exam preparation

The Heavy Hitters: (most important theories/key terms)

• Ideology
• Intertextuality
• Semiotics
• Polysemic's
• Negotiation
• Hegemony (patriarchy)

DEMONSTRATE AN OPINION!!!

Knee jerk reaction? yes or ? but why?

Examples: 

1. "In the 21st century, it is essential for TV shows to offer multiple meanings?" - evaluate this claim with reference to Les Revenants.
2. What are the genre conventions of Les Revenants, how do they work, and how have they developed?

Question Plan:

Introduction (DAC) Definition, Argument, Context

Paragraphs (PEA) Point, Evidence, Argument

Question 2 Breakdown

Define Genre: 

• A way of categorising media texts.
• Conventions are the building blocks of genre.
• Genre allows producers to specifically target audiences.
• Steve Neale believes that genre is essentially instances of 'repetition and difference'.

Definition:

Genre is essential for both audiences and producers alike. It is a way of categorising media texts. This allows the audiences to identify what type od media product to select based on their own expectations and prior knowledge. Genre is also important to producers, as it allows them to specifically target audiences, and thus ensure profit. Conventions are the building blocks of genre, acting as a crucial signpost.

Argument:

Les Revenants takes a more challenging, subversive approach to genre convention. Rather than being categorised into one or two genres, it's a text that encompasses many - a fluid, post-modern drama that embodies genre hybridity, polysemy and the complexity of modern day media. In this response I will be discussing the genre conventions within the text, how they have been developed to work and change genre convention.

Context:

Point:

Las Revenants is encoded with meaning from a variety of genres, it forms a complex ideology that challenges genre convention. Arguably the text reflects both horror and supernatural genre conventions, it is an enigmatic drama that makes references to both French poetic realism and the avant-garde, as well as embodying iconography and paradigmatic features from the 'zombie' genre.

Evidence:

In the opening scene we are introduced to 'camille' through close-up on a bus, the non-diegetic music is sombre and emotive connoting the lyrical codes of French drama and poetic realism. As the bus crashes there is diegetic screams from inside the bus - reflecting horror conventions of death and mortality. Next, as the camera moves through the house there is a mid-shot of a butterfly, seemingly dead, breaking through the glass from which it is kept, reflecting paradigms from the supernatural/zombie genre. This opening uses hermeneutic code and is very polysemic, encompassing multiple meaning and genres.