The Cultural Representations Of Money - Report Example

WHY DО СULTURАL RЕРRЕSЕNTАTIОNS ОF MОNЕY АND THЕ ЕСОNОMY MАTTЕR Name Course Instructor’s name Institution Date WHY DО СULTURАL RЕРRЕSЕNTАTIОNS ОF MОNЕY АND THЕ ЕСОNОMY MАTTЕR It is evident that our culture has drastically changed, it seemingly appears to be preoccupied with money. Thus, sociologists have claimed that our current culture has changed to be ‘money – centric’. These sociologists have suggested that this culture might be influenced by capitalism since it is a system which the current society has embraced (Shildrick & MacDonald 2013, p.292). The culture of ‘money – centrism’ has schooled to the film industry as well as other narrative forms which have been seen to be more inclined to embrace this culture in their respective works. This paper therefore aims to review why the cultural representation of money and the economy matters in many narratives. The film industry has seemingly embraced the current cultural representation of ‘money – centrism’. Often than not, films now appear to relatively emphasize on the importance of money in the society today. Films have portrayed the notion that everything in our current society revolves around money. Therefore, with the current financial turmoil these films have portrayed a deficit image on the ‘financial crisis’ that is being experienced globally. Additionally, TV and film procedures have been manipulated to incorporate issues of economic stagnation and foreclosure in their storyline and content (Suriowiecki 2010, n.d). Hence, films and narratives in today’s media appear to seemingly contribute to naturalization of the economic calamity being experienced today and the importance of money. Evidently, films and narratives appear to disrupt today’s life background with information of the global financial turmoil. Moreover, the mainstream media and film makers have been compelled to turn their focus to incorporate content on the current economic turmoil rather that reverting to the comforting and long standing tropes such as the overcoming of hardship by families, corrosive of greed and the malevolence of stock brokers (Kinkle and Toscano, 2011, pp.39-51). On the other hand, these films and narratives have been dramatized in order to meet this personified systemic and impersonal phenomena that portray the widespread anxiety and erosion of culture. This has therefore led to the identification of the trials and tabulation of families which is blamed on the lack of sensitization of the society on the importance of capital and its impact of the overall economic conditions (Poovey 2008, p.6). This particular tendency is evident in the film Catastrophe and apocalypse. However, the tendency of Hollywood giving narrative shapes to real-experiences of economic upheavals is not a new issue (Herman, 2010, pp.263-264). This claim is backed up by Alan J. Pakula in an interview on his role in the film Rollover where he argues that the tendency to build melodrama on economic upheavals is quite new in the film industry and everyone is seemingly embracing it. In this case, he goes on to explain that the film Rollover was created in response to 1970s financial crisis and the political panic that has been instilled in the American citizens. However, the film faced a lot of criticism especially for the inability of enacting generic information in the film (Shildrick and MacDonald, 2013, pp.285-303). Nevertheless it was criticized for doing a poor job in trying to send a message by basing the film on financial turmoil that was present during that time. This therefore showed the magnitude of the unbridgeable rift between economic effectlessness and cinematic drama that should be factored while filming capitalism crises (Kinkle & Toscano 2011, p.43). For instance, the film; Mille milliarts de dollars the journalist takes a preview of the world of high finance through reviewing the activities of Garson Texas International (GTI). The title for this film is claimed to be an intimidation of the net worth of the twenty top most corporations globally. The film depicts the main character Kerjean digging into the company’s history when he stumbles upon its Nazi’s past. Having seen this information the film showcases his life and that of his son being in danger (Kinkle and Toscano, 2011, pp.39-51). Finally in the film, Kerjean is depicted succeeding in unraveling the financial manipulation and criminal activities of one of the world’s largest Corporation where these uncouth behaviours are portrayed to be driven by the corporation’s efforts to maximize their profit margins. These films provide the–perfect examples of cultural representation of money and economy in films and narratives. These films are characterized by depictions of, true to the these narrative most banks in the Cayman islands and Switzerland are known for their notoriety of handling stolen money and helping cartels launder their money to avoid detection as depicted in most financial scandals reviewed in films and narratives (Peters 2009, p.281). These films depict a culture of money and economy by showcasing bank settings and stock market scenes they also feature stock brokers and asset-managers more so on Wall Street. Therefore, these films depict concepts ranging from dividends, savings, management of money financial expertise, interest rates, venture capital, brokerage and investment and risk which all relate to issues on financial turmoil and how societies will overcome them (Morahan and Mulder, 2013 ,p.1). Evidently, these films matter since they showcase the obdurate problem that capitalism poses in the society today and how it influences the society in general from dressing trends to how people talk and relate. Therefore through these films these problems gain some aspect of acuteness and urgency. In an article on Life on photojournalism after the financial crisis in the year 1936, the author argued that depression caused by this financial economic turmoil might not be evidently seen by the society since they consist of economic issues that are not happening and business that are not being done. However, its crunches on