which conventions of vampire fictions are followed in your chosen texts, which are ignored, or adapted?
In the lost boys most of the conventions of vampire fictions are followed. For example, vampires can not enter the homes without being invited in, when Lucy has a date round their house he can not enter without being specifically invited. They have a strange mind control which allows them to change what people see (when Michael thinks hes eating maggots) and also means they can have full control of peoples decisions (when Paul commands star to get on his motorbike).
However, in the lost boys vampires still have reflections. This is because there is a hierarchy in vampires identified in this film, and as far as I understand it, Michael isn't a full vampire and therefore his powers aren't completely developed. However, the man Lucy dates is the head vampire and he has more control over his powers, even to the point when he doesn't look like a vampire.
However, in Twilight pretty much none of the vampire conventions are actually followed, however Stephanie Meyer does take it upon herself to add in the idea of vampires never sleeping, and rather than burning in the sun they sparkle. Also, Stephanie Meyer has decided that instead of vampires just having mind control they instead have some vampires who get super powers which can either be something mental, such as mind reading, future seeing, or pain via the mind.
how would you describe the atmosphere and tone of the texts, and how it this created?
The tone of the lost boys is (very 1990's) a coming of age film. One premise of this movie is a family who moves town after the parents divorce. They move to what to begin with seems like a quiet, boring town. The film generally addresses the danger of teenagers which was felt by adults during the 80's and 90's. This is simply done through the dangerous things such as jumping off a bridge. Also addressed when Michael is shown not to get out of bed all day, the day he becomes a vampire.
However, I think that the tone of Twilight is very different to the lost boys. Twilight is very much a basic romance with a twist, the whole vampire thing. The tone is exciting, young, free, and intriguing which very much reflects what it feels like to fall in love for the first time as a teenager.
how would you describe the audience for the texts, and how do the texts ensure that they appeal to these particular audiences?
The audience for both of these texts is mostly adolescent. This is done by having the main characters being teenagers, and with a lot of popular music (for the time) in the soundtrack. Not to mention, films usually try to appeal to teenagers because we have money we can spend.
can you summarise the plot? who is the hero? is there a villain? what is the heroes goal and do they achieve it? who dies, why?
The plot of The Lost Boys is somewhat for the family to move on and create a new life for themselves, for Michael to get with Star, and save her from the vampires, and eventually it becomes to kill the head vampire. The hero is Michael, the villain is Paul and Lucys date. The heroes goal is to get Star - to save her and also get a chance to be with her, this is definitely at least some what works for him because they do end up having sex at one point. In the end the goal is to also kill the head vampire, which he also manages to achieve.
what do you thing the texts suggest about the ideologies of the people who made then and the people who watch them and the society which produced them? think about whether the things you see on sceen suggest any kind of beliefs or values or attitudes. this might have to do with women, race, family, and any number of things.
discourse
how do we consume the text? what are the usual situations in which we would encounter this text, and what effect does this have on how we receive its messages? this can be termed the situation culture, and consists of an understanding of how, where, with whom and often when we interact with a text.
are there any social or historical variations in the ways in which people consume the text?
is the process of consuming a text active or passive?
are they ways in which these kinds of texts are categorised and who controls these methods of categorisation?
who are the audiences for the text and how and why are other audiences excluded?
mode of address
how are your texts represented in the media? what are the motivations behind these representations, and how are we expected to react to those representations?
how might you describe the tone and register of the text itself? how does the text address you? what kind of position does this assume you take in relation to the text? what does the text want you to feel?
What is let the right one in trying to tell us about, coming of age, love, isolation, acceptance of others, family?
In the lost boys most of the conventions of vampire fictions are followed. For example, vampires can not enter the homes without being invited in, when Lucy has a date round their house he can not enter without being specifically invited. They have a strange mind control which allows them to change what people see (when Michael thinks hes eating maggots) and also means they can have full control of peoples decisions (when Paul commands star to get on his motorbike).
