Presented about the representability of time in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Also said photographic and cinematic technologies played a central role here precisely because they were so crucial to thinking that representability. Although popular accounts tended to endow the cinema with dominant agency, so that is cinematic technology made possible a new access to the time or it perfect representation in fact the emerging cinema participate in a more general cultural imperative ,the structuring of time and contingency in capitalist modernity.
The pressure of time’s rationalization in the public sphere, and the corresponding atomization that ruptures the sense of time as exemplary continuum, produce a discursive tension that strikes many observers as being embodied or materialized in film from itself. For film is divided into isolated and static frames, ‘’instance’’ of time, in effect which when projected produce the illusion of continues time and movement. Hence, there is a renew attention to Zeno’s paradoxes as attempts to demonstrate, philosophically, the impossibility of movement and charge given the reducibility of all movement to an accumulation of static states.
The stimulus shield world more impenetrable in a highly developed technological society. In this case, Benjamin’s argument can be explained such as society requires a heightened consciousness to parry the shock effects of urban existence. In addition, there are three points that need to be made about Benjamin’s activation of Freud in his conceptualization of shock. Hence, the first would be shock in specified, second shock is defend in terms that associate it with a pathology, third the defense against shock embodies a privileged relation to time. Almost of that case show that most of them impacted to the source in term of the social technology that should be definitely come with the informing or declaring to the people in the society for just ensure them would be more familiarity in the case.
In the finalization Doane delineates the relations between epistemology of contingency and contemporary process of digital and television imaging, which inscribe temporarily in form echoing, in many respects, those of earlier technologies of representation. Another while Doane also argue that there is no radical rupture and that what is still very much of stake is the attempt to structure contingency.
Mulvey
The function of woman particularly in the image that would be the first symbolize the castration and also the argument returns to the psychoanalytic background in which woman be as the representation of the signal castration, especially the voyeuristic or fetishistic mechanisms to the circumvent. Moreover, Mulvey explained the cinematic and their relationship would be formative external structures and must be broken down the mainstream film and the pleasure provides be able to challenged.
Adorno
Compare the music in the part of the radio media and some disagree the Adormo show that music not only included in current standards, basically in charge of the audience as pay to radio attention like they listen to the simple music by the instrument. And the most important antagonisms arise in the field of musical mass culture that mass distribution of music. It also mean all the thematic and dynamic interrelationships defined in the music and develop the necessary conditions of fulfilling its prescriptions that realized by the radio.
Dionne See
Adorno is pretty skeptical of the broadcast model. He thinks that music loses its essence once it’s on the radio for free because people start to be less serious about music. I think we can associate this thinking that music on radio now seems to be an accompaniment while driving, studying, chilling in a café, etc. To Adorno, this situation occurs due to the free-nature of music such that now it’s being taken for granted. To him, high art should not be commercialized this way.
However, his point about standardized music and how we as consumers no longer have a choice is limited now with the existence of music available online and offline. True enough pop music by large corporations are composed with garnering support from audience as the main priority for profits, however, there are a lot other independent music labels nowadays with so many different genres around, hence this choice of music can still be ours.
Mulvey’s article was an interesting read about the male gaze and it makes me realize how we have taken for granted the portrayal of women on films. When the camera starts filming a woman from her legs to her head with very dreamy effects and seductive music, we no longer stop and think why the camera was situated in that angle. It’s a pretty disturbing realization in fact. The pleasure that is supposedly derived from this gazing at things that are not supposed to be gazed at is being commoditized in a way. Of course, this gaze in today’s case would not be limited to just gazing at women in a certain way. In fact, portrayals of males in movies nowadays tend to be in a certain way too. However, is this gaze what we really desire to see or what we are forced to see because we have no choice but to look?
Maxly Inthaxai
Doane
Presented about the representability of time in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Also said photographic and cinematic technologies played a central role here precisely because they were so crucial to thinking that representability. Although popular accounts tended to endow the cinema with dominant agency, so that is cinematic technology made possible a new access to the time or it perfect representation in fact the emerging cinema participate in a more general cultural imperative ,the structuring of time and contingency in capitalist modernity.
The pressure of time’s rationalization in the public sphere, and the corresponding atomization that ruptures the sense of time as exemplary continuum, produce a discursive tension that strikes many observers as being embodied or materialized in film from itself. For film is divided into isolated and static frames, ‘’instance’’ of time, in effect which when projected produce the illusion of continues time and movement. Hence, there is a renew attention to Zeno’s paradoxes as attempts to demonstrate, philosophically, the impossibility of movement and charge given the reducibility of all movement to an accumulation of static states.
The stimulus shield world more impenetrable in a highly developed technological society. In this case, Benjamin’s argument can be explained such as society requires a heightened consciousness to parry the shock effects of urban existence. In addition, there are three points that need to be made about Benjamin’s activation of Freud in his conceptualization of shock. Hence, the first would be shock in specified, second shock is defend in terms that associate it with a pathology, third the defense against shock embodies a privileged relation to time. Almost of that case show that most of them impacted to the source in term of the social technology that should be definitely come with the informing or declaring to the people in the society for just ensure them would be more familiarity in the case.
In the finalization Doane delineates the relations between epistemology of contingency and contemporary process of digital and television imaging, which inscribe temporarily in form echoing, in many respects, those of earlier technologies of representation. Another while Doane also argue that there is no radical rupture and that what is still very much of stake is the attempt to structure contingency.
Mulvey
The function of woman particularly in the image that would be the first symbolize the castration and also the argument returns to the psychoanalytic background in which woman be as the representation of the signal castration, especially the voyeuristic or fetishistic mechanisms to the circumvent. Moreover, Mulvey explained the cinematic and their relationship would be formative external structures and must be broken down the mainstream film and the pleasure provides be able to challenged.
Adorno
Compare the music in the part of the radio media and some disagree the Adormo show that music not only included in current standards, basically in charge of the audience as pay to radio attention like they listen to the simple music by the instrument. And the most important antagonisms arise in the field of musical mass culture that mass distribution of music. It also mean all the thematic and dynamic interrelationships defined in the music and develop the necessary conditions of fulfilling its prescriptions that realized by the radio.
Maxly Inthaxai
Doane
Presented about the representability of time in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Also said photographic and cinematic technologies played a central role here precisely because they were so crucial to thinking that representability. Although popular accounts tended to endow the cinema with dominant agency, so that is cinematic technology made possible a new access to the time or it perfect representation in fact the emerging cinema participate in a more general cultural imperative ,the structuring of time and contingency in capitalist modernity.
The pressure of time’s rationalization in the public sphere, and the corresponding atomization that ruptures the sense of time as exemplary continuum, produce a discursive tension that strikes many observers as being embodied or materialized in film from itself. For film is divided into isolated and static frames, ‘’instance’’ of time, in effect which when projected produce the illusion of continues time and movement. Hence, there is a renew attention to Zeno’s paradoxes as attempts to demonstrate, philosophically, the impossibility of movement and charge given the reducibility of all movement to an accumulation of static states.
The stimulus shield world more impenetrable in a highly developed technological society. In this case, Benjamin’s argument can be explained such as society requires a heightened consciousness to parry the shock effects of urban existence. In addition, there are three points that need to be made about Benjamin’s activation of Freud in his conceptualization of shock. Hence, the first would be shock in specified, second shock is defend in terms that associate it with a pathology, third the defense against shock embodies a privileged relation to time. Almost of that case show that most of them impacted to the source in term of the social technology that should be definitely come with the informing or declaring to the people in the society for just ensure them would be more familiarity in the case.
In the finalization Doane delineates the relations between epistemology of contingency and contemporary process of digital and television imaging, which inscribe temporarily in form echoing, in many respects, those of earlier technologies of representation. Another while Doane also argue that there is no radical rupture and that what is still very much of stake is the attempt to structure contingency.
Mulvey
The function of woman particularly in the image that would be the first symbolize the castration and also the argument returns to the psychoanalytic background in which woman be as the representation of the signal castration, especially the voyeuristic or fetishistic mechanisms to the circumvent. Moreover, Mulvey explained the cinematic and their relationship would be formative external structures and must be broken down the mainstream film and the pleasure provides be able to challenged.
Adorno
Compare the music in the part of the radio media and some disagree the Adormo show that music not only included in current standards, basically in charge of the audience as pay to radio attention like they listen to the simple music by the instrument. And the most important antagonisms arise in the field of musical mass culture that mass distribution of music. It also mean all the thematic and dynamic interrelationships defined in the music and develop the necessary conditions of fulfilling its prescriptions that realized by the radio.
Maxly Inthaxai
Doane
Presented about the representability of time in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Also said photographic and cinematic technologies played a central role here precisely because they were so crucial to thinking that representability. Although popular accounts tended to endow the cinema with dominant agency, so that is cinematic technology made possible a new access to the time or it perfect representation in fact the emerging cinema participate in a more general cultural imperative ,the structuring of time and contingency in capitalist modernity.
The pressure of time’s rationalization in the public sphere, and the corresponding atomization that ruptures the sense of time as exemplary continuum, produce a discursive tension that strikes many observers as being embodied or materialized in film from itself. For film is divided into isolated and static frames, ‘’instance’’ of time, in effect which when projected produce the illusion of continues time and movement. Hence, there is a renew attention to Zeno’s paradoxes as attempts to demonstrate, philosophically, the impossibility of movement and charge given the reducibility of all movement to an accumulation of static states.
The stimulus shield world more impenetrable in a highly developed technological society. In this case, Benjamin’s argument can be explained such as society requires a heightened consciousness to parry the shock effects of urban existence. In addition, there are three points that need to be made about Benjamin’s activation of Freud in his conceptualization of shock. Hence, the first would be shock in specified, second shock is defend in terms that associate it with a pathology, third the defense against shock embodies a privileged relation to time. Almost of that case show that most of them impacted to the source in term of the social technology that should be definitely come with the informing or declaring to the people in the society for just ensure them would be more familiarity in the case.
