Coming Of Age Film conventions

Conventions of a Coming of Age film :

• quest for identity
• settings
• nostalgia - adults looking back to their past
• pop music (fundamental building block)
• grown up present (inspirational or revolting presence)
• a gang
• Young love
• loss of innocence 
• the end .. or the beginning 

Steve Neale argues that the appeal of genres is they are 'instances of repetition and difference’.

How valid is Neale’s claim ? In your response you should refer to your music video close study products Bille Jean and Letter to the Free ? [20 marks]


Neale does make a valid claim,  however I believe that in the music videos Billie Jean and Letter to the Free, the main point is race. 
However in Billie Jean we can see points in the context that Billie Jean is about how a girl had claimed that Michael Jackson was the father of her child. We may say that the girl had been sexualised and that Michael is trying to close down any suspicion 

In Letter to the free, its about the 13th Amendment and we see that in the music video the setting is what seems to be a prison and that reinforces the idea of the diaspora identity which Gilroy states is the fact that black men don’t feel they have a place in the western culture and the music video shows that. The black box symbolises how the black community are objectified and that they have no freedom, However the lyrics ‘freedom, freedom come’ may connote that they will soon be free

In Billie Jean we see more instances of genre such as the elderly lady calling the police.

TALK ABOUT MUSIC VIDEO CONVENTIONS !!

• Lip-syncing 
• Costumes
• Camera shots
• Lighting
• Setting

Understanding of how theory interprets the relationship between audience response and product – audiences looking for the familiarity of past pleasurable experience but not wanting to be bored.