Film & Media Studies - Page 4

Laughing out Loud: The Popular Politics of Schadenfreude in Joker

/
206 views

Nishat Atiya Shoilee

Lecturer, Department of English and Humanities, University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh. ORCID: 0000-0002-7170-5513. Email: nishat.atiya@ulab.edu.bd

 Volume 13, Number 1, 2021 I Full Text PDF
DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n1.45

Laughing out Loud: The Popular Politics of Schadenfreude in Joker

Abstract

This research attempts to identify and analyze the relatively less explored aspects of schadenfreude as a primary currency in an American attention economy as depicted in the 2019 movie, Joker. It discusses how the protagonist’s comedic ambition to become a live performer falls short of its aim, as he feels inclined to embrace the negativity bias in his city and its questionable amusement impulses. Maintaining the appealing and appalling forces of liking and disliking; the deservingness of others’ good and bad fortunes; desirability for self-evaluation; rivalry and intergroup factors- the paper pursues schadenfreude as the masses’ new opiate. It analyzes the American renaissance of self-effacement and public humiliation in light of its mass media environment that had been abandoning meaningful stories for ticklish delights since the mid-nineties. Both primary and secondary data are used to reinforce an end result which takes the current glocal reality to be the distinct creation of a bizarre comedic moment that both defies and weaponizes a mediafication of its consumers’ emotional health.

Keywords: Schadenfreude, comedy, laughter, American humor, sociopolitical identity, transgression

The audience and the star: Genre as the interface and expectation-fulfillment as the catalyst of their relationship

/
224 views

Bikash Ch. Bhowmick

Assistant Professor, Department of Media Studies and Journalism, University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB). ORCID: 0000-0003-0830-1986. Email: bikash.bhowmick@ulab.edu.bd,

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ Volume 13, Number 1, 2021 I Full Text PDF
DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n1.36
The audience and the star: Genre as the interface and expectation-fulfillment as the catalyst of their relationship

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between a film audience and a film star. It assumes that the genre is a common ground or interface where an actor – who then becomes the star, and an audience meet together and afterward the expectations of that audience become the key player to push forward the relationship between them. In forging the relationship between two parties, the genre takes the responsibility of constructing an actor’s star-personality and of shaping the spectator’s size of a distinct kind. To substantiate the argument, the essay discusses audiences’ inscribed entity and construction of a star under the title ‘the star – a construction of the negotiations’; the dynamics of their relationship under the title ‘audience expectation and their relationship with the Star’ and finally, in conclusion, it highlights the genre’s intermediary contribution to the relationship. The author has taken the critical/theoretical approach; therefore heavily relied on existing literature and theories (e.g. psychoanalysis, star theory).  Primary data has also been used in support of the arguments. Survey questionnaires and in-depth interviews have been used as methods of primary data collection.

Keywords: audience, expectation-fulfillment, catalyst, genre, relationship, star

Melodrama, Ascetic Modality, and Communist Self-fashioning: Mukhamukham and the Communist Hero in Malayalam Cinema

/
295 views

P. Muhammed Afzal

Assistant Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sceinces, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani (BITS Pilani), Pilani, Rajasthan, India-333031. ORCID ID: 0000-0002-9989-6251. E-mail: muhammed.p@pilani.bits-pilani.ac.in

 Volume 13, Number 1, 2021 I Full Text PDF
DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n1.30

Melodrama, Ascetic Modality, and Communist Self-fashioning: Mukhamukham and the Communist Hero in Malayalam Cinema

Abstract

This paper treats the Malayalam film Mukhamukham and the debates it engendered in the Kerala public sphere about the history and legacy of communism as an archive of passions and disavowals that have shaped the political subjectivities in contemporary Kerala and explores how the film offers a critique of the Left popular in Kerala. Through a critique of the ascetic modality of the communist hero, Mukhamukham offers a critique of the representative strategies through which the communist hero was produced in the early Left political melodramas in Malayalam, which have been a significant part of the Left’s constitutive role in the construction of the domain of the popular in Kerala. The attempt in this paper is to read the film as one that, while marked by liberal prejudices, offers a critique of the Left popular and certain prevailing notions on the Left in Kerala. The paper explores how the film represents the figure of the revolutionary; and the shift from the melodramatic conventions of the construction of the revolutionary figure that Gopalakrishnan attempts in the film.

