MS4 - Text, Industry & Audience: District 9 (Representation/Genre)

Science fiction is creeping into more mainstream films: Guardian.co.uk Anne Billson

Science fiction isn't all 'talking squids in space'. And its creep into mainstream cinema is everywhere from Never Let Me Go to Midnight in Paris

It has already been observed that Mike Cahill's Another Earth and Lars Von Trier's Melancholia share the evocative image of another heavenly body in close proximity to Earth. The most significant thing about this coincidence is that neither film would normally be classified as science fiction. And it's not as if either director is distancing himself from the term, the way Margaret Atwood seems to be. She's made increasingly baroque contortions to explain that what she writes is "speculative fiction" and not SF.

There has long been a tendency for SF themes to bleed into the mainstream and non-SF genres. What is It's a Wonderful Life if not a story set in a parallel universe? And we've come to expect a touch of SF in our action films; as far back as the 1960s, James Bond and other spy movies flirted with technology so farfetched it tipped over into futuristic, and it's rare for a Hollywood thriller now to pay much heed to the laws of physics. But more and more high-concept, big-budget action flicks – Limitless, The Adjustment Bureau, In Time are just three recent examples – are coming out of the closet as unabashedly SF, even though not one of them features what Atwood refers to as "talking squids in outer space".

These films are aimed at audiences who probably wouldn't object to talking squids, but I've written before about the way chronological jiggling, time warps and parallel universes have infiltrated mainstream drama, romcoms and sitcoms. And "SF creep" into the mainstream and arthouse is on the rise, even if the term "science fiction" is only mentioned by critics disparagingly, as if the fact that the film under question refuses to classify itself as that makes it superior to the usual genre nonsense.

Take three other 2011 high-profile releases. Never Let Me Go was sold as Brit-lit (tagline: "Based on the best selling novel"), whereas it was really The Island for People Who Don't Like Explosions, with Keira Knightley instead of Scarlett Johansson. Hanna was sold as a junior Bourne Identity ("Adapt or die"), whereas it was essentially a junior Universal Soldier ("Robots run amok"). Midnight in Paris was basically a time travel yarn, but was sold as a Woody Allen film, which is permissible since he's a genre unto himself and has already flirted with SF in Sleeper, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex … and – in the most memorable bit of Stardust Memories – aliens. ("We enjoy your movies. Particularly the early, funny ones.")

It's tempting to dismiss such films as SF for People Who Don't Like Science Fiction, since mainstream pontifications on the genre still yield blinkered pronouncements from folk who wouldn't be caught dead at a Star Trek movie. Conversely, a lot of people who might have enjoyed Monsters were probably put off by it being marketed as a variation on District 9 ("After six years, they're no longer aliens. They're residents") when it was really the sort of thing that plays better at Sundance than at a fantasy festival – a low-budget relationship movie that happened to have tentacled aliens as walk-on extras.

But it's more likely a symptom of the way boundaries between traditional genres are dissolving. So maybe it's time to redefine genres, or even nominate new ones. Since barely a week goes by without another set of actors doing give-me-my-Oscar-now acting in overwrought drama triggered by a traffic accident (Another Earth, Margaret, Rabbit Hole etc) I propose "roadkill" as a new genre. Remakes, sequels and prequels can be lumped together under "recycling". Then there's the "girls in fetishwear" genre typified by Sucker Punch and Colombiana. This Year's Leslie Mann Movie would take care of all those bromances involving her husband, Judd Apatow. And we mustn't forget The Tom Cruise Running Very Fast film.

MS4 - Text, Industry & Audience: Fish Tank (Genre/Representation)

Andrea Arnold's acclaimed story of forbidden love in Essex is a powerful film in a bleak landscape, powered by fizzing performances from Michael Fassbender and newcomer Katie Jarvis. Read this review from The Guardian for a critical perspective of the film.

MS4 - Text, Industry & Audience: District 9 (Representation/Genre)

District 9 labelled xenophobic by Nigerians:

The squatters of Chiawelo share the District 9 limelight with another group on the bottom rung of society.

