Zoella - industry concerns

 Criticisms of Zoella

• She is not not 'real'. Her videos are sponsored by brands, and this heavily influences her content
• She is an online persona. She is presenting a very different representation to the world
• She exaggerates with her advocation of brands, and presents a distorted image of brands 
• Her target audience is/was ‘tweenagers’, arguably an impressionable and vulnerable 
• An aspirational figure that promotes potentially problematic viewpoints
• Selling cosmetic products reinforces patriarchal hegemonic values. Her brand is based on surface appearances
• Videos are hypercommodified with no attempt to hide their consumerist ideology
• Videos are extremely similar to one another, which is a classic example of not taking risks to maximise profit

Hyperreality - where the representation is more real than the thing being represented. Zoella presents a ‘perfect’ aspirational image to her tweenage target audience

Gender performativity: how society reacts to one’s performance of gender. Zoella’s tweenage audience may adopt Zoella’s performance of gender through buying Lush products, and emulating her look and style

Zoella’s rebranding 

In approximately 2018, Zoella ditched the ‘Zoella’ moniker, and rebranded herself as ‘Zoe Sugg’. She moved away from producing vlogs, and pivoted towards a traditional blog approach to her brand, using the website www.zoella.co.uk

Rebranding: comparing the old zoella.co.uk with the new zoella.co.uk

An analysis of the new zoella.co.uk

• A standard, straightforward and generic website design clearly based on a template, to construct an easy to engage with website design that is proven to be effective

• Highly conventional layout, with a series of subheadings linking to appropriate content such as beauty, lifestyle and books

• Links to her social media platforms present a hypermodal mode of address, inviting the target audience to engage with Sugg in a variety of different ways

• A range of stereotypical feminine conventions including references to housework, interior design and makeup ensures that Sugg maintains her existing audience 

• Links to various Zoella branded products, for example her beauty and homeware ranges 

• White background allows the content to stand out to her target audience and is an example of Web 2.0. This design is so popular because it is effective, and is a classic example of minimising risk and maximising profit

• The new Zoella website features a variety of different contributors as opposed to just Sugg, which suggests she is attempting to appeal to a wider audience

• The new Zoella website has avoided many childish connotations from her old website, which can be seen in more sophisticated font choices.

• For example , the masthead of her old, pre-2019 is written in a childish handwriting, which suggests that Sugg had sole ownership of the website. However, the rebranded website has a more sophisticated and professional quality

• The masthead of her rebranded website consists of a single ‘Z’, which constructs a recognisable mode of address to her target audience. Her established audience is able to recognise either one other online personas, which constructs a polysemic mode of address

“The Lovehoney Christmas Gift Guide Your Horniest Friends Will Thank You For”

• The lexis of the title is clearly targeting a mature and sexually active audience. However the lexis is somewhat tongue in cheek, and takes a playful mode of address for her now older target audience. Her target audience are now potentially in their late 20s and early 30s. This broadly millennial audience are now the same age as Zoella, and are potentially interested in different things.
• The lexis is straightforward and certainly not subtle, with no hint of embarrassment. 
• “We followed the yellow brick road to the city of orgasms” demonstrates a frank but playful mode of address for her now older and sexually active target audience
• The structure of the article is based around buying sex toys for friends. This not only breaks the taboo of discussing female masturbation (which is traditionally seen as hegemonically emasculating for male audiences), but also constructs a sex positive ideology that normalises topics such as masturbation with friends
• There are clear regulatory issues at play here. Zoella’s old material typically targets children. The content of this article is not suitable for younger audiences. However, the article is not pornographic and is not breaking any rules. 
• “This article is part of a paid partnership with Lovehoney.” - the article is clearly paid for advertising by Lovehoney, a sex toy retailer. It is a legal regulatory obligation to announce any endorsement or sponsorship online

Gendered identity and gender performativity in the content of Zoella

Gendered acts in Zoella’s videos

• Lexis of ‘roses’ 
• Use of the word ‘lovely’ 
• Rising inflection on voice
• Colloquialisms such as ‘fave’ 
• Facial expressions
• Playing with her hair, adjusting her hair to look perfect 
• “Ooh I liked that”
• Cosy MES of background
• Bright red lipstick
• Pouty lips

In a sea of highly mediated representations - all of which are mediated by a variety of producers with radically different ideological perspectives - which is the 'real' Zoella? Does it even matter?

