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 2

Week 2 Questions – Tintin

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

Tintin in the Congo was an early work of Herges and depicts blatant, and racist caricatures of black people, it depicts the Congolese people as having exaggerated features like larger red lips contrasting their extremely black skin reminiscent of blackface, and more often than not these racist caricatures also show them of having little to no intelligence, by making them confused over western objects like guns. To the reader, they end up looking like complete idiots who would still be uncivilized “savages”, if not for the colonizers who introduce their own idea of education. This is further proven in the panels when Tintin enters into a classroom and begins to teach the class by saying, “talk to you about your country: Belgium!”, which pushes the idea of the colonizers being white saviours and the native Congolese as displaced in their own land, as it now belongs to Belgium. Herge had clear political views as he had a background in working for a rightwing magazine, and those ideals had remained with him long into his career on Tintin, as races other than white seemed to be boiled down to mere caricatures of themselves constantly playing out stereotypes, while the white golden boy Tintin goes around stumbling his way into success, and returns home to a big parade.

It is clear what Herges political affiliations were, and through the albums; Tintin in the land of the soviets, it was thinly veiled anti-communist propaganda, “…the first two Tintin albums are pure right-wing propaganda.” (Mountfort, 2016), and once again looking at Tintin in the Congo, its imperialist propaganda which seeks to demoralize the Congolese by making them seem lesser in intelligence and portraying them as “Savages”, who don’t know how to use basic technological advancements like gramophones. Herge also displayed multiple cases where he would depict different races as mere caricatures, for example; the depiction of Chinese people as pigtailed torturers in Tintin in the Land of the Soviets (1929), and native Americans, as people who are constantly begging for money in; “Tintin in America” (1930) also, his caricatures of black people in, “Tintin in the Congo”, “Tintin: Cigars of the Pharaohs”(1932), “The Red Sea Sharks (1956-8) “.

Herge did, however, change many of his depictions of other races when being reprinted, For example; “Tintin in America”, the depiction of the Native American character was changed, taking away him begging and smoking a pipe. His views on Chinese pope were changed as well, in, “The Blue Lotus (1935-6) ”, where the Chinese are drawn normally, and Tintin even defends an Asian Rickshaw driver against a racist character who was shouting, “Dirty little China-man!…to barge into a White-man!”, with Tintin responding with, “Brute”, and “Your conduct is disgraceful sir!”. Despite this, he continued to portray a Japanese character; “Hergé’s representation of the Japanese villain Mitsuhirato as pig-snouted and therefore risibly subhuman”(Mountfort, 2012). and squinty eyes in the same album, which could mean he didnt actually grow as a person and realise his transgressions, and the only reason for better depiction of Chinese people is because of his student and friend; Zhang Chongren.

Herge was known to be critical of the Nazi regime in the 1930s, as he took a hard stance against Japanese Imperialism, but when the Nazis took over Belgium, Herge continued to draw propaganda cartoons for the “Le Soir” newspaper. It is important to note that many other Belgian Newspapers refused to publish for the Nazis and preferred that they shut down. However, Herge was an outspoken critic of how Americans stole land from the already settled tribes and basically pushed them into alcohol addiction and homelessness, as shown in, “Bayonet diplomacy”, in “Tintin in America”, which depicts this. All in all, Herge was a complicated person with political and ideological views that were clearly conservative, he has shown grown in his depictions of some races but not others and his continued success despite the Nazi regime could mean he may have supported it to some extent. In my opinion, we should read Tintin and his adventures as just adventures, with the death of the author, and treat them as a reflection of what people were thinking in that time period.

References

Mountfort, P. (2012). ‘Yellow skin, black hair … Careful, Tintin’: Hergé and Orientalism. Australasian Journal of Popular Culture, 1(1), 34-49. https://doi.org/10.1386/ajpc.1.1.33_

Mountfort, (2016). Tintin as spectacle: The Backstory of a popular franchise and late capital. Journal of Asia-Pacific Pop Culture, 1(1), 37. https://doi.org/10.5325/jasiapacipopcult.1.1.0037

W7: Questions

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.