Nigerian immigrants play a large part in the film – taking the roles of gangsters, prostitutes or witch-doctors. They are depicted eating alien flesh or having sex with the creatures. Many Nigerians are furious.

An internet backlash is under way with an online petition and a Facebook group, "District 9 Hates Nigerians", accusing the film of xenophobia.

One blogger, Nicole Stamp, wrote: "That's Hollywood's Africa, isn't it. Black Africans shown as degenerate savages who'll have sex with non-humans and are pretty damn eager to eat people. Disgusting."

There was further criticism yesterday from the Nigerian-born British actor Hakeem Kae-Kazim, who appeared in the films Hotel Rwanda and Wolverine.

He told South Africa's Beeld newspaper that many Nigerians were upset about the film. "I have lived in South Africa," he said. "The country has so many beautiful things to offer … its problems can't be ascribed only to a small group of people."

On Facebook, he wrote: "If the African continent truly wants to be liberated, we cannot sit back and allow this depiction of a 'few rotten apples' to be spread across the world."

He expressed concern that District 9 would reinforce negative stereotypes of all Africans.

"The idea that it's not only Nigerians, but all Africans who behave in that way, will be spread across the world. I find that to be a painful thought. The manner in which the Nigerians are depicted cannot be justified."

Read related posts @ The Guardian

The evolution of fairytale heroines in film

Representation

Today's screen princesses have come a long way from the Disney damsels of old, but Joan of Arc still sets the bar high.

It's been a great year for warrior princesses at the movies – even better if they come bearing bow and arrows. First we had Katniss Everdeen, as incarnated in the svelte, fearless form of Jennifer Lawrence, eyes narrowing as she strung her bow and sent The Hunger Games $672m into the black.

Katniss was followed by Snow White, as played by sullen beauty Kristen Stewart, her sword slicing the air to save the kingdom of her late father and topple The Avengers from the top spot at the box office. And now we have Pixar's Brave, boasting the studio's first female heroine, flame–haired, cinch-waisted Princess Merida, "dear and bonny and lovable, the face beautiful, and transfigured with the light of that lustrous intellect and the fires of that unquenchable spirit".

So wrote Marc Twain of Joan of Arc but he could as easily have been describing the new breed of warrior princess riding, fighting, shooting, scything their way across our screens. As Sasha Stone commented at Awards Daily, "it's hard not to look at 2012 and not declare it the Year of the Girl". Although these feisty female role models have not met with universal approval. Merida could have used "a few more pixels in her waist", complained Peggy Orenstein, author of Cindarella Ate My Daughters: Dispatches From the Front Line of the New Girly-Girl Culture. "Merida doesn't really grow," pointed out Mary Pols in Time, "She's simply extended her time as a tomboy, another archetype, less a girl than a stereotype of a kind of girl."

Certainly, Disney princesses have been ploughing the feisty furrow for some time, at least since Princess Jasmine ran away from home rather than be married off at her father's behest in 1992's Aladdin. Jasmine, Pocohontas and Mulan were all touted, in their time, as "new", "empowered" Disney heroines who refused to sit at home plaiting their hair waiting for their prince to come. Clearly, some stereotypes are better than others, although even calling "stereotypes" in a Hollywood movie is a fraught activity, given that the semantic overlap between that and what most screenwriters would call "characterization". Either way, we have come a long way from the days when Snow White could arrive at the seven dwarves' home and immediately start house-cleaning without a word of complaint.

In a study conducted at the University of Connecticut, Dawn England and Lara Descartes divvied up the screen time of all eight Disney Princess into three categories: "domestic work", "interacting with animals", and "other". They reached the following conclusions:

"Princesses performing domestic work was only portrayed in the first three princess movies and again briefly in Pocohontas. However in the first two movies it occupied a significant amount of time. Time spent interacting with animals was very prevalent in the first four movies decreased slightly in the next three, and then significantly increased in Mulan."

