Author: molliechater

Week 5: Mollie Chater

In what ways might Akira, Nausicaā and Mononoke be considered prescient?

The three Anime’s Akira, Mononoke and Nausicaa all focus on greed and power-hungry authorities (Anderson, 2018) or higher ups that determine social life for others and societies in ways that cause problems for everyone else but themselves. This shows how governments look out for themselves when faced with situations and no matter how much they say we are important when it comes to facing situations we are left to defend for ourselves this can be seen in society with court orders, and police brutality claims from topics like the Rodney King Riots and the BLM movement, where the government claims to understand and want to help the situation, yet continue to allow injustices to happen. Humanity within all three anime’s have also somewhat been destroyed or broken, to a point where the class system is separated so vastly that even society cannot deny the damage done (Dobay, 2019). Technological advancement, throughout all three applies to both technology in the idea of computers and cameras and also weaponry used against the people in order to gain more power.  

The most overwhelming element the anime’s all show is the idea of power and its corruption that it causes of people.

References

Anderson, K. (2018). Akira is a Spiritual Experience. Nerdist. Retrieved From https://nerdist.com/article/akira-30th-anniversary-anime-spiritual-experience/ Dobay, A. (2019). The Many Layers of Princess Mononoke. Follow the Moon Rabbit. Retrieved From https://www.followthemoonrabbit.com/princess-mononoke/

Week 3: Mollie Chater

  1. What gaps are there in Hergé’s representations of women?

The adventures of Tintin see women take a backseat throughout Herge’s work with very little female characters and when there are females withing the works, the are depicted as oblivious, fragile things in a foolish way.

One way to look at the lack of female representation in Tintin is to understand the times at which the works were created. Even as time continued however it became apparent that Herge would do nothing to change the way women were seen in both his work and to him. At one stage Herge claimed that ‘’Women have nothing to do in a world like Tintin’s” (Mountfort, 2020). When women do feature in Herge’s work they are always seen as wives or houseworkers aiming at being a subtle nod that Herge himself did not have much if any respect for women.

Herge paints Tintin as the hero in ‘The adventures of Tintin’ to give the idea that Tintin lived in a man’s world, by always making the women seem as if they were the damsels in distress when featuring them.

Herge does not have a representation of real women in his work, he has a representation of what he believed at the time women should be like and how they should behave, and how men were the dominant sex during ‘The Adventures of Tintin’. So the gap of women’s representation within Herge’s work is that there are no proper representations at all.

References

Mountfort, P. (2020). Tintin, gender and desire. Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics. https://doi.org/10.1080/21504857.2020.172982

Week 2: Mollie Chater

  • What issues do his albums raise in terms of representation of ‘race’, and particularly ethnic and cultural stereotyping?

Stereotyping is a fixed belief around a group or class of people (Mcleod, 2017). We use stereotyping in the social world when we are in society. We can stereotype both subconsciously and consciously due to how we were brought up, our values, opinions and even our peers can be factors that create stereotypes that we can identify.

Herge Continuedly depicted that other races than his own were less than intelligent and that many other cultures needed western guidance, due to behaviour differences. This racism can be seen in ‘The Blue Lotus’ and ‘Tintin in the Congo’.

Multiple times is stereotyping used throughout Herge’s work with negative depictions of different races. With both negative traits and behaviours being shown by anyone other than Tintin.

References:

Mcleod, S. (2017). Stereotypes. SimplePsychology. Retrieved From https://www.simplypsychology.org/katz-braly.html

Week 1 Questions

How has the academic reception of popular genres changed over time?

As time goes on society changes, fashion changes, music changes, values and opinions change and so does genres and popular genres. As we grow and develop ideas in society so do the genres that are created and viewed. Academically, a change in popular genres could be the relevance of genres used in academia during the time they are being received. Another way popular genre can be received academically is when someone takes offense to what is being portrayed within the genres, this can include politics and social issues that society is confronting depending on the year and time the genre becomes popular.

What might the value of studying them?

Learning is always valuable, Popular genres opens up new worlds and ideas for people to learn and create from, popular genres is so vast in its amount of definitions that it allows everyone to be able to enjoy some part of it regardless, if it is literature, film, games or media. Studying popular genres allows people to gain knowledge from topics that we can understand and find interesting as so many ideas and opinions pass through the genres. Through popular genres we can gain new ways to look at the world and new influences that can help better our work by enabling us to understand more about how the world around us is shaped by views and outlooks as well as being able to understand create flow and ideas.

