Globalization is the growing trend of distinct cultures from all over the world interacting with and influencing each other.  This trend has increased greatly with increased global immigration and has been greatly accelerated by the advent of the internet over the past twenty years.  Hybridization is one of the most positive results of increased globalization.  Hybridization is a condition in which two separate cultures converge in media to create a composite that shows characteristics of both cultures, but at the same time becomes a wholly new culture in itself.  

A current, relevant example of this growing trend of cultural hybridity in media is the 2008 Academy Award Best Picture winner, Slumdog Millionaire.  A British film adaptation of an Indian novel, Slumdog premiered at several Western film festivals to critical acclaim.  An American company, Fox Searchlight, bought the distributing rights to the film and brought it to wide release, where it became wildly financially successful.  This great success story was concluded with a remarkable awards season, in which the film swept the Oscars, Golden Globes, and BAFTA awards.  

Slumdog Millionaire tells the story of a poor young Indian man who miraculously finds his way onto the Indian game show equivalent of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" He does very well, and this leads to suspicion that he is somehow cheating.  He is arrested and questioned, and he explains through flashbacks the stories of how he learned the answers, at the same time telling the story of his quest to track down the girl he's loved since childhood.  

The film was written and directed by two British Caucasians, adapted from a novel by an Indian woman.  Most of the principal actors are either British or native Indians, some of whom were already established in the Bollywood film market.  All of the first-time child actors used in the flashbacks were native Indian slum children, who as a result of the film were relocated with their families to more prosperous environs.  

Aside from the cast and crew, there are stylistic and plot points that reveal Slumdog as a hybrid of different cultures.  The film is told both in English and in Hindi with English subtitles.  The main story line focuses on an Indian version of a very popular American TV game show, and example of "glocalization" within a hybrid film.  There is also a large, complex dance routine during the film's end credits, a direct reference to India's Bollywood movie culture.

The increase of Indian immigrants in Western countries in the past 20 years can definitely be pointed to as a contributing factor to Slumdog's creation and financial & critical success.  Indians are among the fastest growing minority groups in the United States and are the single largest individual minority in the United Kingdom.  In both of these countries, Indian immigrants and their children are having a marked impact on politics, economics, and culture.  The increasing use and prominence of the internet increases the connection these immigrants have with their native country, and also increases the exposure westerners have to a different culture.  

The Old Spice Phenomenon

In my opinion, Old Spice's current advertising campaign is particularly effective.  The ads use fast-paced witty humor and clever exaggeration, and have become something of a cultural phenomenon.  My friends and I will sometimes quote from the commercials; one of my friends has the whistled jingle from the end of the commercial as the ringtone on his phone, and another of my friends was "the man your man could smell like" for Halloween.  I picked two of my favorite commercials from the campaign as examples for this analysis.

The first commercial, entitled "Different Scents for Different Gents," shows a man in several different outfits, each being a prototypical male personality type: an athletic skier, a polished gentleman, and a manly weight lifter.  He talks about how he likes to be different types of men, and that Old Spice has a variety of scents to fit those desires (it sounds really lame when you have to describe it academically).  Regardless, the humor and memorability of the commercial are particularly powerful in creating a likable identity for the product.  

The second commercial, called "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like," is of a similar vein, yet it is more directed at a female audience.  With many rapid changes of sets and outfits, the man in the commercial speaks to the ladies watching, describing himself as the quintessential "perfect man," and asking them to compare him to their men.  He says essentially that even though your guy isn't perfect like him, he can still smell like that kind of guy.  This commercial is clever in that it singles out a female audience explicitly, yet it seeks to persuade a male audience indirectly by trying to convince guys that they'd be more attractive to women if they used Old Spice products, too.

I think that at the core of the Old Spice advertising campaign there is a great deal of sex appeal.  While there is a good amount of appeal to men's need/want to appear/be masculine, the end result of such in the mind of the male audience is the desire to be sexually attractive to the opposite sex.  In the first commercial, this is very cleverly introduced with the "because I'm a woman" joke.  By slipping a very attractive woman in at the end, the advertiser makes a tongue-in-cheek reference to typical sex appeal in advertising, while making a memorable joke.  This very efficiently gives the commercial two different appeal associations.

