Introduction

This resource is not intended as the definitive guide to ideology,

which can be a very complex topic. A guide this brief can only
sketch out some areas of debate where a consideration of ideology
arises.

Film is a uniquely powerful instrument: the close-ups, the fast

cutting, the sophistication of modern make-up and special effects
and the heightened use of music and sound effects all combine on
the big screen to produce an impact no other medium can create.

The Williams Committee (1927)

What is ideology?

Originally, ideology was a term used in political and economic

debate to describe a set of beliefs or principles e.g. socialism or
capitalism. Its meaning has gradually been extended to other
academic fields and it is a concept increasingly called upon in Media
and Film Studies. Basically ideology refers to the values/viewpoints
and meanings/messages that a media text such as film might be
able to communicate to the viewer.

It can be helpful to think of these values in two ways:

a) Explicit – What a character in a film or a

director/producer/writer themselves declare to be the subject of
the film.

b) Implicit – The more debatable meanings of a film, possibly

beyond the conscious intentions of the filmmaker, that require
analysis and a reasoned argument. The fact that East is East
(Damien O’Donnell, 1999, UK) was made indicates a concern about
arranged and mixed marriages. Billy Elliot (Stephen Daldry, 2000,
UK) questions the activities a boy can take part in.

Ideology and you

Expectations

When you see a film in the cinema or on video, do you sympathise

with certain characters? Are these characters who work hard, act
dishonestly or who are physically tough? We all bring to a film
certain expectations of what values the main characters will
embody. Studios are primarily in the business of making money
and once a successful formula has been found, it tends to be
repeated, producing ‘type-casting’, where actors fall into expected
roles. With the efficiency of film marketing and promotional
material being channelled through every conceivable media, often
simultaneously, it is virtually impossible to see a film without any
knowledge of its contents or its main stars.

The blend of marketing power and Studio reluctance to take risks

means that certain stars come to represent a predictable
ideological package; a kind of cinematic ‘shorthand’. Thus, in an
Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, the audience might expect a multi-
million dollar budget with high production values, state-of-the-art
special effects, a driving narrative and the ruthless dispatching of
countless ‘baddies’, whose violent death we are not encouraged to
worry about. It could be said that the reason why a film like Grey
Owl failed commercially was because it did not meet the ideological
expectations of its audience.

task 1
Select a particular star and try to list as many of their film roles as
possible – noting the particular actions/dialogues associated with
the character that they play. Make a list of the five adjectives that
you think best capture their typical role. Produce a detailed
description of what you think their next role will be like.

Pleasures

Part of the pleasure of experiencing a film is that we tend to

identify or reject certain characters and share the excitement or
pain without having to risk any ‘real’ pain ourselves. It could be
said that the key to whether we enjoy, remember or even
understand a film depends upon this level of identification i.e.
whether we care about their character. In films, characters can
do/say/think things that we feel we should condemn as wrong or
unlawful and yet we still find them interesting (indeed we probably
find them more interesting, than so-called ‘good’ characters). Film’s
ability to allow us to share a ‘breaking free’ from emotional, legal
and social boundaries without leaving the safety of our seats has
lead to much concern over the effects of viewing certain types of
films.

The films we enjoy or dislike say something about our own personal
ideologies, leading us to favour certain characters over others. Can
you think of a film or sequence that you really like but someone
else absolutely hates? The main reason for this difference is the
range of different experiences and feelings that each individual
brings to the film. This allows for what is called ‘intrapersonal’ or
‘negated’ readings, i.e. there is not necessarily a definitive meaning
of a particular image or sequence. So we, the audience, play a
crucial part in constructing the meanings of films. This is why film
companies carefully preview films with selected audiences prior to
general release (and re-shoot whole sections if necessary), because
until seen by an audience, no one really knows if a film will be
successful.

task 2
Think of a film that you enjoy and know well. Consider which
characters you like. What is it that you like about them and what
has the filmmaker done to encourage you to feel this way?

Useful questions to bear in mind when considering ideology are:

• What values am I being asked to share or reject?

