Quest, Bureaucracy, Conspiracy, and Soap in Dave

Politics as portrayed in popular culture is often dramatized in order to present the story to the audience in a way they will find interesting and relate to their own lives and experiences. There are four basic expressions of plots in politics: quest, bureaucracy, conspiracy, and soap (Van Zoonan, 2005). While quest and soap are generally considered positive portrayals and bureaucracy and conspiracy are more negative, some combination of the plot expressions is usually present in any pop culture representation of politics. In some cases, all four might be present to create the story, as is the case with the 1993 film Dave. A Hollywood classic the film probably is not, but it still serves as a good example of the four expressions of plot in politics, which this blog entry will discuss.

Quest, Conspiracy, and Soap in Dave

Watching the film’s theatrical trailer, the audience can quickly pick up on at least three of the four expressions of plot.

Dave Theatrical Trailer

First is the quest, which shows the subject – in this case Dave, as played by Kevin Kline – as following some certain path or chain of events to arrive at the political position the person holds. In this case, Dave is known as a look-alike performer impersonating the president of the United States. Through a crazy turn of events, including the actual president dying during sex with one of his aides, Dave is chosen to take the president’s place. Coming from a modest life as the manager of a temp agency, the plot becomes a version of the Horatio Alger myth. From the opening line in the trailer: “Dave Kovic was an ordinary guy,” to the joy Dave gets from throwing out the first pitch at a baseball game – how American – to the line “In a country where anyone can become president,” Dave is portrayed as coming from humble origins and ending up as leader of the free world – perhaps the ultimate quest.

It is this same situation which presents an excellent example of conspiracy. Although it is used as a point of humor in this particular film, presenting the thought of a stand-in taking the place of the president of the United States is somewhat unsettling to the audience. While it may not be extremely believable, it opens the door to questions of what may be done in such a case. It seems plausible the government could pass off a version of the truth as the absolute truth to the American public, and with claims of weapons of mass destruction still ringing in the ears of many Americans, films like Dave seem to reaffirm the possibility of such events.

Also present in this clip is the expression of soap, especially through the dramatized relationship between Dave and the actual president’s wife Ellen, played by Sigourney Weaver. While the clip only hints at the developing relationship, a major plot point of the film is the love story between Dave and Ellen. The soap standard of the married woman finding love with another man is presented in this case, although with the little twist that her actual husband is dead. If he were to come back to life, this exact story could appear on Days of Our Lives any day. The personal touches from the characters also contribute to the soap feel, as when Dave invites a friend to the White House in order to help him balance the federal budget. The relatability of the Dave character lends to the soap feel, where personal relationships drive the action and private life has a great effect on public, political life.

Bureaucracy in Dave



While the trailer has hints of bureaucracy – the line in which Dave asks about the legality of him filling in for the president comes to mind – this clip is a more blatant example. Representing the everyman, Dave attempts to cut right to the chase and tell the secretary of commerce to cut a program and save the government a quick $47 million. This is the exact way the average American would deal with the situation, but the secretary of commerce in the film is taken aback by Dave’s forthright request, as bureaucracy would prevent such action. The processes, the give and take of politics is dramatized through plot points like this one, in which the average person becomes frustrated with the complexity of politics and would rather take a quick and decisive action.

While future film students will likely not look to Dave as the pinnacle of politics in film, it presents very relatable examples quest, bureaucracy, conspiracy, and soap. And in the end, everyone enjoys a simple story with a relatable character making something of himself – or herself of course – and finding happiness in the process.

Film Noir: How the Genre Reflects Post-WWII Unease with Gender Roles

In the years surrounding World War II, American society went through a gender role crisis. Men went off to war and women were asked to take on the traditionally male roles in the work force. Somewhat surprisingly, Rosie the Riveter was generally accepted and women experienced a surge of independence and personal freedom. When the men came back from war, however, Rosie was asked to turn in her rivets, don her apron, and head back to the kitchen. This was a turning point in American culture, the first time on such a broad scale when gender roles were seriously questioned and did not slip back into familiar old patterns. “Arguably, World War II altered gender relations in the United States more than any other event of the twentieth century” (Benshoff & Griffin, 2009, p. 267). And it should come as no surprise, after a semester’s worth of studies, that Hollywood reflected this questioning of gender roles in its own way.