these individual’s way of living and impacts on the everyday life of these individuals (Peters, 2009, pp.279-286). For instance in narratives like the wolf of Wall Street and the Slumdog millionaire, the director tries to represent a culture where money and the economy impacted on an individual’s way of living as well the benefits that trickle down afterwards a clear indication on why cultural representation of money and economy matters (Maclean 2015, p.434). In this case, the magazines emphasizes that the effects of this financial crises cannot go uncaptioned if they are depicted in film or any other form of narrative. Additionally, it emphasizes that despite the refractory of this representation seemingly not aligning the crisis should not be entirely absent from television sets (Velthuis 2006, pp.624-624). On the other hand, these films matter per se since rather than acting as political activity who openly fight different parties in the government of the large corporation they acted as a channel that enlighten the public on the scandals and uncouth activities which might have resulted to the financial crises that they are currently experiencing. Most films try to bring forth cultural representation in forms of money more so whenever casts are being made on minority groups. In most cases films based around African American cultures depict an affluence of sufferings, drugs and extreme richness as well as lifestyles based on spending more and investing little. On the contrary on sets depicting lives of the natives, their culture is properly represented by revolving it around the importance they give to the economy and investments (Peters 2009, p.284). The function of narratives is to illuminate or portray self. Moreover, narratives are showcased in the relationship of the primary interest of what is being narrated and the subject matter to be narrated. Narration seeks to portray the epistemological drama of a certain occurrence hence ensuring that the audience absorbs and obliterates that which is being portrayed (Shildrick and MacDonald, 2013, pp.285-303). For instance, most teens are fond of watching fashion shows and dressing styles of their favourite celebrities so that they may borrow ideas from them, hence, most companies understand the influence of these celebrities and how they shape culture trends a case in point is David Beckham and Michael Jordan and thus they invest heavily on them as driving brands. The present function of narratives is inspired by the hermeneutic and phenomenological philosophies. In this case, the function of narrative entails making information present to new domains (Maclean 2015, p.441). In this particular function of narratives it requires three related aspects for it to be made possible they include; declaration aspect which entails making present where a subject is given some presence, the other aspect is temporal which is making present of giving the subject some meaning in the form of present, past or future, the last aspect is spatial where the two aspect gives the information divergent understanding of the world (Suriowiecki 2010, n.d). Narratives function by making present as showings. Thus, telling the occurrences of something is declarative however in this case subjective facts are established. Therefore, through narrations the texture of particular parties’ lives are felt since experiences and interpretation of one’s life are made present. On the other hand, narration also means making present which is the corporality of an individual’s presence (Poovey 2008, p.46). For instance in the article on Life on photojournalism where the author narrates about the film Mille milliarts de dollars as he tries to review it, perfectly showcases the functions of narration. The author narrates about the occurrences in the film in reference to the financial crisis that they were experiencing back then. The first function of narratives are depicted where the author makes the main subject present which is the uncouth action and activities of the mentioned multinational company which is involved in criminal activities in an effort to gain more profits. The narration therefore shapes the way of thinking of the readers as well as enlightening them on the intended message (Abbott,2008, p.39).In addition to this the nuanced consequences of narration are also depicted in this article where not all readers pick up the angle of thought of the narrator. On the other hand, the three main aspects in narration are also previewed in the article where the declarative, temporal and spatial aspects are evident in the author’s narration of the film. The other function of narration which entails making present through showing is also evidently noted in the author’s narration of the Mille milliarts de dollars. In this case, subjective fact of the organizations and the activities that it was involved in were presented. Therefore the author in this case, puts knowledge into play in the real world, in line with this his thoughts and feelings take shape the same way most films try to represent culture in terms and money and the economy (Peters, 2009, p. 283). There different types of narratives range from first person, second person, limited third person, omniscient author, and unreliable narrator (fictional) observer narrator (non-fictional). However, the framework on analyzing narratives is relatively similar. In this case, the framework for analysis of narratives contains metrics like; evaluation of the research question, reviewing the necessary documents, evaluation of the theme, plot and ending, identifying the rhetorical devices in the narrative and lastly evaluation of the alternative ending of the narrative (Herman 2010. P.263). On the other hand narratives and stories matter since they are important tools of conveying information and sharing knowledge and experiences, for instance the roles of films in shaping culture in the society (Morahan and Mulder, 2013 ,p.1). Stories and narratives also matter since they are ways to reach to a wide range of audience like in the case of representing culture using money and economic narratives. For instance, the narrative