Keywords: melodrama, Left popular, Communist self-fashioning, Malayalam cinema, Kerala

COVID-19 and the Entertainment Industries in Nigeria

271 views

V.O Eze1, Uche Uwaezuoke Okonkwo2, Cindy Anene Ezeugwu3 Chinyere Christiana Ukwueze4 and Felicia O. Ezeugwu5

1 Department of General Studies, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, virginia.eze@unn.edu.ng.

2Department of History, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, ucheokonkwo2007@yahoo.com (Corresponding author)

3Department of Theatre and Film Studies, University of Nigeria, Nsukka cindyj246@gmail.com

4Department of Music, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, chinyere.ukwueze@unn.edu.ng

5Department of Music, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, felicia.ezeugwu@unn.edu.ng

 Volume 13, Number 1, 2021 I Full Text PDF
DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n1.09
COVID-19 and the Entertainment Industries in Nigeria

Abstract

This paper examines not only on the socio-economic implication of the lockdown on practitioners in the entertainment industry namely the cinema halls, live performances, and the film industries among others, but also it explores the ways E-entertainment was being introduced especially in music and drama industry. With the lockdown orchestrated by the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak in Nigeria, show lovers were being entertained through E-concerts, drive in theatre performances, and television live shows like Owambe and Pepsi Dance Party that was being showed every weekend with the audience responding on face book, Instagram and WhatsApp platforms among others. The research method is qualitative and analytical. The study employed a survey method of data collection to gather relevant material from published and unpublished materials in hard and soft copies which included online materials. The material was analyzed through mixed-method, which involved description, explanation, translation, and interpretation. The result showed that the COVID-19 pandemic impacted negatively the entertainment industry, bringing to a halt the performer/audience physical participation and interaction and a lot of reduction in the socio-economic progress of entertainers and the entertainment industry depends on their audience for finance. It also opened up the need for the entertainment industry to focus more on the acquisition of E-entertainment facilities to bridge the gap between the entertainers and the audiences on a larger scale to take care of pandemic incidents like COVID-19.

Keywords: Entertainment, Music, Lockdown, Covid-19, Pandemic, Fans, Artistes

The Confluence in the Contemporary Art World of Literature and Postmodern Visual Arts in Jeff Vande Zande’s Landscape with Fragmented Figures

//
281 views

Smriti Thakur1 & Dinesh Babu P2

1Ph. D Research Scholar, Department of English, Central University of Punjab, E-mail: mriti.thakur7@gmail.com

2Assistant Professor of English, Centre for Classical and Modern Languages, School of Languages, Literature and Culture, Central University of Punjab, E-mail: dinesh.babu@cup.edu.in

 Volume 12, Number 5, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n5.rioc1s1n4

Abstract

The American poet, novelist and editor, Jeff Vande Zande’s Landscape with Fragmented Figures (2009) is a novel that deals with the contemporary world of art, which brings forth the intricacies of the art forms such as collage, action paintings, and drop cloths that have established a crucial distance between the present and the past world of pre-modern art. As the novel revolves around the world of postmodern visual arts and brings this subject into the literary world, it necessitates an interdisciplinary approach, which not only brings the two different academic disciplines of arts together for a critical appreciation, but also creates a new aesthetic experience in the reader, wherein visual arts is seen through the lens of literature, which helps foreground the hidden patterns and motives behind the art work, and the literary work is appreciated with a greater knowledge and understanding of  the practices in and theories of the modern and postmodern art. By looking at the symbiotic relationship between visual art and literature through the novel, this study makes an attempt to contribute to the aesthetic appreciation of the engaging confluence of postmodern visual arts and literature in the contemporary world of art. By analysing the text, the study explores the phenomena that have reduced the difference between the original and copy in the contemporary art-world wherein the artist’s aesthetic sensibility seems to derive from other sources, and thus brings into critical discourse those factors that have determined the use of parody, pastiche, irony, and collage in contemporary art forms.