The film noir genre of movie making developed in Hollywood during and after World War II in response to the shifting gender roles. This entry will define a few concepts in film noir and look first at how the genre’s form and content reflect the unease of the times. The entry will conclude with a brief look at gender roles presented in film noir, including an apparent example of homosexuality, all while using John Huston’s classic The Maltese Falcon as the backdrop for discussion.

Film Noir: Content

“Nowhere are the worries about postwar gender relations more overtly expressed that in a spate of films that would become known as film noir, so named because of their dark stories and even darker settings (‘noir’ is French for black)” (Benshoff & Griffin, 2009, p. 270). Film noir presented stories of underhanded schemes, gritty urban life, living outside the law, and taking justice into your own hands. A classic example of film noir is John Huston’s 1941 film The Maltese Falcon.



The form – “how the content is expressed” (Benshoff & Griffin, 2009, p. 3) – of the film is very evident from the trailer. The opening seconds of the trailer are of Sydney Greenstreet giving a brief intro of the story, but all the audience can see is his head and the visible white shirt he is wearing. The rest of the frame is shrouded in darkness, which is a common technique in film noir. The darkness and shadows reflect the gritty feel of the urban setting, as well as the mystery and uncertainty the audience feels about the characters, both their personalities and their gender roles. Much of the film takes place during nighttime, which lends again to the dark and ominous feel of the film. In addition, the camera angle is often low and looking up, suggesting a feeling of helplessness and inferiority. Americans were struggling to find traditional male and female roles in society post-WWII, and the dark and mysterious happenings in film noir pictures provided the Hollywood counterpoint.

Film Noir: Content

Humphrey Bogart’s Sam Spade is the male protagonist in The Maltese Falcon, but the audience is never certain if he’s, for lack of better terms, a “good guy” or a “bad guy.” The moral ambiguity shines through in Spade’s choice to look after himself first and foremost, making sure he gets the most money for finding the treasured Maltese falcon and being fairly heavy-handed with Mary Astor’s character of Brigid O’Shaughnessy. This departure from the traditional Hollywood leading man reflected the crisis of masculinity in America, with men struggling to find their place.

O’Shaughnessy also seems to be playing two roles, one as the innocent female trapped in the middle of the hunt for the Maltese falcon, and the other as a major player in the underhanded schemes to gain the wealth of the falcon for herself. These character traits also represent the backlash in America at the time regarding the American Dream of wealth and success. While some films of the era tried to represent the conventional views of capitalism and material wealth a la the Horatio Alger myth as success, film noir presented the counterpoint: underhanded schemes to get wealth. Those schemes would often backfire and leave the characters in ruin, as eventually happens in The Maltese Falcon.



Film Noir: Gender Roles

A quick review of the trailer for The Maltese Falcon shows a departure from traditional male and female gender roles. As has already been mentioned, Sam Spade is a dark character, keeping himself as the constant priority, engaging in underhanded deals, and filling the now stereotypical role of jaded private detective with nothing to lose. Brigid O’Shaughnessy is a progressive role in that she uses her feminine charm to manipulate men. That may not sound progressive, but in terms of 1941 cinema, for a female character to do such things seems ahead of its time cinematically. O’Shaughnessy plays to Spade’s – and the audience’s – sympathy with her emotion, but Spade – and the audience, of course – learn in the end *SPOILER ALERT* that O’Shaughnessy was behind the scheme of the Maltese falcon all along.

One final note on homosexuality in The Maltese Falcon. Peter Lorre’s character of Joel Cairo is an excellent example of the pansy character, “…visual gender code to construct male homosexuals as effeminate (and thus ‘failed’) men, a stereotype that became known as the pansy character” (Benshoff & Griffin, 2009, p. 312). The following clip illustrates Cairo’s effeminate nature and hints at a relationship between he and Sydney Greenstreet’s character of Casper Gutman.



All in all, The Maltese Falcon is a great representation of how film noir, through form, content, and gender representations, reflected the gender role upheaval of post-World War II America.

