Timeline 2000's:

Political Issues:
11th of September 2001: bombing of the twin towers in New York.
March 2003: USA and the UK declaring a war on Iraq.
Saddam Hussein captured by the US troops.
Dec 2006: Saddam Hussein killed.
The 7/7 bombings in London.
Madrid Bombings - March 2004
Lebanon War 2006- Israeli attacks.
Gordon Brown becomes the new prime minister of Britai -June 2007

Media Issues:
The success of Harry Potter byJ.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone adapted on the movie.
Finding Nemo- which replaced the Lion King. this was seen as the best animated film ever made, because it made a huge profit.

Social Issues:
Tsunami in Indunisia- December 2004.
Global Warming.
Homosexuality became an accepted issue, and same sex marriages became accepted, in some nations such as Canada, the Netherlands, Britain and Spain.

Economic Issues:
The internet, Mobile phones have improved the Economy, mainly by the social networking websites such as Facebook, Myspace, etc...
The developement of Asian countries, mainly China which has become a world power.
Increasing demands of the Fossil Fuels in the middle East.

Timeline 90's:

Social Issues:
UN children Summit
Violence against women

Political Issues:
Iraq invades Kuwait (the Gulf War)
The end of the Cold War.
Margaret Tatcher resigns as a prime minister, she is replaced by John Major.
East and West of Germany reunited.

Economic Issues:
The internet which caused the growth of the economy and increased economic productivity and was a boom around the world. This made many European, Asian and American countries very wealthy.

Media Issues:
1997- the Titanic which was a successful movie, based on the real crash of the titanic in 1912, costing between $250 and $300 million to produce and market.
Sheindler's List- directed by Steven Spielberg, which has won him an Oscar.

Timeline 1980's:

Media Issues:
The wedding of Princess Diana and Prince Charles.

Economic Issues:
Fuel decreased.
Japan's Economic Boom- still considered as a miracle.

Political Issues:
The Falklands War 1982: Britain declared a war on Argentina.
Israel attacks Lebanon.
USA invades Grenada.
Italy and the Church decide on Catholicism to be the country's Religion.

Social Issues:
John Paul II signed a new Roman catholic code which had new changes by the second vatican council.

Time line 1970's:

Social Issues:
Many social issues that have faced a change, this change has continued from the 60's.
The earthquake that happened in Peru, which killed 50,000 people.

Political Issues:
The US troops invaded Cambodia (Vientnam War)
Tonga and Figi gained independence from Britain.
India and the USSR signed the 20 years pact.
Britain takes over Northern Ireland.
India becomes known as the world's sixth power for having the nuclear power.

Economic Issues:
Seen as the worst economic decade for European and American economy.
Third world countries continued to progress.

Media Issues:
The God Father (1972)- the number one gangster film ever made.
Star Wars.
The first time the steadicam was used in Rocky.

Time line 1960's:

Social Issues:

called the 'Age of Youth' which were the children from the post war of the 'Baby Boom'.

These youths wanted change, and they succeeded to have change in different areas such as: education, values, lifesyles, laws and entertainment.

Feminism began- Women were still being under-represented, but the movement was able to achieve a lot for females.

Issue such as racism and women became important in America.

Music became important as it described the social issues that were happening.



Media Issues:

Star Trek: which is seen as the Phenomenon movie of the 60's.

It improved a lot the representations of women, however there was still no equality between females and males. This is happening due to the fact that womens are still being represented as sex objects and house wives.

Music has introduced different styles of music, such as Rock, Soul, Folk.

Time line 1950's:

Social Issues:

John Gofman who was an American Doctor- discovered a hypothesis that blood Cholesterol was to blame for the rise of heart disease.
1950's- (Anti-Catholicism in America)- the end of years were the White catholics were seen by white anti-catholics as a dangerous
Education rate grew in the UK and the US, as there was a demand of high school and college education.
The growth of the 'Nuclear Families'.
The formation of the Union of Australian Women : aims of working for world peace and the rights of women and children. This union had many corporations and it succeeded in improving many things such as: Equal Pay between males and females.

Economic Issues:

The 50's was seen as the start of 'Japan's Postwar Economic Miracle' that lasted until the 90's, this was Japan's economic growth, where Japan has over taken all the European economies and 20% of the U.S economy, which was also known as the 'Losing Economic Hegemony'.

Political Issues:

The Cold War throughout the whole decade, between the Soviet Union and the USA.

Media Issues:

Introduction of television and new genres of music such as: Rock and Roll.

