Media Exam Question

 Explore and compare representation in the following two videos (30 marks)

 Childish Gambino’s - This is America and Beyoncé’s - Formation music videos are both show a representation of real-life issues and black culture. This is America brings awareness to the problems within society and the problems that black people face. Whilst Formation brings light to Hurricane Katrina and the reignition of racial tension in America.

The Formation music video was released in Black History month but also on Trayvon Martin’s birthday. There is significance in doing this as it brought awareness to his murder and people starting to become more active in campaigning towards equality. The music video references the Hurricane Katrina and the terrible crimes that have been committed against the black community. The video centres around black women and includes them being proud of their natural hair and also shows them in positions of leadership and dominance. It also has vocal and visual representations of the LGBTQ+ community.

When the music video starts, we hear Messy Mya. Messy Mya was a male youtuber who explored gender expectations and wasn’t scared of being controversial. Using the sample of Messy Mya’s voice might be Beyoncé’s way of using media language to reference other cultural icons that her target audience may be familiar with. It might also be a way to show the theme of black oppression and discrimination, another topic that may engage her target audience. There are scenes in the music video that are taken from a documentary called ‘That B.E.A.T’ which was about bounce music and fans in New Orleans. There is a common theme of police brutality against the black community as there are references such as blue flashing lights, police uniforms, etc. This reflects the social, cultural, and political circumstances in America such as police brutality, racial discrimination, the Black Lives Matter movements, etc. These are topics that the audience would be familiar with.

Beyoncé uses a range of profanity throughout her song which adds a tone of aggression which can be linked to her expressing her anger towards the mistreatment. This could also be Beyoncé challenging the representation of women being submissive or her ‘giving in’ to the stereotype of black women being aggressive. She always uses racial slurs that can represent the themes of historical discrimination.

In one of the scenes, Beyoncé is seen sat on top of a sinking police car which is her referencing the flooded water in Hurricane Katrina. The low angles and the way her body is positioned for example the way she is sitting on top of the car, in a confident pose with her legs spread, in a typically masculine pose, makes her seem powerful and in control. This could be challenging the stereotype of women being weak. However, there is some controversy that Beyoncé standing/sitting on top of a police car represented her being against the police. Beyoncé is seen holding herself in a formal and powerful manner in a lot of shots. She is seen wearing expensive clothes and jewellery/accessories which can represent wealth and success. This relates to the Gilroy theory where ethnic minorities are seen in a certain way due to racial hierarchies. The use of young children in music video could represent that discrimination is still happening to young people in this day and age.

The video also includes the voice of Big Freedia’s. This shows Beyoncé accepting an ally from the LGBTQ+ community.

 

When the This is America music video starts, the establishing shot is a wide shot of a guitar on a chair that is later picked up by a black man. The music video starts in a relatively normal way as the camera pans to Childish Gambino. However, less than a minute in, the video takes a drastic turn as Gambino strikes a pose and kills the guitarist with a bag over his head. This changes the tone of the video from cheerful to aggressive. The pose that Gambino strikes resembles Jim Crow. Jim Crow was an illustration from the early 1800s that marked African-Americans as “lazy, stupid and less human”. Jim Crow was later referenced to a series of segregation laws that were made during the Reconstruction Era. After shooting the guitarist, Gambino hands his gun over to someone who takes it away wrapped in a red cloth, whilst the body dragged away. This could be a representation of how guns are treated with more respect and care than black bodies.

Childish Gambino is topless in grey trousers to show that he is vulnerable because he is black. After a minute has passed, lots of movement starts to happen in the background. Black men running across the warehouse (some with weapons) and people driving past in cars. In one of the scenes, Gambino is seen shooting a choir. This is a link to the white supremacist Dylann Roof shooting and killing nine people in a predominantly African-America church. Once again, the gun is taken away with care in a red cloth. This can be seen as a reference to how the United States failed to pass a law on restricting gun ownership. Gambino may be insinuating that the US cares more about the protection of guns than black bodies.

Gambino moves swiftly from one violent act to another to resemble what America does. This brings awareness to how we only care about mass shootings in the moment but when the latest viral dance or video comes out, we get distracted and stop caring. Later in the music video, someone is seen jumping off the railings and committing suicide. This is a huge contrast compared to Gambino and the school children dancing and smiling. For the duration of the music video, Gambino is seen dancing a variation of the Gwara Gwara (a South African dance) which serves as a distraction to all the bad things happening around him. This could be seen as Gambino saying that America uses black entertainment as a distraction from the death and violence it pressurises on its black residents.

