Week 9 - Infernal Affairs: Hollywood importing indigenized works

i.      What is ‘Asianisation’? Klein (2004: 268) writes that the “ … transnationalization of labor and style is clearly leading to the Asianization of Hollywood – but this Asianization is taking diverse forms.” Examine an text from an Asian nation that embraces the Hollywood star, celebrity or persona model, includes a distinctly Hollywood style or visual, genre or narrative convention, or is an example of how “Hollywood imports indigenized versions of its own, previously exported styles and modes of narration”.

Infernal Affairs: Hollywood importing indigenized works

 

When you enter a cinema to watch a movie, have you ever noticed that the Hollywood movie you are watching is more Asian-like. The above situation is nothing surprising because we are now experiencing “a partial erosion of the boundaries that once separated Hollywood from local Asian film industries, and a consequent intertwining of industries, on both sides of the pacific” (Klein 2004, p. 361), and “Hollywood is becoming Asianized in diverse ways” (p. 361). Now, I would like to look into such phenomenon with reference to a Hong Kong movie Infernal Affairs.

 

 

Infernal Affairs (2002) 

 

Infernal Affairs is a Hong Kong crime-thriller crime starring major actors such as Tony Leung and Andy Lau. It tells the story of two police officers: one infiltrating a triad and one working for the same triad. It had a major box office success in Hong Kong and had two sequels in 2003. Its story plot was described as intense and exciting, and gained high reputation among Asian audience. In 2003, Hollywood expertise obtained the rights to remake the film from Media East Entertainment Group. In 2006, Infernal Affair was remade as a Hollywood film The Departed by the director Martin Scorsese. This symbolises “Asianization of Hollywood” (Klein 2004, p. 368). In this case, The Departed is a movie that embraces “narrative conventions that are strong identified with a particular Asian film industry” (p. 368), in this case, the Hong Kong movie industry.  

 

 

The Departed (2006)

Hollywood has been introducing similar action movie like Lethal Weapon (starring Mel Gibson and Danny Glover) in the 1980s. However, from the mid-1980s, Hong Kong has grown as a major production base or producing action, crime and detective films. Many expertises have gained their ticket to Hollywood because of their excellent performance in making (E.g. John Woo and his A better tomorrow) and acting (E.g. Jackie Chan and his Police Stories series) in these films. Because these genres and their features such as stunts, actions, visual effects has since been extensively and professionally used in Hong Kong, their narrative conventions have in turn been more swift, more “securing” to ensure box office balance, if not a tremendous profit. This explains why Hollywood directors and producers would like to imports indigenized versions of its own, previously exported styles and modes of narration, and consequently obtain rights to remake Infernal Affairs.

 

Police Story (1985)

 

 

A Better Tomorrow (1986)

 

 

References

Klein, C 2004, ‘Martial arts and globalisation of US and Asian film industries’, Comparative America Studies, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 360-384.

Week 8 - Our specular economy

The Specular Economy: Examine the concept of the ‘specular economy’ in relation to your own social media use.

 

OUR SPECULAR ECONOMY

 

Thanks to the development of new media forms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Weibo & Instagram, many more of us are now “constructing online public personas” (Marshall 2010, p. 498), and consequently a new form of economy has emerged. It is the specular economy, which refers to our collective heightening consciousness of how we present ourselves and how others perceive us (p. 498-499). In this blog entry, I am going to examine the concept with the choice of Instagram.

 

In Marshall’s article, he suggests that the current specular economy is related to the “Me-generation” in the 1970s and links to individualisation that highlights individual expression. However, yet, the economy differs today “in its new construction of how to self is reconstituted through the screens of engagement and interactivity that serve to organise and shape our lives” (Marshall 2010 p. 499). For example, many of us including the celebrities have got an Instagram account, which symbolises “a new quasi-public presentation of the self and a version of ourselves” through various texts and images under specular economy.

 

In Instagram, we may post photos and short videos up to 15 seconds. We may circulate “images, information, text, conversation and interpersonal exchanges” (by screen caps) (Marshall 2010, p. 502) on Instagram to create our personas. Through the photos and videos we have shared, we display ourselves to the others and shape our own persona. For example, some of my peers post photos of their clothes or clubbing to construct an outgoing, chic persona. For one of my friends who work as a reporter, he often uploads photos of social issues to construct his professional, caring persona. By revealing photos of our private bits, we have been producing different personas.

 

Yet, uploading photos and short videos is not the only way for us to construct our own persona. We may give unique hash tags to our photos, “like” particular photos and comment on others’ photos and videos to shape our persona, as our words and actions represent our intentions, which may help us shape our persona too.

 

To conclude, what Marshall (2010) says is significant, “what is built into new media is the exchange and interchange of a networked culture” (p. 500). The various functions on Instagram has allowed a social network to emerge, provide an interactive medium to construct our own personas and become an active member under specular economy.

 

References

Marshal, P.D 2010, ‘The Specular Economy’, Society, vol. 47, no. 6, pp. 498-502

 

Week 7 - Reconfiguration in Sims

Raessen explores three domains of participation involved in the cultural production of computer games and their participatory media cultures: interpretation, reconfiguration and construction. Review the article and give an account of one domain of participation in relation to a game of your choice (and/or suggest another domain of participation that might be considered).

 

Reconfiguration in SIMS

 

Computer games and its surrounding cultures have been marked with distinctive elements of “interconnectivity” and “participation”. In Raessens’s (2005) article on computer games, three domains of participation, namely interpretation, reconfiguration and construction, are suggested. In the following, I will be reviewing “reconfiguration” and relate it to Sims, the game which I was once addicted to then.

