ALICE’S RESEARCH: Conspiracies within Television and Film (Part One)
OKAY LADS HERE WE GO!!!!
So a bit of an introduction to my research: The first topic I decided to research was conspiracies within movies. I performed research for both on screen and offscreen (for example marketing) and I found some pretty juicy information. I love a good conspiracy theory, as a lot of you probably know by now, so the idea of me being able to link this into my Historical and Contextual studies is brilliant! Would love to hear your comments and feedback! :)
Little bit of audio material for you to enjoy whilst you read this research - makes it an immersive experience lads!
Hey what’s up you guys, yes. Welcome back to the blog and today I am going to be talking about conspiracy theories within film and television. These days, conspiracy theories are a major thing - especially when it comes the younger generations. In fact, conspiracy theories (along with memes and clearly a few shots of vodka) are what started the idea and the commencement of the Area 51 Raid. There are so many conspiracy theories spiralling around these days - whether they’re about the government, aliens, the Mandela effect - each conspiracy has it’s own way of shocking those who find out, and they all spark their own debates. My essay in particular will, of course, be focussing on conspiracies within movies and television shows, and the ideology behind them. So, let’s go see them theories - they can’t stop all of us. First of all I’d like to talk about the Headless Women of Hollywood. Posters are a huge part of the marketing process when it comes to advertising and distributing a film. You see them everywhere - whether it be online behind the screen or smack bang in your face on billboards in public. Surely there can’t be any ideology hidden behind posters though, right? Wrong. Take a look at these movie posters here:
Each movie poster has a woman clearly present, and it can be seen that all of these women share multiple things in common. A ‘desirable’ part of their body seems to be centred and in some instances there are men framing the women. However all of these ladies have one major thing in common - and that is the fact that you cannot see their faces. The same thing happens with modelling agencies. When a female model is modelling clothes, a lot of the time the agencies won’t show her face. Why? Because they don’t have to pay her as much money if she’s unidentifiable. So, instead, they just objectify the models. Male stars rarely ever seem to have their heads cut off in movie posters, and this all leads back to the ideology of feminism and sexism. A comedian named Marcia Belsky noticed this and she made her own social media accounts to discuss the subject. An article was made about the subject, and a particular quote from this article caught my attention - “Accompanied by hilarious captions, the post draws attention to how viewers are made to believe that a women’s head – “the first and foremost the thinking part of the human body”, as the website says – is dispensable in a work of art.”. Overall the Headless Women of Hollywood movie posters are taking away the identities of these ladies and objectifying them instead. I will go into much more detail with this in my overall essay. In PART TWO of my research, I will be talking about how suicide and mental health is portrayed as a somewhat positive thing in children’s cartoons that are shown within films and television shows.
In PART THREE of my research, I will be talking about the literal Matrix and how people think we could be living in a simulation. Putting all jokes aside I will link this back to our real life government and how it connects to Plato’s Cave and William Blake.
REFERENCES Headless Women of Hollywood: 1) https://youtu.be/RbwR_uHhiI0?t=2010 - Shane Dawson Video (33:30) 2) https://scroll.in/reel/872522/headless-women-of-hollywood-a-social-media-project-highlights-the-faceless-women-in-movie-posters - Marcia Belsky 3) https://www.google.com/search?q=headless+women+of+hollywood&sxsrf=ACYBGNQ4_CF_vBQWCPjk71zhi5ms1n2DDQ:1574519746175&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjfkqaRx4DmAhUHUcAKHWoaAYYQ_AUoAXoECAwQAw&biw=1440&bih=821#imgrc=9EEd9aHxFzRecM - Image One
FEEDBACK NOTES FOR ME TO LOOK BACK AT 1) Emily - A League of Their Own (Google this and link it into the essay) 2) Glorija - Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking (Simulation/Life is a hologram). 15 Irrefutable Reasons Why We Might Be Living in a Simulation (https://www.vulture.com/2019/02/15-irrefutable-reasons-we-might-be-living-in-a-simulation.html). People convinced we live in the Matrix (https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/computer-simulation-world-matrix-scientists-elon-musk-artificial-intelligence-ai-a7347526.html). 3) Caitlin - Comedies (The Headless Women of Hollywood), could compare this to other genres.