Cohen's Moral Panic

A moral panic is when “a condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests.”-Stanley Cohen.

A moral panic contains five distinct features

·         Concern – There must be awareness that the behaviour of the group or category in question is likely to have a negative impact on society.

·         Hostility – Hostility towards the group in question increases, and they become "folk devils". A clear division forms between "them" and "us".

·         Consensus – Though concern does not have to be nationwide, there must be widespread acceptance that the group in question poses a very real threat to society. It is important at this stage that the "moral entrepreneurs" are vocal and the "folk devils" appear weak and disorganised.

·         Disproportionality – The action taken is disproportionate to the actual threat posed by the accused group.

·         Volatility – Moral panics are highly volatile and tend to disappear as quickly as they appeared due to a wane in public interest or news reports changing to another topic.

(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_panic)

The media often uses a moral panic in order to raise attention to an issue or sometimes even just to sell papers or raise ratings and can be used to force societal change, for better and for worse.

This is an example of moral panic being used for good; although the poster is extreme it is necessary to convey the message of how dangerous knife crime is.

However sometimes moral panics are misinformed and news outlets feed misinformation in order to get something banned and/or (as mentioned before) gain attention for itself.

 This game was an example of the public being misinformed through news outlets who trying to start a moral panic over the content of the game.

Moral panics can even become witch hunts if the subject is extreme enough. Many celebrity’s and politicians have been known to jump on the bandwagon so to speak only to raise their own profiles, the political spoof show Brass Eye was known for criticising these people, one of the most well-known episodes being the special on pedophilia  entitled “Paedogeddon”

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/brass-eye/4od#2929844

This episode received many complaints, although almost all were reinforcing the idea that the media creates such an overblown moral panic over the subject, especially since Beverly Hughes, who called the show “unspeakably sick” had admitted to never even watching the show.

The following picture is an example of an attempted moral panic by the Daily Star who had found a joke photoshopped image online and printed the story as real. They were then sued by Rockstar games for slander: http://www.techdigest.tv/2010/07/daily_star_unco.html

Use of moral panic for music magazine

As the target audience are teenagers I could create a moral panic in order to make it seem more edgy and interesting.

Feminism and the Male gaze theory

The Male Gaze theory is where in films the women are shown in such a way to be particularly attractive. It takes on a voyeuristic nature as if the audience are looking in on the women and they are unaware of the audience’s presence. In some cases (such as Megan Fox in the Transformers films) women in films make certain poses or wear revealing clothing in order to be attractive to men, the perceived target audience.

The Male Gaze theory was introduced by Laura Mulvey, who concluded that audiences look at films in two ways: voyeuristically and fetishistically. The Audience are voyeurs essentially as they are usually in a darkened room and the characters cannot see them, but they can see the characters. This presents to different concepts:

Ø  Objectification of female characters

Ø  Narcissistic identification with an ideal image on screen

The “narcissistic identification” comes from the idea that males in the audience project themselves onto the male characters onscreen.

Below are a few examples of where the male gaze theory may or may not apply:

Quantum of Solace

The James bond franchise is known for having male gaze completely dominate their films. 007 is a perfect example of narcissistic identification as he is a cool, smooth, action hero spy who always gets the girls, while the women in these films have actually gotten the term “Bond girls” for the reputation of always being the woman Bond gets in the end. The term itself implies that they belong to Bond.

Underworld: Awakening

Underworld is interesting as it can be seen as falling under the male gaze theory for having the main character (Kate Beckinsale) always dressed in skin tight leather, however she can defend herself and is generally more powerful than her male counterparts, so it may be difficult to objectify her but there is almost no way for male narcissistic identification.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo I don’t think comes under the male gaze theory as the female lead doesn’t wear revealing clothing and is never really objectified, although at a point in the story where she is raped can be seen as objectification, but this is for story, not for viewer eye candy as the scene is brutal.

Sucker Punch

Sucker Punch does feature female objectification to a degree, the leads are all attractive women and wear skimpy outfits, however they are all powerful and fight hundreds of people, and since they are all female there is no opportunity for narcissistic identification.

The Iron Lady

The Iron Lady doesn’t feature the male gaze theory, partly as the film is based on the reign of Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister, and must give a realistic portrayal of the events and the people.

Kerrang Magazine analysis

The house style is yellow and red.