specific and preferred meanings through using specific codes and conventions.

Audiences respond to this meaning in 3 ways, Either accepting the preferred meaning (Dominant Position), Rejecting the preferred meaning(Oppositional Position), Or accept some elements but modify aspects to match personal views and experiences (Negotiated Position).

Applies to a wide range of media including LFTVD's

Draws attention to range of possible audience responses and and readings of messages in LFVTD's.

Jenkins: Fandom

New media allows consumers to become active participants instead of passive consumers (Participatory Culture)

Shows such as Doctor Who have fans who create merch, books, fan pages etc

 Audience members become textual poachers. Taking aspects from media texts for their own content

Media can be shared, adapted and consumed constantly on a range of platforms (Convergence Culture)

content can be adapted by audiences for their own purpose and share it with others (Spreadable Media)

LFTVD's offer complex representations for textual poachers who wish to use this product to create their own fan sites.

This positive view of the power of audiences may underestimate the power of the ogliarchy in media.

Shirky: End of an Audience

Modern advancements have changed the relationship of Audiences and Producers, In old media content was only produced by producers but modern media allows audiences to also produce content

Prosumers- have different motivations to to professional media producers

This causes a cognitive surplus, a large collection of people allocate alot of time and knowledge to create something (E.G wikipedia, Specific pages dedicated to shows such as LFTVD'S and giving accurate info about said shows, eg- Doctor Who has many fan pages and websites for fans to connect and interact).

Audiences can no longer be seen as a single mass of people, new interactions between Producers and Consumers and audiences becoming a more active audience means that audiences engage differently with media products across platforms. Audiences now producing or adapting media products themselves.  

These new amateur producers have motivations of autonomy, competence, membership and generosity, this reflects the cultural context and audiences demanding interaction and creating it themselves online, allowed to through technological advancements and social networks.

Draws attention to the method in which audiences for LFTVD's can provide value for each other by using websites to offer comments and differing opinions.

Doesn't apply to broadcast television 

Streaming services conform more to old media and do not reflect the view of online media

Optimistic views of online audiences may underestimate the power of media conglomerates and their power over shaping and forming television media.

Tuesday 23rd April 2024

Q3 Exam Practise

LO: To explore the exam format, to plan a comparative response to the set texts.

Paragraph

Question

Describe Scene

ML Analysis

Theory

Context

Plan:

1. Relate to KE and LP being Netflix releases, KE originally originally on BBC etc

2. Van Zoonen, Butler: Gender performativity, Post colonialism

Killing Eve:

Production Context:

All female team made it

Released initially on BBC

Actors included such as Sandra Oh

Consumption Context:

Appeal to a large demographic of people who can relate to characters similar to them via Gender, Race, Class etc

Reaches a specific target audience, slightly older people who are interested in crime dramas

Dominant Conventions:

Men in powerful positions

Men having power over women

Men in typical gender norms via employment

Conventions of genre, Society Conventions

MI5 are leader/good guys, Russia as typical enemy,

Assassins

Thugs as less intelligent, rough

Montages, flashbacks, typical heist

Underdog as hero, typical

Stereotypical social groups 

Theory:

Hesmondhalgh- Star vehicle was used in Sandra Oh to ensure profit and minimize risk, genre that is well known , Successful, James bond- Franchise based on the same, spy thriller translates to all countries, Neale, Hybrid of genres- Spy thriller, mystery, female leads a re a development of the genre

Baudrillard: Hyperreality of MI5 and representations, more of a simulacra

Viewpoints and Ideologies:

Women in the workplace

Sexuality

Gender Equality

Women in high power positions

Lupin:

Production Context:

English writer collaborated with a french writer to produce an accurate rendition of france

Lower budget than Killing

Netflix Production

Consumption Context:

Less popular than KE, less fan content etc

Covid- Caused huge success

British writer meant it worked for a global audience and the had more series created. Cover influenced the audience as they had time to watch, binge watching meant lack of programmes available that they needed new content and took a risk with a non english language production.

Dominant Conventions:

Thugs as less intelligent, rough

Montages, flashbacks, typical heist

Underdog as hero, typical

Stereotypical social groups 

Viewpoints and Ideologies:

Racism in france

Historical Racism

Class divide

Reality of France

Monday 29th April 2024

Representations of social, cultural and historical events can vary within long form television dramas from different countries. Discuss how and why audiences might respond to and interpret these representations differently.

Audiences that come from different places and have varying thoughts on different social, cultural and historical events will interpret representations of these in long form television dramas differently due to having varying opinions on how these events and places are represented due to personal ideologies and personal preferences.

Contexts have significantly affected the production of long form television dramas, Social and politcal contexts at the time of production contained several contraversal opinions from powerful politcal icons such as Donald Trump and his extremely right wing, unsupportive opinions of women's rights. The all female production team of Killing Eve as-well as how female characters such as Eve and Villanelle are represented within the show (Intelligent, Powerful and Independant. Especially when compared to the male characters within the show)  express the shows response to the social and politcal context at the time of production and how much these contexts severely influenced the shows production. The women in Killing Eve are shown to extremely dominant and powerful, Shown through Eves physical abilities in her assassinations, dealing with several clearly male characters with ease, shown via Mis-En-Scene in the hospital scene where its clear she dealt with multiple male guards and several nurses by herself with very little difficulty. And Eve's determination and intelligence, shown through her want to do more in her occupation and conduction of an illegal investigation to solve several questions unanswered by the men they were assigned to, shown via Mis-En-Scene and Audio of her solving he crime with a variety of methods. We can apply Butlers theory of gender performativity here as Eve and Villanelle are represented as more typically masculine due to their heroic and skilful actions swell as the neglect of stereotypical female gender roles (Being physically weaker and less intelligent than men). Finally, the social and cultural contexts of the time significantly influenced the production of Killing Eve.

