Child's Play 3

MP Julian Brazier believes that the government should be given power to over-rule the BBFC.

"He said there was evidence of copycat links to violent films, including the one where two 10-year-old schoolboys were convicted of murdering toddler James Bulger in a case which had "striking similarities" to a violent video rented by the father of one of the boys." - Daily Mail (HOW IS THIS PROOF?)

"The two 10-year-old schooolboys convicted of murdering James Bulger had watched a Child's Play movie just before the killing" (NO PROOF OF THIS - Daily Mail telling porkies)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-522947/The-Government-given-film-censorship-powers-violent-movies-claims-Tory-MP.html

Natural Born Copycats?

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/01/06/1041566356510.html

"No filmmaker, if his critics are to be believed, has quite so much blood on his hands as its director, Oliver Stone"

Oliver Stone compares the lawsuit against him to the infamous case of Dan White, the ex-cop who shot San Francisco politician Harvey Milk in 1978. "White used what was known as the Twinkie defence. He said that he had been eating too many Twinkies and that the high sugar content had prompted him to kill. And it worked! He got away with a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter and served five years. But you can't blame the Twinkies in the same way that you can't scapegoat the movies. You can't blame the igniter. People can be ignited by anything. And yet, this is something we're seeing more and more of in America today. It's a culture of liability lawsuits. The whole concept of individual responsibility has been broken up and passed around."

Surely, though, he wouldn't dispute the idea that a film can influence its viewer. "Of course it can. Maybe it inspires you to change your love life, or to alter your wardrobe. But it's not a film's responsibility to tell you what the law is. And if you kill somebody, you've broken the law." - Stone

When Stanley Kubrick's movie was linked to various copycat crimes in the early 1970s, the director personally had it whipped out of circulation. "Yeah, but I think Kubrick was wrong to do that," Stone says. "If it wasn't an admission of guilt, it was at least an admission of embarrassment. I'm a big fan of Kubrick, but he was a paranoid man. He reacted to the hysteria of the mob. He crumbled when he should have stood up and defended his work."

- THE GUARDIAN

Daily Mail - The Dark Knight

"The day I went to see the film, I happened to drive past the spot where 16-year-old Ben Kinsella was stabbed 11 times. He was the 21st teenager to die of knife wounds in London this year.
His killers may have thought they were some kind of cartoon masters of the universe, meting out a perverse justice, but the scruffy street corner with its altar of rotting bouquets tells a different story.
No stirring music bestowed a thrilling poetic grandeur on Ben's last seconds. No giant shadow of a cape flitted across the sky. Nobody could save him. Especially not this Batman" - Allison Pearson (IS SHE DUMB?? - well, she is from The Daily Mail)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1039729/ALLISON-PEARSON-Holy-cretins-Batman-family-film.html

Film Society

I just did a film society thing on copy-cat crimes. It was fun. I learnt loads. And recieved the following quotes:
"People are already f****** up, before watching a film and copying it"
"People get ideas from films"
"Copy-Cat crimes DO exist!"
(more to come)

Woah!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_Born_Killers#.27Copycat.27_crimes
There is a HENCH section on 'cop-cat' crimes.

Brand New

1. Topic Area - Crime in the media

2. Proposed title, question, - Do copy-cat crimes exist? Is the theory of copy-cat crime more than just a theory?

3. Teacher approval granted, in principal? Yes

4. Principle texts (if text based study)The Dark Knight, Clockwork Orange, Natural Born Killers, childs play 3.

5. Reason for choice - Its an area that i already have good knowledge of, i know a lot of the theory, and there are good historical as well as contemperary examples to make an arguement.

6. Academic context for this study (similar research, relevant theory, named theorists) - negative effects theory, passive & active consumption, hypodermic syringe, history of moral panics, Martin Barker (theorist), David Buckingham (theorist), Island of St Helena - study of the effects of TV.

7. Institutional context for this study (industry focus, other texts for comparison, named practitioners, relevant theory, issues, questions) - John Bayer (director of national viewers' and listeners' association), Adrian Gill (journalist), Tom Dewe Matthews, crime statistics, regulation laws - compare UK with US? Laws - Potential harm - Lack of proof,

8. Identify the audience context for this study (audience profile, access to audience, potential sample) - Audience ideology - general audience belief/oppinion, make a survey/questionnaire asking 'do you think copy-cat crimes exist?'

9. How will the 4 key concepts be relevant to your study (audience, institution, forms and conventions, representation)?

Audience - National Crime statistics

Representation - how crimes are represented to look attractive, without any consequences,

Institutions -

Media forms and conventions -

10 Potential research sources (secondary):Books by theorists

David Guantlett - '10 things wrong with the effects model,' Karl French - 'Screen Violence,' David Buckingham - 'Moving Images,' Tom Dewe Matthews - 'Censored'

11. Potential research sources (primary):Survey

12. Modifications agreed with your lead teacher

13. Potential limits/obstacles/problems?

14. Teacher concerns

15. Teacher approval

Films

The films I am going to focus on are Marnie, Vertigo and Psycho. I will decide tonight/tomorrow which scenes i am going to focus on and show in film society.

BLK

Targets: weds 11th March
1. Look at Daniel Chandler's student notes on gender and rep - use Aberystwyth link on main blog
2. Book film society session for focus group - see Emma or Mike C
3. Bring films in, choose clips, analyse, work out questions for focus group

Questionnaire

I have decided that maybe it would not be a good idea to hand the questionnaire out to people on the street, as only a small percentage may have seen Hitchcock's films, if any. Instead it may be a better idea to join a facebook group, or Hitchcock fan-site and post a questionnaire in one of the forums. This way i will have access to people who have seen his work.

