District 9

Discuss issues of representation of Gender and Race?


Discuss how typical the text is of it's Genre?
The text is typical of it's genre as it contains typical science fiction conventions used within classic science fiction films. These conventions are the narrative themes of aliens and humans co-existing, new techinologies and consequences, trasformation/ body horror; the use of advanced scientific events within a fictional narrative to propose and discuss a real life moral debate and traditional iconography. The scene justifications of each of these conventions are:

• Narrative themes of aliens and humans co-existing - district 9, new technologies and consequences - weapons, transformation/ body horror - Wickus turning into alien. 

How is this film Post Modern?
The film District 9 is a Post-Modern film as it is a hybrid and pays homage to other Sci-Fi texts. District 9 is a hybrid genre as it mixes the two genres of Science Fiction and Documentary Style together. Justifying this, the science fiction is portrayed through aliens, a key part in a science fiction text and documentary style is portrayed through stock footage such as news reports and found footage waiting to be used. District 9 pays homage to other Science Fiction texts such as 'The Fly', in particular the scenes where Wickus bites off his finger nails and where Wickus looks up at the Koobus Venter before he attempts to shoot Wickus, this happens in 'The Fly' when the man is frothing at the mouth.

What is the contextual cultural content in the text?

Made In Chelsea - 'Rah' and 'Sloane Ranger'

Sloane Ranger

The term Sloane Ranger (often shortened to Sloane or less frequently Sloanie) refers to a stereotype in the UK of young, upper class or upper-middle-class women, or men who share distinctive and common lifestyle traits. The term is a punning portmanteau of "Sloane Square", a location in Chelsea, London famed for the wealth of residents and frequenters, and the television Westerns character The Lone Ranger.

Initially the term "Sloane Ranger" was used mostly in reference to women, a particular archetype being Diana, Princess of Wales. However, the term now usually includes men. Male Sloanes have also been referred to as "Rahs" and "Hooray Henrys". The term Sloane Ranger has similar related terms in other countries: in France they are called 'BCBG' (bon chic, bon genre).

Rah

Rah is a pejorative term referring to a stereotypical affluent young upper class or upper-middle class person (male or female) in the United Kingdom. The characteristics of a rah are similar to those of the Sloane Ranger stereotype also recognised in the UK. Although a rah is generally younger, typically around university age (18–25). An important feature of the rah stereotype is the enjoyment of an affluent/party lifestyle with excessive financial assistance from their parents.

Taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloane_Ranger and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rah_(slang)

To what extent are your chosen texts typical of their genre?

Sin City - Clip 4

Sin City is a postmodern text which is a typical hybrid consisting of the two genres, the Film Noir and Comic Book genres. Sin City has typical Film Noir genre and contain conventions that define it as a Film Noir text. The first convention of this text is that the character Dwight is a cynical protaganist. In the text, we see Dwight driving from Old Town getting ready to dump the car in the Tar Pits as it has dead bodies in that the girls from Old Town have just killed. Dwight is a cynical protaganist as he is paranoid about death, this occurs when dwight is driving the car and one of the dead characters in particular 'Jackie Boy' speaks to him and tells him he is not going to get away with it. This relates to the Cold War as men didn't know if the war was going to start again and they didn't know if they were going to die. The second convention is femme-fatale, this occurs in Sin City when the women from old town complain that they don't want to be controlled by men again as they like their own power, this relates to females at the time of WW2 as they had power when the men went to war and when the men came back they did not want to lose this power. The typical film noir convention of a voice over narration also occurs in the text.  The use of voice over narration gives the viewer first person perspective, the voice over describes the scene and the characters emotions and opinions. This convention is used in the text when Dwight is driving the car from Old Town to the Tar Pits and he is narrating in his head what he is going to do about the bodies. This gives us insight into what he is thinking and how he feels about the situation he is in.