Week 11: Long Form Television

Week 11: Long Form Television

Group: Alaura, Brandon, Linda, Selina

What is television? 

It is a form of entertainment to pass time, it's not a necessity but is something that is an escape.
It is also for communicating ideas, bringing people together, selling products through commercials and depending on if you are poor or rich, storytelling for characters and situations, personal expression like animation and music. Another form is live television and news channels, knowing information about the world and politics and reality TV that go through everyday life and explain whats either going on with a specific person or location. This can also be applied to documentaries.


What is different of long form television?

After the 2000s, television series started to get very popular and more widely used.  Sometimes it can be used to have adaptions of multiple books and even graphic novels. Studios are fairly different and reused. Characters and places are repetitive. Also unlike most movies you can watch episodes of series not in chronological order and be able to follow along. Different series are also sometimes followed by openings and endings usually with music and some form of introduction so you can pick up it up very quickly. They also are followed by coming out with series seasons usually yearly. Streaming services popularized the series and made it so commercials can be skipped and you can pause. TV shows go through pilots, and getting multiple seasons and are fairly lower budget than movies. This also provided multiple series that are accessible rather than one. This started to create binge watching and marathons finishing it usually in a weeks time.  TV also created formulaic and constant episodes, this also changed the standard for cartoons. These are easier to make and can be on constant. Also changing the production with introducing new inexpensive actors, reusing sets, being cheaper to make, and how easy it can be to get into the business since it's easy and anyone can do it. How easy it is to access and create content nowadays and how subscriptions have become popularized.

The End of The F***ing World

For this week I decided to binge on The End of the F***ing World, a series on Netflex that follows the main character James who thinks of himself as a psychopath. His main goal from episode one is to basically to kill a real human victim rather than countless animals he has murdered, which is a obvious sign of a serial killer in the making. Alyssa unfortunately ends up having what seems to be a teenage crush, mixed with her personality that seems to be extremely bold, and confident. She's immature with dealing with her feelings and reacts like a moody teenager.

As strange at it is, I absolutely adore the relationship dynamics these characters have together. I love how even though James is cunning and quite shy, he becomes a little more bold and and Alyssa helps him come out of his shell and sticks up for him countless times in difficult situations. This pair is up to absolutely no good throughout the series. But like I mentioned earlier, even though Alyssa cares for him and presumably, James still has the urge to kill her but starts to also gain feelings for her. They end up even running away together, in which they defy against the adults in their life that seemed to be so shitty. We know that they are the way they are because of their parents and how abusive and just outright shitty they are. Eventually, theres a scene that James is forced to kill a person because they tried to sexually assault and kill Alyssa. This is a crime that adds more onto the weight of them running away and even more reasoning to go into hiding. They even end up changing their looks and even Alyssa starts to question her relationship with James after he's so willing to murder, even if it was in the defense. Both teens come to stay together and decide to go to Alyssa's fathers house, who helps them go into hiding and ends up spending time with both of the kids. They soon  realize that it was all just fake, and that in actuality the father was going to give them up for money. Of course the police find them, (these police officers have their own story within the series, meeting up to the final "showdown".) 

The season and series ends in a cliff hanger of what happens to Alyssa and James, since Alyssa gets arrested and James either gets away or is shot. I think what this series does successful is to show even children who are cold and ones that are set on the path to be murders can turn out to be able to show compassion and love if given. That these kids have a reason to be the way they are. I think this can be applied to lots of past serial killers with similar pasts and mindsets. We can also see that James is also simply just mentally ill, and really is the way he is because of his mother since he blames himself for his death. His father never helped him cope with the feelings of guilt and frustration. Since his mother was also mentally ill and killed herself infront of James. I think this series is a good discussion on mental illness and the effects it had on others and why its so important to talk about it.