I think the best research method that i will use before triangulating would be to have a focus group, show them some clips, then ask them questions about it.

Research techniques

• I could make a questionnaire to go along with a video of scenes taken from some of Hitchcocks films that some up his portrayal of women. I would then post the video on Youtube and attach the questionnaire so that people can answer it. I would need to take care not to be biased in my choice of clips.
• I could hand out my questionnaire to people on the street. I could choose my time, in order to get access to the most women. For example - at about 10am during the week, when there will be a lot of mums who have just dropped their kids off at school.

Response to Feedback

I think to avoid any kind of assumptions, talk about 'how far' or 'to what extent' do Hitchcock's heriones appeal to women. I think my strengths will be in analysing the film, and getting audience responses to it. To avoid giving myself too much to do, maybe include modern directors and how they have been influenced under audience responses, rather than making modern directors a main focus.

The second idea to talk about the development over time and his influence on other directors is a possibility, but i may have too much to do, thinking about what was going on in the world at the time of Hitchcock's films, the common views of men and women at the time, the release dates of hitchcock's films, as well as his representation of women and how it has influenced other directors.

feedback

from what I can see, you are really thinking about an audience study: ie women's responses to/readings of Hitchcock's female characters

'how he chooses his heroines for female audiences' assumes he does, and you need to avoid any assumptions like this.

OR you can look at changing representations over time, and the influence of hitchcocks reps of women on other directors/films

avoid trying to do everything - you must think about narrowing your focus

Detailed Proposal

1. Topic Area
Women & Film

2. Proposed title, question, hypothesis
Hitchcocks portrayal of women. "The chief point I kept in mind when selecting my heroine was that she must be fashioned to please women rather than men" - Alfred Hitchcock. To what extent is this statement true to a modern audience?

3. Teacher approval granted, in principal?
Yes

4. Principle texts (if text based study)
Psycho, Vertigo, The Birds, Rear Window.

5. Reason for choice
I really enjoy Hitchcock's films, there will be a lot to talk about as his portrayal of women has recieved criticism as well as praise, there are also a lot of books regarding his films and his portrayal of women.

6. Academic context for this study (similar research, relevant theory, named theorists)
Laura Mulvey - "The Male Gaze"
Ken Mogg - "The Alfread Hitchcock Story"
Tania Modleski - "Hitchcock and Feminist Theory" - The Women Who Knew Too Much.

7. Institutional context for this study (industry focus, other texts for comparison, named practitioners, relevant theory, issues, questions)
"Spectatorship Theory"

8. Identify the audience context for this study (audience profile, access to audience, potential sample)
Women, aged 16+ as they are more likely too have seen Hitchcock's films, they will be fairly accessible on the internet, via Youtube, Myspace, Facebook, Forums, as well as in the street.

9. How will the 4 key concepts be relevant to your study (audience, institution, forms and conventions, representation)?
Audience - who the audience are, how the audience diversifies through age, ideologies.
Representation - construction of text underpinned by ideologies - positive representations of women, is the representation a reflection of what the institutions/director believe the audience want?
Institutions - TV, DVD, directors influenced by his work - make his films available to a modern audience.
Media forms and conventions - Genre - what the audience want/expect, style of the director.

10 Potential research sources (secondary):
Books by theorists (Laura Mulvey - "The Male Gaze", Tania Modleski - The Women Who Knew Too Much"), websites,

11. Potential research sources (primary):
Questionnaire, Internet Forum, Focus Group, one-to-one interview.

12. Modifications agreed with your lead teacher
To decide the specific question at the end

13. Potential limits/obstacles/problems?
Getting access to my audience - some of them may not use internet, or be approachable in the street (too busy, maybe not even find any).

14. Teacher concerns

15. Teacher approval

Initial idea development

I have thought an idea for a possible question -

To what extent do Hitchcock's leading ladies appeal to women?

- Using the quote "the chief point I kept in mind when selecting my herione was that she must be fashioned to please women rather then men.....no actress can be a good commercial proposition as a film heroine unless she pleases her own sex" - Alfred Hitchcock

- Women as passive objects vs empathetic towards women

- Spectatorship theory

Books:-

1. Laura Mulvey - The Male Gaze
2. Ken Mogg - The Alfread Hitchcock Story
3. Charles Ramirez Berg - "Alfred Hitchcock: A Brief Biography" - The Encyclopedia of Film - 1996
4. John Fawell - "Torturing Women and Making Men" - The Midwest Quarterly - 2006
5. Tania Modleski - "Hitchcock and Feminist Theory" - The Women Who Knew Too Much.

Initial idea

1.Which topic area is this proposal for?

Women and Film

2. What is the suggested focus?

Alfred Hitchcock and criticism of his portrayal of women.

3. Do you have an idea for a question/problematic?

Not sure about the question yet, but there is a lot of possibilities.

4. Why would you choose this?

I am a great fan of Alfred Hitchcocks work so i have a lot of oppinions regarding his films. There are also a lot of debates over the way he portrays women. There will be a lot to say.

5. Do you have any concerns or are there any limitations to this proposal?

A possible limitation could be if I dont have a clear enough focus. I need to find a point to argue/question to answer.

6. Can you rate it on a sliding scale 1- 5 (5 being great proposal, 0 being lousy proposal)

4isshhh