In Pocohontas' defence, it should be pointed out that teepees get messy very quickly without regular housecleaning, and that Mulan was accompanied throughout much of the film by a red-and-orange Chinese dragon voiced by Eddie Murphy, who is better better classified under "comic relief", perhaps, than "interacting with animals". But no matter – onto the princes, whom they scored for personality traits ranging from "assertive" to "troublesome" then comparing them with the princesses' scores:

"The princesses were significantly more likely to be cooperative, nurturing, tending to their physical appearance, and troublesome. While the princesses were not likely to be portrayed as physically strong, unemotional, or inspiring fear, these characteristics were more common among the princes. The princes were least likely to tend to their physical appearance."

(Here Brave scores very highly, some of its strongest jokes coming at the expense of the young Scottish lords all vying for Merida's hand – a rogue's gallery of narcissists, boneheads and tennis-pro preeners.)

"The princes were action-oriented, often performing the climactic rescue that brought the conclusion of the movie. Over time the princesses' roles changed form being completely passive or asleep during the final rescue to assisting the princes."

"Asleep" seems a little harsh on Sleeping Beauty – the poor girl had hardly nodded off – but perhaps the most surprising observation was this:

"Among the princesses, assertiveness was more common in earlier films and fearfulness and tentativeness were depicted more often in later films."

Huh. The modern princesses are more fearful and less assertive than their predecessors. And yet, at the same time, they lead the action more and need rescuing less. What's that about? After much mulling on the matter, it occurred to me that this might be a side effect of greater psychological verisimilitude coupled with the old Hemingway paradox about the brave man not being the man without fear but the man who feels fear and still acts. The princesses are showing more fear because they were doing more.

It certainly explains why these films have been such hits, even with boys. Female protagonists means greater asymmetry of battle (they are outmatched) means greater suspense (they could lose) means bigger thrills (they must keep their wits about them). Snow White and the Huntsman boasted enough swords, scimitars, axes, and snares to keep a horde of Hobbits busy for a month of Sundays, drawing the admiration of none other than James Franco who chivalrously defended Stewart's performance from its detractors, "she has worked her ass off. Whatever Snow White may be, Kristen is a warrior queen. Give her the crown." Or, as Twain said:

"Supremely great souls are never lodged in gross bodies. No brawn, no muscle, could endure the work that their bodies must do; they do their miracles by the spirit, which has fifty times the strength and staying power of brawn and muscle. The Napoleons are little, not big; and they work twenty hours in the twenty-four, and come up fresh, while the big soldiers with the little hearts faint around them with fatigue. We know what Joan of Arc was like without asking– merely by what she did. The artist should paint her spirit – then he could not fail to paint her body aright."

guardian.co.uk: 29/6/12 

MS4 - Text, Industry & Audience: Lost/ Mad Men (Audience/Industry)

For a greater understanding of the way audiences affect TV series commissioning read how US TV networks ditch police shows for high-concept drama here in this current issue of The Guardian.

MS4 - Text, Industry & Audience: Television

Television: Critical Responses/Reviews 

The Week in TV: The 70s, The Bridge, Four Rooms, Two Greedy Italians and Smash – video

In a bumper roundup of the week, resident telly addict Andrew Collins gets nostalgic with BBC2's aptly named documentary series on the 1970s (The 70s) and settles down with BBC4's latest Danish import The Bridge. He also casts an eye over Channel 4's Four Rooms and the return of Two Greedy Italians; and in a break with tradition dislikes Sky Atlantic's latest US import

The week In TV: Mad Men, The Voice, Britain's Got Talent and Titanic - video

Andrew Collins looks at the best of the week's TV. The BBC's The Voice and ITV's Britain's Got Talent go head-to-head in a high-profile talent show stand-off, while Mad Men makes its long awaited return and we also take a peek at ITV's new release Titanic

MS4 - Text, Industry & Audience: Mad Men

The Great Hiatus is over, Mad Men returns. On Sky Atlantic though, and that will be a shame for many as BBC4 felt like the right place for it – a place for a Freeview/Guardianista/Mad Men kind of person. So to get involved with Don and co means contributing £20 a month to Sky.