Week 10: Reading the Multimodal Narritive

My Favorite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris is a really personal work to the author that has amazing artistry. The comics are challenging how graphic novels are usually structured. You can tell that the artist used her own life and dark themes integrated in her storytelling. When I first began reading it I thought it was strange that in this world it seems to follow a little "monster" girl. In this case I don't think that the girl is actually a monster, but just how she views herself. I'm not really sure why she views herself this way, maybe because of how her life was and that she believed that she is this way.
It is strange how the graphic novel doesn't ever have a real narrator but rather it seems to be told through Emil herself. I think it's clear that the "voice" is quite literally the author telling the story through herself. The art definitely reflects that it's not a child simply drawing in a ruled notebook. It's actually interesting how the author really loves monsters, and how she feels empathetic for them and how they are out-casts. It's almost like the monsters themselves represent the good rather than the bad which seems to take more form of a human.Also what I really like about the novel is that there are no definite good or bad guys this novel. I think this is a more realistic way of portraying how actual people can be complex and not just one type or label of a person.

Week 9: Voice and the Auteur Theory

Sophia Coppola’s voice and visual aesthetics are clearly seen in all three movies I selected to watch.  I feel like I am peering inside someone else’s life watching all three films.

The first film I viewed was in class “Marie Antoinette.”  This film is visually beautiful with lush green woods, pastel palettes and the tiniest detail of embroidery on the beautiful fabrics.  The luxurious Versailles landscapes and cotton candy wigs, cakes and delicate macaroons are dreamlike.  The natural lighting is beautiful.  Kirsten Dunst was the perfect Marie, whimsical, charming child-like, decadent. 
Sophia seems drawn to stories that are centered on characters that are longing for acceptance.  Marie was trying so hard to please her mother, the Prince (her husband), the people and the court.   You can feel the emotions from the main character, especially when Marie had to be stripped down from all her Austrian possessions and her little dog Mops was taken away.   She had to brave and face the strangers/crowd and be strong and “perfect.”  She is left with nothing yet given everything.
There are frequent repeat shots in her work, like Marie looking outward from the coach’s window at the world passing by. Sophia is like Marie Antoinette.  She can identify with her role coming from a very strong Family.  Frances Ford Coppola is her father and I am sure she had to fight for her own identity and director style.



The second film, “The Bling Ring” was about coming of age within an entourage of woman as well.  The film is about a group of teens robbing from the excessively rich Movie Stars based upon a true story.  They desire to adopt the celebrity lifestyle from raiding and stealing from their favorite celebrity homes. Coppola makes a point of lack of moral while the group committed the crimes
 I was stressed watching this entire movie as they broke into Paris Hilton’s home again, and again and again.  I was waiting each time for the police to randomly show and shoot any or all of them.  I did notice Kirsten Dunst’s cameo as she appears in all three films I selected to watch.  This film again has dreamlike excessive opulence.  The teens obviously knew luxurious brand names (Birkin bags, Chanel).  From their selfies and Facebook posts, the teens broadcast their need for living in a world detaching effects from cause.  Money was found everywhere and carelessly thrown away on parties (similar to Marie Antoinette shots of eating cakes and macaroons, this group snorted cocaine and drank alcohol.) The similarity in musical selection is obvious in Coppola’s films.   The punk rock loud music is in both films seems to not quite fit in, yet she chose the music depicting aimlessness as drama unfolds around the oblivious teens.

My final selection was “The Beguiled.”  This film again had Kirsten Dunst.  This film centered around a boarding school for fine young ladies in the Deep South during the Civil War.  The film starts out with lush natural lighting in a Virginia forest as a young girl picking mushrooms stumbles upon a Union Soldier.  Amy “rescues” the soldier and brings him to the school.  The group of ladies decide to nurse him back to health “the Christian thing to do” before turning him in to become a Confederate prisoner.  They carefully and cautiously imprisoned in a small room as they bath him, shave him and try to make him healthier.  Soon their subdued desires overtake their rationality as he manipulates them with his charm as he recuperates.

With each relationship he pursues, jealousy arises between the women.  Coppola draws superb performances from Nicole Kidman, Elle Fanning and Kirsten Dunst.
The film seemed under-lit compared to Marie Antoinette, but it made the boarding house seem haunting and ghost-like.  I felt disoriented at times straining to see the actresses’ expressions under the candle-lit atmosphere.  This seemed like an authentic mansion, under lit and falling apart, while the war goes on all around them.  They all have primal responses to his presence and he pays for his manipulation.  The Beguiled delivers proper ladies who would rather murder the soldier then “share” him.