Anth Final Exam

Hollywood films tended to have a "conservative" message in the 1950's and early 1960's, late 60's move to liberal, early 70's backlash to more conservative messages

experimental -> backlash

culture elaborates what nature determines. Culture imposes forms that make impossible not to perform femininity/masculinity

Systematic patterns in the ways things get talked, written, and thought about (represented)

A discourse that functions to justify or legitimize society's hierarchy

Process by which those disadvantaged by an ideology come to believe it themselves

Create the illusion that reality is being neutrally recorded rather than constructed from a particular point of view.

Do two women in a movie talk to each other about something other than a man?

The relationship between film and social history. The representations operative in film and the representations that give structure and shape to social life (look at remakes)

Common Readings:

Good over evil, coming of age, etc.

Opposition:

Naturalization of patriarchy, representation of ideology, restoration of white capitalist patriarchy, villiany linked to non-white identities.

A + B we know is coming from the same perspective even though it's not necessarily obvious

Making a woman into an object of male sexual desire

What you see on the screen is a non-real representation of the world presented in such a way to make it seem real.

Showing from the character's perspective (???)

What language does is construct, not label, reality for us. Images as well as words carry connotations.

Sound serves to reveal our emotions as the audience. Emotions of characters are signaled by music and evoke emotions.

Blackness in representation. All of the traits Michael J. Fox takes on are stereo-typically black traits and he is then transformed into an ape like character.

The art of technique of persuasion through the use of spoken language

Films, likewise, convince the spectator to take a particular position

The set of conventions that communicate the message persuasively

The actual speech produced by the characters in the film

Speech patterns of the stereotypical character contributes to the viewer's conception of his or her worth -- language is used to ridicule and stigmatize characters. (e.x. Stagecoach)

Clipped, short sentences that hold a lot of meaning and power. Taciturn

Through the film's shots, it convinces you to feel empathy for Dallas and repudiation of Lucy's prejudice

Did the Willie Horton Ads prime racial prejudice?

Result: Yes, prejudice becomes a formidable influence.

Filmic Rhetoric/Language, condensed in an ad. Dilemma - solution - mythical result.

Image A next to a blank face means you project the emotions evoked by A onto the face.

Scene setting, characterization, dialogue

Use of accents in voicing character speech

1. Silents were silent

2. Audible speech made narration easier

3. Sound and Nationalism

4. Concentration of Power

5. Role of the "voice"

Almost always accompanied by music, people funning the film, a band, etc.

Early on the technology was too clumsy to allow this

A single international cinema split into multiple national cinemas and cinema took on nationalist meanings

(less transferable across boundaries)

Expense of Sound and Studio systems meant only wealthy groups could afford to make movies anymore

Audible sound changed the relation of power between Director and Actor. Director could not control the voice

Speaker:

1. Animator

2. Author

3. Principal

Hearer:

1. Authorized/Unauthorized

2. Overhearer/Intended Overhearer

First "talkie" film. Major themes of Assimilation and Blackness

Jewish Tradition is backwards, inflexible, needs to be changed, etc.

Blackness allows him to change and express himself in the final sequence.

Diegetic - coming from within the film's story

Non-diegetic - coming from outside the film/film's story (soundtrack's, etc.)

Internal, On-Screen, Synchronous, Production

External, off-screen, asynchronous, post-production

Audience Awareness

Audience Expectations

Rhythm

Character

Fidelity

Continuity

Emphasis

Juxtaposition

Montage

"Deep Focus Sound"

Sound Bridge

Blooping

Staggered Cut

Dubbing

etc.

"sound acts as a silent support to the visual"

Sound is placed on the side of emotion not fact/knowledge

Structure of metaphors

Mapping of source (physical things) onto target (emotions)

Individuals grouped by shared traits which become a shorthand for describing people.

These shorthand accompanied by assumed traits which become standardized. Used to discriminate against others

American films focus on stories of strong and stalwart heterosexual white men finding happiness and success. Others represented through these stereotypes

???

Language communicates identity and some language is morally disparaged

Language is systematically variable, social, and we have no idea what's significant in language but apply moral judgements about that same language

1. All Living languages change

2. Spoken languages are equal linguistically

3. Grammatical is not the same as communicative

4. Writing is NOT spoken language

5. Variation is intrinsic to all spoken lnaguage

The use of two or more languages by an individual

The use of two or more languages within a given community

The juxtaposition within the same speech exchange of passages belonging to two different grammatical systems or subsystems

British prestige (r-less) was the norm, post WW2 American prestige became the norm (r-ful)

It is intrinsic to all spoken language at every level but it is also socially structured variation

Oxymoron to say there is a standard language at all.

