Textual analysis

STRANGER THINGS

Camera:                                                       

Frame

Angles

Movement

Sound:

Music

Contrapuntal

Diegetic/ non-diegetic

Off screen/on screen

Voice over

Emotion

Dialogue

Representations:

Men/women

Government

Teenagers

Mise En Scene:

Costume:

o   Barb muted pastel clothing

o   Eleven hair/Benny yellow outfit- is non-gender specific/androgynous-mysterious alien character. Hasn’t been well nurtured

o   Government dark clothes, authority menacing reflecting their intentions

Lighting:

o   Warm lighting in diner contrast/juxtaposing coming in from the dark- perhaps foreshadowing her evil ways

o   Nancy room, warm tones/personal and intimate decor and another more threating individual cold dark outsiders

Camera:

o   Long shot from Elevens point of view looking at Benny and Connie (social worker) undermines the government authority figures as we trusted her and she kills Benny

o   Subverting our idea of a government figure by murdering someone who is nice

o   Conforms

o   High angle looking down on Connie- helpful nurturing women looked down upon man from his setting. She subverts the stereotype of someone caring profession

o   Nancy and Steven- level with each other so are equal. Audience will be able to relate to this intimate scene of the stereotypical bright girl with jock 

o   Dr Brenner’s menacing entrance scans the room looking for Eleven- genre and narrative. His suited and black coat presence exerts authority.

o   Three boys shot of will search shows Dustin hesitance and makes him the more cowardly

Sounds:

o   Three boy shot of Will search

o   Diegetic dialogue: ‘If you get one wrong you take an item of clothing off’ his stereotypical cheeky, lusty jock type. Shows him to be a selfish character

o   White rabbit 80s/ Toto Africa / Every little bit by Ian

o   On screen diegetic sound- announces violent aggressive government entrance

o   The songs volume is louder is when she’s in a vulnerable position and as Nancy takes back control the volume is quitter just as in the diner when the aggressors enter the volume of music goes up when gender is in control

Setting:

o   Night time and rain/thunder and lighting makes it a challenge to hear, find Will ect more mysterious

o   Yellow phone communication

o   Body language crucial for Eleven/Connie/Steven

Editing

o   Nancy and Steve longest scene- most screen time protagonists

o   Gun flash- aggressor- fast paced straight cuts action adventure

o   Boys in woods seamless transition parallel with the camera shot we mentioned earlier

o   Sound bridge between rain and thunder boys in woods to sound in house  

o   Pace slow in Nancy bedroom, time slows

o   Order of narrative simultaneous apart from Eleven moving narrative

 

media language stranger things

Explore the way that different groups of people are represented in ST and D83

·      audience

    media language

P: In ST, we see a countertypical representation of women (especially considering the 1980s setting) in that we see empowered women.

E: We see the ‘social worker’ murder Benny, Eleven kills two men, and although Nancy isn’t aggressive, she does control the scene with her and Steve.

E: It is an interesting subversion of stereotypes – the 1980s setting leads us to expect submissive, powerless women, but the 21^st Century construction transfers modern ideologies and values and empowers the women.

            CEMS: When we first meet the social worker, we view her from a high angle shot, from the point of view of Benny. This reinforces the patriarchal hegemony which tricks us into thinking that she is a typical submissive woman. However, when she shoots Benny, she is elevated onto an equal level with the other government officials, and is even empowered through a low angle shot. This reinforced by the editing – the screentime she is given compared to the (silent and nameless) male officials is significantly greater, therefore empowering her.

A: This shocks the audience, which is important for narrative, but the Duffer Brothers are also trying to highlight the everyday sexism in society – even though we are a modern audience, we fell into the trap of putting sexist assumptions onto the scene.  

Stranger thing representation essay

How are different social groups represented in the sequence you have analysed?

What role does the use of media language, signs and signifiers have in constructing and presenting these representations as real?

Make a plan, go through the doc link and see what other students wrote for their scenes, take notes.

Your response must:

1.Answer the question.

2.Use key terms learned to date.

3.Give a range of examples from the sequence to support your ideas. THIS IS THE AREA YOU TEND TO LOSE MOST MARKS IN - CAMERA, EDITING, MES, SOUND

There are many representations of social groups used in Stranger Things the key ones being, how teenagers have been portrayed, family life relationships and government.  All these representations allow for stranger things to become a more diverse series attracting all types on audiences from all different types of demographics.

