Tuesday, 17 October 2017

Media Theories 3: Representation theories

Theorist: Stuart Hall

Theory: Representation theories

Year of Publish: 1997

The basic theory: Media Language (the way that the media is shown to the audience) is used to create representations.

How is this relevant to film trailers?:


When the various film companies present their audience with the film trailer, they want the audience to form pre-designed conclusions about each character. They create characters to be liked and rooted for, characters to pity and feel sorry for, characters to laugh at and find funny, and characters to fear. In order for these characters to be created in such a way the company will use different techniques: camerawork, mise-en-scene, sound and editing to present the various characters and locations in such a way as to make the audience believe what they want them to believe.

One example of this would be the way in which the Xenomorph Alien is represented in the trailers for Alien Covenant. As the Alien is going to be the film's primary monster, in order for Alien Covenant to be an effective Science-Fiction/Horror movie, it needs to be presented in a way that makes it appear to be terrifying. In actual fact, the Xenomorph Alien is just another predator hunting its prey, just like a Lion, Shark or Eagle. The way that its presented, however, would suggest otherwise to the audience and thus the audience is led to fearing this fictional species. At its most basic, the way that the Alien is designed: its quick acting second mouth, long limbs, sharp edges and black skin all go to make the Xenomorph Alien appear terrifying. The way that the creature operates also serves to make it appear more menacing: the fact that it often strikes from the shadows or inseminates victims through the facehugger subspecies in order to reproduce (okay, so few if any known predators actually do that one). And lastly, the fact that the Alien's primary source of food happens to be human, that naturally goes to make this creature appear to be more terrifying, who wouldn't be afraid of something whose primary goal would be to hunt down others like him/her. 













These elements that already go to make the Alien appear to be more terrifying are exemplified by the way in which it was portrayed during the advertising campaign for Alien Covenant. The best example   of this would be in the poster campaign the Alien had a tendency to be either the primary image or presented in a way that made it appear to be superior to the humans that it was hunting - and a superior threat is definitely something that should be feared.

Another example of the way in which Media Language is used to create representations is the advertising campaign for the Hobbit. In this instance the representation being created is the idea that a dangerous and potentially life threatening adventure is in actual fact an exciting prospect. We see in the trailer that Gandalf is trying to persuade Bilbo that a life of adventure outside of the safety and comfort of Bilbo's own home would be good for him and then introduces Bilbo to the dwarves with whom he will be travelling. In other words, Gandalf is more or less asking Bilbo to put his life in danger, forces Bilbo into a corner by giving him 13 dwarves to feed and then reprimands Bilbo who initially wants to say no. However, the trailer presents this in such a way that makes Gandalf's offer sound intriguing and Bilbo in the wrong for initially wanting to say no to the Grey wizard. Ordinarily, as human beings who like to defend our right to free will, we would be rooting for Bilbo in this situation as it is his free will that is effectively being violated, but through the power of Media Language which serves to put an altered representation on this given situation the audience will find itself rooting for Gandalf instead.

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