Keywords: Modern-art, Postmodern-art, Visual-arts, art-novel, Aesthetic sensibility, Symbiotic relationship, Parody, Pastiche, Irony, Art Culture.

Online Yaoi Fanfiction and Explorations of Female Desire through Sexually Exploited Male Bodies

/
606 views

Shweta Basu

Ph. D Research Scholar, Department of English, Jadavpur University. E-mail: bluezy08@gmail.com

 Volume 12, Number 5, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n5.rioc1s1n3

Abstract

This essay will try to trace the phenomena of rape, dub-con (dubious consent), and non-con (non consent) as literary expressions of sexual violence which find their graphic and image-laden expression in anglophoneyaoi (fiction centred upon male homoerotic relationship (s) in the Japanese anime/manga context) fanfictions (fiction written by fans based on an extant work). Through my work, I try to delve into the question of consent and the rationale of such literary acts through fan ethnography. Also there is the fiction-based otherization of the authorial self as fanfiction is written purely for the pleasure (often masturbatory) of the author and the intended and implied audience (the yaoifanbase) who, while harboring and finding pleasure in such fantasies, do not subscribe to such notions in real life nor would they enjoy to be in such situations. The essay also deals with the question of how gay men are represented in such texts and their discomfort in such representations, where their bodies and sexuality are produced and consumed as tools of entertainment for women. These erotic texts exclusively cater to the female psychosexuality, as they are produced by and for women. Since in yaoi texts no involvement of the female body per se hence the pleasure is derived from a mental correlation. The fanbase of such work is also huge, centered around the rotten girls/fujoshi culture.

Keywords: rape, dub-con, non-con, yaoi, fanfiction, fan ethnography, pornography, aesthetic beauty, male homoerotic, derivative artworks.

Book Review: Interpreting Cinema: Adaptations, Intertextualities, Art Movements by Jasbir Jain

//
205 views

Reviewed by

Somdatta Mandal

Former Professor of English, Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, W.B. Email: somdattam@gmail.com

 Volume 12, Number 4, July-September, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n4.24

Film studies now has become a full-fledged discipline with several theoretical approaches lined up behind it and has a strong foothold in serious academics. Films are now read from various perspectives as text, as a serious novel is read over and over again, since every successive reading/viewing yields additional insights into their meaning. Interpreting Cinema: Adaptations, Intertextualities, Art Movements by eminent academician and scholar Jasbir Jain is a collection of sixteen essays which explores the academic aspect of film studies and has a wide range of primarily Hindi films for discussion crossing decades, genres and cultures. The essays in this volume take up adaptations from fiction and drama both from within the same culture and across cultures and explore the relationships between cultures and mediums. There are individual essays on relationships, theoretical frameworks and art movements, reflecting the intimate connection between critical theory and filmmaking…Full Text PDF

One Danger and Eleven Types of Academic Disquiet Whilst Hunting for Cinematic Christ-figures

173 views

Anton Karl Kozlovic

Researcher in Department of Media and Communication, Deakin University, Victoria, Australia. Email Id: akozlovi@deakin.edu.au

 Volume 12, Number 4, July-September, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n4.17b

