Paper Towns Trailer

After watching 'Paper Towns' I've realised that the target audience is 15-25 year olds specifically but obviously John Green has a way of writing books and thus films are created that manage to attract all kinds of people of different age and gender. For example, the comments on the official trailer on youtube have a comment by 'VlogBrothers' - John Green's shared youtube account with his brother in which there is a comment saying 'The Q, Ben, Radar group looks so freaking cool. I want to be in that friend group! And I am 34 years old! You can how old I am by how I'm here for the buddy comedy, which will be at least as good as the romantic dramedy bits of this movie. Congrats, John! - Hank' This shows that despite being the creators brother, the film has as appeal to a 30+ audience and most likely children in high school (11+) too due to the 'coming-of-age' likeness and the kind of fairy'tale 'looking-for-love' aspects. 

I believe the appeal and attraction to Paper Towns is that mystery behind what happens to Margo and the kind of wonder that is put in the narrative voice in the trailer. This can be appealing because mystery makes people want to know what happens and watch the journey Quentin goes on not only to find Margo but to find himself. This is appealing to 15-25 year olds because we all want adventure and while still young we believe it to be possible. 

Another appeal is the music used in the trailer itself (Smile - Mikky Ekko, To The Top - Twin Shadow). In regards to the song Smile; the music is quite happy and hopeful. This music appeals to me personally because it makes me feel as though anything is possible and the film is focusing on just that ideology that anything is possible and that life is full of adventure and finding love is possible. Whereas To The Top gives the ideology of adventure and discovering the wonders of the world.

Positive and Negative portrayals of Race, Ethnicity and Colour in the media.

Dear White People

Dear White People can be argued to be both a positive and negative representation on race and colour in the media.

Dear White People is a film made in 2014 about the stereotypes made of black people in America. As seen in Trailer One the group of black people are questioning a cinema employee as to why films shown only show "Black people dying in the past and black people dying in the present". The language the characters use and the slang are that of what is stereotyped to be used by black americans like at 00:40 - 00:47 when the group reacts to Two Chainz being in a film. This bring humour to the film as the film explores racial identity in acutely-not-post-racial America while weaving a universal story of forging ones unique path in the world. I think this film is a positive representation of race etc to an extent because of the comedy used and the blatant intent of stereotyping. I know this because I went and saw this film in cinema with a friend and being one of the five/six white people in the cinema i noticed that the films intent and stereotyping was seen as comical to everyone in the theatre thus proving its intent was not to be racist but to make fun of white people for stereotyping certain words or body gestures to black people not only in America but in England too.

In Trailer Two the first half shows a young girl speaking over a radio intercom with a show called 'Dear White People' and she lists off the different things that white people do that she deems racist. These include:

1. "The minimum requirement of black friends in order to not look racist has been raised to two. Sorry but your weed man Tyrone doesn't count"
2. "Touching guys affro is annoying. This isn't a petting zoo"
3. "Dating a black guy to p*ss off your parents is a form of racism"

These assumptions and accusations can be seen as humorous as they're clearly intended to be humorous. The assumption that white people immediately touch a black persons affro is a stereotype as well s the stereotype of a persons dealer being black and called Tyrone.

There is also the quote "Black people can't be racist. Prejudice yes, but not racist. Racism describes a system of disadvantage based on race. Black people can't be racist since we don't stand to benefit from such a system."

Representation of Ethnicity

Rihanna, Kanye West & Paul McCartney

Rihanna is originally of Barbadian heritage and throughout her time as a music artist she has done practically every musical genre there is. Her most recent being 'FourFiveSeconds' which is "a pop and soul pop song with country and folk music influences and an instrumentation consisting of an acoustic guitar" as well as being described as "country-tinged" acoustic and "stripped down" pop and soul pop song with a folk feel".

This song was recorded alongside American Rapper Kanye West and English Musician Paul McCartney. Throughout the music video there is no colour used apart from black and white which plays on the ethnicity of each individual.

As well as ethnicity, there is a hint of sexualisation especially from Rihanna as she's seen to be wearing a large denims jacket done up with a belt giving quite a grunge appearance alongside Kanye who is wearing similar clothing. Rihanna's makeup is quite minimal compared to her make up in other music videos the same applies with her hair too which is hanging down put is pulled away from her face. 

Rihanna is sexualised but not completely through her body and through unity like most women in music videos are. She is sexualised through a more natural means as she looks quite simplistic and her clothing doesn't reveal music flesh the whole way through the music video and her clothes as well as flattering her don't actually give away Rihanna's figure thus making men believe her to be slim. With what she's wearing it would be unclear to tell if she were slim or not.

The whole music video kind of breaks the stereotypes of ethnicity because its not very often seen that  black/barbadian people engage in country/folk stylised music.