Week Four: Critical Approaches

This week in my blog post I will be summarizing eight critical lenses one can use to look at a text, and doing my best to use the TV show "Lost" as an example for each. Here we go...

1. Audience Analysis

This approach assumes that "audiences are more than simply passive targets or dupes of media texts" (Beach, p. 35). Instead, readers or viewers come to a text with their own prior knowledge and experiences, and that prior knowledge and experience interacts with the text and allows each viewer to construct their own unique take on that text. Because each person brings different things to their reading or viewing experience, each person will get different things out of the text.

In the first season of "Lost," a plane crashes on a mysterious island in the South Pacific, leaving 48 survivors to attempt to live their. Two of the passengers are a married couple from Korea. Jin, the husband, is very traditional, and asks his wife Sun to cover herself up and not interact with the other survivors. Sun, who secretly learned English while in Korea, must hide her ability to communicate with the other passengers for weeks because she knows her husband will not approve.

Not knowing much about Korean culture myself, I took these characters at face value. Many people with more knowledge on the subject have complained that Jin and Sun are stereotypical characters, and that their behavior does not coincide with very many modern Koreans. Because of my lack of prior knowledge, I was not prepared to question the show in that way, and thus I had a very different viewing experience.


2. Semiotic Analysis

This critical perspective deals with the meaning of signs and codes. Culture determines meaning what certain images have, so "an image or sign can have multiple meanings depending upon the different codes used to interpret the sign" (p.36).

Rain is one image that is often used on "Lost" Based on the context, however, this sign can have a variety of different meanings. Most often it is used to show tension, like when the survivors are running from the monster. Several characters have been shot in the rain. In other scenes, the rain has been used to show renewal or rebirth. In the Pilot episode, Locke, who was paralyzed before the plane crash but can now walk, sits happily in the rain as if it's washing away his past. Mysterious apparitions also happen in the rain; Walt appeared to Shannon after he'd tried to escape the island on a raft, and Harper, who is dead, appears to Juliet in the rain. Viewers understand the various things one sign can signify based on knowledge of other texts.

3. Narrative Analysis

One can also look at particular texts with an eye for "narrative structures or patterns employed in genres" and to "identify archetypal story patterns" (p. 36, 37). Audiences have learned to expect structures and patterns they've seen over and over again, and those patterns can be analyzed to reveal ideological assumptions in the text and the culture as a whole.

In the dramatic mystery genre, for example, foreshadowing and other audience clues are a regular literary technique. On "Lost," foreshadowing is used so often that fans have lengthy lists of unanswered questions going into each new episode. In the first season finale, Locke, Jack and Hurley are attempting to blow open a hatch Locke discovered on the island. On the door, Hurley spots a series of numbers he believes to be cursed, and attempts to convince the others to leave the hatch alone, which foreshadows the trouble that comes after the hatch has been opened.

4. Poststructuralist Analysis

This angle looks at language categories and how they "influence characters and audiences' perceptions" (p. 37). Binary oppositions are an easy way to look at this type of analysis; what are the limitations of looking at the world through the viewpoint of good/evil, black/white, right/wrong?

This is a theme often explored on "Lost." As a viewer, it is tempting to constantly sort characters into the "good guys" and "the others" or "the bad guys." The "Lost" narrative is constantly adding more background and psychological insight into each character, which challenges the binary oppositions the audience is attempting to use. For example, Benjamin Linus, the leader of the "others," is, in my opinion, the greatest villain of all time. However, he consistently claims that "We are the good guys." We also are shown flashbacks to his childhood, where we see that his father constantly blamed him for his mother's death because she died during childhood. While I am still convinced he is the story's villain, humanizing details keep me from sorting him into the evil category while others fall into "the good guys." In the photo below, half his face is cast in darkness while half is lit, symbolizing his dual nature.
5. Critical Discourse Analysis

Critical discourse analysis deals with the way people communicate in different situations or roles. The way we speak reveals our identities or roles, and "define what is considered to be 'normal' in a social world" (p. 38). They also reveal the larger ideology of a culture.

For example, Oceanic Airlines, the fictional carrier of the plane that crashed on the "Lost" island, uses its own language conventions to communicate about the crash and its aftermath. Because it is a business, it uses business discourse to tell its side of the story. Their response:

“We are very eager to resume flying and apologize for any inconvenience our temporary closure may have caused our loyal customers,” said Michael Orteig, President, Oceanic Airlines. “Oceanic Airlines is proud to be a top tier flight provider and looks forward to providing travelers with many more years of unparalleled service.”



6. Psychoanalytic Theory

Not only do viewers bring prior knowledge and experience to their viewing experience, but, according to psychoanalytic theory, they bring their "subconscious desires, needs, and fears defining one's identity" (p. 40). All of those things affect how audiences decode the meaning of images, which are subjective.

For example, I imagine their is a lot to be discovered about a person by asking them their favorite "Lost" character. According to this theory, we choose our favorite characters by the ones we identify with or aspire to be. My brother Jack, for example, says Daniel Faraday is his favorite character. Faraday is a physicist, a little socially awkward, but very brilliant. He is also quite hilarious. My brother, I feel, is close to this character, but it also reveals his desire to be more brilliant and nerdy than he is.


7. Feminist Analysis

Often, this lens examines "the sexist portrayals of females and males" (p. 40). Analysis includes a look at "cultural constructions of myths regarding gender differences (p. 41).

On "Lost," there is no shortage of ass-kicking female characters. In fact, most female characters have shown themselves to be adept at "male" behavior such as gun-wielding. However, of the group of characters dubbed by fans as the "A-Team" (Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Sayid and Locke) who are the characters who most often make treks into the jungle to "save the day," only includes one female.

8. Postmodern Analysis

Postmodern analysis "challenges and even parodies traditional forms" (p. 41).

The best example of this on "Lost" is the episode "Expose." In the third season, the writers introduced Nikki and Paolo, two survivors who came out of the background. Fans were livid, wondering why time was being wasted on these random characters at the expense of storylines about the main characters. The "Expose" episode is a response to the fans' outcry--it not only shows (through flashbacks paralleling previous episodes) what Nikki and Paolo have been doing all this time, but it directly comments on fans' cognition. Here are a few "postmodern" things in this episode, written by Nikki Stafford her book Finding Lost (2007):

-There was no "Previously on Lost" segment at the beginning, as if writers knew many people wouldn't remember [Nikki and Paolo] being on Lost previously.
-Hurley, the avid television viewer, knows exactly who Nikki is [the star of a television show called Expose]. Sawyer, representing the casual viewer, is constantly saying "Who the he's Nikki?"