In the finalization Doane delineates the relations between epistemology of contingency and contemporary process of digital and television imaging, which inscribe temporarily in form echoing, in many respects, those of earlier technologies of representation. Another while Doane also argue that there is no radical rupture and that what is still very much of stake is the attempt to structure contingency.
Mulvey
The function of woman particularly in the image that would be the first symbolize the castration and also the argument returns to the psychoanalytic background in which woman be as the representation of the signal castration, especially the voyeuristic or fetishistic mechanisms to the circumvent. Moreover, Mulvey explained the cinematic and their relationship would be formative external structures and must be broken down the mainstream film and the pleasure provides be able to challenged.
Adorno
Compare the music in the part of the radio media and some disagree the Adormo show that music not only included in current standards, basically in charge of the audience as pay to radio attention like they listen to the simple music by the instrument. And the most important antagonisms arise in the field of musical mass culture that mass distribution of music. It also mean all the thematic and dynamic interrelationships defined in the music and develop the necessary conditions of fulfilling its prescriptions that realized by the radio.
Kerri Heng Yi Ping
T.W. ADORNO
Adorno’s social critique of radio music –– that it is just reproduced music used to manipulate the crude, silly masses –– does come across as elitist at first. However, looking deeper, there is some truth to it. Adorno asks if a symphony played on air remains a symphony, and implies that the masses listen to “good music” in a different manner. Take, for instance, the masses returning home after a hard day’s work. They’d turn on the radio and listen to good (reproduced) music like Beethoven. And Beethoven’s symphony would play in the background while they eat, rest, etc. Do they listen to it “in a concentrated mood”? I agree with Adorno’s implication that the ‘masses’ do not appreciate good music over the radio the same way the elites can in a live concert hall. They’d be too tired or distracted to do so. And thus music over the radio would serve as a cheap form of entertainment to placate the masses, tired after returning home from work.
About the quality of music deteriorating as it is reproduced, it brought to mind the fact that the DVDs and CDs today decline in quality each time they’re played. Like if one plays a DVD too many times, its quality will decline. Although I disagree with Beethoven’s symphony essence being lost through radio (because they can be reproduced as the exact same thing by means of recording a live Beethoven symphony), I believe that the same piece of music, if replayed too many times, can cause a physical loss of quality. To me, the essence of music doesn’t go away in reproduction, as the exact recording of a live symphony would be exactly the same as that of the live symphony. Perhaps there would be physical/static differences in quality, according to how good the recording device is. But that’s it. Of course, Adorno can stretch his argument and say that the true Aura of Beethoven’s symphony can be felt only when Beethoven himself plays it.
I don’t think that the masses were silly enough to believe that radio music is played for him and him alone, contrary to what Adorno says. Of course he knows that everyone else around him who has a radio would have the same access to his music. It’s just that he felt entertained and honoured to be listening to a ‘good piece of music’ played in the privacy of his home.
Like what Prof Sam mentioned during our lecture, audiences do have a choice. They can choose to tune in or out, and choose what radio channels to listen to. I like to think that it is a two-way relationship. The radio companies have to churn out what their audience likes to hear, because their audience has the choice not to tune in if they don’t like what they hear. So in a way, the radio companies, in a bid to profit from the masses, also has to cater to the tastes and desires of the masses. Yes, they do control broadcast content, but they also have to suit their programming to their audiences’ tastes. It’s all about earning money from the audience, after all.
That said, Adorno’s take on fan culture is interesting. Standardised enthusiasm for music is apparent even today, when swarms of fans go after their favourite pop stars. It’s interesting to note that one man wrote many of the pop songs by famous stars like Britney Spears and Taylor Swift. It’s definitely about the mass production of culture and standardisation of music. That, I fully agree. Link to article: http://www.celebritynetworth.com/articles/entertainment-articles/max-martin-powerful-person-music-business-people-never-even-head-name/
LAURA MULVEY
Her Male Gaze concept is very interesting and enlightening. It definitely puts a name to the objectification of women in TV and film through the years. As what Prof Sam said in lecture, film producers used to be all-male in the past, and their camera lens reflects what they see, as men. Thus the degrading representation of women in shows –– women as sex objects, women as damsels in distress, to be saved by male heroes. Even Superwoman, to me, is not a symbolism of girl power but an objectification of women. Why is Superwoman’s clothes so tight and why are her boobs so big? Again, the male gaze answers this.
Women representing a castration threat to man is sad but true. A woman’s lack of a phallus renders her powerless to the male, at many levels of society (in the workforce, in in the home, in life chances, in portrayals in literature, film and TV, etc). It’s a man’s world and it’s horrible. Of course I’m exaggerating but in the past, and in many aspects of society today, women are subject to a male-ordered society. (Women being denied an education in the past, suppressed women in the Middle East today, the glass ceiling in many modern Capitalist societies today, etc).
However, there are many positive and empowering representations of women in film and TV today, with the changing times, the rise of feminism and the emergence of female film and TV producers/directors/writers. Audrey’s example of The Hunger Games, as well as Hermione Granger in Harry Potter, attest to that.
I think it’s interesting to consider the “women in the audience” angle, as written in Mulvey’s Afterthoughts. How do women in the audience see things? Do they agree with the Male Gaze as well, and believe that they, as women, need to be ‘saved’ or ‘rescued’ by men? Of course, in some way, watching a film could be just following the film’s plot fully, without thinking too much about what it really means. In that case, women watching a film could agree fully that the male protagonist needs to swoop in to save the female. Think Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. She’s just a fragile princess waiting for her Prince Charming.
I think that the women in the audience are also considered, as film/TV producers need to create content that caters to females as well (for a wider profit, etc). Of course there are the portrayals of handsome, muscular, strong, courageous men in film, which again, emphasises the ‘goodness’, allure and power of the male. But on the other hand, in recent Korean Dramas and films, there are portrayals of the sensitive, soft-spoken male alongside the more brazen, loud-spoken female. There is, for instance, My Sassy Girl ( a film from Korea), where a man falls in love with this loud and brazen girl. And she abuses/manipulates him, yet he loves her all the more for her spirit. Of course, such shows are less common, but it shows that the male figure can be ‘degraded’ for a female audience as well.
MARY ANN DOANE
She talks about the representability of time via film and the ability to freeze images in time via photographs. There is a kind of ‘shock’ in film and photographs, as people never had the chance to freeze moving time before the advent of the camera. The magical ability to freeze time is amazing, and makes one wonder if the Aura is lost in frozen time.
Is cinematic time less authentic than ‘real’ time? I guess in terms of film and photo evidence, cinematic and photographic time can be rendered real and authentic, as it provides proof to what has happened in history. However, clearly, fictional film remains a work of fiction – a drama enacted by actors and producers. And of course, the essence of real time can only be felt by experiencing the moment in real time itself, and it can never be fully replaced by a photograph or film. That said, photos and film sometimes capture (and freeze) what the naked eye cannot. (For instance, an exact move of a sports player in the Olympic games.)
By capturing ‘real time’ and recording it, the film/photograph does empower viewers in the sense that they are able to see what their eyes have missed. They are able to do more and see more. But what’s the point of doing more and seeing more? For our entertainment? Or for us to become better, more efficient workers? Mary draws the link between the commodification of time (capturing it in photos, punchcards and film) and Capitalism (rationalised, standardised, rigid and time-based). Just like film allows us to “embrace enough things in a single glance”, the modern Internet and computer screens also allow us to see more things in one go.
I remember the advertisement for the recently released Windows 8, where many apps, weblinks and multiple small windows are shown on one screen. It’s tagline went in a song, with the singer saying: “I just wanted to see everything at once”. It was a TV advertisement. This is how we can see more things in one go, and how we could be more efficient and productive workers because of that. (eg: check more emails and do more research in one go.)
Kerri Heng Yi Ping
T.W. ADORNO
Adorno’s social critique of radio music –– that it is just reproduced music used to manipulate the crude, silly masses –– does come across as elitist at first. However, looking deeper, there is some truth to it. Adorno asks if a symphony played on air remains a symphony, and implies that the masses listen to “good music” in a different manner. Take, for instance, the masses returning home after a hard day’s work. They’d turn on the radio and listen to good (reproduced) music like Beethoven. And Beethoven’s symphony would play in the background while they eat, rest, etc. Do they listen to it “in a concentrated mood”? I agree with Adorno’s implication that the ‘masses’ do not appreciate good music over the radio the same way the elites can in a live concert hall. They’d be too tired or distracted to do so. And thus music over the radio would serve as a cheap form of entertainment to placate the masses, tired after returning home from work.
About the quality of music deteriorating as it is reproduced, it brought to mind the fact that the DVDs and CDs today decline in quality each time they’re played. Like if one plays a DVD too many times, its quality will decline. Although I disagree with Beethoven’s symphony essence being lost through radio (because they can be reproduced as the exact same thing by means of recording a live Beethoven symphony), I believe that the same piece of music, if replayed too many times, can cause a physical loss of quality. To me, the essence of music doesn’t go away in reproduction, as the exact recording of a live symphony would be exactly the same as that of the live symphony. Perhaps there would be physical/static differences in quality, according to how good the recording device is. But that’s it. Of course, Adorno can stretch his argument and say that the true Aura of Beethoven’s symphony can be felt only when Beethoven himself plays it.
I don’t think that the masses were silly enough to believe that radio music is played for him and him alone, contrary to what Adorno says. Of course he knows that everyone else around him who has a radio would have the same access to his music. It’s just that he felt entertained and honoured to be listening to a ‘good piece of music’ played in the privacy of his home.
Like what Prof Sam mentioned during our lecture, audiences do have a choice. They can choose to tune in or out, and choose what radio channels to listen to. I like to think that it is a two-way relationship. The radio companies have to churn out what their audience likes to hear, because their audience has the choice not to tune in if they don’t like what they hear. So in a way, the radio companies, in a bid to profit from the masses, also has to cater to the tastes and desires of the masses. Yes, they do control broadcast content, but they also have to suit their programming to their audiences’ tastes. It’s all about earning money from the audience, after all.