The second ad is also a different treatment of sex appeal.  While there are no women in the commercial itself, the fact that they are being spoken to by the man in the commercial is enough to make the association.  Male viewers perceive that this man is attractive to women, and the desired subconscious thought is that the viewers believe if they use Old Spice, they, too will be attractive to women.  The humorous aspect of the commercial is the method by which this idea of sex appeal is conveyed.

I think the clever way in which the new Old Spice ads convey their message is very effective.  The commercials themselves are so popular it dramatically increases the popularity of the products themselves.  I know that half-subconsciously I personally began using more Old Spice products since the new TV spots.

Narrative Structures - Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is another of my favorite movies, and it adheres pretty faithfully to the three-act narrative structure Dr. Ramirez-Berg talked about in class.

The first thirty minutes of the film introduce the main characters, Butch and Sundance, and set up the events that will trigger the movie-long conflict.  We learn that Butch and Sundance and their Hole-in-the-Wall Gang are planning to rob a scheduled train on its way through town, and on its way back.  They figure no one has done this before, and the people controlling the trains won't expect a second robbery and stock both full of money.  The first also act introduces another key character, Sundance's lover Etta Place.  The relationships between the three main characters are established in this act.

The second act begins with the second train robbery.  Not everything goes according to plan, as the gang uses too much dynamite on the safe and blows the train car and the money sky high.  Just as this happens, another train with a single car drives up on an adjacent track and stops.  Out of the car jumps a posse of six men on horses, and they come straight for the Gang: apparently the owners of the train were expecting something.  The whole gang flees, with a couple getting shot by the posse.  The team splits up, but the posse has a very good tracker: the entire group follows Butch and Sundance.  They are chased for days without rest.  Butch and Sundance are always ahead of the trackers, but despite their attempts to lose them, they can never throw the group from their trail.  Finally they reach the mountains, abandon their horses, and hole up in the canyon for a shoot-out.  Before anyone can fire a shot, though, Butch and Sundance escape by jumping into the mountain stream far below.  They make their way back to Etta's home, where they learn the group was hired to track and kill them by the owner of the trains they robbed.  They decide to leave the country and lie low, and convince Etta to come with them. The end of the second act is marked by a still montage of the group's trip to New York, en route to Bolivia.

The third act of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid finds Butch, Sundance, and Etta in Bolivia.  Soon after learning basic Spanish from Etta, the guys set about robbing banks again.  They earn a reputation as los banditos yanquis and soon become the most wanted men in Bolivia.  But just as they are beginning to enjoy their rich lifestyle, they find that the group that was hired to get them has finally tracked them down.  In an effort to outlast them, Butch and Sundance seek honest employment.  They get jobs as payroll guards for a mining company; unfortunately, that job doesn't last.  The first trip they make with their employer, they're ambushed by thieves on the way from the bank and their boss is shot.  They confront the bandits and shoot them all, retrieving the money.  But their boss is dead, and their stint in honest living is over.  Etta tries to convince them to find other ways of "going straight," but they can't bring themselves to try anything different.  Seeing that their actions can only lead to trouble, Etta makes the decision to head back to the U.S.  Butch and Sundance pull a couple more jobs, robbing trade routes through the jungle.  However, after stopping for lunch in a small town, they are identified and ambushed by the local police force.  Soon the entire Bolivian Army is outside the building they've sheltered themselves in.  They know there's no hope, so Butch and Sundance leap out of the building and open fire.  The last scene is a still shot of the pair firing, but the audio goes on and the viewer knows that they were both killed.  This unorthodox ending is where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid strays from the typical three-act formula:  the climax of the film is actually the final moment.  There is effectively no plot resolution, as the two title characters are dead. All viewers are left with is a nostalgic picture of them carrying on as they always had, whether there was hope or not.

The Graduate

One of my favorite movies is The Graduate with Dustin Hoffman, directed by Mike Nichols.  I love it because it's very ironically funny and it defines the generation that was coming to age in the 60s.  It also has some of the best cinematography you'll ever see, and that's why it's a perfect movie to analyze.

