Saturday, June 29, 2013
Blaaaaag Again
This MDIA 3110 class has been a good experience. I would enjoy more chances to get up in arms and discuss tv shows or an aspect of a medium. However I think that this class environment is difficult to create discussion anyway so I think that this was a good balance of assignments, collective commenting, and work.
Reflect and Blag
At the beginning of this MDIA 3110 course we listed grouping of television shows based on different criteria. Now that this course is drawing to an end I can better review my own list and see how that list may change or reflect my own preferences in television.
I guess my tastes of favorite and less favorite television shows that my personality wants more depth in a program. I also enjoy watching shows where I can see some sort of angle from outside of the reality of the television show itself, even if it is simple. Here are a few examples of this:
Hannibal: I believe that it is becoming popular to have a main character in a program to have an accent, specifically an accent that is difficult to hear at some points. Hannibal Lecter is played by Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen and his accent is quite thick but somewhat pleasing. Another angle I see in Hannibal is its writing. I found it to be very good compared to other recent television shows I've seen in the past, I come away from the season wanting more.
Adventure Time: I personally get more involved in this show because I've done my research on the studio and it's creator, Pendleton Ward. I feel I have a deeper connection to the show because I know a little more about its creation then the average viewer. I guess you could say that I feel included while everyone else is a 'them'.
Accents/Internationals: This isn't a tv show... This is one of the angles I've picked up that I also mentioned in Hannibal but I realize that I can back this angle up much more to even convince some of you that it's true. The following new shows that I've seen have difficult accents to understand: Hannibal (duh), Siberia, and Crossing Lines. Why this is a trend I have absolutely no academic guess because the television is a distracted medium. Viewers often multitask while watching television. They would not contribute this amount of attention to decoding the characters accents and thus become disengaged from the series... My best guess as to why this is becoming to producers is for those viewers that do focus enough to hear the words and thus get more involved. (That or I am just really bad at understanding accents and this whole argument is null).
So from the above examples I'd say that my viewing habits have been transformed from the uneducated viewer to the more keen television critic. I am very pleased with this transformation however it does leave me slightly regretful. Because of my new approach to television I lose some of my childlike wonderment of shows I previously adored. Prison Break was and still is a great series. However I watched some seasons again and I caught some very cliché dialogue and some uncomfortable plot points. It was definitely disappointing to go back and realize that it wasn't like how I had remembered it.
As for my sense of identity I find this to be a great step in my growth. I aspire to be involved in television when I have the chance. It is a wonderful surprise if not a relief to realize that I am adapting to the viewer point of a producer/critic instead of the average viewer. If I ever wish to succeed it is important that I have my eyes open to the right clues not only in my own projects, but others as well.
I haven't really stopped watching the tv shows I mentioned earlier (except The Office) but I'd say that if I stopped watching a show it would be due to an underdeveloped story or a shallow program in general. When I watched The Dog Whisperer to comment on a groups post I was so bored out of my mind that I actually asked myself why I was wasting my life...
I'm very glad to have taken this class. It developed my viewing style and I believe that it can only get better from this point on.
I guess my tastes of favorite and less favorite television shows that my personality wants more depth in a program. I also enjoy watching shows where I can see some sort of angle from outside of the reality of the television show itself, even if it is simple. Here are a few examples of this:
Hannibal: I believe that it is becoming popular to have a main character in a program to have an accent, specifically an accent that is difficult to hear at some points. Hannibal Lecter is played by Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen and his accent is quite thick but somewhat pleasing. Another angle I see in Hannibal is its writing. I found it to be very good compared to other recent television shows I've seen in the past, I come away from the season wanting more.
Adventure Time: I personally get more involved in this show because I've done my research on the studio and it's creator, Pendleton Ward. I feel I have a deeper connection to the show because I know a little more about its creation then the average viewer. I guess you could say that I feel included while everyone else is a 'them'.
Accents/Internationals: This isn't a tv show... This is one of the angles I've picked up that I also mentioned in Hannibal but I realize that I can back this angle up much more to even convince some of you that it's true. The following new shows that I've seen have difficult accents to understand: Hannibal (duh), Siberia, and Crossing Lines. Why this is a trend I have absolutely no academic guess because the television is a distracted medium. Viewers often multitask while watching television. They would not contribute this amount of attention to decoding the characters accents and thus become disengaged from the series... My best guess as to why this is becoming to producers is for those viewers that do focus enough to hear the words and thus get more involved. (That or I am just really bad at understanding accents and this whole argument is null).
