Section A Answer all questions in Section A.

Read the information and the three questions below.

You will be shown two media products three times. In between viewings you should make notes in response to the questions below in the space provided. These notes will not be marked.

You should spend approximately 45 minutes answering the questions in Section A.

• Media Product One – The MOBO awards presentation of Best Female to Estelle, broadcast on BBC3 in July 2008.

The Music of Black Origin Awards were established in 1996 to celebrate, “the artistic, economic and cultural contribution that urban music has made to mainstream popular culture”. It gives awards to music of black origin, showcasing the world of urban music including RnB, hip-hop, jazz, funk, blues, grime, house, garage, soul and gospel (www.mobo.net).

The MOBO Awards Show is broadcast live on BBC3 and repeated on BBC1 each year. BBC3 describes itself as, “the digital channel featuring new comedy, drama, entertainment, current affairs and more for young adults”. (www.bbc.co.uk)

• Media Product Two – www.estellemusic.com, the official website for Estelle.

Estelle Swaray was born into a Senagalese/Granadan family and grew up in West London. Her second album Shine came out on the Homeschool label in partnership with Atlantic Records. Atlantic Records is a U.S. record label, part of the Warner Music Group. The album includes collaborations with Kanye West, Wyclef Jean and,Mark Ronson. It contained the number one single American Boy. Estelle had already won a 2004 MOBO for “Best Newcomer” and “Best Female Artist” at the UK Hip Hop Awards three years in a row, but was frustrated by what she describes as,” a glass ceiling in the UK urban music industry”.

Splash all lend talents to the album, executive produced by John Legend

1 How do the two media products represent women in the music industry? (8 marks)

Media product one indicating the MOBO (music of black origins) awards  illustrates the female R&B singer Estelle wining the award for best female artist, this represent woman in the music industry to be successful and professional, Black theory come in as black mention how b lack woman are mostly oppression with certain areas of society. In the MOBO awards, Estelle is represented as a physically attractive women as she is wearing a black dress, this could also make her more appeal to the male audience.

2 How and why do programmes such as the MOBO awards appeal to niche audiences?

The niche audeince for the MOBO is mostly people who are intersted in Music of Black Origins like e.g. R&B, Jazz, Soul and also young people, as these audiences would be big fans of the singer Estelle. The awards is broadcasted on BBC3 which is also aimed towards young audience and also young.

You may also refer to other media to products to support your answer. (12 marks)

3 What are the advantages and disadvantages for performers of using the internet as a marketing tool?

The advantages of using internet marketing is that a wide fan base can be acheieved and this will thus boost popularity. Also the use of free downloads means that people can get to like Estelle music and this will encourage them to want to buy her albums and go to her concerts. However, internet marketing is very competive as their are many other music artists, and performers need to try hard to gain more followers.

You should also refer to other media products to support your answer. (12 marks)

Unit 3: Mest 3 June 15th 2012.

Section A:- Three compulsory questions on unseen stimulus pieces. (45mins-32 marks)

Section B:- One essay from a choice of two topics. (1 hour-48marks)

Section A:- Unseen media text on of the three media platform – will be soon twice 15 mins annotate/ notes.

Key concepts has never been more important and top answers will be expected to engage and debate, with the text, concepts, theories and wider context.

Top Tips fro achieving good marks:- Q1 – 8 marks, Q2- 12 marks Q3- 12 marks

Answer the particular question

Make references to the two media products, especially in question 1 to illustrate the points made.

Higher level answers include a range of points, not just repeated explanation of one or two points.

Higher level answer has own opinions explained and justified, Q 2-3.

Take standpoint and back up with wider contexts and example from other media products.

Relevant to the question higher level answer discuss the different sides of the argument and show a sense of debate.

SECTION B:- Again like AS, asked to construct a case study based on an area of investigation

These areas must fall between either representation or new media.

Will then have a two questions where you will have 45 mins to answer one of them using your case study as a reference.

Section B:-

Tips:-

Own individual case study to answer the question

Don’t write down everything you know about your case study.

Synopsis for Linked Production

To what extent does ‘Kickass’ subvert the dominant western representations of family, gender and youth people? Linked Production (32 marks): -The linked production must show development from AS productions and must be a fully realised media artefact. The artefact should demonstrate autonomous, secure and confident use of the chosen technology and significant engagement with institutional and genre codes and conventions.  It should follow directly from the research study undertaken.  Comic Website:- Female comic book- subverts the typical ideology on how women should be. Website to empower the audience going on to the website. Will be on iWeb. Make the website unique and do not use templates already preloaded on the website. Use photoshop to edit photos taken to change the image to make it more comic book like and then upload it to iWeb. Codes and Conventions of web designs :- Navigation bottoms and bars ,Text has to be readable, Links should be underlined, content should be aimed at target audience, be interactive, hyperlinks. Photoshop photo’s taken and add effects to the photos to give it a comic book feel and look. Possible upload a video.