That said, Adorno’s take on fan culture is interesting. Standardised enthusiasm for music is apparent even today, when swarms of fans go after their favourite pop stars. It’s interesting to note that one man wrote many of the pop songs by famous stars like Britney Spears and Taylor Swift. It’s definitely about the mass production of culture and standardisation of music. That, I fully agree. Link to article: http://www.celebritynetworth.com/articles/entertainment-articles/max-martin-powerful-person-music-business-people-never-even-head-name/
LAURA MULVEY
Her Male Gaze concept is very interesting and enlightening. It definitely puts a name to the objectification of women in TV and film through the years. As what Prof Sam said in lecture, film producers used to be all-male in the past, and their camera lens reflects what they see, as men. Thus the degrading representation of women in shows –– women as sex objects, women as damsels in distress, to be saved by male heroes. Even Superwoman, to me, is not a symbolism of girl power but an objectification of women. Why is Superwoman’s clothes so tight and why are her boobs so big? Again, the male gaze answers this.
Women representing a castration threat to man is sad but true. A woman’s lack of a phallus renders her powerless to the male, at many levels of society (in the workforce, in in the home, in life chances, in portrayals in literature, film and TV, etc). It’s a man’s world and it’s horrible. Of course I’m exaggerating but in the past, and in many aspects of society today, women are subject to a male-ordered society. (Women being denied an education in the past, suppressed women in the Middle East today, the glass ceiling in many modern Capitalist societies today, etc).
However, there are many positive and empowering representations of women in film and TV today, with the changing times, the rise of feminism and the emergence of female film and TV producers/directors/writers. Audrey’s example of The Hunger Games, as well as Hermione Granger in Harry Potter, attest to that.
I think it’s interesting to consider the “women in the audience” angle, as written in Mulvey’s Afterthoughts. How do women in the audience see things? Do they agree with the Male Gaze as well, and believe that they, as women, need to be ‘saved’ or ‘rescued’ by men? Of course, in some way, watching a film could be just following the film’s plot fully, without thinking too much about what it really means. In that case, women watching a film could agree fully that the male protagonist needs to swoop in to save the female. Think Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. She’s just a fragile princess waiting for her Prince Charming.
I think that the women in the audience are also considered, as film/TV producers need to create content that caters to females as well (for a wider profit, etc). Of course there are the portrayals of handsome, muscular, strong, courageous men in film, which again, emphasises the ‘goodness’, allure and power of the male. But on the other hand, in recent Korean Dramas and films, there are portrayals of the sensitive, soft-spoken male alongside the more brazen, loud-spoken female. There is, for instance, My Sassy Girl ( a film from Korea), where a man falls in love with this loud and brazen girl. And she abuses/manipulates him, yet he loves her all the more for her spirit. Of course, such shows are less common, but it shows that the male figure can be ‘degraded’ for a female audience as well.
MARY ANN DOANE
She talks about the representability of time via film and the ability to freeze images in time via photographs. There is a kind of ‘shock’ in film and photographs, as people never had the chance to freeze moving time before the advent of the camera. The magical ability to freeze time is amazing, and makes one wonder if the Aura is lost in frozen time.
Is cinematic time less authentic than ‘real’ time? I guess in terms of film and photo evidence, cinematic and photographic time can be rendered real and authentic, as it provides proof to what has happened in history. However, clearly, fictional film remains a work of fiction – a drama enacted by actors and producers. And of course, the essence of real time can only be felt by experiencing the moment in real time itself, and it can never be fully replaced by a photograph or film. That said, photos and film sometimes capture (and freeze) what the naked eye cannot. (For instance, an exact move of a sports player in the Olympic games.)
By capturing ‘real time’ and recording it, the film/photograph does empower viewers in the sense that they are able to see what their eyes have missed. They are able to do more and see more. But what’s the point of doing more and seeing more? For our entertainment? Or for us to become better, more efficient workers? Laura draws the link between the commodification of time (capturing it in photos, punchcards and film) and Capitalism (rationalised, standardised, rigid and time-based). Just like film allows us to “embrace enough things in a single glance”, the modern Internet and computer screens also allow us to see more things in one go.
I remember the advertisement for the recently released Windows 8, where many apps, weblinks and multiple small windows are shown on one screen. It’s tagline went in a song, with the singer saying: “I just wanted to see everything at once”. It was a TV advertisement. This is how we can see more things in one go, and how we could be more efficient and productive workers because of that. (eg: check more emails and do more research in one go.)
Diyana Mohd
T.W. Adorno makes good arguments regarding the devalourizing of “good” and “serious” music. He argues that how such music is distributed to us, on radio channels, is cheapening such music’s musical character. If radio is the message, the message is that through it music becomes less serious – it is standardized, hence exists a commodity character. Recipients also begin to adopt ‘commodity listening’. In brief, other effects of standardization in radio music include the dulling of criticality, false choice, false consciousness, passivity and pseudo-individualism.
With our contemporary times however, I would like to disagree with Adorno. With globalization and postmodernism, there’s a birth of myriad niche music – genres and subgenres spanning from dubstep, ambient to post-rock, shoegaze etc, all streaming in variegated radio channels and podcasts – both online and offline. This shatters Adorno’s idea of the illusion of choice. Now, we can actually make a choice – to be discerning in our music consumption, that is palatable and tailored to our very niched taste.
The variety in music now is great. Although the popular hits will remain aired most dominantly and ubiquitously, my faith in music is restored due to independent/DIY music culture. Although being very low-key, existing in the periphery, the culture production, transmission and reception is well-aided by globalization and new media (e.g., an underground punk band in Sweden can have fans scattered everywhere around the globe through listenership on last.fm or Spotify, and getting band updates on their bandcamp, Facebook, tumblr).
With regards to film, Mary Ann Doane’s and Laura Mulvey’s are both very interesting reads. Doane takes the task of addressing modernity’s effects on notions of temporality, contingency, indexicality, chance, representation, history and subject. Positing film as representability of time, she elaborates how this time-based art (& medium) is the crucial, chief player in structuring of time during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Another important thing is to understand how cinema (and emergence of cinematic time) is “structurally necessary to the ideologies of capitalist modernization”. She gives good explanations on this i.e., Marx’s labour time, Weber’s efficiency of time, Taylor’s scientific management etc.
Laura Mulvey’s afterthoughts of her assigned essay queried on the feminization of the spectator position. During tutorial, we discussed on the emergence of the female gaze. With the rise of female directors/scriptwriters, in Hollywood, independent films, and also feminist pornography, women spectators can now have that controlling gaze. Also to note, with the acceptance of homosexuality in societies, there is a shift in masculinity and sexuality and its representations on cinema.
Hence the gaze is not homogeneous at all times and instances. It is not pertaining to just only female, male, or gay gaze in one sitting of a movie.
Audrey
Mulvey’s vivid commentary on the power imbalance between men and women comes from her theory, the paradox of phallocentrism. Everything in a man’s power is in his penis, and everything the woman is subject to, is the fact that she is naturally “castrated” of the penis. The woman, in her weakness or lack, is precisely the source of the man’s authority, claims Mulvey. It makes perfect sense, because for one to be on top, someone else has to be at the bottom (no sexual pun intended).
This explains why women are only portrayed in relation to male protagonists and do not exist independently on screen. On film, the man tries to demystify the woman, punishes the woman if she transgresses, or saves the woman. In other words, the woman is merely a plot tool that drives the male protagonist.
What is interesting however, is her powerful rhetoric of the Male Gaze. Mulvey argues that audiences are subject to the Male Gaze, regardless of their sex. Women can experience the Male Gaze, as men do.
Although the conceptualisation of the Male Gaze came about in the 70s, we can still use a contemporary example to illustrate this. One of the best examples could be the portrayal of Megan Fox in Michael Bay’s Transformers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ch0Hu917CQ
Mulvey writes, “In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness.”
In the film, Fox is wearing an extra tight camisole and extremely short skirt. Her hair and skin are perfect – glossy and styled perfectly. She is blatantly, the object of looked-at-ness, as we see La Beouf’s character gazing at her from the car first – she exists, for him to watch.
Mulvey also writes that the woman is an erotic object for both the characters on screen and the audiences in the movie theatre.
In the first part of the clip, the audience holds the Male Gaze – we see a full-body shot of Megan Fox walking. After Fox gets out of the car and bends over at the bonnet, the Male Gaze shifts to La Beouf’s character. He gawks at her as she stretches and bends. A medium close up shows La Beouf’s character clearly aroused. And the next cut is a pan-up of Fox’s torso to her chest.
It is this seamless merging of the Male Gaze from audiences to characters that make it so powerful.
While Mulvey writes about the way males relate to the portrayal of male protagonists, I may suggest that women, on the other hand, feel the need to emulate the way the leading actresses dress and behave – to entice with their bodies and to feel fulfilled only if they have the quality of look-at-ness.
The Hunger Games may be lauded for its female-driven action and how the female protagonist constantly saves the male supporting characters, but it is observed that the woman’s ability (her physical strength, wits, charisma), is not exchanged for her look-at-ness. Her capabilities are actually added on to the basic criteria of her – which is her desirable looks. Before Katniss gets into any action, she first displays her beauty in the flaming dress.
Tomb Raider’s Lara Croft is self-explanatory.
Mulvey’s revolutionary theory sadly describes the media and its effect on gender relations in society until today.
Stanley Wong
This week’s readings discusses about the effects of cinema and radio and how it affects various spheres of life; namely, gender and capitalism.
