Narrative Theories

Claude Levi-Strauss:

Looked at narrative structure in terms of binary oppositions. Binary oppositions are sets of opposite values which reveal the structure of media texts. An example would be GOOD VS EVIL. Levi-Strauss was not so interested in looking at the order in which events are arranged, but the themes arrangement.

Vladimir Propp:

Propp used this method by analogy to analyze Russian fairy tales. By breaking down a large number of Russian folk tales into their smallest narrative units, or narratives, Propp was able to arrive at a typology of narrative structures.

Functions

After the initial situation is depicted, the tale takes the following sequence of 31 functions:^[2]

1. The villain — struggles against the hero.
2. The donor —character who makes the lack known and sends the hero off.
3. The (magical) helper — helps the hero in the quest.
4. The princess or prize — the hero deserves her throughout the story but is unable to marry her because of an unfair evil, usually because of the villain. The hero's journey is often ended when he marries the princess, thereby beating the villain.
5. Her father — gives the task to the hero, identifies the false hero, and marries the hero, often sought for during the narrative. Propp noted that functionally, the princess and the father cannot be clearly distinguished.
6. The dispatcher —prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object.
7. The hero or victim/seeker hero — reacts to the donor, weds the princess.
8. False hero — takes credit for the hero’s actions or tries to marry the princess.^[4]

ABSENTATION, INTERDICTION, VIOLATION of INTERDICTION, RECONNAISSANCE, DELIVERY, TRICKERY, COMPLICITY, VILLAINY or LACK, MEDIATION, BEGINNING COUNTER-ACTION, DEPARTURE, FIRST FUNCTION OF THE DONOR, HERO'S REACTION, RECEIPT OF A MAGICAL AGENT, GUIDANCE, STRUGGLE, BRANDING, VICTORY, LIQUIDATION, RETURN, PURSUIT, RESCUE, UNRECOGNIZED ARRIVAL, UNFOUNDED CLAIMS, DIFFICULT TASK: SOLUTION, RECOGNITION: EXPOSURE, TRANSFIGURATION PUNISHMENT, WEDDING.

Roland Barthes:

Roland Barthes describes a text as

"a galaxy of signifiers, not a structure of signified; it has no beginning; it is reversible; we gain access to it by several entrances, none of which can be authoritatively declared to be the main one; the codes it mobilizes extend as far as the eye can read, they are indeterminable...the systems of meaning can take over this absolutely plural text, but their number is never closed, based as it is on the infinity of language..." (S/Z - 1974 translation)

What he is basically saying is that a text is like a tangled ball of threads which needs unravelling so we can separate out the colours. Once we start to unravel a text, we encounter an absolute plurality of potential meanings. We can start by looking at a narrative in one way, from one viewpoint, bringing to bear one set of previous experience, and create one meaning for that text. You can continue by unravelling the narrative from a different angle, by pulling a different thread if you like, and create an entirely different meaning. And so on.

Narrative Theories

The 'Hot Box' Game Show

We have decided to create a game show called 'The Hot Box', which is a mix between popular game shows 'Deal or No Deal' and 'Take Me Out'. We have converged these two ideas and come up with a different approach, by changing the prize from money to people. We have decided to use a similar idea of Deal or No Deal by having a system of 20 'prizes', but instead of having a jackpot prize in each box, we will have a girl or boy. The 'date' will be rated via the internet, pressing the red button, and by the live audience, and the girl who receives the most votes will be the one which the competitor will want to win, and the one with the least votes will be the one he/she will want to avoid.

The object of the game is more the competitor to leave the show with the best date and also to win a good destination on the 'wheel of dates'. However, different members of the audience may want to change the competitor’s fate and vote for the least attractive or most annoying date or destination, therefore making the show more interesting, or if they like the competitor, they may want to help him/her have the perfect date.

This type of convergence will allow the audience at home to be a part of the outcome of the show, and will make the audience more interested in what will happen on the show. If a member of the audience votes for a date, then they will be cheering that date on. We have decided that by introducing more technologies for the show, there will be a greater audience.

We have also decided that we would bring out an iPod or Android app, where players can play the game themselves but through a non-real system. A computer game and x-box or play station versions will also be available for the audience, where they can be a part of the show but on a different technology. With these different technologies, our show will appeal to a variety of members of the public. By keeping up to date with the latest technologies, we will appeal to the younger generation, while at the same time being available for the television for those who know little about technology. Watching the show on a different technology will make a different experience for the viewer, which may make them appreciate the show more.

Members of the audience who vote will also be able to live stream the show on their computer or iPod as a reward for voting. This will encourage more people to vote on the show, while at the same time increasing the number of people watching the show.

The Male Gaze (Mulvey 1985)

The concept of gaze (often also called the gaze), in analysing visual media, is one that deals with how an audience views other people presented. This concept is extended in the framework of feminist theory, where it can deal with how men look at women, how women look at themselves and other women, and the effects surrounding this.

The gaze can be characterized by who is doing the looking:

·         The spectator's gaze: the spectator who is viewing the text. This is often us, the audience of a certain text,

·         intra-diegetic gaze, where one person depicted in the text who is looking at another person or object in the text, such as another character looking at another,

·         extra-diegetic gaze, where the person depicted in the text looks at the spectator, such as an aside, or an acknowledgement of the fourth wall, or

·         The camera's gaze, which is the gaze of the camera or the director's gaze.

These are not the only forms of gaze. Other forms include the gaze of an audience within a "text within the text", such as Lisa Simpson and Bart Simpson watching the cartoon-within-a-cartoon Itchy and Scratchy on The Simpsons, or editorial gaze, whereby a certain aspect of the text is given emphasis, such as in photography, where a caption or a cropping of an image depicting one thing can emphasize a completely different idea.

Other theorists such as Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen provide the idea of the gaze as a relationship between offering and demanding gaze: indirect gaze is an offer by the spectator, where we initiate the gaze, and the subject is not aware of this, and direct gaze is a demand by the subject, who looks at us, demanding our gaze.

Gaze can also be further categorized into the direction of the gaze, where the subjects are looking at each other, apart, at the same object, or where one is gazing at another who is gazing at something else.

Gazing and seeing someone gaze upon another provides us with a lot of information about our relationship to the subjects, or the relationships between the subjects upon whom we gaze upon, or the situation in which the subjects are doing the gazing.

The mutuality of the gaze can reflect power structure, or the nature of a relationship between the subjects, as proposed by Catherine Lutz and Jane Collins, where this "tells us who has the right and/or need to look at whom".

Gazing can often reflect emotion without speech - in Western culture, continued staring upon another can be quite unsettling upon the subject.

Although it may appear that "gaze" is merely looking at, Jonathan Schroeder tells us that "it signifies a psychological relationship of power, in which the gazer is superior to the object of the gaze". The gaze characterizes and displays the relationships between the subjects by looking.

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