Thiago’s Blog: November 2020

Hello everyone!! Today I’m going to be talking about representation in the media or more specifically, representation in marketing. I want to touch base on two commercials for different brands, one does a phenomenal job at being diverse and having a great message while the other does the complete opposite.

The first commercial was created by Axe. A company that caters to men’s grooming therefore having a target audience of males. The video shows multiple swarms of women in tight bikinis acting extremely animal-like as they try to reach an unknown final destination. It is later revealed that all the woman are trying to get to a man who is applying axe body spray and has a huge smile on his face; A phrase that states “Spray more, get more. The Axe effect.” Then appears on the screen. This commercial should not have been aired for a number off reasons. The portrayal of woman in this commercial is extremely degrading as they are shown to be desperate for this man and presumably sex. This is an unrealistic and gross depiction of women and how they should be complete savages over a man. This commercial could also be extremely harmful for boys as it may set low standards on how they should treat women and could put them in a mentality that dehumanizes women. Overall, this advertisement should not have been aired and is extremely harmful.

The next advertisement is one for H&M. H&M is a clothing company that does not mainly target a single gender. The commercial shows a diverse group of people, each with a voiceover that says something that may not be considered a fashion abnormality in our current society; A few examples are “Wear a short skirt if you’re a man” and “Show your panty line.” The commercial ends with text that tells the audience to recycle their used clothes at H&M. I do not have the words to describe how much joy this advertisement brings me, I am thinking of kids insecure about their weight or hair color that will watch this and grin at their televisions at the sight of someone that looks like them being the face of a huge clothing brand. Something that H&M did incredibly with this commercial is how they included people that are overweight, transgender, or amputees without making it about their looks but rather what they are wearing; It is incredibly important to normalize bodies and people that some may not consider “perfect” as it will help others gain confidence within themselves. H&M encouraging customers to recycle clothes at their stores is very important as it helps them save the environment and helps customers learn about why recycling things is so important to our world.

Overall, there is representation in every piece of media and wether its positive or negative is up to the companies creating it. The H&M advertisement that I spoke about shows just how easy it is to include positive representation and how there is no excuse not to. Our society is not made up of skinny, white, cis-het people so it is time that our media mirrors that.

Horror has been around for decades and the genre is ever changing and evolving. Jason Hellermen stated that horror is a genre “whose purpose is to create feelings of fear, dread, disgust, and terror in the audience. The primary goal is to develop an atmosphere that puts the audience on edge and scares them.” There are many horror sub-genres out there; Some are iconic such as slashers and home invasions and others less mainstream like body horror and splatter.

Content and tropes in horror

Horror films carry many tropes with them, some necessary while others overused. Many fans of horror look forward to seeing these tropes in movies as they add a factor of cheese that helps make the production more endearing to these die hard fans. An example of one of these tropes is the final girl, a heroine who is usually the last survivor of an attack, a few examples are Laurie Strode in Halloween and Sally Hardesty in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. These characters watch most of their loved ones die but are ultimately able to escape the threat. There are many other tropes that dominate the horror genre such as a car breaking down, a victim falling rights as they are running from a threat, and the cell service mysteriously not working.

Jamie Lee Curtis portraying Laurie Strode in Halloween(1978)

