BFI Study Day: follow-up work

BFI Study Day: follow-up work

The BFI Study Day on critical theory was a brilliant opportunity to develop our knowledge and understanding of media theorists.

We covered a lot of ground from gender to semiotics and postmodern theory. Complete the following tasks on your Media 1 Exam blog to follow up our work from the study day:

1) Type up your notes from the day.

Patriarchal Society - Male dominated society.

Gender is a performance - Series of gestures, actions, behavioural and dress codes that construct imaginary 'man' or 'woman'

Denotation - The direct or obvious meaning. 
Connotation - What we can infer from it.
Polysemic - Meanings aren't fixed.
Culturally determined - If you live somewhere with high police corruption, the denotation may be different to you than others E.G. Creates anxiety for you however, makes others feel safe.

Negotiated reading - Audience accepts some elements of meaning, but reflect others.
Oppositional reading - Audiences understand the intended meaning but decide to re-interpret the text to deliberately create an alternative.

Simulacra - Imitation that seems more real than the thing it is imitating.
Hyperreality - 'Mediated experiences' - Intensity that surpasses 'reality'

2) Write a one-sentence summary of the ideas of the theorists Matthew Daintrey-Hall covered (you can use your notes from task 1 here if relevant):

bell hooks: Bell Hooks is a radical black feminist. She believes that women are objectified and gender roles are constructed, not 'natural'.

Liesbet van Zoonen: Van Zoonen believes that in a patriarchal society, women's bodies are sexualised as being vulnerable and weak, whilst men's bodies are sexualised but through their power and strength. This offers male spectators pleasure by making them feel strong. 

Judith Butler: Butler believes that what we think of as gender is actually just performance: a repeated system of behaviours and costumes that are used so many times they become seen as 'natural'.

Saussure: Saussure believed that significance is made inside language in the relations of contrast between its parts, for instance semiotics, He considered society to be an arrangement of organization and social standards that structure an aggregate framework that gives conditions to importance settling on and thus choices and activities for people.

Barthes: Roland Barthes believed that signs we assume are denotations are actually 'dominant connotations' that hide ideologies. He called these 'myths'.

Stuart Hall: Stuart Hall said audiences often do not decode the meanings the way a texts creator intended. Some form negotiated or even oppositional meanings.

Lyotard: Lyotard trusts a totalising social account, that sorts out idea and encounters into a 'terrific 'story' that comprehends our lives.

Baudrillard: Baudrillard says "Hyperreality – a condition where 'reality' has been supplanted by simulacra."

3) Choose one of the films we saw extracts from and watch the whole movie: Captain Fantastic (2016), Pulp Fiction (1994) or Inception (2010). Write a 300 word analysis of your chosen film using theories from the study day (use the exam paragraph structure we were shown on the day - theory introduction, examples from text, why this 'proves' or 'disproves' the theory).

The story of Inception is that the hero, Cobb is a mechanical covert operative (Spy) who as opposed to breaking into an individual's home, office, or significantly personal computer, gets the data he needs by getting into the individual's psyche through their fantasies. Somebody approaches Cobb and needs to contact him yet as opposed to getting data out, the man needs Cobb to embed something, a procedure called "commencement." Cobb is reluctant to do it, however when the man offers to help Cobb return to his youngsters, Cobb concurs. Toward the end, he prevails with the mission, and reunites with his youngsters. Stuart Hall's hypothesis, can be connected to this motion picture, as the favored perusing the chief needs to put crosswise over to the gathering of people is this is definitely not a standard government agent kind film, as it doesn't include thefts and so on, as appeared in this film it is through his brain, this subverts the typical covert agent type storyline, which could allure groups of onlookers into watching it, as it is interesting and unique. Be that as it may, the oppositional perusing for this film is that getting into individuals' brain from their fantasies, could demonstrate the unreasonable idea of this film, which in this way could be a procrastinated on for a group of people, as a general rule you can't go into somebody's psyche and control it. Additionally, as Lyotard trusts that there is a totalising social account, that arranges thought and encounters into a 'fantastic 'story' that understands our lives. He expresses that media writings, have a 'terrific account', in Inception he needs to defeat a test to be brought together with his kids, this leads into the fabulous story of this film, and the utilization of storyline of being brought together with his youngsters connects back to the gathering of people, and how they cherish their friends and family, this makes the fantastic story, and at last satisfies the 'meta-story.'