Race is a subject that MM has previously only skirted round the edges of. Now we've got to 1966 and the civil-rights movement is making more and more noise right outside the open window, out of which the vile young bucks of a rival agency, Y&R, are chucking water bombs. SCDP by accident end up appearing moderately progressive, and this double episode ends up with a bundle of CVs from African-American candidates in the in-tray. A black character to come, perhaps?

Change – that's what's really going on, and being demanded – not just by the civil-rights activists but by women. There's change in the detail, too – the clothes are getting brighter, the skirts shorter, the apartments cooler, the parties and the music better, the family unit less tight. There's a strong sense of the new v the old. Mad Men feels as if it's finally getting into the 60s proper – or the 60s that most people now think of as the 60s. While the old guard are still wearing suits and knocking back tumblers of whisky, outside on the balcony the younger ones are smoking reefers before going home with each other.

To be honest it is not the most thrilling of series openers, until the party anyway. It's slow, even. Don's still doing what Don does, though now to new young wife Megan; Pete's being a prat, as ever; Roger's got nothing to do at all; Joan, lonely and paranoid at home; at work Peggy still struggles against a raging tide of misogyny.

If it wasn't for what was going on outside the window then, Mad Men would simply be a soap opera set in an ad agency, and would be in danger of getting stale, however fine the writing. What it is so good at, though, is putting these characters into the context of a time and a place.

Don's surprise 40th is one of those special Mad Men moments. It's all there in that room, in Don and Megan's beautiful new deluxe apartment – the smoke, the prejudice, the old, the new, 1966, change. And then Megan takes the microphone, joins the band, sings a saucy French song to her new husband.

It causes a fair amount of embarrassment and jealousy. And, in Don, a helluva lot of undisguisable horror. But the moment belongs to Jessica Paré, who plays Megan. The star of this show, she is what a lot of the fans will be taking about. 

Edited from: guardian.co.uk:  28/3/12

MS4 - Text, Industry & Audience: Mad Men

The producers of Mad Men have imposed a lockdown on season five – and as a result, we know almost nothing about the debut episode.

Highbrow publications, pop culture blogs, and media outlets that think themselves too smart for Dancing with the Stars are absolutely breathless with anticipation for the fifth season of Mad Men, which returns to AMC this Sunday after 17 long months off the air.

From the covers of men's magazines, to period portraits of the cast and even an actuary's assessment of when Don Draper will die, just about every conceivable aspect of the show has been covered and covered again.

Still, there is one thing you won't read in any interview, profile, or preview of the critical darling: information about what actually happens in season five – which British viewers will be able to salivate over from Tuesday.

Matthew Weiner, the creator and mastermind of this show that examines the interior lives of a bunch of ad execs in 1960s New York, has always been tight-lipped about plot details in upcoming episodes of his show, but this time around he's issued an all-out fatwa on even the tiniest description of events pertaining to the new installments. He won't even let anyone reveal which year the action takes place. (Though we did learn that it's around 1967 thanks to a misappropriated Dusty Springfield song.)

Weiner's vehemence about the audience approaching the two-hour season premiere with a tabula rasa stems from a review the New York Times ran for season four which revealed that Don and his wife Betty were no longer married (spoiler alert!). The funny thing is, as outraged as he claimed to be, the audience already knew about the end of the union based on a scene at the end of season three where Betty flies off to Reno to untie her and Don's rather complicated knot.

But isn't that how we talk about television now? You can't turn on the two millionth season of CSI without knowing that there is going to be a new serial killer or that one of the leads is leaving the show or a key character is going to be murdered. Television shows are covered with a scrutiny historically reserved for holy scripture and patent documents, where every casting announcement warrants a blog post and every network puts out "trailers" to get the rabid audience worked up about another skein of episodes.