In one of the scenes, we can see someone dressed in a black hood riding on a white horse being escorted by a police car. This could be a reference to the connection between police brutality/violence and death for black America’s. There is a scene in the music video that shows a cluster of cars with their doors open. This could be symbolising how African Americans are frequently being forced to pull over and step out of their cars by the police. In the last scene it shows him running away from a mob of people which some people may say is a reference to the movie Get Out, which is known for using common horror clichés to reveal the truth about racism towards black people.

This is America and Formation have a similar representation in their music videos/lyrics of, for example, black culture and issues with police brutality. For instance, both artists touch on the wealthiness of black people. Gambino says in the lyrics “Get your money, black man” whilst Beyoncé says in her lyrics “You might be a black Bill Gates in the making, cause I slay, I might just be a black Bill Gates in the making”. Both Beyoncé and Gambino address black wealth in their lyrics which could represent that they might be trying to subvert the representation of black people being poor or less successful.

Gambino and Beyoncé also have the theme of police brutality towards the black community in their music videos. As I have already mentioned, in the This is America music video there is a police car escorting death which could be representing how the police tries to validate black death. In the Formation music video, there are references to how the police mistreat the black community. There is a scene of a little boy dancing in front of the police. The use of low angles of the police and their uniform makes them seem quite powerful and intimidating in contrast to the little boy.

To what extent does the video challenge racial hierarchy by subverting expectations?

In Beyonce's video, she challenges racial hierarchy by subverting expectations. She shows this in various aspects of her music video. One example would be where Beyonce and her dancers are in an empty swimming pool. This is believed to be a reference to the Jim Crow era when black people weren't allowed in the same public swimming pools as whites. So Beyonce and her black dancers being in the swimming pool could be stating that they are now allowed to be in the swimming pool as they are on an equal level to whites.

Paper 2 Online Media Exam Question

What techniques do your chosen texts use to effectively

target and maximise their online audiences? (30)

Refer to both Zoella and Attitude.

Zoe Sugg, also known by her YouTube name Zoella, is a British vlogger, businesswoman and author. She started her YouTube channel in 2009 and since then has targeted a range of audiences. An example of her target group would be the female gender group and she targets them by giving into the stereotypical female-based activities such as fashion, make-up, relationships, etc that females can look up to her about as a role model. She also uses emotive content to target females by appealing to the female audience through narratives that will make them feel emotions. Zoella tells us how she feels about problems she faces in her life which the audience may be able to relate to. Zoella also used to target the age range of 13 to 24-year olds. Zoella effectively targeted this audience by using a lot of popular social media platforms that this age range use such as Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, etc. She also targeted the age range by using familiar and youthful slang that they would know and can identify with. Recently Zoella's target age range as changed to a more mature audience as her website features topics such as menopause, sex toys, etc.

Zoella’s content used to target the working middle class as she had partnerships with companies that targeted similar socio-economic groups such as ASOS and H&M, however more recently her content targets the middle class.  Zoella's most prominent features will be her hetrosexusal relationship with Alfie and the stereotypical female activities she takes part in, such as fashion, make-up, relationships. ...

Attitude is the UK's best-selling gay magazine. Attitude's main audience would be males between the age of 26 to 55. Attitude use a factual writing style in their articles and use a high image to text ratio. They mainly use Facebook and Twitter as their social media platforms as these are the primary sites used by this age group. Celebrities featured on the front cover or featured in articles are used to engage people who grew up with the mass media of the late 20th century. 

MOCK EXAM QUESTION PAPER 2A Television Crime Drama (TEXT)

How do your key text episodes of Life on Mars and The Bridge use, follow or subvert genre conventions and stereotypical representations, and how do they use narrative structure and enigmas to produce a response in their audiences? You should make some reference to theory in your answer (30 marks)

Life on Mars and The Bridge are both television crime dramas. Life on Mars is a British show whilst The Bridge is a co-production between Sweden and Denmark.

