The Hollywoodisation of 'The Debt'

The Hollywood remake of ‘The Debt’ (2011) is based on an Israeli film of the same name: in Hebrew, ‘Ha Hov’ (2007). From all the reviews I have read, the critical reception is greatly split down the middle - half prefer the remake, half the original. The ‘Hollywoodisation’ (Klein, 2004) - the globalising process by which foreign films are becoming more typical of American archetypal blockbusters - of ‘The Debt’ is evident in two main elements: love and action. 

                         

 

The synopsis of the story for those who don’t know it is succinctly expressed in the trailer. 

Character bios and changes in names are important to this discussion. 

The differences are small but stereotypically reminiscent of Hollywood films. The love triangle is given much greater attention and continuous personal relationships between the three Mossad agents are added in the remake where they are absent in the original. There are more action sequences (as a result of the higher budget) in the remake. Finally, and perhaps most pertinently, ‘Ha Hov’ focuses on national identity while ‘The Debt’ is more interested in the individual and the personal consequences of keeping a secret. 

Another interesting change is in the Israeli version the character of both Rachel and Ehud (David) travel to Ukraine but Rachel must complete the mission alone after Ehud suffers from cowardice. In the remake, Rachel goes by herself because David (Ehud) has killed himself. Could this be perceived as a scapegoat for allowing a female lead in a Hollywood film? 

True to Hollywood form, everything is accentuated in the American remake, including the scar on the character of Rachel. Some argue that this results in a film that is “altogether darker, more densely textured, more satisfyingly structured, more morally complex” (Robinson, “Refinancing Bernstein’s ‘The Debt’”, 2011). While others argue that the manipulations and changes alter the meaning of the film: “perhaps most importantly, the ending of the Israeli film is much stronger, really driving home the meaning behind the film’s title and the costs that making good on that debt incurs on the protagonists” (Ignizio, “The Debt”, 2011).

References:

Ignizio, B 2011, “The Debt”, The Cleveland Movie Blog, 2 November, accessed 20 September 2013, >http://www.clevelandmovieblog.com/2011/11/debt-original-2007-israeli-version.html<

Klein, C 2004, ‘Martial Arts and the Globalisation of the Asian Film Industries’, Comparative American Studies: An International Journal, Sage Publications, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 360-384

Robinson, G 2011, “Refinancing Bernstein’s ‘The Debt’”, The Jewish Week, 31 August, accessed 20 September 2013, >http://www.thejewishweek.com/arts/film/refinancing_bernsteins_debt<

TrailersAnyClip 2012, 'The Debt (2010) Trailer', YouTube, 30 April, accessed 20 September >https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9fagr0ny08<

Images:

http://www.cineblog01.net/the-debt-sub-ita-2007/ 

http://joeltalksmovies.bangordailynews.com/2011/09/03/movie-review-the-debt/ 

http://www.focusfeatures.com/slideshow/deja_vu?film=the_debt 

http://www.focusfeatures.com/the_debt/photos 

Wk 8 - The Changes of the Specular: Celebrities and Social Media

Celebrity culture has changed in a lot of ways thanks to social and digital media. The most obvious being that social media is another means by which they create and manage their personas. As David Marshall puts it, it is a different structure through which the famed construct their social image” (2010: 498). We, as new and social media users, are becoming more and more conscious of how we present ourselves as well as how others might perceive us. It has “produced a new regime of personal presentation (Marshall, 2010, 502) and in this surplus economy of celebrity and persona constructs, personalities are abundant and extreme.

Social media has permeated previously private moments and demands composure of the self all of the time. Take unflattering photos of celebrities post-workout, for example. How dare they look as sweaty and gross as the other 99% of the population after a workout! 

What I find interesting is Marshall’s second element of the changing celebrity economy, that of technology which “now affords and privileges the interaction and exchange between and among users” (Marshall, 2010: 498). In other words, the instantaneous and interactive aspects of social media that some celebrities choose to embrace. Lady Gaga, for example, is known for personally replying to messages on Facebook, as is Ricky Gervais on Twitter. On Facebook, I am “friends” with self-published authors I’ve ground through Amazon who regularly interact with their fans and other authors primarily by commenting, sharing and linking. 

My favourite example though is John Green’s persona on Tumblr. The young adult author has inspired a game on the blogging site - #Is That John Green? - where he is notorious for popping up and commenting on text posts which are often quite amusing. He also shares a YouTube channel with his brother, Hank Green, where John Green teaches you humanities and Hank Green teaches you science. 

