The two media texts I am going to cover are Fight Club and Watchmen.
Fight Club was released on October 5th 1999 by 20th century fox. It follows the life of an unknown everyday man played by Edward Norton, an insominac who joins support groups in order to help himself sleep. He meets a man named Tyler Durden with whom he creates his own group "Fight Club". Tyler starts to have a relationship with a girl Norton's character meets,Marla Singer. Fight Club allows men to vent there emotions into fighting to help them escape there everyday lives. As time goes by Tyler creates Fight Clubs all over the country and has them participate in "Operation Mayhem" I plot to blow up all major credit card companies so that the worlds finaces will return to zero and everyone is equal. Norton's character disagrees with this and set about trying to stop the operation. It gradually dawns on him that Tyler is a figment of his imagination, someone who he wants to be, an alter ego. He trys to kill himself and Tyler dissappears. However he can not stop the destruction of operation mayhem.
Watchmen was released March 6th 2009 by Warner Bro. and Paramount pictures. The film is based on the Graphic novel by Alan Moor. Watchmen takes place on an alternate history Earth where superheroes emerged in the 1940s and 1960s, helping the United States to win the Vietnam War. The country is edging closer to a nuclear war with the Soviet Union, freelance costumed vigilantes have been outlawed and most costumed superheroes are in retirement or working for the government. The story focuses on the personal development and struggles of the protagonists as an investigation into the murder of a government sponsored superhero pulls them out of retirement.
Fight club is about post modern consumer society and the potentiol of American fascism. The fundamental belief of fascism is that human beings are motivated by glory and heroism rather than economic motives. This is refelected when we discover that Norton's alter ego of Tyler Derden blew up his appartment because he was a consumer that had to buy everything that he wanted, instead of only having the things that he needed. He then goes on to live in a run down house that is derelict rotten and flooded, and it only contains essential items, shelter, food and a place to sleep and work. Fascists also believe that a nation is an organic community that requires strong leadership, collective identity, and the will and ability to commit violence and wage war in order to keep the nation strong. They identify violence and war as actions that create national regeneration, spirit and vitality. Members of the first fight club live in the tight knit community that Tyler has created. No one has a name just numbers, they are all brothers, all one. They use violence to solve there problems, like when fight club is first invented it helps people escape there everyday lives. It then becomes about others escaping theres by destroying consumerism. They attempt to blow up all major credit card companies so that everybody is left with the same amount of money. No one can then afford "want" items only "essentials". This idea also reflects communism in the way that everyone is equal. Then again Norton's character and Tyler Durden are both the leaders in there fascist community.
Fight Club appeals to different audience types. Before anyone had seen the film they would have been shown several different theatrical and teaser trailers. The different trailers would have represented different genres so different types of people would have a chance to see it and judge whether they wanted to see it. For example one trailer would show action to perhaps appeal more to a sterotypical "Male" Audience, and one with elements of romance to appeal to a stereotypical "Female" audience.
Fight Club is hard to put into a specific genre because it subverts the action genre.
The film contains strong bloody violence where men are physically beating each other to a pulp. However it had the budget of a special effects film because of explosions and CGI. The film could also be called a political drama, beacause it is about anacrchy, and how it can also lead to terrorism, project mayhem is about getting rid of consumerism and ending financial problems by getting rid of finance and this can be seen as an act of terrorism. The film as I've said earlier touches on American Fascism, where a community look up to one strong leader.
The film is an un-naturalistic pieceas we see Ed Norton's character and Brad Pitt's character of Tyler Derden as two different people instead of one schizophrenic person. Subliminals are used at the start of the film showing flashes of Tyler appearing in shot before dissapearring. When the Norton's character's condo blows up, he calls Tyler from a payphone, with no answer. Then, a few seconds later, the phone rings. As the Narrator goes to answer it, the camera zooms in on some text on the payphone that reads, "No incoming calls accepted." showing us early on Tyler is not real. During the course of the film, Tyler and the Norton iare dress in opposite ways. Tyler is flamboyant, Norton is corporate and buttoned-down. The only place they're identical is their boxers. There is a marquee featuring a flim title "Seven years in Tibet" a film which Brad Pitt was in, flys in the background when Norton sends his friend Marla out of town. Tyler also appears in a TV advert welcoming people to the hotel on the hotels Television.