Popular genres can also be good for our societies because we use old and new genres to determine how we live and change our views. We can grow as a community by learning from mistakes shown within popular genres studying them can give us insight on ways we can process and overcome situations before they happen and can plan to be able to change situations that need to be fixed.

Week 4: Mollie Chater

What features make Akira cyberpunk, and how does it reference the wider subgenre? Link for question 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sttm8Q9rOdQ&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR0ZOnQmyGabIr8FMiM6Lkz-DBE1–cZrqPuIA2StGx-4WIjVmBrOKS9GeA

Cyberpunk is a genre defined by a sub-genre of science fiction set in a dystopian future, usually seen where the government reigns supreme and the opposing side is the underworld that has been corrupted by time and a lack of wealth due to the governments cruelty (Dystopia). The words joined Cybernetics and Punk to make a world that is focused on technology with a nihilistic aura surrounding the whole subgenre.

Akira (1988) is an anime style film set in Neo-Tokyo, set in the cyberpunk genre. The whole film fits into the idea of cyberpunk with the government on top, technology and the ambience of neon lights and techno music all add to the features of the genre. The film shows the idea of corruption and power greed that influences anyone who can get their hands on it.

One of the main ideas of the genre is the technological side. Technology is advanced to the point where people are half human half cybernetics, and the streets are lined with screens and lights, and yet even with all of the advancement the streets are dirty and anyone lower than the high-class government, lives without luxury.

The idea of cyberpunk shown in Akira is that although technology is so advanced the people rise up against it and learn overpower it, showing a darker side to such a neon lit up city and life.

Cyberpunk is meant to get viewers to try to not rely so heavily on technology as even though we enjoy it and how it can make our lives easier, it can also be used as a tool against us and if we rely on it too much we can get swept up and be abused by it.

References: Dystopia, N. (n.d). What is Cyberpunk? Retrieved From https://www.neondystopia.com/what-is-cyberpunk/

Week 6: Mollie Chater

What is the philosophy of cosmicism and how is it used to convey a sense of dread in both The Shadow Over Innsmouth and The Colour out of Space?

The Shadow over Innsmouth, follows a young man as he travels through towns, not really knowing where he is going. He finds himself taking a detour through the dead town of Innsmouth, where the locals are quiet and keep to themselves and the town acts as if there is a curse that hangs over it. During the short story the young man finds himself stuck in his hotel room for one night where he escapes away from a town of things that aren’t human but are hunting hi, for reasons unknown other that he is passing through the town.

The idea of cosmicism is that there is no higher power out there due to H.P Lovecraft’s ideas of horror. The sense of dread conveyed is the idea that the young man, is being pursued by creatures God did not make, creatures so unnatural that it sues terror to contribute fear into both the character and audience that if the young man does not escape and make it out of that town by morning then the ‘fish-head’ creatures that are hunting him will cause him either death or pain if not both. The sense of dread is created with every close call and the overall build up of the story as we learn about the town and how the town and its people have been exiled by surrounding towns due to its unfriendly nature and odd aura that plays on the idea of terror due to our imaginations.

The Colour out of space (Lovecraft) conveys a sense of dread when the main character sees a world through different eyes that shows no humanity and no higher power coming to save them and its as the readers realize that there is little to no hope is when the dread sets in. The idea is that hope is wiped out and replaced by fear and confusion.

References:

Lovecraft, H.P. (n.d.) The Colour out of Space: Summary & Analysis. (2016, August 16). Retrieved from https://study.com/academy/lesson/the-color-out-of-space-by-hp-lovecraft-summary-analysis.html  

Week 7: Mollie Chater

King (2010) describes Horror as being defined through three basic elements. Explain, using references, what these three elements are. Think of a horror story you’ve read/watched/heard that makes use of all three of these elements and show how King’s definition is at play in that narrative.

Stephen King is known for his horror novels, he depicts that the three basic elements to horror are; The Gross-out, The Horror and The Terror. Looking at Stephen King’s own story ‘IT’ shows these three elements and shows how they add to complete the overall horror experience that people love.

The first element of ‘The Gross-out’ is self-explanatory, it is meant to gross out the audience, this can be done in multiple ways, most common with bugs, and gore as some gross topic’s horror produces. The gross element within ‘IT’ throughout both novel and film, in many different forms. On one hand there is the use of blood, gushing and overwhelming the screen in multiple scenes, but also the use of monsters (King, 2010) that represent disease and disgust to viewers like the leper in the novel that appears to one of the characters. The gross-out is the weakest of the three elements according to King (Reel, 2019).

