Bamboozled Analysis

Bamboozled. (2000)

Starring Damon Wayans.

Directed by Spike Lee.

Damon Wayans is asked to make a minstrel show for the new millennium and uses this as an opportunity to get sacked by introducing a very explicit and ridiculous show that expresses in a satire commonly racist ideas about Africans to the public, this eventually works against him and has a dangerously bad reactions to the majority of the cast.

Only Denotations and rough notes FOR NOW!!

-Reps of 2 dignified successful black characters, one is the main character Pierre Delacroix (Damon) who is a producer and also his female african american assistant. These reps are initially seen as being positive as they work against the stereotypes of having lower status occupations in general being in social grades of D/E.

-Damons real name was "Phillis"

- Damon isn't liked until after Bamboozled in his workplace quite clearly because

- His boss "I speak more black when im with you" - Is there a concept of speaking black?

The Mis-en-scene in his office - Pictures of successful black people.

- Changes name from 'Manray' to 'Mantan' and 'Sleep&Eat'

- In the show we see stereotypical black roles i.e. Shoe shining and tapdancing.

- Damon's previous show 'Brown Knows Joe' wasn't a success and got cut.

- On the T-shirt of the girls brother and his rap group ' The African Hellacaust' and they are seen rapping and drinking.

- Damon calls the girl a 'Lamb'

- Hattie costume - Like a mammy is shown in the performances.

- 'Watermelon AKA Nigger apple'

-" I say nigger 100 times every morning, thats what keeps my teeth white"

- His father is an Alcoholic

- Sponsors of the show - 'The Bomb' - hard liquor..."It makes you get your freak on"...

- TimmiHillnigger - The man 'wigger'

- Halloween costumes = Blackface

- "never should have got romantically involved with my help"

CI - 1,141

An investigation in the use of humour in adverts and what affect it creates

What is humour? The answer to this particular question is not a straightforward and simple one. Rather it is a combination of several explanations put together to reflect different attitudes towards humour from the diverse people the society consists of today. Humour is a very interesting and amusing way of gaining people’s attention. It is used in movies, trailers and advertisements. Humour in advertisements in particular is very popular. This is due to the fact that there is a very short time frame to convey the message desired by the creators of the advertisement. It instantly breaks through and hopes to capture the audience’s attention. Emotions and feelings that are generated through the use of comedy can often result in positive brand links. I will be researching into various different advertisements and what effect humour creates within them.

Take the Volkswagen advertise for example. This advertisement is about a car, Volkswagen Polo. It is set in a very middle class white posh area. The trailer begins with a motorist leaving his house and getting into his Volkswagen Polo. He has a distinct Middle Eastern appearance and has also an Arab checked scarf wrapped around his neck. These scarves are commonly used by many Arabs around the world. After a short period of driving, the driver stops outside a busy café that has a very ‘English’ feel to it. Women are speaking on the phone, holding the baby and just walking by. The driver pulls out a detonator and depresses the button. At this moment of time, the car does not explode, there is just a explosion inside of the car and the car manages to contain it. Straight the slogan is seen ‘Polo. Small but tough.’

The institution that created this trailer is Lee and Dan team. This trailer is aimed for mature minds, people who are 18 and onwards. The reason why the target audience might not be younger than that, because being at a naïve age, it is really easy for the minds to be indoctrinated in any way possible. If this is seen by younger audience, it can cause a lot of havoc and chaos, resulting in hatred amongst youth for other ethnic backgrounds. Having said that, it can be argued that it is created SO that the youth of today can link with what is shown on the news about WHO are the terrorists and what ‘kind’ of appearance to look out for. This viral advert is on youtube, msn windows, facebook ads, anywhere possible on the net and because there is a huge population of teenagers accessing the internet, maybe it IS created to target them. There are many issues with Muslims being linked with terrorism.