This sign is shown at the start of the film very briefly and is a message from Tyler.
I did some internet research and found that when Tyler is fighting the owner of the bar, when Tyler gets punched in the stomach the Narrator ever-so-slightly doubles over and winces in pain. Also When the car pulls up, Norton gets in the driver's door, and Tyler follows through the same door. But when the car crashes and flips over, Tyler gets out of the passenger side and pulls Norton out of the driver's side. Right at the end of the film an image of a penis is flashed breifly. Norton and Tyler break the fourth wall by explaining to the audience the use of cue marks or "cigarette burns" in cinemas by directly addressing the audience.
Fight Club in my view is a post modern film because it dosn't follow the same rules as a normal film, where the story flows in a straight line start to finish. It is non-linear as at the end of the film we flash back to all the events Tyler participated in with only Ed Norton. The film is also non-naturalistic making it unreal in the sense that we know that it didn't happen, and it was all in Norton's head and that he was in fact Tyler Durden and himself.
Watchmen is based on the graphic novel by Alan Moore. It is set in alternate version of Earths history where costumed vigilantes fight for America due to the rise of crime and costumed gangs and crimminals. In the 30's and 40's a group form called the "Minute Men" to "finish what the law couldn't". Three of the eight Minute men die violently (Ones cape is stuck in a door and he is gunned down, Another, a Lesbian is murdered for her sexuality as well as her partner, another dissapears mysteriously. Another is sent to a mental institute.). Decades later another group of heroes,"The Watchmen" form. Ozymandias, The Silk Spectre II, Doctor Manhattan, The Comedian, The Nite Owl II and Rorschach. Various historical events are changed because of there existence, including The Assasination of JFK by The Comedian, America winning the Vietnam war due to The Comedian and Doctor Manhattan, this leads to Richard Nixon's third term as president following the terms limits repeal. By the 1980's however the Watchmen have been outlawed by Congress after an outpouring of anti-vigilante sentiment in the country, and tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union have escalated the Cold War with threats of nuclear attack.
The films main story line follows Rorschach as he investigates the Comedians murder, he seems to believe that someone is trying to kill costumed heroes and enlists the help of his former partner Nite Owl. He attempts to warn his retired comrades—his former partner Daniel Dreiberg (Nite Owl), the emotionally detached Dr. Jonathan Osterman (Doctor Manhattan), and Dr. Manhattan's lover Laurie Jupiter (the Silk Spectre). Dreiberg is skeptical, but nonetheless relates the hypothesis to billionaire Adrian Veidt (Ozymandias), who dismisses it. Dr Manhattan is accused of giving his friends cancer due to the accident that gave him his god like powers and flees to mars, after he provides his friend Ozymandias with a reactor for his renuable energy company. Rorschack is caught during his investigations and sent to jail. A recently jilted Silk Spectre teams up with Nite Owl to break him out of jail. At the White house the dawn of war is looming on the world and Nixon hopes that Manhattan will save the world. Rorschack and Nite Owl discover that Ozymandias is behind The Comedians death and they attempt to bring him to justice. However he has used the reactor Manhattan gave him to blow up all major cities in the world using the same energy from Doctor Manhattan. The World ends the cold war and unites in peace as they realise that they have a knew enemy. Ozymandias's plan to end all wars by having everyone fear Manhattan has worked and so no more wars will be waged. Manhattan believes what Ozymandias has done is for the good of mankind and has to kill Rorschack who dosn't want the peace to based on a lie. He then leves earth. Leaving the world at peace. Rorschacks diary finds it's way to the newspaper however and this is where the film ends.
Watchmen is shown in a non-linear order. It uses flash backs of the past mixed in with events in the films present to tell the story. The film is mostlty shown from Roschack and Nite Owls perspective. With Rorschack narrating the whole story in the form of a diary. The flashbacks are mainly shown when dealing with the comedian, Doctor Manhattan and the orginal Sik spectre as they are the oldest Watchmen with the most history.
