Questions about Film

 Aka chapters 3&4 of our book.

Chapter 3:

1. Cinema has often reinforced the dominant ideology through its stories and messages. With casting and writing about the American dream and heteronormative ideas film has often been used as a way to push ideas onto people. It is only when film started pushing back against those ideas that things became more normalized. The moment we stopped seeing only straight couples in movies and shows is the moment people began to see this as normal.

2. Counter cinema is what pushes us forward it is what drives us as a society. Cinema is such a powerful tool to push social change if we let it. Yet cinema most of the time is used to push the same narrative. White family mom, dad, 2 1/2 kids, and a dog. Counter cinema challenges that and brings us new exciting stories that push our societal standards.

3. Theorists draw attention to how groups are represented because it affects how people are treated. Cinema is one of the most powerful mediums and the way people are viewed can change because of cinema. It can also help children in society. Like all the videos of black children seeing Halle Berry as Ariel. The way people are shown affects society.

4. Laura Mulvey's essay brought along brand new thinking. It coined the term male gaze describing the way that cinema had been filming and portraying women. As pieces and parts of a woman not as a whole person with thoughts and feelings. It pointed out a major problem in film that often it is made by and for straight white cis men. And brings up that this is something we can change. 

5. I believe that the impact of the audio is not always as present as the visual is due to the way  film started. In the beginning, the technology did not exist to create sound in films so they were silent. There would often be a piano to accompany the film and add a comedic or dramatic effect to the movie but that was about it. It wasn't until the Jazz singer in 1927 that we saw any audio in film at all. Then after that, it was about finding ways to use audio in films. Over time it has become more important but not a lot of people will focus on bad music in a film as much as bad visuals. It is often left as background because seeing is more important since that is what we've had since the beginning.

Chapter 4:

1. Theorists were wary of the French film industry because it often placed aesthetics and politics hand and hand. They were something to be on the same level. It also was a major shift in film theory itself and the classic vs contemporary.

3. The spectator is the one watching the story unfold it is who the film is made for. In the case of Mulvey, this usually happens to be a CIS white Straight man. But this all shifts when you start making the spectator someone else literally anyone else. The story dialogue camera work and relationship with the audience all change. They become one with the story involved active not just a casual viewer there to be entertained and see a headless pair of legs.

5. I believe that film does have a future. I think that more and more we are seeing films not just for entertainment but for art as well. The film has become such an integral part of everyone's day-to-day lives that it would be hard to see a future without it.