of the articles reviewing the film it captures relatively a wide audience this can be attributed to the controversy that was surrounding the film especially concerning exposing the multinational organization. In reference to the two main types of narration fictional and non-fictional this particular narration can be said to be fictional. Thus, this is a made up storyline which was developed to create a film on. However, there is not any real information about this occurrence taking place in real-life. Fictional and non-fictional narratives have both similarities and differences one of this similarity is, that they both have a similar guideline which entails the page formatting, work count limit and limitation of the point of view. The other similarity of fictional and nonfictional narratives is that they have a similar purpose where the non-fictional narratives are built around the author’s point of view and tries to convince the readers to believe it (Abbott, 2008, p.40). This is evident in the article reviewing the film Mille milliarts de dollars where the author tries to convince the readers on the uncouth practices which the organization was carrying out and how this action resulted to the current crisis being experienced. For the fictional narrative the focus is built around the protagonist in the discourse. For the differences the main one is that in fictional narrative it is not entirely true. In this case the author tries to convince the readers to believe what he is clamming. However for the fictional narratives they are entirely true and often feature a story that majority of the readers know about therefore the he does not try to convince the readers to believe him (Herman, 2010, p.263-264). Another difference is that the nonfictional narratives are a prosaic piece of literature where that covers a wide range of topics which are relevant to the readers. Whereas, fictional narratives elucidates the authors imagination which makes it relatively straight forward. Another form of narrative is an autobiography which covers a person’s life experience up to when he dies or up to the current time of writing the narrative. This therefore explains why biography is also known as life writing. In this case, an autobiography will cover one’s life history. On the other hand, an autobiography is a non-fictional form of writing since all the content in this discourse is meant to be the reality. Consequently, an autobiography is a literature genre which signifies the retrospective aspect of writing. It is also characterized by the first person’s subject narration (Abbott, 2008, p.40). The writing is also around the historical, social and cultural framework of the individual whose life experiences are being written on. One example of a biography is one of a prominent individual or celebrity for instance one for Franklin D. Roosevelt who was the 32nd president of the US who was quite popular. This biography covers his life between the years 1882–1945. This biography covers Roosevelt’s early childhood life, his education life, his early career life and his political life. Entwined in the biography is also his family life. The explosive growth of digital media and emergence of multiple social media platforms has led to narrative possibilities to increasingly expand. Subsequently, this has acted as the new mode of storytelling which is electronically based (Maclean, 2015, pp.427-444). Moreover, it has also led to the rapid rethinking of the narrative theory due to the changing landscape of communication which is computer-mediated. The emergence of new narratives has brought together some of the early theorists and practitioners of the digital narratives. On the other hand this new narratives also extent the digital subgenres’ range some example of these new form of narratives include; video games and experimental hypertext. These new form of narratives also draw some connection between technological innovation, development of narrative stories and fitting these narratives in particular cultural and social contexts (Peters 2009, p.285). In conclusion, it is evidently seen that the money and the economy is represented in film and other narrative in the context of cultural forms. Besides, stories and narratives matter especially in passing one’s point of contention or main point about a particular topic. There are different types of narratives which are used in different discourse for different purpose. Advancement in technology especially in digital media has led to the emergence of new form of narratives which are being used currently to pass information inform of messages. References Abbott, H. (2008). The Cambridge introduction to narrative. Choice Reviews Online, 40(02), pp.40 Herman, D. (2010). The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative (review). symploke, 11(1), pp.263-264. Kinkle, J. and Toscano, A. (2011). Filming the Crisis: A Survey. Film Quarterly, 65(1), pp.39-51. Maclean, K. (2015). Gender, risk and the Wall Street Alpha Male. Journal of Gender Studies, 25(4), pp.427-444. Morahan, A. and Mulder, C. (2013). Survey of Reserve Managers: Lessons from the Crisis. IMF Working Papers, 13(99), p.1. Peters, M. (2009). THE ART OF FICTION: How Fiction Works. By JAMES WOOD. Essays in Criticism, 59(3), pp.279-286. Poovey, M. (2008). Genres of the credit economy. 1st ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Shildrick, T. and MacDonald, R. (2013). Poverty Talk: How People Experiencing Poverty Deny Their Poverty and Why They Blame ‘The Poor’. The Sociological Review, 61(2), pp.285-303. Suriowiecki,, J. (2010). BootsThe Business-Movie Business’, The New Yorker, 11th October 2010, available at http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2010/10/11/101011ta_talk_surowiecki Linda Tirado’s blog is at trap Industries. [online] Bootstrap Industries. Available at: http://bootstrapindustries.com [Accessed 8 Apr. 2017]. Velthuis, O. (2006). Talking Prices: Symbolic Meanings of Prices on the Market for Contemporary Art:Talking Prices: Symbolic Meanings of Prices on the Market for Contemporary Art. American Anthropologist, 108(3), pp.624-624. Read More

