Riptide - Vance Joy (Music Video Analysis) 3

How does the video Riptide by Vance Joy encode feminist ideologies?

• Presents a mocking parody of sexism in music videos - C/U 'how to photograph girls' - connotes that women are purely present to be looked at by heterosexual male audience.

• Many shots of women are in stereotypical male clothing. Low angle M/S of woman holding arms in a gesture that connotes power.

• M/S of blonde woman bound in Mis-En-Scene of tight ropes connotes that the restrictions that women face in society, and is critical of the notion of women as a 'weaker sex'.  connotative of 'being tied down' with maternal responsibilities etc.

• Video lacks anchorage which forces audience to make own assumptions, simultaneously providing sexual gratification for male heterosexual audiences, but also consistently informs the audience that scophophilia is creepy and NOT okay.

• Ironic representation of patriarchal hegemony - M/S man standing in front of woman with torch in exaggerated pose and situation - graveyard.

• C/U of woman singing as her makeup starts running so it is rebelling against the 'male gaze' theory showing that the woman isn't there for the pleasure of the heterosexual man but there for herself and to portray her emotions and connect with the audience instead of being sexualised for the heterosexual males pleasure.

Intertextuality

• Where one media product makes reference to another media product.
• It allows the audience a completely new way to relate to the media product.
• It allows the audience satisfaction as they known what it is related to.
• It draws in a specifically larger audience.

Suspiria - (1979) re-release trailer

• Genre Conventions;
• Blood.
• Weak and vulnerable female protagonist - damsel in distress archetype.
• Colour scheme - Red/Blue/White, very vibrant prominent primary colours, would use physical red and blue filters which is highly typical of 70's European. 
• Soundtrack - built suspense with the non diegetic sounds.
• Diegetic female screaming.
• Violent male antagonist.
• Iconographic features such as cherry red blood.
• Retro fashion is particularly 70's, muted colours.

Riptide - Vance Joy

• 'I was scared of dentists' - looks like someone is being tortured in a horror film as it is a blonde haired blue-eyed woman who is being tortured so it is not her at the dentist so it doesn't replicate the lyrics like we think it does.

• 'Stabbed hand' - looks exactly like a 70's horror film.

• Wasn't made in the 70's but it was processed like it was made in the 70's.

• Surrealism is an artistic movement which originated in France.
• A tech which follows the logic of dreams.

• Continuity Editing - Riptide lacks continuity and it takes you out of the narrative so it is discontinuity editing.

• Eyeline match / match on action - getting cut to different scenes which relate and make sense due to the way they've been placed and make a narrative, whereas riptide does the exact opposite.

• Combination of visuals and making intertextual references to surrealist cinema and provides audience with the gratification of social interaction.

Claude Levi-Strauss - Binary Oppositions

• Underlying meanings in signs and symbols. We all make sense of the world through binary oppositions, and one thing cant exist without the other.

• Look out the window. It's day. But how do you know its day?
• Because it's not night.

• Bart Simpson is really naughty. But how do we know he's really naughty?
• Because Lisa is really good, without Lisa, Bart would be normal.

• Psycho is set in an isolated motel. But how do we know it's isolated?
• Because it was set in a busy city and when its not its isolated.

• The killer jumps out of the cupboard and is very loud, how do we know it is loud?
• Because it was quiet before.

• The main reason for producers to make binary oppositions is to make it comical for the audiences.

• Emphasise something.

• Easy for the audience to understand.

• Comedic for the audience.

• Easy for the producer.

• Makes things intense.

Magazine 1 - Lesson 4

Lesson Starter - Questions on Woman Magazine

• What messages about female identity are encoded in woman magazine?
• Women need to wear make-up otherwise they will not be considered beautiful.
• Women must rely on men for certain things in their life.
• They belong in the kitchen, need to bring up children - article on kitchens.
• What impact could this have on the target audience?
• Target audience is female, heterosexual and 25-45 years old
• It cultivates the idea of women having to wear makeup.
• It cultivates the idea that women are supposed to be housewives.
• What functions might woman's magazine serve?
• Brings together the female community to construct a target audience.
• What potential advantages are there for reinforcing hegemonic notions of gender in a primarily reader base?
• Reflects the society of which this magazine was released into.
• Its a lot better to keep telling women that they are crap.

Key Theory - Feminist Theory - bell hooks

• Feminism is a struggle to end patriarchal hegemony and the domination of women.
• Feminism is not a lifestyle choice: it is a political commitment.
• Race, class and gender all determine the extent to which individuals are exploited and oppressed.
• Her latest book is called 'Feminism is for everyone' this quote sums up her and her theory.

Advertising from the 1960's

• Female Stereotypes
• Women are useless as she ruined the dinner.
• Women are emotional as she's holding the male's tissue and crying.
• She's failed as being a women as she burnt the dinner and she needs the male to make it better and to consolidate her.
• The male prefers the beer to the women, objectifying the women.
• Men are the beer drinkers and women are not.
• Women are in the kitchen - cultivation theory (Gerbner)
• Nurturing/maternal
• Dependant on man
• Filling a housewife and domestic role
• Romantic element

Advertising in Magazines

• Magazines generate revenue primarily through sales of copies (print and digital) and through advertising.
• Advertising accounts for approximately one third of total revenues across the industry. It is, therefore, vitally important that the magazine and advertising content target the same audience in order that the advertising brands benefit from increased sales as a result of advertising in the magazine.
• Andrew Green identifies the ways in which magazine advertising can benefit the advertisers in an article entitled 'ESSENTIALS: The Power of Magazine Advertising':
• High audience engagement.
• Less distraction likely from other activities.
• The ability to target niche audiences.
• High production values.
• Potential for placement in highly relevant editorial environment.
• Non-Intrusive - readers can turn the page.
• Long shelf life.