However, in the lost boys vampires still have reflections. This is because there is a hierarchy in vampires identified in this film, and as far as I understand it, Michael isn't a full vampire and therefore his powers aren't completely developed. However, the man Lucy dates is the head vampire and he has more control over his powers, even to the point when he doesn't look like a vampire.
However, in Twilight pretty much none of the vampire conventions are actually followed, however Stephanie Meyer does take it upon herself to add in the idea of vampires never sleeping, and rather than burning in the sun they sparkle. Also, Stephanie Meyer has decided that instead of vampires just having mind control they instead have some vampires who get super powers which can either be something mental, such as mind reading, future seeing, or pain via the mind.
how would you describe the atmosphere and tone of the texts, and how it this created?
The tone of the lost boys is (very 1990's) a coming of age film. One premise of this movie is a family who moves town after the parents divorce. They move to what to begin with seems like a quiet, boring town. The film generally addresses the danger of teenagers which was felt by adults during the 80's and 90's. This is simply done through the dangerous things such as jumping off a bridge. Also addressed when Michael is shown not to get out of bed all day, the day he becomes a vampire.
However, I think that the tone of Twilight is very different to the lost boys. Twilight is very much a basic romance with a twist, the whole vampire thing. The tone is exciting, young, free, and intriguing which very much reflects what it feels like to fall in love for the first time as a teenager.
how would you describe the audience for the texts, and how do the texts ensure that they appeal to these particular audiences?
The audience for both of these texts is mostly adolescent. This is done by having the main characters being teenagers, and with a lot of popular music (for the time) in the soundtrack. Not to mention, films usually try to appeal to teenagers because we have money we can spend.
can you summarise the plot? who is the hero? is there a villain? what is the heroes goal and do they achieve it? who dies, why?
The plot of The Lost Boys is somewhat for the family to move on and create a new life for themselves, for Michael to get with Star, and save her from the vampires, and eventually it becomes to kill the head vampire. The hero is Michael, the villain is Paul and Lucys date. The heroes goal is to get Star - to save her and also get a chance to be with her, this is definitely at least some what works for him because they do end up having sex at one point. In the end the goal is to also kill the head vampire, which he also manages to achieve.
what do you thing the texts suggest about the ideologies of the people who made then and the people who watch them and the society which produced them? think about whether the things you see on sceen suggest any kind of beliefs or values or attitudes. this might have to do with women, race, family, and any number of things.
discourse
how do we consume the text? what are the usual situations in which we would encounter this text, and what effect does this have on how we receive its messages? this can be termed the situation culture, and consists of an understanding of how, where, with whom and often when we interact with a text.
are there any social or historical variations in the ways in which people consume the text?
is the process of consuming a text active or passive?
are they ways in which these kinds of texts are categorised and who controls these methods of categorisation?
who are the audiences for the text and how and why are other audiences excluded?
mode of address
how are your texts represented in the media? what are the motivations behind these representations, and how are we expected to react to those representations?
how might you describe the tone and register of the text itself? how does the text address you? what kind of position does this assume you take in relation to the text? what does the text want you to feel?
What is let the right one in trying to tell us about, coming of age, love, isolation, acceptance of others, family?
Coming of age:
I think that ‘let the right one in’ is trying to tell us that teenage years can be extremely difficult. I feel that the characters in this film are designed to be fairly relatable to some people. They made the characters fairly relatable so that the audience would care about Eli and Oskar, and also understand why they are so close and why Oskar cares for Eli so much. During the teenage years it can be extremely difficult because of all the stresses and hormones you need to deal with, most teenagers want to feel a sense of freedom and independence and instead of getting their support from their parents they want to feel support from their peers. As a communications and culture student I can understand that Oskar gets a huge sense of satisfaction from being friends with Eli, he feels excitement and danger at the same time as feeling safe and protective. This links to group theory, in which I have learned that there are a few main needs which can only be satisfied by being in a group. An interesting thing about this film is that stereotypically during the teenage years females tend to be more naive and venerable, often finding themselves in difficult relationships being lead astray by older, intimidating males. However in this relationship Eli is the more powerful and protective one, and Oskar is far more venerable and influenced by Eli.
