Teen Representation In Us Films - Edel

Cinema of the United States

Representation and Hegemony

Background Information • In 1878, Eadweard Muybridge demonstrated the power of photography to capture motion. • In 1894, the world's first commercial motion picture exhibition was given in New York City, using Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope. • The United States was in the forefront of sound film's development in the following decades. • Since the early twentieth century, the U.S. film industry has largely been based in and around Hollywood, Los Angeles, California.

Kinetoscope

Institutions in Cinema • • • •

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The start of the Golden Age in cinema was arguably when The Jazz Singer was released in 1927, ending the silent era and increasing box-office profits for films as sound was introduced to feature films. After The Jazz Singer was released in 1927, Warner Bros gained huge success and was able to acquire their own string of movie theaters, after purchasing Stanley Theaters and First National Productions in 1928. MGM had also owned the Loews string of theaters since forming in 1924, and the Fox Film Corporation owned the Fox Theatre strings as well. Also, RKO (a 1928 merger between Keith-Orpheum Theaters and the Radio Corporation of America[3 ]) responded to the Western Electric/ERPI monopoly over sound in films , and developed their own method, known as Photophone , to put sound in films [5]. Paramount, who already acquired Balaban and Katz in 1926, would answer to the success of Warner Bros. and RKO, and buy a number of theaters in the late 1920s as well, and would hold a monopoly on theaters in Detroit, Michigan.[4] By the 1930s, all of America's theaters were owned by the Big Five studios – MGM , Paramount Pictures, RKO, Warner Bros., and Twentieth Century Fox.

20th Century Fox

• The Fox Film Corporation was formed in 1915 by the theatre "chain" pioneer William Fox, who formed Fox Film Corporation by merging two companies he had established in 1913. • Twentieth Century Pictures was an independent Hollywood motion picture production company created in 1932 by Joseph Schenck, the former president of United Artists, Darryl F. Zanuck from Warner Brothers, William Goetz from Fox Films, and Raymond Griffith. • Joe Schenck and Fox management agreed to a merger; Spyros Skouras, then manager of the FoxWest Coast theatres, helped in the merger (and later became president of the new company).

• Rupurt Murdoch took control of Fox in 1985. He established a Fox Broadcasting Company that took over the air in 1986. • Since Jan 2001, Fox has become the international distributor for MGM releases. • Fox also makes money distributing movies for smaller independent film companies.

Top 5 Studios

MGM (Metro-GoldwynMayer Inc.)

"Ars Gratia Artis" • MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation(Leo the lion and Louis B. Mayer Pictures. • Marcus Loew was born into a poor Jewish family in New York City, he was forced by circumstances to work at a very young age and thus had little formal education. • He founded the People's Vaudeville Company, a theatre chain which showcased one-reeler films as well as live variety shows • His associates included Adolph Zukor, Joseph Schenck, and Nicholas Schenck. • MGM also owns the French company Pathé Frères as of 1990.

Movies by MGM • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Me tro-Goldwyn-Mayer_films#2009

Paramount Pictures

• Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located in Hollywood, California. • Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom("Video & Audio Communications“), it is the oldest existing American film studio; it is also the last major film studio still headquartered in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles. • Viacom has various world wide interests in cable and satellite networks( MTV, BET). • Paramount is also the distributor of movie studio DreamWorks.

• Paramount Pictures can trace its beginning to the creation in May 1912, of the Famous Players Film Company. Founder Hungarian-born Adolph Zukor, who had been an early investor in nickelodeons, saw that movies appealed mainly to working-class immigrants. • With partners Daniel Frohman and Charles Frohman he planned to offer feature-length films that would appeal to the middle class by featuring the leading theatrical players of the time (leading to the slogan "Famous Players in Famous Plays"). • This eventually lead to the creation of Paramount Inc.

Independent Film

Fine line Features

Fine Line Features • Fine Line Features was the specialty films division of New Line Cinema. It produced, purchased, distributed and marketed films of a more "indie" flavor than its parent company. • In 2005, New Line teamed up with fellow Time Warner subsidiary HBO to form Picturehouse, a new specialty film label of which Fine Line was folded into.

Representation of Teenagers • Teenagers are often seen in film as portraying a certain stereotype within the stereotype of being a teenager. • Some examples: • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Goth Popular Prep Skater Pothead Slut Geek Religious Indie Punk Emo Trendy Etc…

• This can be seen in Hollywood movies as well as Independent films. • Teenagers are often seen generally in movies as emotionally underdeveloped, inexperienced and sexually provocative. They are also seen as living for the ‘thrill’. • One may conclude that this is the common image depicted on screen, despite the fact that that image may not necessarily be true. • Examples…

Hollywood Films

"The Breakfast Club"

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkX8J-

Independent Films

Elephant

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htlsOf

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkX8J-

Hegemony • “ The process whereby the subordinate are led to consent to view the social system and it’s everyday embodiments as ‘common sense’, the self evidently natural” (John Fiske) • The film industry, in this view, would start out being and entertainment unit and end up defining the norms, values, belief s and morals in society.

• The representation of teenagers in Hollywood movies could reflect the institutions attempt to make even the smallest minority feel represented. • Thus, the different types of teenagers presented to us in US film could be deliberately implemented to create false consciousness within teenagers to make them feel represented when in fact they are attempting to gain and audience and pass on ideologies to the public about what type of people teenagers are and/or what type of person you should be if you are a teenager.

• The hegemonic approach would argue that the film industries are reproducing the prominent ideologies shared in society, thus making it seem that these representations of teenager are natural and the standard. • Rather than the owners having direct control of what goes into a film, they establish an order in which they produce values and ideas that are transmitted through the film via selection of what films get funded/produced/distributed and who is casted.

Parody

Not Another Teen Movie

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxG4u