Monday, March 19, 2018

LAUAN501 - Study Task 6 - Main Body 2: Case Studies of Practice (850 words approx)


  • Descriptive Analysis: describe the image / example focussing on details you feel are important. This will help with your later interpretation.
  • Application of theoretical research and contextual information to back up your interpretations of your chosen works, use quotes / citations to back up your own ideas.

George Orwell's, 1945 book, Animal Farm, substitutes humans for animals and the satirical concepts of communism, the manipulation and misuse of political ideology and power in a communistic society. Based from a historical point of view, of political uproar from betrayal and detailing the suffering and injustice relative to the Russian Revolution and aftermath of the tyrannical figure of Joseph Stalin. 
Manipulating and using society against their will, as a society under a controversial government as described in Animal Farm, (1954) with the changing and alternations of the animals written rules of rights.
As stated in Jacques Ellul (1965, p. 38-39) “We are governed, our minds are moulded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organised.”

The historical political themes associated based of war are, survival, heroism, leadership, political responsibility, and the 'making of a hero' from a community. An icon for rebellion or hope from under dictatorship, community would join together when faith is lost in government, this is a common concept for political animation and imagery as such after World War 2. This is a common concept from examples of the principles of culture and the community opposed by any political indifferences in society. Showing how socially, communities can be oppressed from cultural regulations and leaders. 
These themes describe many animated films of the time and future, they convey the most signifying heroism of all, a struggle for freedoms and retribution, and by building on these beliefs can change the face of politics, dominant in the many influential elements of society described in, Jacques Ellul (1965, p. 38-39).
"Only if it rests on the proper collective beliefs will it be understood and accepted. It is part of a complex of civilisation, consisting of material elements, beliefs, ideas, and institutions, it cannot be separated from them" 
These collective beliefs are affected and amplified with propagandic images and imagery, that animation and cartoons can solely communicate to a larger audience, as a nation with a combination of the themes associated, as stated in Reed (2017) 'Film served as the most effective means of communicating with all facets of a country’s population. During a time of anger, fear, and uncertainty, films entertained, while also delivering a steady stream of subtle themes and key messages.'


The contemporary political themes are more formations of trends and the attitudes of the people in society,
governed by the authority of power, they are responsible for the images we see, the materialistic goods we possess and the consumerism of items and goods that are considered of high value and meaning. 
'What Shall We Do Now?' by Pink Floyd, 2000, describing and showing a decay into greed, 'Pink' experiences a need to fill an imagined hole in his being with materialistic things, following society in trends of invalidating community and defining a person’s being by what materialistic items they possess.

The notion that a person should be defined by what he owns and what social trends he hollowly maintains. 'Pink' wondering how he should fill the final gaps in his wall, a number of modern day vices and other things that keep us from truly connecting with others and ourselves. 
Urik (2016) 'The message is clear, and is as individual as it is universal: These personal and social barriers we build up around us – the cocoons of possessions and obsessions to which we retreat – all but stifle individuality, split our very notions of community and interconnectedness, and eventually lead to social decay, personal degradation, and violence.'
Juliet and Douglas (2000). “Consumption is a social relationship, the dominant relationship in our society, one that makes it harder and harder for people to hold together, to create community.”
Society bases its self-worth and conformity with material goods, a community never satisfied, needing more acceptance for self-assertion. Mistakenly believing through possessions and valued livelihoods, that we are acceptable, taking community into a more oppressed society than that of free will and individuality based on being.

Urik (2016), 'True to the undercurrent of previous songs like “Another Brick in the Wall, Part II,” this attempt at individuality (in this case, materialistic/consumerist individuality) is only achieved through conformity to commercialised social norms. Abandoning your personal idea of self for the one that a collective media says you should be only leads to further dissatisfaction, cycling back into newfound obsessions, new trends, and new, pointless minutiae to govern your life and define who you are.'

Vulnerable to manipulation as a society for the attitudes of the economy, controlling the population as much as the political consumerist ideology feeds them material goods. Politics in consumerism, as a means of control over a society. A social and economic order and ideology that encourages the acquisition of goods and services in mass production, planned obsolescence and advertising to increase consumer spending.




Bernays (1928). "The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country."

Made from TV's, radio, vehicles boats record players, and other various materialistic items and expensive products. A “sea of faces” but of possessions, the identity of society represented by the symbolic meaning of objects and items in our lives. Idolising technology as more than our very individualist views, these view and ideology of freedom and expression are exchanged for materialistic concepts. The political element of oppression in modern society as developed from dictatorship into representing societies greed and consumerism, a contemporary political influence and control on all, as described in analysis. Urik (2016), 'The masks worn by the schoolchildren in “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2.” The massive barrier of consumer greed plunges onward, breaking the peace of the countryside with the screams of the “the people caught up in the wall” (Scarfe, DVD). Everything the wall passes is corrupted.'

What remains is a society bound on one purpose, soulless and moulded into serving political influence and 'become another brick in the wall', all community founded elements are replaced with symbolic and items for war and reformation. All society is influenced, ruled from production and changed into the most efficient ways for governmental power and ruling, even over religion. 

(((PHRASE)))
Flowers turn into barbed wire; an innocent infant morphs into a beast and then a uniformed (the same Nazi-inspired uniform of Pink’s fascist regime later in the movie), who bludgeons an innocent bystander to death. Blood splatters the wall. Communal religion is destroyed next as the wall continues its course straight through a church, setting up a “new god” in the form of a casino-like neon building that spews mass-produced neon bricks (Scarfe, DVD).

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