Around the world today, peoples mind have been programmed to think that every terrorist act is committed by a ‘Muslim’. What this Volswagen trailer has done is reinforce that statement. It is like a stamp mark on something that has already been said a lot of times, indirectly. Arab Muslim’s have a history of terrorist acts, which took the media by a storm and caused a lot of controversy to ensue. This act is destructive and economically can result into havoc. The more people that are a victim of suicide bombing, the more the population will start to decrease which will soon result in a downfall of the economic system.

In May 2006, one of many adverts from Mac computers challenging Pc’s was created. One of which included a Japanese woman representing a digital camera. As soon as the advertisement starts, the audience is captures by the bright white plain background and the diagetic sounds coming from the two men standing facing right at the camera. One man is dressed in a grey and white suit and has quite a snobbish appearance. The man looks reserved, boring and old. He represents PC. He is holding hands with a guy who is dressed in casual ‘cool’ clothing. He is dressed in blue polo top and black jeans with converse type shoes. He looks ‘chilled back’ relaxed and fun. This guy represents MAC. There are long shots of these two men and soon Japanese woman appears on the screen wearing a light blue dress and links hands with MAC. At this point there is a long shot of all three representatives. She represents a new Japanese digital camera and looks quite chic. MAC starts conversing with her in Japanese, PC gets confused and says, ‘wait, wait, wait you speak her language?’ MAC says, ‘Oh yeah, absolutely, everything kinda just works with a MAC!’ This connotes straight away that MAC has made this advert to mock PC.

The irony in holding hands is that the advert is trying to make it seem like they’re ‘friendly competition’ against each other but in actual fact MAC is attempting to win the audiences hearts and for them to start disliking the PC. This advertisement targets everyone who uses computers. The lighting is very bright, denotes everything in great detail. The advertisement is simple yet effective. Does not include much content but it is the shortness of it that does exactly what MAC are intending to do. For audiences to think, MAC is better than the PC. Further on in the trailer there is an over the shoulder shot. PC is conversing with the MAC and we can the representatives back. At this point, the Japanese woman looks very delighted with the MAC. This implies that anyone and everyone can be happy with MAC computer. It also connotes that MAC computers are made to adjust to anyone’s wants and needs. There is a promise created that it’ll work however you want it to work. In the end there is more distance between the MAC and the PC than in between the MAC and the digital camera. This suggests that MAC suits the wider society’s needs much more than a PC does.

At this moment in time, there is huge competition between MAC and PC. They are going head to head in the market. Where the PC is simple and clear to use, MAC has a lot more interesting things to offer, evidently. MAC is also more desired amongst the younger generation because of layout, the programmes installed and simply the appearance of MAC computers. Before MAC became popular, PC was in every household and was the most wanted and relied computer as it is the only best one that existed. PC has been around for many years, this means that people are starting to get ‘bored’ using the same thing over and over again. Since MAC has been introduced in the market, it has instantly won many fans. It offers something new and exciting and that is why, overtime the popularity is growing

Analysis of different posters starring black people

Bamboozled analysis

- Four colours stand out, are dominant. Red, white, black and orange. These colours give a sense of heat and warm weather. The yellow on black is very prominent, and on it is the image of a black baby.

- Cotton flowers connote the low profess

ion that farme

rs used to have, not even a PROFESSION - its a reference to slavery

- Black peculiar looking baby holding a watermelon - tropical fruits are common amongst Black Africans plus the baby looks happy which conveys that these fruits are most probably not ones that black people get to eat - suffering in poverty etc

- The head of the baby is overly large to alienate it, making

the baby look different as if it does not belong here

- No shoes on - stereo typical image of poor black child. Can't afford shoes, living in unstable conditions

- Exaggerated features of baby, looks excited over watermelon - piccini effect

- Circus like theme - writing and images themselves, show that a lot is going on, all at once

'Great Negro Actors' refers back to slavery - the word Negro was used in times of slavery of black people

Second poster of

Bamboozled:

- Black people both look jolly and happy which shows that their having a great, fun time