There are many negative consequences of social media on celebrity culture which are not mentioned or debated here. Instead, I’ve chosen to focus on the ways new media does what it does best: closes the time and space gaps, bringing people closer together - even celebrities.


References:
Barbour, K & Marshall D 2011, 'Persona and the Academy: Making Decisions, Distinctions and Profiles in the Era of Presentational Media', World Congress on Communication and Arts, April 17-20, Sao Paulo, Brazil, pp. 14-18

Marshall, D 2010, ‘The Specular Economy’, Symposium: Celebrity Around the World, published on Springer, Vol. 47: pp 498-502

Marshall, D 2013, 'Persona Studies: Mapping the Proliferation of the Public Self', Sage, Vol. 0, No. 0, pp. 1-18

Wk 7: Preferred, Negotiated and Oppositional Readings of NBA 2K

The range of sporting games for a range of gaming consoles is immense. Cricket, the NBA, FIFA, NFL, NHL, UFC, WWE, MLB - among many others - are all represented in games. It is a subject that encompasses not only gaming culture but sports culture as well. 

Courtesy: http://thespawnpointblog.com

According to Stuart Hall, “the event must become a ‘story’ before it can become a communicative event” (Hall, 1980: 52). The unfolding of basketball through seasons and playoffs, and as such, the gaming medium of sports creates a context through which it can be ‘read’ or interpreted by its audience. Although signified messages may be encoded in one way they may be decoded by audiences in another. The reading of messages can be preferred/dominant-hegemonic (the way a message has been encoded to reflect social/political ideologues), negotiated (that which adapts the hegemonic reading on a situational level), and oppositional (Hall, 1980: 59-61). The encoding and decoding of media messages are the “determinate moments” of an audience’s understanding (Hall, 1980: 52). Being a huge NBA fan, I’ll specifically be looking at the different readings of the NBA 2K series. 

 The fact that most, if not all, of these sporting games are made to only feature male leagues is an issue of gender inequality in itself and reflects a social condition that places men’s sport over women’s. The commentary, that is not necessarily predisposed to any gender specification, in the NBA 2K series also illustrates this predominance of male figures in sport and any representations thereof. Of all the commentators since its initiation in 1999, NBA 2K has only seen one female commentator: Michele Tafoya. NBA 2K (excluding the PS2 version) features Cheryle Miller and NBA 2K11 includes Doris Burke, both as sideline reporters. It could be said that it’s an authentic representation of reality but that just means the dominant-hegemonic reading of this text validates the broader occurrence of male-dominated sport. 

Courtesy: http://live.drjays.com/index.php/2010/10/05/nba-2k11-review/

In NBA 2K9 gamers can create their own players and teams. For players, physical appearance, tattoos, gears, but also ability, play style and signature moves can be established according to the gamer’s will. This ability to create and change the subjects through which the gamer plays, allows a negotiated reading of the gender, race and age of professional basketball players. Choosing the ‘pre-made’ but real players, however - Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, etc. - reinforces dominant ideologues about professional athletes. 

Courtesy: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1354137-nba-2k13-review-gameplay-impressions-and-features-for-hit-basketball-video-game

In 2K13, representations of class are established through the soundtrack. Made in collaboration with exec. producer Jay-Z, the soundtrack reflects the hip-hop culture that surrounds the NBA and basketball in general. It’s ironic then that the preferred reading of the game - if read in relation to the soundtrack - is of a subculture and therefore promotes opposition to the traditional dominant-hegemonic order. 

Courtesy:
http://totalrevue.com/nba-2k14-announced-featuring-lebron-james-box-art/

For player LeBron James, “...NBA 2K is among the coolest and purest ways for fans to connect to the NBA” (Whitaker, AllBall Blog, 2013). This interactivity (Rassens, 2005) of NBA 2K series gamers enables a negotiated or even opposing reading of representations of gender, age, class and race but does not guarantee it.

References: 

Hall, S 1973, ‘Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse’, Centre for Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham, England, pp. 507-17, accessed 2 Sept 2013, >http://visualstudies.buffalo.edu/coursenotes/art250/250A/_assets/_readings/encoding_decoding_hall.pdf<

Lee, N 2012, ‘Game Review: NBA 2K Series’, Blogspot, 26 September, accessed 3 Sept 2013, >http://lenam701.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/game-review-nba-2k-series.html<

Rassens, J 2005, ‘Computer Games as Participatory Media Culture’, Handbook of Computer Studies, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., pp. 373-388

Robinson, J, 2012, ‘Jay-Z named ‘NBA 2K’ Executive Producer’, ESPN Playbook, 31 July, accessed 3 Sept 2013, >http://espn.go.com/blog/playbook/tech/post/_/id/1431/jay-z-named-nba-2k-executive-producer<

