The worldwide appeal of US media; representation (introduction)

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The worldwide appeal of US media representation
(introduction)

• November 8, 2006

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Gitlins Media Unlimited

• Core arguments
• Media engagement IS our lives
• We are caught up in a flowor torrentof media
  images
• The flow is global
• And it emanates from the US
• But why?beyond the obvious economic answers

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American popular culture

• A global lingua franca
• It hasnt wiped out indigenous cultures
• But it co-exists alongside them
• Thus, around the world, peopleespecially young
  peopleare bicultural
• The global semi-culture

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Whats the appeal?

• A loose sort of social membership that requires
  little but a momentary (and monetary) surrender
• Sampling American goods, images, and sounds,
  they affiliate with an empire of informality
• Consuming a commodity, wearing a slogan or a
  logo, you affiliate with disaffiliation
• What does this mean?

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A limited-liability connection

• You just borrow some of the effervescence of
  the American ethos
• You hope to be recognized as one of the elect
• That is, at no big cost to you, you get to
  borrow Americanness
• And its various associations
• What are those associations?

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The supply side

• Percentage of US-produced media products non-US
  revenues (in 2000)
• Theatrical movie releases 51
• TV shows 41
• Videos 27
• As weve seen, once enough copies are made for
  the huge US market, additional copies for non-US
  market are cheap to make

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But this isnt a new phenomenon

• 1925 90 of movies shown in UK, NZ, Australia,
  Brazil, Mexico, and many other countries were
  US-made films
• Percentages dropped in the 1930s
• But European devastation of WW2 made it harder
  for Europe to recover its popular culture
  industries
• So US swept in again

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The non-US side of supply side

• More than ever, non-US music, TV shows, movies,
  etc
• Reflect US influence, are built on US formulas
• Westerns, hip-hop, action heroes, soap operas
• Why?
• US formulas are proven successes

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But the supply side doesnt tell the whole
story!

• This is Gitlins key argument
• To understand success of US pop culture around
  the world, we must look at the demand side
• Why do non-US audiences want/love US pop cultural
  products?

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Put another way

• What is it about US pop-cultural products that
  resonates so strongly with non-US audiences (as
  well as US)?

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Some of Gitlins explanations

• Our own culture is in fact multi-cultural,
  multi-lingual
• US is a melting pot
• Still highly heterogeneous
• To be successful here, our pop-culture products
  have to speak to a wildly diverse population

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So-called US culture is itself multicultural

• Our most popular music and dance
• Derives from descendants of African slaves, among
  others
• Our comic sense
• Derives from the English, Eastern European Jews,
  African Americans, Hispanics
• Our stories
• From everywhere

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US culture is populist

• Unlike in Western Europe, popular culture in US
  never had to compete against entrenched high
  culture
• Unlike in Western Europe, producing music, art,
  stories, etc. purely to entertain was never
  considered bad or low
• Culture as entertainmentas funwas never
  seriously looked down upon

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And now

• With English (esp. American English) as the
  worlds most popular second language
• It is the language of business
• It is the language of media
• But much of US pop culture is not language-based
• It is visual-image-based
• And visual images translate even easier than
  language (think action movies)

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Why else does American pop culture export so
easily?

• Much of it is NOT American in origin
• Consider recent Disney films
• Little Mermaid Denmark
• Lion King Africa
• Mulan China
• Beauty and the Beast France
• Aladdin Arabia
• Pinocchio Italy

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How American are our directors and stars?

• Alfred Hitchcock, Charlie Chaplin, Michael
  Curtiz, Ridley Scott, Ang Lee
• Cary Grant, Sean Connery, Arnold Schwarzenegger,
  Kate Winslet, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Antonio
  Banderas

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How American are our movies locations?

• Star Wars, Alien, Star Trek
• Jurassic Park, Planet of the Apes, Terminator
• Titanic, The Perfect Storm
• Mission Impossible

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Gitlins 3 formulas

• Many US movie and TV genres/formulas that have
  succeeded globally
• Cop stories, horror films, ensemble melodramas,
  beach movies, romantic comedies, soap operas,
  sci-fi, spy films
• But 3 in particular are at the core of
  Hollywoods global appeal
• Westerns, action movies, and cartoons

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Where is this? (what is the name of this place?)
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Same place, different photo
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One more time
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And another
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Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park

• Straddles the Utah/Arizona state line
• Has become iconic of Western moviesand the
  American West more generallythanks largely to
  director John Ford
• But where else do you see these famous
  monuments?

