When watching Ugly Betty- au be it any other onyesha au movie, the narrative is one of the essential elements in understanding the story, in addition to which it forms the sequencing and ordering of events, as and when they happen.
The concept of narrative structure enables the likes of wewe and I to understand the message, ideas and situations taking place within the film au onyesha through the ordering of those events occuring on screen. Alas, this is where meaning is also achieved. Although narrative structure and theory is not neccessarily based around semiotics- which I have touched upon during one of the awali essays- the different narrative models being cited in this essay and in the analysis of narrative in TV and film draws on the theory of semiotics and structuralism.
In narrative theory, depending on what type of media it takes the form in-; be it film, TV- , certain stories share certain conventions and features, where in which they can be told and explained in different ways. Codes and conventions are important in media texts because they help seek to address and distinguish different genres and texts. Codes is a term, where wider sets of values and ideologies are formed kwa putting together different 'signs'- people, objects, places, whilst conventions refers to the ways the text is produced in relation to genre. Examples of conventions for the cop onyesha genre include bad guys committing a crime, the cops find and piece together evidence from witnesses and suspects on what happened, with that evidence they track down the villains, they get captured and arrested and the world is safe.
kwa recognising what these codes and conventions are, one can identify and decode and encode various meanings within the text. These codes and conventions are used to explain and structure meaning in televisheni shows for example.
With media and cultural studies, the emphasis when studying and analysing TV shows and sinema for example, is not on producing and creating texts and meaning but rather kwa understanding them in terms of how that meaning it is trying to convey is presented clearly for us to see. And so with Ugly Betty, we all know it is a TV show, but it is the storylines and situations that we see for ourselves and the way the producers present the events taking place in the episode on TV that we understand why this happened, how Wilhelmina is feeling au why Betty/Daniel have acted this way.
Which is why media theorists such as Vladimir Propp, Roland Barthes, Claude Levi- Strauss and Tzvetan Todorov are relevant when studying narrative. Their theories examine narrative structures and how they work in screen media and in relation to culture.
The difference between narrative structure and narrative itself is that whereas with narrative the story is told and presented as it is on screen au on paper in a book for instance, narrative structure is where we examine and analyse how that story is being told- NOT the actual story in the episode itself. In other words, from what viewpoint au perspective is the story being told- is it from Betty's, Amanda's au Wilhelmina's for instance- and how it impacts on the characters, individually and at times, collectively kwa the end.
Despite their similarity, both plot and story are very different terms: Plot is the sequencing of events taking place off-screen that we do NOT see. Story is when all the events in the narrative are visually represented and depicted as they are on screen.
The story of Ugly Betty is that of Betty Suarez- a Latina born in Queens, New York, who is hired kwa Mode magazine owner, Bradford Meade as his son's assistant, who is Daniel- the editor-in-chief. Initially, she was offered the job, on the basis that her 'unattractive' looks would put Daniel off from being attracted to Betty, as well as preventing him from feeling tempted in sleeping with her. As the onyesha progresses, we see Betty's positive influence rub off Daniel and the rest of the characters and through her and their own efforts, her good nature brings about positive changes during the show. The characters see beyond Betty's appearance and realise that although she might not have a pretty face, they always recognise that her moyo is always in the right place.
Anthropologist Claude Levi- Strauss argued all meaning making was dependent on binary oppositions au two contrasting terms. Instead of concerntrating on the order of events in the story, Strauss was zaidi interested in other themes kwa delving deeper into the stories and from there onwards, compile a orodha of oppositionary themes, concepts and ideas and comparing and contrasting them together.
The Gio/Henry/Betty upendo pembetatu in season 2 is an example of binary oppositions at work; here, we had betty choosing between Gio and Henry. Examples of binary oppositions at work in relation to Gio and Henry include sandwich, sandwichi guy/nerdy accountant, Italian/American and confident/anxious.
Being a shabiki of Ugly Betty and familiarising yourself to the show, storylines and characters means one should be able to recognise how the narrative within the series and in comedy- type shows works. kwa recognising the different binary oppositional concepts in the characters, settings etc, one is able to accept au even reject the various conflicts which arise in UB.
Tzvetan Todorov's theory argued that all stories contain a 'cause and effect', where everything is settled at the beginning (Calm) and a situation au problem arises (Storm) and in the end, the matter is resolved and everyone is happy again (Calm again). This is also known as
Equilibrium/Disequilibrium.