- The black man at front wearing white gloves perhaps conveys

that he is detesting white people because his hands are shaped in a way that shows he is stopping something

- The lips are overly exaggerated wearing a magician hat with 'waiter' like clothes

- The guy behind is wearin

g a Pool's guard clothes and has an exciting expression\

- It's almost as if the guy is trying to scare the audience in a funny and weird way

- White gloves connot

e a bit of unity between the black and white people? Gloves - hands - union- friendship

Big Ministrel Jubilee:

- Apparent, exaggerated features. Same white man playing the black man

- Made to look evil, harsh, alien and DIFFERENT - a sense of no belonging

- The red eyes connote danger - stereotype - black people are nuisance, a menace to society

Bracula - 1972:

- Revenge on white people

- Play on words 'BLAC'ula (dracula)

- Black man is made to look scary

- Made after civil rights (1940) but still is a mockery of black people

Ci - 506 words

An investigation in the use of humour in adverts
What is humour? The answer to this particular question is not a straightforward and simple one. Rather it is a combination of several explanations put together to reflect different attitudes towards humour from the diverse people the society consists of today. Humour is a very interesting and amusing way of gaining people’s attention. It is used in movies, trailers, advertisements and posters. I will be researching into advertisements and what effect humour has in them.
Take the Volkswagen advertise for example. This advertisement is about a car, Volswagen Polo. It is set in a very middle class white posh area. The trailer begins with a motorist leaving his house and getting into his Volkswagen Polo. He has a distinct Middle Eastern appearance and has also an Arab checked scarf wrapped around his neck. These scarves are commonly used by many Arabs around the world. After a short period of driving, the driver stops outside a busy café that has a very ‘English’ feel to it. Women are speaking on the phone, holding the baby and just walking by. The driver pulls out a detonator and depresses the button. At this moment of time, the car does not explode, there is just a explosion inside of the car and the car manages to contain it. Straight the slogan is seen ‘Polo. Small but tough.’

The institution that created this trailer is Lee and Dan team. This trailer is aimed for mature minds, people who are 18 and onwards. The reason why the target audience might not be younger than that, because being at a naïve age, it is really easy for the minds to be indoctrinated in anyway possible. If this is seen by younger audience, it can cause a lot of havoc and chaos, resulting in hatred amongst youth for other ethnic backgrounds. Having said that, it can be argued that it is created SO that the youth of today can link with what is shown on the news about WHO are the terrorists and what ‘kind’ of appearance to look out for. This viral advert is on youtube, msn windows, facebook ads, anywhere possible on the net and because there is a huge population of teenagers accessing the internet, maybe it IS created to target them. There are many issues with Muslims being linked with terrorism.

Around the world today, peoples mind have been programmed to think that every terrorist act is committed by a ‘Muslim’. What this Volswagen trailer has done is reinforce that statement. It is like a stamp mark on something that has already been said a lot of times, indirectly. Arab Muslim’s have a history of terrorist acts, which took the media by a storm and caused a lot of controversy to ensue. This act is destructive and economically can result into havoc. The more people that are a victim of suicide bombing, the more the population will start to decrease which will soon result in a downfall of the economic system.

Mozzila Firefox advert

This viral advertisement is about an internet browser called Mozilla Firefox. It begins with showing a warm environment of a cosy room. The lighting is not very bright. The main focus is the huge computer screen which is placed in the centre of the shot. The character is not looking at the camera. She is speaking to someone on the phone while consuming chocolate. Then there is a mid close up shot of a woman dressed in a pink top eating chocolate while speaking on the phone. After that, there is an aerial shot of the keyboard, mouse, hands, mini note pad, wires and chocolate. It seems like the woman is distracted because she is multitasking. Then we see a shocked expression on her face, this is a close up shot. She lets go off the phone, put it on the table and gazes in amazement at what she is viewing. This connotes that whatever it may be, it has a very strong impact on her. Instead of the chocolate, she picks up her phone and ends up consuming a part of it. This humour is created through when she actually bites and swallows pieces of her phone. The crunch sound that we hear implies that while she viewing this particular thing, anything is possible.

