1. Mainstream Media Genre John Keenan j.keenan@worc.ac.uk

2. Learning Outomes U nderstand what hegemony is U nderstand where hegemony is in film genre U nderstand ways in which film language communicates hegemony

3. Having sex with a goat Smoking Injecting heroin into eyeball Unmarried sex Drinking alcohol Eating horse Eating pig food drugs sex clothes Going to the office in underwear Being on the beach in full suit 30 year old sex with a 13-year old HEGEMONY

4. The mainstream media presume a hegemony The hegemony is in the genre

5. Genre – type Genus – birth, or origins

6. Epic, tragedy, comedy, history

7. Early films

10. Why genre? System of expectation – pleasure of fulfilment Understanding – global film form Unique purchase of the film Pleasure of difference/familiarity Guaranteed audience

11. power produces and maintains genre form genres can be changed and this changes the power-base Genre is Political/Ideological

12. The stability and repeatability of that social situation lead to texts with a similar stability, with a marked conventionality, which in the end makes the text simply natural and makes its constructedness unnoticable’ Kress Gunther, 2003, Literacy in the New Media Age, London: Routledge, p.27

13. 1920s-40s Studio System Classic Hollywood MGM – melodrama Paramount – western Warner – gangster Universal - horror How the Jews Created Hollywood

14. Texts are not transparent objects; they are highly coercive linguistic strategies, positioning readers in particular ways which have nothing to do with encouraging individuality and everything to do with reproducing a particular social formation’ Cranny Francis, 2005, Multimedia Texts and Contexts, London: Sage, p.98

15. Western as American Ideology ‘The Westerns reflects ‘American’ dreams and values, its narratives are inextricably linked to the ‘American dream’, be that individualism, freedom, entrepreneurship, patriarchy, Protestantism and patriotism’ Chris Newbold, 1996, The Western as Text, Leicester: University of Leicester, p.135

16. Western Generic Conventions Plot Characters Body language Dress Dialogue Historical setting Location Iconography Themes Locomotion Motif Stars

17. Individualism Me culture Entrepreneur

18. Patriarcy Whore or pure ‘Women are either floozies in the saloon, who are to be driven out of town (not until after good use however) or shot, or pure as the driven snow and totally vulnerable to marauding men and, of course, abducting Indians’ Susan Hayward, 2002, Cinema Studies, London: Routledge, p.469 High Noon trailer Unforgiven High Noon

19. White supremacy Number of black cowboys Estimated 25% Number of black cowboys in Westerns before 1960 0% Symbolic annihilation – Gaye Tuchman Indians

24. The right to bear arms Shane Trailer

25. ‘The concept of genre is not static but dynamic’ Hindmarsh J (1996) Genre and Narrative Analysis, Leicester: University of Leicester. Page 163

26. Genres change over time reflecting a new hegemony Classical – 1930-55 Vengeance – 1950-60s Professional 1960-70s Postmodern 1980-present Sub-genre Spaghetti Cross genre

27. Midnight Cowboy Easy Rider Thelma and Louise Die Hard Dirty Harry Star Wars

28. Brothers Film Later analyse for genre and hegemony