Whitaker, L 2013, ‘LeBron James Covers NBA 2K14’, AllBall Blog, June 7, accessed 2 Sept 2013, >http://allball.blogs.nba.com/2013/06/07/lebron-james-covers-nba-2k14/<

WK 6: Community and Culture in Fandom Blogs

One promise of the internet is that it forms a “global village” (McLuhan, 1964 in Nash, 2008). Images of sitting around a campfire with 6 million of our ‘neighbours’ is far from the reality that the internet provides. Nevermind the digital divide just in accessing the internet, the blogosphere epitomises the distinctiveness of the internet: instead of being one all-inclusive and comprehensive sphere, the blogosphere is comprised instead of macro-spheres or communities of like-minded content. The internet, with all its possibilities and limitations, has “become a means through which conventional boundaries and barriers can be transcended” (Bunt, 2003: 19 in Lim, 2012), thus creating new virtual communities with their own culture. 

Benedict Anderson (1991: 6 in Lim, 2012) proposes that “all communities larger than primordial villages of face-to-face contact (and perhaps even these) are imagined”. That is, the connection we feel to those who share similar interests and closeness (including the closeness that the internet provides through the compression of time and space) is constructed by individuals. Nevertheless, and as in real life, there is a tendency for people blogging to “interact more and more closely with people who share similar characteristics than with those who are dissimilar” (Lim, 2012:129). This homophily is expressed in the blogosphere as ‘a community’ and examples are not limited to networks of race, ethnicity, and religion, but includes fandom groups and general like-minded interests such as fashion, food, politics, fitness etc. 

Like in society and physical communities, blog communities foster distinctive social and behavioural norms that reflect shared values (Wei, 2004). Fandoms exemplify this in a way like none other. The passion of fandoms are not limited to being expressed online but generally infiltrate many aspects of an individuals lives - whether reading fanfiction or dressing up for Comic-Con. No matter what the pursuit, it ends in sense of community. 

Danisnotonfire 2012, 'Fandom', Youtube, 12 October, Accessed 1 Sept 2013

>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqYkERuoMN8<

We create our identities through belonging to a group and with the proliferation of the internet and subsequent blogosphere, more and more of the groups we have access to and choose to belong to occur online. In my experience, tumblr is the main rendezvous point for these groups. The fandoms on this blogging site have gained great notoriety. 

There are the devoted. And there are the downright crazy. 

Whatever you think of fandoms, as representative of communities in the blogosphere, their connection as a group is impressive if not sometimes disconcerting.

Further reading: 
Vaughn, H 2012, ‘Hunger is Not a Game’, The Harry Potter Alliance, March 1, Accessed 1 Sept 2013, >http://thehpalliance.org/2012/03/hunger-is-not-a-game/< 

Images courtesy of Buzzfeed.

Alwaysadrienne 2013, ‘The 20 Craziest Fandoms on Tumblr’, Buzzfeed, June 14, Accessed 1 Sept 2013, >http://www.buzzfeed.com/alwaysadrienne/the-20-craziest-tumblr-fandoms-a08n< 

References:
Adalin, J, Bernardin, M, Buchanan, K, Chianca, P, Dobbins, A, Fox, J D, Lyons, M, Martin, D, Ruediger, R & Vineyard, J 2012, ‘The 25 Most Devoted Fan Bases’, Vulture, 15 October, Accessed 1 Sept 2013, >http://www.vulture.com/2012/10/25-most-devoted-fans.html# <

Alwaysadrienne 2013, ‘The 20 Craziest Fandoms on Tumblr’, Buzzfeed, June 14, Accessed 1 Sept 2013, >http://www.buzzfeed.com/alwaysadrienne/the-20-craziest-tumblr-fandoms-a08n<

Etling, B, Kelly, J, Faris, R and Palfrey, J 2009, ‘Mapping the Arabic Blogosphere: Politics, Culture and Dissent’, Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard University, accessed 1 September 2013, [available: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/sites/cyber.law.harvard.edu/files/Mapping_the_Arabic_Blogosphere_0.pdf ]

Lim, M 2012 ‘Life is Local in the Imagined Global Community: Islam and Politics in the Indonesian Blogosphere’, Journal of Media and Religion, Vol. 11, pp 127-140

Nash, N 2008, ‘International Facebook “Friends”: Toward McLuhan’s Global Village,’ The McMaster Journal of Communication: Vol. 5, No. 7 >http://digitalcommons.mcmaster.ca/mjc/vol5/iss1/7<

