How does the portrayal of people’s lives in film and media affect the way the audience value their own?
From the twentieth century, film and media has been the primary lens through which we see how the lives of others are played out. Its dominance in our lives has gathered pace and influence from the early films and illustrated magazine covers of the 1920s to the full blast of current social media that is the norm today: I wanted to explore some of the effects of these changes through my interest and work in the fashion industry, interest in film and as an illustrator. I began by looking at how the use of photographs versus illustrations could potentially alter audience response; how an audience engages with an image and the repercussions this could have on an individual and society as a whole. A decline of fashion illustrated covers, between 1920 and 1970, was noted by British VOGUE’s archive editor Laird Borrelli: popularity of illustrated covers was in decline due to photography becoming a much more accessible form of media. Vogue began to replace their celebrated illustrative covers with photographic images. As photography displaced the illustrated image, voyeurism began to increase drastically. As the world began to acquire their first glimpses of famous actresses, artists and musicians up close demand increased. A direct correlation exists between the beginning of wide spread photography and film with the onset of people’s obsession and addiction with the lives of others. Photography became a more widely used media, they were quick, easy to mass produce and give people what they really wanted; to be up close and personal with the stars whom they had been watching in films years previously, they were getting a glimpse of the way they lived their lives and within it, they saw their own reflection. It could be argued that the continuation of illustrated covers and media articles could’ve produced a very different twentieth century. One in which people didn’t view
the way they looked as being permanently inadequate or improvable, but one in which people had been trained to see deeper than surface level, deeper than a photograph. I believe illustration has the power to counteract these things, it allows the viewer to think for themselves, forming their own opinion that wont have associative repercussions on the way they view their own lives.
In 1933 Czech film ‘Ecstasy’ was released into cinemas, the film could be argued to contain the first ever documented sex scene showing actress Heddy Lamarr ‘writhing in ecstasy’ as she reached orgasm. Directors became bolder in their presentation coupled with an audience’s increasing appetite essentially as voyeurs gaining sexual pleasure from watching others naked or engaged in sexual activity. Fast forward to 2011 and designer lingerie brand Agent Provocateur’s Spring and Summer ad campaign, starring french singer and wife of radio DJ Mark Ronson, Josephine de la baume. The short film starring the singer was directed by Swede Johan Renck a director known for his cutting edge ideas and talent when working with the female form. Entitled, ‘Watching Josephine’ the film is made from the perspective of someone (most likely a male) filming Josephine getting undressed, doing exercises and reading a news paper all in her designer underwear after forgetting to close the curtains of her hotel room…
The film is made to look hand held, the camera wobbles throughout and nearly gets dropped when the phone in the mans room starts ringing, we can hear the voyeur breathing throughout and see his hands move in and out of the frame. The voyeur is clearly unsettled and nervous. Although this is a very creative concept of selling underwear, I find it rather disturbing. Its seems to be making light out of what could be a very serious situation for the victim whom is being stalked. She is vulnerable although the brand’s infamous creative director, Sarah Shotton, always stresses in
interviews the importance of only purchasing underwear for yourself and to make you feel better: a mixed message after watching the ad with a voyeur clearly also deriving excitement and pleasure from it. Director Johan Renck stated in the behind the scenes cut ‘the world revolves around tits and knickers, knickers and tits’ a rather degrading comment for someone who claims to be all for the ‘empowerment of women’. In Laura Mulvey’s 1999 essay, ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ she writes how women can be perceived as objects and subjected to a controlling gaze from her male counterparts, ’taking people as objects and subjecting them to a controlling gaze’. ‘Control’ is key here. In the advert Josephine has no say in the actions of her stalker which translates to the audience: the audience watching the film feel in power, in control, she is subjected powerlessly to ‘the male gaze’ and cannot exist without it. Mulvey goes on to write that this is ‘developing scopophilia in its narcisistic aspect’. This type of popular culture is allowing the audience to develop a one sided relationship with the stars, a relationship born out of once innocent voyeuristic circumstances. In contrast Sarah Shotten argues the celebrity singer is extremely relatable for all women calling the size 8 ‘curvy’ and telling the camera ‘she’s doing those Jane Fonda moves that we’ve all tried alone in our bedroom at some point’ which may well be the case, there quite possibly is a large percent of the population that has exercised in the privacy of their own homes… Shotton has conveniently forgotten however that most of the population is not a successful actress, singer, model and business women. Not only is this sort of generalist language damaging it encourages people that to be filmed by a stalker and have the video