RECEPTION THEORY

Today we discussed how audiences receive texts: preferred reading, negociated reading and oppositional reading. We related this framework to two areas of representation: sexuality and race.

We used several case studies:

• My Beautiful Laundrette (dir. Stephen Frears 1985): an ambitious Asian Briton and his white lover strive for success and hope, when they open up a glamorous laundromat.
• Little Britain (BBC with David Walliams and Mat Lucas): exaggerated and stereotypical representations for comic effect. Audiences are expected to share the comic values.
• Billy Elliot (dir.Stephen Daldry 2002): representations of unconventional hetereosexuality with Billy choosing ballet not boxing as his aggressively masculine father and brother prefer; representation of cross-dressing young male who is treated sympathetically but keeps his desires secret
• Bend It Like Beckham (dir,Gurinder Chadha 2002): representations of conventional feminity in the character of Jess within the traditionally masculine sphere of football; the comic treatment of lesbian issues within the relationship between Jess and , which evades discussion of serious isues such as gay relationships; and the homosexuality of Jess's friend, which is side-stepped altogether.
• Four Weddings and a Funeral (dir.Newell 1994): Exaggerated if sympathetic representation of gay male ending in death; low profile gay, even rather secret.
• We discussed historical attitudes to gender roles, starting with what you knew about female authors :Jane Austen and female social expectations ('It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a fortune must be in want of a wife'; George Elliot, the Bronte sisters, who had to adopt masculine pseudonyms); 'the love that dare not speak its name' and the trial of Oscar Wilde.

We talked about Roland Barthes The Death Of The Author.