UNFINISHED

MAC vs PC

The advert is based on Mac computers challenging Pc’s. As soon as the advertisement starts, the audience is captures by the bright white plain background and the diagetic sounds coming from the two men standing facing right at the camera. One man is dressed in a grey and white suit and has quite a snobbish appearance. The man looks reserved, boring and old. He represents PC. He is holding hands with a guy who is dressed in casual ‘cool’ clothing. He is dressed in blue polo top and black jeans with converse type shoes. He looks ‘chilled back’ relaxed and fun. This guy represents MAC. There are long shots of these two men and soon Japanese woman appears on the screen wearing a light blue dress and links hands with MAC. At this point there is a long shot of all three representatives. She represents a new Japanese digital camera and looks quite chic. MAC starts conversing with her in Japanese, PC gets confused and says, ‘wait, wait, wait you speak her language?’ MAC says, ‘Oh yeah, absolutely, everything kinda just works with a MAC!’ This connotes straight away that MAC has made this advert to mock PC.

The irony in holding hands is that the advert is trying to make it seem like they’re ‘friendly competition’ against each other but in actual fact MAC is attempting to win the audiences hearts and for them to start disliking the PC. This advertisement targets everyone who uses computers. The lighting is very bright, denotes everything in great detail. The advertisement is simple yet effective. Does not include much content but it is the shortness of it that does exactly what MAC are intending to do. For audiences to think, MAC is better than the PC. Further on in the trailer there is an over the shoulder shot. PC is conversing with the MAC and we can the representatives back. At this point, the Japanese woman looks very delighted with the MAC. This implies that anyone and everyone can be happy with MAC computer. It also connotes that MAC computers are made to adjust to anyone’s wants and needs. There is a promise created that it’ll work however you want it to work. In the end there is more distance between the MAC and the PC than in between the MAC and the digital camera. This suggests that MAC suits the wider societies needs much more than a PC does.

At this moment in time, there is huge competition between MAC and PC. They are going head to head in the market. Where the PC is simple and clear to use, MAC has a lot more interesting things to offer, evidently. MAC is also more desired amongst the younger generation because of layout, the programmes installed and simply the appearance of MAC computers. Before MAC became popular, PC was in every household and was the most wanted and relied computer as it is the only best one that existed. PC has been around for many years, this means that people are starting to get ‘bored’ using the same thing over and over again. Since MAC has been introduced in the market, it has instantly won many fans. It offers something new and exciting and that is why, overtime the popularity is growing.

Volkswagen Polo: Small but tough

This advertisement is about a car, Volswagen Polo. It is set in a very middle class white posh area. The trailer begins with a motorist leaving his house and getting into his Volkswagen Polo. He has a distinct Middle Eastern appearance and has also an Arab checked scarf wrapped around his neck. These scarves are commonly used by many Arabs around the world. After a short period of driving, the driver stops outside a busy café that has a very ‘English’ feel to it. Women are speaking on the phone, holding the baby and just walking by. The driver pulls out a detonator and depresses the button. At this moment of time, the car does not explode, there is just a explosion inside of the car and the car manages to contain it. Straight the slogan is seen ‘Polo. Small but tough.’

The institution that created this trailer is Lee and Dan team. This trailer is aimed for mature minds, people who are 18 and onwards. The reason why the target audience might not be younger than that, because being at a naïve age, it is really easy for the minds to be indoctrinated in anyway possible. If this is seen by younger audience, it can cause a lot of havoc and chaos, resulting in hatred amongst youth for other ethnic backgrounds. Having said that, it can be argued that it is created SO that the youth of today can link with what is shown on the news about WHO are the terrorists and what ‘kind’ of appearance to look out for. This viral advert is on youtube, msn windows, facebook ads, anywhere possible on the net and because there is a huge population of teenagers accessing the internet, maybe it IS created to target them. There are many issues with Muslims being linked with terrorism.

