Modern Reality TV show Big Brother takes its name from the famous film '1984'. The original version of this film directed by Michael Anderson in 1956 showed the poster above as a propaganda technique for the plot of the film. The film is based on a book written by George Orwell in 1949 which also had a second film adaptation in the year 1984. The storyline follows Winston Smith who lives in London under a totalitarian society led by the figure 'Big Brother' which censors everyone's behaviour and even their thoughts. This is very similar to my teasers storyline in which the woman is being watched in ways she did not agree too and the director is 'Big Brother'.
As well as these posters being an icon from the original adaptation, the book/film is also famous for introducing the room 'Room 101' - a torture chamber in where the leading party in charge subject a prisoner to his or her own worst nightmare, fear or phobia. There have been several references to the idea Room 101 since such as the British TV show Room 101 where celebrities list their pet peeves as well an idea for a task in the 2005 series of Big Brother and more recently an idea for the episode The God Complex in the 2011 series of Doctor Who. My idea was to reference the number 101 somewhere in my teaser for example, the house number for where the woman lives - therefore her greatest phobia being her fear of entire exposure and this fear being located in her home (Room 101).
Using these iconic references as inspiration for my teaser will help to reveal it's themes/messages but also pay homage to the films' storyline in which a utopian society is only found through 'following a grand-narrative - a dictatorship'. Lyotards' theory of post-modernism describes it as an era that declines these grand-narratives and instead focuses on micro-narratives. Therefore post-modernism can be seen as declining the society presented in the film '1984'. However, my teaser is about a film that attempts to exploit the truth about reality TV, a product of Postmodernism. Like I have said before, modern Reality TV is often scripted or manipulated whilst focusing on themes such as glamour and appearance. I see Reality TV as its own grand-narrative as it falsely entices its consumers on what can be seen as a prime example of Baudrillard's theory of hyperreality - the idea that we only experience prepared realities such as edited war footage, tabloid talk shows and my own focus; Reality TV.
By adopting my own postmodern techniques such as paying homage to previous films and adopting it's styles for inspiration I am taking the discussion further into Baudrillard's theories and his ideas of simulation and simulacra - the process in which representations of things come to replace the things being represented. This would beg the question whether postmodernism is positive or negative because...
- Products of the era such as Reality TV are examples of hyperreality being falsely presented
- My teaser itself is presenting this question through it's own technique of postmodernism - simulacrum.
UPDATE: Click this LINK to see an update on this research after market research
outstanding level of applied understanding critical theory and relevant analysis
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