Context also significantly affected the Production of Lupin, Predominantly historical and social context of Racism within France. Within the multiple flashback scenes within the episode Racism is a very apparent factor and standard within society, this a very accurate representation as racism was a huge issue in the time these flashbacks are set. The racism shown due to historical context helps audiences understand the protagonist as-well as demonize certain characters in modern day. (The Pellegrinis in the past and the Pellegrinis daughter in modern day). While it is also clear that the progressive attitude of modern society has severely affected the idea of racism being a typical standard, Racism is still shown to be clearly present in modern day. (Assane being the only black person at the auction and the auctioneer not expecting "Someone like him" to buy the necklace). Here we can apply Gilroys theory of Post-Colonialism as we can clearly see the influence typical attitudes of white western culture superiority of the past being evident and present in modern day despite a much more progressive and modern society.

In Killing Eve, Audiences interpret Events and places differently depending on  representation of countries outside of the predominantly represented location that Eve, her workplace and her peers are shown to be in. One of the most represented of these is Tuscany, in the scenes in which Villanelle assassinates her target in his own home. Audience opinions of this will differ depending on audience background. For example, within these scenes Mis-En-Scene such a clearly sunny environment, Villanelles very light clothing due to suggested intense heat and long green expanses make Tuscany seem like an extremely typically positive and exotic location. People who have physically been to Tuscany may agree or disagree with this representation due to personal experiences. Additionally the only housing shown in this episode is that of a clearly very wealthy individual, judging by the mis-en-scene of the mansion being extremely physically large and well kept, which would also influence audience opinions as it may make Tuscany seem like a very wealthy and positive country. This could possibly be interpreted positively or negatively by audiences depending on whether they agree or disagree. Here we can apply Halls Reception theory.

In Conclusion. Contextual events that may differ from long form television dramas from different countries will be interpreted by audiences due to personal preferences and ideologies.

Tuesday 30th April 2024

Question 4

LO: To explore the exam format, to plan an evaluative response to the set texts

How to write about a theory:

Define Theory

Why good/useful

Why good/useful

Why good/useful

Limitations

Conclude/evaluate usefulness

Plan:

Semiology, study of signs (words ,images, sounds) signs have denotations and connotations. Deno/connotations organised into myths- idealogical, makes these ideologies seem natural

denotation/connotations ideologies myths for KE

denotation/connotations ideologies myths for LP

Limitations

Not applicable specifically to LFTVD

Not useful for macro media elements such as narrative and genre

Evaluate the usefulness of Barthes: Semiology in understanding long form television drama

Barthes theory of Semiology is the study of sign, signs can be anything within media texts, Dialogue, Sounds, Images etc. These signs have denotations and connotations. Denotations being the literal meaning of something, for example the word "apple" means a common fruit grown on trees. While connotations are the suggested meanings and association with something, an "apple" may connote temptation and evil in specific examples. These denotations and connotations are good for identifying meaning within  long form television dramas and are organised into ideologies, the preferred meaning of something, these ideologies can be further organised into myths, a general opinion or belief of something.

In Killing Eve in the first scene, we see Villanelle purposely spill ice cream over a child while she was just previously eating ice cream herself. The denotation in this scene is simply Villanelle eating ice cream and spilling it on a child. While the connotation of this scene is that Villanelle is acting childish and unmotherly as ice cream is commonly seen as a food predominantly eaten by children and there is a general stereotype that women should be motherly and kind towards children. This is organised into the ideology of women acting motherly and ice cream being childish. Which is then further generalised into Myths, the myths represented in this scene as ice cream only being for children and adult women acting motherly and compassionate toward children. This application of this theory helps understands Villanelles rebellious character, going against standard societal expectations and stereotypes, creating meaning through these use of signs.

The limitations of this theory are that it is a generally applicable idea, meaning it cannot be specifically applied to long form television dramas therefore does not offer any detailed insight into long form television dramas as a whole. It is also ineffective in that it is not useful for the study of more macro elements of media language, focusing more on specific parts and excluding and not being useful for identifying and studying media elements such as narrative and genre in long form television dramas.

Self Marked:

Level 2- 4 Marks

Tuesday 14th March 2024

Exam Dirt:

LFTVDS are always influenced by historical events no matter where they are produced.

Multiple racist remarks and examples from multiple characters and events throughout the episode, especially within flashback scenes are used to represent historical values and societal acceptance within society, especially within france. Which has been regarded and disputed on multiple occasions to have Racism as a serious social issue among the public and has a heavily disputed presence amongst french society. Shown through the auctioneers dialogue toward Assane after he purchased the necklace " i didn't expect someone like you to buy this" expressing a clear negative opinion of Assane due to his race.Throughout the episode a large majority of characters shown are white. This suggests that a large population of France is of white, french origin and further emphasises the idea of racist remarks occurring toward those who are potentially a minority group within france due to the very white, french sided ethnic representation within the episode.

There are multiple examples of Mis-En-Scene representing Villanelle as strong, quick thinking and intelligent. Using this evidence we can discuss and critique Van Zoonens theory of femininity, stating that women in media are intensely sexualised and shown to conform to typical gender roles of being motherly, caring and subservient to men, Killing Eve is a direct example of denying this theory accuracy by showing the progressive mindset of modern media and the positive female representation within.

1- Explain Theory

2- Apply to KE and LP- Preferred Meaning

3- Apply to KE and LP- Oppositional Meaning

4- Apply to KE and LP- Negotiated Meaning

3- Limitations- 

4- Does it help evaluate LFTVDs