Representations of media in film

Representations of media in imageQuestion 2 Comp atomic number 18 and Contrast the Approaches to the Representations of the two antithetic Media in to the highest degree historied (2000) and Anchorman The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004).Word count 2305 Al nigh kn have is a 1998 American film order by Cameron Crowe, it tells the story of the 1970s American unmanageable rock hoop Stillwater struggling in the harsh mettle of stardom from the perspective of a Rolling St ace Magazine journalist William milling machine (Patrick Fugit). Anchorman The Legend of Ron Burgundy is a 2004 American jeer film directed by Adam McKay, it tells the story of how Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell), a famous telly intelligence service anchor in San Diego, descends from fame and later comeback. I choose these two films as both protagonists William moth miller and Ron Burgundy argon from San Diego and these two different stories happened in the akin period of measure mid 1970s. They both portray the m edia effects on audiences and their reaction to these audiences. In approximately famous, audiences atomic number 18 visualised as brisk to the music industry and have a good knowledge of the enjoyment business. In contrast, audiences in Anchorman argon presumed as peaceful receivers of TV news information right at the beginning. It lacks in force(p) critics of flatts. Females are presented good in both films as of the essence(predicate) tho a scupper to the male characters. Almost Famous treats women less earnestly unless females are free to do what they like. On the contrary, female characters in Anchorman are constantly under male power and cannot do what they want but they are treated more mightily as a practitioner inside the industry. Both films shed light upon the gender contrast in a serious tone. I am going to subprogram theories of reflexivity to examine how audiences are portrayed respectively in two different types of media. I impart alike use the theories of self-reflexivity to compare the difference amongst two industries in terms of the production and competition. I will use inter schoolbookuality to discuss the genres of two films. Reflexivity, argued by Rosenberg (1990. p3), refers to the process of an entity acting back upon itself. Almost Famous and Anchorman both reflected the media effects on audiences. Almost Famous started its story in the house of the millers. The kickoff actual audience mentioned in the film is William millers sister Anita Miller (Zooey Deschanel) who is a real number fan of rock n roll music. She is an inner-directed person and regards rock n roll music as an integral part of her hearttime and her future. Elaine Miller (Frances McDormand), m opposite of William and Anita, is a traditional-minded woman who teaches in a local college. Her ideas would not on the wholeow Anita to get involved with the low culture she deemed. Anita angrily leaves her understructure at the age of 18 and start s her rush as an air stewardess. At the very beginning of the film, the notion of audience is seriously examined. The graduation audience of music is portrayed as brave and, most-importantly, fully aware of their hold behaviours and wants. Before Anita leaves home, she holds her brother William and tells him Look under your bed. Judging from those exhausted surfaces of records and the notes she made on each one of them, we can speculate hither Anita has been a very patriotic fan and has spent much time, aught and money on the medium she consumes. William is clearly influenced by her sister as he later grows up to be an even more loyal fan to rock music. It would be tall(prenominal) to imagine that in much(prenominal) a strict household, an obedient young child like William Miller will grow up to be a journalist on rock n roll which is against his mothers will. He oftentimes writes for Creem magazine and knows every vocal from his lyrics. The devotion wins the break for hi m to make friends with musicians as he uses the word incendiary to describe the Fever Dog song of Stillwater right in front of its members. His passion in pursuing his career as a journalist even makes him give up the chance of attending his graduation ceremony. Another important character inside the film is cent Lane (Kate Hudson), the founder of Band Aid. She gathers friends to support bands they love preferably of just passively listening to their songs without thinking. Penny and William sometime challenge the thoughts of their idols and will give them some constructive ideas. The sad thing is that they have neer been regarded seriously until the very end of the film. Anchorman also examines the media effect on audiences but in a less serious tone. From the beginning, a non-diegetic phonation narrates the traits of video audiences in the 1970s There was a time, a time before cable, when the local anchorman reigned supreme, when people believed everything they heard on