posted to the world wide web is empowering for them, a complement even. In 1967 Czech film ‘Kinoautomat’ was released, it was the first interactive film. At nine points during the film the action pauses and a moderator appears on stage to ask the audience to choose between two scenes, following the audiences vote the chosen scene is played. This concept brings a whole new meaning to L, Mulveys argument on the ‘controlling gaze’ that people in film are subjected to. In this case the audience almost takes the place of the pupater, choosing the destiny of the characters. I believe this is an empowering concept for the audience, we take back control from the stars, instead of reverting back to always admiring their actions within a movie we become aware that the actors and their loved characters with which we associate them are all at the disposal of the director and script. The audiences views and ways of seeing are no longer ‘oppressed or exploited’ as J, Storey writes in Cultural theory and popular culture. Through the constant release of magazines, books and films containing sex scenes and intimate situations the generations, dating back to the 1950s, have grown up increasingly accustomed and desensitised to this new surface level voyeurism and our inherent and manufactured intrigue of other people’s lives is a disturbing and worrying trend. What are the short and long-term effects of surface level voyeurism? The mental health organisation Young Minds (youngminds.org.uk) reported that the number of
young people aged 15 to 16 with depression nearly doubled between the 1980s and the 2000s and that 4.4% of young people have an anxiety disorder. It could be argued that the increase of these mental illnesses and disorders are in direct relation to media generally and the way it portrays the lives of others. Young people are encouraged to feel dissatisfied with their own lives. They are tricked into this by being told women such as Beyonce, Rihanna and more are ‘goals’ ‘empowering’ us by referring to them as ‘Queens’. ‘Queens’ connotes that these women are better than us all; we can never be as good as them; they are merely a distant dream in comparison to their supporters; the ‘gold star’ hierarchy of women. Girls and boys mimic the sexualised way these women dance; the revealing photos they post on Instagram; and in general the frequency we see these people has transferred onto our own social media accounts posting habits. People photographing and filming themselves going about their daily routine, what they’ve eaten for dinner, what they bought on a day out shopping has become the norm. It could be argued that audiences are so up to date with the lives of stars that they begin identifying with them in ways they perhaps shouldn’t. The use of the original Vogue illustrations could be argued as a much less destructive force to people’s mental health: when wide spread photography began people began identifying with stars for the first time, up close they began to see the ways that they were like them, forming unhealthy connections with an ideal way of being. An article online by the guardian titled ‘Social media is harming the mental health of teenagers’ wrote ‘A new study has found that teenagers who engage with social media during the night could be damaging their sleep and increasing their risk of anxiety and depression. Teenagers spoke about the pressure they felt to make themselves available 24/7, and the resulting anxiety if they did not respond immediately to texts or posts. Teens are so emotionally invested in social media that a fifth of secondary school pupils will wake up at night and log on, just to make sure they don’t miss out.’ The stud also found that teenagers need an average of 9.5 hours of sleep per night compared to adults 7.5. The author of the article talks personally about the experience her little sister has with social media saying, ‘I saw them putting on my 14-year-old little sister. If my mum turned off the WiFi at 11pm, my sister would beg me to turn my phone into a hotspot. She always needed to load her Snapchat stories one more time, or to reply to a message that had come in two minutes ago because she didn’t want her friend to feel ignored. If I refused, saying she could respond in the morning, I’d get the “You’re ruining my social life” speech. ‘ — from this information it could be said that social media relies directly on its users believing that their account is detrimental to their social life, that they cannot exist without it, it could be argued that social media accounts take the place of ‘the male gaze’ , its users believe that they are being watched at all times, they must reply and be updated constantly to ‘stay in the loop’. And without it their social life will disintegrate. Berger, J. (1972) writes, ‘soon after we see, we are aware that we can also be seen, The eye of the other combines with our own eye to make it fully credible that we are part of the visual world.’ But instead social media encourages us to take a step back from what is real; The 14 year old sister begins to dislocate herself from the relationship with her sister whom is present in order to connect with those who are not, forming meaningless contact with those
around her, she become visible in what is virtual and absent in what is real, yet to only become absent again from the virtual world once she logs out. Social media allows us a platform to be whom ever we want to be, if we do not know the answer to something in a virtual conversation we can quickly google it to save face, we appear more knowledgable, more experienced, more interesting perhaps, which later could be argued caused anxiety when we experience real conversation and debate, we do not feel as though we live up to our virtual selves.