The three elements Stephen King defines are named ‘The Gross-Out’, ‘Horror’ and then ‘Terror’.

‘The Gross-Out’ is- as it sounds- designed to disgust the audience with its grotesque use of gore; whether it be a broken bone, a disembodied head or a flood of blood. Now certainly, some horror movies won’t have excessive use of gore if any at all, some examples include a demonic stalker that can only be seen by its victim (It Follows, 2014), or where you only see the monster once in the films entire runtime (The Babadook, 2014). On the other side of the spectrum, you have movies that are notorious for its gore it wouldn’t be the same without; including he movie that started it’s own genre called Torture Porn, (Saw, 2004), or the one that went so far as to be banned in several countries (The Human Centipede (First Sequence), 2009).

‘The Horror’ is the staple of the genre, it’s fear in its purest form. It’s meeting your body double who has a murderous vendetta against you (Us, 2019), witnessing the corpse of a woman emerge from your bed sheets (The Grudge, 2004), watching hundreds of spiders burst from your own pimple (Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, 2019), etc. Without experiencing this fear, the whole story fails.

The final and- in Stephen King’s own words- the worst element is ‘The Terror’. Something not wholly explainable by conventional means, it’s not a deranged man in the walls, it’s not your adopted daughter, nor is it your vengeful neighbour. A true example of terror is gripping your friends hand tightly in the dark only for the lights to come on and see her on the other side of the room (The Haunting, 1963).

A great example of a movie that uses all three elements, aside from King’s own works, is Ari Aster’s Midsommar. ‘The Gross-out’ was the elders of this community jumping to their deaths in full view. ‘The Horror’ is watching them all be picked off one by one in different ways. ‘The Terror’ is realising this was planned from the start.

References:

Carroll, N. (2003). The Philosophy of Horror: Or, Paradoxes of the Heart. Routledge.

King, S. (2010). Danse Macabre. Simon & Schuster.

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

Week 1

Please respond to both of these questions (using references) in a post tagged under this page.

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

Early literature like plays, poems, and ballads, which were popularized and consumed by the wealthy and predominantly upper class, as they had disposable income and free time to watch and read these forms of media. This form of literature became known as “High Literature”, being favoured by academics, while other forms of media weren’t respected and given the title, “Low literature”. As stories in the format of the popular genre began to come out they weren’t well-received by critics as they weren’t “High Literature”.

Popular culture is defined as “…generally recognized as the vernacular or people’s culture that predominates in a society at a point in time… As the ‘culture of the people’, popular culture is determined by the interactions between people in their everyday activities: styles of dress, the use of slang, greeting rituals and the foods that people eat are all examples of popular culture. Popular culture is also informed by the mass media.”. It has come a long way from its first iteration as “Pulp Science Fiction” (Delaney, 2007). These books were mass-produced, allowing them to reach a wider audience, and as technology advanced, stories that were once in books were now in comics, with visuals to add to the reader’s enjoyment. And as technology developed further, popular genres would adapt its materials to fit the platform, for example, Radio, Films, Television, and recently with the advent of the internet, streaming platforms have made popular shows and films easily accessible to viewers with streaming sites and applications. This is only possible due to the fact that phones and computers have become cheaper and more powerful over the years. Popular genres seem to correlate and change along with the technology available at the time, and the fact that films and television are more widely available means reception to them will be overall more positive, as shows and film receive more audience and critical acclaim. This is supported as Pop-culture began after the events of ww2, as a larger number of people owned a TV, allowing for shows to develop cult-like followings, “With the post-World War II economic boom, however, all this changed. By 1955, half of all American homes had a television. Various types of programs were broadcast on the handful of major networks: situation comedies, variety programs, game shows, soap operas, talk shows, medical dramas, adventure series, cartoons, and police procedurals.”(Khan Academy)

An example of this would be with the show, “Arrested Development”, originally released in 2003 on NBC it never had much of viewership despite its critical success and was cancelled after 3 seasons, however, after Netflix had added the show to its site, it gained a wider audience, and it led to 2 more seasons being produced nearly 7 years after its initial cancellation.