The second element is ‘The Horror’. This is said to be the portrayal of what is meant to be unbelievable yet sparks fear within the audience, the horror is when we see something so awful, unnatural that we begin to fear it as we cannot grasp or understand what we are seeing. This is the middle of the three elements and is worse than the gross element not only can we be repulsed but our fear is determined by something we can physically see but not understand. Within King’s ‘IT’ the horror can come from Pennywise the clown as he morphs into a child eating clown luring children to their deaths, he takes the form of what the children fear most throughout the novel to make both the characters fear it and the audience watching.

The third element is ‘The Terror’, this is regarded as the worst of the three elements as it is our fear created by our imaginations (Neilan, 2017) When we turn off the light and flick it back on because we think something is there is a factor of having terror cause fear. Within it, this is the constant idea that Pennywise is everywhere watching the characters and that they can’t hide from into matter what they do.

References:

Neilan, D. (2017). Stephen King Breaks Down the Different Levels of Horror. Retrieved from https://www.avclub.com/stephen-king-breaks-down-the-different-levels-of-horror-1806112160

Regal Reel. (2019). Stephen King’s 3 Levels of Horror. Retrieved From https://www.regmovies.com/static/en/us/blog/stephen-king-3-levels-of-horror#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20acclaimed%20author,but%20in%20cinema%20as%20well.

Week 9: Mollie Chater

According to Mountfort et al. (2018), what are the three main genres of cosphotography, and how did they historically develop?

Cosphotography is the idea of cosplay and photography becoming one. Taking photos of cosplay or people in cosplay, has become a form of entertainment over social media and for conventions like Armageddon. Cosphotography can refer to both taking photos and videos to gain recognition and money through the act of becoming a character convincingly and usually in an aesthetically pleasing way.  People spend thousands of dollars trying to recreate characters from fandoms either with their own spin or in a way that convinces others that it is a good rendition of the said character.

Historically cosphotography can been seen dating back to 1908, when a man dressed as a character from a carton strip at a masquerade ball. Adapting again in the 1970 in Japan when people would dress as characters from anime and manga

The first of the three main genres would be a fashion show of cosphotography (Mountfort, 2018) where cosplayers would go to show off their cosplay and performances of their characters to a planned crowd of people and cameras, where they would be filmed, these show events would usually have a competition to reward the cosplayers hard labor and performances they create for the characters they portray.

The second would be what Mountfort refers to as ‘Hallway’ cosphotography, this can be seen most usually at conventions where cosplayers show off to crowds for fun, photos are usually taken without permission, yet a photo with another fan can be negotiated with to allow for the cosplayers to be able to make some for of capital for their labor. Again, the better or more realistic the cosplay the more rewarding the experience can be for the cosplayer. According to Mountfort, the cosplayers see it as a compliment when fans do want to have a photo taken or produced for them and can also been seen as a reward for the cosplayer.

The last genre of cosphotography would be studio portrait. This is where cosplayers are in a private location, having photos and videos taken with full consent to then share the photos and videos to share and distribute the photos themselves so that they can gain rewards for their work for themselves.

From all three genres, typically the most publicly seen is the hallway cosphotography where cosplayers go to conventions and share their work though social networking and negotiated and 50/50 consensual photos and videos.

References:

Mountfort, P. (2018). Cosplay as Citation. In P. Mountfort, A. Peirson-Smith, & A. Geczy, Planet Cosplay. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press

Week 8: Mollie Chater

Referring to Mountfort et al. (2018), in what ways is cosplay analogous to citation?

Cosplay is a play on the words, Costume and Role play. Where people will dress up and role play as their favorite characters or ideas from different fandoms and genres (Mckay, 2019).

Cosplay is an act where people take characters and ideas and form them into a costume that they can transform themselves into that character or idea. Yet it isn’t just a costume. Cosplay also boils down to understanding the character and/or idea so completely that you adopt the idea and mannerism that the character may have, how they behave, talk and walk and how they would be distinguished to others.

Cosplay becomes a performance art (McIssac, 2012), when people adopt how the character would act in real life. Believed to have originated from Japan when students would dress up as characters from their favorite anime’s and manga’s, the trend spread and now there are conventions where people go to show off and embrace the cosplay and the characters they have become, places like Armageddon also allow people to learn and create and come up with new ideas on how they will incorporate characters into their costumes and vice versa.