Production techniques in horror

When making a horror film many directors use the same techniques in order to make their production effective. What makes a horror film effective is ultimately subjective but the general perception is that one should be frightened. “The 3 types of terror: The Gross-out: the sight of a severed head tumbling down a flight of stairs, it's when the lights go out and something green and slimy splatters against your arm. The Horror: the unnatural, spiders the size of bears, the dead waking up and walking around, it's when the lights go out and something with claws grabs you by the arm. And the last and worse one: Terror, when you come home and notice everything you own had been taken away and replaced by an exact substitute. It's when the lights go out and you feel something behind you, you hear it, you feel its breath against your ear, but when you turn around, there's nothing there...” This quote by Stephen King implies that the horror genre is supposed to make you feel, wether its disgust or genuine terror, you should leave the cinema feeling a “negative” emotion. One of the techniques used to make audiences feel this way are Specific lighting; The Mise-en-scene of a film is extremely important as it sets up the mood and tone for the entire production. Many horror films use neon lighting, this can be due to a few reasons;One of them being that some consider the 80’s to have been the golden era of horror cinema, the use of neon lights may be a homage to this era of movies that some love so deeply. An example of this is in The Strangers:Prey at night, There is a moment in the film where one of the characters faces off with one of the masked killers. While this confrontation occurs the characters are surrounded by neon lights and Total Eclipse of the Heart by Bonnie Tyler plays, this is not what one usually envisions in a horror movie but someone raised in the 80’s would absolutely love this scene. Another reason why neon lighting could be used is for its colors; Colors can be used to evoke emotions in the viewers and help the story evolve. Suspiria is an example of this as the color palette is stunning and the colors serve an aesthetic purpose and a contextual purpose. An element that is extremely important in the horror genre is sound; When the audience is least expecting it, a jumpscare may occur, but visual elements may not be enough and the loud sound that comes with it is really what makes people jump. Sound can be man extremely helpful tool as it can be used to create suspense; The audience on the edge of their seats in complete silence waiting to see what happens to our main character, no worse feeling.

The strangers:Prey at night(2018)

Marketing strategies

Marketing for horror movies is something a bit more complex than the last few categories I touched on. As a big fan of horror films, I am very passionate about the marketing of them. These past few years the quality of most trailers for anything in the horror genre has seen A huge decline. I have seen a trend with horror movie trailers recently in which they show the movies scariest and/or most shocking scene in order to capture an audience and then the movie ends up falling flat. On the other hand there are very few horror movies that come to my head that I loved the trailer and the movie equally, one of them being Hereditary. Spoilers for Hereditary ahead, skip all of the red text if you have not watched it yet. What captivated me so much about Hereditary was how the trailer showed a completely different plot than the one the movie followed. The character who the audience presumes to be the main character dies before the movie hits its halfway mark, this was a great marketing move as it created great tumult about the film and made more people go see it. When marketing a movie or tv show, the creators should try to be as interactive with the possible target audience as much as they can. One example of this is American Horror Story a horror anthology series that releases a new season every year, for the past few years instead of announcing what the theme of the season is, creator Ryan Murphy releases a series of teasers that hints towards the final theme of the series. This is a very smart tactic as creating an interactive setting with the audience gets them excited about the season and hopefully get them talking with others about what the theme may be.

Film Sample

SPOILERS FOR MIDSOMMAR AHEAD

Midsommar is a film by Ari Aster that was released in 2019. In my opinion, it encompasses everything a horror film should be. Midsommar follows Dani (Florence Pugh), her boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor), and a group of her friends as they travel to Sweden to take part in the Midsummer festival. They quickly realize that something is off as the locals become more and more questionable and their traditions more cult-like. This film is almost perfect in my eyes and here’s why; Tropes are used in the movie, the most prevalent one being the final girl, but they are used extremely tastefully and overall the films quality. Color is also very prevalent throughout the movie, especially white to represent purity and the colors of the Swedish flag, blue and yellow. Midsommar also includes the three principles of horror that Stephen King writes about the horror, the terror, and the gross-out. By including all three of these, this movie is sure to have an effect on every person who experiences it.

Film Sample 2

SPOILERS FOR THE INVISIBLE MAN AHEAD

The Invisible Man directed by Leigh Whannell is a 2020 film that I have watched countless times and always love every minute of it. The movie follows Cecilia (Elisabeth Moss) who is stuck in an abusive relationship with Adrian (Oliver Jackson-Cohen). When she is finally able to escape she receives the news that her ex-boyfriend has committed suicide, although he is presumed dead Cecilia still believes that he is around, now she just has to convince everybody else. I love this movie for a number of reasons, one of them being their portrayal of abuse. It is shown how Adrian gaslit and manipulated Cecilia and even once he is “dead” he still finds a way to gaslight her by making sure only she knows that he is still alive and everyone else think she is crazy. Another reason I enjoy this movie is due to how they marketed it. The original trailer for this film included a few scenes not in the movie and a majority of scenes from only the first act. This movie had a great impact on me as I will never forget when I was in the theater and realized that I thought I was coming in to watch a completely different film. This is a horror film with drama, fantasy elements, and psychological elements. This film is never stagnant and has extremely shocking scenes.

Horror movies/TV shows I believe everyone should watch at least once