The beginning of the episode we see a scientist represented as a very weak scared individual, which is very ironic coinciding with how a scientist are regarded in their profession as very mentally strong and intellectual individuals.  Moreover, the scientist is represented in an uncommon light, whereby he seems to be panicking and in fear. Most scientist usually have things under control and are not situated in such a dangerous environment and running for their lives. Background alarms are getting progressively loudly until you can only hear man panting a breathing heavily building up the tension so there is no other background noises main focus is on the man this is until the man’s calming down as panting going slowly as he thinks he is now safe and audience is left feeling uneasy. The ‘DING’ of elevator is the only sound that connotes good in the scene creating the sense of hope but ironically it contradicts this by being in the most danger in the whole scene. This panicked theme is carried on throughout this scene and is a recurring ideology that stranger things itself relies on, for its views and ever-growing success. The sound of the alarm also connotes the distorted and increasingly built up tension that this scene has.

 Many of the characters in stranger things are categorised under certain stereotypical individuals for example Dustin is portrayed as being the more nervous of the boys makes him less of a defiant classic teenager and more sensible, with his comical aspect to the series he offers the audience both emotional attachment and a character for which the audience connects with. Dustin also holds back this portrays him as nerdier out of the characters.

The government in the first series there are subtle hints hinting towards governmental influences it can be see as the use of red tape is a metaphorical representation of the government covering their tracks creating distrust and suspicion the boys justifiable ignore this hindrance being classic teenagers going against rules living up to teenager stereotypes.

 Nancy in this is seen as a hard-working female her outfit and whole setting is very pastel and ombre showing that she doesn't want to stand out and is very introverted. Nancy’s character in comparison with Steve who originally comes across as very forward towards Nancy conforming to his stereotype, however now we can see his patient and respectful side to him which goes against his typical popular American teenager stereotype.

To conclude stranger things has an oray of social groups which are very clear to spot throughout the series this creates a diversity for the show making it stay in tune for todays society as well as still conforming to the 80s theme in which it is set in.

Ownership
- Duffer brothers







How do they reach their audiences?

Conventional internet
Poster
TV advertising
Recommendation based

Measuring Viewership 
Measured on per account basis- Can be more than one person viewing the account
Averaged 8.8 million viewers

How they maintain audience 
Seasons are sent out immediately so can view all episodes right away- good for binge watching

Retention
Trailers
Names of episodes- Made ahead of the release dates that can build up excitement


Distribution 
Started 15th July 2016 and all 8 episodes were released at once- Could binge watch
Netflix can be downloaded on any smartphone, laptop desktops and tablets

Released in 130 countries operating nearly everywhere
Were not global as 4 countries do no have Netflix

won 48 awards
Millie  won best actress
'immersive' viewing
15.8 million people have watched the first episode but only 4.6mil watched the whole series
Penguin paired with Netflix to release a series of books related to Stranger things in late 2018
' Dark horse comics'

Stranger things representation

Social worker is someone were supposed to trust
Government are people we are supposed to abide by
Sheriff is really lazy when we should be relying on him to keep the town safe
This all leads to a sense of mistrust

Key terms:
Dominant ideology
Constructed realism
Paranormal elements
Family life
Suburbia
Self reflextvity

Dominant ideology 
Attitudes and beliefs
Upper dominant class

Two main narratives 
-Will goes missing
-Eleven appears 
-Appearance of paranormal 

Paranormal themes 
-Paranormal noises when the man runs into the lift 
-Light flickering on garage 
-Eleven stops the fan
-Monster growing on the wall

Social Group
Age
Gender
Class
Ethnicity
Sexuality
Regional identity
Appearances
Lifestyle + interests
Political views/values
Professions

Paranormal 
Flickering light bulbs - On the porch

Constructed realism
Paranormal elements
Family life

Themes 
- Isolation 
- Darkness
- Light
- Fear 'the monster' people we are meant to trust
- Social groups
- Issues 

Narrative Structure

Linear Narrative

• Clear, middle and end
• Follows chronological time frame
• Action A leads to action B leading to action C

Fragmented Narrative 

• Non linear
• Disrupted/disjointed narrative
• Not a clear middle/end
• Shown out of chronological order 
• Narrative technique that can help show parallel stories
• Seen to replicate the way the human mind works 
• Make audience 

Enigma code - Ronald Barthes 

• Man in elevator killed- 
• Why dont they care about the first character
• What killed him?
• Met Eleven: Where does she come from ?

Restriction Narrative 

• Experience a story through the sense of one character   

Omnipresent Narrative 

• Seeing view of the world of the story point of view of every character 

Narrative endings

Stranger things Characters and representations