"Titanic" as a Representative American Film

In 1997, there was no bigger film than Titanic. Winner of 11 Academy Awards. Box office totals of $600 million in the United States and almost $2 billion worldwide. Cemented stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as authentic, bankable Hollywood actors. And all of this from a three-hour film in which the entire audience knows the ending. There must have been something about the story and the characters that drew the audiences in and kept them coming back.

Titanic plays on some of America’s best-known and most accepted film techniques. First, the story is a great example of the modern-day Horatio Alger myth, named after Horatio Alger and his dime novels (p. 174) which “…recounted the exploits of street urchins who rose to the top levels of society, often with the charitable aid of a kindly benefactor” (p. 174).

On a related note, the film has conflicting representations of the nostalgic Hollywood blockbuster, a film technique that hit its stride throughout the last 30 years of the twentieth century. This occurred when “Films in America went from being subtly critical of the dominant ideology to gung-ho celebration of white patriarchal capitalism…” (p. 198).

Finally, the film provides a fairly standard commentary on class representation, especially in the resurgence of the classical Hollywood narrative, of which Titanic is a good example. The film’s love story plays out against an economic class divide, but the film “places class division safely in the 1910s” (p.203), so the audience can internally deny such relationships could actually exist in present-day America.

Titanic as a Nostalgic Hollywood Blockbuster

Really, the trailer says it all:



The trailer begins by focusing on the Heart of the Ocean diamond and, looking back, it seems as though the movie will be focused on the hunt for this treasure and the resulting fame and fortune. What better way to represent the “gung-ho celebration of white patriarchal capitalism” than to have a team of white, American researchers hunting for treasure? The back story of the film represents the same viewpoints in some ways, as all the first class passengers are seemingly American or British, while third class is made up of all different accents and apparent ethnic backgrounds.

However, the film takes a turn and tries to represent the underdog, Jack – serving as the story’s “street urchin” – and his unlikely quest for love. The object of his affection, Rose, is wealthier and from a different world, to use the cliché. Their romance is frowned upon by Rose’s mother and most of the other first class passengers, while Jack’s friends in third class dismiss the idea as impossible.

While these messages perpetuate the nostalgic Hollywood blockbuster ideals, the film makes the ultimate claim that true love conquers all, as Rose leaves the wealth and security of her fiancé Cal in order to follow her heart with Jack. The story turns out to be an Horatio Alger myth in true form, showing Jack as the poor but honest – therefore loveable – hero after his true love.

The film even goes so far as to provide the audience with the stereotyped class representation of the economically poor character of Jack being invited to dine with Rose and the wealthy first class passengers, only to find Jack perplexed at the idea of more than one spoon and fork at the place setting. After the dinner, Jack invites Rose to a “real party” in third class, and Rose’s ability to drink and smoke with Jack’s friends is made into a point of humor.



It’s interesting to note that a film with such an uplifting message – true love can conquer all – must use so many stereotypes and clichés regarding class and economic status to accomplish that goal.

Horatio Alger Myth in Action

While the traditional Horatio Alger myth deals more with financial rewards and success, Titanic offers a more romantic version of the standard story. After teasing the audience with a number of “will they or won’t they” scenarios, director James Cameron finally lets the audience know where the love story is going. Both Jack and Rose are “urchins” in their own right: Jack as the poor underdog who wins the girl, and Rose as the girl being forced to marry someone she doesn’t love but instead choosing to follow her heart.



Yes, it’s cheesy. And yes, it’s melodramatic. But it’s a formula that works, as apparent by Titanic's box office sales and Academy Award wins. While the film presents such a positive emotional message, it also reinforces a number of class stereotypes and uses them as plot points that are easily accepted by the audience based on the universality of the ideas: namely, relationships between people of different classes are forbidden, looked down upon, and will ultimately end in tragedy.

It’s an old Hollywood formula, but one that has proven successful and shows no signs of letting go.

How Elements of Film Create Suspense in "The Birds"

Watching a Hollywood film is a unique, subjective experience, with potentially every member of the audience perceiving the film and its components in a different way and analyzing the story based on their own experiences. People also watch and enjoy different movies for different reasons: to laugh, to cry, to think, to be scared – or maybe all of that in the same film.

