Storytelling Myth and Ritual! week 6

Images from Vogue

We confront, and are confronted by images every day.
Each image demands that we make senso of it

One type of knowledge was entirely factual
Other knowledge was inferred by me.

Denotative - They are white / no rings
Connotative - Successful / linking rings to marriage
Seeing physical intimacy .

Heteronormativity

People presumed heterosexual


There clothers suggest or indicate status, class, access to disposable income.

This is entirely CONNOTATIVE based on MY understanding of what success is.

She is lower than him in frame
Makes you think he is pulling her towards him
Makes you think of physical intimacy
Makes you think of sexual intimacy



Ideology most effective when it is invisible

ideology not truth

Ideology becomes truth
percieve it to be truth.

Image 2
Both young and white

Tells us what success and beauty SHOULD look like

Both have young couples
Both suggest intamacy
Both white couples
Heterosexually aligned
In both, man is holding woman towards him

Denotative aspects naturalize connotative aspects
Thus ideology invisible

Content should look entirly natural, unproblematic

Image 3
Everyone in picture is white
Protagonists young and white
She is higher in frame
He looks at her
She looks at us

Image4
Whiteness
Image5
Whiteness
She is married
Ring = marriage

image 6
Whiteness


1. Images transmit information / are made meaning of
2. When we make sense of images we identify facts and infer meaning

Discourses of Gender (Through Vogue)
Mean active women passive
(Mean pulling women around in images)

Supposition: Men have power 'naturally' / women mst purchase power.
Gucci, armani code, 'only gold signifies true power'

'power for women = power over men

Man = technology


We might assume that these discourses do not affect us, somehow immune to them.

Unitec ad
Young white people.
clothes indicate style
Men and technology
Active man / passive woman

Femininaty with exotisism



Pedro
Anti-heroes and dystopia

We are the Protagonists of our own existence
we are the heroes of our own narratives

And how about all the ‘nobodies’, underdogs, losers, villains, outsiders, the socially
excluded, mad, tricksters, con, dishonest, coward, greedy, vulgar and evil characters from
literature, drama, myths, film and real life.

The Anti‐hero
• An Anti‐hero is simply a character who lacks the traditional heroic qualities
• Its goals are opposed to the values of classical heroism
• A trouble maker – someone whose actions do not serve the dominant ideology
• They reject moral standards and believe in anarchic ideals

Anti-heroes selfish like Bart Simpson

The Trickster – Subversion and Freedom
• Balancing: Order in the Universe and Chaos
• Creation and Destruction – Eternal Circular Movement
• Tricksters denounce the excess of Rationality and Idealism
The poetic images embodied by Anti‐heroes are immersed in beauty (truth)
• Curly Howard (1903 – 1952) ‐ The Three Stooges ‐ Disorder in
the Court (1936)
• Buster Keaton (1895 – 1966) The College (1927)
• Billy T. James (1948–1991) – The Eating Out Guide
• Charlie Chaplin (1889 – 1977) – City lights (1931)
• Peter Sellers (1925 – 1980) as Chief Inspector Clouseau in The
Pink Panther film series

Picaresque Literature and Drama
It is a genre of narrative which is usually satirical and depicts in detail the adventures of a
roguish character of low social class who lives by his or her wits in a corrupt society.
• Homeless characters
• Petty crime
• Crooks
• Hustlers
• Any adventure of an Anti‐hero on the road

Anti‐Heroes and Anti‐Establishment – Challenging the Absolute
• Maui – The Oceanic God of Freedom – Fights against nature (fish islands, stop the
sun, pull earth and ski apart, steal the fire...)
• Biblical stories like Cain and Abel ‐ Cain, the first murderer, is sometimes seen as a
progenitor of evil. His jealousy, rivalry, and aggression are central to the story.
Historical Anti‐Heroes
1. Emiliano Zapata (1879 ‐ 1919): Mexican revolutionary
2. Martin Luther(1483 – 1546): German church reformer whose ideas started the
Protestant Reformation
3. Antonin Artaud (1896 – 1948): French Poet, Theoretician, Visionary
4. Frank Zappa (1940 ‐ 1993): North American musician ‐ satirist
5. Osama Bin Laden (1957): Anti‐American radical militant
6. Tame Iti (1952): NZ provocateur ‐ Tūhoe Māori activist.
7. Zumbi dos Palmares (1655 – 1695): Brazilian slave, was the last of the leaders of
the Quilombo dos Palmares.
8. Dario Fo (1926): Italian actor , writer, theatre director and satirist

Dystopia
opposite of Utopia
When things go wrong.
undesirable societys
visions of dangerous and alienating future societies


Children of Men
Oliver Twist
Lord of the Rings
Clockwork Orange
Fight Club
Brave new world
1984
Wall-e
The Terminatororeoer
The Dark Knight
V For Vendetta