Mulvey’s reading discusses how cinema production depends on female characters to generate viewing pleasure for men. This results in the Male Gaze, whereby the female character is the object of the gaze, while the male character is the one doing the gazing. Mulvey identifies two mechanisms that created the Male Gaze; scopophila and identification with the male character. Scopophilia refers to the pleasure derived when you gaze at someone without their knowledge; this is akin to voyeurism. At the same time, identification with the male character stems from the viewers’ needs from their Ego. Taking these two mechanisms together with the male gaze, it seems to imply that the mechanisms are gendered. This is evidenced by the usage of the camera, where it directs the viewer towards the female, inadvertently objectifying them in the process. Similarly, by creating a male character that viewers can identify with, the film is also constructing an active male character that is also gazing as well. Conversely, the female will be rendered passive, where she will be the object of the male character and the audience’s gaze.
On the other hand, Adorno’s article discusses about radio and its effect on music and consumers. He describes radio as a technology that promotes unidirectional transmission, where it allows producers to broadcast to its audiences without getting feedback. To Adorno, music was supposed to be a form of high culture, something to stimulate the human minds and critical thought. However, with the advent of the radio, music has become massified and commodified via mass communication. Such commodification may lead to standarisation, where the songs that sound the same are played across various channels. At the same time, the nature of radio and its unidirectionality denies the listener any agency, where he or she cannot choose what they want to listen to.
Finally, Doane talks about time being commodified. This is seen by the cutting of time up into discrete pieces and being represented in a material form. The phrase “time is money” comes into mind. Indeed, seen this way, time is rationalized, where everyone seeks to make use of the time that is available in the most efficient manner. Yet even as it is rationalized, it is contingent. We have no idea what is coming up next, what will happen in the next second. This is represented in film, where time is represented through the film form.
Sasha Kaur Dhillon
Theodor Adorno talks about the commoditization of production of music produced via the Radio. This is in accordance with his view that if you bring “good music” to the masses, it is no longer good music. It loses its “aura” ( as we have encountered in the works of Walter Benjamin). This is because radio provides us with a more casual attitude towards the profound sources of music. However, what Adorno points out to us is that the music itself loses its meaning but the mechanism by which it is distributed in this instance proffers greater meaning.
Doane highlights the rationalization of time that allows us to measure time. She further substantiates this using the example of Taylorization and the punchcard system – where if you screw up getting your card punched you would not get paid for that entire duration. However, she also postulates that as with contingency, indexicality and chance mediums such as photography allow for the unpredictable to be captured. This is because we usually do not know what is about to appear in front of us, but can be ready to capture it, nevertheless. It is crucial to note that modernity relies on these very notions of chance and rationalization and thus, by default, so does capitalism.
Mulvey provides a rather feminist approach to viewing films. She brings across notions like the pleasure in looking and scopophilia where the audience derives pleasure from looking (spectatorship). Scopophilia deals with subjecting the images on the screen to one’s gaze – especially via a male- gaze. This is seen in the “leg-up” framework that most scenes in films adopt in objectifying and projecting the females in them. It also brings forth the notion of voyeurism – we derive pleasure from gazing at things that we are not supposed to be, but we do so anyway with perverted intentions. Also, Scopophilia can occur within the film actor’s conscience as the characters themselves are gazing at one another – though this usually only happens because the woman has been identified as the subordinated figure. Moreover, the cinema facilitates scopophilia in a sense that the screen is all-encompassing. It engulf us – and leaves us little choice but to participate in the spectatorship.
Cheryl Chern
This week’s reading centers around broadcast media and how it is distributed and received in society.
For Adorno, he focuses on the radio music and he is very critical about the distribution of music through the radio, to him, when a good piece of music is available to the masses, its value is cheapened and can no longer be considered good music. He notes that very often, studies tend to focus in the listeners but have neglected the extent to which the listeners’ attitudes reflect behavioral patterns and how they are conditioned by the structure of society. He goes on to talk about the commodification of music, where music has become a means instead of an end and is no longer a human force, rather, it is consumed like any other consumer good. Music has become mass produced, where all music programs on the radio are generally the same, as a result, consumers or listeners do not have the freedom of choice. But because of the lack of choice, the listener is made to think that he actually has a choice (for example, choosing which radio station to tune in to).
Doane’s focus is on the representability of time and how technology has allowed for the modern way of conceptualizing and representing time. With the rationalization and standardization of time, time has become a unit of measurement. Under capitalism, time is a measurement of one’s labor and time is money. Doane talks about the cinema and how it represent the contingent and gives us the ability to record a period of time, in other words, the cinema made archivable duration possible.
Similar to Doane, Mulvey’s work also centers on the cinema and talks about how the fascination of film is reinforced by pre-existing patterns of fascination already at work within the individual and the social formations that have moulded him. She talks about scopophilia, where there is pleasure derived from looking and being looked at. In a cinema, there is an obvious projection of the repressed desire on to the performer and the cinema satisfies the desire for having pleasure in looking. We see that the cinema perpetuates the dominant ideology in society that is patriarchal in nature, that female is passive and the male, active. The women is always subjected to the male gaze.
Sherilyn Tan
Mulvey talked about how the ideology of patriarchy is reflected in film. The woman is always portrayed as the Other, the object that the man looks at; she (passive) is always under the active male gaze. She exists in relation to the man and doesn’t have a voice of her own. Meaning is constructed by man, whose power is associated to masculinity. (Phallocentrism: the penis as a symbol, center of meaning – that which women lack)
She argued that the audience derive pleasure from Hollywood films’ presentation of the erotic. Again the patriarchal order is reflected – images of women. For instance, many films usually have erotic scenes even though they may not be integral to the flow of the storyline. The erotic is coded into the language of the dominant patriarchal order. Women are objects of sexual desire and it stems from the sexual difference – the absence of a penis. For instance, in films women (e.g. showgirls, strippers) may be portrayed as the weaker sex and is subjected to men’s whims and fancies. Through identification with the male character, the audience can indirectly possess the female character too.
In films, the audience get to satisfy the primal pleasure of looking at others as an object – voyeuristic scopophilia. This grants the one who gazes, power over the object being gazed at – illusion of looking at a private world. Narcissistic scopophilia is described identifying with characters in films, as representations of one’s self. Hence there is a tension between having the power to view characters in films as objects, while at the same time, imagining oneself as the character.
Adorno asserted that popular music in the present day functions as a commodity. The top songs that dominate the airwaves sometimes all originality, some sound alike, while others are heavily auto tuned. They are standardised and mass produced. For instance, the K-Pop industry frequently churns out many idol groups with vibrant images; every month quite a number of new groups enter the industry. Adorno argued that music has become a means to an end – profit maximisation for the industry. It no longer pushes people to think and reflect upon, instead, it has dulled criticality, since music is now mass consumed. On the other hand, I would think that this may not be true of all music. Many music artistes have ventured into songwriting/lyrics writing and oftentimes, their songs are reflective of certain social conditions – such as society’s obsession with materialism, the invisible poor of society etc. Yet, these songs may still be popular with the mass. What is mass, is not necessarily bad/mindless. Besides, with different media platforms, such as video channels like YouTube, Vimeo etc, the audience can always sought out the music they rather listen to. Radio is not the only channel they can obtain their music from. So I would argue that people do still have a choice. For instance, they can seek out the lesser known, “indie” songs instead of the Billboard Top 100 songs.
However, it cannot be assumed that the music conveyed to the largest possible audience, is what Adorno would regard as good music. However, what he considers good music, for instance classical music, Beethoven’s concertos etc, may not be what everyone enjoys. Just like art, music is subjective and different people have different interpretations atansy tribute different meaning to it. One’s emotions may also influence how much one likes/disliktwangs music. For example it may be a pop song may be about something superifical like going shopping – some may love it, others will hate it, some
may like it due to the emotions they attach to the song.
In addition, music should be situated in the cultural context and historical period it exists in. For instance, what is popular in this day and age, (e.g k-pop, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and Psy?), would definitely not have been popular in a different time period.
Evon Thung
Adorno
Adorno is someone who believes that high art (fine art) is the only form of art which encourage critical thinking. Therefore, art which is mass produced, standardized and consumed by the masses would not be considered high art. In this piece of writing, Adorno criticised on radio music, he thinks that radio music is produced to manipulate the masses. As mass produced music encouraged passive listening and social domination. When music is consumed like a commodity, there will be standardization leading to the absence of original content. As such, the listener would just need to sit back and listen to that piece of music which is catchy to the ears that require no other actions from that individual.
Similarly, there is the lack of agency as one listens to the radio. The listener does not have any agency in deciding the contents of the radio programmes, the songs and contents are pre-determined by the radio station or the DJ. The only agency listeners have is to switch to other radio stations if the contents or songs are not to their liking. Furthermore, listening to radio and music is perceived to be a form of entertainment that requires no critical thinking as a result, listeners are passive and receives whatever is being produced. Therefore, standardization could take place where similar songs and contents are broadcasted across stations.
Mulvey
Her main argument in this reading would be that women are used to provide a visual pleasure to men in Hollywood narrative films. The cinematic gaze that women are placed under is masculine where women are always the object of the reifying gaze and not the bearers of it. As such, women are always portrayed besides men, and women are significant only in the interweaving of erotic pleasure in films. It is usually the men who get to be the heros and more emphasis is placed on the hero’s character development and the things he does. Women are insignificant especially in the genre of action films where it is the men who fight and have the most air-time. The role of women in such films is either to be the damsel in distress waiting to be saved by the hero or to be a form of distraction for the hero.
There are 2 ways in which Hollywood cinemas produce pleasure. The first involves the objectification of the image, and the second one the identification with it. Both mechanisms represent the mental desires of the male subject. The first form of pleasure relates to what Freud termed as scopophilia or the pleasure derived from subjecting someone to one’s gaze. The second form of pleasure other which operates alongside the scopophilia is the identification with the represented character which is brought about by needs stemming from the Freudian Ego. In both forms, women are just objects to be looked at in films.
Doane
Her reading addresses the origins of representability of time during the late 19th and early 20th century where time became increasingly reified, standardized, stabilized and rationalized. Because of capitalism and taylorism, time became commodified with the enforcement of rigid structure. Efficiency was valued which led to standardized procedures to carry out tasks in a routine manner. Hence, time became valued as it became a tool for individuals to be measured and rewarded.