Zoella is an excellent example of gender performativity

Gender performance: the process of ‘acting’ like a certain gender

Gender performativity is how gender performance shapes the world around us 

By acting out elements of gender, Zoella is having a clear and powerful effect on her target. Over hundreds of videos, often with significant run times, Zoella is subtly shaping and reinforcing certain ideological perspectives on what it means to be a woman

Applying auteur theory to French new wave cinema

Explore how auteur theory can influence film aesthetics. Make reference to A bout de Souffle to support your answer 

Pretty much the same

Underline the key terms

 Explore how auteur theory can influence film aesthetics. Make reference to A bout de Souffle to support your answer 

Auteur theory - the idea that the director makes the same film again and again and again. It is assumed that the auteur has complete control over the film. The film is the responsibility of the director.

The idea originated in the French Film magazine Cahiers du Cinema, to criticise what they saw as flaws in mainstream, Hollywood cinema. The American studio system was cinema made by committee, or cinema made on a factory line. Many films were created purely to tick boxes, and to maximise financial revenue with little thought as to 'art' and creativity. Directors that seemed to buck this trend included Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles. The French critics decided to use the auteur (author) to describe these up and coming American directors. The American film critic Andrew Sarris latched on to this idea in his book The American Cinema, and popularised this idea in America.

Knee jerk reaction

Goddard's aesthetic is highly influenced by his own authorial style, and only he could have made this film 

Plan

Classical Hollywood Narrative - the rules of traditional Hollywood cinema 

Cinematography

Jump cut 

Montage

MES

Character positioning

Blocking

Natural lighting

On location filming

Camera movement

Handheld camera

New/unknown actors

Naturalistic acting

Improv

Natural lighting 

Goddard

Auteur

Diegesis

Dialogue

Low budget

Girl and a gun

Existential crisis

Sex

France

Narrative ambiguity

Breaking the fourth wall

Introduction

Definition, argument, conclusion 

Auteur theory refer refers to the idea a single individual is responsible for the aesthetic and ideology of a film. The term originated in France in Cahiers Du Cinema magazine to critique American mainstream cinema. Many of these ideas ended up informing the work of young French directors. In this essay, I shall argue that Auteur theory clearly influences the aesthetic of Goddard's film A Bout De Souffle. 'Breathless' is a French New Wave crime film directed in 1960 by French  Film Critic Jean Luc Goddard. The film kicked of the French Nouvelle Vague movement, and is highly influential even today.

Paragraphs

Point, evidence, argument

One absolute key aspect of Goddard's auteurial style is related to the fact that all of his films draw attention to the very fact that they are films. The most clear and explicit example of this can be found in Michelle Poicard's deliberate breaking of the fourth wall. A close up shot frames the protagonist in an uncomfortable mode of address for the spectator. He turns his attention from the road to the spectator, and begins to rant about his love of the French countryside, establishing the anguish and mental turmoil that he feels. The naturalistic lighting of this shot constructs an unpolished mode of address, that deliberately steers away from the conventions of classical Hollywood narrative. This highly atypical aesthetic choice deliberately reminds the spectator that they are watching a film. This is later reinforced when Poicard finds a gun in the glove compartment of the car. Happily making gun noises, we cut to a shaky handheld POV shot that shockingly plays an internal diegetic sound of real gunfire over the top. This use of pleonastic sound helps reinforce a confusing and contradictory aesthetic for the spectator, that reinforces the film's fictional status

Another key aspect of Goddard's aesthetic is his insistence on using not only natural lighting and shot on location scenes

(creates a relatable mode of address)

Another critical element of Goddard's auteuristic style can be found in the aesthetic created through the use of jump cuts and camera movement being used in highly atypical ways

HUGE Festive Lush Haul & Demo - applying theoretical perspectives to Zoella/Sugg's vlog

 

Zoella positions her naïve target audience in a hyper consumerist mode of address that values the acquisition of material goods about all other ideological perspectives/ This overtly neoliberal capitalist ideology favours the procurement of products over any rational engagement with life and its issues, which may reflect a deeply postmodern ideological perspective.