Let's take the season 3 episode, 'When Betty Met YETI; if we relate Todorov's concept to it, then we could say that here the calm is when Betty and Marc both apply for YETI and go through the interview process. The 'storm' occurs when Marc finds out that Betty has got into YETI and-yet he hasn't. He is furious and later on, he goes on to explain to her the reason she got accepted was because she was Latino. As a result, Betty is upset and thus, both Marc and Betty fall-out because of this. The 'calm again' is when Betty- who gives her place to Marc- later finds out that Daniel wrote a 6- page reccomendation letter to YETI on Betty. She gets into YETI at long last and is happy and ecstatic with it and hugs him afterwards. In the end, Marc who had earlier apologised to Betty for his outburst, calls Betty- who couldn't hide her delight, and smiles at her and the two are on good terms with each other again.
For Roland Barthes, in narrative there are five different Codes au be it 'signs' which can be found in TV programmes and films in particular. These are Iconic, Indexical, Symbolic, Arbituary and Hermeneutic/Enigma. The hermeneutic code is of particular interest to us because how this works is that it keeps setting up little puzzles which have to be solved, in order for the story to be resolved. These 'puzzles' are the problems au dilemmas the character/s find themselves in during the onyesha and s/he come up with ways of resolving it. All narratives share 'structural features' where in which each story weaves in different ways, affecting how we read and interpret texts. kwa texts we mean films, tv shows, song lyrics to name, and so all texts share numerous meanings based on the five codes.
In applying this concept to episode 2 of season 1, 'The Box and the Bunny', the enigma code in this episode is that of Betty losing the book which has the unretouched picha of Natalie Whitman. Betty and Daniel go out of their way in their attempt to retrieve the book, and yet we discover that Marc and Wilhelmina manage to get hold of it before they do.
kwa summing up this essay, I would say that it is kwa analysing narratives in shows such as Ugly Betty and applying the different narrative models to them that one can understand and make sense of how and why stories follow those conventions. Of course, not all of the theories apply to all texts. And yet kwa recognising that narratives are structured in ways that are understood, read and interpreted kwa us, we can then draw on other themes and ideas and relate it to them afterwards.
Sources:
*'The Media Students Book', 4th edition, G. Branston, R. Stafford, 2007
*'Introducing Cultural Studies', 2nd edition, B Longhurst, G. Smith, G Bagnall, G Crawford, M. Ogborn, E. Baldwin, S. McCracken, 2008
The concept of narrative structure enables the likes of wewe and I to understand the message, ideas and situations taking place within the film au onyesha through the ordering of those events occuring on screen. Alas, this is where meaning is also achieved. Although narrative structure and theory is not neccessarily based around semiotics- which I have touched upon during one of the awali essays- the different narrative models being cited in this essay and in the analysis of narrative in TV and film draws on the theory of semiotics and structuralism.
In narrative theory, depending on what type of media it takes the form in-; be it film, TV- , certain stories share certain conventions and features, where in which they can be told and explained in different ways. Codes and conventions are important in media texts because they help seek to address and distinguish different genres and texts. Codes is a term, where wider sets of values and ideologies are formed kwa putting together different 'signs'- people, objects, places, whilst conventions refers to the ways the text is produced in relation to genre. Examples of conventions for the cop onyesha genre include bad guys committing a crime, the cops find and piece together evidence from witnesses and suspects on what happened, with that evidence they track down the villains, they get captured and arrested and the world is safe.
kwa recognising what these codes and conventions are, one can identify and decode and encode various meanings within the text. These codes and conventions are used to explain and structure meaning in televisheni shows for example.
With media and cultural studies, the emphasis when studying and analysing TV shows and sinema for example, is not on producing and creating texts and meaning but rather kwa understanding them in terms of how that meaning it is trying to convey is presented clearly for us to see. And so with Ugly Betty, we all know it is a TV show, but it is the storylines and situations that we see for ourselves and the way the producers present the events taking place in the episode on TV that we understand why this happened, how Wilhelmina is feeling au why Betty/Daniel have acted this way.
Which is why media theorists such as Vladimir Propp, Roland Barthes, Claude Levi- Strauss and Tzvetan Todorov are relevant when studying narrative. Their theories examine narrative structures and how they work in screen media and in relation to culture.
The difference between narrative structure and narrative itself is that whereas with narrative the story is told and presented as it is on screen au on paper in a book for instance, narrative structure is where we examine and analyse how that story is being told- NOT the actual story in the episode itself. In other words, from what viewpoint au perspective is the story being told- is it from Betty's, Amanda's au Wilhelmina's for instance- and how it impacts on the characters, individually and at times, collectively kwa the end.
