2. Structuralism
Culture is to be understood as a system of
signs (semiology)
Art forms are short hands based on our
cultural understandings, e.g. we can say
Western films will include cowboys and guns
and saloons
Accentuate how films convey meaning
through the use of code, e.g. bloody knife
suggests someone has been killed
3. Barthes
Enigma Code – element of mystery is portrayed,
to entice the audience and make them want to
know more, e.g. not giving clues to how the film
ends in a trailer
Pleasure of texts – knowing what will happen
before watching it and pleasure comes from
watching what we expected happen, however a
different pleasure comes from the unexpected,
e.g. a film looking like its going to turn out the way
we expected, and then something happen to
change the course of the film
4. Todorov
Theory of Narrative
Equilibrium – balance and harmony
Moment of disequilibrium – something bad
happens
Disequilibrium – struggle to deal with the
bad situation
New equilibrium – everything is resolved and
the equilibrium returns
5. The 4 C’s
Conflict – hero is challenged by an outside
force
Complication – hero’s efforts to get what
they want are thwarted (often 3 times)
Crisis – hero is overwhelmed by difficulties,
wants to give up
Climax – after not giving up, hero has one
last chance and succeeds
6. Carol Clover
Feminist theory
‘audience are structurally forced to identify with
resourceful surviving female rather than the villain’
Sadism – post-oedipal, attention switching from mother
to father (from submissive baby to self-motivated child)
Masochism – pre-oedipal, mother is powerful so as an
audience we take pleasure in identifying with the
female
Clover suggests we identify with the masochistic
voyeur – victim, rather than the sadistic voyeur - villain
7. Laura Mulvey
Feminist theory
Male gaze – female characters were there to
be looked at
Classic Hollywood protagonists were men
who the audience were encouraged to identify
with
8. Postmodernis
m
Knowingly doing the unexpected
Deliberately play with the genre’s conventions
Different to a parody
Rule of combination – when we loose it we
get bricolage (French for jumble), for
example Shaun of the Dead