(In relation to Mulvey), if you have 13 minutes to spare:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMS4VJKekW8
Doane
Presented about the representability of time in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Also said photographic and cinematic technologies played a central role here precisely because they were so crucial to thinking that representability. Although popular accounts tended to endow the cinema with dominant agency, so that is cinematic technology made possible a new access to the time or it perfect representation in fact the emerging cinema participate in a more general cultural imperative ,the structuring of time and contingency in capitalist modernity.
The pressure of time’s rationalization in the public sphere, and the corresponding atomization that ruptures the sense of time as exemplary continuum, produce a discursive tension that strikes many observers as being embodied or materialized in film from itself. For film is divided into isolated and static frames, ‘’instance’’ of time, in effect which when projected produce the illusion of continues time and movement. Hence, there is a renew attention to Zeno’s paradoxes as attempts to demonstrate, philosophically, the impossibility of movement and charge given the reducibility of all movement to an accumulation of static states.
The stimulus shield world more impenetrable in a highly developed technological society. In this case, Benjamin’s argument can be explained such as society requires a heightened consciousness to parry the shock effects of urban existence. In addition, there are three points that need to be made about Benjamin’s activation of Freud in his conceptualization of shock. Hence, the first would be shock in specified, second shock is defend in terms that associate it with a pathology, third the defense against shock embodies a privileged relation to time. Almost of that case show that most of them impacted to the source in term of the social technology that should be definitely come with the informing or declaring to the people in the society for just ensure them would be more familiarity in the case.
In the finalization Doane delineates the relations between epistemology of contingency and contemporary process of digital and television imaging, which inscribe temporarily in form echoing, in many respects, those of earlier technologies of representation. Another while Doane also argue that there is no radical rupture and that what is still very much of stake is the attempt to structure contingency.
Mulvey
The function of woman particularly in the image that would be the first symbolize the castration and also the argument returns to the psychoanalytic background in which woman be as the representation of the signal castration, especially the voyeuristic or fetishistic mechanisms to the circumvent. Moreover, Mulvey explained the cinematic and their relationship would be formative external structures and must be broken down the mainstream film and the pleasure provides be able to challenged.
Adorno
Compare the music in the part of the radio media and some disagree the Adormo show that music not only included in current standards, basically in charge of the audience as pay to radio attention like they listen to the simple music by the instrument. And the most important antagonisms arise in the field of musical mass culture that mass distribution of music. It also mean all the thematic and dynamic interrelationships defined in the music and develop the necessary conditions of fulfilling its prescriptions that realized by the radio.
Adorno is pretty skeptical of the broadcast model. He thinks that music loses its essence once it’s on the radio for free because people start to be less serious about music. I think we can associate this thinking that music on radio now seems to be an accompaniment while driving, studying, chilling in a café, etc. To Adorno, this situation occurs due to the free-nature of music such that now it’s being taken for granted. To him, high art should not be commercialized this way.
However, his point about standardized music and how we as consumers no longer have a choice is limited now with the existence of music available online and offline. True enough pop music by large corporations are composed with garnering support from audience as the main priority for profits, however, there are a lot other independent music labels nowadays with so many different genres around, hence this choice of music can still be ours.
Mulvey’s article was an interesting read about the male gaze and it makes me realize how we have taken for granted the portrayal of women on films. When the camera starts filming a woman from her legs to her head with very dreamy effects and seductive music, we no longer stop and think why the camera was situated in that angle. It’s a pretty disturbing realization in fact. The pleasure that is supposedly derived from this gazing at things that are not supposed to be gazed at is being commoditized in a way. Of course, this gaze in today’s case would not be limited to just gazing at women in a certain way. In fact, portrayals of males in movies nowadays tend to be in a certain way too. However, is this gaze what we really desire to see or what we are forced to see because we have no choice but to look?
Doane
Presented about the representability of time in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Also said photographic and cinematic technologies played a central role here precisely because they were so crucial to thinking that representability. Although popular accounts tended to endow the cinema with dominant agency, so that is cinematic technology made possible a new access to the time or it perfect representation in fact the emerging cinema participate in a more general cultural imperative ,the structuring of time and contingency in capitalist modernity.
The pressure of time’s rationalization in the public sphere, and the corresponding atomization that ruptures the sense of time as exemplary continuum, produce a discursive tension that strikes many observers as being embodied or materialized in film from itself. For film is divided into isolated and static frames, ‘’instance’’ of time, in effect which when projected produce the illusion of continues time and movement. Hence, there is a renew attention to Zeno’s paradoxes as attempts to demonstrate, philosophically, the impossibility of movement and charge given the reducibility of all movement to an accumulation of static states.
The stimulus shield world more impenetrable in a highly developed technological society. In this case, Benjamin’s argument can be explained such as society requires a heightened consciousness to parry the shock effects of urban existence. In addition, there are three points that need to be made about Benjamin’s activation of Freud in his conceptualization of shock. Hence, the first would be shock in specified, second shock is defend in terms that associate it with a pathology, third the defense against shock embodies a privileged relation to time. Almost of that case show that most of them impacted to the source in term of the social technology that should be definitely come with the informing or declaring to the people in the society for just ensure them would be more familiarity in the case.
In the finalization Doane delineates the relations between epistemology of contingency and contemporary process of digital and television imaging, which inscribe temporarily in form echoing, in many respects, those of earlier technologies of representation. Another while Doane also argue that there is no radical rupture and that what is still very much of stake is the attempt to structure contingency.
Mulvey
The function of woman particularly in the image that would be the first symbolize the castration and also the argument returns to the psychoanalytic background in which woman be as the representation of the signal castration, especially the voyeuristic or fetishistic mechanisms to the circumvent. Moreover, Mulvey explained the cinematic and their relationship would be formative external structures and must be broken down the mainstream film and the pleasure provides be able to challenged.
Adorno
Compare the music in the part of the radio media and some disagree the Adormo show that music not only included in current standards, basically in charge of the audience as pay to radio attention like they listen to the simple music by the instrument. And the most important antagonisms arise in the field of musical mass culture that mass distribution of music. It also mean all the thematic and dynamic interrelationships defined in the music and develop the necessary conditions of fulfilling its prescriptions that realized by the radio.
Doane
Presented about the representability of time in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Also said photographic and cinematic technologies played a central role here precisely because they were so crucial to thinking that representability. Although popular accounts tended to endow the cinema with dominant agency, so that is cinematic technology made possible a new access to the time or it perfect representation in fact the emerging cinema participate in a more general cultural imperative ,the structuring of time and contingency in capitalist modernity.
The pressure of time’s rationalization in the public sphere, and the corresponding atomization that ruptures the sense of time as exemplary continuum, produce a discursive tension that strikes many observers as being embodied or materialized in film from itself. For film is divided into isolated and static frames, ‘’instance’’ of time, in effect which when projected produce the illusion of continues time and movement. Hence, there is a renew attention to Zeno’s paradoxes as attempts to demonstrate, philosophically, the impossibility of movement and charge given the reducibility of all movement to an accumulation of static states.
The stimulus shield world more impenetrable in a highly developed technological society. In this case, Benjamin’s argument can be explained such as society requires a heightened consciousness to parry the shock effects of urban existence. In addition, there are three points that need to be made about Benjamin’s activation of Freud in his conceptualization of shock. Hence, the first would be shock in specified, second shock is defend in terms that associate it with a pathology, third the defense against shock embodies a privileged relation to time. Almost of that case show that most of them impacted to the source in term of the social technology that should be definitely come with the informing or declaring to the people in the society for just ensure them would be more familiarity in the case.
In the finalization Doane delineates the relations between epistemology of contingency and contemporary process of digital and television imaging, which inscribe temporarily in form echoing, in many respects, those of earlier technologies of representation. Another while Doane also argue that there is no radical rupture and that what is still very much of stake is the attempt to structure contingency.
Mulvey
The function of woman particularly in the image that would be the first symbolize the castration and also the argument returns to the psychoanalytic background in which woman be as the representation of the signal castration, especially the voyeuristic or fetishistic mechanisms to the circumvent. Moreover, Mulvey explained the cinematic and their relationship would be formative external structures and must be broken down the mainstream film and the pleasure provides be able to challenged.
Adorno
Compare the music in the part of the radio media and some disagree the Adormo show that music not only included in current standards, basically in charge of the audience as pay to radio attention like they listen to the simple music by the instrument. And the most important antagonisms arise in the field of musical mass culture that mass distribution of music. It also mean all the thematic and dynamic interrelationships defined in the music and develop the necessary conditions of fulfilling its prescriptions that realized by the radio.
Doane
Presented about the representability of time in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Also said photographic and cinematic technologies played a central role here precisely because they were so crucial to thinking that representability. Although popular accounts tended to endow the cinema with dominant agency, so that is cinematic technology made possible a new access to the time or it perfect representation in fact the emerging cinema participate in a more general cultural imperative ,the structuring of time and contingency in capitalist modernity.
The pressure of time’s rationalization in the public sphere, and the corresponding atomization that ruptures the sense of time as exemplary continuum, produce a discursive tension that strikes many observers as being embodied or materialized in film from itself. For film is divided into isolated and static frames, ‘’instance’’ of time, in effect which when projected produce the illusion of continues time and movement. Hence, there is a renew attention to Zeno’s paradoxes as attempts to demonstrate, philosophically, the impossibility of movement and charge given the reducibility of all movement to an accumulation of static states.
The stimulus shield world more impenetrable in a highly developed technological society. In this case, Benjamin’s argument can be explained such as society requires a heightened consciousness to parry the shock effects of urban existence. In addition, there are three points that need to be made about Benjamin’s activation of Freud in his conceptualization of shock. Hence, the first would be shock in specified, second shock is defend in terms that associate it with a pathology, third the defense against shock embodies a privileged relation to time. Almost of that case show that most of them impacted to the source in term of the social technology that should be definitely come with the informing or declaring to the people in the society for just ensure them would be more familiarity in the case.