 

As suggested by Raessens, reconfiguration “exists in the exploration of the unknown” (2005, p. 380). Aarseth (1997) further elaborates that the gamer “is making strategic choices about alternative paths and, in the case of adventure games, alternative actions” (p. 64). In Sims and many of its refined versions and expansion packs, there are different families to choose from, of which players can invent their Sims using the predetermined criteria (E.g. Gender, skin colour, clothing, etc).  They play the game when it is in Live mode, and they can build houses and buy things for their designated characters using Build mode or Buy Mode.  The live mode is more significant in relation to reconfiguration among the three modes, because players can instruct the Sims to interact with objects. The Sims may keep a pet or accept a job offer as instructed. Also, players may instruct Sims to boost their skills through training including reading, and working out.  These lead to Sims’ development. They may get a promoted in a job, or they may fall in love with other Sims. All these illustrate “the exploration and attempt to control worlds that are unknown to the player” (Raessens 2005, p. 380), which is a distinctive feature of computer games.

Sims are exposed to different destinies (Including this awkward moment) under players' (our) hands, which are also determined by the game's predetermined database.

 

To further elaborate on Sims and its Live mode, another perspective of reconfiguration can be noticed, that the player “is invited to give form to these worlds in an active way by selecting one of the many preprogrammed possibilities in a computer game”. The choices mentioned above (i.e. Creating, instructing Sims and deciding on Sims’ actions) are all generated by the pre-set databases and lead to pre-determined possibilities (E.g. Sims may starve, cry and so on), which are not revealed to the player in advance, thus it corresponds to what Ryan (2001) suggests, that a player is “building the virtual world by selecting objects from a fixed set of system-internal possibilities” (as cited in Raessens 2005, p. 380). Therefore, from this brief analysis of Sims, we could view how computer games and their participatory media cultures exist nowadays.

 

References

Aarseth, E 1997. Cybertext: Perspectives on ergodic literature, John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.

 

Raessens, J. 2005, ‘Computer games as participatory media culture’, Handbook of Computer Game Studies, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass, pp. 373-388.

Week 6 - Educational Blogosphere – its value from a pre-service teacher’s eye

Consider blogs as a global media form, examine the practice of blogging and explore the phenomenon of the blogosphere in detail. In the blog this week the task is to consider one of the following topics (with regards to one of articles listed below).

You can also draw on further scholarly sources from your own research, and expand your approach by considering or revisiting concepts listed in the unit glossary.

 

Educational Blogosphere – its value from a pre-service teacher’s eye

Cambridge Online dictionary (n.d.) defines “blog” as “a regular record of your thoughts, opinions or experiences that you put on the Internet for others to read”. When blogs mingle, they give birth to a term called “blogosphere”, which is about “all of the blogs on the Internet as a collective whole” (Merriam Webster Dictionary, n.d.). By considering blog as a global media form, I would like to examine the progress of educational blogging and explore the phenomenon of blogosphere in detail, from a pre-service English teacher’s perspective.

 

In the suggested reading by Roberston, the education sector begins to realise the benefit of blogging, which helps facilitating reflecting learning and encouraging collaborative learning (Roberston 2011), it is harnessed as a tool for higher education students “to learn how to learn”. I do think that blogging can be introduced to secondary students because as Roberston identifies, blogging enables students for self-directed learning, social support and emotional expression (2011, p. 1629). Moreover, Ferdig and Trammell hold that blogs are “ideal spaces for students to make meaning and publish their reflections, thoughts and understandings for an authentic audience” (as cited in Roberston 2011, p. 1631).

 

As far as I know, there are not many schools in Hong Kong incorporating blogging into their coursework. However, as a pre-service teacher, I do advocate incorporating blogging into their coursework, because it is a more interactive approach in facilitating students’ learning. Whereas written reflection and evaluation are rather formal and rigid, blogging are less stringent, offering students more sense of ownership and control over their learning (i.e. On planning and reflecting their own learning progress). As the culture of blogging is extensive among teenagers, they can assist and sympathise each other by offering constructive comments, hence enabling a mutual-supportive virtual community and the existence of blogosphere.

 

In the world of blogosphere, Deng and Yuen (2011) suggest an educational blog affordances framework, students write to express themselves, and hence social connection can be built by reflecting on peers’ blogs or external blogs (in this case, language-learning blogs, such as Learning English with Michelle - http://learningenglishwithmichelle.blogspot.com.au/), and gradually initiates social interaction. For example, I may give junior secondary students prompts to write about (E.g. "Aeroplane" or "Elephant", and they can develop their own piece of work with genres they prefer, such as limericks and haiku). For senior secondary students, I may invite them to develop their blogs on different aspects of English (E.g. Media, documentaries, movies). From the blogging practice, students write to themselves and their peers, thus a closely linked blogosphere is possible.  Similar blogging practice would be impressive. As learning should be in line with technology advancement, such virtual learning is widely accessible and should be implemented across classrooms.

 

References

'Blog' n.d., Cambridge Online Dictionary, Cambridge University Press

'Blogosphere' n.d., Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Merriam-Webster.

Deng, L & Yuen A H K 2011 ‘Towards a framework for educational affordances of blogs’, Computers and Education, vol. 56 (2), pp. 441 – 451.

Robertson, J 2011 ‘The educational affordances of blog for self-directed learning’, Computers and Education, vol. 57, pp. 1628 – 1644.