Page 3 model:- Typical viewed by society as being a bimbo and all about the looks, alter ego would be an extremely smart superhero with powers to read peoples mind, high intelligent ( even for any human being). Her costume will be smart and witty working as page 3 models are possible seen as unintelligent in society by some people, this will thus be subverting negative stereotypes. The suit will be a burgundy colour, she will be wearing a mask, the costume well be business like, also have the power to control other poepl’s mind, telepathy. Professor Alberta

Nurse:- Nurses job in society is to look after other people, nurturing roles, normal seen of what women mostly do. However, at night the nurses power will be that she has a clip board in which grants the power to kill bad guys in the way she writes it down, much like the anime, Death Note.

Housewife:- Weapons would be swords/blades, high fighting ability. Corset with knee long dress, cape and gloves. the colour of the costume will be burnt orange and red. superhero name :-Crimson.

Mum:- Have a costume made out of metal materials and have superhuman strength and high fighting abilities.

Empowering Women movement, campaigning for women’s self-esteem and that they do not have to be what society believes how they should be or act, confidence and to subvert the stereotypical ideas of how women are meant to be in society.

Linked productions paragraph: - 

My linked Production  connects with my critical investigation, because the website is based on the theme of superhero’s and the subculture being females subverting the stereotypical image of how women should be, and turning into there superhero alter ego.

To what extent does ‘Kickass’ subvert the dominant western representations of family, gender and youth people?

Podcast

Theorists: -

Katha Pollitt – Smourfette principle

Ken Gelder- subcultures

Dick Hebdige?

Judith butler- subversion of feminism

More

Characters

Kick ass

Hit girl

Big daddy

Red mist

Kick Ass shows the transformation of the character David “Dave” Lizewski, a nerdy, unpopular teenager into his alter ego, Kick Ass, the group consists of the other superego, fighting crime in society.

First: – Talk about what the question is exploring with in the film.
Second: – Go through the theorists and bring them up in the parts of the film they relate to.

Throughout the film kick Ass there our subversions of western ideologies present in society.

For many years’ women within movies are presented as submissive, weak and need male figure in order to help them. Within the film, we as audiences are presented with the character of hit girl, an 11years girl, who is not afraid to stand up to what she believe in and can easily defend herself without a male doing it for her, she clearly subverts the typical image and beliefs of how women/girls are meant to behave- weak, polite etc… however she is fierce, ‘which on of you cunts are next’, it is not typical of children to say things like this, Matthew Vaughn, however, created Hit girl to empower women, because they are normally seen in a lower light in some other Hollywood films. Hit girl is one of the main characters in the film (central character)

Judith Butler- fit in here somewhere?

Childhood (family): – Some might perceive hit girls character as the abuse of childhood because of her violent nature within the film, killing groups of men with knifes, swearing etc… but in some scene we see that she has child attitudes, drinking hot chocolate with her dad (big daddy), being trained by her dad to become a vigilante (getting shot in the chest while wearing a bullet proof vest) showing a father-daughter relationship. Talk more about this…

Young People: -

Ken Gilder- subcultures

List of way subculture could be identified in society- 6 ways

Katha Pollitt- smurfette priniciple- hit girl the only female character in the group

Ken Gelder states
1) Negative relations to work (Idle)
2) Negative or ambivalent relation to class and do not conform
3) Through their association with territory (e.g. clubs, ’hood’) rather than property
4) Movement out of home and into non-domestic forms of belonging (social groups other than the family)
5) Through their stylistic ties to excess
6) Refusal of the banalities of ordinary life

“A subculture is a group of like minded individuals who feel neglected by societal standards and who develop a sense of identity which differs to the dominant one to which they belong.”

Judith Butler argues that gender is socially construed by society and that people conforming to there gender identity was it is branded as normal by society e.g. men have to be masculine and strong.

Women in society are culturally meant to be dominated by men and be oppressed, however hit girl subverts this theory, as even through she is female she has a very masculine persona, as she take on a role in the film that the audience may see as a male roles, to a Angelina Jolie type character, expressing that the character of hit girl does not conform to the typical female stereotypes.

The topic of subculture comes into great significance when it comes to ‘Kick Ass’, the character David “Dave” Lizewski, embarks on a mission from a nerdy, feeble, and physically weak teenagers into his superhero alter ego, Kick Ass, however compared to other comic hero, e.g. Batman, masculine and strong, Kick Ass great beaten up by two men, the first time to tries to become a hero, this hints to the audience that this dreams might be in vain and he may fail. Kick Ass subverts the stereotypical image of how a superhero should and must be, as David is a weak teenagers trying to be strong and macho, on the hand further on in the film Kick Ass become more popular as when beating up a group of men is videoed by other teenagers in a shop next to the scene is captured and then put on YouTube, Kick Ass statue as a superhero has increased massive and he becomes more popular. The theory of Ken Gelder comes in as David does feel somewhat neglected within school and become a superhero in order to achieve acceptance possible not in school, but in society.

