Representing identity in film in literature

November 18 2010

To do

• Explanation of terms and concepts• 1st half of the session: chapter 6 the case of

the soap opera and jersey shore• 2nd half of the session: representations of

ethnicity and violence via the godfather etc• Group work (10 minutes)• videos

Concept of the performative

• Comes from Austin speech act theory (linguistics – understanding linguistic practices & structure of language) he looked at explicit performative utterances – your fired (action) key part of ethics (morality, right & good)

• Speech act theory: Leibiniz, Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein

• Derrida, Sedgwick(queer), Butler (bodies, gender performative)

• Speech act theory (Searle)• Social reality is an illusion that is articulated

through language, body, and symbols• Reiteration of act, is understood as a way of

performing the hegemonic conventions that shape our linguistic and ideological constructions of reality

• Through iteration and reiteration we perform ideologies i.e. we incorporate them into our reality

• There are no truths per se but rather that our subjectivities are constructed

What does this mean?

• Simply, that our iteration of bodily acts are a response to the status quo – it’s a ritual

• The performative is a deconstructive concept that surrounds meaning derived between theatricality and the performative

• Deconstruction – speech act – so the body is understood as a form of performative utterance

• It’s a response to dominant notions of the “normal”

One cannot say

• …that we perform everything, in a sense we do – but – this is a deconstructive principle without understanding speech act theory it becomes problematic as it is the result of the practice of deconstruction

• But for our purposes we can simplify it this way…be careful

• One does not knowing perform their actions if they did it would be a performance as opposed to performativity

Genre & gender

• Looking at signifying practices that specialize in the production of cultural representations (fictions)

• In light of last weeks readings we are taken to how popular fictions participate in the production and circulation of popular meanings

Pay attn to

• Story form or genre• Narrative organization (unfolding of a story)• Modes of expression (realism and melodrama)• Genre products or the conventions of genre (format,

medium, subject matter, setting, location) 351• Character types, narrative pattern, plots• Standardization of production: emergence of popular

genres with began in the 19th century (mass fictions syndicated entertainment)

Genre product as text

• Genre serves as a system of underlying codes (rules) through which tv for example is produced and understood

• This is how the system works – it attributes different fictional worlds (settings_ with locations, character types, iconography, and plots

• A series of codes operate – who is included and excluded – and these are fixed within genres

• Binary differences (men/women) how does this function?

issues• How does popular fiction contribute to the production

& circulation of gendered identities?• how does this speak to cultural struggle over

representations, meanings, and identities?• What does this suggest for us in respect to masculinity

& femininity? (340)• The argument is that: if we want to know how fictions

gain hold of our imaginations so that they effectively become a central part of our real lives on a day to day basis we have to pay attention to these properties of aesthetic form and emotional affect. 343

Group work

• 4 groups (each group will discuss a different aspect)

• 1) gender (binaries, new man, sexuality, bodies)

• 2) ethnicity (real and imagined communities, rhetorical tool)

• 3) cultural negotiation (347-348) – codes that operate in the background

• 4) genre (mass produced fiction?)

Jersey shore S01E01

• http://alternate-tv.com/tv-show/jersey-shore-s01e01.html

What is a stereotype?

• Problem of materialization & mass circulation• Refers to something that refuses to die even if

it has outlived its own relevance or significance

• They are metaphorically fixed and like weapons they can and cannot do damage

• Linked to race we have all kinds of problems i.e. racialized difference

Richard Dyer

• The sterotype is taken to express a general agreement about a social group as if that argument arose before and independently of the stereotype. Yet, for the most part, is is from stereotypes that we get our ideas about social groups (1993, 14)

Barthes

• A stereotype is a word repeated without any magic, without any enthusiasm, as if it were natural, as if this recurrent word were miraculously always adequate for different reasons, as if imitating were no longer perceived as imitation: an inconsiderate word, that claims substances and ignores its own insistence (1973, 69)

Problem with this…

• The stereotype here is represented without magic or enthusiasm. It becomes a defective sign. Ok, why would we want a defective sign?

• Could he be underestimating the power?

Gangsters• Same principles apply but lets read them within a

different genre• (godfather) http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=Au17yFv47xo&feature=fvst• Ad (mock)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=118bmb3plDA• Movies Eastern Promises• http://www.letmewatchthis.com/external.php?

title=Eastern+Promises&url=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5tZWdhdmlkZW8uY29tL3YvREVaWUxJOVY=&domain=bWVnYXZpZGVvLmNvbQ==&loggedin=0

Analyzing the stereotypes

• What do we have?

options

• To steal the stereotype back, to re-empower it• To take it in a different direction• Example: queer, queer nation (1990 NY, act up,

public, militant, human rights campaigns – queer as folk)

• http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/queer_nation.html

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYf0hS9g9hM

Evolution in the mainstream• Queer theory• Medical intervention• Human rights (equality – still not achieved)• Gay marriage• Adoption• In light of the current political climate maybe we

have much father to go…• Issues are still prevalent in anti right wingEx (poland) http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=ewBxIdINcM0&feature=player_embedded

Do you know what to do for next week?

• C & S (presentation for next week)• Next week theatre and representations of

women in Islam, beginning with vagina monologues, submission, Swedish democrats