Wednesday's Task

In preparation for the exam students must:

*Engage with a range of theoretical perspectives
*Demonstrate a personal position on the issues
*Exam answers must have a historical, contemporary and future perspective, focussing mostly on the contemporary.
*Emphasise the active audience i.e. how people 'give meaning' to cultural products (media texts).
*Have an understanding of two different areas of the media ie. film, television, internet, magazines, etc

In order to prove that you have a lot of this understanding already you will split into groups to work on answering these 4 prompt questions in detail.
You have 40 minutes to discuss and identify a clip/clips to back up your argument. You must also include reference to contemporary theory.

1. How do the contemporary media represent nations, regions and ethnic/social/collective groups of people in different ways?


2. How does contemporary representation compare to previous time periods?

3. What are the social implications of different media representations of groups of people?

4. To what extent is human identity increasingly mediated?
 
Write up a summary of your key arguments on the blog and be ready to present it to the class.

Misfits and Fish Tank.

Misfits:

Produced by -  Kate Crowe
Directed by - Howard Overman
Wrote by - Howard Overman
Critical Reception - Very Good; Times - 4/5 calling it "a new union — salty British street humour with whizz-bang special effects"
Does it prove or disprove Buckinghams theory? -We believe that Misfits does prove Buckinghams theory to some extent for instance he exaggerates stereotypes  and therefore portrays a slightly unrealistic view of teenagers in britain. However the views and humour that the characters have seem to be very true of real teenagers and therefore disproves Buckinghams theory.

Fish Tank:

Produced by - Nick Laws, Kees Kasander, Christine Langan, David Thompson
Directed by - Andrea Arnold
Wrote by - Andrea Arnold
Critical Reception -Rotten Tomatoes 90%,
Does it prove or disprove Buckingham's theory? - We believe that the story line of the film proves Buckingham's theory. The narrative towards the end of the film turns very strange and unrealistic. However, we do believe that the locations, characters, mise-en-scene and themes and more true too life.

misfits and fishtank

1. Who produced them?
Misfits: Clerkenwell Films.
Fishtank:BBC Films

2. Who directed them?
Misfits:Tom Green (First ep)
Fishtank: Andrea Arnold

3. Who wrote them?
Misfits:Howard Overman
Fishtank: Andrea Arnold

4. What was the critical reception for them?
Misfits: IMDB critic review: 9.1 & Best drama series
Fishtank:IMDB critic review: 7.8, Jury Prize & Best British film 2010

5. How far do they prove/disprove David Buckingham's theory?
Misfits: The representation of youth is all out to cause trouble, and have no respect for adults or authority
Fishtank:

Misfits & Fish Tank

1. Who produced them?

Misfits: Howard Overman, Petra Fried, Murray Ferguson, Kate Crowe 

Fish Tank: Nick Laws, Kees Kasander, Christine Langan, David M. Thomspon

• 
  

2. Who directed them?

Misfits:

Fish Tank: Andrea Arnold

3. Who wrote them?

Misfits: Howard Overman, a television writer who has written scripts for a number of other dramas such as Hotel Babylon, New Tricks, New Tricks, Hustle and Merlin. He created the BAFTA award winning Misfits. He also created the police-procedural comedy Vexed.

Fish Tank: Andrea Arnold

4. What was the critical reception for them?

5. How far do they prove/disprove David Buckingham's theory?

Monday Morning Tasks

Do some web research on Misfits and Fish Tank.

1. Who produced them?
fish tank- Nick Laws, Kees Kasander, Christine Langan, David M Thomspson

Misfits-  Petra fried, Murray ferguson, Kate Crowe 

2. Who directed them?
Fish tank- - Andrea Arnold     Misfits -
3. Who wrote them?
Fish Tank - Andrea Arnold
Misfits- Arthur Miller
4. What was the critical reception for them?

5. How far do they prove/disprove David Buckingham's theory?

1. Are there any cultural or fashion movements taking place in Britain now, that you think would be strong enough to form a 'collective identity'.
The main social groups of today seem to be 'chavs' and 'emos', like the 'mods' and 'rockers', these groups seem to have a great rivalry and don't tend to interact with one another.  We feel these are strong enough to form collective identities, because the stereotypical views of said apposing groups, differ so much from one another that they form very cut off groups or 'cliques', e.g. Fashion, music, attitudes, values and class.
     The characters from the film 'Fish Tank' are a good example of how sections of society- in this case lower class- act in a certain way and have similar interests. An example of 'acting in a certain way' in the film is when she has intercourse with her mothers boyfriend, she feels it is an okay thing to do as this is what she has been lead to believe by the people surrounding her. This is almost an exact opposite when looking at the film 'An Education' as they all are brought up to go to university and to
2. Argue ways that you could relate each theorists arguments to one of our case study texts

Blog task

1. Are there any cultural or fashion movements taking place in Britain right now, that you think would be strong enough to form a collective identity?
Cultural- Univercity fees rising, this has created a unity of students against the government. Who have as one collectively decided to protest the action of fees rising. This unity is devised of students of all backgrounds.
Fashion- Preppy, emo, chav etc seem to be the main social groups today.





2. Argue ways that you could relate each theorists argument to one of our case study texts.