During today’s tutorial we were given our annotated bibliography task… Oh joys. Especially when none of your other team members show up for class. But that is ok I guess as I got right into my readings and finding journals about our group topic for Project 4 (audiences). I found a few very interesting journals surrounding the idea of the influences media has on audiences. One in particular I found very intriguing which talked about how media is consuming especially the youth all day every day. More specifically young people are using a range of all forms of media for at least around 6 hours per day…… um what!?. The bibliography is due next week so I have a lot of work to do between then and now (as do my group members)! But I think I have found my 5 articles which I will base my bibliography on, so at least that’s a head start.

As a child, especially as a little girl, there wouldn’t be many who grew up without hearing all of the old fairy tales. I remember while I was growing up, my parents would read me the classic Little Golden Books. There was, and I believe still is a huge range of these books, some of my favourites being from from the Disney set. Included were stories like the Little Mermaid, Sleeping Beauty and Peter Pan. They are still adding to the collection with recent disney stories such as Frozen. Going further into my childhood they began to make the Disney cartoon films which were just like the Little Golden Books but you could now see these astonishing stories! However, even further along, in the recent years, filmmakers are now creating remakes of the old Disney classics. However, most of these spectacular projects have had little glitches or changes to the storyline slightly to create a ‘new’ or moderately more appealing story suited to an older audience. Examples of this are the film Red Riding Hood from 2011 which plays on the original story with a spooky edge, as well as Maleficent, the 2014 film which tells the ‘untold story’ of Sleeping Beauty’s iconic villain.

However, the recently released remake of the classic, Cinderella, was different. As soon as I saw the sparkly, outstanding costumes in the trailer, I knew that the film was going to be astonishing. And was I right… I absolutely fell in love with everything about the film. From actors, to the costumes, to the sets and even to the iconic glass slipper, everything was just perfect and everything I ever hoped it to be. I feel that part of the reason for the high success of the film was that it is one of the few Disney remakes that hasn’t been so Americanised. It really just stuck straight to the original story.

As a little girl, Cinderella was by far one of my all time favourite stories, and would be to many others I’m sure. The way the story connects with the audience, women especially as well as their  young daughters is truly unique. The nature of Cinderella herself as well as the morals the story portrays are simply divine. Early in the film Cinderella’s mother tells her something she remembers forever; ’have courage and be kind’. Whether someone is horrible to Cinderella or something dreadful happens to her, no matter what, she doe not retaliate but instead, looks back on what her mother told her and continues to stay gracious. Throughout the story you see how her wicked step sisters and her vile stepmother behave towards her but she is still loving towards them. The way this is conveyed through the story, especially in the film, to young girls is something that is quite special. It teaches them a very important message from a young age, that you should treat people the way you want to be treated.

Dan’s lectorial today was on narratives and storytelling and must I say was probably the most engaging lectorial yet. However, still after walking away I was a bit like “uhhh so what just happened?”, especially after watching the short film by Daniel Askill ‘We Have Decided Not to Die’. Honestly it was probably one of the strangest things I have watched but obviously was very interesting and would have taken a lot to master some of the techniques which went on through the film. But one of the big questions was, is the film actually considered to be a narrative (a story) or is it a non-narrative (a piece of art)? I compiled a few examples of why it could fall under either category.

Narrative:

• It has a beginning, middle and an end
• There are development of the character/s
• There are sequences through the film
• Patterns of representation to link
• It goes from one place to another which takes the audience on a sort of journey
• The title ‘we have decided not to die’ shows that the characters have made a choice not to die therefore they are performing an action

Non-narrative:

• There isn’t really a plot at any stage
• Not really any link between the three ‘rituals’, they just go from one to the next
• It is emotionally intense the whole way through, there is no up and down like a narrative should have
• There isn’t any sense of closure, the last man jumps out of the window and then it goes back to the pool – no real ending or resolution
• The people are more like props rather than characters

So it is quite difficult to say whether or not it is a narrative, but if you would like to make up your mind on this dilemma, take a look at the whacky film:

(video source: https://youtu.be/UIg8bHnW9vk)