How typical is 'Sin City' to its genre?

Sin City consists of the hybrid genre of film noir and comic book which is presented with conventions of each genre throughout the visual text. Film noir is a French term for 'black' film with the style of black and white technique for a typical portrayal of the genre which is presented within the film to depict the contrasts of the world, the black and white world. The iconography in the mise-en-scene is typical of both genres with the use of the motif of trench coats worn by every protagonist introduced is a convention of film noir regarding a role of a detective or an investigator with a sense of crime aspect to solve and is also symbolised as cape as it flaps behind flowing in the wind like a superhero indicating a comic book convention. The use of the raining weather and the occurrence of events during the dawn/ night from the mise-en-scene paints out the typical convention of the film noir genre as the use of the dark setting with heavy rain reflects the cold war atmosphere with the emphasis of a cynical attitude from the protagonists creates a pathetic fallacy.

The use of Propp's theory is displayed when identifying the characters throughout the film presenting the cliché convention of the comic book genre. The hero is presented through the iconography of scars and bruises and is identified as a Hero with the goal of rescuing the princess from the villain/ arch nemesis which is a typical convention of both comic book and film noir. The role of the 'Hero' is displayed as a tragic superhero with a weakness slowly revealed towards the climax such as when the protagonist 'John Hartigan' is discovered to have a heart problem "Doctor's orders. Heart condition, Angina, he calls it." which he chooses to ignore foreshadowing the barriers it could cause in the near future. The portrayal of the role of the princess in the film is in need of a saviour depicting the matter of the gender stereotype presented as the female needs a male to be rescued from in order to survive, this is shown when 'Goldie' and 'Nancy', two contrasting characters where Nancy is presented as a naive, vulnerable child in juxtaposition with Goldie who is sexually objectified, are in need of a hero from the villain. 

The Male Gaze: James Bond Extract

The James Bond franchise is a clear example of film objectifying females and forcing the audience to view females via the male gaze. The scene within ‘Die Another Day’ when james Bind meets the character Jinx, demonstrates my previous statement by starting the scene with a strong presentation of the Male Gaze through the forced objectification of the character Jinx through the eyes of James Bond whom is represented from a voyeuristic position through the use of the post-production  from the editing of the vignette shot denotating it is the viewpoint of the binoculars through James Bond’s eyes.

During this scene of the first meeting of Jinx, it is slow-motioned with a mid-shot to enable the audience to focus on her body and her movements through a longer amount of time to share the scopophillia through James Bonds’ view with non-diegetic sounds of violins and flutes arising to the climax alongside connotating a romantic, fantasy vibe pursuing the audience to connect with James Bond and he indulges the visual pleasure of the objectified female. Jinx is presented being exaggerated with her actions such as rising above to sea level with her arms flinging around, brushing her hair back to display a sense of sexualisation/ seduction to capture attention. Her exaggerated actions are also displayed when her hips are swayed side to side as she steps out of the beach with yet a perfectly, flawless makeup illustrating a hyper reality of how woman should behave to appeal towards men forming a constructed representation of reality.

Laura Mulvey: American Beauty

Laura Mulvey is the theorist for the Male Gaze where woman are objectified and presented as sexually submissive characters whereas men are the bearers of the look.

Describe Niche and Mainstream audiences with specific text examples.

Mainstream audiences are appealed and attracted towards popular, trending programmes which are targeted towards a large, global audience who shares a common interest in currently trending media texts where gratification of social integration is applied as a viewer identifies with other audiences gaining a sense of belonging and a startup for a conversation for social interaction.

For example, Orange is the New Black is a mainstream show gaining recognition from the first season already and can be found on Netflix which can be accessed during any time of the day from online streaming creating easement onto the scheduling and placement of the show. Netflix is also able to stream previous episodes favouring the scheduling and placement of the show as an advantage.

The target audience for this programme ranges from both genders of 17 - 30 years old hitting a large field of audience performing as an mainstream programme. The subject content of the show consists of following the journey of a woman sentenced for smuggling drugs to an all-woman prison forming the genre of prison drama. In terms of uses and gratification, as a viewer, you are kept entertained gaining escapism, filling of time and can also be a substitute for a companion as it grips you to lock to continue on to further available episodes to satisfy your curiosity as each episodes end in cliffhangers causing the audience to feel the urge to achieve closure.

The role selection of the show picks up an interesting perspective as the leading role is of a middle aged woman which is uncommon to find in the current media sources and industry thus producing a unique drama series appealing towards the vast audience. The programme is based upon a true story of a woman and her survival through the prison experiencing life-changing events which creates a peep hole for the audience to view how prison life can be and better yet, how an all-woman prison life can be. This forms a possible niche aspect of the programme targeting towards a vast majority of female audiences than male.

The mode of address of the show is indirect and informal/ formal with a diversity of language capability from each different characters, as an audience you can view the changes in the lead role’s (Piper) language as the episodes go by from formal to informal from the influences of the events happening as she accepts life in prison.

