Television: His Dark Materials - Language and Representation

 

Television: His Dark Materials - Language and Representation:

His Dark Materials: Language and Representation blog tasks

Create a new blogpost called 'His Dark Materials: Language and Representation blog tasks' and work through the following tasks:

Language and close-textual analysis

1) Write an analysis of the episode - using your notes from the screening in class. Make specific, detailed reference to moments in the text using media terminology (e.g. media language - camera shots and movement, editing, diegetic/non-diegetic sound, mise-en-scene etc.)

- 

• Settings - cave into forest, ‘city in the sky’

• Storm/rain - connotations of danger but also reminding audiences her friend Roger died in season 1 Representation of age - children are in charge, grown ups are in danger. Subversion of gender roles - girls about to fight, Will breaks it up. Religion - references to dust and sin.

You can currently watch His Dark Materials on BBC iPlayer here.

Camerawork, editing and sound:  

Mise-en-scene: 

Narrative and genre:  scientific, industrial and modern 

You can access our notes from the close-textual analysis in a previous class here - you'll need your Greenford Google login to open this.

2) How does His Dark Materials fit the conventions of the fantasy TV genre?

features a huge cast of characters and a complex plot

3) Applying Propp's character theory, what character roles do some of the main characters in His Dark Materials fit into? 

- They mostly fit into time travellers because the windows are basically like time machines

4) What enigma and action codes (Barthes) can you find in His Dark Materials? Make specific, detailed reference to the text using media terminology (e.g. media language - camera shots, diegetic/non-diegetic sound, mise-en-scene etc.)

- camera shot - there was more panning into the face rather than over the shoulder, there was also really fast-pace scenes whereas in one of the scene, lyra was chasing some girls but will couldn't keep up.

 

5) What examples of binary opposition (Levi-Strauss) can you find in His Dark Materials? How do these create narrative or drama for the audience? You can find reminder notes on all these narrative theories here - just scroll down to narrative. 

 - It is significant because it was co-commissioned for an international audience by the BBC and the

American television network HBO, and was always intended to be distributed on a number of

platforms: as a scheduled, broadcast programme (BBC1), on cable (HBO), as well as on demand

(iPlayer) and on DVD. It was created for these platforms by an independent company, Bad Wolf.

Representations

1) How are women represented in His Dark Materials? Are gender stereotypes reinforced or subverted? Think about Lyra and Mrs Coulter here.

- They are represented as strong, bold women with power rather than boys.

2) How are men and masculinity represented in His Dark Materials? Think about Will and Lee Scoresby here.

3) How is age (e.g. teenagers; adults) represented in His Dark Materials? Does the show reinforce or challenge stereotypes about young people? Think about Lyra and Will plus the abandoned children they meet. Also think about Mrs Coulter and other adults.

- it shows that the younger seem smarter to stay in the widows rather than the adults that have fleed to somewhere else

4) How is race and ethnicity represented in His Dark Materials? Are stereotypes reinforced or subverted?

- I didn't see much of diversity but all I can say is that in dark materials, they had some who represented diversity suck as will, bach in the 1960s, we would've never seen a back man in televison.

5) What representations of the world can you find in the episode - is it like real life? A fantasy world? Something from the past or future? Give examples from the episode.

- it more of like a fantasy because this doesn't happen in your everyday life, lyra and will seem like its normal for them to cross worlds into different dimensions whereas the people here who are watching his dark materials would think its impossible that you can just cross worlds so casually.