6994 comparative b321
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Transcript of 6994 comparative b321
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Unit B321: Foundation Portfolio – Comparative Analysis
Topic two – Film Genre’s – “Romantic-‐Comedy” Genre
Compare the representation of gender in the romantic comedy genre with reference to ‘Knocked Up’ and ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’. The generic and typical romantic comedies ‘Knocked Up’ (2007 – Judd Apatow) and ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’ (2008 – Nicholas Stoller) obey the rules of rom-‐com conventions and display two instances where the female in the relationship is ‘’superior in terms of looks, prospects and everything else’’(Gauntlett -‐ 2008) to the man. ‘Knocked Up’ presents a ‘’hedonistic, carefree’’ (Mortimer -‐ 2010) male, Ben (Seth Rogan) in juxtaposition to a hardworking woman, Alison (Katherine Heigl), who has ‘’the challenge of dealing with men like this’’(Gauntlett -‐ 2008) after getting pregnant with his child. Similarly, ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’ compares to the audience a lazy ‘’new man’’ (Corrigan -‐ 2012) in the form of Peter (Jason Segal) with Sarah (Kristen Bell), who is of a higher standing in society and breaks up with him, thus leaving him comically emasculated. This Comparative analysis will focus on how these two contemporary rom-‐com texts represent both the male and female gender to the audience, and the similarities and differences between the ways the texts do this.
In comparing similarities within these texts, both males are presented as being examples of the ‘’new man’’ that exists in society. First of all, there is a clear connotation of Ben’s ‘’hedonistic, carefree’’ lifestyle when the audience sees the non-‐ verbal code of Ben lying in bed, uncaring of the fact that his bottom is exposed, and too lazy to get out of bed as Alison attempts to wake him. This is similar to the introduction scene of ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’ where Peter eats an un-‐necessarily large portion of cereal (see image left), which connotes his laziness that he can’t
even make several journeys for more cereal.
Center Name: St. Paul’s Catholic College Center Number: 64770 Candidate Name: Kieran Smith Candidate Number: 6994
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The next sign of Ben’s lazy lifestyle is when he is in the restaurant and he explains how he doesn’t pay taxes and just scrimps off money from the Canadian government, signifying that Alison has ‘’the challenge of dealing with men like this’’, especially as she then explains that she is in fact pregnant. Later when the Doctor reveals pregnancy, the burden of the unfamiliar responsibility renders Ben speechless. ‘’Caregivers’ (Maslow) could feel sympathy for these characters who aren’t in very good situation of their lives, or, as the movie intended, they would feel repelled, put off or disgusted by the way these males live their lives and can clearly see the juxtaposition between them and the females. The non-‐verbal code of Ben attempting to reassure Alison with a patronizing pat on the back connotes his incapability and lack of dominance within the relationship, and the end of his ‘’hedonistic, carefree’’ lifestyle. The previous scene (see image below) provides an enigma clue (Roland Barthes) to how the non-‐verbal code of his black shirt acts as a deathly ’signifier’ to this.
Both male protagonists (or indeed antagonists dependent on the make-‐up of the audience) indicate a level of misogyny, for example when Peter demands to know why Sarah cheated on him, and when Ben when accuses Alison of sleeping with random men on a weekly basis through the antagonistic question “and I’m the Father?” in an aggressive tone of voice. Both of these connote that the men and women are engaged in a debate, a ‘’battle of the sexes’’ (Mortimer -‐ 2010) and present to the audience a part of the ‘disequilibrium’ (Todorov) for the
relationships of the characters within each of the texts, as the technical code of the low angle shot from Sarah to Peter at the confrontation connotes he feels dominant, and feels misogyny towards
Sarah (see image left). The non-‐verbal code of Ben’s angry facial expression during his argument with Alison connotes his clear disliking and misogyny towards her, especially when she reveals her pregnancy and he replies “with emotion?” presenting him as dim-‐witted compared to
Alison, which could be subtle reference to the role men now play in relationships from a female perspective. Ben’s puzzled expression in response to the pregnancy news can easily be compared to Peter’s confused yet defeated face as he looses the argument against Sarah, presenting the males as dimwitted, again presenting females as the superior sex, continuing to conform to David Gauntlett’s theory that females are presented as “superior in terms of looks, prospects and everything else’’ and obeying the general rom-‐com rules and conventions, making for generic scenes but keeping audiences watching by using “instances of repetition and difference”(Steve Neale) -‐ the similarity being the characteristics and personalities of the male protagonists, the difference being the character’s circumstance within each.
