Food For Thought

Hollywood movies like Terminator, Mission:Impossible and James Bond tales have heralded biometrics technology for years. Hand scanners, iris recognition and voice recognition, in particular, have taken pride of place. (Robb 2002 p13)

Science fiction, in all of its forms, has a unique way of suggesting new technologies and critiquing or analysing those in existence. From the writings of Philip K. Dick to long-running television series’ like Star Trek, science fiction is serving a dual role within the world of science.  It is both glorifying and exploring the potential for technological and scientific innovation while at the same time examining the ethical and social ramifications that may arise from such scientific development. In this way it both inspires and challenges scientists in a very direct way. In this essay I will examine the evolution of Biometric Technology and the impact that science fiction has had on its development and reception.

Biometrics, defined by Ronald Hall as “the development of statistical and mathematical methods, which are applicable for the analysis of data problems in the biological sciences.  It also refers to the technologies for measuring and analyzing an individual’s characteristics in terms of physiological and behavioural characteristics.” (2008 p118) The origins of the term are from ancient Greek and literally translate to ‘life measure’[1].  The history of biometrics can be traced back as far as the fourteenth century when it was used by merchants in China where thumbprints and other anatomy measurements were used as a method for identifying and keeping track of customers. (Hall 2008) In more recent times Bertillionage emerged from Paris in the latter part of the 19^th Century. Developed by a police clerk called Alphonse Bertillion, Bertillionage was a new method of identifying people by taking measurements of their body. (Kaluszynski 2001) Although these techniques of measuring various dimensions of the body as identifying data were not the advanced technology we have come to think of as biometrics, it is easy to see that today’s biometric technologies have evolved from the principles of these early techniques.

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This topic came up in  class in relation to HBO series The Sopranos.  There were a number of interesting questions raised such as  whether the portrayal of any female agency is progressive and if a reductive stereotype like women who manipulate men to suit their own ends can be seen as progressive. The most interesting question was ‘ Can a narrative be feminist without any feminist characters?’

Friday Night Lights: A Feminist Narrative?

I don’t watch the Sopranos but I believe it is possible for a narrative to be feminist without having any feminist characters.  Of the shows I watch, one of the best for portraying a feminist ethic is Friday Night Lights. This is a show that follows the trials and tribulations of life in a small Texas town.  Ostensibly a show about the local high school American Football team, Friday Night Lights was initially marketed at a male audience but changed tactics early in its run when it became obvious that women were equally interested in the show. The head writer and executive producer of the show is Jason Katims. Katims’ previous work includes Roswell and My So-called Life, the latter of which was a teen drama from the mid-nineties that, although short-lived, received critical acclaim for the sensitive way in which it dealt with many social issues like child abuse and drug use.

The female representations in Friday Night Lights over its run so far have been particularly good and the narrative never shies away from sensitive or controversial topics.  The most recent season dealt with a storyline about teen pregnancy and abortion and it tackled the issue head-on without sugar-coating it.  The story showed that there were no easy options available for the young girl, Becky, who was pregnant, and that she would have to make the decision herself.

This show tackles controversial topics like abortion.

The mirroring of her situation with that of her mother’s was very effective.  Her mother had been very young when Becky was born and seemed to harbour some resentment towards her daughter for this. Equally interesting and unexpected was the genuine loss that the teenaged father of the child was portrayed as experiencing when he was told that Becky had decided to have an abortion since this is not a point of view that TV drama often tends to explore. Overall this was just one of a series of issues that this programme successfully portrayed in a sensitive and realistic way.

Images from popmatters.com and mediadecay.com

Introduction

Throughout the history of cinema the centre of the film industry in the United States of America has always been in Hollywood. Located in Los Angeles, Southern California, there were a number of initial factors which made Hollywood the ideal place to centralise such a business. Principal among these was the Mediterranean-type climate that provided long, bright sunny days, which was important for perfect lighting conditions in early cinema (Cooper, Hall and Wannamaker 2008).  As time progressed, camera and lighting technologies improved and these reasons for the location’s prominence in the industry no longer existed, and yet Hollywood has prevailed.  Not only has it retained its dominance in the US market but it has also gained more and more of the world’s film market, to become the dominant location in the industry at an international level. The centralisation of talent, technology and resources are all contributing factors to why the film industry remains so firmly located in Hollywood but another key factor, that is critical to Hollywood’s continued dominance, is capital.

The “Big 5” studios – 20th Century Fox, RKO, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros and MGM – were all located in Los Angeles and by the 1920s they had a firm control of the industry from the ground up (Nelmes 1996). This control was retained by a system of vertical integration, which incorporated every aspect of the industry from production to distribution.  Systems like block booking and blind-buying were employed by these big studios to keep smaller companies and independent productions from gaining a firm foothold in the national film industry.  This practice severely limited the amount of choice and information independent cinemas could have about the types of films they bought exhibition rights for, and was the industry norm until 1948 when the smaller firms took legal action against this practice.  This landmark case resulted in what is now known as the ‘Paramount Decree,’ which ordered the cessation of such practices under anti-trust law (Caves 2000).

The decision was made in the interest of protecting the industry from concentration of ownership and the aftermath of this result meant that the big production companies could no longer operate a monopoly in the distribution and exhibition of films. They sought out other sources of revenue and quickly began to stake out a financial interest in television. By the mid 1950s these companies had firmly established themselves in the television production industry.  It is easy to argue that from this point on the industry was no longer simply a ‘film industry’, but I will argue that the industries primary product has always been profit, rather than art, and that it is deeply invested in the manufacture of ideology and consent.

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