Or perhaps it's just a laugh?

HUGE Festive Lush Haul & Demo | Zoella - let's consider this video from a variety of broadly critical perspectives!

1 - media language

• MES of fairy lights and Christmas tree are found in the setting. This shallow depth of field shot, and is typical of lifestyle vlogs
• MES of Sugg’s lipstick is reinforces the red and colour scheme that is symbolically representative of Christmas 
• “I know you share my love for LUSH” - lexis connotes that Sugg is making huge assumptions about her target audience
• Suggs making mistakes is highly conventional of her videos in general, and constructs an authentic and relatable mode of address. This is constructed through a series of jump cuts, which draw attention to the mistakes that she makes recording this video 
• Utilisation of a direct mode of address attempts to interact directly with her target audience, which constructs a voyeuristic mode of address 
• MES of Sugg’s heavy application of makeup reinforces stereotypical assumptions about hegemonically attractive women 
• The opening theme to the video is stereotypically Christmassy, using instruments such as strings and bells. This is anchored through the MES of falling snow
• MES of Christmas jumper constructs a relatable and festive, comfy, cosy, and inviting mode of address, which is typical of Zoella’s brand

2 - representation and how to structure a representation paragraph 

Representation refers to how the producer re-presents a situation, issue, event or group of people for the target audience for the purpose of reinforcing their ideological perspective 

Zoe Sugg represents:

• Women
• Tweens
• Hegemonically attractive women
• White women 
• Influencers
• British people
• Young women
• Working class 

P - what group is being represented
E - how media language constructs this representation
A - what messages and ideologies about this group are represented, and how women are affected by this representation 

• Zoella’s hegemonically attractive face is constructed through a close up shot that ensures that she is the most important aspect of her videos. 
• Sugg’s face is hegemonically attractive and highly expressive. Her exaggerated facial expressions, for example the movement of her mouth and the widening of her eyes makes intertextual reference to Disney princesses, such as Cinderella and Snow White. This memorable mode of address constructs a highly stereotypical representation of a woman who is in tune with her emotions. This expressive and over the top personality is highly appealing to her target audience
• Her voice is high pitched, heavily inflected and significantly childlike . Her accent is well spoken, clear, and yet with an accessible south-eastern quality which will appeal to large numbers of audiences. Neither posh nor particularly working class, this allows her to represent many groups simultaneously
• She constructs a negative, naïve and anti-intellectual stereotype through the construction of her videos. In the Lush Haul video, she spends over 20 minutes pulling out products one by one, reading the label, and then sniffing the product, before giving her (always positive) appraisal. This repetitive mode of address reinforces a stereotypical ideology that women are materialistic, easily pleased, and defined solely through their interaction with cosmetics 
• Her lexis overemphasises her enjoyment of the product. “Because they are just the most generous people in the world” - this childish and cynical mode of address has one function only: to create a relatable mode of address for a younger, naïve audience to then promote the Lush brand. This commodification of femininity is a cynical and manipulative treatment of her target audience, and in doing so reinforces and perpetuates highly misleading and unpleasant stereotypes that exist around young women

3 - Hyperreality - where the representation is more real than the thing that it is representing 

possible exam question: To what extent can Zoella and Attitude be seen as postmodern?