One of the ways that makes cosplay analogous is that the idea for most characters comes from somewhere, whether it is a book, film, show, anime, videogame or other game the ideas for cosplay are usually already fabricated by a fandom that already exists, the people who cosplay as characters usually only put their own spin on the design while researching ways that the charatcers acts because that character or idea has already been formed before. Mountfort (2018), says that ‘It can be regarded as a form of citation’ when addressing cosplay due to the fact that people take the idea from somewhere that has already composed the character. It can also be regarded as a citation as although characters has already been made and have stories regarding them, ‘cosplayers’ can take the ideas presented from the characters and put their own spin on them making each cosplay not an identical copy and using this to new meaning to characters and broadening how the characters themselves can be perceived.

Cosplay is the costume version of writing a fanfiction dedicated to a fandom, only instead of writing, you are wearing your depiction of a character or idea to transform into that character as they have been created. With the idea of this and the pervious points I believe cosplay is analogous to citation.

References:

McIssac, M. (2012). What is cosplay and why do people do it? Retrieved From https://ifanboy.com/articles/what-is-cosplay-and-why-do-people-do-it/

Mountfort, P. (2018). Cosplay as Citation. In P. Mountfort, A. Peirson-Smith, & A. Geczy, Planet Cosplay (pp. 21-24). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press Mckay, R. (2019). Cosplay101: Everything you need to know about it. Who.com. Retrieved From https://www.who.com.au/what-is-cosplay

Week 12: Mollie Chater

Can Reality Tv still be thought of as a genre give the high level of hybridity that exists?

Reality tv suggests that what is being shown is real. Within the genre of reality tv has an expansive universe of different types of shows ranging from drama shows detailing the lives of famous people as the audience follows them through their everyday lives, we see this in shows like ‘Keeping up with the Kardashians’ to dating shows like ‘Too Hot to Handle’ and ‘The Bachelor’. To having cooking shows that can either show competitions where people face off against each other in order to win a certain prize by competing in a kitchen setting, this can be seen in shows like ‘The Great British Bake off’ or shows about cooking/baking where the audience is getting a step by step guide to recipes and a guide to making new dishes, this is seen on shows kike ‘Jamie Oliver’ and ‘Nigella’. Then we have reality shows that are adventure based like Ice road Truckers’ where we follow dangerous driving and shows like ‘Survivor’ that are contestant shows that give everyday people to show off their skills and compete for prizes.

Reality shows come in many different shapes and sizes all coming down to the fact they are for entertainment purposes.

The hybridity of reality tv is a blurred line as technology advances and the community evolves with social media, current events and world views. Most tv shows fall into multiple categories within society as genres can be mixed matched from any viewpoint as people experience and react to things differently. The idea of reality tv is to entertain the audience, yet this is mixed with factual ideas when shows with cooking and talk shows are introduced, where the audience is no longer mind numbingly paying attention and are now learning about subjects from the shows they are watching (UKessays, 2018).

Looking at reality tv and its genre we have to look at the idea that reality tv is showing what we understand is real, this can be concerned as real situations that people can find themselves in and reality shows can often show ways in which we can overcome situations. We can see evidence of this in shows like ‘Can’t Pay? We’ll Take it Away’, where debt collectors round up people who are overdue on payments and have been sent by the courts to seize assets to be able to liquidate for the amount owed. This is educating people on what happens when you get yourself into a situation such as this, that is more common than people originally believe. Then there is the opposite side of the spectrum where reality shows are like survivor (Metz) where people compete to get a prize by battling it out in the wild and trying to survive. This is a show based for entertainment purposes and shows a situation that many people will not find themselves in yet both shows are classed as reality tv even with very different subgenres.

This leads me to believe that even with such a wide range of shows and subgenres the hybridity of reality tv is valid as it all ends up classed as entertainment for an audience to watch.

References:

UKEssays. (2018). Development of Reality TV Genre. Retrieved from https://www.ukessays.com/essays/media/development-reality-tv-genre-2961.php?vref=1

Metz, W.F. (n.d). How Reality Tv Works. HowStuffWorks. Retrieved From

https://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/reality-tv.htm# Dunleavy, T. (2008). Hybridity in Tv Sitcom: The case of Comedy Verité. Flowjournal. Retrieved From https://www.flowjournal.org/2008/12/hybridity-in-tv-sitcom-the-case-of-comedy-verite%C2%A0%C2%A0trisha-dunleavy%C2%A0%C2%A0victoria-university-of-wellington%C2%A0/