So from the above examples I'd say that my viewing habits have been transformed from the uneducated viewer to the more keen television critic. I am very pleased with this transformation however it does leave me slightly regretful. Because of my new approach to television I lose some of my childlike wonderment of shows I previously adored. Prison Break was and still is a great series. However I watched some seasons again and I caught some very cliché dialogue and some uncomfortable plot points. It was definitely disappointing to go back and realize that it wasn't like how I had remembered it.
As for my sense of identity I find this to be a great step in my growth. I aspire to be involved in television when I have the chance. It is a wonderful surprise if not a relief to realize that I am adapting to the viewer point of a producer/critic instead of the average viewer. If I ever wish to succeed it is important that I have my eyes open to the right clues not only in my own projects, but others as well.
I haven't really stopped watching the tv shows I mentioned earlier (except The Office) but I'd say that if I stopped watching a show it would be due to an underdeveloped story or a shallow program in general. When I watched The Dog Whisperer to comment on a groups post I was so bored out of my mind that I actually asked myself why I was wasting my life...
I'm very glad to have taken this class. It developed my viewing style and I believe that it can only get better from this point on.
Saturday, June 22, 2013
Group Work
Video: http://www.hulu.com/watch/486883#i0,p0,d0
Other members of group:
John T.: http://johntemmingmedia.blogspot.com
Nick Y.: http://nickyak311.blogspot.com
The show we were assigned followed the lives of 4 couples right at the start of their marriage together. It is an interesting concept when the viewer's attention is brought to the fact that these marriages might not actually still hold at the end of the television show. I think that it is an interesting perspective on marriage and how people base their decisions on each other and themselves. There were many different cultures represented in the show, most not stereotypically, but some were.
As a group I found that we agreed on most topics. We arranged contact through email. Unfortunately I was only able to submit my initial response before the deadline for the assignment. In reading John and Nick's thoughts I found that I agreed with much of the topics and we found a central agreement, for example there was a specific group that was quite stereotypical and we all spotted that. We didn't really find the need to argue on any subject, I think we saw each others perspectives quite clearly. As a whole I found this show to better than what I thought it would be when I first clicked the link. It has broadened my perspective on couples and their interactions.
Other members of group:
John T.: http://johntemmingmedia.blogspot.com
Nick Y.: http://nickyak311.blogspot.com
The show we were assigned followed the lives of 4 couples right at the start of their marriage together. It is an interesting concept when the viewer's attention is brought to the fact that these marriages might not actually still hold at the end of the television show. I think that it is an interesting perspective on marriage and how people base their decisions on each other and themselves. There were many different cultures represented in the show, most not stereotypically, but some were.
As a group I found that we agreed on most topics. We arranged contact through email. Unfortunately I was only able to submit my initial response before the deadline for the assignment. In reading John and Nick's thoughts I found that I agreed with much of the topics and we found a central agreement, for example there was a specific group that was quite stereotypical and we all spotted that. We didn't really find the need to argue on any subject, I think we saw each others perspectives quite clearly. As a whole I found this show to better than what I thought it would be when I first clicked the link. It has broadened my perspective on couples and their interactions.
Friday, June 14, 2013
Group portrayal in media
Firstly, I think that media is highly dependent on the
ideology for which it is created, Shutter
Island was not created in the same way Garfield
The Movie was created.. I will do my best to think of media representation
as in ‘All Media’ and try to consider all ideologies but obviously I myself am
biased due to my own personal preferences and choices.
Children:
I believe that children are underrepresented in media. In
most television shows they may have one child in one episode and feature that
child as the hook for that episode. I think that this is so because it is
difficult to relate to children as adults or teenagers. I think the purpose for
most media makers is to create a relatable set of characters and most media
makers strive for an older demographic that are not children. This concept
comes up with women as well, unfortunately. I think children’s stereotypes are
that of innocence, purity, and deception. The first two are obvious and
positive reflections of children. I believe that deception is a stereotype of
children now as well. I’ll explain with a few examples:
Criminal Minds: Young twin psychopath kills his brother
Game of Thrones: First episode, small child is revealed to
be evil
&
All horror movies that have a kid in them…
The point of the deception is to shock people but I think
that it is becoming so frequent that I can classify it as a stereotype.
Women:
Women, REAL women, are underrepresented in media. The
default gender of the camera is male so immediately it is difficult to change
that ideology. The stereotypes of women are eye-candy, not-as-capable-as-men,
and ignorant. I don’t think that any of these attributes are positive (the
first one can be positive but I think that eye-candy objectifies women). This is
where my bias may affect what all media says but from my experiences there are
very few strong, protagonist, hero, women characters. I think a great example
of objectification could be Machete Kills.