What might the value be of studying them?

The study of Popular Genres can show societal and cultural advancements, as the stories they tell usually reflect on current political and societal issues, making these stories preserve the period they were written in. Shows like Star Trek and films like Blade Runner are set in the distant future, but tackle real-world issues like racism, class system, and the effects of what colonialism can do to entire civilizations. Science fiction, in particular, is well known to use thinly veiled allegories to speak on hot button issues in order to reach a wider audience that would maybe avoid such topics, like robots in Star Wars being an analogy for slavery, and the oppressed, where they have autonomy and display sentience, but are restricted to labour positions and are sacrificed without a second thought. Studying popular genres packages these important messages into digestible stories, so people especially children can interpret them easier.

References

Delaney, T. (2007). Pop Culture: An Overview. Retrieved November 6, 2020, from https://philosophynow.org/issues/64/Pop_Culture_An_Overview

Popular culture and mass media in the 1950s (article). (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/postwarera/1950s-america/a/popular-culture-and-mass-media-cnx

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/

W4: Question

What features make Akira cyberpunk, and how does it reference the wider subgenre?

Cyberpunk by definition is: a genre of science fiction set in a lawless subculture of an oppressive society dominated by computer technology. It is most notable by its incredible setting design. Skyscrapers as tall as the clouds, neon lights around every corner, but not the picture perfect city life we may be used to. Indigo Gaming describes cyberpunk’s aesthetic as “High tech, low life.” (unknown, 2019), which is why you’ll see a lot of characters living in poor conditions if not straight up poverty.

Akira fits this description like a glove, it’s rife with the city life with both our main characters and surrounding extras. It’s extremely technologically advanced, while at the same time being exceedingly dirty with litter decorated along the streets, graffiti on almost every wall, even governmental funded institutions- such as the school- is given no care for its appearance.

The reason for this is as the writer from The Guardian states: “The genre was formed as a response to a world where corporate power was proliferating and expanding across the globe, inequality was growing, [and] new forms of technology offered both the promise of liberation and the potential for new and dangerous forms of domination.” (Walker-Emig, 2018) Cyberpunk was- and is still- a meta-commentary on current and future social economics. It’s a believable dystopian future that many of us believe is inevitable, where the rich get richer and the poor stay poor.

Akira may not have much to say on the class divide that other works in the genre have, but it speaks numbers about corruption and abuse of power. With examples from government officials, police brutality and even teachers whose one job is to take care of their students all because they hold power over them.

The story ends with a rebirth of sorts- as do most Cyberpunk stories I believe, whether simply in the character or society as a whole- with Tokyo destroyed but the land still stable. “Destruction may lurk in familiar yet fantastic forms, but the construction remains – a gritty, breathing Tokyo, alive with realism, and not going away anytime soon.” (Lee, 2018)

References:

Indigo Gaming. (2019, December 1). Cyberpunk Documentary PART 1 | Neuromancer, Blade Runner, Shadowrun, Akira. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sttm8Q9rOdQ&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR0ZOnQmyGabIr8FMiM6Lkz-DBE1

Lee, G. (2018, January 15). Anime beyond Akira: The construction and destruction of cyberpunk Tokyo. Little White Lies. https://lwlies.com/articles/anime-beyond-akira-cyberpunk-tokyo/
Walker-Emig, P. (2020, April 16). Neon and corporate dystopias: Why does cyberpunk refuse to move on? The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/games/2018/oct/16/neon-corporate-dystopias-why-does-cyberpunk-refuse-move-on

Week 11: Mollie Chater

How Real is Reality Tv?