End of Hollywood's Golden Age.
'I love Lucky' which was produced in the 50's, which is about family representation and how during that time families had a good living standard, by the help of different Aid groups, which helped in the growth of Education and helped improve different jobs.
Only white faces were being represented in the media, however by the creation of the Civil Right Movements, black and the other ethnic minorities started occurring in the media but only for Comic Relief Programmes, but in movies they were still far from being represented.
Women in the USA during the 50's formed more than 50%, however males still outnumbered in the media.

Essay:

How does a comparison of these two 'slasher' texts demonstrate how genre changes over time? Why is this so and what other media issues and debates do they raise?

The genre of the movie changes throughout the years and that change is what makes the genre to become much more popular and much more successful, and that ' the process is the treatment of the genre' as Rick Altman has mentioned, and this therefore shows that the change of the genre throughout the years is what improves the genre and attracts more audiences, and therefore producers and directors use the same genre and try to find other new conventions.

Taking into consideration the two texts Psycho 1960 and Texas chainsaw massacre 1974, there has been a huge change within the two texts, the first change to recognise immediately between the two texts is the colour of the movies, as the first text psycho is in Black and white which is due to the reason that this movie was made during the 60's where the colour effect was there but wasn't that popular and that is the reason that the director Alfred Hitchcock has used that effect, to keep the originality of the style of the movies at that time and to not create that much suspense within the movie, however comparing with Texas chainsaw massacre which was made a decade later but had new effects such as the use of the colours which therefore creates more suspense such as seeing the colour of the blood, which is not really shown clearly in the first movie and therefore there isn't that much suspense created into the audiences even if we see the scene, but in the 2nd movie that scene of the blood really creates suspense and that what makes more people watch it, and this therefore shows that this convention is able to change the slasher genre.

These two movies can also be compared in political and social issues, these issues have also contributed to the change of the genre conventions, the issue which is about women representation and how did it change over the years, in psycho the women is represented as weak and unable to survive the male, this therefore promotes patriarchal ideology that males are the ones who dominate society and that females are represented as weak and that they should only be represented as housewives or sex objects which is shown when she dies when taking a shower, that scene might be there to attract male audiences, however even if this is also shown in Texas chainsaw massacre, by the way that females are wearing some really showy clothing, but there is a change as in this text there is the inclusion of the final girl which is not shown in psycho, this shows again how there is a change in the slasher genre.

This inclusion of the final girl shows the change of the genre and the way that she is able to survive the psychopaths shows how the roles of the women have changed and that the women is now represented as strong and powerful and not only males that are able to dominate the society, even females now have dominant roles and are able to have higher jobs and are able to deal with harder situations, this change is therefore making the males look weak because females are able to beat them, this can create kind of conflict between males and females and might make males feel humiliated.

This convention shows clearly how the genre changed within the two movies, as females were represented as weak, however years later they are represented as strong, this change that has occurred within the genre might have occurred due to Feminism which has really focused on giving the right to women to be able to work and have more independence and making females represented in reasonable ways not only as sex objects or housewives, this helped females to get better roles and higher jobs,and this changing that occurred within the genre has made it look better and get more wider audiences.

This change is also shown when in the psycho also known as 'the grandaddy of the slasher genre', which only concentrates on one character which is the protagonist and that the whole movie is mainly based on the death of that character, which therefore doesn't create enigma and makes the movie quiet boring and when that women dies we know that there isn't a final girl, however Texas chainsaw massacre of 1974, shows many teenagers having fun, but then one by one they get killed this therefore creates more suspense and the audience are facing that emotion of being shocked and scared throughout the whole movie, but not only at one point of the movie. so this convention that is used shows how the genre has improved and how it became popular, and the inclusion of teenagers which are now being seen commonly in slasher movies, such as in Friday 13th (1980) which has also included this convention of having teenagers and being killed one after the other seem to create suspense in the movie and make the audience being interested more in the movie and make them wanting to know what will happen next.

This use of teenagers in slasher genre movies has been successful throughout the years and has been commonly used, this use has therefore attracted a wider audience mainly among teenagers and younger people as they are able to identify with them, so this try of having teenagers in movies made producers and directors to include it more and more.

To sum up, the change in the conventions of the genre in general has made the success of the genre movie, and that the progress or the change in the genre is crucial in order to make it successful, taking the example of the Hollywood industry and that it took quiet a lot of time to recognise the slasher movie as being actually a genre, as it thought that it won't be a success, so this might be a reason why producers and directors of finding a change which will make this genre popular and recognised.