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Ben and Peter are both presented as fairly comical characters, with the “laughter generated”(Mortimer -‐ 2010) often coming from their “new man”(Corrigan -‐ 2012) personalities and the “emotional role reversal”(Morency -‐ 2010) that the viewers see in each rom-‐com text. Ben’s lazy
lifestyle and dim-‐witted projections for future living create humorous scenes for the audience at his “carefree, hedonistic” lifestyle. Peter is also a humorous character, as the audience can see in the post break up the non-‐verbal code of “suffering and tears” (Jeffers McDonald -‐ 2007) over the loss of Sarah, crying to the verbal code of a sentimental and melancholic song “Nothing Compares to you” – Sinead O’Connor and burning, as expressed through the diegetic and emotional verbal code “everything that reminds me of her” (see image right) forging an anti-‐stereotype to the idea of the sensitive female, causing laughter amongst the audience towards this feeble man,
however this could provoke feelings of sympathy from the audience of ‘’caregivers’’(Maslow), in particular men who can ‘personally identify’ (Katz) with what he is going through. The female gender also present similar stereotypical traits that are expected to be visible in the rom-‐com genre, for example, both female protagonists are presented in comparison to the male protagonists as ‘’superior in terms of terms of looks, prospects and everything else’’. The differences between male and female gender roles are put into perspective in certain scenes within both texts, like the restaurant scene from ‘Knocked Up’ where the verbal diegetic code of a full scale argument connotes the idea of romantic comedies including an element of ‘’battle of the sexes’’, which creates a misogynistic mood for both of the male characters and audience within the romantic comedy texts. The females in these rom-‐coms are, rather stereotypically, represented as ‘’princesses’’(Propp), although they are different as one chooses to leave a relationship to create the disequilibrium, while one is forced into one by the disequilibrium (Pregnancy). Also, Sarah is sometimes portrayed as the ‘villain’ (Propp), but Alison is still the ‘’princess’’. The audience see their princess nature by their jobs, on TV, where they are both objectified for the male audience with their blond looks, especially Sarah Marshall who is in the introduction is (diegetic sound) described as a ‘’sexy crime fighter’’, connoting that the media objectifies her as simply nothing more than “sexy”. This objectification is an attempt to appeal to the male audience and hopefully create a satisfactory ‘diversion’ (Katz) for them. Both have the ‘’challenge of dealing with men like this”(Gauntlett) as Alison’s disgusted facial
expressions and ‘’suffering and tears’’(Jeffers-‐McDonald 2007) at the news of the babies impending arrival clearly connote she does not want to have to deal with Ben, as does the distance each stand apart and the non-‐verbal code of Ben (see image left) who is left
shocked and bewildered by what has just occurred. Similarly, the difficulty and challenge Sarah experiences when trying to break up with Peter connotes the challenge she faces and that she doesn’t want to have to deal with him anymore. Alison is forced into the relationship with Ben as she has no choice but to be with the man who will be the father to her child, yet Sarah decides herself that she wants to leave Peter, from what was once a loving relationship. This affects the empathizing audience especially the female audience (Hartley) as they may relate to having to deal with men like this, so can also help forge a ‘personal relationship’ (Katz) with the females of the text.
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Although Alison argues, she is never presented as ‘villainous’, however Sarah is, as she caused the text’s ‘disequilibrium’ and denotes some disregard for Peter’s feelings, a clear difference between the two different female protagonists. The ‘’suffering and tears’’(Jeffers McDonald) Alison experiences, unlike Sarah, will cause the ‘caregivers’ to feel sympathy for her and the relationship she will now embark on with this ‘far form typical rom-‐com hero’ (Mortimer – 2010). However, the ’’suffering’’ Sarah causes Peter may cause the female audience to dislike her, and Sarah Marshall’s looks are to be objectified to the male audience and will therefore appeal to them. They audience will feel most empathy during the scene where the doctor reveals pregnancy, and also may desire to see some form of ‘re-‐marriage’ (Cavell – 1981) and resolution to the tough times they are no doubt about to embark on, in particular Alison. Similarly to Alison, in ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’ the viewers see how Sarah is superior to Peter when she explains why she cheated on him. The audience see him at first in control of the confrontation, but then she emasculates him with her opinion, and this emasculation is connoted by the non-‐verbal code of his guilty body language, and the technical code of the camera angles from looking up at Peter from Sarah’s perspective to an over the shoulder shot from Sarah (see image right), which clearly present to the audience the ‘’emotional role reversal’’ as Sarah assumes the position of the dominant character in the confrontation, thus intentionally establishing how the female gender in moments of antagonism have the anti-‐stereotypical alpha-‐female qualities to come out on top. A verbal code that represents her misandry towards Peter to intensify a shift in feelings the audience have towards her – from resentment to pity – is “it got really hard taking care of you when you stopped taking care of yourself”, which connotes that she shows pity towards him yet is also angry for the way he was a ‘new man’ (Corrigan) during their relationship. There is also misandry towards Ben in the form of Alison’s view of him that is made evident through some of the facial expressions (see image right) and things she says in their first encounters, and when revealing that she is pregnant. The question “Have you got a real job?” asked in response to Ben telling Alison about him and his friend’s bizarre internet website is an example of the misandry Alison shows towards Ben. This is a very emasculating sentence, but Alison shows that she clearly doesn’t care about Ben’s reactions or feelings towards this, presenting her as showing misandry to Ben. Add this together with Ben’s misogynistic statements and there is a generic theme of ‘battle of the sexes’. (Claire Mortimer-‐ 2010) In conclusion, having compared these two media texts, some main similarities and differences have been established between the male protagonists of each text, whilst seeing some differences and similarities between the representation of the male and female gender. Each film includes ‘’suffering and tears”, yet both, true to their name, include comedy and a stereotypical ‘’new man’’ to laugh at and not with, thus establishing to the audience two successful films that provide ‘’mass entertainment’’(Mortimer-‐2010), especially as they are unsure whether their underdog status in gender hierarchy will ever change or stay the same.