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Papers by Christa Van raalte

This report focuses on the key findings of a survey conducted in the Spring of 2021 among deaf an... more This report focuses on the key findings of a survey conducted in the Spring of 2021 among deaf and disabled people working in the UK’s television industry. Quantitative and qualitative data from 223 respondents reveals a range of systemic barriers and discriminatory behaviours that deaf and disabled people regularly face. Multiple specific examples provide shocking insight into aspects of the lived experience of this under-represented group. The general levels of ignorance reflected in the behaviours and attitudes that our respondents describe suggests that mandatory training is urgently needed, particularly among those with management and recruitment responsibilities. The report highlights the extent to which employers are failing to take seriously their legal obligations under the Equalities Act 2010, and makes a number of practical suggestions for how the UK’s television industry might move beyond well-intentioned mission statements and short-lived ‘initiatives’

Enola Holmes is a piece of teen-neo-victoriana whose eponymous heroine uses direct addresses to h... more Enola Holmes is a piece of teen-neo-victoriana whose eponymous heroine uses direct addresses to heighten the effect of a ‘double register’ which Imelda Whelehan describes as typical of the genre. The film articulates a different kind of ‘double register’ in relation to its status as a feminist text – a status its star and producer, Mille Bobby Brown has been keen to emphasise at every opportunity. It has about it much of the ‘sensibility’ that for Rosland Gill defines postfeminism. The film is adapted from the first in Nancy Springer’s series of Enola Holmes mysteries, entitled “The Case of the Missing Marquess”. The Marquess, however, is soon discovered – although the questions of who is trying to kill him and why take rather longer to solve. The missing person whose absence structures the narrative, and Enola’s developing relationship with her better-known older brothers, is her mother, played by Helena Bonham Carter, who remains mysteriously missing for most of the film. The ‘mat...

Prior to the pandemic of 2020, what was being described as ‘the Netflix effect’ had brought a sig... more Prior to the pandemic of 2020, what was being described as ‘the Netflix effect’ had brought a significant boost to the UK’s film and television industries. However, a significant increase in the amount of commissioning of ‘high end’ television production had been accompanied by widely reported concerns that these new opportunities were in danger of being lost due to an insufficient supply of new talent. It was argued that only a major investment in entry-level recruitment for an expected 30,000 new jobs, would avert a ‘talent pipeline’ crisis. In this article we question the accuracy of these assertions by reviewing the key evidence on which they were based. We examine how concerns about skills gaps and shortages came to be framed as a problem of pipeline supply, rather than as a problem of leakage thereby avoiding more challenging and systemic retention issues related to employment practices within these industries. The article highlights the dangers inherent in policy research where there is a gravitational pull for evidence-based policy to be overridden by policy-based evidence

Bournemouth University, BECTU and Viva la PD, Jan 11, 2021

[fs1]: 1. Is this a deliberate separation or can the hyphen be removed-'represented'? Commented [... more [fs1]: 1. Is this a deliberate separation or can the hyphen be removed-'represented'? Commented [CvR2R1]: 2.It was deliberate. But perhaps a better term here would be 'understood'

Memories of conflict are shaped by films of conflict. One of the most striking features of Zero D... more Memories of conflict are shaped by films of conflict. One of the most striking features of Zero Dark Thirty (Kathryn Bigelow 2012) is the use of a female lead in such a consistently ‘masculine’ genre as the war film. Some celebrate Maya as a feminist icon, some as a post-feminist, gender-neutral figure, while others see her as providing ideological camouflage for patriarchal US militarism. The film also articulates the relationship between cinema and war as proposed by Paul Virilio. The intradiegetic use of surveillance technology exemplifies the ‘logistics of perception’ discussed in The Vision Machine, while the appropriation of the ‘reality effect’ of mediated images for the purposes of a Hollywood film speaks to Virilio’s ‘aesthetics of disappearance’. This chapter addresses both perspectives, arguing that there is a close relationship between them and that the gender of the protagonist is much more than an incidental detail within the film, having profound implications for narr...

This paper addresses the aesthetic and semiotic issues of dress, agency and desire as they are ar... more This paper addresses the aesthetic and semiotic issues of dress, agency and desire as they are articulated around the figure of the female gun-slinger in action-driven genres. It explores the problems that this complex figure presents for feminist critics, in relation to the fetishisation of the female action figure, the potential for readings of cooption or resistance embodied in the transvestite heroine, and the celebration of cinematic violence. It also explores a number of strategies whereby film-makers and narratives contrive to contain the transgressive potential of the female gun-slinger. With particular reference to Salt (Phillip Noyce 2010), it highlights issues of transformation, performance and identity, focusing on the operation of costume as an ‘alternative discourse’ within the text. It considers the limitations and potential of the contemporary action heroine as an empowering female figure within popular culture.

The opening scene of Zero Dark Thirty (Kathryn Bigelow, 2012) is, strictly speaking, not a 's... more The opening scene of Zero Dark Thirty (Kathryn Bigelow, 2012) is, strictly speaking, not a 'scene' at all since it offer no images, only a black screen, some text and a soundscape that uses real recordings of phone-calls made on 11th September 2001 to depict the events of that day. In this article I want to discuss the operation of intimacy, cultural memory and audience address in these ninety seconds, the way in which these same ideas are reworked in the scene that immediately follows, and the way in which the film's investment in ' the spectacle of the real' and complex treatment of the gaze is established within both these opening sequences.

Debate about the value and purpose of studying media at Higher Education has been dominated in th... more Debate about the value and purpose of studying media at Higher Education has been dominated in the UK by the notion of ‘employability’, often defined in narrow terms. In this article we examine the perspectives of a sample of a single cohort of media graduates more than two decades after they left university. We explore how these graduates understand the purpose and value of their undergraduate education, with the benefit of hindsight. The themes that emerge coalesce around five broad areas: the integrated nature of the university experience; the value of ‘practical’ approaches to teaching and learning; the importance attributed to relationships with others; the place of autonomy and initiative-taking; and the role of work experience. We conclude by discussing the implication of our findings both for policy and for programme design and delivery.

Bournemouth University, BECTU and Viva la PD, Jan 11, 2021