One of the giants in 20th century filmmaking is Alfred Hitchcock, who could weave all those elements – humor, emotion, thoughtfulness, terror – into one superb film. He was certainly a master of suspense, however, and this post will look at the way he creates those feelings of tension and ultimately terror through visual design, cinematography and editing, and sound design in one of his best-known films, The Birds.

Concepts

To begin, a few definitions from Benshoff and Griffin’s book America on Film. Visual design is defined as “the choice of sets, costumes, makeup, lighting, color, and actors’ performances and arrangement before the camera” (p. 4).

Cinematography is “how the camera records the visual elements…things like the choice of framing, lenses, camera angle, camera movement, what is in focus and what is not” (p. 4), while editing “refers to how all the individual shots the camera records are put together in order to create meaning or tell a story” (p.4).

Finally, sound design is fairly self-explanatory. Benshoff and Griffin define it in terms of dialogue and musical soundtracks, but as these clips will show, the absence of those elements can create even more intense emotional reactions from the audience.

Elements of Suspense

In this clip from The Birds, Melanie Daniels, played by Tippi Hedren, is waiting outside the school in the small town of Bodega Bay to pick up a girl, the younger sister of the man she is visiting. For no apparent reason, the birds have recently become aggressive toward people, and a full-scale bird attack seems imminent. Melanie hopes to pick up the young girl and get her out of harm’s way, but as the scene plays out, Hitchcock builds the suspense as if to say there’s no way to avoid the birds.

The Birds Gather

















The scene’s visual design is simple, with Melanie in the foreground and the apparent focus of the scene. She sits on a bench in the bright light of day, not a cloud in the sky, and the audience should be lulled into a sense of calm for the time being. But in a textbook case of irony, the audience sees a few birds beginning to land behind Melanie, while she does not notice. With her perfect hair and stylish outfit, Melanie seems out of place and the birds soon become the dominant characters, black figures perched ominously on the jungle gym as if they’re ready to strike.

The cinematography and editing are also simple and straightforward, which is potentially why the two elements are so effective. The scene begins with Melanie in the foreground, at eye level, and one bird seems to land harmlessly enough on the jungle gym behind her. But in a horror film entitled The Birds, the audience knows this is hardly harmless and the suspense begins. As Melanie smokes to steady her nerves, the camera cuts back to the jungle gym briefly to show a few more birds have landed, and the suspense grows with each feather. This continues for a bit, and then the camera moves to a closer shot of Melanie’s face. She looks worried and keeps checking over her shoulder, waiting for the children to finish what they’re doing inside the school so she can rescue her friend’s sister and return her safely home. Then Melanie’s eye catches a single bird in the sky. The next shot goes to that single bird and the audience sees the scene through Melanie’s eyes, transporting them directly into the film. The camera follows the bird as it descends to its perch on the jungle gym, and the audience is hit with a feeling of dread when the number of birds has suddenly jumped enormously without Melanie – or the audience – knowing. The technique is as simple as letting the audience view the scene through the character’s point of view, but in this case it is devastatingly effective.

The sound design in this scene, and the entire film, for that matter, is ingenious. Hitchcock chose not to use any musical soundtrack at all, but rather to opt for sounds of the birds or silence. This scene features the only music in the film, the off-screen sound of the schoolchildren singing. The song itself is harmless enough, but it somehow lends a melancholy backdrop to the scene. Perhaps it’s because the birds don’t make a sound, which is eerie for such a large number of them, and the audience is startled when so many creatures are then revealed with no warning. Whatever the case, the audience reaction is almost always the same: surprise, dread, and a sneaking suspicion that those birds aren’t just in the scene as set decoration.

And just so you’re not left in suspense, that attack certainly does come.

The Attack


This scene could make another interesting study in relation to these elements of film – the fact that Melanie is claustrophobically trapped in a phone booth during nearly the entire scene is enough to make me squirm, let alone the swarm of birds. Undisputable, however, is how these two clips show Alfred Hitchcock’s masterful use of simple elements of visual design, cinematography and editing, and sound design to create the suspenseful masterpiece that is The Birds.