When ‘Kim Kardashian make-up tutorial’ is Googled, it brings up around 697,000 results, pretty much all videos of women and girls trying to replicate her facial features through makeup. Followers of Kardashian could be said to exhibit ‘Cinematic identification fantasies’ In Richard Dyers essay, ‘Stars’ he refers to the term, ‘Cinematic identification fantasies’ This is when moviegoers try to mimic the ways the stars of film handle different situations; the term can also be extended to encompass the moviegoers who begin to highlight a particular feature they have likened to that of a star. when a Kim Kardashian has an Instagram following of approximately 98.5 million, she is the main star of the hit US reality TV series ‘Keeping up with the Kardashians’: the programme, despite being negatively critiqued, with people calling it “self absorbed” and complaints that the family were “desperate” for fame, is one of the longest running reality TV shows in the country with 13 seasons. It could be argued that, although there is strong evidence suggesting the majority of the programme’s viewers know the programme is shallow and unrealistic, they
continue to watch it almost as though they are addicted to the families’ actions and publicity stunts. In 2015 the families’ father, Bruce Jenner, after many years of speculation came out to the public and began publicising the fact the he was transgender; a few weeks later he had undergone a full sex change and facial plastic surgery and become Caitlyn Jenner. He professed that he ‘wanted to help other people out there’ who felt the same. A recent article by the Independent, titled ‘The sudden surge of transgender teens’ wrote ‘ were there always children who felt antsy in their assigned gender - but never safe saying so in a pre Caitlyn Jenner world?’. It could be argued that the ‘sudden surge in transgender teens’ is an effect of Caitlyn’s publicity and a case of ‘cinematic identification fantasy extremism’. To quote Storey, J.(2008) ‘Cultural Theory and Popular Culture’ — ‘the dominant classes do not see themselves as exploiters or oppressors. And, perhaps more importantly, the way in which ideology conceals the reality of subordination from those who are powerless: the subordinate classes do not see themselves as oppressed or exploited’. In consequence, Caitlyn Jenner views herself as a liberator of transgender people when in fact it could be argued that the fame, love and support she received - after undergoing surgery- gives ‘the subordinate classes’ unrealistic expectations of what it means to be transgender and the difficulties that come with it in everyday life. Social media is beginning to influence people in more than just the way that they look, hiding behind a social media account is allowing people to commit activities and crimes that would never be tolerated out in public, researches are calling these ‘performance crimes’ where people text, photograph or video themselves committing crimes. Cinematic identification fantasy extremism has been the cause of many other tragedies including the infamous Joker from the Batman series when, in 2009, a teacher fended off an attack from an Indiana high school student. The girl came at the teacher with a razor blade, but not before excusing herself to the bathroom to apply joker style makeup and slice her cheeks into his trademark smile. I believe although this behaviour demonstrates a high degree of mental instability which was probably already present prior to watching The Dark Knight, the crime itself was inspired by thus and possibly preventable. The 2008 film ‘The dark knight’ directed by Christopher Nolan was the first batman film to portray the Joker (Heath Ledger) as a physcopath, films prior to this such as the two Batman films in 1966 with Cesar Romero and Jack Nicholson in 1989 both depicted the Joker as a criminal mobster who just wore Joker style makeup, could it be possible that introducing a more psychopathic main character spurred on these already mentally unstable individuals. In the constant use of social media account people are led to believe that they are making meaningful connections with those around them, however instead, they begin to live their lives through their phone and internet devices, dislocating them from society, do audiences associate the popularity of the film with the normalisation of this behaviour and type of character? I believe it could be debated that this is the case, In 2016 David Ayers ‘Suicide squad’ was released, Jared Leto took on the role of the joker, Leto was quoted saying he gave the Joker OCD qualities, attaching
actual clinical problems to the character, I believe this is a technique becoming much more common in twentieth century cinema, Directors and actors use societies fear of mental instablitlity to scare them, they view the character as having traits of their own which leaves them with an unsettled and unstable feeling after watching the film.