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Westerns core narrative and thematic elements

• Mix of primitivism, romance, individualism,
  patriotism, moral purity, civilization taming
  wilderness
• Hero
• outsider without a past
• plainspoken skeptic
• straight-shooter who sees through pretense
• friend of the downtrodden

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The eternal appeal of Westerns

• News reports and novels in US since 17th century
• Buffalo Bill Cody (1880s-1910s) performs for
  pope, Queen Victoria, packed houses in Europe

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Earliest days of film and TV

• The Great Train Robbery (1903)
• 20 of US films1910 17 in 1931-35
• TV in 1959 Westerns are 24 of prime-time
  offerings
• Consistently among top-rated shows through early
  1970s
• So where are Westerns today?

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Westerns today

• Dirty Harry, Star Wars, Blade Runner
• 60 Minutes (and other investigative TV
  journalism)
• Good guy breezes into town, uncovers evil,
  defends the community
• Urban action movies, TV cop showsthe Westerns
  of today
• Dangerous frontiers saved by brave, independent
  loners from outside

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Why wouldnt this capture imaginations worldwide?

• The rugged individualist in service of the
  community
• The person who reinvents himself (or herself)
• The hero who masters the wilderness

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Or, similarly, the road movie

• Hero flees community
• Roots are traps
• Re-invent yourself (or find yourself) as you go
  along
• Born to be wild

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Action movies

• Variety of sub-genres
• Rogue cop adventure, Vietnam vet revenge,
  futuristic hot pursuit, Eastern martial arts,
  battle epic, others
• But what do they have in common?
• Kinetic shock
• Disposable sensation jolt of fear, rageful
  satisfaction of revenge

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Action movies payoff the quintessential now
phenomenon

• Objective to jab, startle, shock
• Problem by now, were all over-stimulatednothing
  shocks us
• So action movies have to keep raising the stakes
• What happens, as a result?

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Action films domesticate brutality

• Safe in our comfy seats with our popcorn, we test
  our toughness
• Were cut loose from the gravity of real life
• Can experience violence in a way that puts us at
  no risk
• Get to vicariously live out our aggressions and
  yet always survive
• We can master violence in the cinema in a way
  increasingly cant in real life

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Cartoons

• Packaged innocence
• As epitomized by Disney, the master of efficient,
  factory-like production of cheery, chirpy fun
• Clean, safe, innocent, and shallow
• But there must be more

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What explains the hold of US-made cartoon(ish)
fiction around the world?

• American mass culture appeals to
• The child the audience would like to be
• The child they remember being
• The child they still feel themselves at times to
  be
• Universally shared experience being young,
  biologically dependent, playful, naïve

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America the eternal child?

• Were the child of the West
• The youngest of civilizations
• Cherished and despised globally for this
• But our cartoons ability to speak to the
  universal experiencehaving been a child in a
  world run by adultshits a universal nerve
• We all protect our young, and thus respond
  positively to anything that smacks of juvenility

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The other pleasures of cartoons

• Twitting authority
• The joy of being the little guy who thumbs his
  nose at power
• The joys of flouting social convention
• And who better than Americans at having fun,
  making fun, being fun?

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Transcending genres other traits of US pop
culture products

• Celebration of material excess costumes, cars,
  technical wizardry, excessively perfect
  bodies/faces
• And the lushness of productions themselves
• At the same time, the rich and powerful in US
  movies are almost always vulnerable
• Leaving audiences satisfied with their own lives
  when the mighty (on screen) fall

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Transgressions and happy endings

• Regardless of genre, many US movies pit the
  little guy (or little gal) up against more
  powerful forces
• And the little guy/gal wins
• US films often contain speaking truth to power,
  David vs. Goliath element
• Not just individualism
• But anti-authoritarianism and rambunctiousness

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Comfort and convenience

• Popularity and pure entertainment have always
  been foremost for US producers of popular culture
• Especially appealing now, in an age increasingly
  jarring, multi-tasking, schizophrenic

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But this doesnt mean local cultures are being
eradicated

• To Gitlin, the emergence of a global semiculture
  co-exists with local sensibilitiesit does not
  simply replace them
• Our movies (and TV shows) speak to our desires
  for convenience, escape, and play
• And, overall, our desires to feel
• To feel good, to feel with others, to feel
  conveniently

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Representation
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What does representation mean?