Sofia Vergara’s outfit says it all.
Rich:
I think that the rich are represented more in media then
they would be in real life. I think this is because the vast majority of
viewers want to be like the rich characters and enjoy watching them. I think
the stereotypes of rich people are ignorance (again), carelessness, and
rudeness. Granted, depending on what film or tv show you watch this might be
drastically different but I believe that these are three characteristics that
fit well. These characteristics aren’t positive. I think that most shows that
have the one or two rich people in them are good examples of how rich people
fit these stereotypes. An example of an outlier would be Suits because these
characters are more well of than the average person and yet are not careless or
ignorant at all (sure are rude though).
Again I think that anybody’s singular answer to these
questions would be undereducated. If you asked a child what characters were
underrepresented the answer would be very different from an adult white male. Keeping
that in mind it is still interesting how these patterns emerge for treating
groups of people, even varying from each demographic to the next!
Thursday, June 6, 2013
The Construction of Celebrity: Arnold
Now that the Terminator is no longer governor of California he has time to continue on acting as he had. But before leaving office he played a small cameo acting, almost parodying himself, in The Expendables. It revisits his role as the big action hero protagonist purely because he is in a movie with other action hero geezers. Hero Complex argues that The Expendables was Arnold's first step back into the old way of things.
Anyway, Arnold's first lead role since a long time was The Last Stand. Didn't see it myself but I can still say that it looks like the action movies he became known for. From what Ben Kendrick says in his critique of the movie he believes that Arnold embraces his character and fully satiates those jokes we saw too much in The Expendables series. The actor also continues his old look with what you would say is the larger-than-life hero.
I guess, from what I've seen, what others have said about The Last Stand, and from the list of futures titles for Arnold on imdb, there isn't anything new to expect other than more of the old same... And also what we've seen Bruce Willis do since... I don't even know... maybe Surrogates?
I feel that since Arnold is playing his age card intertextuality comes naturally. They depict him to be the guy whose done everything in The Expendables, even though he's in it for maybe a solid 3 minutes. In The Last Stand he's old, and he's old in real life. He's really just going with the flow in my opinion.
If I were Arnold I don't know if I'd want to reshape my image. I'm having trouble finding something that he can go to now that he hasn't already sort of covered. He's been in action and comedy. For giggles lets say that Arnold wanted to change his image from what he is now, build up by all of his past experiences, to an actor that nobody really respects anymore like Charlie Sheen. All Arnold would have to do is get into some trouble first, more trouble than he has now, and the entertainment media would do a lot of the ground work for him. Once that plaster of 'bad actor' is molded he can go into some acting roles playing less heroic characters than he has played in the past. More importantly less decisive and powerful. With these less solid characters people would change their image of the strong body builder to that of a plain old actor.
Cited:
http://screenrant.com/last-stand-movie-reviews-2013/
http://herocomplex.latimes.com/uncategorized/arnold-schwarzenegger-expendables/
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000216/?ref_=sr_1
Anyway, Arnold's first lead role since a long time was The Last Stand. Didn't see it myself but I can still say that it looks like the action movies he became known for. From what Ben Kendrick says in his critique of the movie he believes that Arnold embraces his character and fully satiates those jokes we saw too much in The Expendables series. The actor also continues his old look with what you would say is the larger-than-life hero.
I guess, from what I've seen, what others have said about The Last Stand, and from the list of futures titles for Arnold on imdb, there isn't anything new to expect other than more of the old same... And also what we've seen Bruce Willis do since... I don't even know... maybe Surrogates?
I feel that since Arnold is playing his age card intertextuality comes naturally. They depict him to be the guy whose done everything in The Expendables, even though he's in it for maybe a solid 3 minutes. In The Last Stand he's old, and he's old in real life. He's really just going with the flow in my opinion.
If I were Arnold I don't know if I'd want to reshape my image. I'm having trouble finding something that he can go to now that he hasn't already sort of covered. He's been in action and comedy. For giggles lets say that Arnold wanted to change his image from what he is now, build up by all of his past experiences, to an actor that nobody really respects anymore like Charlie Sheen. All Arnold would have to do is get into some trouble first, more trouble than he has now, and the entertainment media would do a lot of the ground work for him. Once that plaster of 'bad actor' is molded he can go into some acting roles playing less heroic characters than he has played in the past. More importantly less decisive and powerful. With these less solid characters people would change their image of the strong body builder to that of a plain old actor.
Cited:
http://screenrant.com/last-stand-movie-reviews-2013/
http://herocomplex.latimes.com/uncategorized/arnold-schwarzenegger-expendables/
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000216/?ref_=sr_1
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