Revolutionary Romero

So according to my electives tutor Kim, we're not required to write a blog in semester B, hence I've barely posted anything in months. I quite enjoyed having the blog last semester though and so I was thinking I could keep it going for a bit just as a means of commenting on the different sources which are inspiring my study.

At the moment I am undergoing the research stage of my essay for the Death, Diners and Dancing module. I've decided to answer essay question 5 - the representation of women in horror films (not much surprise in that choice is there really!).
Each lecture we have on the DDD module relates to one of the essay questions and the other week we had a lecture on the representation of women in George Romero's zombie films. I absolutely love Romero and his films are the reason I wanted to get into the SFX industry in the first place. Tom Savini who created all the (then) ground-breaking effects in Romero's zombie films, is an absolute genius and Savini and Romero are, in my opinion, one of the best teams in the business.

The legendary George Romero and Tom Savini

Kim's lecture on the topic was great and she brought to light some really interesting analysis on Romero's movies which made me understand his work on another, deeper level. I was able to see that his movies are more than entertainment. They have an underlying social commentary, addressing the likes of black & female rights which were of particular relevance during the '70s when his movies were first released.
Characters like Fran (Dawn of the Dead) and Sarah (Day of the Dead) are independent, determined women who disregard convention by surviving. These strong female characters who out-live the men and fight the plague of zombies are a reflection upon women during the era who were rebelling housewife conventions to enter the working world and pave their own way, often in male dominated industries.

Fran - Dawn of the Dead

Sarah - Day of the Dead

It could be argues that the female characters within Romero's films were an inspiration for the strong female protagonists that came to follow in cinema, such as Ripley (Alien) and Clarice (Silence of the Lambs).
The characteristics of the female protagonist have become conventional in themselves as in contemporary cinema we more frequently see the strong, self-dependent woman than we do the helpless damsel in distress.
The latter is now considered inappropriate and somewhat offensive in a society where women, although not quite equal to, are certainly striving to exist on a parallel with men.
This therefore must raise the question of the influence which cinema and other media forms has upon its audience and whether the depiction of inspirational women in film has helped with the women's rights movement to any extent? I'm not claiming that Romero and other film makers of the era caused such change, but I certainly believe that female audiences would have been empowered by his female characters and perhaps this may have strengthened their views on society and its response to gender.

Death, diners & dancing, sounds like the ideal choice of elective for a girl like me

So the arrival of Semester B marks the beginning of a new MH&C module. Its hard t believe we're over halfway through the first year...did I really lose that much of Semester A to drink, or is the year truly passing at tremendous speed?

Either way I can say with great conviction that the contextual lectures we received last semester were fantastic and in my opinion a great influence on our developing practise. I know some fellow SFX-ers may say otherwise as the task of essays and research was enough to induce a nosebleed. But then I guess I'm abnormal amongst the masses in the sense that I enjoy the written aspects of our degree in equal measures to the practical projects.

Anyway, I was fortunate enough to secure a place onto the elective which was in fact my top choice - hooray!
'Death, Dancing and Diners' is the full title and the basic structure of the module is to explore the role of death, sex and food within cinema (sounds pretty awesome already, right?).

Kicking off after the introductory lecture was a session exploring the death of the gangster. We considered the development of the gangster genre since its early establishment in the 1930s, through to more recent examples from the '90s. To support the discussion we looked at a diversity of case studies including the original Sarface (1932), The Godfather (1972), Goodfellas (1990) and Pulp Fiction (1994).
I could speak extensively about these case studies alone, but instead I would like to comment on some other points raised in the lecture which I found particularly interesting.

an genuine example of the media hype surrounding criminal activity from The Herald Examiner, dated 24/1/1935

The first of which relates to the earliest examples of gangster cinema, and how the genre came to being in the first place. Circa 1930 there was a developing public curiosity for publicised crime and as a result of media hype many criminals were granted an almost celebrity status. An example of this is shown in the image above which depicts a genuine newspaper headline about the notorious Al Capone.
The character of Tony Camonte in the original Scarface (1932) was in fact losely based on Capone, thus further evidence of the influence that criminal activity had upon cinema during that era. The film was such a success that it spurred the development and popularity of the gangster genre within the film industry.

To progress onto another interesting topic of the lecture, we explored the idea of 'blaxploitation' which is a concept I was not previously familiar with. 'Blaxploitation' was apparent within cinema during the 1970s and referrs to the influx of films featuring an African-American protagonist who was commonly hostile towards the 'white majority' and rebelled against convention. Films of this nature were a social response to the development of black rights and black culture within western societies during the '70s.
Although the genre hails some decent movies such as Shaft (1971), there were some terrible attempts at 'black adaptations' of existing movies, such as Blacula (1972).

(left) Movie poster for Blacula 1972

(right) Movie Poster for Shaft 1971