Reality tv is usually defined as non-fictional footage where actors haven’t got a script or a set of instructions to follow as the footage is shown to be real current events and a look into real life as people deal with situations and life In front of them. Reality tv comes in many forms. ‘Keeping up with the Kardashians’, ‘Survivor’, ‘American Idol’ and ‘The great British Bake off’ are some of the most well know reality shows known. Reality tv shows can be drama, music, cooking, adventure, and living shows that are all classed under the same category as if they were fiction shows, which is entertainment.

Rather than relying on actors (Metz), reality tv shows rely on editors and producers to smooth out the show ready for an audience to consume. Producers and editors will show edited cuts of the footage gained, showing only what they want to be shown or what they deem to be worthy of being shown to the public. This can raise the question of how real is reality tv?

The idea that reality tv isn’t scripted gives the idea that that what is being shown is general reactions to the situations being shown, but as Ryan Stradal mentions it, “Unscripted Does Not Mean Unwritten” (Stradal, 2014).

Basically, we are being shown what we want to be shown, the storylines and character arcs and the drama that get audience views are the scenes that are given in reality tv shows. Just because what’s being shown on screen may be reality or a situation of reality, the ideas shown can warp audiences views of how to deal and process situations and life when the actors within reality shows might not be actor yet they almost always know how to act in front of a camera to be able to make themselves look good, and even on reality tv this may not be portraying the actual reality of a situation presented on the shows we watch (Grimes).

Its known that many reality shows are planned in advance, with an idea and a process to make the shows more relatable and entertainment worthy for audiences to consume. With it safe to say that reality tv isn’t completely real.

References;

Metz, W.F. (n.d). How Reality Tv Works. HowStuffWorks. Retrieved Fromhttps://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/reality-tv.htm#

Grimes, G. (n.d). Just How Fake are Reality Tv shows? HowStuffWorks. Retrieved From https://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/just-how-fake-are-reality-tv-shows.htm

Stradal, R. (2014) “Unscripted Does Not Mean Unwritten.” Writers Guild of America, West. Retrieved From http://www.wga.org/organizesub.aspx?id=1096

Week 12 Response – Chloe Pope

Can reality tv still be thought of as a genre given the high level of hybridity that exists?

While the roots of reality television stretch back as far as early 20^th century documentary making, it is only since around the 1980s and 1990s (particularly for New Zealand) that it has grown into the beast that wider society knows it as today. In her essay Heroic endeavours: flying high in New Zealand reality television, Phillipa Smith writes of the history of reality television, both abroad and within New Zealand, ‘Rupert Murdoch’s launch of the Fox Television Network in the United States in the late 1980s in the newly deregulated and fiercely competitive broadcast environment of television saw the introduction of RTV that was not only cheap to produce, but also attracted attention through dramatic raw footage using newly developed technology such as satellite cameras and mini-cams.’ (Smith, 2013) These early television shows largely focused on true crime, such as shows like Cops that followed around American police forces.

However, in the almost forty years since, there has been much evolution within the stratosphere of reality television that does bring into question whether it can now all be considered one genre, or whether ‘reality television’ as we know it has really become not merely a multi-headed beast but something else entirely. Conventionally, there have been four main ‘types’ of television programming recognized: ‘Fact’, which covers such programming as news and documentaries; ‘Fiction’, covering feature films and fictional drama programming; ‘Entertainment’, which features real people and events but for the purpose of entertainment, such as game shows and talk shows; and ‘Advertisement’, with the aim of selling and increasing the desirability of certain commodities, such as commercials and infomercials. (Wood, 2004)

