My New Obsession

We have On Demand at my apartment and I was bored one day and started watching the Showtime series The Tudors. I am now obsessed!! It's historical with a modern twist, very intriguing and sure to make you want to keep watching more!

A glimpse at Season 2 of The Tudors-Henry the VIII and Anne Boleyn



Right now they are finished with Season 3 and airing Season 4 in the Spring of 2010.

The Popular Ryan Murphy Filled with Glee

After watching the season premiere of FOX’s Glee on May 19th, I was intrigued to learn more about the quirky teen musical show. I searched Glee in IMDB and came across a director that I was already familiar with: Ryan Murphy. Along with Glee, Murphy created nip/tuck which is a show that I am mildly obsessed with. The concept and creativity behind both shows interested me to look deeper into Murphy’s past and present television creations. From watching all six seasons of nip/tuck, tuning in weekly to watch Glee, and downloading the beginning episodes of Popular, I have come up with a few observations regarding Ryan Murphy’s cinematic creative style. My findings come largely from the commonalties in particular camera shots and sounds. Also, I have found that there is a frequent theme of obsession with self-image and a multiplicity of similar characters as well. More specific examples are from season 1 episode 1 of both Glee and Popular, episode 4 of Glee, and season 4 episode 1 of nip/tuck.

Ryan Murphy attended Indiana University where he was a writer for the school newspaper. His first television series in 1999 airing on the WB was named Popular, a show about high school teenagers trying to figuring out the meaning of popularity. In 2003, he created nip/tuck, a cable series about two male plastic surgeons with major egos. Most recently, Murphy is the creator of FOX’s new hit series Glee, which follows a group of high school teens involved in show choir. It is common for him to use the same actors in more than one series. Glee’s Jessalyn Gilsig plays Terri Schuester, a manipulating lying wife. She also stars in nip/tuck as a similar character; Dr. Christian Troy’s love interest in Season 5. Actors in Popular, Leslie Bibb, Bryce Johnson, Leslie Grossman, and Lisa Darr are among other’s appearing in individual episodes of nip/tuck.

Cinematic Reoccurrences:

To get the ball rolling, I noticed that in the premiere episodes of both Popular and Glee there is an establishing shot of the school where the show takes place. In Popular it is Kennedy High and in Glee it is William McKinley High; coincidentally or not both are “popular” president’s names.

A camera movement that I observed multiple times in each television series was an extreme close up of an object or person followed by the camera pulling back to show a medium to long shot of the subject. In the beginning of the fourth episode of Glee, Kurt is dancing to “Put a Ring on It” by Beyonce. The camera starts off showing an ECU of his legs then pulls back to expose him dancing while his dad is walking into the frame. In Popular there is a ECU of a jar of dead frogs, the camera then pulls away and reveals a room with students wearing gloves waiting in line with their dissection trays in hand. One scene in particular in nip/tuck is where Julia is getting an ultra sound. There is an ECU of her stomach with a hand rolling over the goo on her belly, subsequently the camera pulls away to show the room with the machine and ultra sound technician. This particular ECU/pull away technique that Murphy uses helps create ambiguity in a scene allowing the audience to draw conclusions from the ECU and have their assumptions answered when the camera pulls away.

While watching the episodes for a second time, I listened more carefully and figured out that Murphy likes to switch between non-diegetic and diegitic music of the same track within a scene. An example of this happens in Glee when Kurt trys-out to be a kicker for the football team. He begins his try-out by doing a dance to “Put a Ring on It” which is diegtic music since you can see the boombox. As he hits the ball through the goal the music continues and bridges into the next scene which makes it now non-diegetic. In nip/tuck this common sound trend happens whenever Dr. Christian Troy and Dr. Sean McNamara start a surgery. They put a CD into their modern-cd player that is mounted to the wall; again diegetic music switches to non-diegetic, bridging into the next scene.

Common Characters:

Murphy acted in musicals in high school which is reflected into his work. The concept with high school singing did not start with Glee; in fact it was with Popular 10 years prior. There is a shot where the football jock, Josh, is watching a girl audition for a role in the school musical and then it cuts to him sitting in his desk thinking, “the musical auditions are tomorrow how am I going to cut practice”. This exact conflict happens again in Glee with jock, Finn, when deciding if he really wants to be a part of the Glee club in episode one.