Abstract

Christ-figures increasingly permeate the popular cinema, but hunting for them is not necessarily a benign or unproblematic activity. Following a selective review of the film and religion literature, and a preliminary scan of the popular cinema utilizing textually-based humanist film criticism as the guiding analytical lens, one danger and eleven types of academic disquiet were explicated herein. Namely: (1) When Factual Minimalism Equals Certainty: Holy Hope, (2) Misidentification: When Something Supposedly “Christian” Was Something Else, (3) When Nothing Equals Something: Creatio Ex Nihilo, (4) Spiritually Negating Christian Iconography: Form Versus Substance, (5) Some Problems with the Secular-is-Sacred Argument, (6) Film is Not a Substitute for Faith, Religion, or God, (7) Rewriting the Film: Aesthetic Violence?, (8) Tenuous Links, Strained Associations, and Uncertain Correspondences, (9) Rejecting Overt Religion for Covert Religion: Distorting Theology and Misdirecting Faith?, (10) From Symbolism Fatigue to Symbolism Cynicism, and (11) Pattern Appeasement: From Being Uncritical to Narrative Insights. It was concluded that being cognizant of the inherent dangers and sources of academic disquiet is a valuable means of expanding one’s visual and intellectual imagination, and also useful for the postmodern church. Further research into the subtextual sub-genre of the religion-and-film field was encouraged, warmly recommended, and is already long overdue.

Keywords: Christ-figure, religion-and-film, sacred subtexts, Jesus Christ

You might be interested in

Reassembling Film Interpretation: Using Technique, Technology and Film Sciences in a Latin American Context

/
219 views

Victor Hugo Jimenez

Associate Professor, Art & Enterprize, University of Guanajuato. Email: vhjimeneza@gmail.com

 Volume 12, Number 4, July-September, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n4.01

Abstract

Cinematic interpretation requires input from the praxis of film making, and involves extensive and slow understanding of artistic parameters like colorimetry, color cognition, editing and cinematography. These technical aspects may be extracted from knowledge of contemporary digital media that are commonly intrapolated into films. Technological media and its applications clarify how semantic units are generated and processed for understanding the kinetic effects of films. Filmic praxis affects communication of “story”, creating the best opportunity for insight into the weltanschauung of the media.

Keywords: cinematography, synergised interpretation, film praxis



Reflection of Social Conflict of Kazakhstan of the 90s of the 20th Century by Visualizing Spatial Models in the Film Directed by Darezen Omirbaev

/
222 views

Yembergenova Dinara1, Akhmedova Aizhan2 & Abikeeva Gulnara3

1Kazakh Leading Architectural and Civil Engineering Academy, Almaty, Republic of Kazakhstan, dinarae@bk.ru, ORCID: 0000-0002-9133-1993

2Kazakh Leading Architectural and Civil Engineering Academy, Almaty, Republic of Kazakhstan, aizhan.akhmedova@googlemail.com, ORCID: 0000-0003-3935-3957

3Turan University, Almaty, Republic of Kazakhstan, gabikeyev@googlemail.com; ORCID: 0000-0001-8493-1547

 Volume 12, Number 2, April-June, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n2.19

Abstract

The article highlights the issue of social and cultural clashes of different segments of the population of Kazakhstan. Art is a way of communication;  so Darezen Omirbaev expressed his opinion about the current situation in independent Kazakhstan in 1991 through the film “Kairat”. According to the plot, the main character, Kairat, leaves his village and moves to a big city – Alma-Ata. These are two fundamentally different spaces, both architecturally and socioculturally. As the director demonstrated, – the city did not accept a resident of another class, a different type of thinking. Kairat, as a representative of the Kazakh-speaking culture of Kazakhstan, ineptly tries to integrate into the Russian-speaking urban environment. The frames are filled with archetypal images that allow a more in-depth look at the conflict between the film and society. The article provides data that demonstrate how the situation with the film industry and language policy in Kazakhstan has changed.

Keywords: Film, Director, Kazakh Cinema, Language Policy, Social Conflict, Space, Kairat, Darezhen Omirbaev.

1 2 3 4 5