However, the film faced a lot of criticism especially for the inability of enacting generic information in the film (Shildrick and MacDonald, 2013, pp.285-303). Nevertheless it was criticized for doing a poor job in trying to send a message by basing the film on financial turmoil that was present during that time. This therefore showed the magnitude of the unbridgeable rift between economic effectlessness and cinematic drama that should be factored while filming capitalism crises (Kinkle & Toscano 2011, p.43). For instance, the film; Mille milliarts de dollars the journalist takes a preview of the world of high finance through reviewing the activities of Garson Texas International (GTI).

The title for this film is claimed to be an intimidation of the net worth of the twenty top most corporations globally. The film depicts the main character Kerjean digging into the company’s history when he stumbles upon its Nazi’s past. Having seen this information the film showcases his life and that of his son being in danger (Kinkle and Toscano, 2011, pp.39-51). Finally in the film, Kerjean is depicted succeeding in unraveling the financial manipulation and criminal activities of one of the world’s largest Corporation where these uncouth behaviours are portrayed to be driven by the corporation’s efforts to maximize their profit margins.

These films provide the–perfect examples of cultural representation of money and economy in films and narratives. These films are characterized by depictions of, true to the these narrative most banks in the Cayman islands and Switzerland are known for their notoriety of handling stolen money and helping cartels launder their money to avoid detection as depicted in most financial scandals reviewed in films and narratives (Peters 2009, p.281). These films depict a culture of money and economy by showcasing bank settings and stock market scenes they also feature stock brokers and asset-managers more so on Wall Street.

Therefore, these films depict concepts ranging from dividends, savings, management of money financial expertise, interest rates, venture capital, brokerage and investment and risk which all relate to issues on financial turmoil and how societies will overcome them (Morahan and Mulder, 2013 ,p.1). Evidently, these films matter since they showcase the obdurate problem that capitalism poses in the society today and how it influences the society in general from dressing trends to how people talk and relate.

Therefore through these films these problems gain some aspect of acuteness and urgency. In an article on Life on photojournalism after the financial crisis in the year 1936, the author argued that depression caused by this financial economic turmoil might not be evidently seen by the society since they consist of economic issues that are not happening and business that are not being done. However, its crunches on these individual’s way of living and impacts on the everyday life of these individuals (Peters, 2009, pp.279-286). For instance in narratives like the wolf of Wall Street and the Slumdog millionaire, the director tries to represent a culture where money and the economy impacted on an individual’s way of living as well the benefits that trickle down afterwards a clear indication on why cultural representation of money and economy matters (Maclean 2015, p.434). In this case, the magazines emphasizes that the effects of this financial crises cannot go uncaptioned if they are depicted in film or any other form of narrative.

Additionally, it emphasizes that despite the refractory of this representation seemingly not aligning the crisis should not be entirely absent from television sets (Velthuis 2006, pp.624-624). On the other hand, these films matter per se since rather than acting as political activity who openly fight different parties in the government of the large corporation they acted as a channel that enlighten the public on the scandals and uncouth activities which might have resulted to the financial crises that they are currently experiencing.

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