...Med 6 Practice Essay...

Using a comparison of two texts as a starting point, consider the issue and debates that they raise

The two texts that are being compared is a ‘BBC Radio times Magazine’ published April 1976 London and the opening sequence of American TV programme ‘ER’ season 13, 2007. The ‘BBC Radio times Magazine’ lists all TV and radio programmes that are air on the BBC network. The opening sequence of ‘ER’ aims to introduce the characters of the Hospital drama series.

Both texts ‘BBC Radio times Magazine’ and the opening sequence of ‘ER’ are centred on the same genre which is Hospital drama. Clearly for the Radio times this is seen from looking at the iconographic props that are seen from the front cover like the X-ray print and the typical nurse uniform, being the typical repertoire of genre. From looking at the opening sequence of ‘ER’ it follows the general conventions of the genre, the setting gives us the hint that it set in a hospital, we see iconographic scenes of patients on ward beds, an ambulance arriving in emergency, and Defibrillators being used, these are typical repertoires of the genre. The colours also connote state of emergency as the colour blue is used.

The editing of the opening sequence of ‘ER’ is fast paced, the reason for this can be that the programme wants to introduce the drama quick as possible, also display the characters on screen to show who is starring in the drama. The other meaning of presenting a fast paced opening sequence is that it reflects the type of narrative it is and generally how the atmosphere of Hospitals are like. The non-diegetic music that is played over the opening sequence is quite intense which creates a mood for the audience, engaging them right from the start.

The audience will have visceral pleasures, where they see different scenes being shown of the drama series, which pulls together a opening sequence, our mood changes to different scenes that are shown, just like at different points on a rollercoaster ride. This would also attract the genre communities which enjoy watching the particular genre. The audience for BBC’s programme ‘Angels’ will initially be females, because they would identify themselves with the characters. Plus BBC is a mass audience institution which already has a set audience, therefore fans of BBC will definitely watch their programmes, more than looking back at the 1970s there was not a variety of channels to select from compared to today, where there are many competing institutions like Sky, Virgin, BT.

Women that are shown in the Radio times, highlight the female workforce during the 1970s in hospitals, which subverted the typical house-wives stereotype. Yet these females are nurses, which are at the bottom of the hierarchy compared to Doctors and Surgeons, this under-represents them being inferior to their seniors, it creates sense of patriarchy as these five women are just nurses. Although the stereotype of nurses is being fulfilled as we usually see female nurses in hospitals. If this advert was to be made in today’s time, and then we would not see all white-Caucasian nurses, they would be from different ethnic backgrounds. If we had seen all white Caucasian female nurses on the front cover today, it would be portray the ideology of racism, and as it is a regional print for London, presently this would be invalid as London is very multi-cultural. The opening sequence of the American TV series ‘ER’ displays both genders, however the first character that is introduced is male doctor, this signifies that the role of a Doctor is commonly held by males and they are more skilled, if we had seen a female character being introduced first then there would had been greater impact to the representation of females. However we do see female characters on screen, most of them are white-Caucasian, however only one of them is an Asian female which has seen to be centric, this is because the character ‘Parminder Nagra’ is shown many times through the opening sequence, showing that Asian women are active and are successful, this breaks the stereotype of the typical housewife, but supports the stereotype of Asians becoming doctors/surgeons.

The Institutions of these texts are completely different, for the Radio times front cover of programme ‘Angels’, BBC are the makers of it who are a British media institution. BBC aims to inform, educate and entertain, as the programme ‘Angels’ shows the life of nurses in hospitals it fulfils it’s missions statement which was though by Lord Reithian. The programme ‘ER’ is an American TV series which is aired on NBC, as this institution makes high budgeted dramas, it was able to show this type of genre in a realistic way which inevitably received many viewings, not only that but this programme is also available on NBC HD (High Definition) which is more appealing for contemporary people.

The ‘Radio times’ front cover does not clearly show its narrative; however by looking at the picture we can build a narrative around it, being a hospital drama. There are binary oppositions that are illustrated, which is the title ‘Angels’ denotating someone good and the genre being Hospital drama denotating the fight of disease. Other enigmas that are created are by the text information which states ‘too good to be true’ which can reflect the narrative.

‘Angels’ has a great impact on feminism, as this would be a breakthrough for them, showing that females are active and not passive, yet not being objectified in anyway. Although we do not see any other ethnicity in the picture, which states that BBC encouraged the invisibility of ethnic minorities, as confronter Enoch Powell had fed the idea of ‘rivers of blood’ into the people, so ethnic minorities were never seen in programmes as institutions thought them as the ‘other’. However if we look at the remake of ‘Angels’ women are now being more objectified which backs up Laura Mulvey’s theory of women being the object of the male gaze. Although in the remake version we see an Asian character playing a role of a nurse yet is a lesbian which mis-represents Asians, the token Asian female in the drama.

‘ER’ on the other hand also shows tokenism of Asian and black ethnicity, however according to the opening sequence, the Asian female is seen to hold a major role, as she has been shown a couple of times. This portrays Asians being successful and skilful, furthermore highlighting the rise of the brown pound. This shows how multicultural the society in America and in the UK is.