I think that the film 'the lost boys' has a lot to say about the theme of coming of age. This is because the vampire was based on the stereotypical rebellious teenager. The main vampires in this film are always trying to tempt Micheal into dangerous or rebellious things such as drinking, staying out late, sex, and other, similar things.
Love:
I think that the film is designed to help us question our cultures view on how we express love to each other. Often when young people believe they are falling in love they are capable of ignoring or embracing anything wrong with the person at the other end of the affection. Throughout the film there are many times when the audience disagree or are made uncomfortable by the relationship evolving on screen. However there is still something very understandable and relatable about how Oskar commits to the possibility of falling in love. Often when we believe we are in love we will forget about any reason why we shouldn’t be in love with the person, because of the idea that ‘if we were really in love with the person we would accept any flaw they had and love them despite it’.
I think the film 'the lost boys' questions the way we choose to trust people when seeing them romantically, what is it about a person which inherently makes them trustworthy? One person the audience and the characters wrongly trust for the majority of the film is the mothers boyfriend/boss. The reasons the audience have for trusting this character are all based on the steriotype of his character. He pretends to be mellow, easy going, relaxed, similar things, this leads to no one really thinking too much about him, apart from the younger brothers vampire-slaying new friends, who fail in trying to expose him as a vampire.
Isolation:
This film explores the theme of isolation through the characters Oskar and Eli, these characters are both isolated in their situations. Oskar is surrounded by adults who don’t listen to him and just treat him as a child. Eli finds it extremely difficult to connect with anyone else because of her vampirism which includes killing humans; she feels guilt about this and has reservations about becoming close to people in case she hurts them.
Micheal feels lonely at the beginning of this film because him and his family have moved to a new town, he doesnt know anyone in this town. This makes the pretty girl he sees one day even more important, he wants to connect with someone and he finds this girl approachable and attractive.
This film explores the theme of isolation through the characters Oskar and Eli, these characters are both isolated in their situations. Oskar is surrounded by adults who don’t listen to him and just treat him as a child. Eli finds it extremely difficult to connect with anyone else because of her vampirism which includes killing humans; she feels guilt about this and has reservations about becoming close to people in case she hurts them.
Micheal feels lonely at the beginning of this film because him and his family have moved to a new town, he doesnt know anyone in this town. This makes the pretty girl he sees one day even more important, he wants to connect with someone and he finds this girl approachable and attractive.
Acceptance of others:
In this film Oskar accepts Eli for who she is as he discovers
it. The film makes a point about how beautiful it is to accept other people as
who they are, to try to learn about them, understand them, and how beautiful it
is when love can sprout from the situation. Oskar realises the kind of
protection and intense feeling of love she can give him, and because he is a naïve
teenager he thinks this is mostly a good thing which he would like to progress.
Eli also accepts Oskar for who he is, she sees something different about him.
Probably his ability to understand her situation and love her regardless. She in
turn has some form of love for him and develops their relationship. She
protects him. She is also the most powerful one in this relationship because
she constantly has the ability to kill him but chooses not to. They accept each
other so much that by the end of the film they run away together to continue
their romance and find a new life.
Mode of address:
The way a text communicates with its audience.
This film communicates its themes and meaning threw graphic
images and shocking, uncomfortable scenes. The films main points to be made are
about the extremes of love at a young age, how it can feel to be young and in
love. Some examples of the shocking imagery that is used to draw the audience’s
attention would include the blood, the scene when she kisses him while covered
in blood, the scene when he sees her naked, and the scene when he is being
drowned and she kills all the boys involved and chops some of them up.
The assumptions made about the audience would be that they
what is deemed as the norm by society. In our culture things such as murder,
underage sex, and cannibalism are deemed unacceptable, however in this film
they all appear in some form or another. The assumption is that the audience
feel uncomfortable about these things, but also that in one way or another they
can be argued for and there seems to be at least somewhat of a grey area about
the moral correctness within the situation.
