Blog 9

 Structuralism/Levi Strauss

Still video from Shaolin Soccer (2001)

The purpose of the excerpt is to show the contrast between the humility of the Shaolin Soccer team and the arrogance of the Puma team, highlighting how taking action and humility is more powerful than arrogant bragging and cheating. The meaning of this scene is constructed through Binary oppositions, arrogance vs humility and good players vs bad players.  For example, the leader of the Puma team does not stop talking and bragging but does not take action when playing and complains that the goals by the other team are an illusion. While the leading Shaolin Soccer team stays quiet and collected, plays well and scores goals in every round and celebrates every goal. The differences between teams create the juxtaposition of heroes and villains. The "to create identifiable character types" function suggests that the arrogant leader of the Puma team is the 'villain' - as well as a bad player - and the humble leader of the Shaolin team is the 'hero' - conveniently a good player, characteristic of heroes-.

Still video from They Live (1988)

The purpose of the scene is to present propaganda as a means of media manipulation that suppresses the truth and is used by aliens to manipulate and control humanity, revealing a world controlled by aliens, in this case the 'aliens' represent humans in higher positions who believe it is their job to rule the world.

From the structural perspective, the meaning of the scene unfolds under the label of 'consciousness vs ignorance' and 'control vs free will', for example, when the protagonist puts on his glasses and sees the world as it really is, everything changes colour and becomes black and white, as if colours were also a manipulation tactic. In addition, signs that appeared to 'offer you everything' and were intended for the consumer were actually a single word or short fraze with a cruder and less picturesque purpose. Meaning is created when the audience sees parallelism with the real world and realizes that their day-to-day life hides a deeper meaning, a world dictated by oppressive 'laws'.

Clearly explain ideas because it divides the world into two realities, true vs. false. The meaning is that we are under constant manipulation by Media until we learn to see their true intentions.