Q1b: Posts on Narrative

THIS POST LAST UPDATED JUNE 8TH 2012All of the 'Posts on...' series primarily gather together existing posts from this blog relevant to the particular 1a/1b topic, BUT may also feature below this list further 'wider reading' links following these posts, and possibly copied-in links lists from this blog. In some cases I've added further links from further DB blogs too. Ultimately, these are 30min questions so the important thing is you pick out some ideas/theories/examples you're comfortable with and know you can apply specific examples from AS and/or A2 to. Some of the posts are brief, others much longer; its well worth skimming through as many as possible though and looking for ideas that click with you.


This links well into audience (expectations, and concepts such as Uses + Gratifications) and genre. For the slasher genre, you can find fantastic analysis in the book Blood Money (don't have it on me at time of writing, but if you are prepping this one on AS ask me for a photocopy of the key section from it).

Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film; feminist Carole 'final girl' Clover's 1987 journal article

Final Girl: Carole Clover and critiques; 

Creativity, Narrative: Coens;

Representation theory; some of the links were for the previous A2 exam topic, but includes useful material on David Chandler in particular + The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality.

Cultural Imperialism; this was tied to a previous exam topic but can still be used to explore how Britishness is subsumed by dominant American tropes - or even how S.Eng rep'ns overwhelmingly dominate UK media output; are your text/s normative or perhaps counter-hegemonic (challenging these normative representations, challenging whats seen as common sense and above questioning?). By following narrative codes set down in Hollywood/US vids have you lost your UK voice?

Creativity + MANGeR: Everything is a Remix?;

Creativity sans la femme + Bechdel Test; feminist Bechdel flags up the tawdry way women are used in film, but also consider the wider lack of women in prominent positions: were you influenced by any female directors, for example, of film/video? Extend this and consider the Proppian roles in your work and how women fare.
The 'Britishness' of your work; rom-com eg but can be applied across the board. Are there recognisable 'national' traits within narrative conventions? (basically: yes - think of the US insistence on upbeat endings). You could link this to the cultural imperialism issue above

The false scare; common slasher narrative device, links into concepts of audience pleasure + genre theories

Times Top 20 Villains; a poorly thought out list but nonetheless highlights the central narrative + marketing role of an identifiable killer, and the curious audience response (delighting in the killing and enjoying killers' quips [eg NoESt's Freddie Krueger]); did you attempt any intertextuality with existing killers? Did you seek to confuse or mislead the audience over the killer's identity, exploiting common expectations?

Audience Expectations in the ‘Slasher’ Formula; did you venture outside the typical expectations in any way?