• Zoella presents a straightforward and stereotypical representation of femininity that is easy to understand for the target audience. 
• The MES of Zoella’s big box of LUSH constructs an escapist fantasy for her target audience, and a representation which is more identifiable for her target audience
• The video starts with a montage of stereotypically Christmassy MES, including snow, fir trees, twinkly lights, and the doors of an advent calendar. This hyperreal representation of Christmas constructs a welcoming and positive mode of address for her target audience. In fact, the opening sequence makes intertextual reference to The Grinch, The Snowman, and Elf. In doing so, Zoella is constructing a hyperreal simulacrum of Christmas where Zoella is clearly the most important person. This is reinforced through the lexis ‘The 24 days of Zoella’, which, by making no reference to Christmas, inserts Zoella into the Christmas myth. However, the target audience will not analyse this video on such a level, and will instead simply accept the Christmassy imagery and positive vibes.
• Zoella’s almost crazed facial expression directly addresses the audience throughout, emphasising the enormous love and affection she has for the Lush brand…
• Zoella is the embodiment of exaggeration. She is so overwhelmingly over the top she is somewhat ridiculous. Her exaggerated facial expressions communicate not only her joy at Lush products, but also her genuine happiness and authenticity. However, her audience will understand that Zoella is not an authentic self, but instead a performance, but on to connect with the audience and to create an intense emotional response.
• The video presents a direct marketing opportunity from Zoella, where it is made obvious from the start that she is being sponsored by Lush cosmetics. She explicitly announces to the audience that she has received a package from Lush. “I think bath products make amazing gifts'', she announces, staring directly at the camera in an explicit mode of address. Though saying this, Zoella is applying her perceived expertise to this, and is insinuating that the audience would be stupid not to buy bath products for Christmas. 
• “A lot of you share my love for lush” presents a manipulative mode of address, where Zoella infers that the audience already ‘love’ this product. This is an extremely old fashioned, yet clearly manipulative advertising technique, where Zoella is utilising her aspirational status to draw out consent. By not loving Lush, the audience are made another, and relegated to an outsider status. 
• While audiences are aware of the blatant advertising on her videos, they simultaneously take pleasure in the gratification of a comforting mode of address. This clearly constructs a binary opposition between two radically different readings. However, her vast popularity suggests that ultimately her audience clearly do not care about this, and are happy to be manipulated. In this sense, Zoella’s videos are an excellent example of postmodern. 
• Simulacrum: a representation of something that never existed in the first place

Adbusters - final research tasks

Here are a few final tasks to cap off your knowledge and understanding of Adbusters. You may have completed some of these tasks already depending on your block. However since they are all so short there is no harm in doping them again. Remember that re-vision is simply doing something again!

1 - Fact finding misson

Go on the Adbusters wikipedia page (click!) and copypaste over SIX important facts. These may be related to sales circulation controverseies production and/or distribution. You will use these facts as contextual information in your final exam. You do not need to know everything but you definitely need to know something. So choose what you are going to write about now!

2 - Breaking the law

Go to the Adbusters website. Find three things that potentially may break regulations. This may include

• Incitement to criminal mischief
• Material likely to cause harm or offence
• Copyright infringement

Make sure your examples are EXPLICIT. In the final exam you will need to make reference to explcit examples to actually get marks. So copypaste examples to your blog and save yourself a LOT of hassle now!

3 - Audience interaction

Click here to read this Daily Mail article - this is a PERFECT example of audience interaction for 

Now answer the following questions

• What is the Adbusters Media Foundation asking its audiences to do?
• Why?
• What laws does this possibly break?
• What do you personally think about this? 
• What does the Daily Mail (a British righ-wing mid-market tabloid) think about this?
• Go to the comments section. What do the commentators think about this?
• How can Adbusters get away with such tomfoolery?

4 - Criticisms of Adbusters 

Read this New York Times article.

What are some criticisms that exist regasrding Adbusters? Do you agree with these criticisms?

5 - Music video reccomendations

Next week we start exploring music videos. First we study them. Then you make one. However in order to do this we need to watch as many music videos as possible.

So please email me to reccomend me a music video to study from next week! Any genre is fine. The best videos to analyse tend to be unconventional or have lots of interesting editing techniques or setting or MES etc. No genre is off the table so unless it's going to get me arrested for showing it to you - as long as it's interesting! - we can study it!