Despite their similarity, both plot and story are very different terms: Plot is the sequencing of events taking place off-screen that we do NOT see. Story is when all the events in the narrative are visually represented and depicted as they are on screen.
The story of Ugly Betty is that of Betty Suarez- a Latina born in Queens, New York, who is hired kwa Mode magazine owner, Bradford Meade as his son's assistant, who is Daniel- the editor-in-chief. Initially, she was offered the job, on the basis that her 'unattractive' looks would put Daniel off from being attracted to Betty, as well as preventing him from feeling tempted in sleeping with her. As the onyesha progresses, we see Betty's positive influence rub off Daniel and the rest of the characters and through her and their own efforts, her good nature brings about positive changes during the show. The characters see beyond Betty's appearance and realise that although she might not have a pretty face, they always recognise that her moyo is always in the right place.
Anthropologist Claude Levi- Strauss argued all meaning making was dependent on binary oppositions au two contrasting terms. Instead of concerntrating on the order of events in the story, Strauss was zaidi interested in other themes kwa delving deeper into the stories and from there onwards, compile a orodha of oppositionary themes, concepts and ideas and comparing and contrasting them together.
The Gio/Henry/Betty upendo pembetatu in season 2 is an example of binary oppositions at work; here, we had betty choosing between Gio and Henry. Examples of binary oppositions at work in relation to Gio and Henry include sandwich, sandwichi guy/nerdy accountant, Italian/American and confident/anxious.
Being a shabiki of Ugly Betty and familiarising yourself to the show, storylines and characters means one should be able to recognise how the narrative within the series and in comedy- type shows works. kwa recognising the different binary oppositional concepts in the characters, settings etc, one is able to accept au even reject the various conflicts which arise in UB.
Tzvetan Todorov's theory argued that all stories contain a 'cause and effect', where everything is settled at the beginning (Calm) and a situation au problem arises (Storm) and in the end, the matter is resolved and everyone is happy again (Calm again). This is also known as
Equilibrium/Disequilibrium.
Let's take the season 3 episode, 'When Betty Met YETI; if we relate Todorov's concept to it, then we could say that here the calm is when Betty and Marc both apply for YETI and go through the interview process. The 'storm' occurs when Marc finds out that Betty has got into YETI and-yet he hasn't. He is furious and later on, he goes on to explain to her the reason she got accepted was because she was Latino. As a result, Betty is upset and thus, both Marc and Betty fall-out because of this. The 'calm again' is when Betty- who gives her place to Marc- later finds out that Daniel wrote a 6- page reccomendation letter to YETI on Betty. She gets into YETI at long last and is happy and ecstatic with it and hugs him afterwards. In the end, Marc who had earlier apologised to Betty for his outburst, calls Betty- who couldn't hide her delight, and smiles at her and the two are on good terms with each other again.
For Roland Barthes, in narrative there are five different Codes au be it 'signs' which can be found in TV programmes and films in particular. These are Iconic, Indexical, Symbolic, Arbituary and Hermeneutic/Enigma. The hermeneutic code is of particular interest to us because how this works is that it keeps setting up little puzzles which have to be solved, in order for the story to be resolved. These 'puzzles' are the problems au dilemmas the character/s find themselves in during the onyesha and s/he come up with ways of resolving it. All narratives share 'structural features' where in which each story weaves in different ways, affecting how we read and interpret texts. kwa texts we mean films, tv shows, song lyrics to name, and so all texts share numerous meanings based on the five codes.
In applying this concept to episode 2 of season 1, 'The Box and the Bunny', the enigma code in this episode is that of Betty losing the book which has the unretouched picha of Natalie Whitman. Betty and Daniel go out of their way in their attempt to retrieve the book, and yet we discover that Marc and Wilhelmina manage to get hold of it before they do.
kwa summing up this essay, I would say that it is kwa analysing narratives in shows such as Ugly Betty and applying the different narrative models to them that one can understand and make sense of how and why stories follow those conventions. Of course, not all of the theories apply to all texts. And yet kwa recognising that narratives are structured in ways that are understood, read and interpreted kwa us, we can then draw on other themes and ideas and relate it to them afterwards.
Sources:
*'The Media Students Book', 4th edition, G. Branston, R. Stafford, 2007
*'Introducing Cultural Studies', 2nd edition, B Longhurst, G. Smith, G Bagnall, G Crawford, M. Ogborn, E. Baldwin, S. McCracken, 2008