4
Media Studies
CCR 1
How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?
My product uses most of the conventions which are listed under the conventions in a drama genre. As written in my blog, this genre displays the everyday problems people face in their daily life. It is a genre to which the people can most relate to this being also the inspiration behind why I chose this genre.
So, my product is basically, what I think people of all ages feel once but are not able to totally carry it out (and I won’t recommend anyone to follow that path)
In this, I tried my best to portray feelings of a person when she/he are pressurized, mostly focusing on today’s teenagers. Because, this is the age where we must find the correct path for our future. What we are interested in, what do we want to continue in the things we are good at or do we even want to continue and many other thoughts and when all of this is combined with family pressure (because in many cultures, even today they wait for their children to turn 18 before they start looking for potential life partners), it takes a toll on the teenager and can lead to very stressing situations and it’s all up to the person mindset at that time over if they want to give up or still hold on. But let’s not limit our thoughts just to families but lets talk about acceptance as well. Acceptance is one of the biggest problems in today's society. Teenagers today do everything to get accepted within the society. And when they are not accepted, that's when they start to feel left out and start to shut themselves in.
An experiment
Muzafer and Carolyn Sherif Experiment
There was an experiment conducted by 2 psychologists named Muzafer and Carolyn Sherif , in 1950 where a group of 12 year old white middle class boys were divided into 2 groups called “Eagles” and the “Rattlers”. At first when they were not familiar with each other, they formed a common social category as summer campers (this was in a summer camp), but as time passes and they began to think of themselves as members of the group, they formed 2 distinct groups.
In this experiment these youngsters erected artificial boundaries between themselves. They formed in-groups (to which loyalty is expressed) and out-groups (to which antagonism is expressed). The result of this experiment was one which was halfway expected but at the same time it wasn’t.
So, the main question which lies over here is are we bound to be stuck in group think after all?
I would say, no, because this problem can be resolved if people get to know each other more and spend some time with a person’s actual self and not the persona they show to others.
Coming back to my product, as it is an opening sequence, one does not really know what had happened to my character and what were the exact reasons as to why is she doing what she is doing?
Drama Conventions
I am adding this slide, just for those who haven't read this on my blog http://beenishyousuf.blogspot.com/
This information is the same as the information in my blog:
In this genre, it exhibits real life situations with realistic characters, settings and stories. It is a movie genre which is the most relate able to the audience because once in their life someone goes through situations.
They show the journey of development of a character.
People say that heart of the drama is a conflict. (But this wont be shown in my video, because it is an opening sequence and in an opening sequence not much is shown)
A drama is structured with climaxes and anti-climaxes to keep the audience curious and attached over what is gonna happen.
In a drama, at the end, in many films it ends with a happy ending where the character gains realizations and tries to move on from the "drama".
To learn about the codes of a Drama genre, do visit my blog.