SUPERHUMANS - media language/ representation

Question 1

Explain what is meant by compassion fatigue.

Answer 1

Audiences become used to sympathetic representations, people in advert are represented as ‘victims’.

Question 2

How are audio codes used to avoid compassion fatigue?

Answer 2

• song choice; “so you wanna be a boxer” is upbeat
• grunts, groans and tape being applied show struggles that disabled athletes face

Question 3

How are visual codes used to show the struggles that disabled people face?

Answer 3

• collage of CU injury shots,
• archival footage, matching cartoon scenes add humour
• “mr puke bucket” humour

Question 4

How is iconography and used in the advert

Answer 4

Athlete-specific iconography and setting (goggles/gym) juxtaposed with everyday life (eating cereal + drums + waking up) reinforce that paralympian are real people.

Question 5

How and why does the advert avoid representative disabled people in a victim way?

Answer 5

Why?
- avoid compassion fatigue
- challenge ideology that disabled athletes are any less talented that abled-bodied athletes and that they are ‘doing their best’
- realistic representation, not represented as heros either, “superhuman” ‘super’ gets smashed, real people

Question 6

Who produces the advert?
What is their ethos?

Answer 6

channel 4
“to give a voice to those who are not usually represented positively in the media”

Question 7

How are binary oppositions used to create meaning?

Answer 7

binary opposition of real cyclist
peaks of abilities - unable to get into cafe (music cuts)

Question 8

How are stereotypical representations of disability avoided?

Answer 8

realistic re-representation, blood and guts feel, rather than pitying or victimising paralympians

“having something wrong with you”