Life on Mars and The Bridge both use genre conventions to successfully show that the television show is a crime drama. Life on Mars is a hybrid genre text (crime and sci-fi) and that is shown through the characters, settings and narrative. Life on Mars has characters such as investigators, sidekicks, victims, and villains. Sam Tyler is the main character and the investigator. He has the typical backstory of an investigator that has problems and issues to solve personally. His boss Gene Hunt could also be classified as his sidekick, as he assists Sam in his investigations. The narrative of the first episode follows Sam as he finds out who the murderer is and solves the connection between the cases in 2006 and 1973, which fits into the typical narrative of a crime drama.

The sci-fi genre is first shown when Sam time travels to the past after a car accident and is continued when he is trying to find out how and why he is there. This part of the narrative ends up being an enigma code as Sam does not solve this problem by the end of the episode, leaving it a mystery to be solved, resulting in the audience wanting to continue watching the series. Another enigma code would be that it is not yet clear as to how and why Sam time travelled and what is going on in 2006. This is supported by Barthes Action and Enigma codes theory, which suggests that an enigma code is a question posed to the audience to leave a sense of ambiguity and to leave them hooked.

Life on Mars episode one has an open ending as there are many questions left to be answered and is a multistrand as there are multiple plotlines. The narrative is restricted as the audience does not know, see, or hear more than Sam. There are some examples of binary opposites in the episode such as past vs present, how does the case that Sam is solving in 1973 link to the case he is solving in 2006 and how different are the work conditions in 1973 compared to 2006 culturally and ethically. Another binary opposite is police vs criminal which is conventional as this is type of conflict that the audience expects to see and makes them feel happier when the police wins.

The Bridge is a Nordic noir which is a genre of crime fiction usually written from a police point of view and set in Scandinavia or Nordic countries. We can tell The Bridge is a Nordic noir as there are bleak settings, brutal crimes, an investigator with a mysterious past and a storyline with lots of complex threads. The Bridge also has characters such as investigators, sidekicks, victims, and villains. Saga is the main character and the investigator. She also has the typical troubled backstory that an investigator in Nordic noir crime dramas would have. Hanne Thomsen is Saga’s sidekick who joins her on her investigation in this episode. Hans Pettersson is Saga’s laconic and mentoring boss.

The narrative of the episode follows Saga as she tries to solve a murder case. The Bridge has some enigmas that are yet to be solved by the end of the episode such as who is the murderer and what is going on in Saga’s personal life. This hooks the audience as it leaves them wandering about the answers to the questions. This can be supported by Barthes Theory. This episode of The Bridge has an open ending as not everything is solved and not all questions are answered. This leads the audience to keep watching more episodes to see if everything gets resolved. The Bridge has a multistrand narrative as there are different plotlines happening in this episode for example: Saga trying to solve the murder case, Saga’s relationship with Hanne and her connection to Martin, Lise Anderson’s daughter getting bullied at school. The narrative is unrestricted as the audience know, see, and hear more than the characters.

There are some main binary opposites in The Bridge for example Sweden vs Denmark, Danish people think that Swedish people are a bit more politically correct and uptight (this may be a link between Saga sticking to the rules and doing the right thing by reporting her previous partner). Another binary opposite is the relationship between Saga and Hanne. Hanne seems to have hard feelings towards Sage for reporting Martin (a popular man liked in the workplace and Sage’s ex-partner/sidekick). Levi-Strauss’s theory of binary opposites can support this as it suggests that the conflict between the binary opposites drives forward the narrative.

In the crime genre, women are usually represented as victims and in the drama genre, women tend to be represented as overly emotional and family orientated. This episode of The Bridge subverts the stereotypical representation of women as we can clearly see that Saga is socially awkward. Saga is very blunt and has difficulty in building relationships (we see this when Saga is attempting small talk with Hanne). She strips down to her underwear in the office to get changed without any embarrassment and carries on as if that is normal. It can be suggested that her character has autism which is a change for a female character as autism was once seen as a manifestation of an “extreme male brain” and mostly given to males to portray. Saga is often seen as rude or insensitive (thought it is shown as unintentional) as she tells things directly and truthfully, even if it will hurt someone’s feelings. An example of Saga being unable to empathise is when she and Hanne go to visit the victim’s wife and Saga offers to show her pictures of her wife’s dead body at the scene. Hanne stops her as she finds that inappropriate for the wife to see. This subverts from van Zoonen’s feminist theory, which suggests that women as seen as objects in the media.

To conclude, Life on Mars and The Bridge both use genre conventions, stereotypical representation, narrative structure, and enigma codes to actively engage with the audience.