Around the world today, peoples mind have been programmed to think that every terrorist act is committed by a ‘Muslim’. What this Volswagen trailer has done is reinforce that statement. It is like a stamp mark on something that has already been said a lot of times, indirectly. Arab Muslim’s have a history of terrorist acts, which took the media by a storm and caused a lot of controversy to ensue. This act is destructive and economically can result into havoc. The more people that are a victim of suicide bombing, the more the population will start to decrease which will soon result in a downfall of the economic system.

Differenes between Let me in and Let the right one in

Reflection of my critical investigation

Research into my critical investigation: An investigation of the effects of violence in movies on the wider society. - An improved question - An investigation into the relationship between contemporary and traditional movies related to violence. How do they make this successful in the movie industry?

I believe this topic includes moral panics such as 'if movies carry on portraying such violence then would the violence in the society increase?' and 'the ways and different lights violence is portrayed under, would this make the acts of violence accelerate?' There are already news reports featuring acts of violence committed through being influenced from movies - this I will research and provide evidence since I feel quite strongly about it.

The media texts I will be using to help me investigate into this topic will be movies such as :

Kidulthood -Teenagers being shown as aggressive, violent and harmful. This movie outlines the class that commit crime the most, the gender and also depends on the location, where you live determines a lot about the kind of acts you commit. Most teenagers in this movie are seen to live in urban areas, council states, this location, crime rate it high - when I do more research, my study and figures will show that.

Adulthood - Adulthood is a part two to Kidulthood, conveys what can happen if teenagers carry on committing such crimes then they can grow up to be more harmful to the society.

Shank - This movie again shows young people committing crime and getting into trouble, losing loved ones, hurting people and making nothing out of their lives.

(All these three movies show male domination, the men are the powerful ones who commit several illegal acts and women are seen to be used for pleasure and relationships, this is a stereotype. These movies are an example of all the violence shown in movies, can influence how people deal with things in real life, can affect their actions and behaviour - this will further show in my study)

Salt - This movie shows female power. Angelina Jolie plays a secret agent and is shown to be very skilful in what she does.

Games can help with the influence of crime, it goes hand in hand with movies.

S.H.E.P
-social context - relation between societies behaviour towards violent movies
-Historical context - how violence is portrayed over time? The effect used , what makes it more realistic

Theories:

Patriachy - males are represented mainly in violent movies.
Feminist - what view do feminists have on this? Are women part of these action movies as well and if so what role do they play?
Games theory - How does the violence in games influence the type of violence shown in movies and how does this affect society?

Test.

Teen representations - Critical Investigation - Teenage pregnancy

My mini linked production was based on teenagers bunking. Their views and how it may affect their education. Also the reasons as to why teenagers bunk. However, I decided to do my critical investigation on teenage pregnancy and the ongoing concern in relation to it.

Teenage pregnancy is a rising concern in todays western society. It is claimed that 'kids are having kids'. Before girls of young ages are able to look afer themselves, they have another life to look after. There have been many websites made to support this. If an individual does end up getting pregnant, there are many sources they can use to help them through the process. Because of this, I believe that teenage pregnancy has become so common that now it is fine to create such websites which therefore make it look normal.

The primary sources I will be using to discover more about this topic are...
Links on Youtube, The movie Juno and the reality programme 16 and pregnant. These media texts will be used to establish how teen pregancy has been represented throughout these different texts. My aim would be to see how teenage pregnancy has been interpreted through these different texts.

