Contemporary Media Analysis

1. What does media say about the world we live in?

Over the years, media has evolved in many ways which mainly changed the way we view films as a society. However, one glaring aspect that has altered our perspectives in terms of looking at the media as a whole, is violence. From the times of the early 1960s until today, the media has taken this idea of violence in films and t.v. shows and overtime transformed it in terms of making it much more visual and glorified. Even in kids' shows today, violence is manifested in a way that seems questionable as to if they can actually be characterized as children programs or not.  Considering audience perspective, the majority of viewers enjoy seeing gore, blood, explosions and physical fighting, therefore the media is portraying our society in a way that we are seen as almost obsessed with this concept on and even off screen. For example, the top 100 grossing movies of 2012 - 2013 primarily consist of films that are associated with violence, which further exemplifies the idea that our society feeds off this type of entertainment and just can't get enough of it.

2. Do you notice any one trend that keeps resurfacing through multiple media forms?

Aside from Breaking Bad, I think one trend that kept resurfacing through multiple media forms was the concept of "blurred lines". Throughout the presentations, many groups mentioned this idea and explained how the simplicity of the media has vastly changed in terms of incorporating more complex protagonists and antagonists in the plot of a film. Nowadays, movies no longer dwell on the idea of having a "straight-up" bad guy or good guy, whereas the bad guy if flat out evil or an enemy and the good guy is a perfect human being who seems to always prevail in the end. It it much different now in today's films. The protagonist of movies or t.v. shows seem more complex now in terms of the qualities they carry as an individual. By that, meaning they are flawed. These characters do not lead lives of perfection, however filmakers are developing them in a way that emphasizes or brings out their dilemmas in life. Doing this would make audience members more relateable. For example, Peter Parker in the 2012 film The Amazing Spider-Man isn't a perfect teenager with the perfect life. The creator wanted to make his character so he has social as well as academic issues making him a more relateable character to viewers, further showing that he is in fact a normal teenager behind this superhero quality he maintains.  

3. What do you see as the best and worst of what media portrays? 

One of the best things mediea has started to portray is the acceptance of all different kinds of people, specifically LGBT. Recently various movies and t.v. shows are starting to show how society is beginning to reach out to the gay community through the use of film making. Shows such as Glee truly exemplify this idea due to the interactions as well as relationships between different characters of different genders. Additionally the animated film known as Paranorman added a part in the end of the movie where one of the characters say "You know, you're gonna love my boyfriend. He's a total chick-flick nut!". This is interesting because the character who says this in the movie is initially depicted as this masculine jock. Knowing this, creates the idea that society is able to look past stereotypical views.  

"Can I get a script? I forgot what I'm supposed to say when I tell her off"...  

On the other hand the media does portray a more ignorant side of society. In certain reality shows media highly exaggerates the idea of it being real, therefore giving it a false representation putting a bad influence on society. These "reality shows" for the majority of the time show fake actors/actresses, doing fake actions, giving fake dialogue. 99% of the time these shows are acted out just to provide entertainment to viewers when all this is doing is giving off a false idea of how these situations are played out in real life. For example, a show called The Bad Girls Club basically depicts the lives of 7 borderline ghetto women living in one house, seeing how each and everyone of them "interact" with each other.


4. Where do you see yourself contributing to the conversation? 

In my group's presentation we discussed the acceptance of violence over sexuality. Our society feels that it is rather unacceptable to show a nude shot, however it is okay to show a person getting ripped apart limb from limb. More specifically on my part i talked about how violence is manifested within children's shows. Shows such as Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Pokemon can exemplify this concept. Yes, these are both animated series and aired on networks that are primarily aimed at an audience of mainly children. However, there is a matter of whether it exposes violence to today's youth or not. This could possibly affecting the minds of children due to how the media deems this sense of violence to be acceptable in shows like this.