In the finalization Doane delineates the relations between epistemology of contingency and contemporary process of digital and television imaging, which inscribe temporarily in form echoing, in many respects, those of earlier technologies of representation. Another while Doane also argue that there is no radical rupture and that what is still very much of stake is the attempt to structure contingency.
Mulvey
The function of woman particularly in the image that would be the first symbolize the castration and also the argument returns to the psychoanalytic background in which woman be as the representation of the signal castration, especially the voyeuristic or fetishistic mechanisms to the circumvent. Moreover, Mulvey explained the cinematic and their relationship would be formative external structures and must be broken down the mainstream film and the pleasure provides be able to challenged.
Adorno
Compare the music in the part of the radio media and some disagree the Adormo show that music not only included in current standards, basically in charge of the audience as pay to radio attention like they listen to the simple music by the instrument. And the most important antagonisms arise in the field of musical mass culture that mass distribution of music. It also mean all the thematic and dynamic interrelationships defined in the music and develop the necessary conditions of fulfilling its prescriptions that realized by the radio.
T.W. ADORNO
Adorno’s social critique of radio music –– that it is just reproduced music used to manipulate the crude, silly masses –– does come across as elitist at first. However, looking deeper, there is some truth to it. Adorno asks if a symphony played on air remains a symphony, and implies that the masses listen to “good music” in a different manner. Take, for instance, the masses returning home after a hard day’s work. They’d turn on the radio and listen to good (reproduced) music like Beethoven. And Beethoven’s symphony would play in the background while they eat, rest, etc. Do they listen to it “in a concentrated mood”? I agree with Adorno’s implication that the ‘masses’ do not appreciate good music over the radio the same way the elites can in a live concert hall. They’d be too tired or distracted to do so. And thus music over the radio would serve as a cheap form of entertainment to placate the masses, tired after returning home from work.
About the quality of music deteriorating as it is reproduced, it brought to mind the fact that the DVDs and CDs today decline in quality each time they’re played. Like if one plays a DVD too many times, its quality will decline. Although I disagree with Beethoven’s symphony essence being lost through radio (because they can be reproduced as the exact same thing by means of recording a live Beethoven symphony), I believe that the same piece of music, if replayed too many times, can cause a physical loss of quality. To me, the essence of music doesn’t go away in reproduction, as the exact recording of a live symphony would be exactly the same as that of the live symphony. Perhaps there would be physical/static differences in quality, according to how good the recording device is. But that’s it. Of course, Adorno can stretch his argument and say that the true Aura of Beethoven’s symphony can be felt only when Beethoven himself plays it.
I don’t think that the masses were silly enough to believe that radio music is played for him and him alone, contrary to what Adorno says. Of course he knows that everyone else around him who has a radio would have the same access to his music. It’s just that he felt entertained and honoured to be listening to a ‘good piece of music’ played in the privacy of his home.
Like what Prof Sam mentioned during our lecture, audiences do have a choice. They can choose to tune in or out, and choose what radio channels to listen to. I like to think that it is a two-way relationship. The radio companies have to churn out what their audience likes to hear, because their audience has the choice not to tune in if they don’t like what they hear. So in a way, the radio companies, in a bid to profit from the masses, also has to cater to the tastes and desires of the masses. Yes, they do control broadcast content, but they also have to suit their programming to their audiences’ tastes. It’s all about earning money from the audience, after all.
That said, Adorno’s take on fan culture is interesting. Standardised enthusiasm for music is apparent even today, when swarms of fans go after their favourite pop stars. It’s interesting to note that one man wrote many of the pop songs by famous stars like Britney Spears and Taylor Swift. It’s definitely about the mass production of culture and standardisation of music. That, I fully agree. Link to article:
http://www.celebritynetworth.com/articles/entertainment-articles/max-martin-powerful-person-music-business-people-never-even-head-name/
LAURA MULVEY
Her Male Gaze concept is very interesting and enlightening. It definitely puts a name to the objectification of women in TV and film through the years. As what Prof Sam said in lecture, film producers used to be all-male in the past, and their camera lens reflects what they see, as men. Thus the degrading representation of women in shows –– women as sex objects, women as damsels in distress, to be saved by male heroes. Even Superwoman, to me, is not a symbolism of girl power but an objectification of women. Why is Superwoman’s clothes so tight and why are her boobs so big? Again, the male gaze answers this.
Women representing a castration threat to man is sad but true. A woman’s lack of a phallus renders her powerless to the male, at many levels of society (in the workforce, in in the home, in life chances, in portrayals in literature, film and TV, etc). It’s a man’s world and it’s horrible. Of course I’m exaggerating but in the past, and in many aspects of society today, women are subject to a male-ordered society. (Women being denied an education in the past, suppressed women in the Middle East today, the glass ceiling in many modern Capitalist societies today, etc).
However, there are many positive and empowering representations of women in film and TV today, with the changing times, the rise of feminism and the emergence of female film and TV producers/directors/writers. Audrey’s example of The Hunger Games, as well as Hermione Granger in Harry Potter, attest to that.
I think it’s interesting to consider the “women in the audience” angle, as written in Mulvey’s Afterthoughts. How do women in the audience see things? Do they agree with the Male Gaze as well, and believe that they, as women, need to be ‘saved’ or ‘rescued’ by men? Of course, in some way, watching a film could be just following the film’s plot fully, without thinking too much about what it really means. In that case, women watching a film could agree fully that the male protagonist needs to swoop in to save the female. Think Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. She’s just a fragile princess waiting for her Prince Charming.
I think that the women in the audience are also considered, as film/TV producers need to create content that caters to females as well (for a wider profit, etc). Of course there are the portrayals of handsome, muscular, strong, courageous men in film, which again, emphasises the ‘goodness’, allure and power of the male. But on the other hand, in recent Korean Dramas and films, there are portrayals of the sensitive, soft-spoken male alongside the more brazen, loud-spoken female. There is, for instance, My Sassy Girl ( a film from Korea), where a man falls in love with this loud and brazen girl. And she abuses/manipulates him, yet he loves her all the more for her spirit. Of course, such shows are less common, but it shows that the male figure can be ‘degraded’ for a female audience as well.
MARY ANN DOANE
She talks about the representability of time via film and the ability to freeze images in time via photographs. There is a kind of ‘shock’ in film and photographs, as people never had the chance to freeze moving time before the advent of the camera. The magical ability to freeze time is amazing, and makes one wonder if the Aura is lost in frozen time.
Is cinematic time less authentic than ‘real’ time? I guess in terms of film and photo evidence, cinematic and photographic time can be rendered real and authentic, as it provides proof to what has happened in history. However, clearly, fictional film remains a work of fiction – a drama enacted by actors and producers. And of course, the essence of real time can only be felt by experiencing the moment in real time itself, and it can never be fully replaced by a photograph or film. That said, photos and film sometimes capture (and freeze) what the naked eye cannot. (For instance, an exact move of a sports player in the Olympic games.)
By capturing ‘real time’ and recording it, the film/photograph does empower viewers in the sense that they are able to see what their eyes have missed. They are able to do more and see more. But what’s the point of doing more and seeing more? For our entertainment? Or for us to become better, more efficient workers? Mary draws the link between the commodification of time (capturing it in photos, punchcards and film) and Capitalism (rationalised, standardised, rigid and time-based). Just like film allows us to “embrace enough things in a single glance”, the modern Internet and computer screens also allow us to see more things in one go.
I remember the advertisement for the recently released Windows 8, where many apps, weblinks and multiple small windows are shown on one screen. It’s tagline went in a song, with the singer saying: “I just wanted to see everything at once”. It was a TV advertisement. This is how we can see more things in one go, and how we could be more efficient and productive workers because of that. (eg: check more emails and do more research in one go.)
T.W. ADORNO
Adorno’s social critique of radio music –– that it is just reproduced music used to manipulate the crude, silly masses –– does come across as elitist at first. However, looking deeper, there is some truth to it. Adorno asks if a symphony played on air remains a symphony, and implies that the masses listen to “good music” in a different manner. Take, for instance, the masses returning home after a hard day’s work. They’d turn on the radio and listen to good (reproduced) music like Beethoven. And Beethoven’s symphony would play in the background while they eat, rest, etc. Do they listen to it “in a concentrated mood”? I agree with Adorno’s implication that the ‘masses’ do not appreciate good music over the radio the same way the elites can in a live concert hall. They’d be too tired or distracted to do so. And thus music over the radio would serve as a cheap form of entertainment to placate the masses, tired after returning home from work.
About the quality of music deteriorating as it is reproduced, it brought to mind the fact that the DVDs and CDs today decline in quality each time they’re played. Like if one plays a DVD too many times, its quality will decline. Although I disagree with Beethoven’s symphony essence being lost through radio (because they can be reproduced as the exact same thing by means of recording a live Beethoven symphony), I believe that the same piece of music, if replayed too many times, can cause a physical loss of quality. To me, the essence of music doesn’t go away in reproduction, as the exact recording of a live symphony would be exactly the same as that of the live symphony. Perhaps there would be physical/static differences in quality, according to how good the recording device is. But that’s it. Of course, Adorno can stretch his argument and say that the true Aura of Beethoven’s symphony can be felt only when Beethoven himself plays it.
I don’t think that the masses were silly enough to believe that radio music is played for him and him alone, contrary to what Adorno says. Of course he knows that everyone else around him who has a radio would have the same access to his music. It’s just that he felt entertained and honoured to be listening to a ‘good piece of music’ played in the privacy of his home.
Like what Prof Sam mentioned during our lecture, audiences do have a choice. They can choose to tune in or out, and choose what radio channels to listen to. I like to think that it is a two-way relationship. The radio companies have to churn out what their audience likes to hear, because their audience has the choice not to tune in if they don’t like what they hear. So in a way, the radio companies, in a bid to profit from the masses, also has to cater to the tastes and desires of the masses. Yes, they do control broadcast content, but they also have to suit their programming to their audiences’ tastes. It’s all about earning money from the audience, after all.
