Stranger Things: a Structural Mythic Analysis
Strap in for a slightly longer essay than usual, because this week we're doing a structural analysis of the first season of Stranger Things. Jumping off from the idea of Pop Culture as Mythology, we're going to illustrate that what actually means when we directly study a piece of pop mythology. Stranger Things argues against structures of society that sets the us against them. By reinterpreting the classic cultural structures, it demonstrates ways to defend the vulnerable and fight against government pressures.
Notes on a Scandoval
In this essay, we're digging into the scandoval that shook the world of reality television. Of particular interest for us is the way the story of the scandal unfolded, and why it was so enticing and so juicy for the audience. We talk about the way the characters developed on our screens over the course of ten years, and how the complicated nature of reality television timeline means an intricate web of dramatic irony.
Wednesday and the Art of the Cliche
Netflix's Wednesday was an immediate success, but received critiques that it was full of clichés. In this essay, I decided to delve into what makes Wednesday successful, nostalgic, and why relying on familiar tropes and clichés is the most important part of Wednesday's backbone.
Bee and Puppycat and the Spirit of Anthropology
Bee and Puppycat: Lazy in Space on Netflix provides us with a wonderful blurring between categories. It really echoes a main theme of anthropology: making the familiar strange and the strange familiar. In this video, we explore the way Bee and Puppycat complicate subject matter and characters which are extremely familiar to the viewer, while also taking figures and setting incredibly unfamiliar to the viewer and making them incredibly relatable.
Hopelessness and Change in Over the Garden Wall
Over the Garden Wall was initially released in 2014, but has a wonderful timeless feel to it that has made it an autumnal favourite. The show was spawned so many theories and questions about the structure of the narrative. In this essay, I'm exploring the role of the Unknown and the ever present question of the purpose of the journey the brothers are on. The Unknown is a place of required adaptability and necessary constant change, and when an individual becomes too overwhelmed and find it too difficult to go on, they fall into the Hopeless stage that allows the Beast to take them.
The Beast - Over the Garden Wall
The Beast is the hopelessness of the woods - the feeder on the desperate and those who have become too lost to even attempt to keep finding their way. When fighting with Wirt and the woodsmen in the final episode, a light flashes on the Beast and - for just a flash - we see what he truly looks like when not an imperceptible shadow. He looks like the trees that become the souls, with faces of the lost and hopeless covering his body. He’s not just someone who feeds on the lost souls in the woods, but someone who is the embodiment of the forlorn.
Communication and Storytelling in Buffy’s Hush
Originally aired in 1999, Buffy the Vampire Slayer's episode Hush introduced the audience to perhaps the scariest monster in the Buffy series: the Gentlemen. Their silence, creepy smiles, and methodical removal of their victims' voices make them a monster that still haunts fans of Buffy. In this essay, I explore the episode of Hush, and the themes of silence and communication as a form of storytelling. From a myth studies perspective, Hush gives us interesting examples of how language and language disruption can change a community, as well as how the body can also form as an important anchor of communication.
The Reality TV Story
Today, I wanted to talk about one of the more interesting aspects of reality television: the story. I’ve talked before about the complicated nature of the “reality” part of reality television, and anyone that follows my work for even a short amount of time will know that I love a complicated view of reality. But stories are important – stories are important in scripted television and in reality television because stories are important to us as people. We tell stories every day when someone simply asks about how our day was. So of course reality television needs a good story.
Baccano and the Art of Nonlinear Storytelling
The interesting thing about Baccano is it's use of storytelling as an art itself. Baccano utilises non-linear storytelling to tell a complicated tale of a huge array of characters. While the characters are simplistic, the simplicity is part of the necessary exploration of storytelling in ways that are innately familiar to the viewer, calling on simplistic natures of folklore and myth to build archetypes which are both familiar and special.
She-Ra and Mythology
Netflix's She-Ra has an amazingly true-to-life take on mythology. The show makes the understanding of mythology nuanced while also highly accessible. In this essay, we explore the role mythology plays in the world of She-Ra, looking at the She-Ra mythology, as well as transformations of myth through time. We look into the role of the First Ones in their own storytelling, as well as the stories they actively changed through their colonial influence.
Lupin: race and mythology
Like most myths, Maurice Leblanc’s Lupin books are complicated, especially in how they are internalised and used by Assane in the Netflix show. It is more than just a demonstration of the ability of a thief to hide and move through the world – in many ways, the disguises and shifting nature of Lupin the thief is a metaphor for the way Assane felt the need to disguise and shift his own self and nature to fit into a world that saw him as the colonialised Other. He wears the aspect of white elite as comfortably as he does Black working class – he flows between these worlds as easily as the removal of a fake moustache.
The Anthropology of Love Island
The Myth of Maternity
The Myth of Maternity is a narrative frequently found throughout society whose morality is a little fuzzy. This story paints women as bearers of inherent maternal instincts and wishes – women are all mothers, whether they already are, are wanting to be, or are simply confused on the matter. The problematic nature of this social story is tied to troublesome views of women, as well as troublesome definitions of womanhood. Regardless, the myth of maternity is spread throughout our society and culture – and is prevalent in our popular culture.
Hilda, the Great Raven, and Other-than-Human Persons
One of the defining features of various religions or societies is the way humans understand their position in relation to the other aspects of the world around them. It is not just the way humans understand their positioning to others, such as in social hierarchies or families. But it also determines our understanding of how humans interact with the rest of the life around us, including plants, animals and mythological creatures.
Reality TV and the Myth of the Anti-Hero
Reality television shows us how fickle the concept of the hero is. Colloquial Western understandings of the hero has someone who upholds ideals and morality is something which is often just a matter of perspective. Reality television is a medium through which the very fine line between hero and anti-hero is properly explored. It is, of course, just a matter of editing.
She-Ra and the Princesses of Animism
The First Ones are associated with complicated technology, the knowledge of its creation and control lost to time. Their buildings are filled with strange tech, including robots and holograms. Likewise, the evil Horde frequently fights with big armour and attacking bots. The technology is set in direct contrast to the Rebellion, and the other elements of the land of Etheria, where the emphasis is on nature, and the Princesses fight with magic.
The Reality (?) of Reality Television
The show which arguably established the contemporary reality genre, Keeping Up With the Kardashians, ended their latest season with a meta-conversation about the nature of their own show. The storyline centred on an argument between the sisters, and how Kloe and Kim felt Kourtney wasn’t doing her part of the sharing for the show. Some of this stress is emotional - an unbalance of personal life being open for the public to view - and some is practical. Kim points out how she and Kloe have to do more physical hours of filming to pick up the slack of a missing person.