Sophie Lavis

 What is a paradigm?
A set of assumptions, concepts, values, and
practices that constitutes a way of viewing
reality for the community that shares them,
especially in an intellectual discipline.
What is iconography?
a representation or a group of
representations of a person, place, or thing,
as a portrait or a collection of portraits.

 James Bond
A classic example of James bond Iconography would be the catchphrases
used such as: "shaken not stirred" and "the names bond, James Bond".
The clothing used within the James Bond films, the sharp edged of a well
tailored suit always make an appearance and the sexy and sophisticated
designer dresses also a sure to make an appearance for Bond's female
companion.
The opening credits of the Bond films are also a heavily recognisable
piece of iconography associated with the Bond films, with the silhouettes
of girls dancing, suspense creating music and of course the classic walk
and turn of Bond with a gun.
Alongside the classic bond gun movements Bond's cars are very
impressive which helps to represent his masculinity once again. Having
top of the range models with many modifications to help aid him
through his normal work day is a 'very bond' way of going about things.

 The Western
The iconography ofWestern films include the geography of the
film set, they go out to the west of America (Back before film sets
could be made to look like the actual place) to show a realistic
representation of the landscape with its rivers and mountains.
Using an actual place to shoot the films also allow a genuine
symbolic reference of the isolation and savagery of cowboys as
they were back then.
A classic costume for a western-cowboy is a pistol, mid calf boots,
large rimmed hat, lasso and a horse (what other form of transport
was there?)
Classic cowboys are known to slur their words and be chewing on
a piece of hay as some form of intimidation to the viewer.

 For a romantic comedy (Rom-Com) the classic play-
by-play of the films will go as followed:
Boy meets girl OR Girl meets boy
Boy falls in love with girl OR Girl falls in love with boy
Boy loses girl OR Girl loses boy
Many embarrassing and hilarious encounters and
accidents happen
Boy makes some (either simple or elaborate) scene to
win back the girl OR Girl makes some (either simple or
elaborate) scene to win back the boy.
Boy gets girl OR Girl gets boy.

 For aThriller it is usually (almost always) the Protagonist
against the Antagonist. However usually the antagonist
with start by having control over the situation and then
somehow it will shift so that the protagonist will end up
having control. Nine times out of ten the films narrative
will be shown from the protagonists point of view and this
will then enable the audience to be shown the heroic
events that must be done by the protagonist so they can
over come the issue. In the end eventual domination over
the antagonist will occur and usually is some form of
justice.

 For a horror it is largely based upon playing
with the audiences irrational and primal fears.
With many scenes purposely intended to
scare and upset horror are related to
nightmares.The usual plot of a horror usually
include the unexpected appearance of
something evil, either an event, person or
'force' (which are all usually one form or
another of supernatural) into the everyday
life of the main character/characters.

 Science fiction; a quote fromVivian Sobchack, an American cinema and media
theorist as well as a cultural critic :

"Science fiction film is a film genre which emphasizes actual, extrapolative, or
speculative science and the empirical method, interacting in a social context with
the lesser emphasized, but still present, transcendentalism of magic and religion, in
an attempt to reconcile man with the unknown (Sobchack 63)."

Vivian Sobchack is basically saying that there is some sort of link between the
real world (empiricism) and supernatural (transcendentalism) with science fiction
on the side of the real world and horror and thriller genre films acting on the side
of the supernatural.
With the science fiction genre there can be clashes between our traditional views
of how aliens and monsters should look in comparison to peoples interpretations.
Whereas distortions of human can allow familiar images seem more alien. And
another alternative is alien and familiar images are juxtaposed (place close
together for contrasting effect.).

 The big wedding 2013 (rom-com)
The BigWedding (2013) is a classic romantic comedy
where not all the jokes can be laughed at; full of
awkward and hilarious situations acted by the star
filled, type-casted, cast. Featuring Katherine Heigl,
Diane Keaton and Robert De Niro.The quintessential
dysfunctional, highly competitive and top of the
league family sort through their issues to please the
very 'traditional catholic' biological family of the
youngest son of the family (who is adopted and
originally from Colombia).

 Layer Cake 2004 (thriller [crime-thriller])
 Layer Cake (2004) is a fast paced, mind boggling, action
packed film. Designed to keep you on the edge of your
seat, Layer Cake shows the stories of many different
players within the drug circle in the underworld of London
and how there are two different sides to the game,
business and violence. However at some point both will
cross over.
Just like the typical thriller the protagonist (XXXX played
by Daniel Craig) is a brave male who seeks to restore the
equilibrium and peace to the disastrous situation; and no
matter how much you cheer for XXXX for being fair, the
good guy always gets what's coming to him.

 Genre is important to audiences as it allows the audience to recognise
the codes and conventions in which they gain most joy from the film,
similarly genre also allows audiences to choose from within the same
genre as they feel comfortable and know what to expect from the film.
However genre can become confusing yet still important to audiences
when hybrid-genres occur, hybrids allow audiences to experience a
mixture of two different(or not so different) genres to be combined this
will either result in a pleasing or displeasing effect to the audience,
depending how enjoyable they find both of the genres and the outcome
of the combination.
For media producers genre can be handy to give them boundaries and
guidelines to either conform to or to challenge when either creating a
traditional media product or are aiming to break the rules and change it
up a bit.

 Genre can act as a limiting factor as many actors
and producers get type-casted which then
means they have a stigma upon them which
makes it difficult for them to branch out of that
genre, for example Kate Hudson is associated to
romantic comedies and chick flicks, however
when she tried to branch out to act in a thriller -
The Skeleton Key, the audience had already
assumed it would not work as her acting in a
thriller as she is known for romantic films.

 With Brokeback Mountain it tries to revive the Western genre with
a twist, it tries to challenge the stigma and stereotype of
homosexuals within the western American society during the
1960's some can argue that it worked to show how it wasn't always
as frowned upon as once previously though however the way in
which the homosexuality is presented on screen to the audience
shows no sort of intimacy as during any sexual acts there is not
any eye contact or 'close-ness' between the characters and
everything is portrayed as rough and very 'butch' and seems to
look like more of a fight rather than an intimate act.
However the entire film was not a failure due to the lack of certain
elements as it then spurred on the continuation of the revival of
classic westerns film examples include: Django Unchained,
Cowboys and Aliens, and 100WaysTo Die InThe West.

 Moulin Rouge also helps to revive the classic movie-musicals,
produced by Baz Lurhmann, it creates a mixture of the 1890's
music (when the film is set) with a cross over between the pop-
culture of the early 2000's (when the film was released) and
with Nichole Kidman and Ewan McGregor as the main
characters allows the film to use current songs that the audiences
knows and can relate to too turn the 1890's into a more recent and
relevant musical in which Baz Lurhmann says "said the idea of
using songs anachronistically is nothing new".
Another way that Moulin Rouge helps to revive the classic stigma
on the musical genre is the use of song lyrics as dialogue.
Once released it caused the knock on effect of more films to be
created in the same genre such as Chicago released in 2002 and
Burlesque released in 2010.

 Short films that subvert the classic genre
paradigms are Blinky - Bad robot
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C-
9rNqLxGw) and Love field
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4meeZif
CVro) in these films the producers can play
with the genres and the codes and
convention to recreate a twisted version of
the genre so it is twisted to an alternative to
surprise an unsuspecting audience.