This did not happen with Mad Men. We've been treated to promos that feature clips from past seasons and posters slapped on every bus and subway car in New York featuring nothing more than a man falling through white space, the same graphic we've seen in the opening credits of every stinking episode of the show. There's not a hint and hardly any clue. We don't know if Don really married his gap-toothed secretary, if Roger and Joan are going to keep sleeping together, or if Peggy is finally (finally!) going to get the respect she deserves.

No, we know none of it, and it's enough to drive you absolutely batty. What's even more infuriating is that Mad Men is the only show that could get away with such a stunt. It's the only hour of television where the quality of those past episodes – the brilliant dark brooding about identity and the indictment of the American dream – speaks to what we're going to get over the next 13 weeks.

Those who are fans of the show are going to be tuning in no matter what year it is or if stupid secretary Megan is around or not. We'll do it because we love what the show has to offer. While some new fans might be kept away because of this paucity of previews, the faithful will keep returning even if season five was set on a space station in 2074. That's how much faith we have. (And wouldn't it be a hoot to think of Don coming up with 3D holographic ads for rocket fuel?)

The reason everyone is so excited about another trip down Mad Men's memory lane has nothing to do with the sorted details of what's going to happen, it's the motivation behind those actions that makes the drama so intoxicating. It's the long silences and knowing looks, the tortured psychologies and shifting alliances. All of those fawning profiles know the same thing: Mad Men is potentially the best show on television.

Edited from: guardian.co.uk 22/3/12

MS4 - Text, Industry & Audience: Mad Men

After a very long hiatus, Mad Men is returning on Sky Atlantic on Tuesday 27th March with a double episode. It would be a good idea to watch the new season and keep a track upon how the press and media responds to the show in preparation for the MS4 exam.

The show has had a massive impact on the US cultural landscape by tracking the lives of characters through the social upheavals of the 1960s.

With its meticulous reconstruction of the decade, it has won a fanatical audience and transformed the fortunes of the AMC cable network. The programme is known for its lavish sense of 1960s style in its acting, scripts and every detail of the characters' costumes and attitudes. "The 1960s have always resonated in America. We think that it was such a cool place to be. So we look at them through the show with this nostalgia, but also a knowing eye," said Professor Jennifer Dunn, a pop culture expert at Dominican University in Illinois.

That resonance has manifested itself in countless ways. The show has crept into US malls, where fashionable clothes and shoes with a distinctively 1960s look are all the rage. In New York, in the build-up to the season's beginning, the Roosevelt Hotel – whose 1960s incarnation featured in the show – is offering a "Mad Men in the City" experience for guests to pretend that they have slipped back in time by five decades. The real-life building that houses Mad Men's fictional Manhattan corporate headquarters is hosting parties where guests dress up in period clothes. Even the venerable Newsweek magazine is producing a Mad Men-styled issue, complete with retro-looking adverts. There are viewing parties galore in New York, including those at the Carnegie Club, which is one of the few bars left in Manhattan where you can legally smoke: something that would no doubt appeal to the hard-living Draper.

The show has also spawned a mini-publishing boom. There are two Mad Men cookbooks, which feature retro recipes such as Waldorf salad and oysters Rockefeller. There is a guide to imbibing called How to Drink Like a Mad Man, a reprint of a genuine 1962 humorous tome called The 24-Hour Drink Book: A Guide to Executive Survival. But it is not just all testosterone-fuelled excess. The show is famous for its depiction of the struggle women had to get noticed as equals in the 1960s.

The show's success has also led others to copy its formula of complex plots, deep characterisation and obsessive recreation of the past. They include Boardwalk Empire, which has recreated the Atlantic City of the 1920s; Pan Am, which went back to the 1960s to look at flight attendants; and The Playboy Club, which featured a 1960s gentlemen's club.

Edited from: guardian.co.uk 18/3/12

MS4 - Text, Industry & Audience: Music - (Industry)

Sony Music have admitted that their strategy of releasing singles as soon as they hit the radio has not been successful.