Wei, C 2004, "Formation of norms in a blog community" Into the blogosphere, University of Minnesota, accessed 1 Sept 2013 >http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/formation_of_norms.html<

Woolly Mammoth 1012, ‘Fandemonium: Super Fans and Building Communities’, Woolly Mammoth Blog, May 18, Accessed 1 Sept 2013, >http://woollymammothblog.com/2012/05/18/fandemonium-super-fans-and-building-communities/<

Wk 5: Prosume-ing Identity... As a Fan

When I discover a new band, song or album, I tend to consume it more times than really necessary. After discovering something new - either on the radio, through friends, YouTube, Spotify, iTunes or random web searches - I generally download it on (the free version of) Spotify. If I end up listening to it to death and want access to it beyond my laptop, then comes the proper download. For many poor uni students, peer-to-peer (p2p) file sharing and free downloading comes in handy when in need of cheap and fast entertainment. 

Prosumers, first proposed by Alvin Toffler (1980), is described by Ritzter & Jurgenson (2010) as the merging of producers and consumers into one more inclusive category, specifically the exploitation of free workers/creators, and is incredibly relevant to the use of the Web 2.0. Sites that exemplify the Web 2.0 paradigm (e.g. Wikipedia, Flickr and social networking sites like Facebook) “together...are taken to represent how a new class of cultural producers (or “prosumers”) relates to cultural production” (Jakobsson & Stiernstedt, 2010:1).

This diagram shows the ecology of file sharing as an act of prosumerism:

Jenkins, H 2009, '"Geeking Out" For Democracy (Part 1)', Ecology of Education, May 11, >http://ecologyofeducation.net/wsite/?p=638<

Whether through Spotify or bitTorrent, I would argue that file sharing can be seen as a form of prosumerism. While many using these methods don’t necessarily produce anything new, they do produce avenues - or seeds/peers - of access. Before the internet, the same concept applies, potentially even more so, to the making of mixtapes and the like. It is an epitome of the cyber-libertarianism of the open-source movement which is theoretically more concerned with individual freedom and freedom of information than capitalistic ends (Levy, 1984). In exchange for products free of charge at almost inconceivable levels of abundance, we, the poor uni students, are more willing to be more forgiving for poorer quality. 

Programs like Spotify, even more so, allows you to be prosumers in a way bitTorrent sites don’t. The social media aspect of it that allows users to create playlists and follow friends allows the creation of an online identity, specifically through music. It attempts to enter the capitalist area of the internet while also keeping one foot in the traditional user-first social media environment by having, as Ritzer and Jurgenson point out, a “‘freemium’ model (basic and free for most, premium and paid for some)” (ibid, 2010: 30). 

When it comes to creativity, I am significantly musically challenged. Fortunately for me, and sometimes unfortunately for the big music industry, I become a prosumer by contributing to the production of accessibility while also consuming what others provide access too. 

References:
Levy, S 1984, ‘Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution’, Anchor Press/Doubleday, Garden City, NY

Jakobsson, P & Stiernstedt, F 2010, ‘Pirates of Silicon Valley: State of Exception and Dispossession in Web 2.0’, First Monday, Vol. 15, No. 7 >http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/2799/2577%20Accessed%20on%206/09/thepiratebay.org/thepiratebay.org/<

Jenkins, H 2009, '"Geeking Out" For Democracy (Part 1)', Ecology of Education, May 11, >http://ecologyofeducation.net/wsite/?p=638<

Ritzer, G & Jurgenson, N 2010, ‘Production, Consumption, Prosumption: The Nature of Capitalism in the Age of the Digital “Prosumer”’, Journal of Consumer Culture, Vol. 10, No. 13, pp 13-36

W4: Remix Culture

Depending on how you define innovation - as something original, or just something new - remixerrs can be considered both innovators and thieves. Fortunately for my consideration, those terms are not necessarily contradictory.



(A remix of Picasso's quote by Banksy
http://www.flickriver.com/photos/hisgett/3762597413/)

It's easy to argue that the re-presentation of a piece of work is piracy when you assume that the original is just that: original. But is anything really original. Pablo Picasso even once said that "good artists copy, great artists steal". Advances in almost any category are inspired by something else. Almost everything these days is a copy of a copy, a reinterpretation of an interpretation. For Lawrence Lessig, "creators here and everywhere are always and at all times building upon creativity that went before and that surrounds them now" (2004: 29). Younger generations especially have replaced the top down consumption model of culture, and instead "increasingly understand culture as something they make, or something they remake and remix...through the tools of technology" (Lessig in Work Foundation, 2007: 75). Art, and more broadly, culture, is often derivative in a way that enables its growth.

