My Critical Investigation Presentation

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B6d8fYOyDyI7OXVrcUtSWUJsZFk/edit?usp=sharing

Presentation Feedback

My research allowed me to have detailed information about my topic and also have two sides of the argument which made it a much more interesting presentation as it has viewpoints from different angles e.g. the director, audiences, critics etc. My research allowed me to cover every aspect needed to be covered.

The presentation was delivered with confidence and had around about half of the slides with at least one picture or more on them which made it more appealing. I tried to not mess up and lose focus/flow when the slides change just before I finished, however once or twice I did lose flow when I saw the slides change before I finished my sentence and had to abandon the last bit of the sentence as a slide changed which wasn't an important part but did make me lose flow for a few seconds. However even though I messed up once or twice, I did quickly try to gain back time lost.

The topic area I've chosen is similar to my presentation, it will be related to 'The Human Centipede' and focus on violence within the media and how the violence may impact the audience

I plan to research the genre and human centipede in greater detail, looking at the film and analysing it as well as finding some books to read and analyse. I'll also look into the topic in a wider angle looking at different audiences and how they may react to torture porn horror films

My Ignite Presentation For My Critical Investigation

WWW: Excellent opening Includes short video clip Excellent background research Varied examples Very fluent/well paced Includes theory EBI: Include image on every slide

New Digital Media Stories

We have abandoned our children to the internet

This article talks about how children have been left to become internet addicts and how it's being damaging to their lives. "Little care with collateral damage". The writer/journalist states how they had walked into their kitchen with a dozen kids all sitting in silence on their phones and how it has been quite a few months since they had last seen anyone without their phones or computers. Girls (within the article) seem to have a social pressure, they need to stay in touch with friends and worry about being unfriended on social networks, they fall in love with someone they've rarely spoken to face to face. They also have anxiety of being left out of social events and groups due to not being kept up to date with friends and technology. The journalist states "What surprised me was the anger of many teenagers who, in turn, felt abandoned by parents whose own eyes were fixed on electronic devices." The journalist also says how even major businesses are at fault, they entice children/teens to buy their products but do not care for the consumer after purchase, they don't guide them much which leads to collateral damage. "Asking a young person to put down their Xbox, shut their computer or stop looking at their smartphone is like asking an alcoholic to put down their drink." What teens do, see or say on the internet can affect their virtual self but can also affect their real lives. Something which once was seen as an endless opportunity window is now slowly enslaving humans one by one.

"As teenagers increasingly learn about sex from pornography, their sexual norms change. I sat with a group of boys who, when asked about where they imagined ejaculating, took more than 20 minutes and considerable prompting to come up with a word that indicated vagina. "In the face", "over the tits", "up the arse" and "blow job" came to their minds immediately – they were all 15. One young woman had only ever been "in love" online, but had worked as an escort from the age of 17. She was one of many who confided that, though they could perform a whole series of sexual acts confidently, they felt inhibited about making themselves vulnerable emotionally. "Porn is great and it's free but it ruins love for us all," said one 15-year-old boy ruefully."

It's true that it seems that we live in a society addicted to social media and keeping in contact is essential to many but I think eventually everyone will realise that it's not important to always be connected and that parents need to look over their children but not constantly, children can be protected and guided but only in certain situations, parents need to learn about the pros and cons of the internet and how to use the internet to guide their children and protect them.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/13/abandoned-children-internet-addicted-virtual-damage



'Don't fly @BritishAirways'? How to humiliate brands via social media

This article is about how a man was so upset with the loss of his father's luggage that he paid $1000 (£640) to promote the tweet 'Don't fly @BritishAirways' as a way to get his story heard and due to the promotion of the tweet, media outlets and many internet users have seen and heard about this horrendous treatment to customers. "The fine art of complaining has come a long way thanks to technology. Back in the pre-digital day you had to sit down and write a strongly-worded letter if you wanted to call out brands behaving badly." 