TV. T his statement at the very beginning positions TV audiences as passive receivers of information. The first time when Ron Burgundy starts broadcasting, an old rocker-like man yells in a except hey everybody, shut the hell up, Ron Burgundy is on. The following prospect is a bambino saying her first words Ron Burgundy. It is a clearly a calculator generated scene. However, it is a metaphor of the everyplacewhelming power of video in 1970s. cling classy San Diego is what Ron Burgundy says every time at the end of his broadcasting. Then we command people from different places (home, bar, work place), young or old, white or black, repeat after Ron. This scene fortifies the idea of Televisions exercise over audiences. In a general case in film, males are often portrayed as heroes who struggle and females are put to a less important position (Mortimer, 1997). In both films, females play a great part of the plot but inevitably render portrayed as sex objects. In Almost Famous, Penny Lane and her band aid claim to be supporters of band only, however, ironically, they failed to escape the fate as groupies. Penny Lane is in a very subtle but intimate relationship with Stillwaters guitarist Russell Hammond (Billy Crudup). In many occasion Penny is braless and wears a very thin top or blouse. When the band Stillwater travels to Cleveland, Penny Lane and Russell Hammond are flirting with each other and Penny only wears her panties. There is even short scene demo her breasts and her full naked back. Other girls, for example, Polexia (Anna Paquin) is one hundred percent a groupie who tried every time to make out with rock stars and even travels all the centering from America to Europe to be with Deep Purple. When William Miller is writing his ideas for Rolling Stone magazine in a bathtub, Penny comes straight in to pee just in front of him. afterwards William is dragged out by three other young women into bedroom. They claim to mar Opie and Opie should die. afterw ard we see the pace of imaged has been slowed down, the vibe on the classify becomes highly erotic when they start to undress William and themselves. In Anchorman there is only one woman who has been seriously portrayed Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate). When she enters the vallecula 4 word of honor station for the first day, members from distribution channel 4 stark nakeds Team try to seduce her and refuse to take her seriously as a journalist or a colleague. Veronica became the object of their internal imagination when they talk about her good body inside the office. Later Ron tries to date her and succeeds at that night and has sex with her. When Ron talks about her life with Veronica in the future with his teammates, Veronica is only wearing a cook apron. The conversation is highly erotic likewise and Veronica in his imagination is a full-time housewife without any careerism. The image of women is lush and the relationship amidst male and female protagonists becomes obvious. Women are portrayed as mens most important and shiny accessories, however, to a certain(prenominal) extent, they are a threat to the career of the male protagonists. The flight scene in Almost Famous exposes the promiscuous relationships between band members which pee a huge brawl between them. In Anchorman, Veronica, with her talent and hard work, makes Ron out of job and takes over as the Channel 4 New anchor. In both films, women function as erotic objects both for the characters within the story and for the spectator, who identifies with the main male protagonist and derives a sense impression of omnipotence from this appellation (Mulvey, 1975. p14). Talking about gender inequality, it is a different landscape between these two films. Women in the music industry are more belike to be themselves. They choose their favourite music, the bands they watch, the food they eat, the place they are and the life they want. Being a journalist in the Television industry , Veronica is not lucky enough to be like them and choose the things she likes to do. As she mentions it is the same everywhere that men make jokes of women. To be the best journalist is the way to get respect. The good thing is that Veronica achieved success and became the first female anchor in America. And later the configuration of having two anchors, one male and one female, report news is nowadays a resolved form. Females inside television industry are treated more seriously as women in contrast to sex objects in music industry. Self-reflexivity is apply to describe films or texts which self-consciously acknowledge or reflect upon their own status as fictional artefacts or the processes involved in their mental hospital (Krenn, 2007. p36). Almost Famous exposes some of the ugliest facts about the rock music industry. lie is the most severe problem within the industry and inside people. The first time William meets Jeff Bebe (Jason Lee), Jeff tries to glorify himself by st ating rock n roll is a way of thinking, a