That said, Adorno’s take on fan culture is interesting. Standardised enthusiasm for music is apparent even today, when swarms of fans go after their favourite pop stars. It’s interesting to note that one man wrote many of the pop songs by famous stars like Britney Spears and Taylor Swift. It’s definitely about the mass production of culture and standardisation of music. That, I fully agree. Link to article:
http://www.celebritynetworth.com/articles/entertainment-articles/max-martin-powerful-person-music-business-people-never-even-head-name/
LAURA MULVEY
Her Male Gaze concept is very interesting and enlightening. It definitely puts a name to the objectification of women in TV and film through the years. As what Prof Sam said in lecture, film producers used to be all-male in the past, and their camera lens reflects what they see, as men. Thus the degrading representation of women in shows –– women as sex objects, women as damsels in distress, to be saved by male heroes. Even Superwoman, to me, is not a symbolism of girl power but an objectification of women. Why is Superwoman’s clothes so tight and why are her boobs so big? Again, the male gaze answers this.
Women representing a castration threat to man is sad but true. A woman’s lack of a phallus renders her powerless to the male, at many levels of society (in the workforce, in in the home, in life chances, in portrayals in literature, film and TV, etc). It’s a man’s world and it’s horrible. Of course I’m exaggerating but in the past, and in many aspects of society today, women are subject to a male-ordered society. (Women being denied an education in the past, suppressed women in the Middle East today, the glass ceiling in many modern Capitalist societies today, etc).
However, there are many positive and empowering representations of women in film and TV today, with the changing times, the rise of feminism and the emergence of female film and TV producers/directors/writers. Audrey’s example of The Hunger Games, as well as Hermione Granger in Harry Potter, attest to that.
I think it’s interesting to consider the “women in the audience” angle, as written in Mulvey’s Afterthoughts. How do women in the audience see things? Do they agree with the Male Gaze as well, and believe that they, as women, need to be ‘saved’ or ‘rescued’ by men? Of course, in some way, watching a film could be just following the film’s plot fully, without thinking too much about what it really means. In that case, women watching a film could agree fully that the male protagonist needs to swoop in to save the female. Think Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. She’s just a fragile princess waiting for her Prince Charming.
I think that the women in the audience are also considered, as film/TV producers need to create content that caters to females as well (for a wider profit, etc). Of course there are the portrayals of handsome, muscular, strong, courageous men in film, which again, emphasises the ‘goodness’, allure and power of the male. But on the other hand, in recent Korean Dramas and films, there are portrayals of the sensitive, soft-spoken male alongside the more brazen, loud-spoken female. There is, for instance, My Sassy Girl ( a film from Korea), where a man falls in love with this loud and brazen girl. And she abuses/manipulates him, yet he loves her all the more for her spirit. Of course, such shows are less common, but it shows that the male figure can be ‘degraded’ for a female audience as well.
MARY ANN DOANE
She talks about the representability of time via film and the ability to freeze images in time via photographs. There is a kind of ‘shock’ in film and photographs, as people never had the chance to freeze moving time before the advent of the camera. The magical ability to freeze time is amazing, and makes one wonder if the Aura is lost in frozen time.
Is cinematic time less authentic than ‘real’ time? I guess in terms of film and photo evidence, cinematic and photographic time can be rendered real and authentic, as it provides proof to what has happened in history. However, clearly, fictional film remains a work of fiction – a drama enacted by actors and producers. And of course, the essence of real time can only be felt by experiencing the moment in real time itself, and it can never be fully replaced by a photograph or film. That said, photos and film sometimes capture (and freeze) what the naked eye cannot. (For instance, an exact move of a sports player in the Olympic games.)
By capturing ‘real time’ and recording it, the film/photograph does empower viewers in the sense that they are able to see what their eyes have missed. They are able to do more and see more. But what’s the point of doing more and seeing more? For our entertainment? Or for us to become better, more efficient workers? Laura draws the link between the commodification of time (capturing it in photos, punchcards and film) and Capitalism (rationalised, standardised, rigid and time-based). Just like film allows us to “embrace enough things in a single glance”, the modern Internet and computer screens also allow us to see more things in one go.
I remember the advertisement for the recently released Windows 8, where many apps, weblinks and multiple small windows are shown on one screen. It’s tagline went in a song, with the singer saying: “I just wanted to see everything at once”. It was a TV advertisement. This is how we can see more things in one go, and how we could be more efficient and productive workers because of that. (eg: check more emails and do more research in one go.)
T.W. Adorno makes good arguments regarding the devalourizing of “good” and “serious” music. He argues that how such music is distributed to us, on radio channels, is cheapening such music’s musical character. If radio is the message, the message is that through it music becomes less serious – it is standardized, hence exists a commodity character. Recipients also begin to adopt ‘commodity listening’. In brief, other effects of standardization in radio music include the dulling of criticality, false choice, false consciousness, passivity and pseudo-individualism.
With our contemporary times however, I would like to disagree with Adorno. With globalization and postmodernism, there’s a birth of myriad niche music – genres and subgenres spanning from dubstep, ambient to post-rock, shoegaze etc, all streaming in variegated radio channels and podcasts – both online and offline. This shatters Adorno’s idea of the illusion of choice. Now, we can actually make a choice – to be discerning in our music consumption, that is palatable and tailored to our very niched taste.
The variety in music now is great. Although the popular hits will remain aired most dominantly and ubiquitously, my faith in music is restored due to independent/DIY music culture. Although being very low-key, existing in the periphery, the culture production, transmission and reception is well-aided by globalization and new media (e.g., an underground punk band in Sweden can have fans scattered everywhere around the globe through listenership on last.fm or Spotify, and getting band updates on their bandcamp, Facebook, tumblr).
With regards to film, Mary Ann Doane’s and Laura Mulvey’s are both very interesting reads. Doane takes the task of addressing modernity’s effects on notions of temporality, contingency, indexicality, chance, representation, history and subject. Positing film as representability of time, she elaborates how this time-based art (& medium) is the crucial, chief player in structuring of time during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Another important thing is to understand how cinema (and emergence of cinematic time) is “structurally necessary to the ideologies of capitalist modernization”. She gives good explanations on this i.e., Marx’s labour time, Weber’s efficiency of time, Taylor’s scientific management etc.
Laura Mulvey’s afterthoughts of her assigned essay queried on the feminization of the spectator position. During tutorial, we discussed on the emergence of the female gaze. With the rise of female directors/scriptwriters, in Hollywood, independent films, and also feminist pornography, women spectators can now have that controlling gaze. Also to note, with the acceptance of homosexuality in societies, there is a shift in masculinity and sexuality and its representations on cinema.
Hence the gaze is not homogeneous at all times and instances. It is not pertaining to just only female, male, or gay gaze in one sitting of a movie.
Mulvey’s vivid commentary on the power imbalance between men and women comes from her theory, the paradox of phallocentrism. Everything in a man’s power is in his penis, and everything the woman is subject to, is the fact that she is naturally “castrated” of the penis. The woman, in her weakness or lack, is precisely the source of the man’s authority, claims Mulvey. It makes perfect sense, because for one to be on top, someone else has to be at the bottom (no sexual pun intended).
This explains why women are only portrayed in relation to male protagonists and do not exist independently on screen. On film, the man tries to demystify the woman, punishes the woman if she transgresses, or saves the woman. In other words, the woman is merely a plot tool that drives the male protagonist.
What is interesting however, is her powerful rhetoric of the Male Gaze. Mulvey argues that audiences are subject to the Male Gaze, regardless of their sex. Women can experience the Male Gaze, as men do.
Although the conceptualisation of the Male Gaze came about in the 70s, we can still use a contemporary example to illustrate this. One of the best examples could be the portrayal of Megan Fox in Michael Bay’s Transformers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ch0Hu917CQ
Mulvey writes, “In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness.”
In the film, Fox is wearing an extra tight camisole and extremely short skirt. Her hair and skin are perfect – glossy and styled perfectly. She is blatantly, the object of looked-at-ness, as we see La Beouf’s character gazing at her from the car first – she exists, for him to watch.
Mulvey also writes that the woman is an erotic object for both the characters on screen and the audiences in the movie theatre.
In the first part of the clip, the audience holds the Male Gaze – we see a full-body shot of Megan Fox walking. After Fox gets out of the car and bends over at the bonnet, the Male Gaze shifts to La Beouf’s character. He gawks at her as she stretches and bends. A medium close up shows La Beouf’s character clearly aroused. And the next cut is a pan-up of Fox’s torso to her chest.
It is this seamless merging of the Male Gaze from audiences to characters that make it so powerful.
While Mulvey writes about the way males relate to the portrayal of male protagonists, I may suggest that women, on the other hand, feel the need to emulate the way the leading actresses dress and behave – to entice with their bodies and to feel fulfilled only if they have the quality of look-at-ness.
The Hunger Games may be lauded for its female-driven action and how the female protagonist constantly saves the male supporting characters, but it is observed that the woman’s ability (her physical strength, wits, charisma), is not exchanged for her look-at-ness. Her capabilities are actually added on to the basic criteria of her – which is her desirable looks. Before Katniss gets into any action, she first displays her beauty in the flaming dress.
Tomb Raider’s Lara Croft is self-explanatory.
Mulvey’s revolutionary theory sadly describes the media and its effect on gender relations in society until today.
This week’s readings discusses about the effects of cinema and radio and how it affects various spheres of life; namely, gender and capitalism.