• How are my feelings being manipulated to prefer one viewpoint
over another?
(Camera placement/movement and editing are particularly
important here.)
• Why might a filmmaker want me to prefer one viewpoint to
another?
• What are the artistic/financial consequences of filmmakers trying
to predict what an audience might approve/disapprove of?
• What are the artistic/financial consequences of filmmakers trying
to predict what a film's financier might approve/disapprove of?

Ideology in action

The next task gives you a chance to see ideology in action.

task 3
Consider the scene in Bridget Jones’ diary when Bridget meets
Mark Darcy for the first time. Give each of the following lines of
argument a rating of 1 – 5 according to the catagories below. If
you know the film (or can obtain it on video), find other evidence
from the rest of the film that supports your view.

1: Agree Strongly, 2: Agree, 3: not sure, 4:disagree, 5: disagree

strongly

Does the sequence show that:

• First impressions are very important

• You are only attractive if you wear fashionable clothes
• Women are unattractive if they babble
• Drinking and Smoking is not socially acceptable
• Mark is more professional than Bridget
• Women only initially gain respect if they are attractive
• Lawyers don’t have a sense of humour
• We should not judge people on their appearances
• When you are in your late 20s your parents still dress you
• Mothers always meddle in their children’s lives
• Matchmaking doesn’t work

Changing ideologies

Cultural ideologies are developed through a set of beliefs embodied

within political, religious, media and educational institutions within
society and are open to change. To illustrate this point, if we
compare different film treatments of the same story over several
years, we can see specific changes which reflect wider shifts in
society. In 1971 Richard Roundtree starred as the lead in Shaft
(Gordon Parkes, 1971), dashing round Harlem with stylish cool.
The Private Eye never let his investigation get in the way of
spending time with the ladies, in between endless fisticuffs and car
chases where he comes out the winner with not one hair astray in
his Afro. By 2000, society’s ideals had advanced. In Shaft (John
Singleton, 2000) Samuel L. Jackson’s Shaft is a legitimate cop who
takes work seriously and is more concerned with solving his case
than wooing ‘the booty’. Vanessa Williams plays an intelligent and
resourceful cop while we also have a drug lord closer to a
pantomime villain played with ham acting and humour by Jeffery
Wright.

These two versions of the same story obviously differ, but why is
this? Because society has changed, audiences’ tastes have changed
and therefore the message that the text conveys. In short,
changing ideology has affected the interpretation of the story of
Shaft.

task 4
Discuss the reasons why these two films based on the same story,
have different messages? To help you answer this, you should look
at changing attitudes and to what was happening politically,
economically and socially at the time of the films being made.

The pressure for political correctness is something that filmmakers

are increasingly concerned with. Viewed positively, P.C. is the idea
that all elements in society should be shown ‘fairly’. However, it is
difficult to agree over what is fair and if you try to be fair to
everyone all of the time, films can become bland and limited. The
level of pressure on filmmakers was shown during the shooting of
Disney’s 1992 version of White Fang, when animal rights groups
protested at a dog fight, claiming that it portrayed ‘anti-wolf
sentiments’, which lead to cuts in the film.

Ideology & the 'effects' debate

One of the complexities of looking at ideology is the way that

certain figures, particularly politicians, refer to ‘family values’, or
use slogans like ‘back to basics’, as if there was a clear code of
common values that we all practice. In his 1992 book Hollywood
verses America, critic Michael Medved provokes the widespread
debate about the effects of modern Hollywood films, which he felt
were undermining traditional family values. One of the problems
with examining our own ideologies is that they are often blended
with terms like ‘common sense’, and ‘knowing right from wrong’,
which are really a minefield of ideological choices that we have
made (or that have been made for us) from such an early age that
we are not fully aware of them. If these issues were clear-cut, then
all the tasks in this booklet would be quick and easy and each
group would produce identical results.

It is tempting to think that what we see and hear on screen does

not affect us. Often, students admit that their younger brothers or
sisters should not watch particular films (usually because it would
scare them), but once past a certain age, often mid teens, they feel
that they are old enough to see what they like.
Two interesting points arise from this. Firstly, to enjoy any film,
whatever the genre, you need to ‘go along with it’. Therefore, you
are being affected, although you may not be conscious of it. The
effects of watching a film are often expressed in negative terms.
But even to enjoy a comedy, you will need to share the prevailing
ideology of the film so that you know where to laugh and what/who
to laugh at. Secondly, much is made of the effects of film on the
young. But are not all adults affected in a similar way?