The secondary sources I will be using are...
Newspapers and the arguements portrayed based on teenage pregnancy. What different representatives have to say about it and how it is affecting the society.
I could also use surveys which have already been completed, to convey facts and statistics on teenage pregnancy. The higher the figures of teenage pregnancy the more concern there is.
I can also use different websites to get the relevant information I need regarding the issues on 'kids having kids'

These are some eye opening facts about teenage pregnancy:
- Despite the fact that the teen birth rate is slowly falling for years, there are still an estimated one million teen pregnancies in the US alone.
- Alfie Patten said to have fathered a child at the age of 13 with a girl aged 15. This raises moral panic and questions the fact that it is maybe because of the early sex education at school. Because children being aware of such things at an early age, they are growing up to think that it is 'normal'

I'll be using many facts and figures to do with teenage pregnancy. Also outlining representations of teen pregnancy in movies like, Juno or reality programmes such as 16 and Pregnant.

My critical investigation will begin with an introduction to the topic, following on with representations and facts and figures. Then finish off with a conclusion, summarising the problems, issues, concerns and arguements in relevance to teen pregnancy.

Bibliography:
http://pregnancy.about.com/cs/teenpregnancy/a/teenpreg.htm - information on just US alone.
http://www.independent.co.uk/extras/the-big-question-why-are-teenage-pregnancy-rates-so-high-and-what-can-be-done-about-it-1623828 - The newspaper -Independent, has issues relation to teen pregnancy
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4584175.stm - BBC news article stating problems to do with teen pregnancy.

Teen representation - Bunking (Evaluation)

We worked quite well as a group as we are aware that there is a lot of traunting of lessons done by teenagers. We used the documentary format to create our piece of teenager representation. We personally thought bunking was a good topic to work towards as it can relate to many teenagers. We had actors in the documentary, such as myself to really get the feel of teen environment included in the documentary. We didn't do much research, we used our own experiences of school life to build up a teen atmosphere and environment.

We could have included more shot types and lighting to make the documentary more engaging. We could've involved content that went against bullying, as everything said by the speakers was surpringly positive! We could've done a bit more in terms of fully conveying the kind of teenagers that like to traunt.

Teen Representations-Bunking

Questions on MEST4 - Coursework

Where candidates are working in a group on a production piece they may choose to produce similar research studies or they may wish to focus on different texts, themes, issues or debates relevant to their chosen production piece. Similar research studies? Meaning, we can work in groups?

A2 Media Studies - Blog activity

Comparison of two teenager movies - Girl, Interrupted & Angus, thongs and perfect snogging

The cover of the movie, 'Girl, Interrupted' denotes two girls which when linked with the title connotes that the genre maybe Teenage thriller. In contrast with the cover of the movie, 'Angus, thongs and perfect snogging' denotes, a main girl in the foreground, with a guy alone in the back ground and three girls in a group which connotes that maybe the genre is a 'chick flick' linked in with the sub genre, teenage romance. The two genre's are very similar as they are both targeting teenagers but the issues and the plots are clearly different. These genre's both reflect the female society as Angus, thongs and perfect snogging connotes some growing up features of women, when they come in contact with physical attraction and personal satisfaction. The movie, Girl, Interrupted also reflect the a teenage female society as it connotes deception, back biting and fraud. Something which may be common amongst teenagers today. The typography of the title, Girl Interrupted connotes that it is a matter on females as the word Girl is used and the comma after Girl conveys 'interruption'. The typography of the title, Angus, thongs and perfect snogging is bold in white with black outline, emphasising itself clearly. Some words are larger than others for example, Snogging connoting that it might be a major issue, linking in with the genre.

On the cover of the DVD, Girl, Interrupted, there are two images of different girls. There is a close up shot of the face of the girl in the background which connotes that she may be the main emphasis or the main character in the movie who has suffered from something being stopped. There is a mid close up, non directive shot of a girl which connotes that she may be watching out for something and that she may be in great danger from the girl that is in the background. It also connotes that she maybe running away from the girl in the background because she does not feel safe. Where as the cover of, Girl, Interrupted gives a chilly feeling of something bad happening, the images on Angus, thongs and perfect snogging connoting issues and dilemmas of girls growing up.