Infernal Affairs? The Hollywoodisation of World Cinema

Martin Scorsese's 'The Departed' (2006) is an academy award winning crime film about the police and the Irish mob infiltrating each other with a mole.  What most people don't know is that The Departed is actually a remake of Hong Kong crime-thriller 'Infernal Affairs' (2002) directed by Andrew Lau and Alan Mak.  Both films are critically acclaimed, so why remake such a successful film so soon (only four years) after the original?  It's all part of the 'Hollywoodisation' (Klein, 2004) of taking foreign films and turning them into marketable American blockbusters.

The two movie posters here show that both films thrive on tension, but there are some elements in The Departed that are not part of Infernal Affairs, mainly the love triangle that develops as well as more emphasis on personal relationships.  







'The Departed' poster, courtesy of imdb.com                                   'Infernal Affairs' poster, courtesy of imdb.com


Klein says that eastern and western cinema are borrowing from each other (2004), and this is very much the case with these two films.  ‘These industries are becoming more closely integrated with on another, both materially and aesthetically’ (Klein 2004, p.360).  While the main plot is pretty much the same, the characters relationships and all the small details very much set each other apart.  The Departed focuses more on personal relationships, while Infernal Affairs is more into the action and the shootouts.  

Infernal Affairs trailer via youtube.com

The Departed trailer via youtube.com

Again the two trailers show that both cinema's are taking inspiration from each other, and this is showing just how important globalisation is for world cinema.  

References

Klein C. 2004, ‘Martial Arts and the Globalization of the US and Asian Film Industries’, comparative American studies, Sage publications, London, p360. 

Wiz Khalifa & Social Media

Wiz Khalifa is a hip hop artist who is highly active across a wide range of social media, mainly Twitter, Instagram and more recently, Vine.  Through these media formats, we get to see a much more personal and real account of Wiz and his life.  But before these networks existed, how did the public get to see the lives of the celebrities?  It was mainly through the stars being managed by publicists who had certain images they want their clients to be portrayed as.  But nowadays these publicists have much less control as the celebrities are embracing the rise of social media technologies.  

Wiz Khalifa on Instagram.  picture via instagram.com

Marshall (2010) describes the specular economy to be how the self is reconstituted through the screens of engagement and interactivity that serve to organize and shape our lives.  Instead of receiving celebrity information through the world of spin and public relations, these new media forms allow us to see the presentation of the celebrities as the way that they want to be seen, not the way their record label or management teams control.  And it seems that these celebrities want us to see them their own way, to see the real them, who they really are.  

An example of Wiz Khalifa's Vine profile.  Courtesy of youtube.com

As a user of social media myself, I find I follow mainly music artists whose music I really enjoy.  An example of this is fun loving, stoner rap hip hop artist Wiz Khalifa.  Wiz doesn't shy away from the fact that he loves smoking weed and drinking with friends.  This is clear in Wiz's twitter page and his almost daily Vine videos.  These new outlets let the people see who the artists really are, it gives them so much more freedom about their public persona.  

Wiz and his weed.  courtesy of instagram.com

Wiz and many other celbrities have been criticised for not being good role models and for not behaving the way a celebrity should.  The rise of the specular economy has allowed the celebrities the have the freedom to portray themselves however they want.  With instances like Wiz, this portrayal is the real Wiz Khalifa, the content comes straight from the source.  


References

Marshal, P.D (2010) ‘The Specular Economy’, Society, vol. 47, no. 6, pp. 498-502.

A Prime example of Females in Shooting Games

When asked to blog about a particular game, I couldn't go past one of my absolute favourites, Metroid Prime.  Released for the Nintendo Gamecube in 2002, the game tells the story of interstellar bounty hunter Samus Aran as she explores a distant planet known as Tallon IV to defeat the antagonistic Space Pirates and to discover what happened to the planet's indigenous population.  It is a science fiction first person shooter, but with a lot more emphasis on exploration and discovery rather than combat.  The only human character in the game is the protagonist controlled by the player.  Samus Aran is a female, and using Hall's research on encoding and decoding messages and the construct of meaning I'll analyse how Samus is represented, and if any gender stereotypes apply to her. 

Gameplay of Metroid Prime

Video courtesy of youtube.com

Metroid Prime isn't the first appearance of Samus Aran, but it is her first in a 3D game.  Samus is well known as being the first female main character in a video game, and the first to be in a shooter.  She set the trend for other female characters, the most well known are Lara Croft in the tomb raider series and Joanna Dark from the game Perfect Dark.  All these women follow a gender stereotype that has come to be for females in shooting games, they are all strong, independent and very attractive.

 


 Images from top going clockwise, 1. Joanna Dark, courtesy IGN.com, 2. Samus Aran courtesy deviantart.com and 3. Lara Croft, courtesy wikipedia.com


The representation of Samus as the strong, independant woman is a strong part of her character, but it also raises many questions about how the developers created this portrayal to display the stereotype.  Hall's concept of encoding and decoding delves into the ways in which the producers of content encode their stories with meaning, and then the ways in which the consumers then deduct and decode meaning from that encoded narrative (Hall, 1980, pp.55-58).  It is important to point out that the encoded meaning into a message is not necessarily the decoded message.   

The gender representation in Metroid Prime can be decoded in three ways:

Dominant - The audience agrees with the game, in this case the players would accept Samus to be a strong independent woman, and these players can relate to true real life examples of women like Samus.  

Negotiated - The audience agrees with some part of the game, in this case players would agree with some aspects of Samus' character but won't agree with others.  In this case it would be the idea of the male gaze does not follow the stereotype, as the player never see's Samus' complete body, only the full body armor.  

Oppositional - The audience disagrees with the game, the players would reject the stereotype of Samus as a female shooter.  

Samus Aran.  Courtesy giantbomb.com

To me personally, I play the game not because it contains an empowering female figure as its protagonist, but because of the exploration of the new planet and the gameplay itself.  But I can see why many find either empowerment in the character Samus, or the opposite feeling in that another video game female is simply another unrealistically attractive girl created by the male gaze.  

References

Hall, S 1980, ‘Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse’, Centre for Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham, England, pp. 55-58, accessed 12 Sept 2013

Politics & Twitter

Twitter has changed the way Australian politics can be discussed by the general population.  As Bruns and Burgess point out  'while the 2007 Australian federal election was notable for the use of social media by the Australian Labor Party in campaigning, the 2010 election took place in a media landscape in which social media (especially Twitter) had become much more embedded in both political journalism and independent political commentary' (2011, p.1).  2007 had the first online campaign with the whole 'Kevin 07' tagline, but it wasn't until 2010 and 2013 that we really saw the rise of the tweet.  

Twitter. Via twitter.com

Twitter allows anyone with an account to enter the political debate and encourages online participation.  Nowadays news programs all contain twitter hashtags, and there are none more prominant than Q and A on the ABC.  Throughout the program, the small bar on the bottom of the screen is constantly displaying tweets on the topics being discussed by the panel.  The public and the politcians can see what the people are thinking by viewing these tweets.  

Tony Jones on Q and A.  Via abc.com.au

Twitter also allowed the people to see how the politicians themselves represented themselves online.  Everyone remembers when Kevin Rudd posted his shaving selfie on instagram via his twitter, and Tony Abbotts twitter is filled with pictures on him on the campaign trail with his daughters.  It seems wherever we look during an election campaign, twitter is everywhere and inescapable.  



References

Bruns, A., Burgess, J., Highfield, T., and Nicolai, T. 2011 ‘Mapping the Australian Networked Public Sphere’, Social Science Computer Review, vol. 29, no. 3, pp. 277-287.