Irma's 2nd essay : Counseling by the movie stars?
Essay : Counseling from the movie stars?
Intro
What is the influence of Hollywood movies on our behaviors? Do people adjust their shared system of values, beliefs, and attitudes after watching a "relaxing" movie? The film characters could give inspiration or present how a normal relationship could be, how a leader should act, how to recognize a bad guy and the confident that everything will be alright in the end? Could you say that nowadays this is the guideline to make sense of life? Some storylines tell the audience a lot about historical situations, but does the filmmaker has the responsibility to be factual?
If I personally would think of an important movie from my childhood, It would be Dirty Dancing. Now, what have I learned from this movie: If you work really hard, you can achieve anything, people will accept you for who you are.
It's a romantic story but subconsciously it also thought me something about modesty. When do you “dare” to stand in the spotlight? The main character Baby is a hard working girl raised in a wealthy family, her parents are very proud of her and she will probably become a doctor. Although she gets praised a lot she stays modest. Her sister, not so talented, seeks much more for attention. She sings, dances, talks and doesn't have a problem standing in the spotlight. She sucks in most things, but nobody loves her enough to tell her, everyone just politely compliments her. The movie is staged during the summer holidays, in this period our main character Baby, always wanting to help everyone, discovers her love for dancing. She wasn't a natural talent but with the guiding of the hunk Patrick Swayze and her dedication, she became an amazing dancer. Still, she stays modest (or insecure) and choices not to perform at the end show. Although her bad singing sister, who probably also worked hard on her preparations, bores the public with her performance. Baby would have never entered the spotlight if Patrick Swayze didn't say “Nobody puts Baby in the corner!” while he places her on the stage, while her sister was singing. So, as a young girl, I’ve learned that I have to work hard, do what I want to do instead of pleasing the family. But when do you take the stage? Do you wait for someone to drag you out of the corner? Or do you risk that you’re as bad as Baby's sister and while nobody has the guts to tell you?
Alfred Hitchcock ones said:
“I enjoy playing the audience like a piano”
Hitchcock knew that the imagination was far more powerful than any image he could render on the screen, and this knowledge was key ability to manipulate his audience. For example the well-known approach of Hitchcock narratives to play with suspense. He lets the audience play god by revealing a secret or fact with them, something that our main character is not aware of. A bomb that was soon to blow-up or revealing the lie of another. Personly it reminds me strongly of the narrative from a puppet-show that I saw as a child. Hereby you were warning the main character (Jan-Klaasen) that he should look behind him, there is a wolf! Another example of his manipulation techniques is that Hitchcock was aware of the Kuleshov effect, based on a research by Soviet filmmaker Lev Kuleshov in the 1910s and 1920s. He edited three short films which one shot of the expressionless face of actor Mosjoukine was used in all films but combined with various other shots. a plate of soup, a girl in a coffin, a woman on a divan. All films were shown to a different audience, asking them to interpreted the emotion of the man looking at the soup, girl or woman. The audience believed that the expression on Mosjoukine's face was different depending on whether he was "looking at" the subject. The same expression of the actor was interpreted with of hunger, grief or desire.
Could Bush be Batman?
Does a storyline in a movie change your point of view on the government? Dr. Dan Hassler-Forest analyzed in his thesis ‘Superheroes and the Bush doctrine: narrative and politics in post-9/11 discourse’ the movie The Dark Knight (2008)
The Dark Knight, where superhero Batman fights crime in Gotham City came out in 2008. The Super Hero storyline has been quite a stable for a long time. Our hero stands for order, and the bad guy, in this cause the Joker, stands for chaos. The audience probably knows Batman his whole life and has great faith that he’ll make Gotham City a safer place again. The work is not always easy to do, sometimes our hero has to kill or tortures our enemies but then again he gets the job done! Dr. Dan Hassler-Forest analyzed one of the most discussed scenes from this movie. In this scene Bruce Wayne (Batman) reveals to Lucius Fox (Father Figure and you could say he represents the Super-Ego of Batman) that he modified his Sonar Cell Phone Technology to create a device that allows him to listen to all of Gotham City’s cellular telephone network. A great weapon and very dangerous if it gets in the wrong hands, you would not trust many people with this power. So can we trust our superhero Batman? Does he really need this system to catch our bad guy? The two characters have a discussion of the dangerous and the need for this system, although Lucian Fox thinks it is unethical, he will help Batmen promising him that he will resign after because of this. The problem is “solved” because Batman orders Lucian Fox to destroy the system after getting the bad guy.
This scene was interpreted very differently by several film critics. In The Wall Street Journal of July 25th film critic Andrew Klavan writes that on some level this Batman film is a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war. Batman is Bush. His college Manhola Dargis from The NY times interpreted this in a different way, he thought the movie was a good example of how things go wrong because Batman does things that cross the line.
The conclusion of Dr. Dan Hassler-Forest is that the director's strategy was to put both of interpretations in the film, you could say that this is the success of the film. The strategy of putting as much as the meaning is as possible, the contradictions which are relevant in these times of terror. Was the goal to not answering these questions but to raise the discussion?
Deconstructing "the rules" of storytelling
According to the theory of Vladimir Propps, a Soviet folklorist and scholar who analyzed the basic plot components of Russian folk tales, there is a structural the narrative theory that uses 7 types of characters:
- The villain, an evil character that creates struggles for the hero.
- The dispatcher, any character who illustrates the need for the hero's quest and sends the hero off. This often overlaps with the princess's father.
- The helper, a typically magical entity that comes to help the hero in their quest.
- The princess or prize, and often her father — the hero deserves her throughout the story but is unable to marry her as a consequence of some evil or injustice, perhaps the work of the villain. The hero's journey is often ended when he marries the princess, which constitutes the villain's defeat.
- The donor a character that prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object, sometimes after testing them.
- The hero — the character who reacts to the dispatcher and donor characters, thwarts the villain, resolves any lacking or wronghoods and weds the princess.
- The false hero a figure who takes credit for the hero's actions or tries to marry the princess.
“The hero has to do something when we meet him so that we like him and we want him to win.”
Irma's Conclusion
People like stories, it gives them a guideline to make decisions. This use to be mythological stories, you could say that movies took over the role of these stories of giving humans a moral compass in life. The way the public interpret the story does not lie in the hands of the receivers but is mainly controlled by the sender. The storyteller decided what is important and what he wants the audience to believe. Like a lawyer, he tells the story to convince the jury and judge. Having the right to highlight certain parts and manipulate the public. It's the responsibility of the receivers to not be a passive listener but an active witness who is aware of manipulation strategies of the storyteller. An artist is a storyteller, every art form has his own communication strategies. But it all comes down to cause and effect, as an artist I want to be aware of manipulation strategies and research how I can play with this element in my work.
Bibliography
- Superheroes and the Bush doctrine: narrative and politics in post-9/11 discourse by Dr. Dan Hassler-Forest (2011)
https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/3724572/89042_thesis.pdf
- Article 'What Bush and Batman Have in Common'By Andrew Klavan, Wall Steet Journal 25th July 2008
- Article 'Showdown in Gotham Town' by Manhola Dargis, New York Times, 18th July 2008
- Saving the cat, Blake Syder (2005)
- Lessen van Hitchcock: een inleiding in mediatheorie by Patricia Pisters (Derde herziene editie. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2007)
- Manipulation: Theory and Practice By Christian Coons, Michael Weber Oxford University Press, 1 jul. (2014) p141
- Vladimir Propp, Morphology of the Folk Tale, p 79-80, ISBN 0-292-78376-0