Ideology & realism

Some of the ideological assumptions which we make about film are

related to whether we believe that the fictional world of a film is
real. What we think of as realism is sometimes cinematic
convention that has evolved for financial, artistic or technical
reasons. Sometimes we have no personal experience in reality of
what we see on screen (and in some genres like horror or science
fiction, we never could) and yet we accept it as real. This is what
the poet Samuel Coleridge called the ‘suspension of disbelief’. For
example, in the real world, most fistfights are very quick and end
with a single blow, whereas in films, they can go on for several
minutes. Similarly, heroes knock out ‘baddies’ with one blow or
come round themselves with a quick shake of the head after being
unconscious.

task 5
Write a table with ‘Cinema’ on one side and ‘Reality’ on the other.
Select a film showing on TV or one you know well, preferably on
video or DVD and try to list all the reality gaps. Some of these are
for financial reasons e.g. the average 90 minutes running time
allows an optimum number of programmes per day. Others are
artistic e.g. traditionally characters do not look directly at the
camera (called breaking the fourth wall) as this would destroy the
illusion of watching a drama. Consider what characters do or don’t
do (e.g. go to the toilet) and what they say or don’t say (e.g.
swear or mumble).

N.B. probably the best example of the ‘suspension of disbelief’ is

Jurassic Park III, (2001). Even though the dinosaurs look real, no
human being was ever on the planet at the same time as the
dinosaurs, so we can’t really be sure what they were like. We do
not even know what colour they were.

The ideology of cause & effect

The media debate over the effects of screen violence is

unfortunately often simplified. The effects fall into two main
categories often unhelpfully taken as being one.

a) Imitation – Does seeing an action on screen tend to make

some individuals directly try to copy it? It has been said in the
defence of certain people that crimes were committed after having
been influenced by viewing particular films. However, this evidence
is often very complex. What is consistently difficult to prove is a
straightforward cause and effect relationship, e.g. mass murderer
Jeffery Dahmer did like horror films, but he also watched a lot of
Disney Cartoons. There is some evidence that exposure to certain
films has affected the details of some crimes, but not that the films
themselves provoked the acts. These might have been committed
anyway.

b) Desensitising – Critics like Medved believe that films have

become more and more explicit in their portrayal of sex and
violence. If you agree with this, why do think this is so? Directors
like Michael Winner argue that it is important to show violence, but
does this contribute to making society more violent, or just reflect
its less pleasant side? Does the body count in films like Tomb
Raider (Simon West, 2001, US) and Mi2 (John Woo, 2000, US)
where you are not shown the consequences of violet action and
where violence is sometimes undercut by a joke, make you
gradually less sensitive to individual pain? Should we be worried if
it is becoming more difficult to feel any emotion when watching
films? Do you feel that persistent news reports of wars and human
suffering lose their effectiveness after a while because you get used
to them?

Ideology & ownership

We may be familiar with the idea that newspapers are owned by

certain people and that this can affect the viewpoints in their
papers. This is also true of TV and film companies, who are also
owned by large corporations (in some cases even the same ones,
e.g. Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper and Sky TV group). In 1994,
Italy voted into government a party (Forze Italia) founded only
months before. The success of its leader, Berlusconi, in such a
short time was helped by his ownership of several TV channels
which promoted his party during the campaign. The influence of
owners of media groups is rarely so obvious, but do you know the
owners of the media you consume?

task 6
Choose a specific medium. Find out who the main competing
companies are and which part of that medium (and any other) they
own. Consider where they get their money from, e.g. advertising or
TV licence, and how this might affect the ideologies expressed.

Conclusion - Why does it matter?

In early twentieth century Russia, Lenin found film a particularly

effective propaganda tool. Most of the rural population were
illiterate and film was a good way of communicating messages
through words and images. Other groups have also found it an
effective tool in persuasion and propaganda.
We must strive to be media literate so that we can interrogate
media texts and construct our own meanings from them rather
than allow the more powerful elements of society to impose them
upon us. This ability to think for ourselves is particularly important,
as fictional representations also inform our view of the world.