• Can you use represent in a sentence?

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One sense to stand in for

• Denny Rehberg represents the citizens of Montana
  in the U.S. House of Representatives
• Since we cant all go to the campus-wide faculty
  meeting, Ill be representing the Communication
  Theatre department

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Another sense to depict or portray

• This cover photo represents Brad Pitt and Cate
  Blanchett
• This womans smile represents her happiness and
  amusement
• This illustration (page 9) represents . . . what?

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How do these three (visual) representations
differ?

• Semiotics offers some answers

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What is semiotics?

• The study of signs
• Or, for our purposes, the study of signs as a
  part of social life
• And, thus, a part of communication
• Interpersonal, group, organizational, mediated

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Not just a theory like most others this term

• A huge academic subject/discipline in itself
• To some, a branch of linguistics
• To others, the supercategory of which linguistics
  is a member

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Semiotics a range, not a theory

• Range of studies in
• Art, literature, anthropology, mass media
• Scholars using semiotics include
• Linguists - Media theorists
• Philosophers - Anthropologists
• Psychologists - Sociologists
• Film scholars

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So, whats a sign?

• Anything that can stand for something else

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What forms do signs take?

• Words
• Images
• Sounds
• Gestures
• Objects

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What does studying (or theorizing) semiotics
involve?

• Making sense of
• Relationships between signs and other signs
• Relationships between signs and what they stand
  for
• Relationships between signs and their
  interpreters (us!)

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Why is studying signs important?

• We usually dont notice that all communication
  (interpersonal, media, whatever) is done with
  signs
• And we almost never recognize that signs are
  created by humans
• That is, theyre not natural
• They dont pre-exist us in the world

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So?

• So we rarely think about the fact that signs are
  (mostly) arbitrary
• Their relationships to what they stand for could
  have been otherwise
• More on this in a moment

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The basic claim of semiotics

• Signs have no intrinsic meaning
• They become signs only when we invest them with
  meaning

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Whats in a sign?

• Sign consists of 2 interlocked parts
• Signifier the form the sign takes
• A written or spoken word, a visual image what we
  see or hear
• Signified the concept (in your mind) that it
  represents
• The sign is the whole that results from
  association of signifier with signified

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Consider this

• Quarter
• 1 bill
• 20 bill

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Lets consider a linguistic example

• The word (sign) OPEN
• When invested with meaning by someone who sees it
  on a shop doorway
• Whats the signifier?
• Whats the signified?

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Answers

• The word OPEN
• Whats the signifier?
• The written word
• Whats the signified?
• The concept that the shop is open for business

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A sign, then, is

• A recognizable combination of signifier and
  signified
• Same signifier (word open) could stand for
  different signifieds
• Such as
• Same signified (openness) could be indicated by
  other signifiers
• Such as

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3 major types of signs

• Symbol
• Icon
• Index

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Symbol

• Signifier does not resemble the signified
• Association is arbitrary (could have been
  otherwise)
• But comes to be conventional (accepted,
  traditional, habitual) over time
• Examples?

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Some examples of symbols

• 8-sided traffic sign
• American flag
• Red, white, and blue
• Bald eagle
• Swastika
• Olympic rings

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Icon

• Signifier resembles or imitates the signified
• Possesses some of its qualities
• Portrait, cartoon, scale model, imitative gesture
• Examples?

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Examples of icons

• Photos
• Paintings
• Sound effects in radio/TV show

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Index

• Signifier is directly (not arbitrarily) connected
  to signified
• Connection is physical, natural, possibly causal

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Examples of indexes

• natural signs smoke, thunder, footprints,
  echoes, food aromas
• medical symptoms pain, rash, headache
• measuring instruments weathervane, thermometer,
  clock, sundial
• bodily/facial expressions smile, laughter,
  tears, burps

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More examples of indexes

• signals knock on the door, phone ringing
• pointers index finger pointing, painted arrow
  on wall sign
• personal trademarks sound of your voice, your
  handwriting, a catchphrase

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Warning!

• The 3 types of signs dont always have clear
  boundaries
• Is a photo of me an icon or an index?
• Sometimes so-called icons have arbitrary aspects
• Thus, are somewhat symbolic
• Not purely iconic