Theft is a tricky concept in this debate that, for me, requires specificity. If you consider it in legal terms then it is fairly black and white with only some shades of grey: does 'theft' mean not paying royalties, or just not attributing/acknowledging original ownership? I would argue now, however, that even if the content is stolen, derivative, or has been influenced, the product can still be innovative, new and different. Maybe they're innovators if they add something to or better the original and pirates if they don't: "In music, good remixes make the original tracks more popular" and therefore add value (Mason, The Guardian, 10 May 2008).

U.K street artist Banksy provides an interesting argument for ownership/piracy debates in terms of advertising - a medium which is often derivative and woven with intertextuality:

(http://binaryzeromusic.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/banksy-fuck-that.html)

His quote was then remixed by artist Karina Nurdinova. Banksy himself often employs recognisable symbols in his work but the medium used and elements added alters or parodies the original meaning.
For example:

  

Remixers of any medium of art are not always innovator, but neither are they necessarily thieves. Artists can create something new, based on something old, without leading the way of innovation.

References:

Binary Zero 2012, 'Banksy: Fuck That', Binary Zero, Friday March 16, >http://binaryzeromusic.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/banksy-fuck-that.html< 

Lessig, L 2004, 'Free Culture', The Penguin Press, New York

Mason, M 2008, 'Live and Let DIY', The Guardian, Saturday 10 May >http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2008/may/10/popandrock.piracy<

Sanyal, D 2011, 'Spiel Province: One Nation Under Banksy', Blogger, Friday 8 July >http://spielprovince.blogspot.com.au/2011/07/one-nation-under-banksy.html<

Work Foundation 2007, 'Staying Ahead: The Economic Performance of the UK's Creative Industries', Department of Culture, Media and Sport, London





W3: You Tatt Too?

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobjagendorf/7672926246)

Tattoo is a trend of global postmodernism as it reintroduces traditional elements and practices from subdominant cultures into that of the West – both oppositional subcultures and the mainstream. Its global consumption is a product of the ethnographic changes and cultural flows of globalisation. Its adoption in the ‘global mainstream’ hasn’t so much influenced my view of any particular culture, but rather shined a light on the influence of smaller cultural practices in our globalising world.

 

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/gbaku/4002768276/ )

It is an interesting example of globalisation. Instead of the obvious American Imperialism we typically associate with globalisation, the custom is from subdominant societies and has been bastardised, in a sense, by the West. We have adopted the custom, subverted and interpreted its traditional meanings and made it our own for our own purposes. From this perspective, it can easily be seen how globalisation creates a homogenous world where the dominant West consumes the smaller cultures. It is ironic then that a proportion of those with tattoos in the West "see themselves rejecting occupation-based status hierarchies of the dominant occupational system" as Langman & Cangemi (2003: 150) suggest.

Within Western society, tattoos have been used as a means of identifying with a group or as an individual, starting with, but not limited to, groups oppositional to the dominant ideology. Prisons, gangs, and fringe groups such as hardcore, punk and rock adorned their bodies with tattoos long before it was accepted into mainstream culture. The increasing prevalence of tattoo in mainstream media and its commercialisation to sell products has “elevate[d] tattoo’s cultural status” in the West (Kosut, 2006) while also exhausting its “potential to provoke”. Due to globalisation, tattoo “...is used to sell a product and is simultaneously a product to be consumed” (ibid, 2006: 1037).

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/toonmanimage/341364639/)

The globalisation of tattoo has thus changed my understanding of the practice. While the concept itself is traditionally non-Wester, I see tattoos - like most art - as a form of self-expression; a way to further individualise ourselves in an increasingly modern world of sameness. However, my views dramatically change if, for example, a person not of Maori decent got a traditional Maori tattoo. In my opinion, that's slightly pretentious and more than slightly disrespectful. Chinese and Japanese symbols and designs - also popular among the West - is different but I don't understand why myself. Maybe because the East has been represented more in the media I consume. Logically, it shouldn't be any different. I understand the hypocrisy and contradiction in my acceptance of the concept but placing conditions on the content. 

That's my weird and worldly perspective on tattoo.

References:
Kosut, M 2006, ‘An Ironic Fad: The Commodification and Consumption of Tattoos’, Journal of Popular Culture, Vol 39, No Issue 6, p1035-1048

Langman, L & Cangemi, K 2003, 'Globalisation and the Liminal: Transgression, Identity and the Urban Primitive', pp 141-176