Tolkien used language to enforce ideology of Good and Bad characters.

A story with cultural importance. Used to justify social order, coerce participation in that order, and is often highly ideoloical

Accent is only pronunciation, dialect is both vocabulary, grammar, and pronounciation

There is a standard language

That standard language is equivalent to written language

Schools are the sanctuary of standard language

Having a foreign accent makes speakers twice as likely to be evil

Disney films are highly conservative

Female characters never shown at work, when they are in highly stereotypical roles

Half of all Disney characters are animals and every AAVE speaker is an animal which for male characters are all unemployed

1. Tom

2. Coon

3. Tragic Mulatto

4. Mammy

5. Buck

Persist to this Day

Tom - happily submissive faithful servants

Coon - black man as being dumb, lazy, shiftless, and good for nothing as someone you cannot count on

Tragic Mulatto - mixed race character assumed to be sad or depressed because they do not fit into white or black society. Often sexualized

Mammy - loud, fat, sassy black woman who takes care of the house

Buck - refused to bend to the law of white authority and were violent, rude, and lecherous

Stereotypes used to project features onto animals.

Narrator - deep, standard male

Lady elephants - aristocratic diction, WC, range of speech styles

Negative Concord - more than one negative element in a sentence

Copula Deletion - (where she been, instead of where has she been?)

Present Tense verbs un-inflected for number

"be done" future perfective

Spellings that indicate non-standard pronounciations

goin, sumpn, git, etc.

Code switches between Standard English and AAVE depending on if she's narrating or if she is speaking as a character

Dramatically widens the linguistic distance between black and white southern speech. (???)

Counsciousness inevitably faces the necessity of having to choose a language.

Anchors diegesis and characters

Communicates narrative causality

Enacts events

Reveals characterization

Generates/supports realism

Viewer emotions

Thematic messages of authorial commentary, allegory, star turns

1. Quantity of Dialogue - few silent sections

2. Participation Structures - monologues, dialogues, polylogues

3. Conversational Interaction - elliptical Dialogue, overlapping speech, mute/silent characters

4. Other languages, dialects, jargons - minority filmmakers deliberately highlight linguistic diversity and problems of translation

???

Casting a role without considering the actor's race or ethnicity

actively casting non-whites, in most cases black actors

Prosody: pauses (long and frequent, in odd places), level intonation

Minimal units of meaning, the grammar of words

The Grammar of Sounds, distinctive sounds distinguish meaning in words, highly structured

Linguistically significant variations in Pitch

resembles or imitates its object

A sign that denotes its object by virtue of an actual connection involving them

A sign that denotes its object solely by virtue of the fact that t will be interpreted to do so

Process of the discursive production of racial identities. Dehumanizing and racial meanings to a previously racially unclassified relationship, social practice, or group. A group of people is seen as a race when it was not before.

Hollywood Injun English (HIE) evokes, naturalizes, reinforces Hollywood style of Indianness

Language use reifies the sociocultural differences assumed

No tense

Word deletion

Substitution

No contraction

???

Highly sexual hispanic romantic figure

Mayhem causing bandit, violent, curel, hot tempered

International English down to Manuel and Mrs. Ramirez

Zoot Suit seen as bilingual film despite little untranslated Spanish. The Border seen as monolingual even though it contains untranslated spanish.

Border - mainstream POV and so Spanish overlooked

First authentic Chicano movie. Difficult for Anglos to respond to it.

a secret language used by various groups including, but not limited to, theieves and other criminals to prevent outsiders from understanding

Establishes and expresses in-group identity and solidarity, primarily lexical, code-switching bilingualism with Spanish

Rhyming slang verbal art

represents a hegemonic negotiation that allows new ideas to come into play but reaffirms concepts that keep patriarchal capitalism in place

1960s saw a new hegemonic negotiation of gender

Women as objects devoid of individual will

Viewer is the male gaze

Pleasure of identification with Male characters but pleasure of voyeuristic view of female characters

POV given largely to male but Gazed-at shots given to females "male gaze"

The female body is broken by the camera and editing patters into a collection of smaller objectified parts

Teen Wolf - entire film might be understood as being about the investigation and punishment of Pamela's power over Scott

Woman is literally helpless as the story unfolds around her

Tension between Spectacle and Narrative. Woman is crucial to spectacle but works against narrative. Fragmentation of the woman's body.

Women's voice in cinema.