Earlier this year, both Sony and Universal Music announced plans to introduce the 'On Air On Sale' policy in the hope of combating piracy and satisfying consumer appetites by making singles available to buy on the same day as they're played on the radio for the first time.

Read more here at nme.com.

More discussion from 2006 here on the death of CD's at The Guardian.

MS4 - Text, Industry & Audience: Mad Men (Audience/Industry)

For a comprehensive episode guide to 'Mad Men' visit The Guardian blog here. It is also useful to read the message board to give you an idea of the series' appeal for its target audience.

MS4 - Text, Industry & Audience: Louis Theroux (Industry/Audience)

Explore the unique world of 'gonzo' documentary journalist Louis Theroux through his official website here.

Also, read this Guardian interview with Louis Theroux to get a critical insight into his particular style of broadcasting.

MS4 - Text, Industry & Audience: Lady Gaga and the return of the pop single (Industry)

In this Guardian article the success of Lady Gaga in the singles charts suggests that the music industry is far from being in decline.

MS4 - Text, Industry & Audience: Radiohead confirm the death of the music industry (Industry)

In this Guardian article from 2007 Radiohead's 'In Rainbows' album is discussed as either the future of music marketing or a rich rock star's indulgence due to the bands' 'pay what you like' downloading pricing experiment.

What Radiohead did was very simple. Free of their major label, they simply announced In Rainbows 10 days before its release and let the public decide what – if anything – they would pay to download it. Cue uproar. Depending on who you asked, this was either the future of music marketing or a rich rock star's indulgence.

And cleaning up in the process – surveys suggested the average fan paid £2.46 for In Rainbows, which went directly to the band. When they did release the album on CD, it went to No 1 anyway.

Even if no star ever tries anything like In Rainbows' release again, it's still a significant moment. The price-it-yourself approach grabbed the headlines, but it always went hand-in-hand with other initiatives. For a start, Radiohead announced the download version of In Rainbows simultaneously with a deluxe physical package, the £40 "discbox" edition, and made as much on this alone as their entire previous album had made. For reissues, this multi-tier release is now common practice, with super-premium versions of old records designed to delight – or exploit – an act's most passionate fans.

Perhaps the most significant thing about In Rainbows, though, was how skilfully it turned the album into an event. Ten days turned out to be just long enough to get people primed and eager, but not for any actual material to leak. The result was the unexpected return of something people only now realised they missed. Just 10 years ago, release dates were the music fan's red-letter day – associated with first-play rituals, nervous walks home from the record shop, enthused discussions with fellow disciples. By the time of In Rainbows, all that was replaced for many by a "has it leaked?" mentality stretching over the weeks or months before. With In Rainbows, Radiohead wrested control of their output from the record companies, but their unspoken masterstroke was to wrest some control back from their listeners too.

MS4 - Text, Industry & Audience: Ten myths about grunge, Nirvana and Kurt Cobain (Industry/Audience)

Read the truth about Nirvana and 'grunge' from Everett True, the man who pushed the singer's wheelchair on stage for his last UK show at Reading Festival in 1992, in this Guardian article.

MS4 - Text, Industry & Audience: Mad Men and me - Christina Hendricks interview (Industry/Audience)

Discover more about this 'Mad Men' star in this Guardian interview.

Even without the 60s pencil skirts and beehive do that her character, Joan Holloway, currently models in Mad Men, Hendricks, 36, looks like something from a different age who has somehow landed in the modern day. This is not, I should add, a veiled reference to her frankly over-discussed figure. Since Mad Men began in 2007, some critics have been so busy noting how we live in an era so different from the sexist workplace of Sterling Cooper – in which women's bodies are lustily discussed in front of them – that they have apparently not noticed they often do the same thing with actors, especially Hendricks. It's hard to think of another female star whose body has come under so much scrutiny of late. While most of the attention has been positive, there is a thin line between celebrating someone's appearance and reducing that person to nothing more than her physique. And this would be unfair to Hendricks because her performance as Joan is very subtle, lifting the character beyond camp and vamp.