Gender Representations on ER

Popular culture has been a part of society as long as some society has existed, and it is interesting to think what kinds of things have come and gone in the pop culture sphere. Monteverdi and Shakespeare might not have the overt popularity they once had, but I would be willing to bet Flavor of Love or The Girls Next Door would not translate very well to the 1500s.

Even within the last 50 years, however, the look of popular culture has changed dramatically, maybe no more so than in the area of gender representation in the media, which I will examine in this entry. First, I will look at changing gender roles on television, especially in a work setting. Next, I will point out some complex, nuanced characteristics of the gender roles represented on television today. Finally, I will consider the effects of the popularity of ensemble casts and how they impact current media offerings in addition to future projects. And I will point out all these gender role details through clips of one of my favorite television shows, ER.

Changing Gender Roles

In regards to gender in the fictional workplace of a television series, Gauntlett first discusses past representations, describing 1970s TV as a place in which “Female characters were unlikely to work…” (p. 47). He goes on to discuss characteristics of a successful career and how women in 1970s TV lacked them, saying “…women were more frequently shown as weak, ineffectual, victimized, supportive, laughable, or ‘merely token females’” (p. 47). In the chapter on gender representations today, he states “Men and women are seen working side by side, as equals, in the hospitals, schools, and police stations of television-land” (p. 62). Or even in some cases, as this ER clip shows, with women as the leaders.



In the opening scene before the credits play, we see Dr. Susan Lewis (Sherry Stringfield) in the dominant role in the emergency room. In fact, before Dr. John Carter (Noah Wyle) enters the room, the entire medical team working on the patient is female. Not only are they all female, but they are working on a male, African-American patient. This scenario would have hardly played out in real life a few decades before, but now is prominently featured in a hit TV show. This lends credence to the fact that television mirrors current trends of women becoming more accepted in traditionally male roles.

A short note about the scene following the credits. We get a glimpse of Dr. Kerry Weaver (Laura Innes) as the chief of emergency medicine. It is interesting to see her discussing hospital issues with a male subordinate, Dr. Mark Greene (Anthony Edwards). Again, this would have been extremely uncommon even in actual hospital settings in previous decades, but ER – and television in general – parallels real-life trends of changing gender roles.

Complex Representations

Gauntlett offers a number of studies showing the trend of equality in male and female roles on television and ends the chapter with a short summary, saying, “Representations of gender today are more complex, and less stereotyped, than in the past. Women and men are generally equals in the worlds of today’s TV and movies, although male characters are still often to the fore” (p. 97).
In the following clip, the ER staff learns of the death of Dr. Greene, which invites a look at the complexity of the characters.



Rather than portray traditional gender roles, the characters almost engage in a role reversal. Dr. Carter becomes visibly emotional at least two times when reading the letter about Dr. Greene’s death, showing how a traditionally feminine characteristic – openly showing emotions – is more common and accepted among males in society. Dr. Lewis, on the other hand, is obviously upset but at no point shows as much emotion as Dr. Carter, adding to the gender role reversal. In keeping with Gauntlett’s observation of male characters often still at the forefront of the story, it is male Dr. Carter who reads the news. But as the episode continues, each character – males and females – has his or her moment of grief while thinking back on Dr. Greene's life. This self-reflection by the characters shows the depth and complexity of their fictional personalities in a way many programs in previous years had not.

By the Numbers

Finally, I will mention a simple quantitative observation in the fashion of Gauntlett’s relaying of information regarding male to female ratios in television. The most recent study he cites, dated 2006, claims “61 percent of characters were male, and 39 percent were female” (p. 64). While I did not count every speaking role in the two clips from ER, I did take notice of the males and females named in the opening credits. The first clip features four males and four females in the opening sequence, while the second clip showcases five males and five females. This equal representation in the ensemble cast shows the changing trend in television programs. Television shows like ER, Lost, How I Met Your Mother, The Office, 30 Rock, and nearly every other current popular program features the ensemble cast of different but equal gender roles. This is obviously a popular formula that continues to bring the networks success and reflects gender equality to the audience: society at large.

However, television popularity is cyclical – much like societal trends in real life –and will no doubt eventually move on from the ensemble cast. Until then, media and gender scholars have interesting situations in which to observe male and female roles and their relation to society.