Bashtag is one way in which twitter users use hashtags to rant about issues they've had with businesses. Starbucks, after not paying tax, were inviting twitter users to post happy holiday messages above the national history museum with the #SpreadTheCheer and visitors to the museum were greeted by tweets along the lines of "Hey #Starbucks PAY YOUR F*CKING TAX #SpreadTheCheer" another example is McDonalds who allowed visitors to share their stories with them over twitter, one of which was "When I walked into McDonalds I could smell type2 diabetes floating in the air and I threw up"

Game google is another way of using the internet for help "Google isn't just a search engine, it's a reputation engine. Like it or not, in the eyes of many, you are what you are on Google. And, for several years, former Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum found that what he was on Google was a "frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex." This, by the way, wasn't down to a series of questionable decisions by the OED, but the result of a carefully orchestrated campaign by columnist Dan Savage. After Santorum ludicrously compared homosexuality to bestiality in a media interview, Savage gamed Google's search algorithm so that the first result for Santorum that came up linked to a what the New Yorker described as the "unprintable definition" Savage had created to protest Santorum's homophobia." 

Wifi network names are an interesting way of making your issues noticed, some people make their name creatively like "PrettyFlyForAWifi" while others may rant about their neighbours music taste saying "YourMusicSucks".

ending story to the lost luggage "While some casual bashtagging or Google-bombing may be cathartic, sometimes catharsis is the only payoff. However, it looks like Syed's $1,000 BA-bashing may have resulted in more than just a warm flush of vengeance. As well as providing fleeting fame, it also seems to have delivered his luggage. Early this morning Syed tweeted "I got what I wanted. I win." Revenge may be a dish best served cold but sometimes, it seems, a little digital degradation can make for a satisfying hors d'œuvre."

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/04/humiliate-global-brands-british-airways

"Is the media becoming increasingly violent especially with the rise of the genre 'Torture Porn' horror such as 'SAW' and the 'The Human Centipede'? Why is this? And what impact might this have on audiences?" 

 SUMMER RESEARCH: Look at the human centipede 


The human centipede (first sequence) is a film released in 2010 by Dutch film maker Tom Six. The human centipede is a story of a German Doctor who kidnaps three tourists and joins them together surgically, mouth to anus, forming a "human centipede". Tom Six states that the film came about as a joke of how to punish child molesters and that they should have their mouths stitched to the anus of "fat truck drivers". What inspired the film was Nazi medical experiments during WW2 including those of Joesf Mengele at the Auschwitz concentration camp, Joesf was a German physician who decided who out of all the prisoners would die due to being unfit to work and who would work but he also did human experiments of removing certain body parts and sewing together twins to create conjoined twins

Tom Six at first didn't tell investors of the "mouth-to-anus" aspect of the plot as it may put them off from investing, they all discovered the plot after the film was completed. The film gained many mixed reviews from mainstream critics but had won several accolades at international film festivals. The film was released in the US on a limited release theatrically on April 30, 2010. A Sequel has also been written and directed by Tom Six which was released in 2011

During promotion for The Human Centipede, press materials claimed that the film was "100% medically accurate" which made it even more disturbing for some. Many writers, such as Karina Longworth of LA Weekly magazine and Jay Stone of the Calgary Herald described the film as "torture porn". Roger Ebert, writing in the Chicago Sun-Times stated that he felt the film had been "deliberately intended to inspire incredulity, nausea and hopefully outrage."

The Human Centipede was released in the United States with no Motion Picture Association Of America (MPAA) rating. It was released theatrically in New York City on April 30, 2010 and had a limited release in the US shortly afterward, distributed by IFC Films During 2009 the film was included in several film festivals around the world including the London FrightFest Film Festival, Leeds International Film Festival, Sitges Film Festival and Screamfest Horror Film Festival. Apparently Tom Six states that Spanish audiences often found the film funny, and laughed throughout screenings and did not find the film as gruesome as many other viewers.

Are the Spanish audiences desentilised to this level of violence and wanting more violence for their horror films?

IFC Films has a history of releasing unconventional horror films, having previously distributed the Norwegian Nazi-zombie feature Dead Snow and the 2009 release Antichrist. The Human Centipede's US gross was $181,467, and worldwide takings amounted to $252,207.

Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a 49% 'Rotten' rating, based upon 91 reviews, with an average rating of 5.2 out of 10. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 33 based on 15 reviews.

The media are trying to prevent violence by banning certain films e.g. the sequel to "The Human Centipede (First Sequence)" was banned for being too violent and was denied a rating for posing a "real risk of harm" but after 32 cuts to the film the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) gave the film an 18 rating

Horror films have, of course, always been full of nasty, misanthropic imagery. In many other films, extreme, sexualised violence against women has frequently been a theme (Clockwork Orange, Boxing Helena and many others spring to mind).

a new subgenre of horror films which are so dehumanising, nasty and misogynist that they are collectively known either as "gorno" (a conflation of "gory" and "porno"), or, more commonly, as "torture porn". Other films that make it into the torture porn category are Wolf Creek, Turistas and The Devil's Rejects, with each new film promising higher levels of violence - guaranteeing not just a considerable body count, but long, lingering scenes of terror, torture and pain. In most of these films, both men and women end up being sliced, gored, dismembered, decapitated. In that sense they offer audiences equal-opportunity gore. But it's the violence against women that's most troubling, because it is here that sex and extreme violence collide. The publicity campaigns for many of these films flag up the prospect of watching a nubile young woman being tortured as a genuinely pleasurable experience.

Many of today's torture porn films are being made on tiny budgets by little-known directors, but with the release of the new Tarantino/Rodriguez double-bill, Grindhouse - designed as a tribute to the ultra-violent B-movie programmes of old - the trend officially reaches the mainstream.

Now the British film censor has decided to get tough with so-called 'torture porn' movies such as The Human Centipede II, because the public is worried about the effect they're having on "vulnerable viewers".

The Guardian reports the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) is to "tighten its policy" on films that delight in "sexual or sadistic violence" by issuing new guidelines in six weeks' time. The rethink has been triggered by new research suggesting the public believes the films are having a harmful effect on young, naive men, in particular.

The BBFC is the independent body responsible for age ratings on films, videos, DVDs and certain video games. It can demand cuts if it believes a film poses the risk of harm; for example, if a rape scene suggests the victim is enjoying the act.

Some viewers of the film state that they believe Tom Six has really stepped over the line in these films and could influence many copycats to follow what the film does e.g. a person similar to the character in the sequel to the human centipede, the main character is a copycat fan of the film and recreates it as he is mentally disturbed and fantasies about doing exactly what the film did but bigger. Some viewers of the film had found some scenes so controversial that they walked out during the test screenings, even some actresses who auditioned for the part would walk out from the audition after realising what the film was about.

Roger Ebert refused to assign this film a star rating for his review (not to be confused with giving it a zero star rating, which he hands out to the very worst films that he sees), saying it doesn't really matter whether the film is perceived as good or bad. He closes the review by writing, "[The film] is what it is and occupies a world where the stars don't shine."

IMDB User Review By glyptoteque: "Well, well, now, this is a little gem we have here, a rarity in the world of horror, a film that refuses to pander to a moronic audience. The brain-dead audience that is expecting the happy ending to come soothe their souls, the audience that truly believes that "I Know What You Did Last Summer" is pure horror. "Oooooh, how exciting, and a little bit terrifying, I'll go along for the thrill ride, but I expect that everything returns to normal afterwards."

For me, horror is not about cheap scares, creaking doors, horror is about a pervasive, life- denying, sickening atmosphere, horror is pure misanthropy, an utter negativity that is alien to petty, human existence. And that is why this film is so brilliant in its design and execution; there is absolutely nothing redeeming here, there is not the slightest glimmer of hope, you feel a wonderful calm when you know that these sheepish human beings are being sent straight into pure hell, without a chance of escape. Now, that is true horror, ladies and gentlemen!!