Instability of individuals and an economy however has proven to be a huge benefit from film in the past Mathieu Kassovitzs’ 1995 french film La Haine (which translates to the Hate) which held a mirror up to the social ills of modern France, when the country was experiencing a extremely unsettled time following a series of mysterious shootings and bombings in the capital of Paris. The series of violent upsets was followed by a series of strikes, an article in the guardian online called the country ‘paralysed’ nothing was working from buses to trains to most public services. The film depicted a group of ‘banlieues’ what the french call a group of young men who mess about, The film showcased under looked issues to massive audience response such as political movements, strikes and economical aid to the people living in french suburbs. ‘This was dazzling cinema but most importantly, it was the first time the banlieue had ever been represented to a mainstream French audience. The film was an immediate and massive hit and galvanised the part of France that knew the banlieues existed but had never seen them up close or dealt with in a sympathetic way.’ — The Guardian. La Haine gave a voice and platform to the forgotten people living in the slums of Paris, for the first time the rest of the country new they existed, the film allowed them to sympathise with characters in society who were demonised and looked down upon, different groups of people came together to protest for change, La Haine is possibly one of the most beneficial films to have an effect on its audience. It allowed its audience to see deeper than surface level, and deeper than the character which they wanted to mimic, instead it made them question their way of life, their government and justice system, things much more beneficial to their well being than just the way they looked.
After the premier of 2017 hit musical ‘LA LA land’ followed a huge increase in audiences of all ages signing up for tap dancing lessons. “Our beginners’ classes have got really popular this year, tap has suddenly sky rocketed into the forefront,” said Rory Cubbin, 27, a dance tutor at City Academy in London. “People used to want to be Fred and Ginger, now they come to class and say they want to be Ryan and Emma.” - the guardian So cinematic identification fantasies aren’t always a bad thing, they can also be used to encourage audiences to take up new hobbies, exercise regimes, but still in the form of wanting to be or behave like someone else. I believe it could be argued that audiences copying the nature of tv and film is something that is natural to us, we learn from our parents and friends how to behave, what is acceptable and what is not; good and bad, I believe cinematic identification fantasies could be viewed as
purely an extension of learning from our parents into our adult life, we will always crave a figure to aspire toward, once independent we look towards other ways of bettering ourselves through popular culture of which we view on tv, social media, magazines and radio. We associate these people with popularity, success and being liked, some of the 8 persuaders used to lure audiences into purchasing goods of which Vance Packard writes of in his book ‘The Hidden Persuaders’, yet instead of items we mimic their behaviour, their lifestyle and general demeanour. ‘He identified eight "compelling needs" that advertisers promise products will fulfil. According to Packard, these needs are so strong that people are compelled to buy products merely to satisfy them.’ I believe the same techniques applied to sell products are applied to selling films, each film needs a hero, or some for of character that its audiences will relate to; In Berger, J. (1972) ‘Ways of seeing’ he writes ‘Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognises before it can speak.’ In order for an audience to relate and connect with a film, in order to make it popular, the characters must poses likenesses to the audience, the film must satisfy our own ego believing that whilst watching we too are the person on the screen. People trying to be like the people they see on tv. When people think of ‘the effects’ of tv they always choose negative things, the risk is, through media and film, there is an element of unpredictability in how an audience relate to the material: despite the countless positive responses there are, unfortunately, some examples of tragic interplay. can we guard against such responses? Not really, but perhaps it is a case of society having an awareness and vigilance regarding unhealthy, and sometimes tragic chemistry.
Bibliography
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Author Nadia Khomami Article title: Dance studios tap into the La La Land phenomenon Website title: the Guardian URL: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/feb/17/dance-studios-tap-into-the-la-laland-phenomenon Author June Udorie Article title: Social media is harming the mental health of teenagers. The state has to act | June Eric Udorie Website title: the Guardian URL: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/16/social-media-mentalhealth-teenagers-government-pshe-lessons Author Andrew Hussey Article title: La Haine 20 years on: what has changed? Website title: the Guardian URL: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/03/la-haine-film-sequel-20-years-onfrance
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