Reality television has already been identified as a unique hybrid of several, if not all of these modes of television programming. It has also been previously suggested that reality television could then de divided into ‘subgenres’ of theme, ‘everyday dramas of courage, talk about feelings and civic action’. As argued by Brennan Wood, however, ‘these thematic unities do not distinguish hybridized reality from many other sorts of television content’. (Wood, 2004)By it’s nature of blurring reality with fiction, to the point where the difference is unrecognizable to some, a reality television show focused around any of those themes can have a far different impact than a clearly fictional drama about the very same themes, or a news report on them, etcetera. As an example, one could compare the soap opera Coronation Street (1960-) to E! Network’s reality television show Keeping Up With the Kardashians (2007-). From a purely thematic point of view, both shows focus upon similar themes surrounding the drama of various relationships with family and friends, love and heartbreak and parenting. However, they are both wildly different in terms of aesthetics, audience, and, most importantly, reach and influence – Keeping Up With the Kardashians has turned the entire Kardashian-Jenner household into incredibly wealthy and powerful cultural influencers and celebrities, for better or for worse, which no star from Coronation Street, past or present, has come close to touching. This is a clear example of how further hybridized reality television shows are from even the fictional drama shows such as Coronation Street, and why there is a need for more in-depth classification of them.

However, television in general has changed in large amounts since the rise of reality television. More and more, there are television shows that focus on and blend themes and genres otherwise not seen together previously (such as The Good Place (2016-2020), a comedy series with a particular, if subtle focus on philosophies around life and death, and Sense8 (2015-2018), which combined a supernatural/sci-fi concept of interconnected humans with strong queer themes). There is also the problematic existence of ‘fake news’, such as what is seen on the Fox Network, which has heavily influenced world politics with ‘news reports’ heavily sensationalized to the point of being outright false. This then suggests that it is perhaps not just reality TV that has become increasingly hybridized, but television as a whole, and that the system through which we previously categorized and assessed television has become outdated and in need of an overhaul in the new, 24-hour, interconnected digital age.

References

Smith, P. (2013). Heroic endeavours: flying high in New Zealand reality television. In N. Lorenzo-Dus, & P. Garces-Conejos Blitvich, Real Talk: Reality Television and Discourse Analysis in Action (pp. 140-165). Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Wood, B. (2004). A World in Retreat: The Reconfiguration of Hybridity in 20th-Century New Zealand Television. Media, Culture & Society, 45-62.

Week 11: Anastasia Shearer

How real is reality TV?

Reality TV as defined by Beressi and Nunn (2005) (as cited in Smith, 2020), is “[Reality TV places] an emphasis on the representation of ordinary people and allegedly unscripted or spontaneous moments that supposedly reveal unmediated reality”. Reality TV implements a diverse set of styles and techniques such as amateur actors/actresses, improvisation, and the use of hidden cameras, surveillance cameras and hand-held cameras to encapsulate the feeling that you are seeing the events unfold in real time (Hill, 2005). However, every reality TV show is different in which style and techniques they use and there is a vast array of shows to suit just about everyone’s interests. You wouldn’t say that The Kardashians were anything like the reality TV show Survivor. These shows are under strict criteria oftentimes by their audiences and what their audiences depict to be a realistic (Kilborn, 1994). Despite these differences all these reality TV shows boil down to the same thing. All of them want to claim a certain amount of authenticity on their show, as well as having the maximum entertainment factor.

So where did reality TV really begin? Documentaries were the beginning of the reality TV phenomena, the medium was evolved by a man named John Grierson who supported the making of realist-documentary types of film. Moving on to the 1950s and technology had been majorly upgraded. This meant it was easier for filmmakers to be less intrusive whilst filming and allowed them to film in the moment which often had no objective. There is a famous rockumentary about Bob Dylan shot in this style. Cinéma Vérité was yet another style of shooting these realist-documentary types of films. Although they too used the less intrusive method they took it one step further and presented a point of view and encouraged things to happen. Furthermore, they had someone behind the camera asking the subjects questions and interacting with them that way. Free cinema which was developed in Britain in the mid-50s started to look at just average everyday people. They didn’t yet focus on just the individual people, but on the lives of common people such as people in trades. This style of reality-documentary influenced social issue dramas such as the well known television show Coronation Street (Smith 2020).

‘Cathy Come Home’ was a groundbreaking television play as it was the first documentary type film that had been shot outside of a studio. It revolved around this young family experiencing poverty and homelessness and people had not seen anything like it before as these types of films were often reserved for current affairs (Smith, 2020).