Self-Image Theme:

In Popular, Sam opens up episode one by saying she will “never be a Seventeen Magazine girl because there is no air brushing in real life”. On the contrary, every patient in nip/tuck is asked the question “what don’t you like about yourself”. Both shows are creating an image of incomplete satisfaction with ones body. It is almost like nip/tuck is the answer to questions and conflicts that characters on Popular have with themselves. The opening credits in both Popular and nip/tuck have special theme songs. In Popular, it is a song about high school and the problems teens face being categorized into different groups. nip/tuck’s opening song plays as there are images of mannequins and then ends with the words “perfect face, perfect life”. Glee has many instances of separation by self-image. The cheerleaders are depicted as always wearing their uniform with hair tied back while the football players are always wearing their jerseys. The main character Rachel is not associated with a particular clique and therefore helps create the representation of the Glee club posse.

Sources:
IMDB.com
Wikipedia.com

Television- Not just for empty aliens or lazy loungers but for critical thinkers too.

As a senior at the University of Iowa my days are filled with numerous classes and work. Whenever I get free time, usually after 6:00 p.m., I spend my remaining hours of the day glued to the television. I know it sounds pathetic but I am fascinated with the variety of shows we are provided with and what they add to my knowledge. You would think placing yourself in front of a television for hours on end would force your brain to shut down and make you dumber but in actuality every time I watch a show I think critically about what the meaning of the show might be in my mind or how the cinematography foreshadows what is to come in later episodes such as in Lost. My goals for criticizing television are to do it thoughtfully and uniquely. I want to be able to come up with different meanings for programs that the usual viewer would not see. Not just the plain and simple emotional response; a tear, anger, excitement. Something distinctive and scholarly that persuades a reader using lemans terms in a voice that is young and somewhat entertaining in order to engage the reader.

Television criticism can be aimed to get back at the producers and directors or give them praise by finding their meaning within the text or even better, a new idea created by you the critical thinker. In order to criticize television you need to evoke a response from an audience. You can do this by being as subjective as you can. Subjective as O’Donnell explains it, is how every “individual has a perceptual field that is unique to that person and shaped by many influences, and this field forms the filters through which we perceive” (6). While I may have an interesting take on why Dexter is a likeable character even though he commits evil acts, no one person can say that I am wrong unless I am trying to make a claim that is insanely unrealistic. In short, there are multiple criticisms to one text however, no interpretation is the one and only correct explanation.

Similarly, Butler talks about multiple meanings in television which he calls “polysemy”. In order to understand his definition of “polysemy” flow needs to be defined. Flow is how a television show is played in conjunction with advertisements and commercials; whether they go against the theme of the show or tag along with it. Butler defines polysemy as many meanings “television offers [that are] illustrated by excerpting a chunk of the television flow” (Buttler, 7). I observed this just last year while living in my sorority house. In my room we had a television with rabbit ears, only allowing my roommate and I to watch one channel; the CW. An example of the shows that aired during that time were Gossip Girl, One Tree Hill, 90210, and at night Sex and the City. I noticed an underlying theme promoting sexual behavior throughout all of the programming on the station after about 6:00 p.m. Even the commercials had to do with sex; KY promoted its newest product, Trojan theirs, and romantic phone chat lines. Is this all ironic? I think not, the flow between the television series and advertisements all seem to compromise each other and the owners of the CW are the ones who chose what gets aired when and where. Perhaps my view is incorrect and maybe these shows are set to teach a lesson on sexual actions and consequences but it is up to the critic to pursue a claim and back it up with sources.

What comes to your mind when you hear the word “hegemony”? My initial thought is how media corporations compromise to stay in power through negotiation of thematic issues and social norms within programming. Hegemony poses a threat to unique forms of media; the idea of dominant discourses. An example of that threat is the uniqueness of The Beatles. At first listen they seemed one of a kind and distinctive, however as time evolved they became just another boy band in the homogeny of popular culture. Just as reality television first came out to be original and never been done before, is now turned into this common trend seen throughout various television channels. Some may argue different but this is an example of how hegemony is present in the media just as Brunsdon introduced the term in her essay on “Identity in feminist television criticism” (1993).

To make sense of it all, I want to sustain a transparent relationship when criticizing a text (Brunsdon, 312). By blogging I can write freely about my interpretations and criticisms of a text and anyone can comment on my work which will in the end make me a stronger critic by learning from challenges by others and opening up my psyche to new perspectives. I will always continue to enjoy my favorite shows such as Lost, Dexter, True Blood, The Bachelor, and The Soup but keep in mind that how I view these shows can be seen very different through the lenses of another viewer due to various meanings within a text.

References

Brunsdon, C. (1993). Identity in feminist television criticism. Media, Culture and Society, 15: 309-320.
Butler, J. (2002). Television: Critical Methods and Applications (2nd ed). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
O’Donnell, V. (2007). Television Criticism. New York: Sage.

Movie I Cant Wait to See!!