Life on Mars theory Flashcards
Rowland Barthes
Positioned with Sam Tyler the restricted narrative means that we only know what he knows. We therefore seek answers to narrative enigma codes (as defined by Barthes) as Sam does – what is going on? Or as the voice over says – ‘Mad? In a coma? Or back in time?’
We solve the mystery alongside him and become part of the team with Annie, Chris & Ray
Steve Neale
bullet points explaining why LIfe on Mars follows genre conventions
- Life on mars is set in an urban location - Manchester
- Car chase
- They are solving crimes
- They costume, over coat etc
- Police light on his car
- In the police station
- Lowkey lighting
- Questioning and interrogation
bullet points explaining how it is unique
- Time travel
- Female police officer Annie Cartwright
- It’s got a 70s feel to it for a 21st century film drama, they way they behaved in the 70s is not like what we would see in crime dramas now
- Sam Tyler’s behaviour in the 70s (he is a modern man in an old fashioned background) (Jean hunt is different to how we would behave now) Binary opposites
- Use of music - life on mars by David Bowie is unconventional (as it is not fast passed which is a convention of crime dramas)
Structuralism - Straus
The idea that texts can be best understood through an examination of their underlying structure
- Meaning is dependent upon (and produced through) pairs of oppositions
- The way that these binary oppositions are resolved can have particular ideological significance
(Gene Hunt and Sam Tyler are binary opposites, so is the Male and female actors)
Levi-Strauss suggested that media texts are now made up of parts that we recognise from
other texts and these are combined (bricolage).
Elements of bricolage
- Relies on audience understanding of crime drama, specifically seventies cop shows to decode it.
- Narrative is paradoxical and fragmented
- Uses intertextuality and cultural codes to create audience appeal through nostalgia. E.g soundtrack David Bowie song, Test card, use of language
- Social, cultural and historical context: its construction requires us to look at 70s Manchester with 21st Century eyes and judge it accordingly
Stuart Hall
Preferred
- Gene Hunt’s behaviour towards women is unacceptable - sexist and misogynistic
- The police are better in the 21st century than in the 70s due to having more reason and technology
- Annie is underlooked and is smarter than anyone gives her credit for
(The camera shot goes to Sam’s face after Gene has made unacceptable behaviour. For example when Gene is interrogating a suspect and pushes the table away from her and the camera then goes to Sam’s reaction. As we are positioned with Sam we identify with him and also are shocked by Genes behaviour. - Sam praises her about how smart she is and the fact that she has a degree in psychology)
Negotiated
- They may admit Gene’s courage to say things like that however believe his opinions are wrong. People may like the way he policies however not socially
- You may reject some of the preferred readings and take on some of the oppositional reading
- Women shouldn’t be in the police force however Annie contributed to the team well
(Gene is outspoken and always says what he thinks, such as the moment in which Gene tells Annie to take her clothes off. - Annie helped Sam when it came to trying to solve the case)
Oppositional
- Gene Hunt is a cult character as some people would identify with him and agree with him (oppositional reading although it did become quite dominant)
- the BBC don’t want you to aspire to be like Gene Hunt
- life is better in the 70s than it is now
- policing is better in the 70s
(Its simple and it’s easy, the gold lens and filter on the 70s makes it seem more appealing - feeling of nostalgia - It was quicker there was less paperwork etc, ‘get the job done’. There is dialogue where mia is talking to sam when sam says that ‘what use are feelings in this room’ referring to the office etc. Suggesting that it is all done through protocol)
Bell Hooks
Feminism is the struggle to end patriarchy. Not all women should be categorised together, there are differing levels of oppression dependent on things such as, ethnicity, class and socioeconomic status.
Van Zoonen
Women’s bodies are represented as objects, men’s are represented as spectacles. Gender is performed, it is ‘what we do’ not ‘what we are’ and it varies depending on cultural and historical context. Society is patriarchal, it oppresses and dominates women, using stereotypical representations as a means to do this.
- The men detectives objectify Annie ‘I look at your lips all the time Cartwright’ Chris - they all look surprised that Sam asks for her help with the case
Gauntlett
Audiences get a sense of their own identity from the media they consume. Traditional media texts portrayed simple stereotypical representations. Newer products now contain much more diverse representations, audiences are active in the process of selecting which media texts we use to inform our identity.
- they identify with Sam Tyler
- Diverse representation of Annie Cartwright as she is presented as more intelligent then the male detectives going against stereotypes in 1973.
Baudrillard - Postmodernism
- Baudrillard’s theory of postmodernism, where he argues that we live in an era of media saturation in which we are bombarded with information & signs. The boundaries between the ‘real’ world and the world of the media have collapsed and that it is no longer possible to distinguish between reality and simulation. Therefore the way that the 70s has been depicted makes us think that that is actually what the 70s was like, it could be argued that it is a representation of what Sam Tyler thinks the 70s was like. It is a crime drama, this could be an example of hyper reality as they are not actual police officers, in addition we believe that the what happens in a crime drama is actually what happens in the 21st century investigations. Baudrillard would claim that media images have come to seem more ‘real’ than the reality they supposedly represent, thus everything is a construct of the 70s and 21st century in Life on Mars.
Baudrillard claims that we are surrounded by media products that are a simulacra of reality (this can sometimes be seen as better than the reality)
- The way that the 70s has been depicted makes us think that that is actually what the 70s was like, it could be argued that it is a representation of what Sam Tyler thinks the 70s was like. It is a crime drama, this could be an example of hyper reality as they are not actual police officers, in addition we believe that the what happens in a crime drama is actually what happens in the 21st century investigations etc. Everything is a construct.
Uses and Gratifications
Audiences therefore use media texts to gratify needs for:
- Surveillance (Information) - to gather information around us ( People may watch life on mars to gather information about the 70s or about crime dramas - Also allows people to see what working in police force is like and what detective do when working. - Showing the comparison to the modern day police force to the 70’s.)
- Escapism/pleasure - consuming a media text so we can escape our own lives. ( In the narrative Sam Tyler escapes his own life so instead this audience focuses on this instead of focusing on themselves. - The split narrative between the present day and the 70’s allows the audience to feel themselves that they are going back in time from their own lives.)
- Personal identity - you identify with characters or actions or situations ( People identify with Sam Tyler as he is from the 21st century and people can therefore relate to him more so than Gene Hunt - May also identify with Sam Tyler’s values, beliefs and ideals - However Gene is a cult character - this means that there is still a part of the audience that may relate and identify with him - they have different views ion gender for example)
- Personal relationships - are there any programmes you watch because your friends do or because you feel lonely (There was a forum online where people discussed the show - It was also scheduled at 9pm on a monday night which meant a lot of people watched it so they could discuss it the next day
Audience pleasure
- Voyeurism (We see it through Sam’s eyes so we therefore see it from his point of view - As a viewer it is quite voyeuristic as it never breaks the fourth wall)
- Catharsis ( Feeling something through someone else - watching gene hunt brings catharsis to a person as they can watch them be sexually inappropriate towards women which you can no longer do. - Living vicariously through the characters)
- Nostalgia ( The older audiences look back nostalgically at the 70s as life mars represents stereotypical conventions of the 70s era)
Todorov - Narratology
still needs application
- Equilibrium
- Disruption
- Realisation
- Restored order
- 2nd equilibrium
