Final Flashcards
How does the textbook describe ideology.
All films are ideological and can either reinforce or challenge ideological norms
“The values that pervade a particular culture are inevitably embedded in the films made by the writers, directors, and producers who are a part of that culture and who (in most cases) are hoping to attract audiences that make up that culture”.
ALL films (some implicitly and some explicitly) reflect ideologies – there is no “outside of ideology”
systems of belief, values, and opinions
Stereotypes?
Who or what is left out?
Ideologies establish parameters for what behaviors and which identities are deemed “normal” and which ones are considered “deviant” – establishing us vs. them dynamics
Provide the philosophical threads that weave a community together
Who is Will Hays
Former Postmaster General Will Hays -
a conservative and republican
President of the MPPDA- an organization to help regulate its own content.
Hays Code founder - list of don’t and be carefuls into the production code. Prohibits certain images and scenarios in films.
1934 – the code went into effect
Censorship: No swearing, no nudity or sex, no violence, no miscegenation, no pregnancy or births, no beds pushed together, no toilet flushing or going to the bathroom, no queer characters, no criminals portrayed as a hero
The Hollywood Ten
(ten screenwriters and directors who refused to testify under the first amendment and were imprisoned) – i.e. Dalton Trumbo
The Hollywood Blacklist
individuals who were not allowed to work in Hollywood because of their suspected involvement in Communist interests
Anti-communist witch hunt
Over 300 people were named in 1947
Gay and lesbian individuals, leftists, and labor activists were often targeted – who had no ties to communism
These tactics were used to intimidate people so they would obey ideals and ideologies.
Interpellation
(Louis Althusser)
Term for the way in which society creates its subjects/citizens through ideological state apparatuses (rather than repressive state apparatuses – the police, for example) – including education, religion, media, and family
Films teach you how to be a woman, man, teacher, lover, etc. (often subconsciously)
Humans learn how to be an individual in compliance with existing social and economic norms - i.e. holding the door for women
Ideology affects of the apparatus - physical and mechanical attributes allowing passive receptors of the ideologies on display. “cast a spell”
Male Gaze (gender and cinima)
is the act of depicting women and the world, in the visual arts and in literature, from a masculine, heterosexual perspective that presents and represents women as sexual objects for the pleasure of the heterosexual male viewer.
Masculinity vs. Femininity, marginalization of female characters, Laura Mulvey and The Male Gaze
gave rise to fimenist film theory and the representation of wimon in mainstream film
physical beauty is not more inportent than physical powers.
The Celluloid Closet
(Sexuality and Cinema)
Vito Russo
Essentially the stereotypes of sexual identity
LGBTQ characters and relationships in the 1960s-today, heteronormativity, New Queer Cinema, More Diversity Today but still stereotypes
Just like the history of black people in film could be boiled down to “coon, mammy, Toms”
Three types of male spectators: 1)Producers/Directors, 2)Audience members, 3)Other male characters in the film
Mulvey a bit essentialist
The five African-American stereotypes that Donald Bogle argues are present in films
Toms coons mammies mulattoes bucks
What is New Queer Cinema, who coined the term, and what are some common traits of the films?
1990s
B. Ruby Rich – film theorist who coined the term/named the movement
explore queer themes and featured queer protagonists in more complex and progressive roles – question the socially constructed nature of sex and gender
followed the boom of independent filmmaking and a result of activism around AIDS and gay civil rights.
often experimental dealing with gay/lesbian life
Who does the title of The Watermelon Woman (1997) refer to?
Mockumentary
A revisionist history of black female LGBTQ representation in film.
Experiment with film and to give viewers an imagined or lost history of black female LGBTQ representation in classical Hollywood.
The narrative focuses on uncovering the lost history of a fictional Black lesbian actress named Fae Richards in classical Hollywood who often played a “mammy” (one of Donald Bogle’s stereotypes)
we had to create her own hope, inspiration, and possibility through the creation of a history.
(Revisionist history)
What are the qualities of revisionist genre films?
Upending established conventions of a genre. Changing a genre to expand our sense of what a genre can do or send it in a new direction.
Reinterpretation or questioning of the original genre with greater complexity of themes while keeping many iconographic and characteristic elements
What narrative conventions does Thomas Schatz argue are the most important criteria to consider when defining a genre?
Character Types and Plot Events (i.e. Horror films: monsters and victims; descend into a dangerous world, fight back/group dissention, defeat the monster)
Genres typically retain their basic conventions.
Share a set of narrative, stylistic, and thematic characteristics or conventions
What are subgenres
Small cluster of films in which additional conventions come into play – i.e. slasher films, creature features, the paranoid conspiracy film (Hitchcock), etc.
Genres change and evolve – in response to wider socio-cultural concerns.
5 Major/Classical (American) Genres
Westerns (good vs. evil, wilderness vs. civilization, manifest destiny; 2 common plot lines - Hero vs. Outlaws and Native Americans vs. Cowboys)
Film Noir (alienation and cynicism)
Action films (good vs. evil, mayhem, and carnage, male heroes, spectacle)
Science Fiction (us vs. them, what it means to be human – technology vs. humanity)
Musicals (coming together)
Difference between an integrated musical and a backstage musical
The two main sub-genres of the musical
integrated musical uses the musical number for narrative purpose
Instead of freezing the plot in favor of spectacle, the song, and dance numbers
completely divorced from the plot of the film’s narrative. Usually set in a theatrical context
What are the qualities of hybrid genre films?
A film that mixes/combines conventions two or more genres
Some genres mix more often/better than others (or more commonly) – i.e. sci-fi and horror and westerns and sci-fi vs. horror and musicals
Is more the visual and narrative characteristics to define the film genre.
Can also be defined by the feelings it elicits.
Common themes within a group of film
What are the 4 approaches to genre criticism?
4 Critical Approaches
Genre Film and Aesthetic Appeal: Cliché or Strategic Repetition?
The use of repeated formulae
How closely a film follows or modifies the conventions
Looking for originality or revision* - i.e. Mad Max
Not just a cliche.
Genre and The Status Quo
The social implications – i.e. the western justifies violence and the femme fatale debate
How the same stories being told over and over shape how we see the world/ourselves (interpolate the world)
capture and reinforce cultural values. (Modern equivalent of cultural mythology - basic social lessons)
Genres as Culturally Responsive Artifacts
How genres evolve over time/change as culture changes – genre’s flexibility and adaptability
i.e. post-9/11 horror films and noir’s resurgence in the 1960s
acknowledges audience concerns and shifts.
Genre and Film Authorship
How notable directors use genre conventions to assert a personal vision.
Does it matter who directed the film?
Work within a genre while also personally working against it.