Mulvey’s reading discusses how cinema production depends on female characters to generate viewing pleasure for men. This results in the Male Gaze, whereby the female character is the object of the gaze, while the male character is the one doing the gazing. Mulvey identifies two mechanisms that created the Male Gaze; scopophila and identification with the male character. Scopophilia refers to the pleasure derived when you gaze at someone without their knowledge; this is akin to voyeurism. At the same time, identification with the male character stems from the viewers’ needs from their Ego. Taking these two mechanisms together with the male gaze, it seems to imply that the mechanisms are gendered. This is evidenced by the usage of the camera, where it directs the viewer towards the female, inadvertently objectifying them in the process. Similarly, by creating a male character that viewers can identify with, the film is also constructing an active male character that is also gazing as well. Conversely, the female will be rendered passive, where she will be the object of the male character and the audience’s gaze.
On the other hand, Adorno’s article discusses about radio and its effect on music and consumers. He describes radio as a technology that promotes unidirectional transmission, where it allows producers to broadcast to its audiences without getting feedback. To Adorno, music was supposed to be a form of high culture, something to stimulate the human minds and critical thought. However, with the advent of the radio, music has become massified and commodified via mass communication. Such commodification may lead to standarisation, where the songs that sound the same are played across various channels. At the same time, the nature of radio and its unidirectionality denies the listener any agency, where he or she cannot choose what they want to listen to.
Finally, Doane talks about time being commodified. This is seen by the cutting of time up into discrete pieces and being represented in a material form. The phrase “time is money” comes into mind. Indeed, seen this way, time is rationalized, where everyone seeks to make use of the time that is available in the most efficient manner. Yet even as it is rationalized, it is contingent. We have no idea what is coming up next, what will happen in the next second. This is represented in film, where time is represented through the film form.
Theodor Adorno talks about the commoditization of production of music produced via the Radio. This is in accordance with his view that if you bring “good music” to the masses, it is no longer good music. It loses its “aura” ( as we have encountered in the works of Walter Benjamin). This is because radio provides us with a more casual attitude towards the profound sources of music. However, what Adorno points out to us is that the music itself loses its meaning but the mechanism by which it is distributed in this instance proffers greater meaning.
Doane highlights the rationalization of time that allows us to measure time. She further substantiates this using the example of Taylorization and the punchcard system – where if you screw up getting your card punched you would not get paid for that entire duration. However, she also postulates that as with contingency, indexicality and chance mediums such as photography allow for the unpredictable to be captured. This is because we usually do not know what is about to appear in front of us, but can be ready to capture it, nevertheless. It is crucial to note that modernity relies on these very notions of chance and rationalization and thus, by default, so does capitalism.
Mulvey provides a rather feminist approach to viewing films. She brings across notions like the pleasure in looking and scopophilia where the audience derives pleasure from looking (spectatorship). Scopophilia deals with subjecting the images on the screen to one’s gaze – especially via a male- gaze. This is seen in the “leg-up” framework that most scenes in films adopt in objectifying and projecting the females in them. It also brings forth the notion of voyeurism – we derive pleasure from gazing at things that we are not supposed to be, but we do so anyway with perverted intentions. Also, Scopophilia can occur within the film actor’s conscience as the characters themselves are gazing at one another – though this usually only happens because the woman has been identified as the subordinated figure. Moreover, the cinema facilitates scopophilia in a sense that the screen is all-encompassing. It engulf us – and leaves us little choice but to participate in the spectatorship.
This week’s reading centers around broadcast media and how it is distributed and received in society.
For Adorno, he focuses on the radio music and he is very critical about the distribution of music through the radio, to him, when a good piece of music is available to the masses, its value is cheapened and can no longer be considered good music. He notes that very often, studies tend to focus in the listeners but have neglected the extent to which the listeners’ attitudes reflect behavioral patterns and how they are conditioned by the structure of society. He goes on to talk about the commodification of music, where music has become a means instead of an end and is no longer a human force, rather, it is consumed like any other consumer good. Music has become mass produced, where all music programs on the radio are generally the same, as a result, consumers or listeners do not have the freedom of choice. But because of the lack of choice, the listener is made to think that he actually has a choice (for example, choosing which radio station to tune in to).
Doane’s focus is on the representability of time and how technology has allowed for the modern way of conceptualizing and representing time. With the rationalization and standardization of time, time has become a unit of measurement. Under capitalism, time is a measurement of one’s labor and time is money. Doane talks about the cinema and how it represent the contingent and gives us the ability to record a period of time, in other words, the cinema made archivable duration possible.
Similar to Doane, Mulvey’s work also centers on the cinema and talks about how the fascination of film is reinforced by pre-existing patterns of fascination already at work within the individual and the social formations that have moulded him. She talks about scopophilia, where there is pleasure derived from looking and being looked at. In a cinema, there is an obvious projection of the repressed desire on to the performer and the cinema satisfies the desire for having pleasure in looking. We see that the cinema perpetuates the dominant ideology in society that is patriarchal in nature, that female is passive and the male, active. The women is always subjected to the male gaze.
Mulvey talked about how the ideology of patriarchy is reflected in film. The woman is always portrayed as the Other, the object that the man looks at; she (passive) is always under the active male gaze. She exists in relation to the man and doesn’t have a voice of her own. Meaning is constructed by man, whose power is associated to masculinity. (Phallocentrism: the penis as a symbol, center of meaning – that which women lack)
She argued that the audience derive pleasure from Hollywood films’ presentation of the erotic. Again the patriarchal order is reflected – images of women. For instance, many films usually have erotic scenes even though they may not be integral to the flow of the storyline. The erotic is coded into the language of the dominant patriarchal order. Women are objects of sexual desire and it stems from the sexual difference – the absence of a penis. For instance, in films women (e.g. showgirls, strippers) may be portrayed as the weaker sex and is subjected to men’s whims and fancies. Through identification with the male character, the audience can indirectly possess the female character too.
In films, the audience get to satisfy the primal pleasure of looking at others as an object – voyeuristic scopophilia. This grants the one who gazes, power over the object being gazed at – illusion of looking at a private world. Narcissistic scopophilia is described identifying with characters in films, as representations of one’s self. Hence there is a tension between having the power to view characters in films as objects, while at the same time, imagining oneself as the character.
Adorno asserted that popular music in the present day functions as a commodity. The top songs that dominate the airwaves sometimes all originality, some sound alike, while others are heavily auto tuned. They are standardised and mass produced. For instance, the K-Pop industry frequently churns out many idol groups with vibrant images; every month quite a number of new groups enter the industry. Adorno argued that music has become a means to an end – profit maximisation for the industry. It no longer pushes people to think and reflect upon, instead, it has dulled criticality, since music is now mass consumed. On the other hand, I would think that this may not be true of all music. Many music artistes have ventured into songwriting/lyrics writing and oftentimes, their songs are reflective of certain social conditions – such as society’s obsession with materialism, the invisible poor of society etc. Yet, these songs may still be popular with the mass. What is mass, is not necessarily bad/mindless. Besides, with different media platforms, such as video channels like YouTube, Vimeo etc, the audience can always sought out the music they rather listen to. Radio is not the only channel they can obtain their music from. So I would argue that people do still have a choice. For instance, they can seek out the lesser known, “indie” songs instead of the Billboard Top 100 songs.
However, it cannot be assumed that the music conveyed to the largest possible audience, is what Adorno would regard as good music. However, what he considers good music, for instance classical music, Beethoven’s concertos etc, may not be what everyone enjoys. Just like art, music is subjective and different people have different interpretations atansy tribute different meaning to it. One’s emotions may also influence how much one likes/disliktwangs music. For example it may be a pop song may be about something superifical like going shopping – some may love it, others will hate it, some
may like it due to the emotions they attach to the song.
In addition, music should be situated in the cultural context and historical period it exists in. For instance, what is popular in this day and age, (e.g k-pop, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and Psy?), would definitely not have been popular in a different time period.
Adorno
Adorno is someone who believes that high art (fine art) is the only form of art which encourage critical thinking. Therefore, art which is mass produced, standardized and consumed by the masses would not be considered high art. In this piece of writing, Adorno criticised on radio music, he thinks that radio music is produced to manipulate the masses. As mass produced music encouraged passive listening and social domination. When music is consumed like a commodity, there will be standardization leading to the absence of original content. As such, the listener would just need to sit back and listen to that piece of music which is catchy to the ears that require no other actions from that individual.
Similarly, there is the lack of agency as one listens to the radio. The listener does not have any agency in deciding the contents of the radio programmes, the songs and contents are pre-determined by the radio station or the DJ. The only agency listeners have is to switch to other radio stations if the contents or songs are not to their liking. Furthermore, listening to radio and music is perceived to be a form of entertainment that requires no critical thinking as a result, listeners are passive and receives whatever is being produced. Therefore, standardization could take place where similar songs and contents are broadcasted across stations.
Mulvey
Her main argument in this reading would be that women are used to provide a visual pleasure to men in Hollywood narrative films. The cinematic gaze that women are placed under is masculine where women are always the object of the reifying gaze and not the bearers of it. As such, women are always portrayed besides men, and women are significant only in the interweaving of erotic pleasure in films. It is usually the men who get to be the heros and more emphasis is placed on the hero’s character development and the things he does. Women are insignificant especially in the genre of action films where it is the men who fight and have the most air-time. The role of women in such films is either to be the damsel in distress waiting to be saved by the hero or to be a form of distraction for the hero.
There are 2 ways in which Hollywood cinemas produce pleasure. The first involves the objectification of the image, and the second one the identification with it. Both mechanisms represent the mental desires of the male subject. The first form of pleasure relates to what Freud termed as scopophilia or the pleasure derived from subjecting someone to one’s gaze. The second form of pleasure other which operates alongside the scopophilia is the identification with the represented character which is brought about by needs stemming from the Freudian Ego. In both forms, women are just objects to be looked at in films.
Doane
Her reading addresses the origins of representability of time during the late 19th and early 20th century where time became increasingly reified, standardized, stabilized and rationalized. Because of capitalism and taylorism, time became commodified with the enforcement of rigid structure. Efficiency was valued which led to standardized procedures to carry out tasks in a routine manner. Hence, time became valued as it became a tool for individuals to be measured and rewarded.