The exuberate advertisement that is Chanel number five: the film, is aptly named, with its exquisite use of film, fashion and photogenic people. Although only an advertisement, the director, Baz Luhrmann, has requested that it be labeled a film, and rightly so. The film lasts a total of 108 minutes, utilized 42 million dollars, and follows the story of one of Hollywood’s biggest names, Nicole Kidman (Edwardes 2004). Yet her story isn’t a new one. Posh female runs into underprivileged male, they fall in love, she is drawn back to her original lifestyle, and he pines after her. For something that can be described as an epic love story in three minutes it is no surprise that it has an ulterior motive. Not only does the saga shamelessly plug Chanel in almost every scene, but also it forcefully reinforces feminine/masculine binaries, and this was just my initial reading of the text. As most educated middle class females would, I viewed the text with awe, with just the right amount of distain. The clothes, the city, the exuberance, the product placement, I just couldn’t get over how much I was at war with myself just for liking the ad. Yet years of deconstruction will do that. Overall I feel like I had a preferred reading of the text. I was lured in by the pretty colours and didn’t fully think twice about it.
However it was more than clear to me what product I was supposed to be buying and why. Chanel no 5 clearly makes you into an unforgettable famous fashion icon, one that will never be forgotten, so long as you are wearing the scent. Now if this wasn’t ludicrous enough, the underlying theme that a female has to be rescued by a man and then brought back to reality because she is too whimsical and forgetful by a man is absolutely absurd, keeping in mind this was 2004 not 1950. Regardless, once the film finished, I had only noticed the reading position I was invited to take and the distinct binary opposites. I had minimally noticed the use of intertextuality, which I only noticed because the reference to Moulin Rouge is anything but subtle. As director Baz Luhrmann states, “all the time, in every choice we are making… we are requoting either icons or objects or visual winks…” (Edabazi 2009).
Within the in class discussion I was able to identify that intertextuality was more prominent than I had originally understood (Moon 2010, 76). References to Romeo and Juliet, Claire de Lune (is the actual background music), Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Batman, Princess Diana, Roman Holiday and the Eiffel Tower were all prominent, in various degrees of saturation. We also discussed the genre of the text, which was adamantly and unanimously decided to be romantic drama. So from my initial reading, there were still more ways I was being positioned as the reader of the text that I hadn’t understood. The polysemy of the text was more than I could have understood on my own (Moon 2010, 98). Throughout our discussion our group focused on values and attitudes that the film portrayed to young women. The complete lack of feminist criticism and the foregrounding of the success of the woman just because she was young and pretty was a comment on a society none of us (we were a completely female group) were willing to abide by. We also talked about the strong class structure being shown, in that there were three levels, the bohemian male being the bottom, the young and beautiful being the middle and the community of elite and powerful being the top. That even in this society there was a community better than the attractive that controlled and manipulated those underneath. In this finding we found that there may be some feminist criticism present in the text after all, even though it is subtle. The female was in a stronger class than the bohemian male.
Through this deconstruction I was able to understand the texts manipulations better than I originally had. I think this kind of deconstruction would be beneficial to a secondary classroom, whatever the subject, as the students need to be given the tools to deconstruct a text subliminally as they read it, to fully understand what the text is positioning them to do. If we were to achieve this within our students at this age group it would produce a more intelligent and self-aware community member, who was able to think for themselves, and not get sucked into the pretty colours, like I had.
For application to an English classroom I would begin by discussing the text. I would facilitate with a question like “whose story is it?” “Who has the power to change the narrative” and “who is privileged and foregrounded”? After this I would get the students to write down a couple of traits of each of the three most predominant characters (the female, the bohemian male and the business man). Through this we would discover the exploitation of women in the text. Here would be a good place to discuss feminist criticism, and if possible discuss the different variations of feminism (Carter, 1997).
I would finish on intertextuality (Moon 2010, 76). I would introduce this by getting the students to write down as many different references as they could find within the text. After discussing their answers I would discuss how do we know the reference and how do we make meaning? This could finish here or potentially follow through to another class, maybe based around something like The Simpsons and various uses of intertextuality in that.
References:
Carter, J. (1997). Kinds of Feminism. Retrieved from http://www.uah.edu/woolf/feminism_kinds.htm
Edabazi. (2009, June 26). Rodrigo Santoro & Nicole Kidman – making of Chanel No5 [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hbirr9R70cY
Edwardes, C. (2004). Every Second Counts in $42m Three Minute ‘Film’. Retrieved from http://www.smh.com.au/news/Film/Every-second-counts-in-42m-threeminute-film/2004/11/22/1100972313772.html
Moon, B. (2010). Literary Terms. (2nd Ed). Cottesloe WA, Australia: Chalkface Press.
Source:
http://gracenicole91.wordpress.com/2012/09/21/chanel-no-5-the-film/