Looking at what reality television is like today we can understand more clearly where the medium came from and what it was influenced by. In a documentary the film makers gather a lot of footage and have to cut it down to a watchable length, their subjects are often aware of being filmed and that may have impacted upon how they acted or what they said, questions being asked in interviews can be written a certain way to try and get a certain answer. The documentary makers really had a lot of control on what they filmed, who they filmed, and what they chose to leave in their documentary. So the audience only had access to what was presented to them, and how does that relate to how real reality television is today? (Smith, 2020).

Kilborn (1994) argues that present day audiences are far more aware that what they are watching on television is a “constructed reality” because of the advancement in technology meaning that images and footage can easily be altered to make things appear differently. Additionally, interviews with past participators have revealed the reality that a lot of reality television is placed in a very controlled environment, conversations and reactions are often filmed several times and that winners and losers are often fixed before filming begins. Despite reality TV not being real and more a constructed reality, there is still a lot of demand for these types of shows.

References

Hill, A. (2005) The reality genre. In A. Hill, reality TV: Audiences and popular factual television. (pp. 14 – 40). Oxon: Routledge.

Kilborn, R. (1994). ‘How real can you get?’: Recent developments in ‘reality’ television. European Journal of Communication, 9, 421-439. https://doi.org/10.1177/0267323194009004003

Smith, P. (2020). ENGL602 Reality Television [PowerPoint slides]. Blackboard. https://blackboard.aut.ac.nz/

W2: Question

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

There’s no such thing as a positive stereotype. Even the ones that seem harmless or even complimentary, such as all Canadians are kind, Asians are intelligent, women are kinder, etc, can actually support a toxic mindset, and the damage that stereotypes do can sometimes be irreversible.

Personally, I was told at a young age that all Muslims are terrorists (must’ve been around four or five), and it wasn’t until I was a teenager that I learnt that Muslims were actually a part of the Islam religion rather than a terrorist organization. Now, I was lucky that all this information actually came to me at a young age, not quite aware of the impact that 9/11 had nor had any chance to meet someone of the Islam faith attending a Christian school, or I likely would’ve hurt someone terribly.

Hergé promoted the idea that those of colour were less intelligent than white people to an insulting degree. That those who did not follow western customs were uncivilised ‘jungle-folk’ who needed guidance. Whether Hergé intended to do so or not, it likely would’ve grown the racial divide that already exists. To this day, people will say that black people are not smart enough to lead their own lives, that skin colour dictates our intelligence and that is why white people are the superior race.

Stereotypes like these reinforce past conceived notions that those of colour were savages, despite evidence to the contrary. For example, Native Americans were quite advanced in their inventions, so much so that Europeans were in awe and tried to explain away their skill by believing them to be descendants of Phoenician traders. They are credited with the invention of the kayak but they also made syringes made of hollow bird bones, and oral contraceptives that Western practices wouldn’t pick up until the 1960s. In spite of these facts, to this day, people only see Native Americans as those savage Indians Christopher Columbus discovered and aided (he didn’t).

Hergé was certainly a product of his time, while he held no ill will to those around him, his ignorance was his sharpest weapon. Unwilling to accept fault, and only changing for the sake of saving face rather than accepting responsibility.

References:

Kiger, P. J. (2019, November 14). 10 Native American inventions commonly used today. Retrieved from https://www.history.com/news/native-american-inventions

Mountfort, P. (2011). ‘Yellow skin, Black hair … careful, Tintin’: Hergé and orientalism. Australasian Journal of Popular Culture, 1(1), 33-49. https://doi.org/10.1386/ajpc.1.1.33_1

Mountfort. (2016). Tintin as spectacle: The Backstory of a popular franchise and late capital. Journal of Asia-Pacific Pop Culture, 1(1), 37. https://doi.org/10.5325/jasiapacipopcult.1.1.0037

Zawisza, M. (2018, August 28). The terrifying power of stereotypes – and how to deal with them. Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/the-terrifying-power-of-stereotypes-and-how-to-deal-with-them-101904