Watchmen appeals to all different kinds of audiences and is post modern in terms of having more than one genre. The film is Science fiction as it is set in an alternate reality. The film has elements of Romance between Nite Owl and Silk Spectre, as well as the strange relationship between the orginal sike spectre and the comedian. Action due to fight sequences. Horror due to Rorschacks ferouicous out look on crime fighting, at one point he axes a mans skull in, as well as the skill of the heroes fighting causing broken bones and bloody wounds all with there bare hands.
The film uses a mix of popular songs from a variety of 1960s artists such as Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Jimi Hendrix, Simon and Garfunkel, and Janis Joplin, many of which were songs referenced in the original graphic novel. It also includes a remake of Bob Dylan's classic "Desolation Row" by alternative rock band My Chemical Romance.
Richard Wagner's famous "Ride of the Valkyries" appears in a Vietnam flashback sequence, referencing both the Under the Hood mention in the graphic novel and a similar sequence from Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now using the same music. An arrangement of Phillip Glass's score for the film Koyaanisqatsi was used during the Dr. Manhattan origin sequence, and was also used for some of the trailers prior to the film's release. An excerpt from Glass's opera Satyagraha was used as well.
Aside from the soundtrack, an original score was composed by Tyler Bates, who previously worked with Snyder on 300. Separate soundtrack and original score albums were released around the time of the film's opening.
Throughout the film a smiley motif is used throughout the film. It has been a registered trademark since 1971 when Smiley to the world was created. The badge belongs The Comedian and prominently features a line of red blood crossing over the Smiley's left eye mimicking the position a clock face set at five minutes to midnight another motif, The doomsday clock till nuclear war.In later reissues and reprints of the comic series, the Bloodstained Smiley Badge, particularly the left eye, became a symbol for the series as a whole and serves as the cover art to the paperback graphic novel. The Galle crater on mars features in the film wich looks like a smiley face.
A Rorschach test is a psychological test in which subjects' perceptions of inkblots are recorded and then analyzed using psychological interpretation, complex scientifically derived algorithms, or both. Some psychologists use this test to examine a person's personality characteristics and emotional functioning. It has been employed to detect an underlying thought disorder, especially in cases wherepatients are reluctant to describe their thinking processes openly. The character of Rorschach has mask that features Ink blots that move depening on his mood. He is also subjected to a Rorschach test when he is advised to move to a mental health institute instead of going to prison where the crimminals he locked up are.
The initial premise for the series was to examine what superheroes would be like "in a credible, real world". As the story became more complex, Moore said Watchmen became about "power and about the idea of the superman manifest within society." The title of the series refers to the question "Who watches the watchmen?", although Moore said in a 1986 interview with Amazing Heroes he did not know where that sentence originated. After reading the interview, author Harlan Ellison informed Moore that the sentence is a translation of the question "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?", posed by the Roman satirist Juvenal. Moore commented in 1987, "In the context of Watchmen, that fits. 'They're watching out for us, who's watching out for them?'"The writer stated in the introduction to the Graphitti hardcover of Watchmen that while writing the series he was able to purge himself of his nostalgia for superheroes, and instead he found an interest in real human beings.
The film also dos'nt film well known stars and celebrities portraying the characters.
Director Zack Snyder set up a YouTube contest petitioning Watchmen fans to create faux commercials of products made by the fictional Veidt Enterprises. Viral videos were also madeas well as video games for the ipod and other mobiles, a game only for the US. featuring a backstory, and Comic book narrations.
I believe Watchmen is an example of a postmodern text beacause it is a new piece of work adapted from an old piece (The grapic novel). It has several different narratives, from different characters point of view that end with the same conclusion, instead of one. The use of motif's. The ideaology that "Peace can be based on a lie, but its still peace.". It has a linear story line with non-linear elements likie flash backs. It subvert the Science Fiction genre into different genres. It gave fans the chance to create there own products for the story as well as giving them the oppourtunity to purchace spin off merchandise.