Ken Gelder’s, quote is true as the group of Kick Ass develop a sense of identity, more of the superhero Kick Ass as being in a group of others aspiring to be heros, he has developed more confidence and self-esteem.

Talk about want you are going to talk about – debates

Essay trajetary- narrative/path

Kick Ass:- Representation of Youth Subcultures and Gender

Bill Osgerby

Hall and Hefferson

R.Dyer (Fandon and slash fiction)

Judith Butler

What is Feminism?

Is a female movement that aims to promote the equality of woman e.g. in the family, work, etc..

Radical:- Very extreme form of feminism

Marxist:- Equal rights in the work place and family

Liberal:- What equality, so woman are equal to men

Encourage laws within society to help woman be equal e.g. Sex discrimination Act

Who is Laura Mulvey?

Mulvey is a British Feminist Film Theorist and came up with the theory of the ‘Male gaze’, this is when in films woman are seen as not equal to men when it come to a relationship.

She wrote the essay,’ Visual pleasure and Narrative Cinema’.

Male gaze:- Show female in the male’s point of view e.g. Good stay at home wives, dumb blonds, mother, Sluts…

Feminism and Post-feminism

Men controlled the action and were responsible for moving the narrative along

Woman were represented as passive objects of the Male gaze

Pleasure in viewing come form, Voyeurism,Narcissism, Fetishism, Scopophilia and Female objectification 

Voyeurism:- We as audiences are watching a character that is unaware or it

Scopophilia:- Pleasure watching others

Narcissism:- People in love with themselves 

Fetishism:- Weird things people get pleasure from, e.g. Feet

Female objectification:- Woman are seen as objects, stripped of her identity, and made into a object of male desire, dehumanised 

La canes mirror theory:- Media and films acts as a mirror that reflects our self, we could compare our self to the characters in a film or media text

How females are being objectified 

In the video, ‘satisfaction’, the woman are seen as sexual objects, men could get pleasure watching the video, this is scopophilia, and also Female objection as they our seen as objects desired by men and have in a way lost their identity in the process.

Limitations of Mulvey’s thoery:- The female gaze

Gammon and Marshment (1988 ‘the female gaze’)

Woman viewers are active not passive and engage critically with texts by selecting the ones that have meaning to them.

Female audiences place thier own interpretations on media text.

The audience plays an important role in the construction of meaning of media text and can interpret the text in a range of ways.

In a post feministic are there are a range of media representations of men for women to view scopophilically 

The coke adverts subverts the male gaze, because it is the women who are now watching the men, not the other way round

Who runs the world?

Bell Hooks Interconnectivity of race, class & gender 

‘Ain’t i a woman? black, women and femininity’ written in 1981 focused on the perpetuation of systems of oppression and domination in the media paying particular attention to the devaluation of black womanhood. the idea of ‘lack’ or otherness’ refers to the way the woman and ethnic minorities are usually represented as ‘other’. their primary purpose is simply to be other than the norm, ‘usually white male hero’. They are therefore known more by the context of lack than by a realised or complex identity. thus they can be linked to ideas of the monstrous feminine found in feminist analysis of literature and art.

Katha Pollitt: Smurfette Principle

By Katha Pollitt; Katha Pollitt is apoet and essayist New York Times- April 07, 1991

Token Minority :- One person in a group who is from a ethnic minority.

Tropes:- One person who is a woman in a group in films.

The origins of the subculture, grime come in to being in the early 2000′s(wiki) even thought it was developing before this time into what it is today, it is more to do about the music, with many artists like the likes of Tinie Tempa and  Dizzee Rascel. Within in their music they have been inspired by musical influences like e.g. dancehall, drum and bass and UK garage and many more. The subculture originated in Bow, East London 2000. Grime artists and their crew are mostly young, black and male.

A group of people (usually but not exclusively) of the same age, social or economic status and ethnic background, that share a common value or political belief. They identify themselves and art as a way of expressing their ideology.

Dick Hebdige, ‘ Subculture and the meaning of style’. he said a:

                                   “a subculture is a group of like minded individuals who feel neglected by societal standards and who develop a sense of identity which differs to the dominant one to which they belong.”

Ken Gelder‘s ways to identify subcultures :-

1) Negative relations to work (Idle) 

2) Negative or ambivalent relation to class and do not conform

3) through their association with territory(e.g. clubs,’hood’) rather than property

4) movement out of home and into non-dosmestic forms of belonging ( social groups other than the family)  

5) through their stylistic ties toexcess

6) refusal of the banalities of ordinary life

Sarah Thornton, ‘Club cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital’, she described subcultural capital as:- 

“the cultural knowledge and commodities acquired by members of a subculture,raising their status and helping differentiate themselves from other members of the group”.

Woody= old, in the past, gentlemen

Combo=

The song, This is England