Critical Approaches to Film · Critical Approaches to Film Representations of Race This lesson is...
Transcript of Critical Approaches to Film · Critical Approaches to Film Representations of Race This lesson is...
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Critical Approaches to Film
Representations of Race
This lesson is based around the article by Stam & Spence 1983
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Twilight films 'foster
unhealthy attitudes
about relationships'
'She falls in love with
this guy and the second
he leaves her, her life is
over,‘ (Shailene
Woodley)
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http://www.cracked.com/article_20082_6-insane-stereotypes-that-movies-cant-seem-to-get-
over.html
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#6. Everyone in Africa Is Uncivilized or a Warlord
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‘The opening of Casino Royale introduces us to Africa with the image of
a bunch of black guys betting on a fight between a mongoose and a
snake.’
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Can be
found on
the website
This essay featured in Screen magazine in 1983
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Stam & Spence (1983) Aims
• Looking at race in films
• Expanding on existing writings on race
• Moving away from purely looking at character
• Discussing ‘positive images’ of race – are these racist?
• Textual analysis
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“Where they cut off your ear / If they don’t like your face / It’s
barbaric, but hey, it’s home.”
Where it’s flat and immense and the heat is
intense.”
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Colonialism: • Refers to process by which European
powers (including US) reached position of economic, military, political and cultural domination in much of Asia, Africa and Latin America.
• Reached its peak between 1900 and end of WW1
• Europe had colonised roughly 85% of the earth!
• All began to break up after the disintegration of the European colonial empires after WW2
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Third World: • refers to historical victims of this process. The
colonised, neo-colonised or de - colonised
nations of the world. Whose economic and
political structures have been shaped and
deformed within the colonial process.
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Racism• Product of colonisation process.
• Victims of racism are those whose
identity was forged within the colonial
process:
• E.G. Blacks in US
• Asians & West Indians in Great Britain
• Arab workers in France
• All of these share an oppressive
situation and status of second class
citizens
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Albert Memmi (1968)
• American Indians: Beasts and cannibals (when white Europeans slaughtering them and gaining their land)
• Blacks: lazy (because they were being exploited as slaves)
• Mexicans: caricatured as ‘greasers’ and ‘bandidos’ (US had seized half their territory)
Stereotypes like these come from the colonisers
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Early uses of stereotypes in cinema
• Lazy Mexicans
• Shifty Arabs
• Savage Africans
• Exotic Asians
• Mexican ‘greasers’
• Slavery idealised and slaves degraded in
Birth of a Nation (1915)
• Safari films: present Africa as land of
lions in the jungle. Only tiny proportion
of African land mass could be called
jungle and lions live in grasslands.
‘Flawed way the Third World is depicted in
films in Hollywood’
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Absence of oppressed groups
History of the oppressed not always shown in
movies
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Language of colonised not always
accurate
• ‘often reduced to an incomprehensible jumble
of background murmurs’
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Positive Images (KEY POINT!)
• ‘A cinema dominated by positive images, characterised by a bending over backwards not to be racist attitude, might ultimately betray a lack of confidence in the group portrayed, which usually itself has no illusions concerning its own perfection’
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Parody of a stereotype, rather than the
stereotype itself?
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A black slave is torn apart by dogs as a crowd of white overseers savours
the sight and a black bounty hunter watches passively behind shades. A
black father makes his little girl crack open a crab with her bare hands
then flex her tiny muscles like a pint-size N.F.L. line backer. A black pilot
snorts a line of cocaine after a night of debauchery and, just a few
minutes before lift off, knocks back several miniature bottles of alcohol.
A black woman tells President Lincoln that God will guide him as he
pushes legislation that will end slavery but not dent notions of white
supremacy.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/17/movies/
awardsseason/black-characters-are-still-too-
good-too-bad-or-invisible.html?_r=0
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Stereotypes
• Can be useful to determine
prejudice on screen
• Danger of over – focus on
characters
• Should take culture into
account; are stereotypes of
races same for all countries?
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‘Codes & Counter Strategies’
• When analysing characters you
should also think about:
• composition of image
• framing
• scale
• on and off screen sound
• music
• questions of plot and character
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The scale of the image of character
and duration are related to the respect
afforded a character and potential for
audience sympathy, understanding
and identification.
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Which characters are afforded close-ups?
What cinematic strategies are used to gain a connection between
spectator and characters on screen?
Which are relegated to the background?
Does a character look and act or merely appear to be looked at and
acted upon?
With whom is the audience permitted intimacy?
If there is off screen commentary or dialogue, what is its relation to
the image?
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A comprehensive methodology must pay attention to the mediations
which intervene between ‘reality’ and representation. Its emphasis
should be on narrative structure, genre conventions, and cinematic
style rather than on perfect correctness of representation or fidelity
to an original ‘real’ model or prototype. We must beware of mistakes
in which the criteria appropriate to one genre are applied to another.
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Links
• http://www.buzzfeed.com/jessicamisener/are
-these-disney-movies-racist
• http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/17/movies
/awardsseason/black-characters-are-still-too-
good-too-bad-or-
invisible.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0