The opening scene is a close-up of the main character, Benjamin Braddock, who appears to be lost in thought.  The voice of an airplane pilot announces that the plane will be landing soon.  The camera then zooms out to show the entire cabin of the plane.  Benjamin is not interacting with anyone and the long shot symbolically isolates him from everone around him.  This shot sets the tone for the rest of the film, as Ben is uncertain about his future after college and doesn't want to take the conventional life his parents are encouraging.

Mike Nichols uses a water motif throughout the movie, and several scenes are set in Ben's family pool.  In one scene towards the middle of the film, the Braddock family's friends the Robinsons come for dinner while Ben is lounging in the pool.  Ben's father has already expressed his desire that Ben start applying for graduate school or get a job, instead of taking it easy for the summer.  In this scene, Ben is photographed from above on a raft, putting him in a position of weakness.  To emphasize this, the Braddocks and the Robinsons are shot from below, showing them in positions of power.  Mrs. Robinson, with whom Benjamin is having a secret affair, is photographed in the same way, alone.  She occupies this symbolic role throughout the film: proposing the affair in the first place, then blackmailing Ben with it, and then trying to keep Ben from seeing her daughter, with whom he falls in love.  

While Ben and Mrs. Robinson are having an affair, Mr. Robinson suggests to Ben that he take out their daughter Elaine, because he thinks they'd like each other.  Mrs. Robinson forbids it, but Ben has no choice when his parents hear about the idea.  On the date, Ben is rude to Elaine and takes her to a burlesque club in order to make her dislike him.  She gets very upset, and he weakens, apologizes, and takes her out for dinner.  They start talking and end up falling for each other.  Mrs. Robinson reveals the affair to her family, and Elaine goes back to Berkeley where she is attending college.  Ben follows her in an attempt to convince her to marry him.  When he first gets there she won't speak to him.  In one scene he chases a bus that she boards.  He's shown from the inside of the bus, very small and over her shoulder.  This high angle shot symbolically shows that Elaine wants nothing to do with Ben.  In the rest of the movie, Elaine softens and admits that she still has feelings for him.  However, her father comes to Berkeley, pulls her out of school, and plans a wedding for her to keep Ben away from her.  Ben discovers this and races to the church, but is too late.  He starts yelling to her from the balcony.  Elaine decides she's made a mistake and runs to him.  Bedlam erupts at the church with Elaine's new husband yelling at her, Mrs. Robinson slapping Elaine, and Mr. Robinson attacking Ben.  Ben and Elaine end up escaping the crowd and running to a bus.  The final scene on the bus shows Ben and Elaine, happy, sitting at the back of the crowded bus.  The final shot shows the two of them side-by-side, and is shot at eye level.  This symbolically shows the change that has taken place over the movie, with Elaine and Ben finding what they want, despite their parents' wishes.

The End

The Producers

One of the differences between modern Hollywood and the "Golden Age" of Studios that struck me most was the role of the producer.  In Classical Hollywood all the talent was under contract.  Directors, writers, and actors would be "attached" to films that had already been formulated by the executives of the studios.  This was a very top-down system in which producers came up with stories and characters, cast the larger roles themselves, and left the details to contract writers and directors.  Often the input of the producer was much more influential than the contribution of either the writer or director.

A film like Gone with the Wind is a perfect example of this.  Producer David O. Selznick came up with the idea to make a movie from Margaret Mitchell's best-selling novel and commissioned Sidney Howard to write the screenplay.  He managed the casting search himself and after a two-year struggle got Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable, his first choices as the stars of the movie.  During production, Selznick called all the shots: he fired the original cinematographer, replaced the director twice, and commissioned four additional writers to edit the original screenplay.  Being on contract, the contribution of the writers and directors paled in comparison to the control Selznick had over the picture.  He says this himself in a memo late in 1939:


"[Y]ou can say frankly that of the comparatively small amount of material in the picture which is not from the book, most is my own personally, and the only original lines of dialog which are not my own are a few from Sidney Howard and a few from Ben Hecht and a couple more from John Van Druten. Offhand I doubt that there are ten original words of [Oliver] Garrett's in the whole script. As to construction, this is about eighty per cent my own, and the rest divided between Jo Swerling and Sidney Howard, with Hecht having contributed materially to the construction of one sequence."