And I don't know which of the critiques I find most funny, on the one hand you have the boring, moralistic nay-sayers, pettily warning other people to not watch the film because of its disgusting, horrifying nature. Ha, ha, congrats nay-sayer, you could not have given a better review, a more healthy recommendation, your pointing finger is like honey to flies. On the other hand you have the intelligentsia, the academic high-brows who seems completely unable to watch a horror film without soiling its pure and visceral nature, by dragging it down into the mud of multi-layered meaning. Well, I guess it is much easier for squeamish minds to digest a horror-film of this nature if you consider the film to be a giant metaphor, if you intellectualize it, you thereby pacify it. Are you really unable to watch a horror-film of this sort without demeaning it to a lowly position of a social commentary? How sad. But that is man for you, always trying frantically to create cosmos out of chaos. Insert meaning where there is none. This film is greatly recommended!!"

Tom Six believes that his film 'The Human Centipede' is a brilliant and unique film, Tom tweets "Attention all script writers: a villain wearing a mask on a killing spree is fucking unoriginal and stupid. Kisses on all your pink parts" Tom finds that the hate on his film is idiotic just because it's disturbing while other unoriginal film ideas are being praised.

For many comedians and fans etc of the human centipede have tried to make jokes of the film to give it a more lighter side to the story, make it seem less disgusting and more accepted in society, some people have created jewellery and shirts for the film, others have made parodies e.g. South Park's "CentiPad" or the "NyanPede" which is taking the viral video of "NyanCat" and using it to retell a scene from the film. A few people have created fan art of star wars characters being shown the diagram as they are strapped into the hospital beds similar to the scene in the film and one person has created a "Where's Waldo" page using lots of human centipedes with Waldo stuck in the middle of one.

The Human Centipede (First Sequence) Trailer Analysis

The whole trailer has key conventions of horror films, they have dramatic scary non-diegetic music and screeches of instruments, low-key lighting is used throughout the majority of the trailer to create shadows and connotes a bad and dark atmosphere. At the start of the trailer is a sound bridge over two shots. The sound is a diegetic voice asking for directions to a club, but just before the name of the club was given the voice cuts off. The shot then shows the female character placing the phone down while another female character who is also with the first female character is on the phone, the fact that the voice got cut off before the place was given could connote that the characters do not reach their destination or/and the character on the phone gets killed during the film. 

The next important thing shown in the film is when the female characters have broken down alone in the dark woods and are lost and then find a house which they run through the rain to get to, the rain could be some pathetic fallacy of the characters, they may feel scared and sad that they've lost their way or could connote and foreshadow bad events possibly ones that would make the female characters cry. We then see the hero's in Propps character roles (the female protagonists) are invited in by a german man with a disgusted and scary facial expression, also with the dark coloured robe he is wearing it could connote that this character is the villain or antagonist. 

He also has at one shot part of his face lit by the candles while the other part of his face has shadows due to the dim lit room which is partially lit up with candles. The audience then see a close up of a painting in his living room of conjoined twins in a contrasting black and red colour scheme, this is accompanied by one of the female protagonists saying "you have a very lovely home" which is a binary opposite to the atmosphere created by the candles, shadows and most of all the painting. The painting gives quite a weird and scary atmosphere. This shot is then followed by the villain turning on some lights and a close up with cuts zooming into a dead males face with a bar for him to bite on in his mouth which is accompanied by a diegetic scream made by one of the female characters. Music is then heard which creates tension. Shot changes are also then changed from fades to straight cuts.

http://twitchfilm.com/2011/06/the-human-centipede-full-sequence-banned-outright-by-the-bbfc.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-15203870

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-human-centipede

http://www.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2010/11/27/real-life-human-centipedeof-one-or-something-whatever-you-call-it-the-mind-reels&view=comments

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2007/may/01/gender.world

http://www.ifcfilms.com/films/human-centipede

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-human-centipede-2010

http://www.theweek.co.uk/film/50537/uk-film-censor-get-tougher-torture-porn-movies

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/human_centipede/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2246161/Human-Centipede-2-One-repellent-movies-I-seen-says-Christopher-Tookey.html

https://twitter.com/tom_six 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Torture-Porn-Popular-Horror-after/dp/0230319416

http://www.amazon.co.uk/To-See-Saw-Movies-Torture/dp/0786470895/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_2