a. Form/Function: Psycho shower scene made by Alfred Hitchcock in 1960's, this scene is trying to show us how the women gets punished and therefore she is not shown as being the final girl.
b. M-I-G-R-A-I-N:
M-
The film is made in B/W to make it much more interesting and original and have more effect on audiences, even if in the 60's coloured movies started becoming popular, and the B/W is creating less suspense as the blood is shown in a B/W, however if it was shown in colour it would have been much more scary and creating much more suspense, because it would be the real colour of the blood.
when the victim is taking a shower, she is amusing herself as she's laughing and she also feels relaxed, and the handle 0f the shower is commonly shown, this can also be seen as the phallic object as she is having pleasure when taking a shower.
just before she dies, she is trying to hold on to something to help herself, this therefore might indicate her need of the man.
she is also represented as a male gaze when she is shown when she enters the shower.
Institution:
Paramount Pictures.
GENRE:
romance, horror, thriller, crime.
Representation:
The women is represented as a male gaze and she is there to appeal to male audiences.
The psycho is represented as confused and that he can't understand his feelings, as he acts as a men and as a mother at the same time, even if he tries to stop acting like that, he can't and the death of his mother still has an impact on him and that he is so desperate to kill people and at the same time revenging to what had happened to his mother.
he is also represented as strong when he kills her and she is represented as weak because she is unable to do anything about it.
The boyfriend of the victim looks really caring as he is trying to do anything just to find who the murderer is.
Audiences:
This movie is mainly aimed at adults of both genders, because of the killing scene which can be a bit offensive to teenagers mainly during that period of time, and the way she is shown to appeal to mainly male audiences.
Ideology:patriarchal ideology: this is shown when the psychopath attacks the women, which might mean that the men has much more power over the female and is able to control and that females don't seem to have much power on the society and the males are still the ones controlling the society, and that women is not able to have a dominant role even if she's shown in the office but she is still seen as a sex object when she is shown naked when taking a shower, as the audience is having the pleasure at looking at her in that way as a sex object.
Sadism is also used when she is being killed, the audience is having pleasure seeing the victim getting killed, but at the same time the audience is feeling sad for her.
Narrative: The movie has a non-linear narrative as it includes flashbacks, when the victim is driving she's receiving different flashbacks from the different scenes.this particular scene has a linear narrative as it shows how the scenes happen in order and that it doesn't have anything to destruct the story.
c. Other related texts
Psycho-1999
Texas Chainsaw Massacre-1974
d. WC (SHEP)...how does each text relate to the zeitgeist?
This relates to the zeitgeist as it has the women working and not anymore represented as a housewives.
Social- family problems,such as the psycho men who had an unhappy childhood and had childhood problems and the lack of parents might have led him to become like that.
Historical- that women should be represented as housewives and that males should have a more dominant role in the society.
political:.....
Economic: the victim in the movie steals money which shows that people had economic problems, and that they were desperate for money and that money offers happiness.
f. Relevant Theories
- Laura Mulvey: she is represented as a male gaze.
Levi Strauss: Binary opposition: the victim against the hero.
Propp: Hero against the Villain- the psychopath against the Heroes (the victim's boy friend and her sister's) - Barthes: Enigma. This movie also tries to create enigma to the audiences, because when she is shown taking the shower and the psychopath is looking from a hole in the wall, therefore this is making the audiences think about what is he going to do, as he is shown a bit suspicious.
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