This slideshow is from a lecture in Performance in Film and Videogames at the University of Calgary.

1. Casting and Character
as Embodiment of Ideological Values
Daniel Day Lewis
There Will Be Blood
Meryl Streep
Sophie’s Choice
Marlon Brando
Streetcar Named Desire

2. The Pressure Cooker
of Cultural Codes
Within this semiotic “pressure cooker” that links
producers, texts, and audiences:
•Signifier, Signified, Sign
•Denotation and connotation within “Reality”
•Metaphor and “Representation”
•Codes, demographic, “Ideology”

3. “Semiotics”
• The study of signs, representation
(simulation/metaphor), codes, and
emergent ideologies. This provides a
model of understanding of the meaning
of a cultural artefact or event.
Casting and Character

5. “Signs”
• Signifier: any real thing that signifies something,
e.g., jewellery, furnishings, location interiors.
• Signified: the concept that a signifier refers to.
Together, the signifier and signified make up the
• Sign: the smallest unit of meaning. Anything that
can be used to communicate (or to tell a lie).
Casting and Character

6. • Signifier: any real thing that signifies something, e.g.,
jewellery, furnishings, clothing.

7. “Denotation and Connotation”
• Denotation: the most basic or literal meaning of a
sign, e.g., the word ”Trad" signifies a particular
kind of beer. (The signifier)
• Connotation: the secondary, cultural meanings of
signs; or "signifying signs," signs that are used as
signifiers for a secondary meaning, e.g., ”beer"
signifies drunkenness/debauchery. (The signified)
Casting and Character

8. “Metaphor/Representation/Simulation
”
• A connotation where one sign is substituted for a
concept with which it is closely associated and
used to refer to something that it does not
literally denote in order to suggest a similarity.
Casting and Character

9. Electronic encoding:
•“Mass Media redesign information by replacing the
vantage point of the viewer within the frame
provided by a cameraperson/editor/photographer.”
- Lynn Hershman
•Therefore, electronic encoding is a connotation
device within the Pressure Cooker supersystem.
Casting and Character

10. “Ideology”
• Ideological codes work to organize the
other codes into a congruent, coherent set
of meanings.
• Serve the dominant interests of society, eg
patriarchy, capitalism, race, class,
materialism.
Casting and Character

11. “Codes”
• A “supersystem” (pressure cooker), that functions
as a map of meaning and belief systems
• Imply views and attitudes about how the world is
and/or ought to be.
• Codes are where semiotics and social structure and
values connect.
Casting and Character

12. Casting:
•Actors cast to play heroes/villains are people whose
images are encoded by our social codes.
•Heroes are socially central types who embody the
dominant ideology.
•Classic Hollywood stars are bigger than their roles –
films promoted by their real name not their character
name (or writer or even director)
Casting and Character

13. John Fiske
“It is in the aggregate of apparently
insignificant encodings that ideology
works most efficiently.”

14. Daniel Day Lewis, (b. 1957)
• Plays Daniel Plainview
• There Will Be Blood
(Anderson, 2007) Story
focuses on a prospector in the
early days of the oil boom.
• Day-Lewis won best-actor
Academy award in 2008 in
this role.
• Clip, 13:15 – 19:00

15. Meryl Streep, (b. 1949)
• Plays Sophie Zawistowska
• Sophie’s Choice (Anderson,
1982) Story is about a Nazi
concentration camp survivor
and her ghosts and obsessions.
• Streep won best-actress
Academy award in 1983 in
this role.
• Clip 2:08 – 2:19

16. Marlon Brando, (b. 1924 – 2004)
• Plays Stanley Kowalski
• Streetcar Named Desire
(Kazan, 1951) A distressed
woman moves in with her
sister and brother.
• Brando was nominated for
best actor Academy award in
1952 in this role.
• Clip 36:00 – 42:00