Representation - Advertising in Woman

• Main attraction is to the naked women, the font is extremely small so the first thing the audience will see is the naked woman, and they will then go on to read the advert to see what it is about.

• Because the women is heavily sexualised in this advert men will find her attractive and also women will want to be like her to be appealing to men so they're stuck with the ideologies that this soap will make the women look sexualised and appealing to males so they will buy it.

• Stereotypes is that women are thought to be sexy and that this soap will make them look even sexier.

• She looks like she's supposed to be sat in the bath but she's not actually in the bath as if she was then we wouldn't see her legs and her hair is all done up and her makeup is all done.

• The logo is also bigger than the text but smaller than the image so if either the primary or secondary audience decide to flip the page after seeing the naked women their attention will also go on the logo so when they see this soap they will always see the advert of the naked women and it will become memorable.

• The soap states to make you more attractive, more femininity and to be fresh, so it also has connotations of freshening your life so you dont have to worry about anything as this soap will make all your worries go away and will make your life sweet, kind and fresh again.

• The woman is being sexualised in this position as we can still see her cleavage and her legs, so it is an exceptionally racy advert for 1960's.

• Her body language is also extremely shy as her body is closed and makes her seem quite gentle although she is completely sexualised, and her body is saying that she's sexually unattainable, and makes her look as if she's empowering women as she's closing her body off away from men, which adds to the context as this happened when women started going to uni, so its a step in the right direction showing that they've changed how they used to be as this advert came out in mid 1960's.

• A preferred reading could be that women can smell, as she is now working and getting independence so it shows that women can get dirty and smelly too, so it breaks the conventions that women dont work and women are always clean and tidy, it shows that they need to maintain themselves no differently to how males need to.

• There is a binary opposition between clean and destruction.

• An oppositional response could be that through the choice of lexis and the use of 'darling' makes us feel quite flattered, whereas recently if someone said it there are assumptions that its creepy and condescending.

• The word 'freshness' comes back to the ideas of kitchens and women having to belong in the kitchen so if the women is fresh then so is her kitchen.

Magazine 1 - Lesson 3

Woman Magazine - Kitchen Article

• The audience may completely ignore the article and flick the page as it may be something that is not very interesting to them, whereas others may find it interesting and read it in depth and even try out the methods that are explained and portrayed in the article.

• The instructions make women seem very weak, young and silly, through the language of saying 'it slots in so any girl can assemble it quickly.' showing that they are quite young and not very good at doing anything DIY related as they're young girls.

• It seems to be an important article as not many photos are in colour in the magazine and the majority of these photo's are pretty appealing which is done through the use of colour, making it seem as its a more major article compared to the others, they are mixing in the two stereotypes of women in the kitchen and men doing the DIY.

• It also states that you need to be wise with your money but the money the woman will be using is the man's and if the women spends too much money on the kitchen then it will be the man who will get angry.

• One response could be that it could cultivate the view that we only see women in the kitchen which gives us the view of women belong in the kitchen.

Lisbet Van Zoonen - Feminist Theory (Male Gaze)

• Gender is constructed through codes and conventions of media products, and the idea of what is male and what is female changes over time.

• Women's bodies are used in media products as a spectacle for heterosexual male audiences, which reinforces patriarchal hegemony.

Woman Magazine - Alfred Hitchcock Article

• Says women's meaning in life is to make men's life's easier.

• Says british women are exotic, but british women to Hitchcock they should be normal, but by saying exotic it sounds like they're a bit mysterious which kind of says they're different to men, they're not people they're animals or something else along those lines, it objectifies women, 'snow-capped volcanoes' is an example of objectification.

• Hitchcock is saying it is completely okay to objectify women, as he says its okay to stare at a women if you're married as it means nothing.

• Hitchcock regularly used women for sex and he was a bit of a creep. (we know this now)

• Hitchcock looks very confident and certain in the photo's that are used of him, the vast majority of the world will not see him as sexually attractive, but the reason why they used them 4 images of him on his article shows that he is important and we respect him for being such a successful film maker.

• Proairetic Code - in the images selected it shows Hitchcock having an important talk so its the idea that he is talking and we don't know what he is saying and also he can look quite inspirational and also makes the article more personal as it looks like he is saying those words which are written.

• This is Hitchcock's monologue as he is the only one talking, showing his power and importance.

• Hitchcock is saying that Latin Americans are like prostitutes whereas the English women with a sex appeal are classy and elegant and thats what makes his films so successful and thats why heterosexual males appeal to his films due to this elegance of sex appeal that English women have.

Hegemony - The 'A Grade Concept'

Hegemony

• Dominant Ideology
• the unwritten rules that we follow as they're generally agreed norms.
• Hegemony
• the power that is exerted over us through consent and not through force.

Judith Butler - The Gender Theory

• Sex
• what your born as

• Gender
• a performance

Key Theory 8 - Feminist Theory - Lisbet Van Zoonen

• The idea that gender is constructed through discourse, and that its meaning varies according to cultural and historical context.

• The idea that the display of women's bodies as objects to be looked at is a core element of western patriarchal culture.

• The idea that in mainstream culture the visual and narrative codes that are the used to construct the male body as spectacle differ from those used to objectify the female body.