PIES task

PERSONAL IDENTITY
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Trailer for TRHPS
I identify strongly with this film as Each character reflects a part of my personality, as does the general aesthetic of he film. Frank is fabulous & mysterious, as I would like to be; Brad represents confusion (I am often confused); Janet is eager to learn new things; Dr. Scott is wise (as I often perceive myself to be); Columbia is devoted to Frank like a fan to a celebrity & I take my fandoms & celebrities very seriously; Magenta & Riff Raff are under-appreciated & quietly bitter; Rocky is pretty & sometimes I think I am pretty. The castle is gothic, like me, but inside it is like a mixture of a theatre & a laboratory. TRHPS has a huge cult following as many people are able to identify with the pop-culture B-movie references, the characters who at first seem very basic but are in fact very complex & the music which covers a range of styles from rock'n'roll to Vaudeville. Some audiences take an oppositional reading to the sexual elements & the seemingly degenerate actions of the characters.

INFORMATION
  

Shot by shot analysis of first 5 mins of Butterfly on a Wheel (2007)

Butterfly on a Wheel on BBC iPlayer

The first shot in this film pans from black to a midshot of the sleeping woman. The room is hers, as we can tell from the mise-en-scene of the floral, rumpled quilt which shows that she is comfortable here. The low-key lighting shows that the scene is set at nighttime. As the camera continues to pan, the mise-en-scene shows her personal effects in the room, including a framed photograph of her with a man, presumably her husband from how close they stand & how they smile.

This Girl Can

Women are represented in this video as being determined & unafraid, as they are having to endure intensive sports whilst battling the ingrained & internalised negative body image all women are faced with from the day they are born. Many of the women in the video are plus-sized. Almost 57% of women in the UK are overweight, but the prevailing media representation for slim women, so larger women are often bullied & wrongly made to feel imperfect or not beautiful enough. This creates a vicious circle which means larger women are afraid to go to the gym as they would be more likely to receive unwanted attention, so the video is showing a large range of women of different sizes all exercising together, free from the judgement & hostile competitive nature often encouraged in the media, to encourage women, regardless of size, shape or level of fitness, to go to the gym or otherwise exercise in a way that makes them feel good. The video contains lots of close-ups of slow-motion legs & bottoms jiggling, as this is often a huge area of insecurity for women, but these shots do not show this in a negative light, rather as a proof that one is working hard. Slowmo closeups are usually reserved for the 'perfect' breasts & bottoms of models, so this technique shows that these different-sized women are all just as beautiful as models.