It's also useful to note that on the poster the title is preceded by "David O. Selznick's Production of..." and that Selznick's name is relatively prominent, smaller only than the names of the actors.


In modern Hollywood it's much more common for a writer to produce a screenplay and for a director to oversee the actual filming.  Often the role of the producer will be to attract the attention of a writer to a particular director, and vice-versa, or to attain funding for the project.  While the producer still has some input in the creation, they are more often in charge of the logistical aspects of production, largely leaving the creative aspect to the director. 

Mel Brooks's first film The Producers is a good example of this system.  Brooks wrote the script himself and pitched it to MGM to get it made.  After getting funding, Brooks personally directed the film.  The only significant creative contribution of the film's producer was to change the title.  Brooks's original title, Springtime for Hitler, was considered too controversial and was changed as a condition of the movie being released.  Brooks's personal style can be seen in this and all his subsequent films, despite being produced by several different people.  

Framing in Sports Media

A lot of the discussion of hegemony, agenda setting and framing in the textbook and during lecture was focused on news and information sources in media.  Something that's less discussed is the influence of these same factors on entertainment media.  I believe you can clearly see an agenda (political, social, etc.) in some entertainment programming, especially in sports media.

Framing of sports media can reveal a network's sport or regional bias, but sometimes it can even extend to a possible political bias.

Take for instance ESPN's reporting on the NCAA Basketball Tournament in 2009.  Once the bracket was released and it came time for people to make their picks, stories came up on ESPN.com about newly elected President Barack Obama's personal tournament bracket.  Apparently the Administration hosted an event at the White House, with many sports journalists in attendance, to witness the President making his tournament picks.  There was much in-depth discussion with the President on his individual picks: why he chose certain upsets, what players he liked to make a difference, whether his picks were politically motivated, etc.  There was a very playful, light-hearted atmosphere about the whole thing.  The article on ESPN.com printed out to five pages with photos and an eleven minute embedded video.

A gushing online ABC News article this year chronicled "hoopster-in-chief" Obama's picks for the 2010 NCAA Tournament at a similar event.  A three-page story (+ embedded video) described the President as "[taking] a little time out" from "perhaps the most critical week of his presidency."  I even remember, when top-seed Kansas lost to Northern Iowa, the SportsCenter lead-in following a commerical break: "The President's pick to win it all, upset in the second round..."

All this coverage struck me as strange because I couldn't, for the life of me, remember a media frenzy over President Bush's tournament bracket.  Maybe, if he did make a bracket, he didn't feel the need for the press to come watch him do it personally.  Maybe that wasn't a priority for him.  I just found it odd that a sitting president could host a media event during self-admitted very difficult times for the country, without so much as a raised eyebrow from a journalist.  Bush certainly couldn't have got away with it if he'd tried.

So why would ESPN and ABC (sister companies owned by Disney) feel the need to extensively report on the President's brackets?  Perhaps the editors and producers found Barack Obama more personally likable than his predecessor.  Maybe it was an attempt to connect President Obama more with the people of America, to show him as an everyman much like the rest of us.  Maybe it was meant as a diversion, reminding voters what they loved about him in the first place, and trying to distract them from his actual policy decisions.  It's not easy to find out what their motivations were, but they clearly reported on it all for a reason.  Maybe we'll never know.

"Presidential pick 'em at the White House"
'Barack-Etology': President Obama Picks Kansas to Win NCAA Tournament
"Barack-Etology 2010"

First Post

I'm taking RTF 305 for a couple of reasons.  I'm an architecture major in my fourth year (of five), but I've always been interested in film, and I decided (a little late in the game) to take more classes relevant to film and the related business, to try and see if I'd like to start a career in film.  This course is also a prerequisite for the communications school's Semester in Los Angeles program, which I'm applying to attend one semester in my fifth year.