life style. Fame and money are not important but the chicks are great. He sounds like a scalawag who is desperately for staying the spotlight, a hobo who is desperately to be cool. When he says all these things, we can see that Russell is looking at him contemptuously which shows that he knows Jeff is pretending to be someone he is not. Russell, compared to Jeff, has a more honest carriage on music. He tells William what makes a song is actually those tiny mistakes. You impoverishment only one in the song, and it is what makes fans remember it. The production process in Anchorman seems not very professional. The film constantly shows the mistakes inside Channel 4 News Studio such as the mistakes on the teleprompter and Ron Burgundys grumpy character and his low IQ (e.g. He reads out anything he sees). The sense of responsibility is different in two films. Stillwater gives up a show half way and leaves the venue straight away. In televisio n news industry however, when some emergencies happened, there is always a back-up protrude to keep thing going. Mead (1934) and Cooley (1902) showed clearly that reflexivity among human beings is rooted in the social process, particularly the process of taking the role of the other and of comprehend the self from the others perspective (Rosenburg, M. 1990, p3). The Rolling Stone magazine which trashed Eric Claptons Layla also ended the career of Stillwater. They hasted too much to be famous but lost themselves. Williams article wakes them up but it is already too late to re-establish a good public image. Ron Burgundy learnt from his failure and realised the hard work of Veronica, he finally got to know who he should be and in concert they made a huge progress for television news industry. The most hilarious sequence in Anchorman is the fight between flipper news teams. They fight each other near a manufactory which make people think of the typical gang fight scenes in other fil ms. The fight is fierce and the casualties are heavy. The siren of the police ends this chaos. This is a satire of the vicious and sometimes illegal competitions for higher ratings inside the television news industry. Intertextuality strongly linked with postmodernism, designates, in its narrow sense, the ways in which a film either explicitly or implicitly refers to others films (e.g. by means of allusion, imitation, parody or pastiche), or in its broader sense, the various relationships on (film) text may have with other texts (Nelmes, 2012. p191). Both films are based on historical events, so they are themselves inherently examples of intertextuality. Almost Famous is a drama in terms of genre. It vividly retells the stories of a band which failed to become a hit. It tells us a story about chasing dreams and making mistakes. Those pieces of alright music are an intertext of nostalgia for old good times. Anchorman is a parody and this decides it will not analyse events in a more serious fashion, but it shows a historic event of women being recognised in the television broadcasting industry. It is these use of techniques of intertextuality that add power of credibility to the films. correspond and contrast the representation of media in these two films, the medias effect over audiences has been examined in both films. Almost Famous tends to analyse the audiences reaction to media effect from the perspective of individuals. Most notably, it uses three characters, William, Anita and Penny, to show audiences alert reaction to the medium they love and live on. Anchorman tends to present television news audiences as a passive whole group. The individual characteristics are diminished. Both films recognise the importance of females inside the society. Females in Almost Famous have more freedom to do what they like but failed to be taken seriously as women by the society. In Anchorman, the gender inequality is a more prominent problem but females are justly trea ted as women with dignity and characteristics. They both used intertextuality to create the sense of reality, but one with a more serious tone as a drama and the other less critical as a parody.BibliographyCooley, C. H. (1902) Human Nature and cordial Order. Charles Scribners Sons.Krenn, S. (2007) Oriental and Postmodern Elements in Moulin Rouge. Universitt Stuttgart DeutschlandMead, G. H. (1934) Mind, Self and Society From the Standpoint of s Social Behaviourist.Chicago The University of Chicago Press.Mulvey L. (1975). Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. In L. Braudy and marshal Cohen (eds), shoot Theory and Criticism Introductory Readings. New York and Oxford Oxford University Press, 1999, pp.6-18.Nelmes, J. (2012). Introduction to Film Studies. 5th Edition. London Routledge.Rosenberg, M. (1990) Reflexivity and Emotions in Social Quarterly, Vol. 53, No. 1.(Mar, 1990), pp 3-12.FimographyAlmost Famous (2000). Film order by Cameron CROWE. USA Dreamworks.Anchorman The Legend of R on Burgundy (2004). Film Directed by Andy MCKAY. USA Dreamworks.1