Niche is a form of programme targeting a specific group of audiences focusing heavily on aspects such as the scheduling of the programme and where it is located in order to enable access to the particular group of audience. Niche programmes such as  

Ethnic and Racial stereotypes: Terrorism

Terrorism is a national stereotype targeted at muslims following Islamic religious beliefs from nations such as Arabic countries by the media aspect of news reports and articles. The news is mediated to construct a stereotype of muslims being terrorists into the minds of individuals creating false representations and judgements of muslims. Woman wearing burkhas or hijabs and men wearing throbes are judged on the streets of misleading individuals without realisation of the profound information focused heavily on the misrepresentation of the people of this nation. Hatred seeps through the clashes of news reports and articles based on terrorism targeting Muslims grasping onto their faith in humanity, piercing gazes rest upon those in an aeroplane doubting their actions and questioning their motives, and are eagerly searched and examined than others in Airports. What items do they think of when rummaging through not only their belongings and clothing, but their reason for this journey? Why do they think this? Why specifically to those practicing the morals and beliefs of Islam? 

Boston Marathon Bombing Attack

Active readers/ viewers take on the role of questioning the media by creating conspiracy theories believing the events are not how it seems and are just fed to them through the use of injected media.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/study-majority-of-americans-not-informed-enough-to,32124/

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/al_qaeda_terror_mag_inspire_celebrate_IK5oO3BcD8iKrObInkuV0O

Do 'Family Guy' and 'American Dad' offer stereotypical representations of ethnic identity?

There are multiple, vast diversities of ethnic and racial identities presented in the media where common media often contain stereotypes, “The mediation of racism via mass media of all kinds is not the only source of its devastation impact, but it also operates in a molecular and penetrative fashion throughout the capillaries and pores of today’s world” [1]. This causes one to make certain judgments and assumptions of ethnicity based on their representation. I will be exploring this subject matter through my research investigation focusing on two animated texts, 'Family guy' and 'American Dad' to present what effect the programs may have on the audience such as creating misconception of ethnicity, assigning and reinforcing preconceived notices which may influence passive audience. 

I will be focusing on the possible effects of the episode from family guy ‘Turban Cowboy’ [2] may cause when representing the racial identity of a Muslim individual and the possible provocative link it has reported to have towards the Boston Marathon Bombing event [3] where it has been conspired to be a ‘hoax’. This will then lead to further investigation of the hyper-reality of the stereotypes in the media today and how different audience, passive and active, perceive the ethnic stereotypes portrayed within. The theories I plan to apply to aid to the research investigation is the use of the hyper-dermic needle theory with how the audiences are influenced through the messages media sets to input into the individual’s mind. Another theory I will specifically include is the Jean Baudrillard’s theory of hyper-reality, which discusses constructed representations and mediated ethnic and racial stereotypes and how this can affect the fine line from fiction to reality and whether what is presented is true or false.

Media is the main source of factor for the cause of the specific stereotypes delivered through visual aspects to the audience with control over their thoughts and ‘injecting’ such ideas on their minds making viewers - passive, accept and believe the presented media texts following the Hyper-dermic Needle theory formulate by Katz and Lazarsfeld. “The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.” [4]

There are two different types of audiences when viewing a media source: Passive and Active. 
Passive audiences openly accepts and observes the words and ideas of the media, influencing their way of thinking and changing their attitude all via the media’s power without contemplating the issue. Whereas an active audience differs from the passive audience as they intend to examine the media text, contemplating the information presented by understanding the meaning of the text and whether it is true or not. The majority of audiences are distributed as a ‘passive’ audience thus being easily influenced into idea of the media’s representation on different ethnic and racial identities. This causes many people to fear or judge certain individuals based upon how the media has negatively represented them delivering the effect of misrepresentation. “With similarly emotive imagery the hypodermic needle model suggests that media messages are injected straight into a passive audience which is immediately influenced by the message.” [5]

Family Guy & American Dad

The texts I will be focusing vastly on is 'Family Guy' and 'American Dad' both animated texts conveying a common context of the representations of ethnic stereotypes throughout almost every episodes. Both programmes are found during prime time in the end of the day at 11pm specifically for the demographic audience of the age range 18 - 49 year olds. 'Family Guy' is a TV-14 programme which is inappropriate to children under 14 and is vastly targeting an older audience of 18 - 38. With multiple various examples of ethnic and racial stereotypes portrayed produces perpetual racism and negative  representations for the passive viewers even if it is argued that is it only for comical purposes, this creates an idea for the viewers that racism is a light topic of a laughing matter creating fixed presentations of the different races they meet in reality based on the media source.

The 15^th episode of season 11 of ‘Family Guy’ created an issue due to the relations it depicted towards the tragic Boston Marathon event, which occurred after a week when it aired, it is interpreted to have predicted the incidence through the similar portrayal of the event. This has caused Fox to take down the episode “Rupert Murdoch's Fox network has pulled an episode of animated series Family Guy, after a series of clips from the show were edited and put online that appeared to depict parallels with the fatal attacks at Monday's Boston Marathon.” [6] To this Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy responds towards this incident through twitter “The edited Family Guy clip currently circulating is abhorrent," he tweeted. "The event was a crime and a tragedy, and my thoughts are with the victims.” [6] 

http://steve-blogspot.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/racial-stereotypes-in-tvs-family-guy.html
http://racismandthemedia.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/family-guy-consuela.html